I also think that the aid agencies need to reflect on whether their support (in terms of providing very basic needs) for such a regime can be justified by the appalling suffering of its people. Of course we would have to accept that such an approach would greatly increase the number of refugees from this shambles of a country.
I am sure that Britain welcomes refugees fleeing such an awful place.
Doesn't it?
We broke it but let others beyond the Channel fix it has always been the British way.
We didn't break it.
We failed in our attempts to fix it, but Afghanistan was already broken long before 9/11.
Since 'we' have been dabbling in Afghan politics long before 9/11 I'd suggest we bear some responsibilty.
Not really.
Prior to 9/11 we hadn't been directly involved for a very long time.
If we were responsible, Afghanistan would be a much better place, but they don't want us involved even when we tried to fix things and failed to do so.
The Afghani population needs to take some accountability for its choices.
Yeah, the British Empire was all about making places better and fixing things. Tbf to the Afghans if Britain 'tried to fix things and failed to do so', probably wise to tell us to eff off.
Afghanistan was getting somewhere, socially, in the 70's. There was even a bus route from London to Calcutta/Kolkata which stopped in Kabul. Then there was the Revolution and the Soviet invasion, which the 'more enthusiastic' Muslims opposed, and were aided in their opposition by the West. Unfortunately those Muslims developed into the Taliban.
As someone born in the 70s, I have only ever known the arc from the Jordan to the Indus to be an unremitting medieval hellhole (Pakistan appears to be somewhat mixed but with a large area into which its inadvisable to go and an apparent constant danger of joining its western neighbours in Islamic totalitarianism). It's quite startling to learn how relatively recently this wasn't the case.
These places were beacons of light, learning and tolerance in the Middle Ages (pre-Genghis Khan) compared with now. Or indeed, compared with Europe then.
There is a fascinating book written by Robert Byron in the 1930s called the Road to Oxiana in which he is looking for the roots of Islamic Architecture. In it he mentions that in the early 13th century Herat, now a largely forgotten backwater in North Western Afghanistan, was reputedly the largest city in the world. When it was taken by the Mongols in 1222 they are said to have beheaded the entire population of 1.6 million.
Mongolia's history is fascinating, especially as it now seems to have become such a peacably-minded, Buddhist sort of country.
The early Ottoman empire essentially pursued the same sort of tactics, but the last Sultan ended up painting his watercolours on the French Riviera. It was the secular Turkish Nationalists that revived the violent approach.
I agree with Cycle. Misogyny is not treated as seriously as other equivalent evils (eg racism) either domestically or internationally. Why is this? I think it's because the belief that women don't matter quite as much as men is still held by an awful lot of people.
Just look at recent events in Trumpistan, or the recent mutterings of Andrew Tate.
Donald Trump is a bone-deep misogynist. I was so looking forward to him losing because of the female vote - that would have been just so right - but, alas, no. We now have the most patriarchal regime over there in living memory. It's like those great feminist battles of the civil rights era never happened. The price of gas and groceries outpaces wages for a couple of years and ... whoosh, let's go back to the 50s on gender roles. Bizarre. I don't understand it and I don't trust the common explanations.
I also think that the aid agencies need to reflect on whether their support (in terms of providing very basic needs) for such a regime can be justified by the appalling suffering of its people. Of course we would have to accept that such an approach would greatly increase the number of refugees from this shambles of a country.
I am sure that Britain welcomes refugees fleeing such an awful place.
Doesn't it?
We broke it but let others beyond the Channel fix it has always been the British way.
We didn't break it.
We failed in our attempts to fix it, but Afghanistan was already broken long before 9/11.
Since 'we' have been dabbling in Afghan politics long before 9/11 I'd suggest we bear some responsibilty.
Not really.
Prior to 9/11 we hadn't been directly involved for a very long time.
If we were responsible, Afghanistan would be a much better place, but they don't want us involved even when we tried to fix things and failed to do so.
The Afghani population needs to take some accountability for its choices.
Yeah, the British Empire was all about making places better and fixing things. Tbf to the Afghans if Britain 'tried to fix things and failed to do so', probably wise to tell us to eff off.
Afghanistan was getting somewhere, socially, in the 70's. There was even a bus route from London to Calcutta/Kolkata which stopped in Kabul. Then there was the Revolution and the Soviet invasion, which the 'more enthusiastic' Muslims opposed, and were aided in their opposition by the West. Unfortunately those Muslims developed into the Taliban.
As someone born in the 70s, I have only ever known the arc from the Jordan to the Indus to be an unremitting medieval hellhole (Pakistan appears to be somewhat mixed but with a large area into which its inadvisable to go and an apparent constant danger of joining its western neighbours in Islamic totalitarianism). It's quite startling to learn how relatively recently this wasn't the case.
These places were beacons of light, learning and tolerance in the Middle Ages (pre-Genghis Khan) compared with now. Or indeed, compared with Europe then.
There is a fascinating book written by Robert Byron in the 1930s called the Road to Oxiana in which he is looking for the roots of Islamic Architecture. In it he mentions that in the early 13th century Herat, now a largely forgotten backwater in North Western Afghanistan, was reputedly the largest city in the world. When it was taken by the Mongols in 1222 they are said to have beheaded the entire population of 1.6 million.
The impact of the Mongols on the Islamic world was devastating.
I agree with Cycle. Misogyny is not treated as seriously as other equivalent evils (eg racism) either domestically or internationally. Why is this? I think it's because the belief that women don't matter quite as much as men is still held by an awful lot of people.
Just look at recent events in Trumpistan, or the recent mutterings of Andrew Tate.
Donald Trump is a bone-deep misogynist. I was so looking forward to him losing because of the female vote - that would have been just so right - but, alas, no. We now have the most patriarchal regime over there in living memory. It's like those great feminist battles of the civil rights era never happened. The price of gas and groceries outpaces wages for a couple of years and ... whoosh, let's go back to the 50s on gender roles. Bizarre. I don't understand it and I don't trust the common explanations.
If you look at the rantings of both Musk and the less-sane parts of the GOP (and Musk and GOP are *not* the same), then you see very worrying utterances. Mass immigration is terrible; but the USA needs more people. The way to do this is to increase the birth rate, and the way to do this is to regress women's rights. Reduce access to abortion and contraception. Make it harder for women to work. Make women second-class citizens.
That's the way America's heading - regressing, I would argue. And I hope to God it's not an idea that will take off over here.
I agree with Cycle. Misogyny is not treated as seriously as other equivalent evils (eg racism) either domestically or internationally. Why is this? I think it's because the belief that women don't matter quite as much as men is still held by an awful lot of people.
Just look at recent events in Trumpistan, or the recent mutterings of Andrew Tate.
Donald Trump is a bone-deep misogynist. I was so looking forward to him losing because of the female vote - that would have been just so right - but, alas, no. We now have the most patriarchal regime over there in living memory. It's like those great feminist battles of the civil rights era never happened. The price of gas and groceries outpaces wages for a couple of years and ... whoosh, let's go back to the 50s on gender roles. Bizarre. I don't understand it and I don't trust the common explanations.
What do you think the common explanations are?
I think (a) inflation made the incumbents unpopular, (b) there's a Fox News etc. bubble pumping out propaganda to a chunk of the population (we even see some here believing it), and (c) a very strong 2-party system means that dissatisfaction with the Dems helps the Reps regardless of the candidate/policy platform (and vice versa).
O/T and apologies if I missed previous discussion of this but... watching the harrowing footage of the Jeju Air crash, who on earth decided to build a concrete block wall around Muan airport?
An aviation expert said the pilot made a text book landing in the circumstances and but for the wall it was fair to assume everyone would have survived. He also commented the runway was shorter than many
As with all disasters lessons will be learnt but sadly at the loss of innocent lives
It does not require many brain cells to conclude that a concrete wall at the end of a runway is not a great idea, must have been some real moron who santioned that.
I agree with Cycle. Misogyny is not treated as seriously as other equivalent evils (eg racism) either domestically or internationally. Why is this? I think it's because the belief that women don't matter quite as much as men is still held by an awful lot of people.
Just look at recent events in Trumpistan, or the recent mutterings of Andrew Tate.
Donald Trump is a bone-deep misogynist. I was so looking forward to him losing because of the female vote - that would have been just so right - but, alas, no. We now have the most patriarchal regime over there in living memory. It's like those great feminist battles of the civil rights era never happened. The price of gas and groceries outpaces wages for a couple of years and ... whoosh, let's go back to the 50s on gender roles. Bizarre. I don't understand it and I don't trust the common explanations.
There is no doubt women are given little freedom in Afghanistan and under their strict interpretation of Sharia Islamic law there role is limited to being wives and mothers effectively. However after the western withdrawal from Kabul effectively handed the country back to the Taliban and their hardline Islamic rules there is little we can do about it now and certainly boycotting a cricket match won't make much difference.
Just as in Dubai today an 18 year old British boy has been jailed for having consensual sex with a 17 year old girl again there is little we can do about it, if you want to have the same levels of social liberalism when travelling to a conservative Islamic country as we have here then probably best to stay home. Especially if a feminist, LGBT or a teenager 16 to 18
O/T and apologies if I missed previous discussion of this but... watching the harrowing footage of the Jeju Air crash, who on earth decided to build a concrete block wall around Muan airport?
An aviation expert said the pilot made a text book landing in the circumstances and but for the wall it was fair to assume everyone would have survived. He also commented the runway was shorter than many
As with all disasters lessons will be learnt but sadly at the loss of innocent lives
It does not require many brain cells to conclude that a concrete wall at the end of a runway is not a great idea, must have been some real moron who santioned that.
From the video I've seen, it was going to be a massive casualty event wall or no wall. The speed they carried off the end of the runway was insane.
I agree with Cycle. Misogyny is not treated as seriously as other equivalent evils (eg racism) either domestically or internationally. Why is this? I think it's because the belief that women don't matter quite as much as men is still held by an awful lot of people.
Just look at recent events in Trumpistan, or the recent mutterings of Andrew Tate.
Donald Trump is a bone-deep misogynist. I was so looking forward to him losing because of the female vote - that would have been just so right - but, alas, no. We now have the most patriarchal regime over there in living memory. It's like those great feminist battles of the civil rights era never happened. The price of gas and groceries outpaces wages for a couple of years and ... whoosh, let's go back to the 50s on gender roles. Bizarre. I don't understand it and I don't trust the common explanations.
