New poll confirms the infinite wisdom of the British people – politicalbetting.com

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New poll confirms the infinite wisdom of the British people – politicalbetting.com

I am delighted that a clear majority of Brits think Die Hard is NOT a Christmas film, confirming other polling we have seen. Vox populi, vox Dei.

Read the full story here

Omnium

The fallibility of polling exposed.

Leon

Omnium said:

The fallibility of polling exposed.

FPT your question on do I get bored of the luxe....

Somehow I cope with the grovelling

To give you an example of how absurd it gets, I once stayed at an outrageously expensive five star in Chiang Mai. High end Asian five stars are always outrageously luxe so I was kinda expecting my own butler and my own grand piano in my own villa. And yes I got all those

But I also had my own paddy field AND MY OWN PEASANT

There was a paddy field out the back to add some greenery to my pleasure. And in the middle of the paddy field was a peasant looking absurdly picturesque in a conical hat. It was like an idealised vision of Asian rural life

Then I got suspicious. It was TOO picturesque and also the guy never did any work. Never bent over and picked rice

So I asked the management and they sheepishly said “yeah we gave you a peasant to make it look better”

Scott_xP

...

rcs1000

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Flatlander

A World Cup in Saudi?

Ho hum.

Pulpstar

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

I'd have thought if you were launching an ICBM or IRBM at a carrier you'd wait till it is in port.

tlg86

Flatlander said:

A World Cup in Saudi?

Ho hum.

Ramadan means it will be January rather than November/December. Bye bye Xmas football that season.

rcs1000

Pulpstar said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

I'd have thought if you were launching an ICBM or IRBM at a carrier you'd wait till it is in port.

Indeed: at which point it becomes an stationary ground based target (like a hospital or power plant).

TimS

FPT in case missed (but without picture as I assume that would be breaking the one a day rule):

I’ve been sending daily pics of riverine life in Senegal, but perhaps not at times you were online. I’ve only had time and bandwidth generally to post once per day.

I am getting towards the end of my trip now and in a very interesting and atypical place: the ile de Goree where we’re spending 2 nights. It’s more like a quaint Mediterranean island than an African town, but with a slave house.

I was impressed with the maison des esclaves and its famous door of no return. The nuanced descriptions of the history of Goree and the slave trade were pitched just right I thought, and didn’t patronise. The National Trust would be proud. Not the Americanised guilt trip I’d expected.

And like many French style heritage hotspots it fills up with day trippers off the ferry during the day then empties out in the evening and takes on a serene air.

Here’s a pic for the day - typical Goree backstreet:

kinabalu

I thought the PB position was it IS a Christmas film. Has there been a U turn to come in line with the polling? I hope not. We should be leading public opinion not slavishly following it.

Flatlander

tlg86 said:

Flatlander said:

A World Cup in Saudi?

Ho hum.

Ramadan means it will be January rather than November/December. Bye bye Xmas football that season.

That or enclosed and air conditioned stadia.

MoonRabbit

On topic. Does US polling on the big question differ?

He is a former star quarterback all American hero from pulp fiction airport novel - maybe the answer coming back to this question is skewed by opinion on the film?

JosiasJessop

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

And at a cruise speed of 30 knots, a carrier group can travel a long way in that time.

Leon

TimS said:

FPT in case missed (but without picture as I assume that would be breaking the one a day rule):

I’ve been sending daily pics of riverine life in Senegal, but perhaps not at times you were online. I’ve only had time and bandwidth generally to post once per day.

I am getting towards the end of my trip now and in a very interesting and atypical place: the ile de Goree where we’re spending 2 nights. It’s more like a quaint Mediterranean island than an African town, but with a slave house.

I was impressed with the maison des esclaves and its famous door of no return. The nuanced descriptions of the history of Goree and the slave trade were pitched just right I thought, and didn’t patronise. The National Trust would be proud. Not the Americanised guilt trip I’d expected.

And like many French style heritage hotspots it fills up with day trippers off the ferry during the day then empties out in the evening and takes on a serene air.

Here’s a pic for the day - typical Goree backstreet:

Would you recommend Senegal? I'm tempted by an early January trip and the airline prices are quite reasonable.... Also I am trying to hit 100 countries (I'm on 95, I think). I'm like a batsman nervously getting near his century. In West Africa I could easily do five in a fortnight, the equivalent of hitting your century by whacking a 6 over the pavliion and into north Marylebone

IanB2

Every December, without fail...

Leon

IanB2 said:

Every December, without fail...

Getting dark at 4pm? I know. Fucksake

TimS

Leon said:

Omnium said:

The fallibility of polling exposed.

FPT your question on do I get bored of the luxe....

Somehow I cope with the grovelling

To give you an example of how absurd it gets, I once stayed at an outrageously expensive five star in Chiang Mai. High end Asian five stars are always outrageously luxe so I was kinda expecting my own butler and my own grand piano in my own villa. And yes I got all those

But I also had my own paddy field AND MY OWN PEASANT

There was a paddy field out the back to add some greenery to my pleasure. And in the middle of the paddy field was a peasant looking absurdly picturesque in a conical hat. It was like an idealised vision of Asian rural life

Then I got suspicious. It was TOO picturesque and also the guy never did any work. Never bent over and picked rice

So I asked the management and they sheepishly said “yeah we gave you a peasant to make it look better”

Lots of paddy fields in Southern Sénégal, plus people actually wearing conical hats. It’s harvest time now so they were all out there for la recolte. Not staged for me though (or if it was, they were doing it for free).

Senegalese rice is delicious. In taste very similar to Thai Fragrant, but shorter.

RobD

Is this of all respondents or those that actually watched the film?

Leon

TimS said:

Leon said:

Omnium said:

The fallibility of polling exposed.

FPT your question on do I get bored of the luxe....

Somehow I cope with the grovelling

To give you an example of how absurd it gets, I once stayed at an outrageously expensive five star in Chiang Mai. High end Asian five stars are always outrageously luxe so I was kinda expecting my own butler and my own grand piano in my own villa. And yes I got all those

But I also had my own paddy field AND MY OWN PEASANT

There was a paddy field out the back to add some greenery to my pleasure. And in the middle of the paddy field was a peasant looking absurdly picturesque in a conical hat. It was like an idealised vision of Asian rural life

Then I got suspicious. It was TOO picturesque and also the guy never did any work. Never bent over and picked rice

So I asked the management and they sheepishly said “yeah we gave you a peasant to make it look better”

Lots of paddy fields in Southern Sénégal, plus people actually wearing conical hats. It’s harvest time now so they were all out there for la recolte. Not staged for me though (or if it was, they were doing it for free).

Senegalese rice is delicious. In taste very similar to Thai Fragrant, but shorter.

Please see my other question, am interested in your sagacious verdict...

williamglenn

Can we be sure the respondents know what Christmas is?

JosiasJessop

As an example of the hilarity:

"“Russia’s Oreshnik hypersonic missiles system is a devastating, unstoppable surgical strike weapon that basically drops metal lightning out of the sky like Thor's Hammer or the comets of God.

Nobody has any defense against it, and the range of these weapons, once mounted on intercontinental boosters, is global. The west must now either back off or go nuclear.”

SO far, almost nobody in the west fully comprehends the Oreshnik weapon system just demonstrated by Russia. Hat tip to Ted Postol, Scott Ritter and Brian Berletic, the only 3 people I've found so far who fully understand this.

I've done the math on the kinetic energy of the submunitions (using estimates for mass), and I've studied up on what's publicly known about these weapons so far.

My conclusion? NATO is done. The west has no idea what just hit them. Russia's Oreshnik weapon system is checkmate for NATO and the USA.

All U.S. aircraft carriers can be destroyed in minutes. All U.S. military bases, all underground bunkers, all ICBM launch sites, naval shipyards, etc., can be destroyed with NON-NUCLEAR kinetic energy via the Oreshnik.

There are no active treaties (that I'm aware of) prohibiting this weapon system, and it doesn't destroy surrounding infrastructure or masses of civilians.

It is a devastating, unstoppable surgical strike weapon that basically drops metal lightning out of the sky like Thor's Hammer or the comets of God.

Nobody has any defense against it, and the range of these weapons, once mounted on intercontinental boosters, is global.

The west must now either back off or go nuclear. They will probably choose to go nuclear out of desperation, be warned.

Russia has just changed the course of warfare and achieved global dominance.

NOBODY in the western press even has a clue. They are too stupid, too woke or too arrogant to realize what just happened.

This is like playing chess with Putin and thinkin you might be competitive, then suddenly Putin's queen unleashes a flamethrower across the chess board and roasts all your pieces, setting them on fire.

You thought you were playing "chess" but Putin was playing a different game called "flamethrower."

It's that big of a deal."


COPE !!!!

It really is hilarious. Wrong at every stage. And there are lots of posts like this: designed to get the worryworts and the drama queens screeching about Putin's red lines.

I'm only posting it because it is funny, and so over-the-top that even dear @Leon could see it is ridiculous.

Malmesbury

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Back when the Russians were launching every 2 weeks and had nuclear powered radar sats, the US Atlantic fleet would practise ducking round their coverage - the orbits were known. So that was an entire carrier battlegroup that the USSR couldn't find. On a regular basis.

williamglenn

JosiasJessop said:

It really is hilarious. Wrong at every stage. And there are lots of posts like this: designed to get the worryworts and the drama queens screeching about Putin's red lines.

I'm only posting it because it is funny, and so over-the-top that even dear @Leon could see it is ridiculous.

Why is it that this scepticism fails you completely when it comes to Russia's information weapons? To talk as if Russia only has to commission a few bots and it can control our election results is to fall into the same trap of exaggerating Russia's capabilities.

TimS

Leon said:

TimS said:

FPT in case missed (but without picture as I assume that would be breaking the one a day rule):

I’ve been sending daily pics of riverine life in Senegal, but perhaps not at times you were online. I’ve only had time and bandwidth generally to post once per day.

