I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
Gosh. Not good news. Hope they can get you in quick and sorted out properly.
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
Gosh. Not good news. Hope they can get you in quick and sorted out properly.
Thank you so much. The cardiologist more or less said my heart was worn out so the sooner the operation the better
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
Gosh. Not good news. Hope they can get you in quick and sorted out properly.
Thank you so much. The cardiologist more or less said my heart was worn out so the sooner the operation the better
Take it easy, try not to stress and hopefully all will be well. Thinking of you.
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
Gosh. Not good news. Hope they can get you in quick and sorted out properly.
Thank you so much. The cardiologist more or less said my heart was worn out so the sooner the operation the better
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
Gosh. Not good news. Hope they can get you in quick and sorted out properly.
Thank you so much. The cardiologist more or less said my heart was worn out so the sooner the operation the better
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
Or you could read the article, and discover that the comparison is this: Wokeness is peculiarly hard to define, which lends some people to claim it does not exist, or is trivial. But the exact same is true of Fascism: it is notoriously hard to define, yet we KNOW it exists
As my father asked on Christmas Day over the turkey, what do Gazans do for a living? How does their economy work? I suspect the whole place is a refugee camp in reality, and now it seems Israel is going to close it down. Is their end game Gaza uninhabitable and all remaining Gazans forced to other refugee camps? It’s beginning to look like it.
I have huge sympathy for Israel. What we we do if a similar terrorist act ( yes BBC, Hamas are terrorists) were carried out on U.K. soil? But all those expressing an opinion around our table now thought Israel had gone too far.
Well, with respect, we didn't carpet bomb West Belfast or Derry in the wake of Warrenpoint/Lord Mountbatten, or Enniskillen, or Omagh.
To be fair, I think if Omagh had been on the scale of 7th October and carried out by large organised gangs living just across the Irish border I think at the very least some of our ballistic missiles would have suffered mysterious malfunctions that wiped out the aforesaid gangs and everyone else within 20 miles.
Yes. The equivalent of October 7 for us would be 10,000 UK citizens raped shot burned and tortured to death, thousands more injured and a couple of thousand kidnapped (and raped and tortured) - and with the IRA promising to do it again and again to us, whenever they get the chance, and that looking very possible
We would have invaded Ireland
This started 75 years ago not not 78 days ago
It 'started' long before that. You could go back to the 1920s when several Muslim countries expelled Jews. Or the 19th Century massacres of Jews in Baghdad, Damascus, Morocco, and Libya. Or back to the 17th Century expulsion of Jews from Yemen. Or Arabic Spain. Actually one could go back ot the 7th Century and the massacre of Jews by Muhammad at the battle of Khaybar (namechecked on those 'peace' marches), and expulsion from Medina. Of course Christian states were no better, and that didn't end well either.
But then if you didn't have an ignorant one-eyed view of history, you'd know there's a reason why by 75 years ago many Jews had concluded they needed a homeland, with a preference for their traditional homeland that they'd originally been chased out of, and where many had moved. With those who concluded that having little tolerance for those who'd chase them out again and their useful idiots.
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
Or you could read the article, and discover that the comparison is this: Wokeness is peculiarly hard to define, which lends some people to claim it does not exist, or is trivial. But the exact same is true of Fascism: it is notoriously hard to define, yet we KNOW it exists
Stuck behind a paywall sadly. Is facism that hard to define? Is it just that to be precise is hard, but many features of facism can be specified?
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
Or you could read the article, and discover that the comparison is this: Wokeness is peculiarly hard to define, which lends some people to claim it does not exist, or is trivial. But the exact same is true of Fascism: it is notoriously hard to define, yet we KNOW it exists
Stuck behind a paywall sadly. Is facism that hard to define? Is it just that to be precise is hard, but many features of facism can be specified?
Can we please stop accusing people of trolling just because we disagree with them.
Can we also stop calling people an utter fucking twat just because we disagree with them, too?
Sean was horrible and vile to me and never apologised so I stand by what I said. It's not because I disagree with him that I called him that.
As I remember - I was but a bystander - you attacked him time and again and he said nothing, then you did it again and finally he reacted and belittled you publicly, and now you have a grudge. A pattern which is often repeated on here
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
Hope you get timely and effective treatment, Big G. In the meantime, look after yourself.
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
Or you could read the article, and discover that the comparison is this: Wokeness is peculiarly hard to define, which lends some people to claim it does not exist, or is trivial. But the exact same is true of Fascism: it is notoriously hard to define, yet we KNOW it exists
So anything that is hard to define and that many people think doesn’t exist, actually does?
The intellectual rigour of that rag truly is in a desperate state, if that’s the pitiful level of argumentation that it favours with publication nowadays.
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
Or you could read the article, and discover that the comparison is this: Wokeness is peculiarly hard to define, which lends some people to claim it does not exist, or is trivial. But the exact same is true of Fascism: it is notoriously hard to define, yet we KNOW it exists
Stuck behind a paywall sadly. Is facism that hard to define? Is it just that to be precise is hard, but many features of facism can be specified?
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
I have read the piece and it is another example of the author's enfant terrible buffoonery. I sometimes wonder whether Sean Thomas is a nom de plume of Boris Johnson, although the writing style is less floral than Johnson's so perhaps not.
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
Or you could read the article, and discover that the comparison is this: Wokeness is peculiarly hard to define, which lends some people to claim it does not exist, or is trivial. But the exact same is true of Fascism: it is notoriously hard to define, yet we KNOW it exists
Stuck behind a paywall sadly. Is facism that hard to define? Is it just that to be precise is hard, but many features of facism can be specified?
"Jacques Delors was the pre eminent architect of the modern European Union - and whether you agreed or not with his vision he was a towering political figure.
Without Delors there would have been no Maastricht treaty and no euro. Indeed without Delors there would have been no single market.
He harnessed post Cold War anxieties about Germany to create a new federal structure for Europe - and he did it with dazzling panache
His ideas were never right for Britain - as he himself later seemed to concede - and there are many on the continent who have doubts about the direction of the EU. But no one can doubt his legacy today. Whatever you say about the modern EU - it is the house that Jacques built."
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
Or you could read the article, and discover that the comparison is this: Wokeness is peculiarly hard to define, which lends some people to claim it does not exist, or is trivial. But the exact same is true of Fascism: it is notoriously hard to define, yet we KNOW it exists
Stuck behind a paywall sadly. Is facism that hard to define? Is it just that to be precise is hard, but many features of facism can be specified?