What do you think the common explanations are?
I think (a) inflation made the incumbents unpopular, (b) there's a Fox News etc. bubble pumping out propaganda to a chunk of the population (we even see some here believing it), and (c) a very strong 2-party system means that dissatisfaction with the Dems helps the Reps regardless of the candidate/policy platform (and vice versa).
There is a movement in the U.S. called "trad wives".
Some of these are uneducated people from very repressive family environments who have no concept of their rights as women, and others are former liberals who feel that the modern liberal movement berates them if they decide to take a more traditional home-based role. So part of the problem is ignorance and Trumpist prejudice, and part of it is the particular recent styie of liberal rhetoric on these issues.
I agree with Cycle. Misogyny is not treated as seriously as other equivalent evils (eg racism) either domestically or internationally. Why is this? I think it's because the belief that women don't matter quite as much as men is still held by an awful lot of people.
eg Tobias Ellwood praising the Taliban, and needing to be reminded that they treat half the population as subhuman.
Afghanistan must be unique, as a society where the men prefer sex with each other, to sex with women
I agree with this piece; indeed, it'd be interesting to see if anyone disagrees with it, and why.
I do disagree with it - or at least, with its conclusion - and will try try explain why.
To begin with, let me say that the developments in Afghanistan post-withdrawal have been both tragic and inevitable. We know exactly what the Taliban is like, we knew that the Afghan army was corrupt, unmotivated, and lacked a binding ethos either to itself or within the country, just as the central government did. It was all but certain that the government would fall and the army would capitulate; all that was to be decided was how long that would take, and how unreformed the Taliban was. As it turned out, days rather than months to fall, and a couple of years to demonstrate the extent of their benightedness (which may well not yet have reached its nadir).
The question for Western politicians and activists is what can be done to change this - to which the answer, I suspect, is nothing.
The example usually cited when it comes to the effectiveness of sporting sanctions is South Africa, from about the late 1960s (not-so-coincidentally exactly the same time when the USA decided it was finally time to sort out its own apartheid, which till then had made very little impact on activists elsewhere in the world), until its fall in the late 1980s (also, not-so-coincidentally, at the same time as end of the Cold War).
But South Africa is the exception, not the rule - and even then took 20 years. Every other sporting boycott - and there have been many, mostly now forgotten - has failed. Why did it work in the South African case? Several reasons.
Another Afghan boycott was Carter's of the Moscow Olympics, following the Soviet invasion. He effectively restarted the Cold War that year, and we know how that turned out.
It's quite a leap to link the boycott of the Moscow Olympics to the fall of communism. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the fall, yes, there's a more direct path there, but the effect of the US staying out of the Moscow games was minimal beyond the subsequent Soviet bloc non-participation at LA in 1984. But Reagan would have done what Reagan did whatever Carter's policy, and quite possibly without the Soviet invasion too.
My point was rather the continuity of policy. Carter, of course, has also started to intervene in Afghanistan, which the incoming administration continued.
The policy line between the two, in not a few areas (see also, for instance, deregulation) was not quite as bright as has been painted.
One Carter policy which Reagan did completely trash was on climate change. But for that we might already be at net zero - and the US, not China the dominant renewables manufacturer.
O/T and apologies if I missed previous discussion of this but... watching the harrowing footage of the Jeju Air crash, who on earth decided to build a concrete block wall around Muan airport?
An aviation expert said the pilot made a text book landing in the circumstances and but for the wall it was fair to assume everyone would have survived. He also commented the runway was shorter than many
As with all disasters lessons will be learnt but sadly at the loss of innocent lives
It does not require many brain cells to conclude that a concrete wall at the end of a runway is not a great idea, must have been some real moron who santioned that.
most airports around the world have evolved to what and where they are. (There are exception where new airports have been built). No-one would build Heathrow where it is now, to the point that no-one wants a replacement larger airport near them.
I don't know much about that particular airport but you have to do something about planes which go over the end of the runway. without the wall it would have crashed into something (probably the landing assistance equipment at that end of the runway). The theory is they were coming in too fast and had issues with the front nose gear. with only 1 engine providing reverse thrust and without proper landing gear braking they were always going off the end of the runway.
I agree with Cycle. Misogyny is not treated as seriously as other equivalent evils (eg racism) either domestically or internationally. Why is this? I think it's because the belief that women don't matter quite as much as men is still held by an awful lot of people.
Misogyny is too polite a word for it, IMO. At some level for many, women are simply not seen as fully human, are seen as little more than orifices to be used and abused. Why this happens I find hard to fathom - but hatred and contempt and fear are part of it - because it's hard to explain what is done to women if those emotions are not part of the reason. Every single person in this world was born of a woman, nurtured in her body and by her in the early stages of life. That should induce some reverence for what is both so ordinary and also miraculous and some sense of protection and respect for those humans. But a look around you - not just now but in much of history - shows so often the opposite, even now and in the civilised West despite all our talk of "rights" and "dignity" and "respect". It is baffling and saddening.
That's actually what I mean by misogyny. Viewing women as a lesser type of human being. "Sexism" or "chauvinism" are more the polite end of the spectrum as I'd use the terms.
Anyway, I totally agree with you about this topic. The Taliban is extreme and particularly horrible but you can get a sense of what we're talking about pretty much anywhere and everywhere. The notion that men are the main show in life - the players if you like - and woman are subsidiary, there to support, succour, praise, cheer, and decorate. I think this feeling is common and deep-rooted (and not confined to men). It's not niche, it's mainstream.
The picture is of the great Basil D'Olivera, I was being impish. Although I am not sure how Basil fits in with the text.
Edit. Apartheid/ Gender Apartheid I suppose. In that case it makes perfect sense.
The South Africans refusing to play an England team that included D'Olivera can be seen as marking the start of the sporting boycott of South Africa (although technically it was more of a lockout than a strike in that instance).
To the extent that sporting sanctions work, the ECB (or TCCB or MCC or whoever was in charge then) did the right thing by refusing to back down and selecting a team on merit rather than to fit in with unacceptable local rules.
The same should apply re Afghanistan. Ensure that female members of staff are visible and that broadcasters will not amend their teams because the the sensitivities of the opposition (or locals - the match will be played in Pakistan).
Basil D'Olivera wasn't originally selected.
South Africa were banned from the Olympics in 1964 South Africa were suspended by FIFA in 1961 and 1965
I don't think we will be giving cricket to much credit when English individuals and rebel tours flouted the boycott with reletive immunity. Derek Underwood & Mike Gatting later became presidents of MCC
O/T and apologies if I missed previous discussion of this but... watching the harrowing footage of the Jeju Air crash, who on earth decided to build a concrete block wall around Muan airport?
An aviation expert said the pilot made a text book landing in the circumstances and but for the wall it was fair to assume everyone would have survived. He also commented the runway was shorter than many
As with all disasters lessons will be learnt but sadly at the loss of innocent lives
It does not require many brain cells to conclude that a concrete wall at the end of a runway is not a great idea, must have been some real moron who santioned that.
most airports around the world have evolved to what and where they are. (There are exception where new airports have been built). No-one would build Heathrow where it is now, to the point that no-one wants a replacement larger airport near them.
I don't know much about that particular airport but you have to do something about planes which go over the end of the runway. without the wall it would have crashed into something (probably the landing assistance equipment at that end of the runway). The theory is they were coming in too fast and had issues with the front nose gear. with only 1 engine providing reverse thrust and without proper landing gear braking they were always going off the end of the runway.
The photographs indicate there is a considerable unobstructed flat area beyond the wall, and the aviation expert said that had the wall not been there, then it was very likely no lives would have been lost
Are the Republican money men behind Plan 2025 and their control of women's reproductive rights really that much better than the Taliban in their attitudes to women? At least the Taliban don't try to hide behind any pretence of democratic legitimacy.
Are the Republican money men behind Plan 2025 and their control of women's reproductive rights really that much better than the Taliban in their attitudes to women? At least the Taliban don't try to hide behind any pretence of democratic legitimacy.
Well they have not banned women from going to university, having a career, having sex outside heterosexual marriage, dancing, making music, playing sport or using social media like the Taliban have so probably not as yet
I agree with Cycle. Misogyny is not treated as seriously as other equivalent evils (eg racism) either domestically or internationally. Why is this? I think it's because the belief that women don't matter quite as much as men is still held by an awful lot of people.
eg Tobias Ellwood praising the Taliban, and needing to be reminded that they treat half the population as subhuman.
Afghanistan must be unique, as a society where the men prefer sex with each other, to sex with women
In an alternative, less male-centred world a 'coalition of the willing' might have gone in on a female emancipation ticket rather than to meat out vengeance for 9/11.
ultimately the global community wouldn't have cared about Afghanistan or the Taliban in 2001 had Osama Bin Laden used somewhere else as a base. had he been able to set up his camps in Saudi Arabia (say) the world would have acted very differently.
Undoubtedly true. Not sure the "global community" cared too much anyway. It was mainly about America. Things involving them get elevated beyond all reason. Look at how those (very common) mass shootings they go in for get so much coverage over here. Or some bit of nasty weather in some state or other. All over our news. I mean, why?
It is an age-old dilemma (cf international aid). Do you engage hoping to change minds, or disengage as a punishment to force that change.
I don't know, historically, which has worked. I know the Taliban are both pretty stubborn, ideologically, and also realise to some degree that there needs to be some pragmatism when dealing with the West. Where that leaves this measure who knows.
But more than that, as has been noted, is the absurdity of the measure the root of which is adherence to religious doctrine. There's that root cause again - religion. It really would be a better world if religion was banned, because whatever took its place would struggle to be as corrosive and harmful.
The Democrats need to reach out to the kind of Red-State women that resent being told they should never be homemakers, but don't want their rights taken away.
The problem is that the incredibly binary and polarised nature of U.S. political discourse, nowadays increasingly represented by Bluesky and Twitter, and with that trend spreading here, makes all these kinds of nuances and conversations more difficult, than they should be.
I also think that the aid agencies need to reflect on whether their support (in terms of providing very basic needs) for such a regime can be justified by the appalling suffering of its people. Of course we would have to accept that such an approach would greatly increase the number of refugees from this shambles of a country.
I am sure that Britain welcomes refugees fleeing such an awful place.