I am getting towards the end of my trip now and in a very interesting and atypical place: the ile de Goree where we’re spending 2 nights. It’s more like a quaint Mediterranean island than an African town, but with a slave house.

I was impressed with the maison des esclaves and its famous door of no return. The nuanced descriptions of the history of Goree and the slave trade were pitched just right I thought, and didn’t patronise. The National Trust would be proud. Not the Americanised guilt trip I’d expected.

And like many French style heritage hotspots it fills up with day trippers off the ferry during the day then empties out in the evening and takes on a serene air.

Here’s a pic for the day - typical Goree backstreet:

Would you recommend Senegal? I'm tempted by an early January trip and the airline prices are quite reasonable.... Also I am trying to hit 100 countries (I'm on 95, I think). I'm like a batsman nervously getting near his century. In West Africa I could easily do five in a fortnight, the equivalent of hitting your century by whacking a 6 over the pavliion and into north Marylebone

I’d definitely recommend it, if you speak passable French. Everything is in French and there are very few nods to Anglophonie.

If you are coming, then Dakar is decent and cosmopolitan as African cities go, though not with a huge amount to detain the traveller. Casamance is beautiful and very friendly, with proper old school animist religion complete with Tom Tom drums, chiefs, a king you can have an audience with, fetishes, the works.

Cap Skirring is very pleasant in a palm lined beachy way but there are no luxe hotels there, just some good airbnbs and pensions. Goree is really rather pretty.

The food, though a bit limited in range, is extremely tasty. It’s mainly fresh fish, usually with spicy sauces and rice. I’ve had “capitaine”, bream, monkfish, lots of prawns and langoustines throughout the visit. But there are good steak-frites to be had too, and the local beers are reasonable.

rcs1000

JosiasJessop said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

IMV there are many issues with what they are saying. My main point was that they seem to think they could do something, and there would be zero repercussions. "We can do this to you!"

They don't hear the reply: "And what do you think we'd do to you if you did?"

Satellites can help track carriers; but I'm unsure how much coverage Russia has 24/7 worldwide.

I can help with the last one.

And the answer is "not a lot". Tracking a moving carrier group is difficult, because a single satellite will give you a picture of an area every 90 minutes or so. If the weather is clear, great! It can't have moved far enough to leave your track, and you can adjust the orbit so you have constant (i.e. every hour and a half) eyes on it.

But what if the weather is bad? Suddenly you might not have eyes on the carrier group for 12 hours. Now where is it? At 30 knots, it can have moved 400 miles. That's a box 800 miles by 800 miles, or almost twice the size of a box containing France!

It's easy for spy satellites to watch a port. Or to watch the Malacca Straits or the Straits of Hormuz.

It's a lot harder for them to track a carrier group, even if they had infinite fuel for maneuvering. Which they don't.

Nigelb

On the tram cost discussion in the previous thread, there's also this report, arguing for a UK tramnaissance.

They address the cost issue directly.

https://assets.nationbuilder.com/britainremade/pages/2235/attachments/original/1733819332/BRM7607_Tram_Report_Digital-Single-Pages_AWK.pdf?1733819332

JosiasJessop

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

It really is hilarious. Wrong at every stage. And there are lots of posts like this: designed to get the worryworts and the drama queens screeching about Putin's red lines.

I'm only posting it because it is funny, and so over-the-top that even dear @Leon could see it is ridiculous.

Why is it that this scepticism fails you completely when it comes to Russia's information weapons? To talk as if Russia only has to commission a few bots and it can control our election results is to fall into the same trap of exaggerating Russia's capabilities.

Because information weapons are very different, obvs. And it is not just 'a few bots'.

Leon

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

FPT in case missed (but without picture as I assume that would be breaking the one a day rule):

I’ve been sending daily pics of riverine life in Senegal, but perhaps not at times you were online. I’ve only had time and bandwidth generally to post once per day.

I am getting towards the end of my trip now and in a very interesting and atypical place: the ile de Goree where we’re spending 2 nights. It’s more like a quaint Mediterranean island than an African town, but with a slave house.

I was impressed with the maison des esclaves and its famous door of no return. The nuanced descriptions of the history of Goree and the slave trade were pitched just right I thought, and didn’t patronise. The National Trust would be proud. Not the Americanised guilt trip I’d expected.

And like many French style heritage hotspots it fills up with day trippers off the ferry during the day then empties out in the evening and takes on a serene air.

Here’s a pic for the day - typical Goree backstreet:

Would you recommend Senegal? I'm tempted by an early January trip and the airline prices are quite reasonable.... Also I am trying to hit 100 countries (I'm on 95, I think). I'm like a batsman nervously getting near his century. In West Africa I could easily do five in a fortnight, the equivalent of hitting your century by whacking a 6 over the pavliion and into north Marylebone

I’d definitely recommend it, if you speak passable French. Everything is in French and there are very few nods to Anglophonie.

If you are coming, then Dakar is decent and cosmopolitan as African cities go, though not with a huge amount to detain the traveller. Casamance is beautiful and very friendly, with proper old school animist religion complete with Tom Tom drums, chiefs, a king you can have an audience with, fetishes, the works.

Cap Skirring is very pleasant in a palm lined beachy way but there are no luxe hotels there, just some good airbnbs and pensions. Goree is really rather pretty.

The food, though a bit limited in range, is extremely tasty. It’s mainly fresh fish, usually with spicy sauces and rice. I’ve had “capitaine”, bream, monkfish, lots of prawns and langoustines throughout the visit. But there are good steak-frites to be had too, and the local beers are reasonable.

Brilliant, v useful, merci

williamglenn

JosiasJessop said:

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

It really is hilarious. Wrong at every stage. And there are lots of posts like this: designed to get the worryworts and the drama queens screeching about Putin's red lines.

I'm only posting it because it is funny, and so over-the-top that even dear @Leon could see it is ridiculous.

Why is it that this scepticism fails you completely when it comes to Russia's information weapons? To talk as if Russia only has to commission a few bots and it can control our election results is to fall into the same trap of exaggerating Russia's capabilities.

Because information weapons are very different, obvs. And it is not just 'a few bots'.

By your own argument you are just being a useful idiot who is undermining confidence in democracy and serving the interests of the Kremlin.

Omnium

Leon said:

Omnium said:

The fallibility of polling exposed.

FPT your question on do I get bored of the luxe....

Somehow I cope with the grovelling

To give you an example of how absurd it gets, I once stayed at an outrageously expensive five star in Chiang Mai. High end Asian five stars are always outrageously luxe so I was kinda expecting my own butler and my own grand piano in my own villa. And yes I got all those

But I also had my own paddy field AND MY OWN PEASANT

There was a paddy field out the back to add some greenery to my pleasure. And in the middle of the paddy field was a peasant looking absurdly picturesque in a conical hat. It was like an idealised vision of Asian rural life

Then I got suspicious. It was TOO picturesque and also the guy never did any work. Never bent over and picked rice

So I asked the management and they sheepishly said “yeah we gave you a peasant to make it look better”

Happy days !

Malmesbury

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

IMV there are many issues with what they are saying. My main point was that they seem to think they could do something, and there would be zero repercussions. "We can do this to you!"

They don't hear the reply: "And what do you think we'd do to you if you did?"

Satellites can help track carriers; but I'm unsure how much coverage Russia has 24/7 worldwide.

I can help with the last one.

And the answer is "not a lot". Tracking a moving carrier group is difficult, because a single satellite will give you a picture of an area every 90 minutes or so. If the weather is clear, great! It can't have moved far enough to leave your track, and you can adjust the orbit so you have constant (i.e. every hour and a half) eyes on it.

But what if the weather is bad? Suddenly you might not have eyes on the carrier group for 12 hours. Now where is it? At 30 knots, it can have moved 400 miles. That's a box 800 miles by 800 miles, or almost twice the size of a box containing France!

It's easy for spy satellites to watch a port. Or to watch the Malacca Straits or the Straits of Hormuz.

It's a lot harder for them to track a carrier group, even if they had infinite fuel for maneuvering. Which they don't.

This is another reason that the Starshield project is getting the Chinese riled up. With hundreds (initially) and thousands (later on) of satellites, constant surveillance becomes possible for the first time. More, rather than just targeting a specific location, a constantly updated whole world view becomes possible. Subject only to weather for optical wavelengths. But there's radar in there as well. And IR.

viewcode

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Andy_JS

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

FPT in case missed (but without picture as I assume that would be breaking the one a day rule):

I’ve been sending daily pics of riverine life in Senegal, but perhaps not at times you were online. I’ve only had time and bandwidth generally to post once per day.

I am getting towards the end of my trip now and in a very interesting and atypical place: the ile de Goree where we’re spending 2 nights. It’s more like a quaint Mediterranean island than an African town, but with a slave house.

I was impressed with the maison des esclaves and its famous door of no return. The nuanced descriptions of the history of Goree and the slave trade were pitched just right I thought, and didn’t patronise. The National Trust would be proud. Not the Americanised guilt trip I’d expected.

And like many French style heritage hotspots it fills up with day trippers off the ferry during the day then empties out in the evening and takes on a serene air.

Here’s a pic for the day - typical Goree backstreet:

Would you recommend Senegal? I'm tempted by an early January trip and the airline prices are quite reasonable.... Also I am trying to hit 100 countries (I'm on 95, I think). I'm like a batsman nervously getting near his century. In West Africa I could easily do five in a fortnight, the equivalent of hitting your century by whacking a 6 over the pavliion and into north Marylebone

I’d definitely recommend it, if you speak passable French. Everything is in French and there are very few nods to Anglophonie.

If you are coming, then Dakar is decent and cosmopolitan as African cities go, though not with a huge amount to detain the traveller. Casamance is beautiful and very friendly, with proper old school animist religion complete with Tom Tom drums, chiefs, a king you can have an audience with, fetishes, the works.

