The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Yes. It is. But we have some time to build a very large number of wind turbines, solar panels, tidal barrages, small nukes, etc. Even if you only sold battery electric vehicles from today it would take a couple of decades for most of the ICE vehicles to fall out of use.
To be more *optimistic* it's actually quite hard to see how a large Middle East war would jump to a total world war (bear with me, I'm being cheerful). It's not in the interests of any of the major players - USA, Russia, China - to let that happen, as we all die. So if it does kick off it will be really shit for people in the Mid East, and calamitous for the world economy, but it might not be the death of humanity
Jesus F Christ. I'd like to dismiss this but the trouble is: I can't
The more I think about Israel's position the more I see the logic of them striking back. If they let this go then Iran will be emboldened, and will do it again, and again, slowly making Israel unviable. Even though Israel shot down almost every missile, a couple did get through. And one day one of those lucky missiles could be nuke-tipped, or chemical, or a dirty bomb
So Israel must strike back to frighten Iran and deter them, which means the Israeli attack has to be pretty major. Which means they might as well try and take out the Iranian nuclear sites. Which means an all out Middle East War. Which means....
You can see where this goes. I pray I am wrong
It's Jason Hinkle, FFS. A known spreader of lies and disinformation. A MAGA Communist, of all things.
Ignore.
Ignore Mark Urban? He's made exactly the same extrapolation
"Israel + Allied success fending off the weekend's Iranian attacks relieved many. But my concerns... - about taboos being broken, by Israel on 1st Apr + Iran on Saturday - that Iran's conclusion may be it needs nuclear deterrence, & faster - which hastens an Israeli strike against nuke facilities"
You may note that those two tweets are very different, and actually saying different things.
I don't see that at all. Urban has not speculated on the timing, but his thinking mirrors mine in its sequencing
BUT I really really really hope my fears are unfounded. Presumably smart people in Washington can also extrapolate this and they are telling Israel to chill the fuck out. Fingers x'd
(Sighs)
Urban's tweet expresses *his* concerns: ignoring the 'taboos' have been broken in the past. But they're reasonable concerns. He then guesses that it might lead to an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Which is a guess, but a reasonable and not unprecedented one - although perhaps unlikely for various reasons. It's a reasonable tweet that explains his thinking.
Hinkle's tweet starts with an appeal to authority - an unnamed Israeli official. He then jumps straight from that to OMG!!!! there might be a major war!!!!! It's bullshit. Also note the use of CAPS, like all GOOD TRUMP MAGA SUPPORTERS use!!!!!
The two tweets are very different, and are saying different things.
Ah sorry, I thought you were contrasting Urban's thoughts with mine
Yes, Jackson Hinkle is a fucking loony, I agree. And - as I said - I would normally ignore him. But unfortunately I can see a logic in Israel striking back hard. Imagine if Britain had been attacked with 300 missiles and drones, from a country that wants us destroyed and is developing nukes. Even if those missiles were entirely ineffective, would we just sit there and wait for the next lot? Or would we hit back as a deterrent?
I don't see why a missile-lobbing contest between Israel and Iran would necessarily spread farther and wider. They are, in their distinctive ways, two of the most unpopular countries on earth and there's no good reason for anyone else to get involved. It isn't great for Jordan and Iraq to be stuck in the middle, though.
The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Quite doable, bearing in mind that EVs carry their own storage, which means irregular wind power overcapacity (for example) isn't overcapacity any more.
Jesus F Christ. I'd like to dismiss this but the trouble is: I can't
The more I think about Israel's position the more I see the logic of them striking back. If they let this go then Iran will be emboldened, and will do it again, and again, slowly making Israel unviable. Even though Israel shot down almost every missile, a couple did get through. And one day one of those lucky missiles could be nuke-tipped, or chemical, or a dirty bomb
So Israel must strike back to frighten Iran and deter them, which means the Israeli attack has to be pretty major. Which means they might as well try and take out the Iranian nuclear sites. Which means an all out Middle East War. Which means....
You can see where this goes. I pray I am wrong
It's Jason Hinkle, FFS. A known spreader of lies and disinformation. A MAGA Communist, of all things.
Ignore.
Ignore Mark Urban? He's made exactly the same extrapolation
"Israel + Allied success fending off the weekend's Iranian attacks relieved many. But my concerns... - about taboos being broken, by Israel on 1st Apr + Iran on Saturday - that Iran's conclusion may be it needs nuclear deterrence, & faster - which hastens an Israeli strike against nuke facilities"
You may note that those two tweets are very different, and actually saying different things.
I don't see that at all. Urban has not speculated on the timing, but his thinking mirrors mine in its sequencing
BUT I really really really hope my fears are unfounded. Presumably smart people in Washington can also extrapolate this and they are telling Israel to chill the fuck out. Fingers x'd
(Sighs)
Urban's tweet expresses *his* concerns: ignoring the 'taboos' have been broken in the past. But they're reasonable concerns. He then guesses that it might lead to an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Which is a guess, but a reasonable and not unprecedented one - although perhaps unlikely for various reasons. It's a reasonable tweet that explains his thinking.
Hinkle's tweet starts with an appeal to authority - an unnamed Israeli official. He then jumps straight from that to OMG!!!! there might be a major war!!!!! It's bullshit. Also note the use of CAPS, like all GOOD TRUMP MAGA SUPPORTERS use!!!!!
The two tweets are very different, and are saying different things.
Ah sorry, I thought you were contrasting Urban's thoughts with mine
Yes, Jackson Hinkle is a fucking loony, I agree. And - as I said - I would normally ignore him. But unfortunately I can see a logic in Israel striking back hard. Imagine if Britain had been attacked with 300 missiles and drones, from a country that wants us destroyed and is developing nukes. Even if those missiles were entirely ineffective, would we just sit there and wait for the next lot? Or would we hit back as a deterrent?
Israel is also still very busy in Gaza. Is this the time for them to massively widen the war, and get further dragged into a morass (and lose more international support)?
Also, AIUI Iran has learnt the lesson of the Iraqi reactor strike Israel made decades ago, and many of their nuclear facilities are apparently not easy to hit, with many underground.
It's possible, and makes some sense; but there might be much better targets.
Jesus F Christ. I'd like to dismiss this but the trouble is: I can't
The more I think about Israel's position the more I see the logic of them striking back. If they let this go then Iran will be emboldened, and will do it again, and again, slowly making Israel unviable. Even though Israel shot down almost every missile, a couple did get through. And one day one of those lucky missiles could be nuke-tipped, or chemical, or a dirty bomb
So Israel must strike back to frighten Iran and deter them, which means the Israeli attack has to be pretty major. Which means they might as well try and take out the Iranian nuclear sites. Which means an all out Middle East War. Which means....
You can see where this goes. I pray I am wrong
You will be, I'd have thought. But there is a risk and it arises from the difference between what's in Israel's interest and what's in the interest of its current PM.
Jesus F Christ. I'd like to dismiss this but the trouble is: I can't
The more I think about Israel's position the more I see the logic of them striking back. If they let this go then Iran will be emboldened, and will do it again, and again, slowly making Israel unviable. Even though Israel shot down almost every missile, a couple did get through. And one day one of those lucky missiles could be nuke-tipped, or chemical, or a dirty bomb
So Israel must strike back to frighten Iran and deter them, which means the Israeli attack has to be pretty major. Which means they might as well try and take out the Iranian nuclear sites. Which means an all out Middle East War. Which means....
You can see where this goes. I pray I am wrong
It's Jason Hinkle, FFS. A known spreader of lies and disinformation. A MAGA Communist, of all things.