Doesn't it?
We broke it but let others beyond the Channel fix it has always been the British way.
We didn't break it.
We failed in our attempts to fix it, but Afghanistan was already broken long before 9/11.
Since 'we' have been dabbling in Afghan politics long before 9/11 I'd suggest we bear some responsibilty.
Not really.
Prior to 9/11 we hadn't been directly involved for a very long time.
If we were responsible, Afghanistan would be a much better place, but they don't want us involved even when we tried to fix things and failed to do so.
The Afghani population needs to take some accountability for its choices.
Yeah, the British Empire was all about making places better and fixing things. Tbf to the Afghans if Britain 'tried to fix things and failed to do so', probably wise to tell us to eff off.
Afghanistan was getting somewhere, socially, in the 70's. There was even a bus route from London to Calcutta/Kolkata which stopped in Kabul. Then there was the Revolution and the Soviet invasion, which the 'more enthusiastic' Muslims opposed, and were aided in their opposition by the West. Unfortunately those Muslims developed into the Taliban.
As someone born in the 70s, I have only ever known the arc from the Jordan to the Indus to be an unremitting medieval hellhole (Pakistan appears to be somewhat mixed but with a large area into which its inadvisable to go and an apparent constant danger of joining its western neighbours in Islamic totalitarianism). It's quite startling to learn how relatively recently this wasn't the case.
These places were beacons of light, learning and tolerance in the Middle Ages (pre-Genghis Khan) compared with now. Or indeed, compared with Europe then.
There is a fascinating book written by Robert Byron in the 1930s called the Road to Oxiana in which he is looking for the roots of Islamic Architecture. In it he mentions that in the early 13th century Herat, now a largely forgotten backwater in North Western Afghanistan, was reputedly the largest city in the world. When it was taken by the Mongols in 1222 they are said to have beheaded the entire population of 1.6 million.
I agree with this piece; indeed, it'd be interesting to see if anyone disagrees with it, and why.
I do disagree with it - or at least, with its conclusion - and will try try explain why.
To begin with, let me say that the developments in Afghanistan post-withdrawal have been both tragic and inevitable. We know exactly what the Taliban is like, we knew that the Afghan army was corrupt, unmotivated, and lacked a binding ethos either to itself or within the country, just as the central government did. It was all but certain that the government would fall and the army would capitulate; all that was to be decided was how long that would take, and how unreformed the Taliban was. As it turned out, days rather than months to fall, and a couple of years to demonstrate the extent of their benightedness (which may well not yet have reached its nadir).
The question for Western politicians and activists is what can be done to change this - to which the answer, I suspect, is nothing.
The example usually cited when it comes to the effectiveness of sporting sanctions is South Africa, from about the late 1960s (not-so-coincidentally exactly the same time when the USA decided it was finally time to sort out its own apartheid, which till then had made very little impact on activists elsewhere in the world), until its fall in the late 1980s (also, not-so-coincidentally, at the same time as end of the Cold War).
But South Africa is the exception, not the rule - and even then took 20 years. Every other sporting boycott - and there have been many, mostly now forgotten - has failed. Why did it work in the South African case? Several reasons.
Another Afghan boycott was Carter's of the Moscow Olympics, following the Soviet invasion. He effectively restarted the Cold War that year, and we know how that turned out.
It's quite a leap to link the boycott of the Moscow Olympics to the fall of communism. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the fall, yes, there's a more direct path there, but the effect of the US staying out of the Moscow games was minimal beyond the subsequent Soviet bloc non-participation at LA in 1984. But Reagan would have done what Reagan did whatever Carter's policy, and quite possibly without the Soviet invasion too.
My point was rather the continuity of policy. Carter, of course, has also started to intervene in Afghanistan, which the incoming administration continued.
The policy line between the two, in not a few areas (see also, for instance, deregulation) was not quite as bright as has been painted.
One Carter policy which Reagan did completely trash was on climate change. But for that we might already be at net zero - and the US, not China the dominant renewables manufacturer.
Reagan also slashed taxes, especially for richer Americans far more than Carter had and would have and was prepared to take on the unions as he did when he fired air traffic controllers who refused to return to work.
On social issues Carter was relatively conservative, certainly compared to Democrats now, pro traditional marriage and personally opposed to abortion and an evangelical Baptist. Fiscally though he believed government had a role to play in helping the poor even if he was no socialist and he also tried to promote peace abroad as with the Camp David accords.
Carter was probably therefore the US President closest to the teachings of Jesus Christ of any of them and in his personal life was also faithfully married to his wife for over 70 years
I also think that the aid agencies need to reflect on whether their support (in terms of providing very basic needs) for such a regime can be justified by the appalling suffering of its people. Of course we would have to accept that such an approach would greatly increase the number of refugees from this shambles of a country.
I am sure that Britain welcomes refugees fleeing such an awful place.
Doesn't it?
We broke it but let others beyond the Channel fix it has always been the British way.
We didn't break it.
We failed in our attempts to fix it, but Afghanistan was already broken long before 9/11.
Since 'we' have been dabbling in Afghan politics long before 9/11 I'd suggest we bear some responsibilty.
Not really.
Prior to 9/11 we hadn't been directly involved for a very long time.
If we were responsible, Afghanistan would be a much better place, but they don't want us involved even when we tried to fix things and failed to do so.
The Afghani population needs to take some accountability for its choices.
Yeah, the British Empire was all about making places better and fixing things. Tbf to the Afghans if Britain 'tried to fix things and failed to do so', probably wise to tell us to eff off.
Afghanistan was getting somewhere, socially, in the 70's. There was even a bus route from London to Calcutta/Kolkata which stopped in Kabul. Then there was the Revolution and the Soviet invasion, which the 'more enthusiastic' Muslims opposed, and were aided in their opposition by the West. Unfortunately those Muslims developed into the Taliban.
As someone born in the 70s, I have only ever known the arc from the Jordan to the Indus to be an unremitting medieval hellhole (Pakistan appears to be somewhat mixed but with a large area into which its inadvisable to go and an apparent constant danger of joining its western neighbours in Islamic totalitarianism). It's quite startling to learn how relatively recently this wasn't the case.
These places were beacons of light, learning and tolerance in the Middle Ages (pre-Genghis Khan) compared with now. Or indeed, compared with Europe then.
There is a fascinating book written by Robert Byron in the 1930s called the Road to Oxiana in which he is looking for the roots of Islamic Architecture. In it he mentions that in the early 13th century Herat, now a largely forgotten backwater in North Western Afghanistan, was reputedly the largest city in the world. When it was taken by the Mongols in 1222 they are said to have beheaded the entire population of 1.6 million.
What on earth was the Mongols problem?
They make Hitler look like a wet lettuce.
I believe that was the city of Merv, in modern day Turkmenistan.
I also think that the aid agencies need to reflect on whether their support (in terms of providing very basic needs) for such a regime can be justified by the appalling suffering of its people. Of course we would have to accept that such an approach would greatly increase the number of refugees from this shambles of a country.
I am sure that Britain welcomes refugees fleeing such an awful place.
Doesn't it?
We broke it but let others beyond the Channel fix it has always been the British way.
We didn't break it.
We failed in our attempts to fix it, but Afghanistan was already broken long before 9/11.
Since 'we' have been dabbling in Afghan politics long before 9/11 I'd suggest we bear some responsibilty.
Not really.
Prior to 9/11 we hadn't been directly involved for a very long time.
If we were responsible, Afghanistan would be a much better place, but they don't want us involved even when we tried to fix things and failed to do so.
The Afghani population needs to take some accountability for its choices.
Yeah, the British Empire was all about making places better and fixing things. Tbf to the Afghans if Britain 'tried to fix things and failed to do so', probably wise to tell us to eff off.
Afghanistan was getting somewhere, socially, in the 70's. There was even a bus route from London to Calcutta/Kolkata which stopped in Kabul. Then there was the Revolution and the Soviet invasion, which the 'more enthusiastic' Muslims opposed, and were aided in their opposition by the West. Unfortunately those Muslims developed into the Taliban.
As someone born in the 70s, I have only ever known the arc from the Jordan to the Indus to be an unremitting medieval hellhole (Pakistan appears to be somewhat mixed but with a large area into which its inadvisable to go and an apparent constant danger of joining its western neighbours in Islamic totalitarianism). It's quite startling to learn how relatively recently this wasn't the case.
These places were beacons of light, learning and tolerance in the Middle Ages (pre-Genghis Khan) compared with now. Or indeed, compared with Europe then.
There is a fascinating book written by Robert Byron in the 1930s called the Road to Oxiana in which he is looking for the roots of Islamic Architecture. In it he mentions that in the early 13th century Herat, now a largely forgotten backwater in North Western Afghanistan, was reputedly the largest city in the world. When it was taken by the Mongols in 1222 they are said to have beheaded the entire population of 1.6 million.
What on earth was the Mongols problem?
They make Hitler look like a wet lettuce.
The Ozghun Turks, who created the Ottoman Empire, were also essentially a sub-branch of the Mongols.
The sad fact is that extreme violence is very effective. At least Mongolia has now matured, and become a much more peacefully-minded society.
O/T and apologies if I missed previous discussion of this but... watching the harrowing footage of the Jeju Air crash, who on earth decided to build a concrete block wall around Muan airport?
An aviation expert said the pilot made a text book landing in the circumstances and but for the wall it was fair to assume everyone would have survived. He also commented the runway was shorter than many
As with all disasters lessons will be learnt but sadly at the loss of innocent lives
It does not require many brain cells to conclude that a concrete wall at the end of a runway is not a great idea, must have been some real moron who santioned that.
most airports around the world have evolved to what and where they are. (There are exception where new airports have been built). No-one would build Heathrow where it is now, to the point that no-one wants a replacement larger airport near them.
I don't know much about that particular airport but you have to do something about planes which go over the end of the runway. without the wall it would have crashed into something (probably the landing assistance equipment at that end of the runway). The theory is they were coming in too fast and had issues with the front nose gear. with only 1 engine providing reverse thrust and without proper landing gear braking they were always going off the end of the runway.