Cap Skirring is very pleasant in a palm lined beachy way but there are no luxe hotels there, just some good airbnbs and pensions. Goree is really rather pretty.

The food, though a bit limited in range, is extremely tasty. It’s mainly fresh fish, usually with spicy sauces and rice. I’ve had “capitaine”, bream, monkfish, lots of prawns and langoustines throughout the visit. But there are good steak-frites to be had too, and the local beers are reasonable.

I don't speak passable French, so I guess it's not for me. Haven't been to Africa so far.

tlg86

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

It's still a big-ass sky to fill.

Sandpit

Malmesbury said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

IMV there are many issues with what they are saying. My main point was that they seem to think they could do something, and there would be zero repercussions. "We can do this to you!"

They don't hear the reply: "And what do you think we'd do to you if you did?"

Satellites can help track carriers; but I'm unsure how much coverage Russia has 24/7 worldwide.

I can help with the last one.

And the answer is "not a lot". Tracking a moving carrier group is difficult, because a single satellite will give you a picture of an area every 90 minutes or so. If the weather is clear, great! It can't have moved far enough to leave your track, and you can adjust the orbit so you have constant (i.e. every hour and a half) eyes on it.

But what if the weather is bad? Suddenly you might not have eyes on the carrier group for 12 hours. Now where is it? At 30 knots, it can have moved 400 miles. That's a box 800 miles by 800 miles, or almost twice the size of a box containing France!

It's easy for spy satellites to watch a port. Or to watch the Malacca Straits or the Straits of Hormuz.

It's a lot harder for them to track a carrier group, even if they had infinite fuel for maneuvering. Which they don't.

This is another reason that the Starshield project is getting the Chinese riled up. With hundreds (initially) and thousands (later on) of satellites, constant surveillance becomes possible for the first time. More, rather than just targeting a specific location, a constantly updated whole world view becomes possible. Subject only to weather for optical wavelengths. But there's radar in there as well. And IR.

The new Starlink “Direct to cell” service will also be a great way of picking up and precisely locating thousands of mobile phones in remote places anywhere on Earth, even if they’re not connecting to it.

Malmesbury

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes, it is. Because nearly none of them (as a percentage) are optical recon/mapping satellites. On the other hand, Musk is building a huge satellite network for the NRO/Military - coms and surveillance - see StarShield.

LostPassword

One thing to bear in mind with satellites is that they're not all the same. Orbital heights vary a lot, which has a bearing on how much of the globe they can see at once, and the detail in that area that they can capture.

rcs1000

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes.

The only spy satellites that have geostationary orbits are either SIGINT satellites or missile warning systems.

Bear in mind too, that if you are a long, long way from earth, then maneuvering becomes very expensive. In LEO, it's easy. One does a little burn, and your next track in 100 miles different.

With geostationary, you aren't 150 miles from earth (like a typical spy satellite), you're 21,000 miles out. That makes manauevering slow and almost impossibly expensive from a fuel perspective.

TimS

Leon said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

FPT in case missed (but without picture as I assume that would be breaking the one a day rule):

I’ve been sending daily pics of riverine life in Senegal, but perhaps not at times you were online. I’ve only had time and bandwidth generally to post once per day.

I am getting towards the end of my trip now and in a very interesting and atypical place: the ile de Goree where we’re spending 2 nights. It’s more like a quaint Mediterranean island than an African town, but with a slave house.

I was impressed with the maison des esclaves and its famous door of no return. The nuanced descriptions of the history of Goree and the slave trade were pitched just right I thought, and didn’t patronise. The National Trust would be proud. Not the Americanised guilt trip I’d expected.

And like many French style heritage hotspots it fills up with day trippers off the ferry during the day then empties out in the evening and takes on a serene air.

Here’s a pic for the day - typical Goree backstreet:

Would you recommend Senegal? I'm tempted by an early January trip and the airline prices are quite reasonable.... Also I am trying to hit 100 countries (I'm on 95, I think). I'm like a batsman nervously getting near his century. In West Africa I could easily do five in a fortnight, the equivalent of hitting your century by whacking a 6 over the pavliion and into north Marylebone

I’d definitely recommend it, if you speak passable French. Everything is in French and there are very few nods to Anglophonie.

If you are coming, then Dakar is decent and cosmopolitan as African cities go, though not with a huge amount to detain the traveller. Casamance is beautiful and very friendly, with proper old school animist religion complete with Tom Tom drums, chiefs, a king you can have an audience with, fetishes, the works.

Cap Skirring is very pleasant in a palm lined beachy way but there are no luxe hotels there, just some good airbnbs and pensions. Goree is really rather pretty.

The food, though a bit limited in range, is extremely tasty. It’s mainly fresh fish, usually with spicy sauces and rice. I’ve had “capitaine”, bream, monkfish, lots of prawns and langoustines throughout the visit. But there are good steak-frites to be had too, and the local beers are reasonable.

Brilliant, v useful, merci

Oh and the overnight ferry from Dakar to Ziguinchor was the best way to arrive in Casamance. Cheerful atmosphere, bar on deck serving Pastis (and other drinks), a table clothed restaurant with 3 good courses of Franco-Senegalese food and wine, reasonable cabins then a morning travelling up the Casamance river imagining oneself like some latter day Charlie Marlow.

rcs1000

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Also; most of those satellites are communications satellites. They aren't able to take photos and tell a missile exactly where a carrier is.

TimS

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

FPT in case missed (but without picture as I assume that would be breaking the one a day rule):

I’ve been sending daily pics of riverine life in Senegal, but perhaps not at times you were online. I’ve only had time and bandwidth generally to post once per day.

I am getting towards the end of my trip now and in a very interesting and atypical place: the ile de Goree where we’re spending 2 nights. It’s more like a quaint Mediterranean island than an African town, but with a slave house.

I was impressed with the maison des esclaves and its famous door of no return. The nuanced descriptions of the history of Goree and the slave trade were pitched just right I thought, and didn’t patronise. The National Trust would be proud. Not the Americanised guilt trip I’d expected.

And like many French style heritage hotspots it fills up with day trippers off the ferry during the day then empties out in the evening and takes on a serene air.

Here’s a pic for the day - typical Goree backstreet:

Would you recommend Senegal? I'm tempted by an early January trip and the airline prices are quite reasonable.... Also I am trying to hit 100 countries (I'm on 95, I think). I'm like a batsman nervously getting near his century. In West Africa I could easily do five in a fortnight, the equivalent of hitting your century by whacking a 6 over the pavliion and into north Marylebone

I’d definitely recommend it, if you speak passable French. Everything is in French and there are very few nods to Anglophonie.

If you are coming, then Dakar is decent and cosmopolitan as African cities go, though not with a huge amount to detain the traveller. Casamance is beautiful and very friendly, with proper old school animist religion complete with Tom Tom drums, chiefs, a king you can have an audience with, fetishes, the works.

Cap Skirring is very pleasant in a palm lined beachy way but there are no luxe hotels there, just some good airbnbs and pensions. Goree is really rather pretty.

The food, though a bit limited in range, is extremely tasty. It’s mainly fresh fish, usually with spicy sauces and rice. I’ve had “capitaine”, bream, monkfish, lots of prawns and langoustines throughout the visit. But there are good steak-frites to be had too, and the local beers are reasonable.

I don't speak passable French, so I guess it's not for me. Haven't been to Africa so far.

Reasonable amounts of Spanish spoken too. The Spanish are the second biggest source of tourists.

Taz

Sad to see the death of Arnold Yarrow.

Although his one Dr Who appearance makes the news he was a prolific screenwriter as well.

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/arnold-yarrow-dead-doctor-who-oldest-newsupdate/

rcs1000

Malmesbury said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

IMV there are many issues with what they are saying. My main point was that they seem to think they could do something, and there would be zero repercussions. "We can do this to you!"

They don't hear the reply: "And what do you think we'd do to you if you did?"

Satellites can help track carriers; but I'm unsure how much coverage Russia has 24/7 worldwide.

I can help with the last one.

And the answer is "not a lot". Tracking a moving carrier group is difficult, because a single satellite will give you a picture of an area every 90 minutes or so. If the weather is clear, great! It can't have moved far enough to leave your track, and you can adjust the orbit so you have constant (i.e. every hour and a half) eyes on it.

But what if the weather is bad? Suddenly you might not have eyes on the carrier group for 12 hours. Now where is it? At 30 knots, it can have moved 400 miles. That's a box 800 miles by 800 miles, or almost twice the size of a box containing France!

It's easy for spy satellites to watch a port. Or to watch the Malacca Straits or the Straits of Hormuz.

It's a lot harder for them to track a carrier group, even if they had infinite fuel for maneuvering. Which they don't.

This is another reason that the Starshield project is getting the Chinese riled up. With hundreds (initially) and thousands (later on) of satellites, constant surveillance becomes possible for the first time. More, rather than just targeting a specific location, a constantly updated whole world view becomes possible. Subject only to weather for optical wavelengths. But there's radar in there as well. And IR.

Yes, Starshield fundamentally changes things.

But Russia has no Starshield (and nor does the US yet).

Edit to add: 2024 saw the first launch of Starfield satellites, but it will take seven or eight years -even with SpaceX's incredible launch cadence- before it is able to give anything approaching whole earth coverage.

Omnium

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes.

The only spy satellites that have geostationary orbits are either SIGINT satellites or missile warning systems.

Bear in mind too, that if you are a long, long way from earth, then maneuvering becomes very expensive. In LEO, it's easy. One does a little burn, and your next track in 100 miles different.

With geostationary, you aren't 150 miles from earth (like a typical spy satellite), you're 21,000 miles out. That makes manauevering slow and almost impossibly expensive from a fuel perspective.

Surely it makes manoeuvring (a word I hate and can never spell) cheap?

