It is indeed bleak. On the “upside” the Israelis have made menacing noises like this, before - and done nothing. Hezbollah is a much more potent enemy than Hamas. So maybe it will fizzle out
However it is hard for them to ignore a missile strike like this and if they don’t crush Hezbollah it means northern Israel could become uninhabitable
Isreal is gunning for this. They want it
We are about to find out
“I can't overstate this:
The Middle East is now potentially hours away from the most devastating war in its bloody history.
A Israel-Hezbollah war would likely yield a shocking number of fatalities and destruction.
The US knew this day would come. Our leaders have failed.”
I would have thought so until they managed to turn Gaza into Stalingrad. Two fronts won't end well.
We are learning fast that current technology favours the weaker side disproportionately when they are defending from advances.
We were repeatedly told that there would be hundreds of Israeli dead every week in Gaza.
In reality Israeli casualties have been close to trivial.
Hezbollah would be entirely different. Well armed and well trained and with lots of guns and missiles - and direct help from Iran
The last time Israel tackled Hezbollah it was a bloody score draw. Could be even worse for Israel this time - unless the USA intervenes. And therein is the danger - this turns into a US-Iran war
Israel has never tackled Hezbollah - its always been a low level exchange of missiles.
A proper full scale conventional war is another matter and one which should play to Israeli strengths.
It is indeed bleak. On the “upside” the Israelis have made menacing noises like this, before - and done nothing. Hezbollah is a much more potent enemy than Hamas. So maybe it will fizzle out
However it is hard for them to ignore a missile strike like this and if they don’t crush Hezbollah it means northern Israel could become uninhabitable
The missile strike was not on Israel. The Golan Heights are Syrian.
Nasty people on TwiX are claming that anyone with an IQ under 100 - 50% of the population - cannot understand the concept of “per capita”, no matter how hard they try
If true, this seems to include quite a few major journalists
Covid showed journalists struggled with numbers.
Political journalists certainly do.
A mistake made by the media was to have their political journalists do most of the talking.
The scientific and medical journalists usually had much more worthwhile contributions.
Nasty people on TwiX are claming that anyone with an IQ under 100 - 50% of the population - cannot understand the concept of “per capita”, no matter how hard they try
If true, this seems to include quite a few major journalists
Covid showed journalists struggled with numbers.
It really did - especially the concept of “exponentiality”
This is an ineradicable flaw in democracy. A lot of people are so stupid they really shouldn’t be voting. However, I guess we have the “wisdom of crowds” as a countervailing force. Somehow people en masse are smarter than individuals
It's more than.
Robert Peston wasn't the only one who couldn't understand why if we tested more that confirmed cases would also rise.
Highlight was hin getting schooled not once, but twice by JVT, after dropping his keen amateur science bollocks.
JVT failed to grasp, early on, that masks are quite effective in stopping the spread - they don’t protect the wearer, they protect those around the wearer, and vice versa
A pretty basic logic test. And he flunked
I don’t think any of the boffins in the covid campaign covered themselves with glory, any more than the politicians (with the notable and honourable exception of those involved in the creation, funding and distribution of the vax)
The vice president of Taiwan. And also epidemiologist Michael Mina - but no one in the US government listened to him.
The Tellygraf is reporting that the French train sabotage might have been done by far left radicals and not Putin. Seems unlikely. Tho given the pro-Putin sentiments of some on the French left, maybe they worked TOGETHER
The KGB took a great interest in finding and trying to co-opt any anti-government group (non violent or violent) they could find, during the Cold War.
They weren’t fussy about ideology - funding everyone from Trotskyites, Maoists and even some actual Fascists. And also “peace” movements…
The usual method was to recruit the treasurer. Since most organisations audit for *missing* money, a big cash injection just made people happy. The majority of people in the organisations had no idea they were being infiltrated.
Once the treasurer was owned by the KGB, they would recruit like minded people on th executive. Being the awesome fund raiser made them powerful in these groups…
This is why lots of radical groups collapsed in 1989-90 - in some cases, 90% of their funding vanished overnight.
The Tellygraf is reporting that the French train sabotage might have been done by far left radicals and not Putin. Seems unlikely. Tho given the pro-Putin sentiments of some on the French left, maybe they worked TOGETHER
Russia stopped being far left in 1991. If it was Le Pen'ite far right types then maybe.
I observed yesterday that there was a lot of confirmation bias in yesterdays speculation here as to who did it.
But there’s a strand of pro Putin love on the far left, in France. That is le point
Possibly, although I doubt that left wing rail workers are much into that rabbit hole.
And this needed some seriously knowledgable insiders to know where to set fire to the cable trough to cause line shutting chaos rather than delays.
It really does not require much knowledge. In fact, I'd argue the most knowledge required is where you can access the railway, and how to make an incendiary device that would create a hot enough fire in an easily-transportable manner. Cables, and particularly fibre optics, can be time-consuming to cut and splice. As for where; somewhere on a fast part of the network, preferably with points and/or signals. But even cabling damage on a a stretch of plain line would be a PITA for the network.
.
You do realise that railway systems, particularly newer ones like the LGVs have what is known as diversity and redundancy.