The photographs indicate there is a considerable unobstructed flat area beyond the wall, and the aviation expert said that had the wall not been there, then it was very likely no lives would have been lost
I'll take your word for that.
it's difficult to know what the pilots could have done differently and been more successful. with only 1 engine providing reverse thrust and improper support from the landing gear keeping the plane from veering off the runway halfway down is also an issue.
did they carry too much speed? did they have the altitude to lose speed? was the plane functioning well enough to allow them to do another go-around and come in more slowly?
some of the outcomes of the investigation will be on the airport and its response.
I'm very proud to say that my dad was a good friend of Basil, a truly humble and great man.
If you want to watch a glimpse of his prowess watch his last innings in One Day Cup Final at Lords on his 40s in gathering gloom on one leg, with a runner in the pre floodlight days.
I was bought up with the second of 3 great Worcester teams of the 60 / 70 / 80 era... The 70s era
Glenn Turner, Ron Headley, Graveny, Dolly, Vanburn Holder, Norman Gifford and 2 examples of something you don't see now... Ted Helmsley and Jimmy Coombes who played professional Cricket in the Summer and Professional League top 2 Division soccer in the winter.
Great memories.
It was the disgraceful way Dolly was treated that saw me active in the anti apartheid movement from the late 70s.
We'll leave chasing Zola mercenary Buds around Perry Barr Athletics track for another day.
All this reminds me of why I despise Musk today with a passion.
A runt of pure evil Apartheid white supremist DNA..
What you see, hear and learn growing up from stories like Dolly defines you.
I watched Worcestershire a lot during the 70s too, I remember that team well. My dad worked for a vending machine company. He always timed his visits, with me alongside, to replenish the cigarette machines at the same time as home John Player League matches, so we got in for free.
I agree with Cycle. Misogyny is not treated as seriously as other equivalent evils (eg racism) either domestically or internationally. Why is this? I think it's because the belief that women don't matter quite as much as men is still held by an awful lot of people.
Just look at recent events in Trumpistan, or the recent mutterings of Andrew Tate.
Donald Trump is a bone-deep misogynist. I was so looking forward to him losing because of the female vote - that would have been just so right - but, alas, no. We now have the most patriarchal regime over there in living memory. It's like those great feminist battles of the civil rights era never happened. The price of gas and groceries outpaces wages for a couple of years and ... whoosh, let's go back to the 50s on gender roles. Bizarre. I don't understand it and I don't trust the common explanations.
What do you think the common explanations are?
I think (a) inflation made the incumbents unpopular, (b) there's a Fox News etc. bubble pumping out propaganda to a chunk of the population (we even see some here believing it), and (c) a very strong 2-party system means that dissatisfaction with the Dems helps the Reps regardless of the candidate/policy platform (and vice versa).
The main one I'm thinking of is your (a) there. That plus the one that says the white working class were feeling "disrespected" by liberal elites. I just don't buy this as a reason to elect a guy like Donald Trump. It doesn't feel right to me. It feels like stuff people say because it sounds good and lots of other people are saying it.
I agree with Cycle. Misogyny is not treated as seriously as other equivalent evils (eg racism) either domestically or internationally. Why is this? I think it's because the belief that women don't matter quite as much as men is still held by an awful lot of people.
Just look at recent events in Trumpistan, or the recent mutterings of Andrew Tate.
Donald Trump is a bone-deep misogynist. I was so looking forward to him losing because of the female vote - that would have been just so right - but, alas, no. We now have the most patriarchal regime over there in living memory. It's like those great feminist battles of the civil rights era never happened. The price of gas and groceries outpaces wages for a couple of years and ... whoosh, let's go back to the 50s on gender roles. Bizarre. I don't understand it and I don't trust the common explanations.
women are their own worst enemies
They did vote against Trump tbf. Just not by enough,
I also think that the aid agencies need to reflect on whether their support (in terms of providing very basic needs) for such a regime can be justified by the appalling suffering of its people. Of course we would have to accept that such an approach would greatly increase the number of refugees from this shambles of a country.
I am sure that Britain welcomes refugees fleeing such an awful place.
Doesn't it?
We broke it but let others beyond the Channel fix it has always been the British way.
We didn't break it.
We failed in our attempts to fix it, but Afghanistan was already broken long before 9/11.
Since 'we' have been dabbling in Afghan politics long before 9/11 I'd suggest we bear some responsibilty.
Not really.
Prior to 9/11 we hadn't been directly involved for a very long time.
If we were responsible, Afghanistan would be a much better place, but they don't want us involved even when we tried to fix things and failed to do so.
The Afghani population needs to take some accountability for its choices.
Yeah, the British Empire was all about making places better and fixing things. Tbf to the Afghans if Britain 'tried to fix things and failed to do so', probably wise to tell us to eff off.
Afghanistan was getting somewhere, socially, in the 70's. There was even a bus route from London to Calcutta/Kolkata which stopped in Kabul. Then there was the Revolution and the Soviet invasion, which the 'more enthusiastic' Muslims opposed, and were aided in their opposition by the West. Unfortunately those Muslims developed into the Taliban.
As someone born in the 70s, I have only ever known the arc from the Jordan to the Indus to be an unremitting medieval hellhole (Pakistan appears to be somewhat mixed but with a large area into which its inadvisable to go and an apparent constant danger of joining its western neighbours in Islamic totalitarianism). It's quite startling to learn how relatively recently this wasn't the case.
These places were beacons of light, learning and tolerance in the Middle Ages (pre-Genghis Khan) compared with now. Or indeed, compared with Europe then.
There is a fascinating book written by Robert Byron in the 1930s called the Road to Oxiana in which he is looking for the roots of Islamic Architecture. In it he mentions that in the early 13th century Herat, now a largely forgotten backwater in North Western Afghanistan, was reputedly the largest city in the world. When it was taken by the Mongols in 1222 they are said to have beheaded the entire population of 1.6 million.
TBF, that was the second time they took it - after a seven month rebellion...The Mongols didn't do second chances. Timur rebuilt it to its greatest extent a couple of centuries on.
Most remarkable is that it was known as the breadbasket of Central Asia, whereas today Afghanistan is barely self-sufficient in agriculture.
O/T and apologies if I missed previous discussion of this but... watching the harrowing footage of the Jeju Air crash, who on earth decided to build a concrete block wall around Muan airport?
An aviation expert said the pilot made a text book landing in the circumstances and but for the wall it was fair to assume everyone would have survived. He also commented the runway was shorter than many
As with all disasters lessons will be learnt but sadly at the loss of innocent lives
It does not require many brain cells to conclude that a concrete wall at the end of a runway is not a great idea, must have been some real moron who santioned that.
most airports around the world have evolved to what and where they are. (There are exception where new airports have been built). No-one would build Heathrow where it is now, to the point that no-one wants a replacement larger airport near them.
I don't know much about that particular airport but you have to do something about planes which go over the end of the runway. without the wall it would have crashed into something (probably the landing assistance equipment at that end of the runway). The theory is they were coming in too fast and had issues with the front nose gear. with only 1 engine providing reverse thrust and without proper landing gear braking they were always going off the end of the runway.
The photographs indicate there is a considerable unobstructed flat area beyond the wall, and the aviation expert said that had the wall not been there, then it was very likely no lives would have been lost
I'll take your word for that.
it's difficult to know what the pilots could have done differently and been more successful. with only 1 engine providing reverse thrust and improper support from the landing gear keeping the plane from veering off the runway halfway down is also an issue.
did they carry too much speed? did they have the altitude to lose speed? was the plane functioning well enough to allow them to do another go-around and come in more slowly?
some of the outcomes of the investigation will be on the airport and its response.
PPrune says that the wall was after a significant run off/extension area
O/T and apologies if I missed previous discussion of this but... watching the harrowing footage of the Jeju Air crash, who on earth decided to build a concrete block wall around Muan airport?
An aviation expert said the pilot made a text book landing in the circumstances and but for the wall it was fair to assume everyone would have survived. He also commented the runway was shorter than many
As with all disasters lessons will be learnt but sadly at the loss of innocent lives
It does not require many brain cells to conclude that a concrete wall at the end of a runway is not a great idea, must have been some real moron who santioned that.
most airports around the world have evolved to what and where they are. (There are exception where new airports have been built). No-one would build Heathrow where it is now, to the point that no-one wants a replacement larger airport near them.
I don't know much about that particular airport but you have to do something about planes which go over the end of the runway. without the wall it would have crashed into something (probably the landing assistance equipment at that end of the runway). The theory is they were coming in too fast and had issues with the front nose gear. with only 1 engine providing reverse thrust and without proper landing gear braking they were always going off the end of the runway.
The photographs indicate there is a considerable unobstructed flat area beyond the wall, and the aviation expert said that had the wall not been there, then it was very likely no lives would have been lost
I'll take your word for that.
it's difficult to know what the pilots could have done differently and been more successful. with only 1 engine providing reverse thrust and improper support from the landing gear keeping the plane from veering off the runway halfway down is also an issue.
did they carry too much speed? did they have the altitude to lose speed? was the plane functioning well enough to allow them to do another go-around and come in more slowly?
some of the outcomes of the investigation will be on the airport and its response.
As I understand it, the pilot aborted the first attempt to land and he landed on his next attempt on the same runway but from the opposite direction
Are the Republican money men behind Plan 2025 and their control of women's reproductive rights really that much better than the Taliban in their attitudes to women? At least the Taliban don't try to hide behind any pretence of democratic legitimacy.
The comparison is hyperbolic (and I despise the current GOP in this respect).
Afghan women are oppressed to an extent which makes even the more misogynist wing of the Republican Party look relatively decent. Afghan women are treated literally as captive animals, in every respect of their lives. But with less consideration than we afford to animals.
I agree with Cycle. Misogyny is not treated as seriously as other equivalent evils (eg racism) either domestically or internationally. Why is this? I think it's because the belief that women don't matter quite as much as men is still held by an awful lot of people.
Just look at recent events in Trumpistan, or the recent mutterings of Andrew Tate.
Donald Trump is a bone-deep misogynist. I was so looking forward to him losing because of the female vote - that would have been just so right - but, alas, no. We now have the most patriarchal regime over there in living memory. It's like those great feminist battles of the civil rights era never happened. The price of gas and groceries outpaces wages for a couple of years and ... whoosh, let's go back to the 50s on gender roles. Bizarre. I don't understand it and I don't trust the common explanations.
women are their own worst enemies
They did vote against Trump tbf. Just not by enough,
Indeed, Republicans haven't won the majority of women voters in the USA at a presidential election since Bush Snr in 1988.