Leon

In Shanghai I also had my own butler and piano etc, but it was all in MY OWN CASTLE

The insane trillionaire owner has transported an entire sacred forest and "castle village" - fortified villas for high level Ming bureaucrats - from central China, where they were menaced by development

Seriously. My own castle. It even had a moat. I think they made the poetic mist with a machine. The beautiful young lady butler lived in her own chamber in the castle (no, I didn't) and kept insisting I drink Monkey 47 gin






I later learned it was about £10,000 a night. That is probably the most expensive hotel "room" I've ever blagged

MoonRabbit

bondegezou said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.

Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.

How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?

Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏

So it’s not remotely the same. The nearest I can give you is who commands the vote in house of reps in US becomes president, it’s possible even in this recent election that wouldn’t have been Trump this year - a swing of just 8 seats? and by same measure only lasting two years till turfed out of White House, if under a system similar to ours.

The Trump styled populists cannot win in UK. It’s 100% impossible for Farage to become PM without being in the Conservative Party.

Even if Reform largest party in HoC - impossible under FPTP because they are not 2nd pref of votes for the other parties, they are friendless - no one will coalition with them to put them in power. Certainly not the Conservative Party.

Carnyx

Omnium said:

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes.

The only spy satellites that have geostationary orbits are either SIGINT satellites or missile warning systems.

Bear in mind too, that if you are a long, long way from earth, then maneuvering becomes very expensive. In LEO, it's easy. One does a little burn, and your next track in 100 miles different.

With geostationary, you aren't 150 miles from earth (like a typical spy satellite), you're 21,000 miles out. That makes manauevering slow and almost impossibly expensive from a fuel perspective.

Surely it makes manoeuvring (a word I hate and can never spell) cheap?

Correct spelling. It's the Usonians confusing the ROW that makes it tricky.

viewcode

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes.

The only spy satellites that have geostationary orbits are either SIGINT satellites or missile warning systems.

Bear in mind too, that if you are a long, long way from earth, then maneuvering becomes very expensive. In LEO, it's easy. One does a little burn, and your next track in 100 miles different.

With geostationary, you aren't 150 miles from earth (like a typical spy satellite), you're 21,000 miles out. That makes manauevering slow and almost impossibly expensive from a fuel perspective.

• Circumference of the earth: about 25K miles
  
• Geostationary orbit: about 25K miles
  
• Distance of Earth to the Moon: about 250K miles
  

(Okay, 24,901 vs 22,236 vs 238,855 miles exactly, but it's easier to remember )

Leon

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

FPT in case missed (but without picture as I assume that would be breaking the one a day rule):

I’ve been sending daily pics of riverine life in Senegal, but perhaps not at times you were online. I’ve only had time and bandwidth generally to post once per day.

I am getting towards the end of my trip now and in a very interesting and atypical place: the ile de Goree where we’re spending 2 nights. It’s more like a quaint Mediterranean island than an African town, but with a slave house.

I was impressed with the maison des esclaves and its famous door of no return. The nuanced descriptions of the history of Goree and the slave trade were pitched just right I thought, and didn’t patronise. The National Trust would be proud. Not the Americanised guilt trip I’d expected.

And like many French style heritage hotspots it fills up with day trippers off the ferry during the day then empties out in the evening and takes on a serene air.

Here’s a pic for the day - typical Goree backstreet:

Would you recommend Senegal? I'm tempted by an early January trip and the airline prices are quite reasonable.... Also I am trying to hit 100 countries (I'm on 95, I think). I'm like a batsman nervously getting near his century. In West Africa I could easily do five in a fortnight, the equivalent of hitting your century by whacking a 6 over the pavliion and into north Marylebone

I’d definitely recommend it, if you speak passable French. Everything is in French and there are very few nods to Anglophonie.

If you are coming, then Dakar is decent and cosmopolitan as African cities go, though not with a huge amount to detain the traveller. Casamance is beautiful and very friendly, with proper old school animist religion complete with Tom Tom drums, chiefs, a king you can have an audience with, fetishes, the works.

Cap Skirring is very pleasant in a palm lined beachy way but there are no luxe hotels there, just some good airbnbs and pensions. Goree is really rather pretty.

The food, though a bit limited in range, is extremely tasty. It’s mainly fresh fish, usually with spicy sauces and rice. I’ve had “capitaine”, bream, monkfish, lots of prawns and langoustines throughout the visit. But there are good steak-frites to be had too, and the local beers are reasonable.

Brilliant, v useful, merci

Oh and the overnight ferry from Dakar to Ziguinchor was the best way to arrive in Casamance. Cheerful atmosphere, bar on deck serving Pastis (and other drinks), a table clothed restaurant with 3 good courses of Franco-Senegalese food and wine, reasonable cabins then a morning travelling up the Casamance river imagining oneself like some latter day Charlie Marlow.

It sounds marvelleuiux (sp?), and I am well jel and all-but-convinced

Do you need to book far ahead for things like the ferry or can it be done online/near the day? Also: relatively safe? I don't mind a fair bit of danger (hence, Ukraine) but as this will be a personal trip on my own shilling I'd rather not feel scared every hour

Omnium

Carnyx said:

Omnium said:

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes.

The only spy satellites that have geostationary orbits are either SIGINT satellites or missile warning systems.

Bear in mind too, that if you are a long, long way from earth, then maneuvering becomes very expensive. In LEO, it's easy. One does a little burn, and your next track in 100 miles different.

With geostationary, you aren't 150 miles from earth (like a typical spy satellite), you're 21,000 miles out. That makes manauevering slow and almost impossibly expensive from a fuel perspective.

Surely it makes manoeuvring (a word I hate and can never spell) cheap?

Correct spelling. It's the Usonians confusing the ROW that makes it tricky.

I know it's the correct spelling because I had help from all the tech. I would never in a million years spell it that way of my own accord.

williamglenn

MoonRabbit said:

bondegezou said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.

Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.

How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?

Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏

Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.

viewcode

tlg86 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

It's still a big-ass sky to fill.

Cue the quote... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhbF7C317Yg

(incidentally, the President in Armageddon and The Rock are played by the same actor)

Leon

Andy_JS said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

FPT in case missed (but without picture as I assume that would be breaking the one a day rule):

I’ve been sending daily pics of riverine life in Senegal, but perhaps not at times you were online. I’ve only had time and bandwidth generally to post once per day.

I am getting towards the end of my trip now and in a very interesting and atypical place: the ile de Goree where we’re spending 2 nights. It’s more like a quaint Mediterranean island than an African town, but with a slave house.

I was impressed with the maison des esclaves and its famous door of no return. The nuanced descriptions of the history of Goree and the slave trade were pitched just right I thought, and didn’t patronise. The National Trust would be proud. Not the Americanised guilt trip I’d expected.

And like many French style heritage hotspots it fills up with day trippers off the ferry during the day then empties out in the evening and takes on a serene air.

Here’s a pic for the day - typical Goree backstreet:

Would you recommend Senegal? I'm tempted by an early January trip and the airline prices are quite reasonable.... Also I am trying to hit 100 countries (I'm on 95, I think). I'm like a batsman nervously getting near his century. In West Africa I could easily do five in a fortnight, the equivalent of hitting your century by whacking a 6 over the pavliion and into north Marylebone

I’d definitely recommend it, if you speak passable French. Everything is in French and there are very few nods to Anglophonie.

If you are coming, then Dakar is decent and cosmopolitan as African cities go, though not with a huge amount to detain the traveller. Casamance is beautiful and very friendly, with proper old school animist religion complete with Tom Tom drums, chiefs, a king you can have an audience with, fetishes, the works.

Cap Skirring is very pleasant in a palm lined beachy way but there are no luxe hotels there, just some good airbnbs and pensions. Goree is really rather pretty.

The food, though a bit limited in range, is extremely tasty. It’s mainly fresh fish, usually with spicy sauces and rice. I’ve had “capitaine”, bream, monkfish, lots of prawns and langoustines throughout the visit. But there are good steak-frites to be had too, and the local beers are reasonable.

I don't speak passable French, so I guess it's not for me. Haven't been to Africa so far.

I wouldn't worry about the French thing, I've been to dozens of countries where they barely speak a word of English: you always get by. And these days machine translation is so good you can basically do it in real time, try the voice mode on ChatGPT - it's like having a skilled interpreter in your pocket, it's amazing. I used it in Colombia several times (where, in the interior, almost no one speaks English)

Africa is wild. Have you thought about Namibia? You can drive around by yourself, it is pretty safe, it is utterly spectacular, the greatest desert landscapes on earth, and by a distance

Roger

RobD said:

Is this of all respondents or those that actually watched the film?

OTish (It's on the subject of film). A terrific Italian film on Netflix 'The Children's Train'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76Aljh0U8Hk

carnforth

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgr19lwgv0o

'Dozens' being investigated over Post Office Scandal

rcs1000

Omnium said:

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes.

The only spy satellites that have geostationary orbits are either SIGINT satellites or missile warning systems.

Bear in mind too, that if you are a long, long way from earth, then maneuvering becomes very expensive. In LEO, it's easy. One does a little burn, and your next track in 100 miles different.

With geostationary, you aren't 150 miles from earth (like a typical spy satellite), you're 21,000 miles out. That makes manauevering slow and almost impossibly expensive from a fuel perspective.

Surely it makes manoeuvring (a word I hate and can never spell) cheap?

Errr, why? At LEO, it's easy. A 5 second short burn might mean your next orbit is 50 miles to the north or South of the previous one.

At 21,000 miles up, moving around will either take ages (because you need to travel 5,000 miles slowly) or will burn through lots and lots of fuel.

Also, don't forget that at 21,000 miles up, your images are going to have 1% of the resolution of satellites at 150 miles.

Richard_Tyndall

LOL. Seems that TSE is now claiming that we have had enough of experts - given that the expert opinion is that Die Hard is definitely a Christmas film. I assume his new populist creed will now extend to him supporting Reform at future elections.

Sunil_Prasannan

Like TSE, the 51% obviously haven't seen Die Hard!