I also note it is the most read article on the Spectator today. How does this imbecile achieve this influence? It is a condemnation of our idiotic times
Well one effect of such an argument (which I’m sure couldn’t be his intention) is to make bigots feel better about themselves. And that’s quite a large audience.
"Jacques Delors was the pre eminent architect of the modern European Union - and whether you agreed or not with his vision he was a towering political figure.
Without Delors there would have been no Maastricht treaty and no euro. Indeed without Delors there would have been no single market.
He harnessed post Cold War anxieties about Germany to create a new federal structure for Europe - and he did it with dazzling panache
His ideas were never right for Britain - as he himself later seemed to concede - and there are many on the continent who have doubts about the direction of the EU. But no one can doubt his legacy today. Whatever you say about the modern EU - it is the house that Jacques built."
"Whatever you say about the modern EU-it is the house that Jacques built". Barf!
Edit: I compared Mr Thomas's writing style to Johnson's. I can only apologise to Mr Thomas because this example exemplifies Johnson's lazy and hackneyed style. Simply weak and utterly dreadful.
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
Or you could read the article, and discover that the comparison is this: Wokeness is peculiarly hard to define, which lends some people to claim it does not exist, or is trivial. But the exact same is true of Fascism: it is notoriously hard to define, yet we KNOW it exists
‘Why wokeness is like string theory’ would have been more original, then.
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
I have read the piece and it is another example of the author's enfant terrible buffoonery. I sometimes wonder whether Sean Thomas is a nom de plume of Boris Johnson, although the writing style is less floral than Johnson's so perhaps not.
Well. I guess the feeble, humourless, buffoonish author will just have to console himself that he wriote the most-read article of the day in the most influential political magazine in the country (and the oldest magazine in the world, one of the most prestigious, etc etc)
I imagine that is some minor solace, despite the stentorian disapproval of politicalbetting.com
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
Gosh. Not good news. Hope they can get you in quick and sorted out properly.
Thank you so much. The cardiologist more or less said my heart was worn out so the sooner the operation the better
The discussion has moved on from whether I - a female lawyer who believes in human rights, the worth of the ECHR, a decent justice system, a police force that doesn't break the law, the rule of law, women's rights, men behaving decently towards women, fairness, accountability for those at the top of organisations, free speech and legal representation, even for the unpopular and disliked, protecting children and leaving them a better world than the one we inherited and the inestimable value of gardening - am some sort of far right Nazi. Had those of you doing this imbibed too much Xmas sherry?
Felt a little called out did we? If the boot fits...maybe you could think about what that means?"
No. I did not feel called out. I thought it utterly hilarious. It said quite a lot about those making the accusation, none of it good. It certainly reinforced my belief that the bigots and proto-fascists are those who get conniptions when women stand up for their legal rights and do not acquiesce in whatever men demand of them.
If that cap fits you, maybe you could think about what means?
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
I have read the piece and it is another example of the author's enfant terrible buffoonery. I sometimes wonder whether Sean Thomas is a nom de plume of Boris Johnson, although the writing style is less floral than Johnson's so perhaps not.
Well. I guess the feeble, humourless, buffoonish author will just have to console himself that he wriote the most-read article of the day in the most influential political magazine in the country (and the oldest magazine in the world, one of the most prestigious, etc etc)
I imagine that is some minor solace, despite the stentorian disapproval of politicalbetting.com
An even worse writer managed to get himself elected PM, so the sky’s the limit.
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
I have read the piece and it is another example of the author's enfant terrible buffoonery. I sometimes wonder whether Sean Thomas is a nom de plume of Boris Johnson, although the writing style is less floral than Johnson's so perhaps not.
Well. I guess the feeble, humourless, buffoonish author will just have to console himself that he wriote the most-read article of the day in the most influential political magazine in the country (and the oldest magazine in the world, one of the most prestigious, etc etc)
I imagine that is some minor solace, despite the stentorian disapproval of politicalbetting.com
Don't worry for Mr Thomas. I suspect the Spectator rewarded him handsomely for the piece. Nice work if you can get it eh? I bet you wish you were as fortunate!
I also note it is the most read article on the Spectator today. How does this imbecile achieve this influence? It is a condemnation of our idiotic times
Well one effect of such an argument (which I’m sure couldn’t be his intention) is to make bigots feel better about themselves. And that’s quite a large audience.
If you look at the most read articles on Facebook, it is always right wing polemicists like Sean Hannity etc.
Incidentally, it is incredible how close the US Establishment has come: to basically saying, Yeah UFOs exist and there's a serious chance they are proof of non-human intelligence
As my father asked on Christmas Day over the turkey, what do Gazans do for a living? How does their economy work? I suspect the whole place is a refugee camp in reality, and now it seems Israel is going to close it down. Is their end game Gaza uninhabitable and all remaining Gazans forced to other refugee camps? It’s beginning to look like it.
I have huge sympathy for Israel. What we we do if a similar terrorist act ( yes BBC, Hamas are terrorists) were carried out on U.K. soil? But all those expressing an opinion around our table now thought Israel had gone too far.
Well, with respect, we didn't carpet bomb West Belfast or Derry in the wake of Warrenpoint/Lord Mountbatten, or Enniskillen, or Omagh.
To be fair, I think if Omagh had been on the scale of 7th October and carried out by large organised gangs living just across the Irish border I think at the very least some of our ballistic missiles would have suffered mysterious malfunctions that wiped out the aforesaid gangs and everyone else within 20 miles.
Yes. The equivalent of October 7 for us would be 10,000 UK citizens raped shot burned and tortured to death, thousands more injured and a couple of thousand kidnapped (and raped and tortured) - and with the IRA promising to do it again and again to us, whenever they get the chance, and that looking very possible
We would have invaded Ireland
This started 75 years ago not not 78 days ago
It 'started' long before that. You could go back to the 1920s when several Muslim countries expelled Jews. Or the 19th Century massacres of Jews in Baghdad, Damascus, Morocco, and Libya. Or back to the 17th Century expulsion of Jews from Yemen. Or Arabic Spain. Actually one could go back ot the 7th Century and the massacre of Jews by Muhammad at the battle of Khaybar (namechecked on those 'peace' marches), and expulsion from Medina. Of course Christian states were no better, and that didn't end well either.