This means that you might only achieve a lot of flashing lights in a control centre and rerouting of circuits via diverse cables that have not gone up in smoke, or degraded mode operation where backup systems enable trains to pass at reduced speed and less frequently, possibly with local manual intervention.
To cause the sort of chaos (multiple entire routes hundreds of miles long closed for days) that we have seen; you need to know, in detail, the few single points of failure that will maximise impact.
SNCF will now be urgently working on eliminating or mitigating those (and feeling annoyed with themselves that they got caught out to the extent they did on such modern infrastructure).
Yes... I'm well aware, thanks.
AIUI the degraded mode systems do not allow anywhere near the same speeds, and hence capacity. More so if linesmen have to be on the track fixing the blooming thing.
"To cause the sort of chaos (multiple entire routes hundreds of miles long closed for days) that we have seen; you need to know, in detail, the few single points of failure that will maximise impact."
I disagree. It is far easier than you claim, especially with systems that rely on in-cab signalling, such as the TGV.
Depends how well they are designed and what diversity and redundancy is built in. The better designs even allow main control centre to be destroyed and the network run from a backup.
Eliminating lineside signals and all their local cabling makes things much easier, especially if radio rather than inductive wires down the middle of the track is used.
Value engineering imposed by the bean counters often destroys most of the benefits to save 10% of the costs though.
The few videos I've seen of the disruption shows people fixing and splicing cables in troughing, not even working at S&T cabinets.
I wonder if the 'attack' was as simple as pouting petrol into the troughing, then lighting it.
My instant reaction too, but that is partly because of the tradition in Glasgow etc. of lifting some of this temptingly provided copper cable as an easy way to get some copper cable to sell to the dodgy scrappie. Though I expect the shift to fibre and measures taken at the scrapyard end have reduced this problem in the UK.
That’s one of the benefits of moving to fibre - nothing for copper thieves.
There have been some cases where it is suspected that copper thieves, angry at not find any, destroyed fibre as a malevolent act.
Looking at some of the pictures of the damage , to bundles of fibre, I take it they were using deducted lines for various things, rather than an Ethernet system?
Nasty people on TwiX are claming that anyone with an IQ under 100 - 50% of the population - cannot understand the concept of “per capita”, no matter how hard they try
If true, this seems to include quite a few major journalists
Covid showed journalists struggled with numbers.
It really did - especially the concept of “exponentiality”
This is an ineradicable flaw in democracy. A lot of people are so stupid they really shouldn’t be voting. However, I guess we have the “wisdom of crowds” as a countervailing force. Somehow people en masse are smarter than individuals
It's more than.
Robert Peston wasn't the only one who couldn't understand why if we tested more that confirmed cases would also rise.
Highlight was hin getting schooled not once, but twice by JVT, after dropping his keen amateur science bollocks.
The real highlight was Preston’s belief that if they couldn’t make him understand a concept, then it proved he (Peston) was right and they were wrong.
Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia, the first member of Congress to endorse Buttigieg for president, told POLITICO he is also backing Buttigieg.
“I’m sure they’re thinking about battleground states, although it hasn’t been since 1960 that a vice president helped actually take their particular state,” Beyer said in an interview of the Harris campaign. “So it’s not clear that putting [North Carolina Gov.] Roy Cooper on the ticket would help you win North Carolina or that Josh [Shapiro] helps you in Pennsylvania, but I’m not subject to their research. I do know, just as a person with extraordinary political skills, a good reputation, well liked, and done a great job as secretary of Transportation, Pete would bring a lot to the ticket.”
There are more quotidian reasons Buttigieg could continue to accelerate in the process. The Democratic Party is expected to hold a roll call vote on a running mate by Aug. 7, and the sheer mechanics of introducing a nominee could mean the pick could come as early as this week. That means a rapidly accelerated vetting process could favor Buttigieg...
Pungent PB Pundit Alert - "I'm not SUBJECT to their research"?
Surely what the congressman MEANS, is that he is not PRIVY to their research.
Comments
A proper full scale conventional war is another matter and one which should play to Israeli strengths.
Now that was a good GP. Properly tense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ksp5N68Ko
A mistake made by the media was to have their political journalists do most of the talking.
The scientific and medical journalists usually had much more worthwhile contributions.
NEW THREAD
Stokes is great but today has not demonstrated it.
And also epidemiologist Michael Mina - but no one in the US government listened to him.
They weren’t fussy about ideology - funding everyone from Trotskyites, Maoists and even some actual Fascists. And also “peace” movements…
The usual method was to recruit the treasurer. Since most organisations audit for *missing* money, a big cash injection just made people happy. The majority of people in the organisations had no idea they were being infiltrated.
Once the treasurer was owned by the KGB, they would recruit like minded people on th executive. Being the awesome fund raiser made them powerful in these groups…
This is why lots of radical groups collapsed in 1989-90 - in some cases, 90% of their funding vanished overnight.
It’s all in the Mitrovokin Archive
There have been some cases where it is suspected that copper thieves, angry at not find any, destroyed fibre as a malevolent act.
Looking at some of the pictures of the damage , to bundles of fibre, I take it they were using deducted lines for various things, rather than an Ethernet system?
Surely what the congressman MEANS, is that he is not PRIVY to their research.