Holly McClane to Harry Ellis: "Harry, it's Christmas Eve. Families... Stockings... chestnuts... Rudolph and Frosty... those things ring a bell?"

[listening to "Christmas in Hollis" by Run DMC]
John McClane: "How 'bout some Christmas Music?
Argyle the limo driver: "This IS Christmas Music!"

John McClane to Takagi: "You throw quite a party. I didn't know they had Christmas in Japan."

Sgt. Powell to Eddie (Gruber's gang): "Sorry to water your time. Merry Christmas!"

Hans Gruber to Theo: "It's Christmas, Theo, it's the time of miracles. So be of good cheer and call me when you hit the last lock."

Robinson the Police dude to the FBI guys: "Are you crazy? It's Christmas Eve, thousands of people -- the Mayor'll scream bloody murder..."

Argyle the limo driver (final line): "If this is their idea of Christmas, I gotta be there for New Year's!"

Film closes out to "Let It Snow" sung by Vaughn Monroe.

rcs1000

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes.

The only spy satellites that have geostationary orbits are either SIGINT satellites or missile warning systems.

Bear in mind too, that if you are a long, long way from earth, then maneuvering becomes very expensive. In LEO, it's easy. One does a little burn, and your next track in 100 miles different.

With geostationary, you aren't 150 miles from earth (like a typical spy satellite), you're 21,000 miles out. That makes manauevering slow and almost impossibly expensive from a fuel perspective.

• Circumference of the earth: about 25K miles
  
• Geostationary orbit: about 25K miles
  
• Distance of Earth to the Moon: about 250K miles
  

(Okay, 24,901 vs 22,236 vs 238,855 miles exactly, but it's easier to remember )

Thank you for that little cheat sheet.

You can do LEO of 250km if you like :-)

Leon

Omnium said:

Carnyx said:

Omnium said:

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes.

The only spy satellites that have geostationary orbits are either SIGINT satellites or missile warning systems.

Bear in mind too, that if you are a long, long way from earth, then maneuvering becomes very expensive. In LEO, it's easy. One does a little burn, and your next track in 100 miles different.

With geostationary, you aren't 150 miles from earth (like a typical spy satellite), you're 21,000 miles out. That makes manauevering slow and almost impossibly expensive from a fuel perspective.

Surely it makes manoeuvring (a word I hate and can never spell) cheap?

Correct spelling. It's the Usonians confusing the ROW that makes it tricky.

I know it's the correct spelling because I had help from all the tech. I would never in a million years spell it that way of my own accord.

I've yielded to the far more sensible American "maneuver", no word should ever have three or more consecutive syllables

Seriously. Queueing. qUEUEUIng. What the fuck were they thinking? Is it a joke?

MattW

FPT: Following on from my earlier comments on the Statement on Puberty Blockers.

Listening back to the full statement, I am really impressed with his approach to this - sensitive, serious, thoughtful, and evidence based.

Compliments from across the house, as far as I can see.

And equally high quality responses from the other MPs I listened to, starting with the Shadow Health Secretary.

I recommend a listen.
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/5c91805c-f151-45de-b806-816d8b7215d8?in=13:30:42

(Also quite impressed with the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper on People Trafficking after her foreign trip, but that's a separate one.)

viewcode

Leon said:

In Shanghai I also had my own butler and piano etc, but it was all in MY OWN CASTLE

The insane trillionaire owner has transported an entire sacred forest and "castle village" - fortified villas for high level Ming bureaucrats - from central China, where they were menaced by development

Seriously. My own castle. It even had a moat. I think they made the poetic mist with a machine. The beautiful young lady butler lived in her own chamber in the castle (no, I didn't) and kept insisting I drink Monkey 47 gin

Guess the movie

Richard_Tyndall

kinabalu said:

I thought the PB position was it IS a Christmas film. Has there been a U turn to come in line with the polling? I hope not. We should be leading public opinion not slavishly following it.

Like so many political leaders in the past, TSE has not been able to take his party with him on this one. The rest of us know it is a Christmas film but TSE remains blissfully unaware.

Taz

US inflation still moving up again.

The Trumpdozer needs to be careful with his tariffs.

https://x.com/grdecter/status/1866838101827477792?s=61

TimS

Leon said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

FPT in case missed (but without picture as I assume that would be breaking the one a day rule):

I’ve been sending daily pics of riverine life in Senegal, but perhaps not at times you were online. I’ve only had time and bandwidth generally to post once per day.

I am getting towards the end of my trip now and in a very interesting and atypical place: the ile de Goree where we’re spending 2 nights. It’s more like a quaint Mediterranean island than an African town, but with a slave house.

I was impressed with the maison des esclaves and its famous door of no return. The nuanced descriptions of the history of Goree and the slave trade were pitched just right I thought, and didn’t patronise. The National Trust would be proud. Not the Americanised guilt trip I’d expected.

And like many French style heritage hotspots it fills up with day trippers off the ferry during the day then empties out in the evening and takes on a serene air.

Here’s a pic for the day - typical Goree backstreet:

Would you recommend Senegal? I'm tempted by an early January trip and the airline prices are quite reasonable.... Also I am trying to hit 100 countries (I'm on 95, I think). I'm like a batsman nervously getting near his century. In West Africa I could easily do five in a fortnight, the equivalent of hitting your century by whacking a 6 over the pavliion and into north Marylebone

I’d definitely recommend it, if you speak passable French. Everything is in French and there are very few nods to Anglophonie.

If you are coming, then Dakar is decent and cosmopolitan as African cities go, though not with a huge amount to detain the traveller. Casamance is beautiful and very friendly, with proper old school animist religion complete with Tom Tom drums, chiefs, a king you can have an audience with, fetishes, the works.

Cap Skirring is very pleasant in a palm lined beachy way but there are no luxe hotels there, just some good airbnbs and pensions. Goree is really rather pretty.

The food, though a bit limited in range, is extremely tasty. It’s mainly fresh fish, usually with spicy sauces and rice. I’ve had “capitaine”, bream, monkfish, lots of prawns and langoustines throughout the visit. But there are good steak-frites to be had too, and the local beers are reasonable.

Brilliant, v useful, merci

Oh and the overnight ferry from Dakar to Ziguinchor was the best way to arrive in Casamance. Cheerful atmosphere, bar on deck serving Pastis (and other drinks), a table clothed restaurant with 3 good courses of Franco-Senegalese food and wine, reasonable cabins then a morning travelling up the Casamance river imagining oneself like some latter day Charlie Marlow.

It sounds marvelleuiux (sp?), and I am well jel and all-but-convinced

Do you need to book far ahead for things like the ferry or can it be done online/near the day? Also: relatively safe? I don't mind a fair bit of danger (hence, Ukraine) but as this will be a personal trip on my own shilling I'd rather not feel scared every hour

You can’t book far in advance and can’t book online, so the best thing is to get the hotel or travel agency you’re staying with to book it a few weeks before. We had a local BBC fixer help out as one of my travelling companions is a beeb journo.

Safety wise, yes very much so. But worth knowing the ferry’s predecessor was the subject of the second worst civilian maritime disaster in history, with 1750 deaths, in 2002. Since then they’ve probably gone further than any other boat company in the developing world to focus on safety: very strict passenger logs, security around the terminal, lifeboats and jackets everywhere.

Like elsewhere in Senegal there’s also no visible corruption. Nobody’s so much as hinted at baksheesh the whole week.

Sunil_Prasannan

Leon said:

Omnium said:

Carnyx said:

Omnium said:

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes.

The only spy satellites that have geostationary orbits are either SIGINT satellites or missile warning systems.

Bear in mind too, that if you are a long, long way from earth, then maneuvering becomes very expensive. In LEO, it's easy. One does a little burn, and your next track in 100 miles different.

With geostationary, you aren't 150 miles from earth (like a typical spy satellite), you're 21,000 miles out. That makes manauevering slow and almost impossibly expensive from a fuel perspective.

Surely it makes manoeuvring (a word I hate and can never spell) cheap?

Correct spelling. It's the Usonians confusing the ROW that makes it tricky.

I know it's the correct spelling because I had help from all the tech. I would never in a million years spell it that way of my own accord.

I've yielded to the far more sensible American "maneuver", no word should ever have three or more consecutive syllables

Seriously. Queueing. qUEUEUIng. What the fuck were they thinking? Is it a joke?

Vowels or syllables???

Leon

viewcode said:

Leon said:

In Shanghai I also had my own butler and piano etc, but it was all in MY OWN CASTLE

The insane trillionaire owner has transported an entire sacred forest and "castle village" - fortified villas for high level Ming bureaucrats - from central China, where they were menaced by development

Seriously. My own castle. It even had a moat. I think they made the poetic mist with a machine. The beautiful young lady butler lived in her own chamber in the castle (no, I didn't) and kept insisting I drink Monkey 47 gin

Guess the movie

Hah. That's brilliant, and eerily similar. I wonder if they were inspired by Chinese architecture?

But I have no idea of the movie, without Claudeing. Is it a Star Wars spin off?

viewcode

Leon said:

In Shanghai I also had my own butler and piano etc, but it was all in MY OWN CASTLE

The insane trillionaire owner has transported an entire sacred forest and "castle village" - fortified villas for high level Ming bureaucrats - from central China, where they were menaced by development

Seriously. My own castle. It even had a moat. I think they made the poetic mist with a machine. The beautiful young lady butler lived in her own chamber in the castle (no, I didn't) and kept insisting I drink Monkey 47 gin

"Honey, where did I leave the suitcase?"
"Did you try the Dread Drawbridge Of Doom"
"Oh yeah, I can see it now"

JosiasJessop

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

It really is hilarious. Wrong at every stage. And there are lots of posts like this: designed to get the worryworts and the drama queens screeching about Putin's red lines.

I'm only posting it because it is funny, and so over-the-top that even dear @Leon could see it is ridiculous.

Why is it that this scepticism fails you completely when it comes to Russia's information weapons? To talk as if Russia only has to commission a few bots and it can control our election results is to fall into the same trap of exaggerating Russia's capabilities.