But then if you didn't have an ignorant one-eyed view of history, you'd know there's a reason why by 75 years ago many Jews had concluded they needed a homeland, with a preference for their traditional homeland that they'd originally been chased out of, and where many had moved. With those who concluded that having little tolerance for those who'd chase them out again and their useful idiots.
Aside from all that though (not to mention the European dimension) - it's all quite straightforward? I have stickers to sell with flags on them.
Incidentally, it is incredible how close the US Establishment has come: to basically saying, Yeah UFOs exist and there's a serious chance they are proof of non-human intelligence
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
Very best of wishes to you. Hope it all resolves itself well. x
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
Or you could read the article, and discover that the comparison is this: Wokeness is peculiarly hard to define, which lends some people to claim it does not exist, or is trivial. But the exact same is true of Fascism: it is notoriously hard to define, yet we KNOW it exists
Incidentally, it is incredible how close the US Establishment has come: to basically saying, Yeah UFOs exist and there's a serious chance they are proof of non-human intelligence
Incidentally, it is incredible how close the US Establishment has come: to basically saying, Yeah UFOs exist and there's a serious chance they are proof of non-human intelligence
As my father asked on Christmas Day over the turkey, what do Gazans do for a living? How does their economy work? I suspect the whole place is a refugee camp in reality, and now it seems Israel is going to close it down. Is their end game Gaza uninhabitable and all remaining Gazans forced to other refugee camps? It’s beginning to look like it.
I have huge sympathy for Israel. What we we do if a similar terrorist act ( yes BBC, Hamas are terrorists) were carried out on U.K. soil? But all those expressing an opinion around our table now thought Israel had gone too far.
Well, with respect, we didn't carpet bomb West Belfast or Derry in the wake of Warrenpoint/Lord Mountbatten, or Enniskillen, or Omagh.
No we didn’t, but the scale and sheer nastiness of what Hamas did is a factor.
Since 7th October, Israel has killed 15 times, yes FIFTEEN times, as many people as Hamas did. 21,110 divided by 1,387 = 15.22
What sort of cockwomble goes to four significant figures when dividing their terrorist tally?
As a thicko postie from some Northern shit-hole [second thoughts and a quick glance in TSE's direction] (no offence!), you could always quit your dead-end job, and go out there to count the bodies yourself, to improve the accuracy of the data!
Your solution to the woes of the middle-east seems to be (to my reading)
1. Blame one actor in a complex situation for the entirety of the problem. 2. Insults. 3. ....?
I did call him a cockwomble
And that's a bit unfair
Sunil hasn't yet learnt what his cock's really for
He certainly wouldn't know how womble it
Have you counted those bodies yet, accurately, of course?
Nobody has
Certainly not your data providers at Hamas
I believe that the Magic Carpet bombs have still only killed innocent refugee children and child brides so far
Well, if you think you can provide the "correct" number of dead, quit your dead-end job, and go out there and count them!
All of those deaths are in the Hamas column
They hide within, under, and around every kind of building that should be protected from war
They are the vilest transgressors of all of the rules of war that I've known in my lifetime
And they're supported by at least 75% of the innocents
Although, if you think about it, and are paid enough, they're not quite as evil as 'the woke'.
It starts in a dreadful way: “trump’s packing of the Supreme Court”.
No: justices were appointed according to the rules. Trump was lucky he got to appoint so many. If, as counterfactual, it had been a democratic president and 3 reliably progressive justices appointed the court wouldn’t have been “packed” it would have been “at the forefront of forging the modern America”.
It wasn't luck. Republicans in the Senate refused to ratify Obama's final pick (Merrick Garland, March 2016) while hurriedly pushing through Trump's final nominee (Amy Coney Barrett, September 2020).
In both cases their reasoning was 'there's an election coming.'
For the first, they said, 'let's delay it for the new President to decide because it's less than a year until you leave.'
For the second, 'let's ratify it now in case there's a new President elected in six weeks.'
Admittedly, you could point out neither was directly to do with Trump. But the Supreme Court has been being rigged for a very long time (since Franklin D Roosevelt, indeed) and recent events have left it 'packed' with a Republican majority through quite shameless procedural jiggery pokery.
It certainly took advantage of the letter of the law but not the spirit
However it was a polemic rather than “a very good article” as characterised by @Nigelb
An amusing read and some interesting points but definitely not “fair and balanced”
It starts in a dreadful way: “trump’s packing of the Supreme Court”.
No: justices were appointed according to the rules. Trump was lucky he got to appoint so many. If, as counterfactual, it had been a democratic president and 3 reliably progressive justices appointed the court wouldn’t have been “packed” it would have been “at the forefront of forging the modern America”.
Yes, the article is utter bollocks, and also about 5000 words too long
SCOTUS will throw out the Colorado decision, you can't have US presidential candidates being excluded from the national elections by partisan courts in state capitals on the grounds that the judges don't approve of his face. What is to stop a Republican supreme court in Tennessee ruling out Biden coz of all the dodgy photos of him with his 15 year old babysitter?
Trump has not been convicted by a jury of insurrection. All else is fluff
The most compelling reasoning in the article was that neither the constitution nor precedent set a criminal standard and do not require a conviction
ok, I've now read the full NYT complaint filed this morning vs OpenAI and Microsoft. I'm impressed - it's future-focused around fair value for work vital to democracy. It also contains 220k pages of exhibits although the pages of Ex J stood out to me. more on that in a minute. /1.. https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1740141400443035785
Could make a decent article for a writer interested in AI and journalism.
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
I have read the piece and it is another example of the author's enfant terrible buffoonery. I sometimes wonder whether Sean Thomas is a nom de plume of Boris Johnson, although the writing style is less floral than Johnson's so perhaps not.
Well. I guess the feeble, humourless, buffoonish author will just have to console himself that he wriote the most-read article of the day in the most influential political magazine in the country (and the oldest magazine in the world, one of the most prestigious, etc etc)
I imagine that is some minor solace, despite the stentorian disapproval of politicalbetting.com
Tangentially related - one of the biggest asks of Sam Altman after he did an 'ask twitter what we should do in 2024' this week was for a customisable/less-woke GPT to be available.
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
The discussion has moved on from whether I - a female lawyer who believes in human rights, the worth of the ECHR, a decent justice system, a police force that doesn't break the law, the rule of law, women's rights, men behaving decently towards women, fairness, accountability for those at the top of organisations, free speech and legal representation, even for the unpopular and disliked, protecting children and leaving them a better world than the one we inherited and the inestimable value of gardening - am some sort of far right Nazi. Had those of you doing this imbibed too much Xmas sherry?