Ignore.
Ignore Mark Urban? He's made exactly the same extrapolation
"Israel + Allied success fending off the weekend's Iranian attacks relieved many. But my concerns... - about taboos being broken, by Israel on 1st Apr + Iran on Saturday - that Iran's conclusion may be it needs nuclear deterrence, & faster - which hastens an Israeli strike against nuke facilities"
You may note that those two tweets are very different, and actually saying different things.
I don't see that at all. Urban has not speculated on the timing, but his thinking mirrors mine in its sequencing
BUT I really really really hope my fears are unfounded. Presumably smart people in Washington can also extrapolate this and they are telling Israel to chill the fuck out. Fingers x'd
(Sighs)
Urban's tweet expresses *his* concerns: ignoring the 'taboos' have been broken in the past. But they're reasonable concerns. He then guesses that it might lead to an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Which is a guess, but a reasonable and not unprecedented one - although perhaps unlikely for various reasons. It's a reasonable tweet that explains his thinking.
Hinkle's tweet starts with an appeal to authority - an unnamed Israeli official. He then jumps straight from that to OMG!!!! there might be a major war!!!!! It's bullshit. Also note the use of CAPS, like all GOOD TRUMP MAGA SUPPORTERS use!!!!!
The two tweets are very different, and are saying different things.
Ah sorry, I thought you were contrasting Urban's thoughts with mine
Yes, Jackson Hinkle is a fucking loony, I agree. And - as I said - I would normally ignore him. But unfortunately I can see a logic in Israel striking back hard. Imagine if Britain had been attacked with 300 missiles and drones, from a country that wants us destroyed and is developing nukes. Even if those missiles were entirely ineffective, would we just sit there and wait for the next lot? Or would we hit back as a deterrent?
I don't see why a missile-lobbing contest between Israel and Iran would necessarily spread farther and wider. They are, in their distinctive ways, two of the most unpopular countries on earth and there's no good reason for anyone else to get involved. It isn't great for Jordan and Iraq to be stuck in the middle, though.
I change the way I pronounce words depending on where I am, and don't see anything wrong with doing so.
Code switching; nothing wrong with that if you do it well.
I have to. My original accent is not great for professional purposes. I really do have to dial it back.
I was brought up in Fife and Newcastle. My dad is from London, my mum from the West country. I've lived in the Caribbean and the United States. I'm married to someone who spent most of her childhood in the East Midlands. I've lived in SE London for the last decade and a half. My accent is a fucking car crash.
I sympathise. My parents were Welsh and my father was in the oil industry. We moved around quite a bit - Gloucester, Leeds, Bristol, Horsham, the US, France and the Middle East. I picked up accents and dialects as if they were going out of fashion. Nobody can place my accent now. They lean in to listen and usually say "I'm trying to place where you're from..."
As an aside, I ended up at uni in St Andrews for my undergraduate degree. After graduation I ran some restaurants and hotels in and around Fife for a few years before returning to academia. Naturally, when you pick up accents quickly you... have a habit of slipping back into them when meeting somebody from that place. Always a bit awkward if you're front of house and the guest thinks you're patronising them...
Ha, I grew up in St Andrews and worked in a restaurant there, I bet we know people in common. I have exactly that problem, my wife always knows when I'm on the phone to a Scottish call centre... When I meet English people they always say "you don't sound very Scottish" whereas Scots ask where in Scotland I'm from, because I sound 5x more Scottish talking to the latter. On work calls I'm RP. I talk to a northerner, the Newcastle comes out. In the states I find myself going a bit transatlantic. In the Caribbean I'm slightly Bajan. Out and about in SE14 I'm a bit south London. No doubt this points to some kind of fakeness or insecurity on my part but I do it completely subconsciously. I'm jealous of people with completely immutable accents.
It was a standing joke in our house that we could always tell who my late mother was on the phone to because she started to sound like them and would even start using their phrases. It was entirely unconscious on her part. My brother inherited this gift to some extent which made fitting into new schools easier but I never mastered it.
I don't know if it's a gift or not. I worry that it makes me seem shifty or insubstantial. Is your brother younger? I think it's a bit of a youngest child trait, always trying to fit in and be liked. My older brother never tried to fit in anywhere and I spent most of my childhood watching him getting bullied (1980s Newcastle was not a friendly place for nonconformists).
He was younger (now deceased, sadly) and always a lot more anxious to fit in. Its possible the 2 were linked but I am not certain.
One of the "joys" of doing trials is that quite a lot of evidence is taken on commission before the event. When I have done the commission and hear my own voice I am often startled in that I don't sound like what I think I sound like. Its odd.
That last part may be more to do with the hearing mechanism. You're used to hearing yourself through sound to your ear, but also by bone conduction to the inner ear from the throat direct. On a tape recording, only the former is recorded, so one sounds different anyway never mind to whom one is speaking.
The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Yes. It is. But we have some time to build a very large number of wind turbines, solar panels, tidal barrages, small nukes, etc. Even if you only sold battery electric vehicles from today it would take a couple of decades for most of the ICE vehicles to fall out of use.
California is regularly generating over 100% of electricity demand from renewables now. The missing piece of the puzzle is storage, and more EVs actually help with that.
"534 migrants in 10 boats crossed the Channel yesterday – the highest daily figure this year. It brings the total for 2024 to 6,265 people – that’s an increase of 28% on the same period last year."
He's failed at this one solitary task, stop people entering the UK illegally by boat. Thousands come, and the numbers increase, and Britain looks on, impotently. Soon, however, this will be Starmer's thorny problem
The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Yes. It is. But we have some time to build a very large number of wind turbines, solar panels, tidal barrages, small nukes, etc. Even if you only sold battery electric vehicles from today it would take a couple of decades for most of the ICE vehicles to fall out of use.
California is regularly generating over 100% of electricity demand from renewables now. The missing piece of the puzzle is storage, and more EVs actually help with that.
The Irish grid is in a weird place. It seems like it is windy enough today that they could satisfy nearly 100% of demand with wind energy, but they're forgoing about a GW to run gas power plants instead. I assume this is because they don't have any other way to maintain grid frequency but it's a massive waste.
The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Yes. It is. But we have some time to build a very large number of wind turbines, solar panels, tidal barrages, small nukes, etc. Even if you only sold battery electric vehicles from today it would take a couple of decades for most of the ICE vehicles to fall out of use.
It's not just the turbines though, it is the infrastructure. This is an essential change but it is not going to be cheap.
(Of course a nuclear war might buy some more time).
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Yes. It is. But we have some time to build a very large number of wind turbines, solar panels, tidal barrages, small nukes, etc. Even if you only sold battery electric vehicles from today it would take a couple of decades for most of the ICE vehicles to fall out of use.
California is regularly generating over 100% of electricity demand from renewables now. The missing piece of the puzzle is storage, and more EVs actually help with that.
The Irish grid is in a weird place. It seems like it is windy enough today that they could satisfy nearly 100% of demand with wind energy, but they're forgoing about a GW to run gas power plants instead. I assume this is because they don't have any other way to maintain grid frequency but it's a massive waste.
I said the other day that the $20bn we're planning to spend on "blue hydrogen"/CCS would be better invested in a better grid. Same goes for the whole of Europe.
(Though there's a decent case to spend something to subsidise the development of industrial hydrogen.)
When I was a child Derek Underwood was one of the biggest names in cricket. In 86 tests he took 297 wickets.
Jimmy Anderson is currently on 682. Truly giants walk amongst us.
Jimmy is fairly freakish in his playing longevity as a fast(ish) bowler, added to the increase in test matches played each year by England. I doubt any other non-spinner will ever get close to his mark. Not with the mad desire for more and more fast food cricket (T20, the hundred).