Because information weapons are very different, obvs. And it is not just 'a few bots'.

By your own argument you are just being a useful idiot who is undermining confidence in democracy and serving the interests of the Kremlin.

I think you need to reread my post.

But at least you actually gave a view this time, rather than post another stupid question.

Mexicanpete

Just like that poll in 2016 around 51/52% gave the wrong answer.

Leon

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Leon said:

Omnium said:

Carnyx said:

Omnium said:

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes.

The only spy satellites that have geostationary orbits are either SIGINT satellites or missile warning systems.

Bear in mind too, that if you are a long, long way from earth, then maneuvering becomes very expensive. In LEO, it's easy. One does a little burn, and your next track in 100 miles different.

With geostationary, you aren't 150 miles from earth (like a typical spy satellite), you're 21,000 miles out. That makes manauevering slow and almost impossibly expensive from a fuel perspective.

Surely it makes manoeuvring (a word I hate and can never spell) cheap?

Correct spelling. It's the Usonians confusing the ROW that makes it tricky.

I know it's the correct spelling because I had help from all the tech. I would never in a million years spell it that way of my own accord.

I've yielded to the far more sensible American "maneuver", no word should ever have three or more consecutive syllables

Seriously. Queueing. qUEUEUIng. What the fuck were they thinking? Is it a joke?

Vowels or syllables???

Indeed, vowels. Blame the jet lag

Speaking of consecutive vowels, or indeed consonants, has anyone ever correctly spelled Friedrich Nietzsche on the first go?

I must have written his name a thousand times. Yet EACH TIME I have to check

N I E T Z S C H E

No wonder he went mad

Leon

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

FPT in case missed (but without picture as I assume that would be breaking the one a day rule):

I’ve been sending daily pics of riverine life in Senegal, but perhaps not at times you were online. I’ve only had time and bandwidth generally to post once per day.

I am getting towards the end of my trip now and in a very interesting and atypical place: the ile de Goree where we’re spending 2 nights. It’s more like a quaint Mediterranean island than an African town, but with a slave house.

I was impressed with the maison des esclaves and its famous door of no return. The nuanced descriptions of the history of Goree and the slave trade were pitched just right I thought, and didn’t patronise. The National Trust would be proud. Not the Americanised guilt trip I’d expected.

And like many French style heritage hotspots it fills up with day trippers off the ferry during the day then empties out in the evening and takes on a serene air.

Here’s a pic for the day - typical Goree backstreet:

Would you recommend Senegal? I'm tempted by an early January trip and the airline prices are quite reasonable.... Also I am trying to hit 100 countries (I'm on 95, I think). I'm like a batsman nervously getting near his century. In West Africa I could easily do five in a fortnight, the equivalent of hitting your century by whacking a 6 over the pavliion and into north Marylebone

I’d definitely recommend it, if you speak passable French. Everything is in French and there are very few nods to Anglophonie.

If you are coming, then Dakar is decent and cosmopolitan as African cities go, though not with a huge amount to detain the traveller. Casamance is beautiful and very friendly, with proper old school animist religion complete with Tom Tom drums, chiefs, a king you can have an audience with, fetishes, the works.

Cap Skirring is very pleasant in a palm lined beachy way but there are no luxe hotels there, just some good airbnbs and pensions. Goree is really rather pretty.

The food, though a bit limited in range, is extremely tasty. It’s mainly fresh fish, usually with spicy sauces and rice. I’ve had “capitaine”, bream, monkfish, lots of prawns and langoustines throughout the visit. But there are good steak-frites to be had too, and the local beers are reasonable.

Brilliant, v useful, merci

Oh and the overnight ferry from Dakar to Ziguinchor was the best way to arrive in Casamance. Cheerful atmosphere, bar on deck serving Pastis (and other drinks), a table clothed restaurant with 3 good courses of Franco-Senegalese food and wine, reasonable cabins then a morning travelling up the Casamance river imagining oneself like some latter day Charlie Marlow.

It sounds marvelleuiux (sp?), and I am well jel and all-but-convinced

Do you need to book far ahead for things like the ferry or can it be done online/near the day? Also: relatively safe? I don't mind a fair bit of danger (hence, Ukraine) but as this will be a personal trip on my own shilling I'd rather not feel scared every hour

You can’t book far in advance and can’t book online, so the best thing is to get the hotel or travel agency you’re staying with to book it a few weeks before. We had a local BBC fixer help out as one of my travelling companions is a beeb journo.

Safety wise, yes very much so. But worth knowing the ferry’s predecessor was the subject of the second worst civilian maritime disaster in history, with 1750 deaths, in 2002. Since then they’ve probably gone further than any other boat company in the developing world to focus on safety: very strict passenger logs, security around the terminal, lifeboats and jackets everywhere.

Like elsewhere in Senegal there’s also no visible corruption. Nobody’s so much as hinted at baksheesh the whole week.

Cool. I'm sold!

MoonRabbit

HYUFD said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.

Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.

Wrong on current polls if we had PR we likely would get a Tory and Reform coalition government, under FPTP though a Labour minority government with LD support more likely

There is 0% chance of Conservative Party going into government with Reform. It would be the most stupidest thing the Conservative Party has ever done, and probably the last thing because it would be a real threat to the Conservative Parties existence.

You are also embarrassingly wrong when you always take the Reform polling, and tell us it equates to xxx seats. It doesn’t. 😌

You can get an awful lot of seats under FPTP if voters from other parties chose you when their preference can’t win. For example you go up just 0.6% from last election yet go from 11 to 72 seats, up just 1.6% and add 211, or get 14.3% of votes for just 5 seats. In this regard, Reform are friendless. Nobody, including Conservatives, lend their vote to help Reform.

So the Reform seat figures you post from the polling numbers are complete gibberish.

It’s stark it’s not an era of two party politics, it’s like minded on election outcome voting blocks, voting interchangeable in FPTP. Where Reform are friendless in the FPTP exploitation, this has to change.

williamglenn

JosiasJessop said:

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

It really is hilarious. Wrong at every stage. And there are lots of posts like this: designed to get the worryworts and the drama queens screeching about Putin's red lines.

I'm only posting it because it is funny, and so over-the-top that even dear @Leon could see it is ridiculous.

Why is it that this scepticism fails you completely when it comes to Russia's information weapons? To talk as if Russia only has to commission a few bots and it can control our election results is to fall into the same trap of exaggerating Russia's capabilities.

Because information weapons are very different, obvs. And it is not just 'a few bots'.

By your own argument you are just being a useful idiot who is undermining confidence in democracy and serving the interests of the Kremlin.

I think you need to reread my post.

But at least you actually gave a view this time, rather than post another stupid question.

"BEcauSe InFoRMATiOn wEapOns ARe VeRY dIFfERENT, oBVs" is exactly what someone trying to undermine confidence in our elections would say.

Mexicanpete

JosiasJessop said:

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

It really is hilarious. Wrong at every stage. And there are lots of posts like this: designed to get the worryworts and the drama queens screeching about Putin's red lines.

I'm only posting it because it is funny, and so over-the-top that even dear @Leon could see it is ridiculous.

Why is it that this scepticism fails you completely when it comes to Russia's information weapons? To talk as if Russia only has to commission a few bots and it can control our election results is to fall into the same trap of exaggerating Russia's capabilities.

Because information weapons are very different, obvs. And it is not just 'a few bots'.

By your own argument you are just being a useful idiot who is undermining confidence in democracy and serving the interests of the Kremlin.

I think you need to reread my post.

But at least you actually gave a view this time, rather than post another stupid question.

One knows when one has been gaslit when @williamglenn accuses one of being a Kremlin "useful idiot".

It reminded me of this morning's performative piece by recent Justice Minister Bobby J. who was outraged at the current state of the prisons.

JosiasJessop

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

It really is hilarious. Wrong at every stage. And there are lots of posts like this: designed to get the worryworts and the drama queens screeching about Putin's red lines.

I'm only posting it because it is funny, and so over-the-top that even dear @Leon could see it is ridiculous.

Why is it that this scepticism fails you completely when it comes to Russia's information weapons? To talk as if Russia only has to commission a few bots and it can control our election results is to fall into the same trap of exaggerating Russia's capabilities.

Because information weapons are very different, obvs. And it is not just 'a few bots'.

By your own argument you are just being a useful idiot who is undermining confidence in democracy and serving the interests of the Kremlin.

I think you need to reread my post.

But at least you actually gave a view this time, rather than post another stupid question.

"BEcauSe InFoRMATiOn wEapOns ARe VeRY dIFfERENT, oBVs" is exactly what someone trying to undermine confidence in our elections would say.

You appear to have something wrong with the shift key on your keyboard.

williamglenn

In his final cabinet meeting, Michel Barnier warns Macron that France is suffering from "social, territorial and rural fractures".

https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/live/2024/12/11/en-direct-nouveau-premier-ministre-michel-barnier-a-alerte-emmanuel-macron-au-sujet-des-fractures-sociales-territoriales-rurales-de-la-france_6437830_823448.html

Mexicanpete

JosiasJessop said:

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

williamglenn said:

JosiasJessop said:

It really is hilarious. Wrong at every stage. And there are lots of posts like this: designed to get the worryworts and the drama queens screeching about Putin's red lines.

I'm only posting it because it is funny, and so over-the-top that even dear @Leon could see it is ridiculous.

Why is it that this scepticism fails you completely when it comes to Russia's information weapons? To talk as if Russia only has to commission a few bots and it can control our election results is to fall into the same trap of exaggerating Russia's capabilities.

Because information weapons are very different, obvs. And it is not just 'a few bots'.

By your own argument you are just being a useful idiot who is undermining confidence in democracy and serving the interests of the Kremlin.

I think you need to reread my post.

But at least you actually gave a view this time, rather than post another stupid question.

