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Unsurprising findings – politicalbetting.com
Unsurprising findings – politicalbetting.com
67% of Britons think it is likely that Israel has committed war crimes during their attack on GazaThis includes 46% of those who say they sympathise most with the Israeli side in the conflicthttps://t.co/FZ9chPvsp5 pic.twitter.com/v8XHa1KMxB
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If people want to offer refuge to Palestinians outside the war zone, then that is entirely reasonable, but expecting Israel not to fight a war or to fight with its hands tied behind its back is not.
The marginal cost of today’s launch was about 100 million dollars.
Which could have put 150 tons into LEO.
The current F9 rocket *costs* about 20 million to put 17 tons into LEO. Reusing stage 1.
So per kilo, Starship is already cheaper as a fully expendable.
The next launch will be carrying Starlink satellites. Almost certainly.
If you can put 5x as many Starlink sats on the Starship stack as F9, it is already the cheapest option.
Key to developing is to try, fail, learn, try, fail, learn and repeat until you stop failing.
Musk is 100% doing the right thing there. Far better than not trying until you know you won't fail at which point you simply don't bother because you never will.
Neither of these steps would prevent Israel from fighting Hamas until Hamas is defeated. Unfortunately they seem to be steps Israel is unwilling to take.
Mr Schumer, a Democrat and the highest-ranking Jewish official in the US, said Mr Netanyahu had "lost his way".
He warned huge civilian casualties in Gaza risked alienating allies and turning Israel into a global "pariah".
It is a sharp escalation in US criticism of Mr Netanyahu's government.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68568586
A necessary and cheering reminder that most Brits are NOT nutters
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/14/uk-government-overturns-plans-to-phase-out-badger-cull
To the extent that:
* Israeli Human rights organisations are saying that their own govt isn't complying with the ICJ ruling with respect to food aid (https://twitter.com/HaMokedRights/status/1767200559176491210 )
* Senior Israeli former security officials wrote an open letter saying "The humanitarian situation in Gaza undermines Israel’s security"
* Biden said 'Netanyahu is doing more harm than good'
* The US senate majority leader, who also happens to be jewish, called for new elections in Israel - and this seems to have cut through to Israeli media (at least the english language media - I don't read hebrew)
I’m off to listen to Radiohead and enjoy a strawberry pizza.
https://x.com/drrachelbroady/status/1768178165518672209?s=61
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/14/uk-government-overturns-plans-to-phase-out-badger-cull
I don't really care if the badger cull happens or not but what I would like the government to do is reduce the incidence of Bovine TB. If experts think that a badger cull will do that, then go for it. But according to the Guardian, that's not the reason.
Can't just for once, this government run this country by making good decisions instead of trying to make everything a culture war?
Yes I know it is Robert Peston
Save The Badger Badger Badger (Extended Version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yud0CHRw-Bs
Thanks to the genius of the iPhone I am able to tell you that the photo in question was taken on Sunday October 3, 2010, at 1.13pm, on Calle Lioncio Prado, in the little town of Reque, south of Chiclayo, in northern Peru
So almost 15 years ago
There is now a little hotel on that street. Quinta Rosa Garces. This is what it looks like now
Quite a contrast from
So even where life WAS that bad, it is no longer that bad
Think big.
What’s the price of the conflict to the world, right now? Is it 50 billion a year?
Just time for one (and only one) legacy project.
And killing badgers is it? Presumably serves them right for moving the goalposts.
Over 40% of their election funding will be down to him . Quite astonishing that this doesn’t seem to alarm people especially given his government contracts .
I was right again.
Rishi Sunak has ruled out the possibility of a general election taking place on 2 May - the day of the local elections - as had been widely speculated.
Asked if this will be the election date by ITV, he said: "There won't be a general election on that day.