It was US males who elected George W Bush and Donald Trump
O/T and apologies if I missed previous discussion of this but... watching the harrowing footage of the Jeju Air crash, who on earth decided to build a concrete block wall around Muan airport?
An aviation expert said the pilot made a text book landing in the circumstances and but for the wall it was fair to assume everyone would have survived. He also commented the runway was shorter than many
As with all disasters lessons will be learnt but sadly at the loss of innocent lives
It does not require many brain cells to conclude that a concrete wall at the end of a runway is not a great idea, must have been some real moron who santioned that.
most airports around the world have evolved to what and where they are. (There are exception where new airports have been built). No-one would build Heathrow where it is now, to the point that no-one wants a replacement larger airport near them.
I don't know much about that particular airport but you have to do something about planes which go over the end of the runway. without the wall it would have crashed into something (probably the landing assistance equipment at that end of the runway). The theory is they were coming in too fast and had issues with the front nose gear. with only 1 engine providing reverse thrust and without proper landing gear braking they were always going off the end of the runway.
The photographs indicate there is a considerable unobstructed flat area beyond the wall, and the aviation expert said that had the wall not been there, then it was very likely no lives would have been lost
I'll take your word for that.
it's difficult to know what the pilots could have done differently and been more successful. with only 1 engine providing reverse thrust and improper support from the landing gear keeping the plane from veering off the runway halfway down is also an issue.
did they carry too much speed? did they have the altitude to lose speed? was the plane functioning well enough to allow them to do another go-around and come in more slowly?
some of the outcomes of the investigation will be on the airport and its response.
As I understand it, the pilot aborted the first attempt to land and he landed on his next attempt on the same runway but from the opposite direction
they clearly had too much speed the second time but we won't know for some time whether or not that was the last attempt at a go around was possible or whether they could have lost more speed before attempting the landing.
It is an age-old dilemma (cf international aid). Do you engage hoping to change minds, or disengage as a punishment to force that change.
I don't know, historically, which has worked. I know the Taliban are both pretty stubborn, ideologically, and also realise to some degree that there needs to be some pragmatism when dealing with the West. Where that leaves this measure who knows.
But more than that, as has been noted, is the absurdity of the measure the root of which is adherence to religious doctrine. There's that root cause again - religion. It really would be a better world if religion was banned, because whatever took its place would struggle to be as corrosive and harmful.
Oh I think alternative belief systems can very easily be as corrosive and harmful. See the 20th century, for example.
FWIW I think the view of women as somehow not fully human predates religion - which is used to justify it - rather than the other way around. See, for instance, Aristotle's view of women as no more than an empty vessel.
I agree with Cycle. Misogyny is not treated as seriously as other equivalent evils (eg racism) either domestically or internationally. Why is this? I think it's because the belief that women don't matter quite as much as men is still held by an awful lot of people.
Just look at recent events in Trumpistan, or the recent mutterings of Andrew Tate.
Donald Trump is a bone-deep misogynist. I was so looking forward to him losing because of the female vote - that would have been just so right - but, alas, no. We now have the most patriarchal regime over there in living memory. It's like those great feminist battles of the civil rights era never happened. The price of gas and groceries outpaces wages for a couple of years and ... whoosh, let's go back to the 50s on gender roles. Bizarre. I don't understand it and I don't trust the common explanations.
women are their own worst enemies
They did vote against Trump tbf. Just not by enough,
Indeed, Republicans haven't won the majority of women voters in the USA since Bush Snr in 1988.
It was US males who elected George W Bush and Donald Trump
This was an excellent header, worthy of appearing in a top publication.
My instinct would be to try to use cricket to act as some sort of beacon for women in the country - oblige all participating teams to employ women on equal terms to men, or even field a women's team, or some such, and work with them on that basis. I realise that that is probably an impossibility, in which case a boycott is justified.
It is an age-old dilemma (cf international aid). Do you engage hoping to change minds, or disengage as a punishment to force that change.
I don't know, historically, which has worked. I know the Taliban are both pretty stubborn, ideologically, and also realise to some degree that there needs to be some pragmatism when dealing with the West. Where that leaves this measure who knows.
But more than that, as has been noted, is the absurdity of the measure the root of which is adherence to religious doctrine. There's that root cause again - religion. It really would be a better world if religion was banned, because whatever took its place would struggle to be as corrosive and harmful.
Oh I think alternative belief systems can very easily be as corrosive and harmful. See the 20th century, for example.
FWIW I think the view of women as somehow not fully human predates religion - which is used to justify it - rather than the other way around. See, for instance, Aristotle's view of women as no more than an empty vessel.
Yes that is true. The disparity in the sexes has been a pervasive theme throughout history. And while taking your point, I don't think Aristotle was exactly an atheist.
Are the Republican money men behind Plan 2025 and their control of women's reproductive rights really that much better than the Taliban in their attitudes to women? At least the Taliban don't try to hide behind any pretence of democratic legitimacy.
The comparison is hyperbolic (and I despise the current GOP in this respect).
Afghan women are oppressed to an extent which makes even the more misogynist wing of the Republican Party look relatively decent. Afghan women are treated literally as captive animals, in every respect of their lives. But with less consideration than we afford to animals.
I often chat to Afghan Uber drivers about their country.
The worry at the moment, is that because the security situation has stabilised under the Taliban, womens' rights are being forgotten about
I also think that the aid agencies need to reflect on whether their support (in terms of providing very basic needs) for such a regime can be justified by the appalling suffering of its people. Of course we would have to accept that such an approach would greatly increase the number of refugees from this shambles of a country.
I am sure that Britain welcomes refugees fleeing such an awful place.
Doesn't it?
We broke it but let others beyond the Channel fix it has always been the British way.
We didn't break it.
We failed in our attempts to fix it, but Afghanistan was already broken long before 9/11.
Since 'we' have been dabbling in Afghan politics long before 9/11 I'd suggest we bear some responsibilty.
Not really.
Prior to 9/11 we hadn't been directly involved for a very long time.
If we were responsible, Afghanistan would be a much better place, but they don't want us involved even when we tried to fix things and failed to do so.
The Afghani population needs to take some accountability for its choices.
Yeah, the British Empire was all about making places better and fixing things. Tbf to the Afghans if Britain 'tried to fix things and failed to do so', probably wise to tell us to eff off.
Afghanistan was getting somewhere, socially, in the 70's. There was even a bus route from London to Calcutta/Kolkata which stopped in Kabul. Then there was the Revolution and the Soviet invasion, which the 'more enthusiastic' Muslims opposed, and were aided in their opposition by the West. Unfortunately those Muslims developed into the Taliban.
As someone born in the 70s, I have only ever known the arc from the Jordan to the Indus to be an unremitting medieval hellhole (Pakistan appears to be somewhat mixed but with a large area into which its inadvisable to go and an apparent constant danger of joining its western neighbours in Islamic totalitarianism). It's quite startling to learn how relatively recently this wasn't the case.
These places were beacons of light, learning and tolerance in the Middle Ages (pre-Genghis Khan) compared with now. Or indeed, compared with Europe then.
There is a fascinating book written by Robert Byron in the 1930s called the Road to Oxiana in which he is looking for the roots of Islamic Architecture. In it he mentions that in the early 13th century Herat, now a largely forgotten backwater in North Western Afghanistan, was reputedly the largest city in the world. When it was taken by the Mongols in 1222 they are said to have beheaded the entire population of 1.6 million.
What on earth was the Mongols problem?
They make Hitler look like a wet lettuce.
Steppe horsemen had perfected a form of warfare - combining the use of heavy and light cavalry, over vast distances. Because they were herders, living off vast flocks of sheep and goats, they could travel very fast, and without having to worry about baggage trains in the way that armies did in sedentary societies. They could do things that would be fatal for a typical army, like riding across deserts, which meant that they could strike where they were not expected.
Their hunting techniques, which again involved co-ordinating the movements of horsemen across vast distances, were perfect training for war.
Their big weakness, exploited by neighbouring powers, was endemic warfare between clans and tribes. In Genghis Khan, they had a leader who (most unusually), was both a political and a military genius, who first crushed his rivals, and then united the tribes by turning their aggression outwards. And, he had an uncanny knack for picking gifted commanders, like Subedei and Mukhali.
They were massively outnumbered by the people of Northern China and Central Asia, so they resorted to horrendous atrocities to break resistance. You could surrender to them, and survive (they’d still plunder you). Or you could resist, and be wiped out to the last woman and child. They generally viewed peasants as being of less value than horses (they were more inclined to spare nobles, artisans, and bureaucrats, who could be of use to them). They worked out, too, that mass rape was an effective terror tactic. They never stopped innovating in war, conscripting Chinese as infantry and siege engineers.
During their conquest of Northern China, from 1211-1231, the population fell from 30m to 9m.
The Democrats need to reach out to the kind of Red-State women that resent being told they should never be homemakers, but don't want their rights taken away.
The problem is that the incredibly binary and polarised nature of U.S. political discourse, nowadays increasingly represented by Bluesky and Twitter, and with that trend spreading here, makes all these kinds of nuances and conversations more difficult, than they should be.
I don't think that the Democrats have said "Women should never be Homemakers", so I would be interested in where you source that idea.
The "Trad Wife" influencer thing on Social Media is partly US ultra-Fundamentalism, and partly conspicuous consumption.
In order to be a "Trad-Wife" influencer, you need to be married to a wealthy man with their own significant wealth and property, as a sort of reinvented trophy wife. We see them spending hours on hobbies such as needlework, dress-making, artisanal baking etc, but not hours cleaning bathrooms or doing laundry.
30 years ago it was possible for an unskilled man working in a unionised job at the nuclear power plant to run two cars, have a detached house in a good neighbourhood, wife at home looking after 3 kids etc, but that Simpsons lifestyle is increasingly out of reach for blue collar Americans.
If you need 2 or more incomes to pay the rent, being a Trad Wife is not possible, and Trad Husbands earning enough to support such a lifestyle have gone the way of the crinoline petticoat.
O/T and apologies if I missed previous discussion of this but... watching the harrowing footage of the Jeju Air crash, who on earth decided to build a concrete block wall around Muan airport?
An aviation expert said the pilot made a text book landing in the circumstances and but for the wall it was fair to assume everyone would have survived. He also commented the runway was shorter than many
As with all disasters lessons will be learnt but sadly at the loss of innocent lives
Hmm. Questions about 'text book'.