"WSJ report: American and Western officials estimate - Israel will respond today to the Iranian attack"
But, it won't be huge
"CNN report from an Israeli source: Israel is considering hitting a facility in Iran in response to the attack on Saturday night, but not to lead to harm to human life in order to avoid expanding the conflict""
To be more *optimistic* it's actually quite hard to see how a large Middle East war would jump to a total world war (bear with me, I'm being cheerful). It's not in the interests of any of the major players - USA, Russia, China - to let that happen, as we all die. So if it does kick off it will be really shit for people in the Mid East, and calamitous for the world economy, but it might not be the death of humanity
There. That's my positive spin
Ok but theres also the russia ukraine situation. How long does the west sit back if Russia takes say Kharkiv and Odessa. The Russians are by all accounts making kharkiv uninhabitable now and ukrainians are fleeing.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
"...and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine."
Yeah, because Russia have been holding back. It's just making Russia's excuses for it.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
Politico has finally updated its poll of polls. It gives labour 44, cons 22, reform 13, libdems 9, and the greens 6.
Plot that into electoral calculus and labour have 482 seats, conservatives 71, lib dems 45 and Reform zero.
The numbers keep being insane. It would be astounding if this becomes parliamentary reality. Alas for the tories, I think it can get worse yet if they keep delaying the GE. Much worse. The electorate will punish them for hanging on like that.
"534 migrants in 10 boats crossed the Channel yesterday – the highest daily figure this year. It brings the total for 2024 to 6,265 people – that’s an increase of 28% on the same period last year."
He's failed at this one solitary task, stop people entering the UK illegally by boat. Thousands come, and the numbers increase, and Britain looks on, impotently. Soon, however, this will be Starmer's thorny problem
The thing is that the failure was so completely and utterly inevitable. Any politician with a soupcon of nous would have chosen almost any other target on which to be judged by.
I am somewhat prone to regard the membership of the Conservative party, who chose Truss (!!) instead of Sunak (or indeed the membership of the Labour party who chose Corbyn twice) as somewhat unbalanced and frankly an unsuitable electorate but just maybe they saw something that worried them. They're certainly worried now.
"534 migrants in 10 boats crossed the Channel yesterday – the highest daily figure this year. It brings the total for 2024 to 6,265 people – that’s an increase of 28% on the same period last year."
He's failed at this one solitary task, stop people entering the UK illegally by boat. Thousands come, and the numbers increase, and Britain looks on, impotently. Soon, however, this will be Starmer's thorny problem
It will be interesting to see how Finland plans to deal with maritime incursions along its SE coastline.
"WSJ report: American and Western officials estimate - Israel will respond today to the Iranian attack"
But, it won't be huge
"CNN report from an Israeli source: Israel is considering hitting a facility in Iran in response to the attack on Saturday night, but not to lead to harm to human life in order to avoid expanding the conflict""
The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Yes. It is. But we have some time to build a very large number of wind turbines, solar panels, tidal barrages, small nukes, etc. Even if you only sold battery electric vehicles from today it would take a couple of decades for most of the ICE vehicles to fall out of use.
California is regularly generating over 100% of electricity demand from renewables now. The missing piece of the puzzle is storage, and more EVs actually help with that.
The Irish grid is in a weird place. It seems like it is windy enough today that they could satisfy nearly 100% of demand with wind energy, but they're forgoing about a GW to run gas power plants instead. I assume this is because they don't have any other way to maintain grid frequency but it's a massive waste.
I said the other day that the $20bn we're planning to spend on "blue hydrogen"/CCS would be better invested in a better grid. Same goes for the whole of Europe.
(Though there's a decent case to spend something to subsidise the development of industrial hydrogen.)
Britain has been talking about spending a heap of money on CCS for ages, but I don't think it has yet happened. I'm not sure HMG wants to replace talking about spending money with actually spending money.
"WSJ report: American and Western officials estimate - Israel will respond today to the Iranian attack"
But, it won't be huge
"CNN report from an Israeli source: Israel is considering hitting a facility in Iran in response to the attack on Saturday night, but not to lead to harm to human life in order to avoid expanding the conflict""
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
"534 migrants in 10 boats crossed the Channel yesterday – the highest daily figure this year. It brings the total for 2024 to 6,265 people – that’s an increase of 28% on the same period last year."
He's failed at this one solitary task, stop people entering the UK illegally by boat. Thousands come, and the numbers increase, and Britain looks on, impotently. Soon, however, this will be Starmer's thorny problem
It will be interesting to see how Finland plans to deal with maritime incursions along its SE coastline.
Some Chabad members in the Israeli armed forces are wearing shoulder patches and fixing flags to their tanks to show their affiliation...and one interesting thing is that the symbol they're using is a crown.
See the "King's Torah" which is an influential document among the most violent of the "settlers" on the West Bank:
"The king’s hand takes on the form of the letters he is inscribing onto an ethereal scroll. The parchment appears to be flying into an enchanting jeweled forest."
"534 migrants in 10 boats crossed the Channel yesterday – the highest daily figure this year. It brings the total for 2024 to 6,265 people – that’s an increase of 28% on the same period last year."
He's failed at this one solitary task, stop people entering the UK illegally by boat. Thousands come, and the numbers increase, and Britain looks on, impotently. Soon, however, this will be Starmer's thorny problem
The thing is that the failure was so completely and utterly inevitable. Any politician with a soupcon of nous would have chosen almost any other target on which to be judged by.
I am somewhat prone to regard the membership of the Conservative party, who chose Truss (!!) instead of Sunak (or indeed the membership of the Labour party who chose Corbyn twice) as somewhat unbalanced and frankly an unsuitable electorate but just maybe they saw something that worried them. They're certainly worried now.
I loathe Labour but I am probably gonna vote for Starmer simply because the Tories deserve to be extinguished for this failure on boats, and their TOTAL failure on overall immigration. They promised "tens of thousands" - and they promised that over and over again. They promised a tight "Australian style points system", and yet they can't even expel foreign sex criminals because their human rights might be all hurt. They promised to get a grip on the borders and Free Movement, one of the central planks of Brexit, and instead we've had 1.4 MILLION migrants in two years, by far the highest number in the history of the UK
It is a total, shambolic, catastrophic failure for which they must never be forgiven. They need to go down to three and a half MPs and be replaced with an actual rightwing party that actually has a backbone and a functioning brain
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
To be more *optimistic* it's actually quite hard to see how a large Middle East war would jump to a total world war (bear with me, I'm being cheerful). It's not in the interests of any of the major players - USA, Russia, China - to let that happen, as we all die. So if it does kick off it will be really shit for people in the Mid East, and calamitous for the world economy, but it might not be the death of humanity
There. That's my positive spin
Ok but theres also the russia ukraine situation. How long does the west sit back if Russia takes say Kharkiv and Odessa. The Russians are by all accounts making kharkiv uninhabitable now and ukrainians are fleeing.
Dnipro is key and not just because it was Helena Blavatsky's birthplace. The place has attracted other magic. And maniacs.
Some Chabad members in the Israeli armed forces are wearing shoulder patches and fixing flags to their tanks to show their affiliation...and one interesting thing is that the symbol they're using is a crown.
See the "King's Torah" which is an influential document among the most violent of the "settlers" on the West Bank:
"The king’s hand takes on the form of the letters he is inscribing onto an ethereal scroll. The parchment appears to be flying into an enchanting jeweled forest."