"BEcauSe InFoRMATiOn wEapOns ARe VeRY dIFfERENT, oBVs" is exactly what someone trying to undermine confidence in our elections would say.

You appear to have something wrong with the shift key on your keyboard.

Soviet era keyboard?

MoonRabbit

Taz said:

US inflation still moving up again.

The Trumpdozer needs to be careful with his tariffs.

https://x.com/grdecter/status/1866838101827477792?s=61

And tax cuts. He needs two years of austerity budgets like UK are sensibly doing.

viewcode

Leon said:

viewcode said:

Leon said:

In Shanghai I also had my own butler and piano etc, but it was all in MY OWN CASTLE

The insane trillionaire owner has transported an entire sacred forest and "castle village" - fortified villas for high level Ming bureaucrats - from central China, where they were menaced by development

Seriously. My own castle. It even had a moat. I think they made the poetic mist with a machine. The beautiful young lady butler lived in her own chamber in the castle (no, I didn't) and kept insisting I drink Monkey 47 gin

Guess the movie

Hah. That's brilliant, and eerily similar. I wonder if they were inspired by Chinese architecture?

But I have no idea of the movie, without Claudeing. Is it a Star Wars spin off?

It's The Keep (1983, Michael Mann). It's not a good movie, with too many villains. But the atmosphere is intense and if you like early 1980's electronic soundtracks it's great. Oddly enough it was filmed in North Wales, so my headcanon has Big_G in the crowd scenes

Review: https://bigother.com/2012/06/15/feature-friday-the-keep-1983/
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keep_(film)
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tiu3-nbLoyY

NickyBreakspear

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

FPT in case missed (but without picture as I assume that would be breaking the one a day rule):

I’ve been sending daily pics of riverine life in Senegal, but perhaps not at times you were online. I’ve only had time and bandwidth generally to post once per day.

I am getting towards the end of my trip now and in a very interesting and atypical place: the ile de Goree where we’re spending 2 nights. It’s more like a quaint Mediterranean island than an African town, but with a slave house.

I was impressed with the maison des esclaves and its famous door of no return. The nuanced descriptions of the history of Goree and the slave trade were pitched just right I thought, and didn’t patronise. The National Trust would be proud. Not the Americanised guilt trip I’d expected.

And like many French style heritage hotspots it fills up with day trippers off the ferry during the day then empties out in the evening and takes on a serene air.

Here’s a pic for the day - typical Goree backstreet:

Would you recommend Senegal? I'm tempted by an early January trip and the airline prices are quite reasonable.... Also I am trying to hit 100 countries (I'm on 95, I think). I'm like a batsman nervously getting near his century. In West Africa I could easily do five in a fortnight, the equivalent of hitting your century by whacking a 6 over the pavliion and into north Marylebone

I’d definitely recommend it, if you speak passable French. Everything is in French and there are very few nods to Anglophonie.

If you are coming, then Dakar is decent and cosmopolitan as African cities go, though not with a huge amount to detain the traveller. Casamance is beautiful and very friendly, with proper old school animist religion complete with Tom Tom drums, chiefs, a king you can have an audience with, fetishes, the works.

Cap Skirring is very pleasant in a palm lined beachy way but there are no luxe hotels there, just some good airbnbs and pensions. Goree is really rather pretty.

The food, though a bit limited in range, is extremely tasty. It’s mainly fresh fish, usually with spicy sauces and rice. I’ve had “capitaine”, bream, monkfish, lots of prawns and langoustines throughout the visit. But there are good steak-frites to be had too, and the local beers are reasonable.

Brilliant, v useful, merci

Oh and the overnight ferry from Dakar to Ziguinchor was the best way to arrive in Casamance. Cheerful atmosphere, bar on deck serving Pastis (and other drinks), a table clothed restaurant with 3 good courses of Franco-Senegalese food and wine, reasonable cabins then a morning travelling up the Casamance river imagining oneself like some latter day Charlie Marlow.

It sounds marvelleuiux (sp?), and I am well jel and all-but-convinced

Do you need to book far ahead for things like the ferry or can it be done online/near the day? Also: relatively safe? I don't mind a fair bit of danger (hence, Ukraine) but as this will be a personal trip on my own shilling I'd rather not feel scared every hour

You can’t book far in advance and can’t book online, so the best thing is to get the hotel or travel agency you’re staying with to book it a few weeks before. We had a local BBC fixer help out as one of my travelling companions is a beeb journo.

Safety wise, yes very much so. But worth knowing the ferry’s predecessor was the subject of the second worst civilian maritime disaster in history, with 1750 deaths, in 2002. Since then they’ve probably gone further than any other boat company in the developing world to focus on safety: very strict passenger logs, security around the terminal, lifeboats and jackets everywhere.

Like elsewhere in Senegal there’s also no visible corruption. Nobody’s so much as hinted at baksheesh the whole week.

Can you recomend a good travel agency for Senegal?

Leon

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

TimS said:

FPT in case missed (but without picture as I assume that would be breaking the one a day rule):

I’ve been sending daily pics of riverine life in Senegal, but perhaps not at times you were online. I’ve only had time and bandwidth generally to post once per day.

I am getting towards the end of my trip now and in a very interesting and atypical place: the ile de Goree where we’re spending 2 nights. It’s more like a quaint Mediterranean island than an African town, but with a slave house.

I was impressed with the maison des esclaves and its famous door of no return. The nuanced descriptions of the history of Goree and the slave trade were pitched just right I thought, and didn’t patronise. The National Trust would be proud. Not the Americanised guilt trip I’d expected.

And like many French style heritage hotspots it fills up with day trippers off the ferry during the day then empties out in the evening and takes on a serene air.

Here’s a pic for the day - typical Goree backstreet:

Would you recommend Senegal? I'm tempted by an early January trip and the airline prices are quite reasonable.... Also I am trying to hit 100 countries (I'm on 95, I think). I'm like a batsman nervously getting near his century. In West Africa I could easily do five in a fortnight, the equivalent of hitting your century by whacking a 6 over the pavliion and into north Marylebone

I’d definitely recommend it, if you speak passable French. Everything is in French and there are very few nods to Anglophonie.

If you are coming, then Dakar is decent and cosmopolitan as African cities go, though not with a huge amount to detain the traveller. Casamance is beautiful and very friendly, with proper old school animist religion complete with Tom Tom drums, chiefs, a king you can have an audience with, fetishes, the works.

Cap Skirring is very pleasant in a palm lined beachy way but there are no luxe hotels there, just some good airbnbs and pensions. Goree is really rather pretty.

The food, though a bit limited in range, is extremely tasty. It’s mainly fresh fish, usually with spicy sauces and rice. I’ve had “capitaine”, bream, monkfish, lots of prawns and langoustines throughout the visit. But there are good steak-frites to be had too, and the local beers are reasonable.

Brilliant, v useful, merci

Oh and the overnight ferry from Dakar to Ziguinchor was the best way to arrive in Casamance. Cheerful atmosphere, bar on deck serving Pastis (and other drinks), a table clothed restaurant with 3 good courses of Franco-Senegalese food and wine, reasonable cabins then a morning travelling up the Casamance river imagining oneself like some latter day Charlie Marlow.

It sounds marvelleuiux (sp?), and I am well jel and all-but-convinced

Do you need to book far ahead for things like the ferry or can it be done online/near the day? Also: relatively safe? I don't mind a fair bit of danger (hence, Ukraine) but as this will be a personal trip on my own shilling I'd rather not feel scared every hour

You can’t book far in advance and can’t book online, so the best thing is to get the hotel or travel agency you’re staying with to book it a few weeks before. We had a local BBC fixer help out as one of my travelling companions is a beeb journo.

Safety wise, yes very much so. But worth knowing the ferry’s predecessor was the subject of the second worst civilian maritime disaster in history, with 1750 deaths, in 2002. Since then they’ve probably gone further than any other boat company in the developing world to focus on safety: very strict passenger logs, security around the terminal, lifeboats and jackets everywhere.

Like elsewhere in Senegal there’s also no visible corruption. Nobody’s so much as hinted at baksheesh the whole week.

You'll be pleased, maybe, to hear that I am now slightly obsessed with that ferry. Sounds wonderful, and of course the fact it is really quite hard to book is making me even keener. I need a Senegalese friend

Taz

The convincing case for ‘Where Eagles Dare’ being an Xmas film

https://x.com/trevorbaxendale/status/1866809572259779032?s=61

MoonRabbit

williamglenn said:

MoonRabbit said:

bondegezou said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.

Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.

How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?

Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏

Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.

Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?

bondegezou

viewcode said:

Leon said:

viewcode said:

Leon said:

In Shanghai I also had my own butler and piano etc, but it was all in MY OWN CASTLE

The insane trillionaire owner has transported an entire sacred forest and "castle village" - fortified villas for high level Ming bureaucrats - from central China, where they were menaced by development

Seriously. My own castle. It even had a moat. I think they made the poetic mist with a machine. The beautiful young lady butler lived in her own chamber in the castle (no, I didn't) and kept insisting I drink Monkey 47 gin

Guess the movie

Hah. That's brilliant, and eerily similar. I wonder if they were inspired by Chinese architecture?

But I have no idea of the movie, without Claudeing. Is it a Star Wars spin off?

It's The Keep (1983, Michael Mann). It's not a good movie, with too many villains. But the atmosphere is intense and if you like early 1980's electronic soundtracks it's great. Oddly enough it was filmed in North Wales, so my headcanon has Big_G in the crowd scenes

Review: https://bigother.com/2012/06/15/feature-friday-the-keep-1983/
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keep_(film)
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tiu3-nbLoyY

Tangerine Dream, nice.

bondegezou

MoonRabbit said:

williamglenn said:

MoonRabbit said:

bondegezou said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.

Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.

How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?

Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏

Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.

Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?

Hard to tell. Some experiments with ordinal voting and things like jungle primaries have seen more moderate candidates being elected, which one could see as a good thing.