Felt a little called out did we? If the boot fits...maybe you could think about what that means?"
No. I did not feel called out. I thought it utterly hilarious. It said quite a lot about those making the accusation, none of it good. It certainly reinforced my belief that the bigots and proto-fascists are those who get conniptions when women stand up for their legal rights and do not acquiesce in whatever men demand of them.
If that cap fits you, maybe you could think about what means?
AJP Taylor remarked on an academic who wrote an essay entitled “A Year Under The Terror”, in 1938. About life in a Cambridge college.
The terror and authoritarianism of which this individual wrote was the refusal of the college authorities to enforce absolute pacifism in the intellectual life of the college. Yes, he was horrified that people were being allowed to say that “Hitler must be stopped”. He found it so horrible that he (the academic) found himself oppressed.
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
It starts in a dreadful way: “trump’s packing of the Supreme Court”.
No: justices were appointed according to the rules. Trump was lucky he got to appoint so many. If, as counterfactual, it had been a democratic president and 3 reliably progressive justices appointed the court wouldn’t have been “packed” it would have been “at the forefront of forging the modern America”.
It wasn't luck. Republicans in the Senate refused to ratify Obama's final pick (Merrick Garland, March 2016) while hurriedly pushing through Trump's final nominee (Amy Coney Barrett, September 2020).
In both cases their reasoning was 'there's an election coming.'
For the first, they said, 'let's delay it for the new President to decide because it's less than a year until you leave.'
For the second, 'let's ratify it now in case there's a new President elected in six weeks.'
Admittedly, you could point out neither was directly to do with Trump. But the Supreme Court has been being rigged for a very long time (since Franklin D Roosevelt, indeed) and recent events have left it 'packed' with a Republican majority through quite shameless procedural jiggery pokery.
It certainly took advantage of the letter of the law but not the spirit
However it was a polemic rather than “a very good article” as characterised by @Nigelb
An amusing read and some interesting points but definitely not “fair and balanced”
While the analysis is openly written from a perspective critical of recent conservative jurisprudence, it’s hardly a polemic. Can you explain which of its legal arguments regarding the Colorado case you disagree with, and why ?
ok, I've now read the full NYT complaint filed this morning vs OpenAI and Microsoft. I'm impressed - it's future-focused around fair value for work vital to democracy. It also contains 220k pages of exhibits although the pages of Ex J stood out to me. more on that in a minute. /1.. https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1740141400443035785
Could make a decent article for a writer interested in AI and journalism.
I wish I could read more than a single tweet of that thread and offer any opinion.
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
I have read the piece and it is another example of the author's enfant terrible buffoonery. I sometimes wonder whether Sean Thomas is a nom de plume of Boris Johnson, although the writing style is less floral than Johnson's so perhaps not.
Well. I guess the feeble, humourless, buffoonish author will just have to console himself that he wriote the most-read article of the day in the most influential political magazine in the country (and the oldest magazine in the world, one of the most prestigious, etc etc)
I imagine that is some minor solace, despite the stentorian disapproval of politicalbetting.com
I hear the most influential political magazine in the country is yet to apologise for it's articles endorsing the fascist-wannabe Oath Keeper/Proud Boy organisations.
ok, I've now read the full NYT complaint filed this morning vs OpenAI and Microsoft. I'm impressed - it's future-focused around fair value for work vital to democracy. It also contains 220k pages of exhibits although the pages of Ex J stood out to me. more on that in a minute. /1.. https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1740141400443035785
Could make a decent article for a writer interested in AI and journalism.
I wish I could read more than a single tweet of that thread and offer any opinion.
The NYT is claiming that OpenAI copy-‘n-pastas large chunks of the NYT into results without attribution.
So ChatGPT doesn’t just lie like Donald Trump. It also plagarises like Ursula von der Leyen.
ok, I've now read the full NYT complaint filed this morning vs OpenAI and Microsoft. I'm impressed - it's future-focused around fair value for work vital to democracy. It also contains 220k pages of exhibits although the pages of Ex J stood out to me. more on that in a minute. /1.. https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1740141400443035785
Could make a decent article for a writer interested in AI and journalism.
I wish I could read more than a single tweet of that thread and offer any opinion.
The NYT is claiming that OpenAI copy-‘n-pastas large chunks of the NYT into results without attribution.
So ChatGPT doesn’t just lie like Donald Trump. It also plagarises like Ursula von der Leyen.
... And they're claiming this as news, journalism and fact? Amazing stuff. I should subscribe. Sounds almost as insightful as The Spectator.
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
ok, I've now read the full NYT complaint filed this morning vs OpenAI and Microsoft. I'm impressed - it's future-focused around fair value for work vital to democracy. It also contains 220k pages of exhibits although the pages of Ex J stood out to me. more on that in a minute. /1.. https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1740141400443035785
Could make a decent article for a writer interested in AI and journalism.
I wish I could read more than a single tweet of that thread and offer any opinion.
The NYT is claiming that OpenAI copy-‘n-pastas large chunks of the NYT into results without attribution.
So ChatGPT doesn’t just lie like Donald Trump. It also plagarises like Ursula von der Leyen.
... And they're claiming this as news, journalism and fact? Amazing stuff. I should subscribe. Sounds almost as insightful as The Spectator.
Well, they seem to have a bunch of actual examples.
ok, I've now read the full NYT complaint filed this morning vs OpenAI and Microsoft. I'm impressed - it's future-focused around fair value for work vital to democracy. It also contains 220k pages of exhibits although the pages of Ex J stood out to me. more on that in a minute. /1.. https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1740141400443035785
Could make a decent article for a writer interested in AI and journalism.
I wish I could read more than a single tweet of that thread and offer any opinion.
The NYT is claiming that OpenAI copy-‘n-pastas large chunks of the NYT into results without attribution.
So ChatGPT doesn’t just lie like Donald Trump. It also plagarises like Ursula von der Leyen.
I don’t believe ChatGPT does that. It’s now even more Woke and boring than the NYT. It wouldn’t risk copy and paste lest it offends someone
What it surely has done is this: it has trained itself on millions of NYT articles (and billions of others). That must be the substance of the NYT claim
ok, I've now read the full NYT complaint filed this morning vs OpenAI and Microsoft. I'm impressed - it's future-focused around fair value for work vital to democracy. It also contains 220k pages of exhibits although the pages of Ex J stood out to me. more on that in a minute. /1.. https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1740141400443035785
Could make a decent article for a writer interested in AI and journalism.