Why do Americans give you a pot of (not very) hot water and a teabag when you request a cup of tea? Do they imagine that putting the tea in the water would be an inpolite reminder of the Boston Tea Party?
The other day I met someone who (“occasionally”) microwaves his tea
The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Yes. It is. But we have some time to build a very large number of wind turbines, solar panels, tidal barrages, small nukes, etc. Even if you only sold battery electric vehicles from today it would take a couple of decades for most of the ICE vehicles to fall out of use.
California is regularly generating over 100% of electricity demand from renewables now. The missing piece of the puzzle is storage, and more EVs actually help with that.
The Irish grid is in a weird place. It seems like it is windy enough today that they could satisfy nearly 100% of demand with wind energy, but they're forgoing about a GW to run gas power plants instead. I assume this is because they don't have any other way to maintain grid frequency but it's a massive waste.
Something like 20% of all Irelands electricity goes to power data centres and its growing at a ridiculous rate,
"534 migrants in 10 boats crossed the Channel yesterday – the highest daily figure this year. It brings the total for 2024 to 6,265 people – that’s an increase of 28% on the same period last year."
He's failed at this one solitary task, stop people entering the UK illegally by boat. Thousands come, and the numbers increase, and Britain looks on, impotently. Soon, however, this will be Starmer's thorny problem
Not quite such a big problem for Starmer, though, since he's unlikely to portray 'small boats' as the defining issue of his premiership.
"WSJ report: American and Western officials estimate - Israel will respond today to the Iranian attack"
But, it won't be huge
"CNN report from an Israeli source: Israel is considering hitting a facility in Iran in response to the attack on Saturday night, but not to lead to harm to human life in order to avoid expanding the conflict""
Israel should take out the drone factory in Iran. Lesson to Iran and help for Ukraine.
I reckon it will, indeed, be something like that. A "surgical" strike against an Iranian military facility - or several of them. And quite possibly that drone factory, as you say
They need to minimise the civilian deaths or they will squander the new goodwill they have accrued from the West
The clear risk is that the "surgical" strike is anything but, and they kill hundreds or thousands
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
It's not hopeless at all - that would be the state of Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
Europe and the US can make the choice to supply Ukraine with more weaponry. I hope they do so.
"534 migrants in 10 boats crossed the Channel yesterday – the highest daily figure this year. It brings the total for 2024 to 6,265 people – that’s an increase of 28% on the same period last year."
He's failed at this one solitary task, stop people entering the UK illegally by boat. Thousands come, and the numbers increase, and Britain looks on, impotently. Soon, however, this will be Starmer's thorny problem
Not quite such a big problem for Starmer, though, since he's unlikely to portray 'small boats' as the defining issue of his premiership.
""It is clear from Dr Cass's report that these basic safeguards for our children and young people have been overlooked in the field of gender medicine, and that this has disproportionately affected some of the most vulnerable children and young people in our society."
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
At this point, the ball is with Congress. But I agree that the US has been way too slow to supply arms for the defence of Ukraine.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Yes. It is. But we have some time to build a very large number of wind turbines, solar panels, tidal barrages, small nukes, etc. Even if you only sold battery electric vehicles from today it would take a couple of decades for most of the ICE vehicles to fall out of use.
California is regularly generating over 100% of electricity demand from renewables now. The missing piece of the puzzle is storage, and more EVs actually help with that.
The Irish grid is in a weird place. It seems like it is windy enough today that they could satisfy nearly 100% of demand with wind energy, but they're forgoing about a GW to run gas power plants instead. I assume this is because they don't have any other way to maintain grid frequency but it's a massive waste.
Something like 20% of all Irelands electricity goes to power data centres and its growing at a ridiculous rate,
Most of Europe doesn't have that surge capacity. AI compute is nearer 50% per annum.
This site (https://grid.iamkate.com/) has fossil fuels at 2.6% atm. That's the lowest I've ever seen it. I'm not sure whether it's practically possible to drive it any lower.
OK, today is pretty much perfect of renewable generation. But taken over the last year, we've got more electricity from renewables than from fossil fuels;
Some Chabad members in the Israeli armed forces are wearing shoulder patches and fixing flags to their tanks to show their affiliation...and one interesting thing is that the symbol they're using is a crown.
See the "King's Torah" which is an influential document among the most violent of the "settlers" on the West Bank:
"The king’s hand takes on the form of the letters he is inscribing onto an ethereal scroll. The parchment appears to be flying into an enchanting jeweled forest."
"WSJ report: American and Western officials estimate - Israel will respond today to the Iranian attack"
But, it won't be huge
"CNN report from an Israeli source: Israel is considering hitting a facility in Iran in response to the attack on Saturday night, but not to lead to harm to human life in order to avoid expanding the conflict""
When I was a child Derek Underwood was one of the biggest names in cricket. In 86 tests he took 297 wickets.
Jimmy Anderson is currently on 682. Truly giants walk amongst us.
How much of that is due to the fact that so much more cricket is played now? During some winters, hardly any international cricket was played in Underwood's day.
I've got a bottle of bespoke pomegranate vinegar given to me by the pomegranate grower (and famous Pinot Noir winemaker) on his Mornington Peninsula vineyard in Victoria Australia just before we got on his private plane to go visit his inland vineyard and have a picnic
Here's a photo of the picnic
I win! I'm the poshest
I once went shooting with a European parliamentarian. The mid morning snifter was champagne and oysters, served by staff in tailcoats and white gloves. In the middle of an ancient forest miles from civilisation…
But no photos. Was important that there was no evidence that meeting ever happened.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Ban incoming.......
Why should that be bannable? Unless it is a blatant lie. But is it? I have heard the Russians now have a massive artillery advantage (but I dont know if it as big as 10 to 1)
Someone pointing this out - if it is true - is benefiting the site by giving us accurate information
And maybe this person genuinely believes it is a hopeless cause for the Ukrainians?
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
At this point, the ball is with Congress. But I agree that the US has been way too slow to supply arms for the defence of Ukraine.
Why is the US getting all the shit? They did a lot more than the UK or anyone else for that matter.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Yes. It is. But we have some time to build a very large number of wind turbines, solar panels, tidal barrages, small nukes, etc. Even if you only sold battery electric vehicles from today it would take a couple of decades for most of the ICE vehicles to fall out of use.
California is regularly generating over 100% of electricity demand from renewables now. The missing piece of the puzzle is storage, and more EVs actually help with that.
The missing piece of that puzzle is that the average Usonian uses 2.5x as much electricity per head as the more efficient European countries, so they have most likely built far more renewable power generation than they actually need.
Especially as the penetration of electric transport in the USA is many years behind this side of the pond.
This site (https://grid.iamkate.com/) has fossil fuels at 2.6% atm. That's the lowest I've ever seen it. I'm not sure whether it's practically possible to drive it any lower.
OK, today is pretty much perfect of renewable generation. But taken over the last year, we've got more electricity from renewables than from fossil fuels;
The current stats are the lowest I've ever seen for fossil fuel generation. The app I look at it showing 0.7gw of gas and 0.2 of coal, and that's it. Plus 27.2gw of renewables.
We need much more renewable generation but we also need much more interconnectors (domestic and cross border), more smart use of grid resources during low and high demand periods, and more storage.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Ban incoming.......
It was in the Washington Post that notorious pro Russia rag.
In just a few weeks, Russia will be ahead of Ukraine in artillery 10 to 1
According to the commander of NATO forces in Europe, Christopher Cavoli, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will soon run out of shells and air defense systems, writes The Washington Post.
“The side that cannot fire back will lose,” he clarified.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
That reminds me, another hole in the Kerch Bridge does seem overdue.