The aircraft landed a long way down the runway and at considerable speed. Quite why the landing gear wasn't down is a huge open question, as its inoperability wouldn't normally result from a bird strike. It apparently landed the wrong way on the runway i.e. with the wind, which may have been necessary and may account for (some of) the excess speed but the plane didn't appear to be in *that* much trouble that it couldn't go round - and if it had gone round, it wouldn't have had a concrete wall at the end of the runway and should have been able to land at a much slower speed. Also, the flaps weren't down, increasing stall speed.
Now some or all of those might have technical explanations. Maybe there was a catastrophic loss of hydraulics. But it's an appallingly bad set of coincidences if there are no human factors involved.
O/T and apologies if I missed previous discussion of this but... watching the harrowing footage of the Jeju Air crash, who on earth decided to build a concrete block wall around Muan airport?
An aviation expert said the pilot made a text book landing in the circumstances and but for the wall it was fair to assume everyone would have survived. He also commented the runway was shorter than many
As with all disasters lessons will be learnt but sadly at the loss of innocent lives
Hmm. Questions about 'text book'.
The aircraft landed a long way down the runway and at considerable speed. Quite why the landing gear wasn't down is a huge open question, as its inoperability wouldn't normally result from a bird strike. It apparently landed the wrong way on the runway i.e. with the wind, which may have been necessary and may account for (some of) the excess speed but the plane didn't appear to be in *that* much trouble that it couldn't go round - and if it had gone round, it wouldn't have had a concrete wall at the end of the runway and should have been able to land at a much slower speed. Also, the flaps weren't down, increasing stall speed.
Now some or all of those might have technical explanations. Maybe there was a catastrophic loss of hydraulics. But it's an appallingly bad set of coincidences if there are no human factors involved.
Presumably much will be answered when the black box is found and downloaded.
Are the Republican money men behind Plan 2025 and their control of women's reproductive rights really that much better than the Taliban in their attitudes to women? At least the Taliban don't try to hide behind any pretence of democratic legitimacy.
The comparison is hyperbolic (and I despise the current GOP in this respect).
Afghan women are oppressed to an extent which makes even the more misogynist wing of the Republican Party look relatively decent. Afghan women are treated literally as captive animals, in every respect of their lives. But with less consideration than we afford to animals.
I often chat to Afghan Uber drivers about their country.
The worry at the moment, is that because the security situation has stabilised under the Taliban, womens' rights are being forgotten about
Sorry, as this post was cut off.
There seems to be a concern that many of the, particularly rural, population are so grateful that the security situation is more stable, the Taliban know that they can get away with locking up and mistreating the female population, again.
Are the Republican money men behind Plan 2025 and their control of women's reproductive rights really that much better than the Taliban in their attitudes to women? At least the Taliban don't try to hide behind any pretence of democratic legitimacy.
The comparison is hyperbolic (and I despise the current GOP in this respect).
Afghan women are oppressed to an extent which makes even the more misogynist wing of the Republican Party look relatively decent. Afghan women are treated literally as captive animals, in every respect of their lives. But with less consideration than we afford to animals.
I often chat to Afghan Uber drivers about their country.
The worry at the moment, is that because the security situation has stabilised under the Taliban, womens' rights are being forgotten about
Sorry, as this post was cut off.
There seems to be a concern that many of the, particularly rural, population are so grateful that the security situation is more stable, the Taliban know that they can get away with locking up and mistreating the female population, again.
The only way that the Taliban change is with pressure from surrounding Muslim countries. that won't happen anytime soon though.
It is an age-old dilemma (cf international aid). Do you engage hoping to change minds, or disengage as a punishment to force that change.
I don't know, historically, which has worked. I know the Taliban are both pretty stubborn, ideologically, and also realise to some degree that there needs to be some pragmatism when dealing with the West. Where that leaves this measure who knows.
But more than that, as has been noted, is the absurdity of the measure the root of which is adherence to religious doctrine. There's that root cause again - religion. It really would be a better world if religion was banned, because whatever took its place would struggle to be as corrosive and harmful.
Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot were all atheists, so not sure about your last line.
O/T and apologies if I missed previous discussion of this but... watching the harrowing footage of the Jeju Air crash, who on earth decided to build a concrete block wall around Muan airport?
An aviation expert said the pilot made a text book landing in the circumstances and but for the wall it was fair to assume everyone would have survived. He also commented the runway was shorter than many
As with all disasters lessons will be learnt but sadly at the loss of innocent lives
Hmm. Questions about 'text book'.
The aircraft landed a long way down the runway and at considerable speed. Quite why the landing gear wasn't down is a huge open question, as its inoperability wouldn't normally result from a bird strike. It apparently landed the wrong way on the runway i.e. with the wind, which may have been necessary and may account for (some of) the excess speed but the plane didn't appear to be in *that* much trouble that it couldn't go round - and if it had gone round, it wouldn't have had a concrete wall at the end of the runway and should have been able to land at a much slower speed. Also, the flaps weren't down, increasing stall speed.
Now some or all of those might have technical explanations. Maybe there was a catastrophic loss of hydraulics. But it's an appallingly bad set of coincidences if there are no human factors involved.
'In the circumstances' is no doubt relevant to the aviation expert reference to text book landing
He did say the landing gear lowers automatically once unlocked, and is not dependent on the avionics
The enquiry will be interesting and no doubt lessons will need to be learned
Chagos - £800 million a year for something we already own
Thats more than the Farmers are getting screwed for
Starmer really is a prat.
I do not know the details, but Starmer and Lammy need to come clean on this and explain the agreement and cost
All the details are in The Times today and it's as excruciatingly boring as one would imagine. Ultimately Starmer is going to do whatever Trump tells him and the only person Trump will listen to on the subject is Modi.
The only interesting bit was that the law firm that The Ludicrous Cox works for is advising the Mauritian government.
I also think that the aid agencies need to reflect on whether their support (in terms of providing very basic needs) for such a regime can be justified by the appalling suffering of its people. Of course we would have to accept that such an approach would greatly increase the number of refugees from this shambles of a country.
I am sure that Britain welcomes refugees fleeing such an awful place.
Doesn't it?
We broke it but let others beyond the Channel fix it has always been the British way.
We didn't break it.
We failed in our attempts to fix it, but Afghanistan was already broken long before 9/11.
Since 'we' have been dabbling in Afghan politics long before 9/11 I'd suggest we bear some responsibilty.
Not really.
Prior to 9/11 we hadn't been directly involved for a very long time.
If we were responsible, Afghanistan would be a much better place, but they don't want us involved even when we tried to fix things and failed to do so.
The Afghani population needs to take some accountability for its choices.
Yeah, the British Empire was all about making places better and fixing things. Tbf to the Afghans if Britain 'tried to fix things and failed to do so', probably wise to tell us to eff off.
Afghanistan was getting somewhere, socially, in the 70's. There was even a bus route from London to Calcutta/Kolkata which stopped in Kabul. Then there was the Revolution and the Soviet invasion, which the 'more enthusiastic' Muslims opposed, and were aided in their opposition by the West. Unfortunately those Muslims developed into the Taliban.
As someone born in the 70s, I have only ever known the arc from the Jordan to the Indus to be an unremitting medieval hellhole (Pakistan appears to be somewhat mixed but with a large area into which its inadvisable to go and an apparent constant danger of joining its western neighbours in Islamic totalitarianism). It's quite startling to learn how relatively recently this wasn't the case.
These places were beacons of light, learning and tolerance in the Middle Ages (pre-Genghis Khan) compared with now. Or indeed, compared with Europe then.
There is a fascinating book written by Robert Byron in the 1930s called the Road to Oxiana in which he is looking for the roots of Islamic Architecture. In it he mentions that in the early 13th century Herat, now a largely forgotten backwater in North Western Afghanistan, was reputedly the largest city in the world. When it was taken by the Mongols in 1222 they are said to have beheaded the entire population of 1.6 million.
What on earth was the Mongols problem?
They make Hitler look like a wet lettuce.
Steppe horsemen had perfected a form of warfare - combining the use of heavy and light cavalry, over vast distances. Because they were herders, living off vast flocks of sheep and goats, they could travel very fast, and without having to worry about baggage trains in the way that armies did in sedentary societies. They could do things that would be fatal for a typical army, like riding across deserts, which meant that they could strike where they were not expected.
Their hunting techniques, which again involved co-ordinating the movements of horsemen across vast distances, were perfect training for war.
Their big weakness, exploited by neighbouring powers, was endemic warfare between clans and tribes. In Genghis Khan, they had a leader who (most unusually), was both a political and a military genius, who first crushed his rivals, and then united the tribes by turning their aggression outwards. And, he had an uncanny knack for picking gifted commanders, like Subedei and Mukhali.
They were massively outnumbered by the people of Northern China and Central Asia, so they resorted to horrendous atrocities to break resistance. You could surrender to them, and survive (they’d still plunder you). Or you could resist, and be wiped out to the last woman and child. They generally viewed peasants as being of less value than horses (they were more inclined to spare nobles, artisans, and bureaucrats, who could be of use to them). They worked out, too, that mass rape was an effective terror tactic. They never stopped innovating in war, conscripting Chinese as infantry and siege engineers.
During their conquest of Northern China, from 1211-1231, the population fell from 30m to 9m.
At what point did the Mongols become Bhuddists? Was it before or after their atrocities?
O/T and apologies if I missed previous discussion of this but... watching the harrowing footage of the Jeju Air crash, who on earth decided to build a concrete block wall around Muan airport?
An aviation expert said the pilot made a text book landing in the circumstances and but for the wall it was fair to assume everyone would have survived. He also commented the runway was shorter than many
As with all disasters lessons will be learnt but sadly at the loss of innocent lives
Hmm. Questions about 'text book'.
The aircraft landed a long way down the runway and at considerable speed. Quite why the landing gear wasn't down is a huge open question, as its inoperability wouldn't normally result from a bird strike. It apparently landed the wrong way on the runway i.e. with the wind, which may have been necessary and may account for (some of) the excess speed but the plane didn't appear to be in *that* much trouble that it couldn't go round - and if it had gone round, it wouldn't have had a concrete wall at the end of the runway and should have been able to land at a much slower speed. Also, the flaps weren't down, increasing stall speed.