I wish I could read more than a single tweet of that thread and offer any opinion.
The NYT is claiming that OpenAI copy-‘n-pastas large chunks of the NYT into results without attribution.
So ChatGPT doesn’t just lie like Donald Trump. It also plagarises like Ursula von der Leyen.
... And they're claiming this as news, journalism and fact? Amazing stuff. I should subscribe. Sounds almost as insightful as The Spectator.
No, they are suing Microsoft and OpenAI for many billions of dollars, for breach of copyright. What rights AI companies have to proprietary data - in this case the NYT’s published journalism - and whether their use of it goes well beyond fair use under US law - is a highly consequential issue.
Talking of the NYT, look at this photo from their lead story on the migrant surge at the Mexican border. This stuff is going to kill Biden at the election: it’s his version of the small boats, but worse
Yes, Ukraine can still defeat Russia – but it will require far more support from Europe Jack Watling is a senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/27/ukraine-russia-europe-support-kyiv Here is one fact that sums up the gap between the promises that Kyiv’s European partners have made to Ukraine and the reality. In March 2023, the EU made the historic decision to deliver a million artillery shells to Ukraine within 12 months. But the number that has actually been sent is closer to 300,000. For all the rhetorical commitments to support Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s invasion “for as long as it takes”, Europe has largely failed.
The price of this complacency is already being paid in Ukrainian blood. According to the armed forces of Ukraine, over the summer of 2023, Ukraine was firing up to 7,000 artillery shells a day and managed to degrade Russia’s logistics and artillery to the point where Russia was firing about 5,000 rounds a day. Today, the Ukrainians are struggling to fire 2,000 rounds daily, while Russian artillery is reaching about 10,000. Artillery isn’t everything, but the disparity speaks to Ukraine’s relative shortage of materiel, evident in other areas such as the number of drones it can field...
One of my first pre pubescent fancies was Jennifer Saunders, probably when she was topless in a Comic Strip film called The Supergrass. Just watching a French & Saunders documentary on BBC1 and she’s now a ringer for Anna Soubry
The discussion has moved on from whether I - a female lawyer who believes in human rights, the worth of the ECHR, a decent justice system, a police force that doesn't break the law, the rule of law, women's rights, men behaving decently towards women, fairness, accountability for those at the top of organisations, free speech and legal representation, even for the unpopular and disliked, protecting children and leaving them a better world than the one we inherited and the inestimable value of gardening - am some sort of far right Nazi. Had those of you doing this imbibed too much Xmas sherry?
Felt a little called out did we? If the boot fits...maybe you could think about what that means?"
No. I did not feel called out. I thought it utterly hilarious. It said quite a lot about those making the accusation, none of it good. It certainly reinforced my belief that the bigots and proto-fascists are those who get conniptions when women stand up for their legal rights and do not acquiesce in whatever men demand of them.
If that cap fits you, maybe you could think about what means?
"A large majority of the British public support transgender people having the right to “self-identify” and choose their own gender, a new poll has found.
The survey shows that women are particularly supportive of trans rights, with 57 per cent in favour and just 21 opposed, according to the survey conducted by YouGov."
Complaining about “woke” is a bit like suddenly noticing the existence of the sun and getting angry about it. There have always been fashionable convictions that those who hold them want to impose on everyone else. In the 70s Marxism had a similar hold over many universities in the same way that “woke ideology “ does now. In past years and in certain locations it would have been pacifism or tractarianism. They come and go and the young and idealistic move on to something else.
This is the obvious, inexorable endpoint for what Israel is doing. It is the only way they can permanently prevent a repeat of October 7. And if they don't achieve that goal - making October 7 unrepeatable - then the war is pointless, indeed hideously counter-productive
Sending an outcast tribe to wander in Sinai is somewhat ironic…
From a purely aesthetic perspective, the map would look neater if Sinai were a part of Israel.
The Israelis clearly don't agree, they withdrew from it in 1980.
Moses didn't like it either, he preferred Canaan!
Moses never got to Canaan:
And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan,
2 And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea,
3 And the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar.
4 And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.
5 So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.
6 And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.
7 And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
8 And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days: so the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.
9 And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses.
10 And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face,
11 In all the signs and the wonders, which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land,
12 And in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel.
Deuteronomy chapter 34.
God could have shown them Australia as the promised land instead. Or California.
Complaining about “woke” is a bit like suddenly noticing the existence of the sun and getting angry about it. There have always been fashionable convictions that those who hold them want to impose on everyone else. In the 70s Marxism had a similar hold over many universities in the same way that “woke ideology “ does now. In past years and in certain locations it would have been pacifism or tractarianism. They come and go and the young and idealistic move on to something else.
The differences this time are a) it's infected the teaching staff in a way that none of the other ideologies you mention did, and b) it's also infected corporate environments.
Young people being dumb is indeed nothing new. But they're now being dumb in a way that's become self-reinforcing.
Can we please stop accusing people of trolling just because we disagree with them.
Can we also stop calling people an utter fucking twat just because we disagree with them, too?
Sean was horrible and vile to me and never apologised so I stand by what I said. It's not because I disagree with him that I called him that.
As I remember - I was but a bystander - you attacked him time and again and he said nothing, then you did it again and finally he reacted and belittled you publicly, and now you have a grudge. A pattern which is often repeated on here
You could try getting over it
Everyone knows who Sean is. Now I don't want to get banned but Leon likes to tell us who he is on a daily basis so at some point he's basically outing who Sean actually is, I will lead you to draw your own conclusions
Can we please stop accusing people of trolling just because we disagree with them.
Can we also stop calling people an utter fucking twat just because we disagree with them, too?
Sean was horrible and vile to me and never apologised so I stand by what I said. It's not because I disagree with him that I called him that.
As I remember - I was but a bystander - you attacked him time and again and he said nothing, then you did it again and finally he reacted and belittled you publicly, and now you have a grudge. A pattern which is often repeated on here
You could try getting over it
Everyone knows who Sean is. Now I don't want to get banned but Leon likes to tell us who he is on a daily basis so at some point he's basically outing who Sean actually is, I will lead you to draw your own conclusions
You’ve been banned umpteen times. If it happens again you’ll be back with another alt. Rather like someone else !