"But when there is a general election, what matters is the choice."
https://news.sky.com/story/politics-latest-uk-politics-sunak-starmer-general-election-vote-labour-tories-speaker-sky-news-politics-hub-12593360
https://x.com/pippacrerar/status/1768345435721134342?s=61
Anyway, only another week of you informing us, that the political colossus Rishi Sunak has ruled out a very bad result for the Conservative Party, and has instead chosen an extinction event for the Party, and right wing populism usurping Conservatism in British politics. 😔
There is either something flawed in your character or something flawed in the privileged, entitled way that you travel that must surely prove, in the literal historical sense, the rule.
When I become the country's first directly elected dictator I will class anyone who advocates pineapple on pizza as a member of an extremist organisation.
One of those things - these touchstones, these guiding lodes, these reassuring familiars - is the sure and certain knowledge that you are, and always will be, an embittered old twat whose only friend is a dog
However, this seems to be the first official confirmation the GE will not take place on the 2nd May as it is now widely reported across the media
John Reese: Never understood why people put all their information on those [social networking] sites. Used to make our job a lot easier in the CIA.
Harold Finch: Of course. That's why I created them.
John Reese: You're telling me you invented online social networking, Finch?
Harold Finch: The Machine needed more information. People's social graph, their associations. The government had been trying to figure it out for years. Turns out most people were happy to volunteer it. Business wound up being quite profitable, too.
It ain't happening.
This is a rare instance of reality and Sunak aligning.
Even a broken clock ...
I don't think it is necessary to go so far as to suggest no limitations or scaling back is possible or reasonable, and still to support Israel in its ultimate goals here.
He’s got time to do at least 3 U turns by then.
His understanding and analysis though is poor. He seems to have gone his own way on that rather than the someone's.
People seem to want them to avoid civilian suffering altogether, not just war crimes, which is certainly not possible though.
All we need now is some way of determining each tiny individual spot on the planet, each 3m square, maybe 3 words, and incorporate THAT into the phone, and we are sorted
Reminds me of Tim Nice but Dim canvassing (unfortunately, only an edited scene appears to be on You Tube, so no link). From memory:
"Hello, can I rely on your vote next Thursday?"
"[No]"
"Next Friday, then?"
In WW2, Allied troops committed war crimes. They may have been smaller in scale, and less egregious, than those of the Japanese and Germans, but war crimes are sadly a part of war, even with well-trained troops.
The way to prevent them is not to have wars.
Navy fires USS Ohio submarine commanding officer
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4532429-navy-fires-uss-ohio-submarine-commanding-officer/
- How about if you bottle calling the election?
I really hope Sunak doesn't waste his time buying lottery tickets.
That should not really be controversial, given that apparent bias (as well as actual bias), is a thing for a reason. It undermines good governance when people quire reasonably question decisions because huge sums of money are floating about between senior people and groups.
And since, of course, any contract awards or honours are not given out because of money being received from that person/company, there should be no problem if they choose to prioritise either making personal/business donations to advance a party they support, or seeking to gain contracts/receive civic awards.
If Egypt or anyone else wants to provide food or water, then they can and Egypt borders Gaza, why should it just be Israel's responsibility?
I have always found the concept of "war crimes" intrinsically weird. Like it's OK to kill people one way, but not another way? eg Tokyo bombing fine, Hiroshima maybe not, Blitz OK, Dresden evil, or was it all the other way round? It's ridiculous
But if we must have the concept of war crimes then I am pretty sure both sides have committed them in this awful condlicr
Beth Rigby
@BethRigby
·
21m
Another big beast of the Conservative Party announces they standing down at the next GE. Former cabinet minister
@BrandonLewis
to step down as MP for Great Yarmouth.
https://twitter.com/BethRigby?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
With your new admin powers, you still can’t get this to be bigger, light up in rainbow colours and make the noise of a fog horn, then?
It wasn’t Peston that got him to crumble, it was some strange “news from your region” presenters. And you are going on Rishi saying “obviously there won’t be a General Election on that day as well” through a wide grin? Why did he spend over five minutes avoiding answering the question? Why couldn’t have informed the country “there will be no May 2nd General Election” better planned and more Prime Ministerially, to the main press core - or at least from the Good Morning sofa rather than a milk shed in the West Country in rather a sort of “misspoke in a regional interview” moment?