Now some or all of those might have technical explanations. Maybe there was a catastrophic loss of hydraulics. But it's an appallingly bad set of coincidences if there are no human factors involved.
Presumably much will be answered when the black box is found and downloaded.
It was Boeing wasn't it? If it's Boeing I'm not going latest.
The Democrats need to reach out to the kind of Red-State women that resent being told they should never be homemakers, but don't want their rights taken away.
The problem is that the incredibly binary and polarised nature of U.S. political discourse, nowadays increasingly represented by Bluesky and Twitter, and with that trend spreading here, makes all these kinds of nuances and conversations more difficult, than they should be.
I don't think that the Democrats have said "Women should never be Homemakers", so I would be interested in where you source that idea.
The "Trad Wife" influencer thing on Social Media is partly US ultra-Fundamentalism, and partly conspicuous consumption.
In order to be a "Trad-Wife" influencer, you need to be married to a wealthy man with their own significant wealth and property, as a sort of reinvented trophy wife. We see them spending hours on hobbies such as needlework, dress-making, artisanal baking etc, but not hours cleaning bathrooms or doing laundry.
30 years ago it was possible for an unskilled man working in a unionised job at the nuclear power plant to run two cars, have a detached house in a good neighbourhood, wife at home looking after 3 kids etc, but that Simpsons lifestyle is increasingly out of reach for blue collar Americans.
If you need 2 or more incomes to pay the rent, being a Trad Wife is not possible, and Trad Husbands earning enough to support such a lifestyle have gone the way of the crinoline petticoat.
It's not the Democrats have said that the women should never be homemakers, but that there's a group of former liberal women, combined with a generally larger group of ignorant fundamentalists, who complain of bullying from online bearpit if they seek a more traditional role.
So that isn't to do with the Democrats as such, but the tone of modern social media. There was a Channel 4 doc about some of these women last year. Some were very much your stereotype Trumpist, but another group of them on the programme actually formerly worked in Hollywood, so that could probably be described as closer to coastal elites with enough money to turn Trumpist, in their home and work arrangements.
Chagos - £800 million a year for something we already own
Thats more than the Farmers are getting screwed for
Starmer really is a prat.
To be fair, the govt is denying they agreed to that figure - though they won't say what they did agree, which should be published now.
Mauritius should be told to do one, including scrapping the previously initialed agreement. If that wasn't good enough for them, it's dead. I'm no great fan of the deal but finance-free I could live with it. But they have no real claim on the islands; let those who live there (or have been displaced, where traceable) choose their sovereignty, as is consistent with international law. As for the base, a long-lease at market rates or it doesn't go anywhere.
And whisper it, how much of Kemi's problem is good old sexism and racism?
Kemi's problem is the same as Hague's . . . as it stands the country has simply had enough of the Tories for various reasons and has no interest in what they have to say.
Time will change that more than Kemi will. The next Tory PM is probably not yet in Parliament - just as Blair, Cameron and Starmer respectively were not in Parliament when their parties last lost power before they regained it.
Chagos - £800 million a year for something we already own
Thats more than the Farmers are getting screwed for
Starmer really is a prat.
I do not know the details, but Starmer and Lammy need to come clean on this and explain the agreement and cost
All the details are in The Times today and it's as excruciatingly boring as one would imagine. Ultimately Starmer is going to do whatever Trump tells him and the only person Trump will listen to on the subject is Modi.
The only interesting bit was that the law firm that The Ludicrous Cox works for is advising the Mauritian government.
Seems Starmer and Blinken want it signed before Trump ascends to the throne
It is an age-old dilemma (cf international aid). Do you engage hoping to change minds, or disengage as a punishment to force that change.
I don't know, historically, which has worked. I know the Taliban are both pretty stubborn, ideologically, and also realise to some degree that there needs to be some pragmatism when dealing with the West. Where that leaves this measure who knows.
But more than that, as has been noted, is the absurdity of the measure the root of which is adherence to religious doctrine. There's that root cause again - religion. It really would be a better world if religion was banned, because whatever took its place would struggle to be as corrosive and harmful.
Among the things which are 'religious' is the interesting thought that our values are more than personal preferences. The charming and agreeable non-theist David Hume of course believed that our values were in fact no more than personal preferences, and there was no external or objective reason why I should not favour a tiny personal convenience over the destruction of the world.
From the non religious point of view of those who believe our values are mere personal preferences, why shouldn't the Taliban's view of women be as good as yours?
And whisper it, how much of Kemi's problem is good old sexism and racism?
Kemi's problem is the same as Hague's . . . as it stands the country has simply had enough of the Tories for various reasons and has no interest in what they have to say.
Time will change that more than Kemi will. The next Tory PM is probably not yet in Parliament - just as Blair, Cameron and Starmer respectively were not in Parliament when their parties last lost power before they regained it.
And whisper it, how much of Kemi's problem is good old sexism and racism?
Kemi's problem is the same as Hague's . . . as it stands the country has simply had enough of the Tories for various reasons and has no interest in what they have to say.
Time will change that more than Kemi will. The next Tory PM is probably not yet in Parliament - just as Blair, Cameron and Starmer respectively were not in Parliament when their parties last lost power before they regained it.
I also think that the aid agencies need to reflect on whether their support (in terms of providing very basic needs) for such a regime can be justified by the appalling suffering of its people. Of course we would have to accept that such an approach would greatly increase the number of refugees from this shambles of a country.
I am sure that Britain welcomes refugees fleeing such an awful place.
Doesn't it?
We broke it but let others beyond the Channel fix it has always been the British way.
We didn't break it.
We failed in our attempts to fix it, but Afghanistan was already broken long before 9/11.
Since 'we' have been dabbling in Afghan politics long before 9/11 I'd suggest we bear some responsibilty.
Not really.
Prior to 9/11 we hadn't been directly involved for a very long time.
If we were responsible, Afghanistan would be a much better place, but they don't want us involved even when we tried to fix things and failed to do so.
The Afghani population needs to take some accountability for its choices.
Yeah, the British Empire was all about making places better and fixing things. Tbf to the Afghans if Britain 'tried to fix things and failed to do so', probably wise to tell us to eff off.
Afghanistan was getting somewhere, socially, in the 70's. There was even a bus route from London to Calcutta/Kolkata which stopped in Kabul. Then there was the Revolution and the Soviet invasion, which the 'more enthusiastic' Muslims opposed, and were aided in their opposition by the West. Unfortunately those Muslims developed into the Taliban.
As someone born in the 70s, I have only ever known the arc from the Jordan to the Indus to be an unremitting medieval hellhole (Pakistan appears to be somewhat mixed but with a large area into which its inadvisable to go and an apparent constant danger of joining its western neighbours in Islamic totalitarianism). It's quite startling to learn how relatively recently this wasn't the case.
These places were beacons of light, learning and tolerance in the Middle Ages (pre-Genghis Khan) compared with now. Or indeed, compared with Europe then.
There is a fascinating book written by Robert Byron in the 1930s called the Road to Oxiana in which he is looking for the roots of Islamic Architecture. In it he mentions that in the early 13th century Herat, now a largely forgotten backwater in North Western Afghanistan, was reputedly the largest city in the world. When it was taken by the Mongols in 1222 they are said to have beheaded the entire population of 1.6 million.
What on earth was the Mongols problem?
They make Hitler look like a wet lettuce.
Steppe horsemen had perfected a form of warfare - combining the use of heavy and light cavalry, over vast distances. Because they were herders, living off vast flocks of sheep and goats, they could travel very fast, and without having to worry about baggage trains in the way that armies did in sedentary societies. They could do things that would be fatal for a typical army, like riding across deserts, which meant that they could strike where they were not expected.
Their hunting techniques, which again involved co-ordinating the movements of horsemen across vast distances, were perfect training for war.
Their big weakness, exploited by neighbouring powers, was endemic warfare between clans and tribes. In Genghis Khan, they had a leader who (most unusually), was both a political and a military genius, who first crushed his rivals, and then united the tribes by turning their aggression outwards. And, he had an uncanny knack for picking gifted commanders, like Subedei and Mukhali.
They were massively outnumbered by the people of Northern China and Central Asia, so they resorted to horrendous atrocities to break resistance. You could surrender to them, and survive (they’d still plunder you). Or you could resist, and be wiped out to the last woman and child. They generally viewed peasants as being of less value than horses (they were more inclined to spare nobles, artisans, and bureaucrats, who could be of use to them). They worked out, too, that mass rape was an effective terror tactic. They never stopped innovating in war, conscripting Chinese as infantry and siege engineers.
During their conquest of Northern China, from 1211-1231, the population fell from 30m to 9m.
At what point did the Mongols become Bhuddists? Was it before or after their atrocities?
The 16th century, so after their heyday. That said, they certainly didn’t become pacifists. The Ching relied heavily upon their support, and next to the Manchus, they were one of the dominant castes in the Chinese empire.
It is an age-old dilemma (cf international aid). Do you engage hoping to change minds, or disengage as a punishment to force that change.
I don't know, historically, which has worked. I know the Taliban are both pretty stubborn, ideologically, and also realise to some degree that there needs to be some pragmatism when dealing with the West. Where that leaves this measure who knows.
But more than that, as has been noted, is the absurdity of the measure the root of which is adherence to religious doctrine. There's that root cause again - religion. It really would be a better world if religion was banned, because whatever took its place would struggle to be as corrosive and harmful.
Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot were all atheists, so not sure about your last line.
Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot were individuals who wanted to shape the world into their own vision. They ultimately failed. Religion hasn't failed, sadly.
Kemi's problem is the same as Hague's . . . as it stands the country has simply had enough of the Tories for various reasons and has no interest in what they have to say.
That's an interesting comparison because it also highlights the difference between the position of Blair and Starmer. With the exception of a hardcore of malcontents, people were reasonably comfortable with Blair as PM, but Starmer provokes opposition from all quarters.
It is an age-old dilemma (cf international aid). Do you engage hoping to change minds, or disengage as a punishment to force that change.
I don't know, historically, which has worked. I know the Taliban are both pretty stubborn, ideologically, and also realise to some degree that there needs to be some pragmatism when dealing with the West. Where that leaves this measure who knows.