The discussion has moved on from whether I - a female lawyer who believes in human rights, the worth of the ECHR, a decent justice system, a police force that doesn't break the law, the rule of law, women's rights, men behaving decently towards women, fairness, accountability for those at the top of organisations, free speech and legal representation, even for the unpopular and disliked, protecting children and leaving them a better world than the one we inherited and the inestimable value of gardening - am some sort of far right Nazi. Had those of you doing this imbibed too much Xmas sherry?
Felt a little called out did we? If the boot fits...maybe you could think about what that means?"
No. I did not feel called out. I thought it utterly hilarious. It said quite a lot about those making the accusation, none of it good. It certainly reinforced my belief that the bigots and proto-fascists are those who get conniptions when women stand up for their legal rights and do not acquiesce in whatever men demand of them.
If that cap fits you, maybe you could think about what means?
"A large majority of the British public support transgender people having the right to “self-identify” and choose their own gender, a new poll has found.
The survey shows that women are particularly supportive of trans rights, with 57 per cent in favour and just 21 opposed, according to the survey conducted by YouGov."
How many support access to single sex spaces though ?
It’s one thing to say they support the right to self Id and decide what gender they fancy being. it is a real leap to assume this means wholesale support for the erosion of single sex spaces and womens sport and many of the issues cyclefree raises.
What is the role of opinion pieces? Arguably to try to provoke debate, not unlike a good debating society. Does the author need to belief everything they write? Probably not.
Or you could read the article, and discover that the comparison is this: Wokeness is peculiarly hard to define, which lends some people to claim it does not exist, or is trivial. But the exact same is true of Fascism: it is notoriously hard to define, yet we KNOW it exists
Humour is hard to define. But we know it exists.
So Humour = Fascism. Someone tell Ben Elton.
"Humor, it is a difficult concept. It is NOT logical!" - Lt. Saavik.
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
I also note it is the most read article on the Spectator today. How does this imbecile achieve this influence? It is a condemnation of our idiotic times
Well one effect of such an argument (which I’m sure couldn’t be his intention) is to make bigots feel better about themselves. And that’s quite a large audience.
Yes, click bait works.
If that is the intellectual depth of right wing commentary then the Spectator has run out of road and extinction awaits.
Freer is an obsessive supporter of Israel and all it's work. However much graffitti is painted on his office walls I bet actuarilly he's a 1000 times safer in his Finchley office than any single child in Gaza whom he wants Israel to continue bombing.
I presume you would support the firebombing of a Pro Palestine MPs office?
Or is violence in politics only for some people?
There are no pro Palestinian MP's who support the bombing of Israel.
You seem to be unaware of the Life and Works of Jeremy Corbyn, MP
Apparently only 30% of Americans currently support Bidens policy of continuing the bombing of Gaza. According to Radio 4 this is now affecting his re election chances. Amongst young people the numbers are even worse.
The strange thing is that I personally support the right of Palestinians to chuck a few missiles at Israeli soldiers in Israel, in other words: I support their right to "bomb Israel"
What does Israel expect if it continually smashes Gaza into pieces? No retaliation???
So if an MP said and says the same, fair enough, I would not castigate them for it. The Palestinians have a right to defend themselves - as does Israel
What happened on October 7 was, however, far far beyond normal war between combatants, it was closer to a medieval pogrom with 21st century social media footage, It was an attempt to torture and kill every Jew they could find - from babies to grannies - with deliberate and maximum cruelty
Israel will now - as I predicted from the off - probably render Gaza uninhabitable, thus "solving the problem" by changing the facts on the ground
Yes and we are all still dancing to Hamas's tune as we have since October 7th. If you accept they care neither for the lives of their own people nor for the lives of the Palestinians in Gaza, the Israeli Defence Force raising the place to the ground only radicalises a new generation of martyrs to prolong the cause as well as silencing moderate Arab opinion and polarising views which, as a terrorist group, works to Hamas's advantage.
Their greatest threat isn't Israel but moderate Arab opinion but that along with moderate Israeli opinion, was extinguished on October 7th.
The only two alternative options Israel had were either to do nothing but that was politically unacceptable once the details of the Hamas atrocity were revealed. No Government could stand back and watch so many of its citizens be slaughtered without desiring to retaliate - or to make the retailiation swift and devastating but instead and probably under US pressure, Israel have gone for a more nuanced approach but nuance isn't easy in a Gaza sewer and it takes time and casualties in a way a massive aerial and armoured assault doesn't.
Hamas probably also realised (as they aren't stupid) the West doesn't have the stomach for a prolonged conflict and nightly coverage of the destruction of Gaza City, Khan Younis and elsewhere serves only to increase the calls for some sort of ceasefire. Hamas can afford to wait, Israel probably can't.
I tend to disagree, I think Israel is now determined on some terminal "solution", way beyond anything it has done before, and they are utterly uncaring of worldwide opinion
If you look at Israeli polls, the Israeli public thinks the IDF have not gone far ENOUGH. Israelis want Gaza eradicated.
Interestingly, October 7 has made Israeli Arabs much more supportive of Israel, it has also persuaded ultra-Orthodox Jews to join the army (hitherto not-kosher)
Israel has been radicalised and united by the attack, and the IDF won't stop now until Gaza is "finished" in some appalling way. I am not sure even Biden can rein them in
Why is no Arab nation caring enough about the fate of the Palestinians as to offer them refuge?
It's a disgrace.
Israel has no realistic option but to fight this war until everyone who is fighting for or otherwise supporting Hamas is dead or surrenders.
Other nations though have a choice to be able to offer refuge to innocents, instead they're just turning a blind eye.
It is remarkable how LITTLE practical support the Palestinians are getting from other Arab/Muslim governments. Even the protests in Arab cities have died down, as the war grinds on
Hezbollah talks tough and does almost nothing, ditto Iran
As for the rest: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi, Iraq, UAE, the MENA in general, there is not a peep from any capital and no hint of military aid for Gaza
Hamas have perhaps miscalculated. They correctly estimated that if they launched a terrible attack on Israel then Israel would respond with brutal fury - and so it is. But my sense is they then expected the Arab world to unite in attacking Israel, and nothing like that has occurred
The reality is very few people seem to give a shit about the Palestinians at all, unless they're a useful proxy to hate Jews with.
If people cared, they'd be offering refuge.
I think they doubly miscalculated, they both thought that the Arab world would respond (it has not) and that the West would restrain Israel (it has not).
Hamas acted like a drunk picking a fight with someone bigger than them, safe in the knowledge the other guys friends would hold them back. Instead the other guys friends saw what happened and are content to stand back and let the fight play out.