The problem is that ICEs produce something like 3x the energy of the national grid. If we are going to largely move to electric vehicles the capacity of the grid is going to have to be more than doubled.
Are you sure?
I did a quick'n'dirty check because I wondered if that was really it.
# of cars on the road in UK = 33.5 million Average mileage of cars in UK = 7000 per year. This gives an average distance per day per car of 19.2 miles; at about 3 miles per kWh gives an average of 6.4 kWh per car per day in the UK.
Looking at fuel consumed by type of vehicle (an imperfect proxy for the amount of electricity needed), we have 23 million tonnes per year by cars and a total of 12.5 million tonnes per year for LGVs plus HGVs, so call it 1.6x the amount of energy needed by cars for all ICE vehicles.
6.4 kWh x 33,500,000 cars x 1.6 = 342.7 GWh per day needed. Call it 350GWh; more than that is very false precision.
This comes out at 350GWh*365 = 127.8 TWh per year. Current electricity consumption as at 2023 in UK = 266 TWh per year. Rather than tripling, it looks like we'd need about 50% more (rather than 200% more).
Also, peak electricty consumption was in 2005 = 357 TWh per year (so the grid could cope with that), which is three-quarters of the difference between last year's consumption and the needed consumption if everything switched overnight.
Of course, this is very quick and dirty - did I miss something obvious (always very possible)? Or possibly I pulled the wrong data in a hurry.
I've got a bottle of bespoke pomegranate vinegar given to me by the pomegranate grower (and famous Pinot Noir winemaker) on his Mornington Peninsula vineyard in Victoria Australia just before we got on his private plane to go visit his inland vineyard and have a picnic
Here's a photo of the picnic
I win! I'm the poshest
I once went shooting with a European parliamentarian. The mid morning snifter was champagne and oysters, served by staff in tailcoats and white gloves. In the middle of an ancient forest miles from civilisation…
But no photos. Was important that there was no evidence that meeting ever happened.
Understandable that you insisted on that. Imagine the damage to your reputation if any pictures had come out
When I was a child Derek Underwood was one of the biggest names in cricket. In 86 tests he took 297 wickets.
Jimmy Anderson is currently on 682. Truly giants walk amongst us.
How much of that is due to the fact that so much more cricket is played now? During some winters, hardly any international cricket was played in Underwood's day.
Well, there's three factors at play:
(1) Derek Underwood went off and played World Series cricket and also joined the South African rebel tour. He therefore played about two dozen tests less than he might otherwise have done.
(2) Jimmy Anderson has had an extraordinary long lived career. His first test was almost exactly 21 years ago, and he's still playing and still taking wickets.
and yes:
(3) More test cricket is played today than it used to be.
Against that: look at the four highest wicket takers of all time - Warne, Muralidaran, Anderson and Kumble. Three spinners (who tend to bowl more overs per match than their quicker colleagues) and Jimmy Anderson. It's also amazing to think that at number five is Stuart Broad.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
77% of Russia's total artillery have been taken out already. So Ukraine now taking out 40 or 50 artillery pieces a day is equivalent to them taking out 160 or 200 a day at the start of the 3 day Special Military Operation.
And Russia has lost so many of its APC's, it now has to resort to sending its meatwaves to the front in golf buggies. Russia is taking small villages and fields and treelines - but at a massive and unsustainable cost. Their recent failed attempt to take the White Mountain resulted in 97% of their troops being killed.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
At this point, the ball is with Congress. But I agree that the US has been way too slow to supply arms for the defence of Ukraine.
Why is the US getting all the shit? They did a lot more than the UK or anyone else for that matter.
Because the taps have been off for nearly six months, which has left Ukraine very much in the lurch.
Total European aid overtook US aid a while back. But Europe simply doesn't have the stocks of ammunition or arms that the US does.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Firstly, you need to define 'win' for both sides. Secondly, you need to consider how wars have ended in the past: and the changes can be very rapid; look at the western front in WW1 as an example.
But that all requires intelligence a troll doesn't possess...
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
At this point, the ball is with Congress. But I agree that the US has been way too slow to supply arms for the defence of Ukraine.
Why is the US getting all the shit? They did a lot more than the UK or anyone else for that matter.
Politics. A deadlocked Congress, in an election year, trying to play games and blame the other side.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Put simply: Russia has no money, or stuff. Ukraine has no money or stuff either, but has friends that do have money and stuff. It just needs its friends to supply it. I'm reasonably optimistic about them doing so.
Some Chabad members in the Israeli armed forces are wearing shoulder patches and fixing flags to their tanks to show their affiliation...and one interesting thing is that the symbol they're using is a crown.
See the "King's Torah" which is an influential document among the most violent of the "settlers" on the West Bank:
"The king’s hand takes on the form of the letters he is inscribing onto an ethereal scroll. The parchment appears to be flying into an enchanting jeweled forest."
This site (https://grid.iamkate.com/) has fossil fuels at 2.6% atm. That's the lowest I've ever seen it. I'm not sure whether it's practically possible to drive it any lower.
OK, today is pretty much perfect of renewable generation. But taken over the last year, we've got more electricity from renewables than from fossil fuels;
The current stats are the lowest I've ever seen for fossil fuel generation. The app I look at it showing 0.7gw of gas and 0.2 of coal, and that's it. Plus 27.2gw of renewables.
We need much more renewable generation but we also need much more interconnectors (domestic and cross border), more smart use of grid resources during low and high demand periods, and more storage.
All true. And there is more we can do to not use energy in silly shoddy ways. But I'm a physicist, and the numbers now line up within an order of magnitude- even when you consider the need to electrify transport. That's not "job done", but it is "job doable".
Plus the great geopolitical reward of not having to take cowboy nations seriously because they happen to be sitting on a pile of fossil fuels. Won't that be glorious?
"WSJ report: American and Western officials estimate - Israel will respond today to the Iranian attack"
But, it won't be huge
"CNN report from an Israeli source: Israel is considering hitting a facility in Iran in response to the attack on Saturday night, but not to lead to harm to human life in order to avoid expanding the conflict""
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Firstly, you need to define 'win' for both sides. Secondly, you need to consider how wars have ended in the past: and the changes can be very rapid; look at the western front in WW1 as an example.
But that all requires intelligence a troll doesn't possess...
Yeah i saw that yesterday. I didnt find his arguments convincing. Ultimately its down to manpower. In WW1 lines were static so it came down to who has more men which the allies did. Germany population was 67 million at start of WW1 and they held the lines 4 years before collapse. But ukraine only has 39 million population much less than Russia with many having fled which means its unlikely the lines will hold much longer than 2 and a half years.
This site (https://grid.iamkate.com/) has fossil fuels at 2.6% atm. That's the lowest I've ever seen it. I'm not sure whether it's practically possible to drive it any lower.
OK, today is pretty much perfect of renewable generation. But taken over the last year, we've got more electricity from renewables than from fossil fuels;
The current stats are the lowest I've ever seen for fossil fuel generation. The app I look at it showing 0.7gw of gas and 0.2 of coal, and that's it. Plus 27.2gw of renewables.
We need much more renewable generation but we also need much more interconnectors (domestic and cross border), more smart use of grid resources during low and high demand periods, and more storage.
All true. And there is more we can do to not use energy in silly shoddy ways. But I'm a physicist, and the numbers now line up within an order of magnitude- even when you consider the need to electrify transport. That's not "job done", but it is "job doable".
Plus the great geopolitical reward of not having to take cowboy nations seriously because they happen to be sitting on a pile of fossil fuels. Won't that be glorious?
Oh, it's extraordinary the progress that has been made in the last twenty years.