PR could see the Republicans split into the Trump Cult Party and the more traditional Republicans, and it could seen a left-wing group split from the Democrats.

Mexicanpete

MoonRabbit said:

williamglenn said:

MoonRabbit said:

bondegezou said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.

Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.

How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?

Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏

Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.

Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?

Hmmm, it's about to become a one party failed state.

williamglenn

MoonRabbit said:

williamglenn said:

MoonRabbit said:

bondegezou said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.

Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.

How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?

Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏

Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.

Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?

The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.

Mexicanpete

MoonRabbit said:

Taz said:

US inflation still moving up again.

The Trumpdozer needs to be careful with his tariffs.

https://x.com/grdecter/status/1866838101827477792?s=61

And tax cuts. He needs two years of austerity budgets like UK are sensibly doing.

The austerity budgets are on their way. All safety net and health care provision removed with trickle down tax cuts for billionaires and the Trump family.

rcs1000

williamglenn said:

MoonRabbit said:

williamglenn said:

MoonRabbit said:

bondegezou said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.

Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.

How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?

Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏

Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.

Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?

The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.

How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.

Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?

Dopermean

Mexicanpete said:

MoonRabbit said:

Taz said:

US inflation still moving up again.

The Trumpdozer needs to be careful with his tariffs.

https://x.com/grdecter/status/1866838101827477792?s=61

And tax cuts. He needs two years of austerity budgets like UK are sensibly doing.

The austerity budgets are on their way. All safety net and health care provision removed with trickle down tax cuts for billionaires and the Trump family.

I think tax cuts aren't relevant to the non-tax paying Trump family
They'll just be back to milking the Mar-a-Lago room rate for his security detail and other graft.

bondegezou

I can’t recall who alerted us to the mysterious Kwango Province disease outbreak. The WHO have been investigating and it looks like it’s just regular flu + malaria + high rates of malnutrition in the area. Which is good news in pandemic terms, although the poor state of health services and food security in DRC remains a serious problem.

williamglenn

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

MoonRabbit said:

williamglenn said:

MoonRabbit said:

bondegezou said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.

Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.

How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?

Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏

Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.

Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?

The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.

How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.

Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?

It's taken time for the impact to work its way through society. It's true that the media used to act as more of a filter, but that is no longer possible and even the BBC has started catering to the lowest common denominator.

Pulpstar

bondegezou said:

I can’t recall who alerted us to the mysterious Kwango Province disease outbreak. The WHO have been investigating and it looks like it’s just regular flu + malaria + high rates of malnutrition in the area. Which is good news in pandemic terms, although the poor state of health services and food security in DRC remains a serious problem.

Sub $2 GDP per capita per day.

MattW

Leon said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Leon said:

Omnium said:

Carnyx said:

Omnium said:

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes.

The only spy satellites that have geostationary orbits are either SIGINT satellites or missile warning systems.

Bear in mind too, that if you are a long, long way from earth, then maneuvering becomes very expensive. In LEO, it's easy. One does a little burn, and your next track in 100 miles different.

With geostationary, you aren't 150 miles from earth (like a typical spy satellite), you're 21,000 miles out. That makes manauevering slow and almost impossibly expensive from a fuel perspective.

Surely it makes manoeuvring (a word I hate and can never spell) cheap?

Correct spelling. It's the Usonians confusing the ROW that makes it tricky.

I know it's the correct spelling because I had help from all the tech. I would never in a million years spell it that way of my own accord.

I've yielded to the far more sensible American "maneuver", no word should ever have three or more consecutive syllables

Seriously. Queueing. qUEUEUIng. What the fuck were they thinking? Is it a joke?

Vowels or syllables???

Indeed, vowels. Blame the jet lag

Speaking of consecutive vowels, or indeed consonants, has anyone ever correctly spelled Friedrich Nietzsche on the first go?

I must have written his name a thousand times. Yet EACH TIME I have to check

N I E T Z S C H E

No wonder he went mad

I might remember it as a bloke would drive a Neat Porsche.

If I needed to write it down.

algarkirk

Leon said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Leon said:

Omnium said:

Carnyx said:

Omnium said:

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes.

The only spy satellites that have geostationary orbits are either SIGINT satellites or missile warning systems.

Bear in mind too, that if you are a long, long way from earth, then maneuvering becomes very expensive. In LEO, it's easy. One does a little burn, and your next track in 100 miles different.

With geostationary, you aren't 150 miles from earth (like a typical spy satellite), you're 21,000 miles out. That makes manauevering slow and almost impossibly expensive from a fuel perspective.

Surely it makes manoeuvring (a word I hate and can never spell) cheap?

Correct spelling. It's the Usonians confusing the ROW that makes it tricky.

I know it's the correct spelling because I had help from all the tech. I would never in a million years spell it that way of my own accord.

I've yielded to the far more sensible American "maneuver", no word should ever have three or more consecutive syllables

Seriously. Queueing. qUEUEUIng. What the fuck were they thinking? Is it a joke?

Vowels or syllables???

Indeed, vowels. Blame the jet lag

Speaking of consecutive vowels, or indeed consonants, has anyone ever correctly spelled Friedrich Nietzsche on the first go?

I must have written his name a thousand times. Yet EACH TIME I have to check

N I E T Z S C H E

No wonder he went mad

I look it up every time. What name would have TZSCH in consecutive order?

Like - next question - what name has GHTSB in that order?

Andy_JS

"Police looking at ‘people of interest’ in Post Office Horizon scandal criminal probe
Met says investigation is ‘unprecedented in size’ and solicitors and barristers are among individuals being scrutinised"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/11/police-looking-at-people-of-interest-in-post-office-horizon/

Andy_JS

rcs1000 said:

williamglenn said:

MoonRabbit said:

williamglenn said:

MoonRabbit said:

bondegezou said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

RandallFlagg said:

MoonRabbit said:

Leon said:

Malmesbury said:

Cookie said:

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

algarkirk said:

PJH said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.

We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.

I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.

Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.

I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.

My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.

My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.

I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.

As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.

Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.

Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.

Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).

I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).

'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.

It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.

What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!

When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes

That is stupendously dumb and clumsy

Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.

It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".

Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones

The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.

For Reform to win in *2028*:
1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election
2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign
3) Badenoch continues to be useless
4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.

You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak

The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?

And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.

Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.

How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?

Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏

Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.

Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?

The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.

How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.

Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?

The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.

MattW

Andy_JS said:

"Police looking at ‘people of interest’ in Post Office Horizon scandal criminal probe
Met says investigation is ‘unprecedented in size’ and solicitors and barristers are among individuals being scrutinised"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/11/police-looking-at-people-of-interest-in-post-office-horizon/

The BBC says "dozens being looked at".

This is the Post Office, so trials due in 2027 at the earliest .

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgr19lwgv0o

MattW

algarkirk said:

Leon said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Leon said:

Omnium said:

Carnyx said:

Omnium said:

rcs1000 said:

viewcode said:

rcs1000 said:

MightyAlex said:

rcs1000 said:

JosiasJessop said:

Lots of tweets on Twix stating that NATO is over because Russia has a new superweapon: the Oreshnik.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)

Which seems so much cope. The claims - such as all the US's carriers gone immediately - would see repercussions. That's what Russia and their propagandists - child-molester Scott Ritter amongst them - forget. They seem to think Russia can use weapons and there will be no consequences. Because Russia is stronk or something.

Errr: isn't the difficult bit with carriers finding them?

There have been lots of weapons (including nuclear ones) that are pretty effective at destroying carriers. The difficult bit is finding the carrier group in an ocean of sea, and knowing exactly where it will be when your missile arrives there, and having the missile move at a speed that enables it to use sensors to maneuver.

Because the problem with hypersonic missiles and the like is that sensor performance is essentially destroyed by the act of travelling through the air at Mach 8 or whatever. So how can you see what it is that you want to hit?

Edit to add: that means that these missiles can be great at hitting ground based targets that don't move (hospitals! power stations!) but are rubbish at hitting moving targets. Even slowly moving ones.

I'm sure a few reconnaissance satellites could track a carrier port to port without a problem. No doubt the Chinese know exactly where each US carrier groups is and I'd imagine they know where each USN surface ship is.

Apparently Russians satellites are providing the Houthis with targeting information for their USVs/ASBM/ASCM.

Spy satellites are not geostationary: they are typically in low earth orbit and will take a picture of a particular area (on their orbit) every 90 minutes or so.

So you don't get real time pictures of your little spot. You get a photo every hour and a half.

Is that still true? With so many satellites up there, the odds on at least one of them covering a specific patch of ocean must be huge. We forget that these days there are over ten thousand satellites (Musk owns over 7,000 of them!)

Yes.

The only spy satellites that have geostationary orbits are either SIGINT satellites or missile warning systems.

Bear in mind too, that if you are a long, long way from earth, then maneuvering becomes very expensive. In LEO, it's easy. One does a little burn, and your next track in 100 miles different.

With geostationary, you aren't 150 miles from earth (like a typical spy satellite), you're 21,000 miles out. That makes manauevering slow and almost impossibly expensive from a fuel perspective.

Surely it makes manoeuvring (a word I hate and can never spell) cheap?

Correct spelling. It's the Usonians confusing the ROW that makes it tricky.

I know it's the correct spelling because I had help from all the tech. I would never in a million years spell it that way of my own accord.

I've yielded to the far more sensible American "maneuver", no word should ever have three or more consecutive syllables

Seriously. Queueing. qUEUEUIng. What the fuck were they thinking? Is it a joke?

Vowels or syllables???

Indeed, vowels. Blame the jet lag

Speaking of consecutive vowels, or indeed consonants, has anyone ever correctly spelled Friedrich Nietzsche on the first go?

I must have written his name a thousand times. Yet EACH TIME I have to check

N I E T Z S C H E

No wonder he went mad

I look it up every time. What name would have TZSCH in consecutive order?

Like - next question - what name has GHTSB in that order?

I'd plump for Hungarian surnames.

No idea, unless it is GAHETISOBU .