I still say May 2nd General Election. Because Everything is in place, and waiting till autumn makes no logical or political or electoral sense, he only needs to ask for the Lectern to be carried out with the correct crest.
So there 😝
The definition of "Big Beast" is clearly suffering from shrinkflation
There are 8 billion people on Planet Earth (give or take).
About 1.4bn of them are North America or Europe. They're pretty well off, on average. About 1.3bn are in China. They are dramatically richer than they were 20 years ago. And that's true of most of Asia.
Median incomes and lifestyles have increased extraordinarily in the last 20 years. I mean some places, like rural Russia, have gone backwards. But most places are dramatically richer than they were.
Its a matter of fact AFAIK.
Many say that blockades should be a war crime, but that's totally different from saying they are.
No Geneva Convention nor any other treaty bans blockades AFAIK.
If its against the law, that's news to me.
I met Lewis in his ministerial office during the coalition years, accompanied by the Tory leader of my council who had forewarned me that the man was, in that Tory’s own words, “an oik”. And so he proved to be.
But also that there is a spectrum, such as those who genuinely seek to avoid things like murdering civilians, and those who deliberately engage in it . And that for example in the case of the Russian armed forces deliberate war crimes is very much part of their core strategies.
So sure it is very muddy and at times somewhat ridiculous, but presumably it comes down to general intent.
It's not really something kingdoms and armies used to concern themselves with very much I think. I recall reading By Sword and Fire: Cruelty and Atrocity in the Middle Ages, which was recommended by someone on here.
I really do not know how a November-December election plays out, not least as the US will be electing their POTUS, but Starmer will win a substantial majority no matter when it is held
It certainly won't be on the priority list, to be sure.
Just look at those two photos from Peru below, and you can see it. That's 14 years, from dirt roads to paved roads, from horrible concrete shacks to reasonably pleasant housing - and I have seen these changes with my own travelling eyes, in the past two or three decades, as have many of us
Jeez, the world is a bit depressing at the moment, anyway, we don't need to ADD to the gloom and pretend that everyone in the world is living in a toilet on a dollar a day. It is not true, not any more, and that transformation is marvelous
If there's a ceasefire and Gaza goes back to being blockaded, with Hamas remaining in charge, and the Palestinian populace impoverished then that will create new Hamas members.
If Hamas are destroyed and a post-Hamas Gaza gets a Marshall Plan style redevelopment whereby Palestinians can have a future, then that will give peace a chance.
Give peace a chance, reject a ceasefire.
That means getting their current government out.
Did bombing of Dresden end the war any earlier? Did it save Allied lives? I don't know. But there is significant doubt.
And saying that the Germans performed the Blitz first is not an excuse IMO.
But if I was in Churchill's place back then? I'd probably have said bomb the damned lot.
At a smaller scale: rape. Put young, fearful soldiers amongst civilian populations, and you will get angels and devils. Any such rape is a crime. But when soldiers are ordered to rape civilians - and this has happened may times - that that puts it firmly into the 'war crimes' category. It does nothing to bring military victory nearer.
Quite reasonably so too.
Another reason to reject a ceasefire.
Two months before the election, they trailed the incumbent National Government by 23 points (47-24) and after another bad poll, the leader, Andrew Little, resigned and his deputy, one Jacinda Ardern, and one month later the 23 point gap had become a 7-point gap as the Greens dropped ten and Labour increased thirteen in a single month.
We know the rest - at the 2017 election, National won most seats and votes but Ardern formed a Government backed by Winston Peters.
A sudden change in leader galvanised the fortunes of a party on the ropes and brought back into the fold a significant group of parties who had switched to another party on the same side of the spectrum.
Analogies never stand up to close inspection but I wonder....
Who should exercise executive power in the UK in that case is beyond my capacity to suggest counterfactuals.
Aussie beef exports to UK 17,000 tonnes.
UK exports to Australia , a big fat zero !
And the reason , the UK signed a deal that fxcked UK farmers and allowed the Aussies to draw out for years the approval process for beef imports .
As with all the trade deals signed by the over promoted waste of space it’s all about garnering positive headlines from the right wing press .