We are dramatically less dependent on imports of energy for electricity generation (coal and natural gas) than ever before, we've substantial reduced emissions, and we've made an incredible start at the electrification (which will be powered by clean energy) of transportation.
If we could just remove our heads from the culture wars and obsessing about net zero, we could realize just what extraordinary progress we've made, and what we're on course to achieve.
This site (https://grid.iamkate.com/) has fossil fuels at 2.6% atm. That's the lowest I've ever seen it. I'm not sure whether it's practically possible to drive it any lower.
OK, today is pretty much perfect of renewable generation. But taken over the last year, we've got more electricity from renewables than from fossil fuels;
The current stats are the lowest I've ever seen for fossil fuel generation. The app I look at it showing 0.7gw of gas and 0.2 of coal, and that's it. Plus 27.2gw of renewables.
We need much more renewable generation but we also need much more interconnectors (domestic and cross border), more smart use of grid resources during low and high demand periods, and more storage.
All true. And there is more we can do to not use energy in silly shoddy ways. But I'm a physicist, and the numbers now line up within an order of magnitude- even when you consider the need to electrify transport. That's not "job done", but it is "job doable".
Plus the great geopolitical reward of not having to take cowboy nations seriously because they happen to be sitting on a pile of fossil fuels. Won't that be glorious?
I think that geopolitical aim is reachable in a decade or two. When it happens, rather like the demographic crisis, it'll take people by surprise despite the trends being there to extrapolate all along.
I've got a bottle of bespoke pomegranate vinegar given to me by the pomegranate grower (and famous Pinot Noir winemaker) on his Mornington Peninsula vineyard in Victoria Australia just before we got on his private plane to go visit his inland vineyard and have a picnic
Here's a photo of the picnic
I win! I'm the poshest
I once went shooting with a European parliamentarian. The mid morning snifter was champagne and oysters, served by staff in tailcoats and white gloves. In the middle of an ancient forest miles from civilisation…
But no photos. Was important that there was no evidence that meeting ever happened.
I've heard those stories about Glenys Kinnock. Always discounted them.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Firstly, you need to define 'win' for both sides. Secondly, you need to consider how wars have ended in the past: and the changes can be very rapid; look at the western front in WW1 as an example.
But that all requires intelligence a troll doesn't possess...
Yeah i saw that yesterday. I didnt find his arguments convincing. Ultimately its down to manpower. In WW1 lines were static so it came down to who has more men which the allies did. Germany population was 67 million at start of WW1 and they held the lines 4 years before collapse. But ukraine only has 39 million population much less than Russia with many having fled which means its unlikely the lines will hold much longer than 2 and a half years.
I'm not sure that argument holds up that well, because Russia doesn't have that many young people either.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Get arms supplies; blow the crap out of Russian forces.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
At this point, the ball is with Congress. But I agree that the US has been way too slow to supply arms for the defence of Ukraine.
Why is the US getting all the shit? They did a lot more than the UK or anyone else for that matter.
Politics. A deadlocked Congress, in an election year, trying to play games and blame the other side.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Firstly, you need to define 'win' for both sides. Secondly, you need to consider how wars have ended in the past: and the changes can be very rapid; look at the western front in WW1 as an example.
But that all requires intelligence a troll doesn't possess...
Yeah i saw that yesterday. I didnt find his arguments convincing. Ultimately its down to manpower. In WW1 lines were static so it came down to who has more men which the allies did. Germany population was 67 million at start of WW1 and they held the lines 4 years before collapse. But ukraine only has 39 million population much less than Russia with many having fled which means its unlikely the lines will hold much longer than 2 and a half years.
I'm not sure that argument holds up that well, because Russia doesn't have that many young people either.
Well the good thing is ultimately in time we will see who was right. Thats the thing abou wars they are like real time experiments to test hypotheses.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Firstly, you need to define 'win' for both sides. Secondly, you need to consider how wars have ended in the past: and the changes can be very rapid; look at the western front in WW1 as an example.
But that all requires intelligence a troll doesn't possess...
Yeah i saw that yesterday. I didnt find his arguments convincing. Ultimately its down to manpower. In WW1 lines were static so it came down to who has more men which the allies did. Germany population was 67 million at start of WW1 and they held the lines 4 years before collapse. But ukraine only has 39 million population much less than Russia with many having fled which means its unlikely the lines will hold much longer than 2 and a half years.
I'm not sure that argument holds up that well, because Russia doesn't have that many young people either.
Well the good thing is ultimately in time we will see who was right. Thats the thing abou wars they are like real time experiments to test hypotheses.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Firstly, you need to define 'win' for both sides. Secondly, you need to consider how wars have ended in the past: and the changes can be very rapid; look at the western front in WW1 as an example.
But that all requires intelligence a troll doesn't possess...
Yeah i saw that yesterday. I didnt find his arguments convincing. Ultimately its down to manpower. In WW1 lines were static so it came down to who has more men which the allies did. Germany population was 67 million at start of WW1 and they held the lines 4 years before collapse. But ukraine only has 39 million population much less than Russia with many having fled which means its unlikely the lines will hold much longer than 2 and a half years.
I'm not sure that argument holds up that well, because Russia doesn't have that many young people either.
Well the good thing is ultimately in time we will see who was right. Thats the thing abou wars they are like real time experiments to test hypotheses.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Firstly, you need to define 'win' for both sides. Secondly, you need to consider how wars have ended in the past: and the changes can be very rapid; look at the western front in WW1 as an example.
But that all requires intelligence a troll doesn't possess...
Yeah i saw that yesterday. I didnt find his arguments convincing. Ultimately its down to manpower. In WW1 lines were static so it came down to who has more men which the allies did. Germany population was 67 million at start of WW1 and they held the lines 4 years before collapse. But ukraine only has 39 million population much less than Russia with many having fled which means its unlikely the lines will hold much longer than 2 and a half years.
I'm not sure that argument holds up that well, because Russia doesn't have that many young people either.
Well the good thing is ultimately in time we will see who was right. Thats the thing abou wars they are like real time experiments to test hypotheses.
And, by the way, remember that the invasion is usually the easy bit. It's occupation that usually kills you.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Firstly, you need to define 'win' for both sides. Secondly, you need to consider how wars have ended in the past: and the changes can be very rapid; look at the western front in WW1 as an example.
But that all requires intelligence a troll doesn't possess...
Yeah i saw that yesterday. I didnt find his arguments convincing. Ultimately its down to manpower. In WW1 lines were static so it came down to who has more men which the allies did. Germany population was 67 million at start of WW1 and they held the lines 4 years before collapse. But ukraine only has 39 million population much less than Russia with many having fled which means its unlikely the lines will hold much longer than 2 and a half years.
Better get started on calling up those unwilling Muscovites then, the sons of the elites, rather than just the ‘deplorables’ of the Far East.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Firstly, you need to define 'win' for both sides. Secondly, you need to consider how wars have ended in the past: and the changes can be very rapid; look at the western front in WW1 as an example.
But that all requires intelligence a troll doesn't possess...
Yeah i saw that yesterday. I didnt find his arguments convincing. Ultimately its down to manpower. In WW1 lines were static so it came down to who has more men which the allies did. Germany population was 67 million at start of WW1 and they held the lines 4 years before collapse. But ukraine only has 39 million population much less than Russia with many having fled which means its unlikely the lines will hold much longer than 2 and a half years.
It'd be good if you could answer the first question: too many people talk about 'winning' without defining what they mean.
Your comment also ignores Ludendorff's Paris offensive in sprint 1918, when the Germans came very near potentially winning the war. But for other examples: the Russian adventure in Afghanistan.