The only friend of Hamas in the region is Qatar - and they already have recent experience of what isolation from their neighbours looks like. It came very close to making their World Cup a logistical nightmare.
Basically it’s Qatar, Iran, Hamas, and the Yemeni Houthis on one side, and everyone else in the Middle East on the other side. Sunni vs Shia, a millennium-old war.
Awesome news for the Ukranians, who have been noticeably doing rather well with the air war in the past few weeks.
If a fifty year old airframe can dominate the skies and trash the Russian air force their planes can't be up to much.
It isn't about the airframe; IMV the Russia SU and MIGs are excellent airframes. They have good planes that fly well. In my inexpert view, they are better in some ways (more robust), and worse in others (low fatigue life).
It's about avionics. Planes are increasingly becoming complex systems of sensors and weapons, all talking to each other. And with links between planes, the system becomes even more complex and potentially potent.
'Airframes' are relatively cheap to build; the bulk of the cost goes into the systems on board (which is why things like the EAP were quick to build, but the Eurofighter that followed it... less so). Russians have always been behind on avionics.
These F16s, whilst they may be fifty year old airframe designs, may have systems on board that are much newer.
Incidentally, following from my previous post, this is also why I think that the Russian Navy has performed so hilariously poorly during this war.
Someone (Drachifel, I think), said that a 18th century battleship (such as HMS Victory) was the most complex machine built by man at that time. And I can imagine that was the case.
Modern warships are also massively complex, and all tied up in relatively small packages. They are expected to operate for months at sea, performing their own maintenance as they go along. With fighter planes, the maintenance can be performed at various bases, and there are usually loads of spare airframes (and fighter planes have a ridiculously low availability rate).
My premise is that the more complex the system, the harder the Russians find it to operate. And warships are massively complex, with few, if any, spare hulls available when they go wrong. You need good training for crews as well.
All of which might explain why the Moskva was in such an appalling state when it sunk.
It'd be interesting to hear @Dura_Ace 's views on these ramblings.
Awesome news for the Ukranians, who have been noticeably doing rather well with the air war in the past few weeks.
If a fifty year old airframe can dominate the skies and trash the Russian air force their planes can't be up to much.
Their planes aren’t up to much.
A lot of their capability is theoretical at best. Their planes aren’t properly maintained, the avionics and weapons systems are still decades old (whereas the Western aircraft are updated and more modern), the Soviet-era aircraft require much more maintainance and are regularly unserviceable.
I’ll take a guess that the Russian top brass are past caring if their planes are properly serviceable, they just want them in the air. They’ve been both shot down by their own side, and clear targets for Ukranian (western) anti-aircraft weapons in recent weeks, suggesting that their own defensive systems are less than brilliant.
The discussion has moved on from whether I - a female lawyer who believes in human rights, the worth of the ECHR, a decent justice system, a police force that doesn't break the law, the rule of law, women's rights, men behaving decently towards women, fairness, accountability for those at the top of organisations, free speech and legal representation, even for the unpopular and disliked, protecting children and leaving them a better world than the one we inherited and the inestimable value of gardening - am some sort of far right Nazi. Had those of you doing this imbibed too much Xmas sherry?
Felt a little called out did we? If the boot fits...maybe you could think about what that means?"
No. I did not feel called out. I thought it utterly hilarious. It said quite a lot about those making the accusation, none of it good. It certainly reinforced my belief that the bigots and proto-fascists are those who get conniptions when women stand up for their legal rights and do not acquiesce in whatever men demand of them.
If that cap fits you, maybe you could think about what means?
"A large majority of the British public support transgender people having the right to “self-identify” and choose their own gender, a new poll has found.
The survey shows that women are particularly supportive of trans rights, with 57 per cent in favour and just 21 opposed, according to the survey conducted by YouGov."
A large majority, for me, is 60%+ - sonifneomen were particular supportive at 57% then then overall figure just be lower and barely a majority?
(I'd be in that majority, with some caveats, so I'm not trying to make that point, but looks like bad reporting)
ETA: Ah, the large majority is in fact 50%, so maybe not a majority at all, depending on the rounding. A strong plurality, at least. Or a large majority of don't knows are excluded.
Love the darts. Dancing blonde girls and everything
Properly unWoke
Luke Littler and his love of kebabs !!
Luke Littler is the best thing to happen to darts since MvG, great to watch.
That 164 checkout after losing the 4th set was brilliant. Would love to see him up against the big Dutchman in the final.
Yup. He’s great. This really is why it’s the greatest show on earth.
Would love to go and watch live, one of the best sporting atmospheres. I used to live near Lakeside and went there a couple of times in the ‘90s, always a good night out.
Comments
I received a telephone call from my cardiologist this evening to say I need an urgent pacemaker operation
He hopes to do it within four weeks but of course the Junior Doctors in Wales are on strike between the 15th and 17th January which is a concern, though I have to go immediately to A & E if my condition worsens
I am pleased that I am to receive treatment, but would just say that reading some of tonight's posts and the language used, which is totally unnecessary, I just do not have the band width to argue politics at present.
Please be kinder to each other, we never know what lies ahead
Who is the author? He sounds clueless.
Fingers crossed you can get the treatment on time and lessen the worries.
Luke Littler and his love of kebabs !!
Some things are more important than politics
But then if you didn't have an ignorant one-eyed view of history, you'd know there's a reason why by 75 years ago many Jews had concluded they needed a homeland, with a preference for their traditional homeland that they'd originally been chased out of, and where many had moved. With those who concluded that having little tolerance for those who'd chase them out again and their useful idiots.
Is facism that hard to define? Is it just that to be precise is hard, but many features of facism can be specified?
Can read it in full.
You could try getting over it
The intellectual rigour of that rag truly is in a desperate state, if that’s the pitiful level of argumentation that it favours with publication nowadays.
"Jacques Delors was the pre eminent architect of the modern European Union - and whether you agreed or not with his vision he was a towering political figure.
Without Delors there would have been no Maastricht treaty and no euro. Indeed without Delors there would have been no single market.
He harnessed post Cold War anxieties about Germany to create a new federal structure for Europe - and he did it with dazzling panache
His ideas were never right for Britain - as he himself later seemed to concede - and there are many on the continent who have doubts about the direction of the EU. But no one can doubt his legacy today. Whatever you say about the modern EU - it is the house that Jacques built."