When I was a child Derek Underwood was one of the biggest names in cricket. In 86 tests he took 297 wickets.
Jimmy Anderson is currently on 682. Truly giants walk amongst us.
How much of that is due to the fact that so much more cricket is played now? During some winters, hardly any international cricket was played in Underwood's day.
A good point, but if you scale up Underwood's number of Tests to Anderson's (which assumes Underwood's strike rate wouldn't have changed over time and he'd managed to play as many Tests without issues), Anderson's still ahead.
Underwood had 297 wickets in 86 Tests Anderson has 700 wickets in 187 Tests (2.174 times as many Tests). Scale up Underwood's 297 wickets by a factor of 2.174 and he'd have got 646 wickets - still 54 wickets behind. Closer, but still behind, and it would have needed Underwood to keep his deadliness up unwaveringly for more than twice as long.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Firstly, you need to define 'win' for both sides. Secondly, you need to consider how wars have ended in the past: and the changes can be very rapid; look at the western front in WW1 as an example.
But that all requires intelligence a troll doesn't possess...
Yeah i saw that yesterday. I didnt find his arguments convincing. Ultimately its down to manpower. In WW1 lines were static so it came down to who has more men which the allies did. Germany population was 67 million at start of WW1 and they held the lines 4 years before collapse. But ukraine only has 39 million population much less than Russia with many having fled which means its unlikely the lines will hold much longer than 2 and a half years.
I'm not sure that argument holds up that well, because Russia doesn't have that many young people either.
There are lots of young Russian men. In fact I can see thousands of them from my window, all sitting on the beach in the sandpit.
"WSJ report: American and Western officials estimate - Israel will respond today to the Iranian attack"
But, it won't be huge
"CNN report from an Israeli source: Israel is considering hitting a facility in Iran in response to the attack on Saturday night, but not to lead to harm to human life in order to avoid expanding the conflict""
To be more *optimistic* it's actually quite hard to see how a large Middle East war would jump to a total world war (bear with me, I'm being cheerful). It's not in the interests of any of the major players - USA, Russia, China - to let that happen, as we all die. So if it does kick off it will be really shit for people in the Mid East, and calamitous for the world economy, but it might not be the death of humanity
There. That's my positive spin
The only way WWIII happens in the ME is if the USA and Russia become entangled. Probably on either side of the Iran matter. And even then they have convenient proxies lined up in Iran and Israel to give some breathing space.
At this stage, both are showing little willingness to entangle themselves. Russia have enough on their plate with Ukraine, and the US have made it clear they’re staying out of Iran.
We are at a scary stage for the region, certainly. We are not at a scary stage for the world. Yet.
"WSJ report: American and Western officials estimate - Israel will respond today to the Iranian attack"
But, it won't be huge
"CNN report from an Israeli source: Israel is considering hitting a facility in Iran in response to the attack on Saturday night, but not to lead to harm to human life in order to avoid expanding the conflict""
Israel should take out the drone factory in Iran. Lesson to Iran and help for Ukraine.
Expect blowback from Russia in the Golan Heights if they try it.
Typewritten update flashes across the screen...
I was making the point that a shift of Israeli strategic orientation towards the war between Russia and Ukraine doesn't just happen at the drop of a hat and without consequences because some guy on the internet wants Israel to teach naughty Iran a lesson and whack Putin over his head at the same time. You know Israel hasn't joined in with sanctions on Russia, right?
Russia has been setting up new observation posts in the Golan recently. But never mind. Post another one-liner to a website and preen.
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
At this point, the ball is with Congress. But I agree that the US has been way too slow to supply arms for the defence of Ukraine.
Why is the US getting all the shit? They did a lot more than the UK or anyone else for that matter.
Politics. A deadlocked Congress, in an election year, trying to play games and blame the other side.
No. This is down to the Republicans.
I blame Biden for not having used all the tools at his disposal and, most of all, for not selling the wisdom of supporting Ukraine.
You cannot support Trump/MAGA/Republicans and Ukraine. The positions are incompatible.
Actually just at the moment I was sending Charles our wedding certificate for 60 years so he and his good lady can sign our congratulatory message in 'genuine blue fountain pen ink'
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Events have shown (the destruction of the Ukrainian power infrastructure) that the second part of that warning wasn't necessarily wrong.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
It's the US's refusal to supply Ukraine with weapons it needs - particularly anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry - that has allowed Russia to do this. They've tried plenty of such attacks in the past.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
Artillery advantage now 10 to 1 in favour of Russia. A hopeless cause now for the Ukrainians sadly.
Is that how things appear from under your bridge? I hope it's not in Orenburg.
Ok so how do you think Ukraine can win from here. I am interested in your views.
Firstly, you need to define 'win' for both sides. Secondly, you need to consider how wars have ended in the past: and the changes can be very rapid; look at the western front in WW1 as an example.
But that all requires intelligence a troll doesn't possess...
Yeah i saw that yesterday. I didnt find his arguments convincing. Ultimately its down to manpower. In WW1 lines were static so it came down to who has more men which the allies did. Germany population was 67 million at start of WW1 and they held the lines 4 years before collapse. But ukraine only has 39 million population much less than Russia with many having fled which means its unlikely the lines will hold much longer than 2 and a half years.
Better get started on calling up those unwilling Muscovites then, the sons of the elites, rather than just the ‘deplorables’ of the Far East.
Кстати, какая погода в Санкт Петерсберг?
Петербург. And в takes the prepositional when it means "in".
Comments
One of the great spinners.
There. That's my positive spin
Also, AIUI Iran has learnt the lesson of the Iraqi reactor strike Israel made decades ago, and many of their nuclear facilities are apparently not easy to hit, with many underground.
It's possible, and makes some sense; but there might be much better targets.
The missing piece of the puzzle is storage, and more EVs actually help with that.
"534 migrants in 10 boats crossed the Channel yesterday – the highest daily figure this year. It brings the total for 2024 to 6,265 people – that’s an increase of 28% on the same period last year."
https://x.com/SimonJonesNews/status/1779806939746062373
He's failed at this one solitary task, stop people entering the UK illegally by boat. Thousands come, and the numbers increase, and Britain looks on, impotently. Soon, however, this will be Starmer's thorny problem
(Of course a nuclear war might buy some more time).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=331WN7ZhJQw
https://x.com/john_hudson/status/1779811520504889477
When Kamala Harris met privately with Volodymyr Zelensky in February, she told him something he didn’t want to hear: Refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries, a tactic U.S. officials believed would raise global energy prices and invite more aggressive Russian retaliation inside Ukraine.
The request irritated Zelensky and his top aides, who view Kyiv’s string of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities as a rare bright spot in a grinding war of attrition. Zelensky brushed off the recommendation, but in subsequent weeks, Washington reinforced the warning in multiple conversations with Kyiv, including by Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Ukraine’s capital in March.
Same goes for the whole of Europe.
(Though there's a decent case to spend something to subsidise the development of industrial hydrogen.)
"WSJ report: American and Western officials estimate - Israel will respond today to the Iranian attack"
But, it won't be huge
"CNN report from an Israeli source: Israel is considering hitting a facility in Iran in response to the attack on Saturday night, but not to lead to harm to human life in order to avoid expanding the conflict""
https://x.com/MOSSADil/status/1779865715278762094
Yeah, because Russia have been holding back. It's just making Russia's excuses for it.
No way of being sure, of course - Russia might well have done so anyway - and IMO Ukraine has every right to target Russian oil assets (as the US administration also acknowledges).