The author can on occasion be rather amusing, but not this time.
Edit: I compared Mr Thomas's writing style to Johnson's. I can only apologise to Mr Thomas because this example exemplifies Johnson's lazy and hackneyed style. Simply weak and utterly dreadful.
I imagine that is some minor solace, despite the stentorian disapproval of politicalbetting.com
"Cyclefree said:
"Phew!
The discussion has moved on from whether I - a female lawyer who believes in human rights, the worth of the ECHR, a decent justice system, a police force that doesn't break the law, the rule of law, women's rights, men behaving decently towards women, fairness, accountability for those at the top of organisations, free speech and legal representation, even for the unpopular and disliked, protecting children and leaving them a better world than the one we inherited and the inestimable value of gardening - am some sort of far right Nazi. Had those of you doing this imbibed too much Xmas sherry?
Felt a little called out did we? If the boot fits...maybe you could think about what that means?"
No. I did not feel called out. I thought it utterly hilarious. It said quite a lot about those making the accusation, none of it good. It certainly reinforced my belief that the bigots and proto-fascists are those who get conniptions when women stand up for their legal rights and do not acquiesce in whatever men demand of them.
If that cap fits you, maybe you could think about what means?
https://slate.com/podcasts/what-next/2023/12/ufos-and-uaps-went-before-congress
So Humour = Fascism. Someone tell Ben Elton.
However it was a polemic rather than “a very good article” as characterised by @Nigelb
An amusing read and some interesting points but definitely not “fair and balanced”
ok, I've now read the full NYT complaint filed this morning vs OpenAI and Microsoft. I'm impressed - it's future-focused around fair value for work vital to democracy. It also contains 220k pages of exhibits although the pages of Ex J stood out to me. more on that in a minute. /1..
https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1740141400443035785
Could make a decent article for a writer interested in AI and journalism.
The terror and authoritarianism of which this individual wrote was the refusal of the college authorities to enforce absolute pacifism in the intellectual life of the college. Yes, he was horrified that people were being allowed to say that “Hitler must be stopped”. He found it so horrible that he (the academic) found himself oppressed.
Nothing changes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAI959G9AjA
" Willie Nelson - Time of the Preacher (Live From Austin City Limits, 1976) "
So ChatGPT doesn’t just lie like Donald Trump. It also plagarises like Ursula von der Leyen.
What it surely has done is this: it has trained itself on millions of NYT articles (and billions of others). That must be the substance of the NYT claim
It’s a fascinating and important case
What rights AI companies have to proprietary data - in this case the NYT’s published journalism - and whether their use of it goes well beyond fair use under US law - is a highly consequential issue.
Jack Watling is a senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/27/ukraine-russia-europe-support-kyiv
Here is one fact that sums up the gap between the promises that Kyiv’s European partners have made to Ukraine and the reality. In March 2023, the EU made the historic decision to deliver a million artillery shells to Ukraine within 12 months. But the number that has actually been sent is closer to 300,000. For all the rhetorical commitments to support Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s invasion “for as long as it takes”, Europe has largely failed.
The price of this complacency is already being paid in Ukrainian blood. According to the armed forces of Ukraine, over the summer of 2023, Ukraine was firing up to 7,000 artillery shells a day and managed to degrade Russia’s logistics and artillery to the point where Russia was firing about 5,000 rounds a day. Today, the Ukrainians are struggling to fire 2,000 rounds daily, while Russian artillery is reaching about 10,000. Artillery isn’t everything, but the disparity speaks to Ukraine’s relative shortage of materiel, evident in other areas such as the number of drones it can field...
"A large majority of the British public support transgender people having the right to “self-identify” and choose their own gender, a new poll has found.
The survey shows that women are particularly supportive of trans rights, with 57 per cent in favour and just 21 opposed, according to the survey conducted by YouGov."
Young people being dumb is indeed nothing new. But they're now being dumb in a way that's become self-reinforcing.
It’s one thing to say they support the right to self Id and decide what gender they fancy being. it is a real leap to assume this means wholesale support for the erosion of single sex spaces and womens sport and many of the issues cyclefree raises.
If that is the intellectual depth of right wing commentary then the Spectator has run out of road and extinction awaits.
Basically it’s Qatar, Iran, Hamas, and the Yemeni Houthis on one side, and everyone else in the Middle East on the other side. Sunni vs Shia, a millennium-old war.
Best of luck, Mr. Northwales.
It's about avionics. Planes are increasingly becoming complex systems of sensors and weapons, all talking to each other. And with links between planes, the system becomes even more complex and potentially potent.
'Airframes' are relatively cheap to build; the bulk of the cost goes into the systems on board (which is why things like the EAP were quick to build, but the Eurofighter that followed it... less so). Russians have always been behind on avionics.
These F16s, whilst they may be fifty year old airframe designs, may have systems on board that are much newer.
Someone (Drachifel, I think), said that a 18th century battleship (such as HMS Victory) was the most complex machine built by man at that time. And I can imagine that was the case.
Modern warships are also massively complex, and all tied up in relatively small packages. They are expected to operate for months at sea, performing their own maintenance as they go along. With fighter planes, the maintenance can be performed at various bases, and there are usually loads of spare airframes (and fighter planes have a ridiculously low availability rate).
My premise is that the more complex the system, the harder the Russians find it to operate. And warships are massively complex, with few, if any, spare hulls available when they go wrong. You need good training for crews as well.
All of which might explain why the Moskva was in such an appalling state when it sunk.
It'd be interesting to hear @Dura_Ace 's views on these ramblings.
A lot of their capability is theoretical at best. Their planes aren’t properly maintained, the avionics and weapons systems are still decades old (whereas the Western aircraft are updated and more modern), the Soviet-era aircraft require much more maintainance and are regularly unserviceable.
I’ll take a guess that the Russian top brass are past caring if their planes are properly serviceable, they just want them in the air. They’ve been both shot down by their own side, and clear targets for Ukranian (western) anti-aircraft weapons in recent weeks, suggesting that their own defensive systems are less than brilliant.
That 164 checkout after losing the 4th set was brilliant. Would love to see him up against the big Dutchman in the final.
(I'd be in that majority, with some caveats, so I'm not trying to make that point, but looks like bad reporting)
ETA: Ah, the large majority is in fact 50%, so maybe not a majority at all, depending on the rounding. A strong plurality, at least. Or a large majority of don't knows are excluded.
stood for Parliament and is now being abused and ridiculed