Plot that into electoral calculus and labour have 482 seats, conservatives 71, lib dems 45 and Reform zero.
The numbers keep being insane. It would be astounding if this becomes parliamentary reality. Alas for the tories, I think it can get worse yet if they keep delaying the GE. Much worse. The electorate will punish them for hanging on like that.
I am somewhat prone to regard the membership of the Conservative party, who chose Truss (!!) instead of Sunak (or indeed the membership of the Labour party who chose Corbyn twice) as somewhat unbalanced and frankly an unsuitable electorate but just maybe they saw something that worried them. They're certainly worried now.
But nonetheless unwise to hit back so precipitately, against the public advice of its closest allies.
Edit: it's all about oil for the Americans. If they were truly concerned about Ukraine's power supply, the answer was simple: give them the fucking weapons.
Biden's utterly hopeless.
See the "King's Torah" which is an influential document among the most violent of the "settlers" on the West Bank:
https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/israel-discusses-rabbis-arrest-and-endorsement-of-book-justifying-the-killing-of-non-jews
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Shapira
Kach (see the information in that article about the distribution of the KT) was banned in Israel, but its heirs now sit in important government posts.
Meanwhile, might this painting have been influenced by the artist's consumption of a hallucinogen?
https://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/3423918/jewish/The-Kings-Torah-Scroll.htm
"The king’s hand takes on the form of the letters he is inscribing onto an ethereal scroll. The parchment appears to be flying into an enchanting jeweled forest."
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/apr/15/wrong-couple-divorced-solicitor-clicks-wrong-button
Somewhat surprisingly (but at least with a logical reason of sorts), the judiciary refused to reverse the divorce ...
It is a total, shambolic, catastrophic failure for which they must never be forgiven. They need to go down to three and a half MPs and be replaced with an actual rightwing party that actually has a backbone and a functioning brain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepropetrovsk_maniacs
They need to minimise the civilian deaths or they will squander the new goodwill they have accrued from the West
The clear risk is that the "surgical" strike is anything but, and they kill hundreds or thousands
Europe and the US can make the choice to supply Ukraine with more weaponry. I hope they do so.
But I agree that the US has been way too slow to supply arms for the defence of Ukraine.
AI compute is nearer 50% per annum.
https://grid.iamkate.com/
Dammit, this is doable.
https://twitter.com/LaBoomer68/status/1777828956655292456
But no photos. Was important that there was no evidence that meeting ever happened.
Someone pointing this out - if it is true - is benefiting the site by giving us accurate information
And maybe this person genuinely believes it is a hopeless cause for the Ukrainians?
McGrath; Murali; Warne; Steyn; Ashwin and Cummins have dominated the rankings for the last two decades.
Deadly held the rating for four years on the trot, I think ?
Both great bowlers, though.
Especially as the penetration of electric transport in the USA is many years behind this side of the pond.
We need much more renewable generation but we also need much more interconnectors (domestic and cross border), more smart use of grid resources during low and high demand periods, and more storage.
In just a few weeks, Russia will be ahead of Ukraine in artillery 10 to 1
According to the commander of NATO forces in Europe, Christopher Cavoli, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will soon run out of shells and air defense systems, writes The Washington Post.
“The side that cannot fire back will lose,” he clarified.
I did a quick'n'dirty check because I wondered if that was really it.
# of cars on the road in UK = 33.5 million
Average mileage of cars in UK = 7000 per year.
This gives an average distance per day per car of 19.2 miles; at about 3 miles per kWh gives an average of 6.4 kWh per car per day in the UK.
Looking at fuel consumed by type of vehicle (an imperfect proxy for the amount of electricity needed), we have 23 million tonnes per year by cars and a total of 12.5 million tonnes per year for LGVs plus HGVs, so call it 1.6x the amount of energy needed by cars for all ICE vehicles.
6.4 kWh x 33,500,000 cars x 1.6 = 342.7 GWh per day needed. Call it 350GWh; more than that is very false precision.
This comes out at 350GWh*365 = 127.8 TWh per year.
Current electricity consumption as at 2023 in UK = 266 TWh per year. Rather than tripling, it looks like we'd need about 50% more (rather than 200% more).
Also, peak electricty consumption was in 2005 = 357 TWh per year (so the grid could cope with that), which is three-quarters of the difference between last year's consumption and the needed consumption if everything switched overnight.
Of course, this is very quick and dirty - did I miss something obvious (always very possible)? Or possibly I pulled the wrong data in a hurry.
(1) Derek Underwood went off and played World Series cricket and also joined the South African rebel tour. He therefore played about two dozen tests less than he might otherwise have done.
(2) Jimmy Anderson has had an extraordinary long lived career. His first test was almost exactly 21 years ago, and he's still playing and still taking wickets.
and yes:
(3) More test cricket is played today than it used to be.
Against that: look at the four highest wicket takers of all time - Warne, Muralidaran, Anderson and Kumble. Three spinners (who tend to bowl more overs per match than their quicker colleagues) and Jimmy Anderson. It's also amazing to think that at number five is Stuart Broad.
And Russia has lost so many of its APC's, it now has to resort to sending its meatwaves to the front in golf buggies. Russia is taking small villages and fields and treelines - but at a massive and unsustainable cost. Their recent failed attempt to take the White Mountain resulted in 97% of their troops being killed.
Total European aid overtook US aid a while back. But Europe simply doesn't have the stocks of ammunition or arms that the US does.
A failing which has been regularly remarked.
But that all requires intelligence a troll doesn't possess...
So here's something that might help you:
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2024/04/11/russia-is-sure-to-lose-in-ukraine-reckons-a-chinese-expert-on-russia
Russia has no money, or stuff.
Ukraine has no money or stuff either, but has friends that do have money and stuff.
It just needs its friends to supply it. I'm reasonably optimistic about them doing so.
Plus the great geopolitical reward of not having to take cowboy nations seriously because they happen to be sitting on a pile of fossil fuels. Won't that be glorious?
We are dramatically less dependent on imports of energy for electricity generation (coal and natural gas) than ever before, we've substantial reduced emissions, and we've made an incredible start at the electrification (which will be powered by clean energy) of transportation.
If we could just remove our heads from the culture wars and obsessing about net zero, we could realize just what extraordinary progress we've made, and what we're on course to achieve.
Pity the true believers who invested their nest eggs at £70.
Кстати, какая погода в Санкт Петерсберг?
Your comment also ignores Ludendorff's Paris offensive in sprint 1918, when the Germans came very near potentially winning the war. But for other examples: the Russian adventure in Afghanistan.
When things break, they can break fast/
Underwood had 297 wickets in 86 Tests
Anderson has 700 wickets in 187 Tests (2.174 times as many Tests).
Scale up Underwood's 297 wickets by a factor of 2.174 and he'd have got 646 wickets - still 54 wickets behind.
Closer, but still behind, and it would have needed Underwood to keep his deadliness up unwaveringly for more than twice as long.
At this stage, both are showing little willingness to entangle themselves. Russia have enough on their plate with Ukraine, and the US have made it clear they’re staying out of Iran.
We are at a scary stage for the region, certainly. We are not at a scary stage for the world. Yet.
Russia has been setting up new observation posts in the Golan recently. But never mind. Post another one-liner to a website and preen.
I blame Biden for not having used all the tools at his disposal and, most of all, for not selling the wisdom of supporting Ukraine.
You cannot support Trump/MAGA/Republicans and Ukraine. The positions are incompatible.
Actually just at the moment I was sending Charles our wedding certificate for 60 years so he and his good lady can sign our congratulatory message in 'genuine blue fountain pen ink'
Tempus fugit - life is so precious