But more than that, as has been noted, is the absurdity of the measure the root of which is adherence to religious doctrine. There's that root cause again - religion. It really would be a better world if religion was banned, because whatever took its place would struggle to be as corrosive and harmful.
Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot were all atheists, so not sure about your last line.
Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot were individuals who wanted to shape the world into their own vision. They ultimately failed. Religion hasn't failed, sadly.
People will generally find ample reason to fuck each other over, out of honour, interest, or fear.
I agree with this piece; indeed, it'd be interesting to see if anyone disagrees with it, and why.
The Daily Express has a different interpretation - they report it's not that women should avoid being seen throgh a window, but that owners of newly constructued buildings should avoid including windows that overlook momen's private spaces, even to the extent of needing a blocking wall. That would seem to put the fault on the lecherous male gaze.
And whisper it, how much of Kemi's problem is good old sexism and racism?
Kemi's problem is the same as Hague's . . . as it stands the country has simply had enough of the Tories for various reasons and has no interest in what they have to say.
Time will change that more than Kemi will. The next Tory PM is probably not yet in Parliament - just as Blair, Cameron and Starmer respectively were not in Parliament when their parties last lost power before they regained it.
Utter hogwash.
Why?
I would respond to that by saying 2029 is long way off in politics, and as long as Kemi keeps the support of the membership and her mps she will have time to develop her own brand
She is an unknown and is getting a lot of flack, but mainly from those who are not her target audience at this time
This was an excellent header, worthy of appearing in a top publication.
My instinct would be to try to use cricket to act as some sort of beacon for women in the country - oblige all participating teams to employ women on equal terms to men, or even field a women's team, or some such, and work with them on that basis. I realise that that is probably an impossibility, in which case a boycott is justified.
The ICC requires countries to organise a women's team to be full members, but don't seem to be enforcing that.
"I’m a bit surprised about the ‘wall discussion’ here. Yes, the wall was really painfully unfortunate in this instance. But take a look at the departure end of about every other runway in Europe. You’ll find busy highways, fly overs, ditches, drop offs, cliffs, oceans with or without vessels, forests, houses, McDonalds, you name it, in similar proximity, if not closer than this wall.
This aircraft had a problem that 2800 meters of runway could not solve. Let’s focus on that."
Kemi's problem is the same as Hague's . . . as it stands the country has simply had enough of the Tories for various reasons and has no interest in what they have to say.
That's an interesting comparison because it also highlights the difference between the position of Blair and Starmer. With the exception of a hardcore of malcontents, people were reasonably comfortable with Blair as PM, but Starmer provokes opposition from all quarters.
Indeed, but that opposition isn't driving people flooding back to the arms of the Tories.
The problem Kemi has is that they're too fresh into Opposition to be taken seriously yet. It almost doesn't matter what she says, even if she says exactly the right thing it isn't taken seriously as it comes with the immediate retort of "well why didn't you do that in office?"
Time will heal that, but by that time Kemi probably won't be leader anymore.
And whisper it, how much of Kemi's problem is good old sexism and racism?
Kemi's problem is the same as Hague's . . . as it stands the country has simply had enough of the Tories for various reasons and has no interest in what they have to say.
Time will change that more than Kemi will. The next Tory PM is probably not yet in Parliament - just as Blair, Cameron and Starmer respectively were not in Parliament when their parties last lost power before they regained it.
No, Kemi is in a far better position than Hague was.
Nearly 6 months after this year's general election though Starmer and his government are deeply unpopular and Labour level pegging with the Tories on 26% each in the latest Electoral Calculus poll average https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Chagos - £800 million a year for something we already own
Thats more than the Farmers are getting screwed for
Starmer really is a prat.
I do not know the details, but Starmer and Lammy need to come clean on this and explain the agreement and cost
All the details are in The Times today and it's as excruciatingly boring as one would imagine. Ultimately Starmer is going to do whatever Trump tells him and the only person Trump will listen to on the subject is Modi.
The only interesting bit was that the law firm that The Ludicrous Cox works for is advising the Mauritian government.
And he doesn't need to travel to Mauritius. They can hear him from here.
It is an age-old dilemma (cf international aid). Do you engage hoping to change minds, or disengage as a punishment to force that change.
I don't know, historically, which has worked. I know the Taliban are both pretty stubborn, ideologically, and also realise to some degree that there needs to be some pragmatism when dealing with the West. Where that leaves this measure who knows.
But more than that, as has been noted, is the absurdity of the measure the root of which is adherence to religious doctrine. There's that root cause again - religion. It really would be a better world if religion was banned, because whatever took its place would struggle to be as corrosive and harmful.
What a load of rubbish, if the world followed more of the preachings of Jesus Christ it would be a far better place
And whisper it, how much of Kemi's problem is good old sexism and racism?
Kemi's problem is the same as Hague's . . . as it stands the country has simply had enough of the Tories for various reasons and has no interest in what they have to say.
Time will change that more than Kemi will. The next Tory PM is probably not yet in Parliament - just as Blair, Cameron and Starmer respectively were not in Parliament when their parties last lost power before they regained it.
Utter hogwash.
Why?
If polling recently (and elections recently) has shown us anything, it's that people aren't behaving loyally to a party, or against a party any more. We have no idea whether people are prepared to listen to Kemi yet, because she has yet to say anything, except get herself into silly spats about soggy sandwiches and Reform's membership numbers.
Chagos - £800 million a year for something we already own
Thats more than the Farmers are getting screwed for
Starmer really is a prat.
I do not know the details, but Starmer and Lammy need to come clean on this and explain the agreement and cost
All the details are in The Times today and it's as excruciatingly boring as one would imagine. Ultimately Starmer is going to do whatever Trump tells him and the only person Trump will listen to on the subject is Modi.
The only interesting bit was that the law firm that The Ludicrous Cox works for is advising the Mauritian government.
And he doesn't need to travel to Mauritius. They can hear him from here.
Seems fairly clear that Mauritius has gone into “ask for everything mode”
Kemi's problem is the same as Hague's . . . as it stands the country has simply had enough of the Tories for various reasons and has no interest in what they have to say.
That's an interesting comparison because it also highlights the difference between the position of Blair and Starmer. With the exception of a hardcore of malcontents, people were reasonably comfortable with Blair as PM, but Starmer provokes opposition from all quarters.
Things will settle down, I think. People will get used to him.
A little background on the pro-life movement in the US: It has been, and is, largely a grass roots woman's movement. Years ago, I recall seeing a Gallup poll finding that those who voted on that single issue were mostly women, and that those who voted on the issue were more likely to be pro-life. It wasn't particularly a partisan issue, to begin with. For example, Jesse Jackson, was pro-life, no doubt in part because black babies were more likely to be killed than white babies.
While Roe was in effect, candidates could often gain votes, net, by opposing abortion, while knowing they could do little about it.
To compare these women to the Taliban seems a little strange.
(I assume all of you know that, in some groups, girls are more likely to be killed before birth than boys.)
Chagos - £800 million a year for something we already own
Thats more than the Farmers are getting screwed for
Starmer really is a prat.
I do not know the details, but Starmer and Lammy need to come clean on this and explain the agreement and cost
All the details are in The Times today and it's as excruciatingly boring as one would imagine. Ultimately Starmer is going to do whatever Trump tells him and the only person Trump will listen to on the subject is Modi.
The only interesting bit was that the law firm that The Ludicrous Cox works for is advising the Mauritian government.
And he doesn't need to travel to Mauritius. They can hear him from here.
Seems fairly clear that Mauritius has gone into “ask for everything mode”
It is an age-old dilemma (cf international aid). Do you engage hoping to change minds, or disengage as a punishment to force that change.
I don't know, historically, which has worked. I know the Taliban are both pretty stubborn, ideologically, and also realise to some degree that there needs to be some pragmatism when dealing with the West. Where that leaves this measure who knows.
But more than that, as has been noted, is the absurdity of the measure the root of which is adherence to religious doctrine. There's that root cause again - religion. It really would be a better world if religion was banned, because whatever took its place would struggle to be as corrosive and harmful.
What a load of rubbish, if the world followed more of the preachings of Jesus Christ it would be a far better place
The out of work builder, who’s got no certifications, no insurance, doesn’t contribute to the Construction Industry levy, no tax returns, no VAT registration???
And whisper it, how much of Kemi's problem is good old sexism and racism?
Not much. Kemi was, after all, voted in by unwoke Conservative members. Her problem is that CCHQ is obsessed by petty point-scoring which falls flat when judged against the Conservative record. The Prime Minister screwed over the Waspi women but hold on because so did we which means he was right, so let me attempt a screeching U-turn in the middle of this question. It is laughable and there is no attempt to define a new narrative.
It is an age-old dilemma (cf international aid). Do you engage hoping to change minds, or disengage as a punishment to force that change.
I don't know, historically, which has worked. I know the Taliban are both pretty stubborn, ideologically, and also realise to some degree that there needs to be some pragmatism when dealing with the West. Where that leaves this measure who knows.
But more than that, as has been noted, is the absurdity of the measure the root of which is adherence to religious doctrine. There's that root cause again - religion. It really would be a better world if religion was banned, because whatever took its place would struggle to be as corrosive and harmful.
What a load of rubbish, if the world followed more of the preachings of Jesus Christ it would be a far better place
Or the Buddha. The path to Enlightenment is not littered with the bodies of the vanquished.
And whisper it, how much of Kemi's problem is good old sexism and racism?
In that poll Kemi has a 7% lead over Farage with LD voters and an 18% lead over Farage with Tory voters but only leads Farage by 4% with Labour voters.
Reform voters unsurprisingly prefer Farage to Kemi by a massive 74% margin.
Starmer leads Farage 37% to 25% meanwhile amongst all voters.
Labour voters prefer Starmer to Farage by a massive 65% margin unsurprisingly.
LD voters prefer Starmer to Farage by a big 37% margin.
"I’m a bit surprised about the ‘wall discussion’ here. Yes, the wall was really painfully unfortunate in this instance. But take a look at the departure end of about every other runway in Europe. You’ll find busy highways, fly overs, ditches, drop offs, cliffs, oceans with or without vessels, forests, houses, McDonalds, you name it, in similar proximity, if not closer than this wall.
This aircraft had a problem that 2800 meters of runway could not solve. Let’s focus on that."
Once spent a few hours on that forum reading a great threat about celebrity passengers who are nice and not nice
A little background on the pro-life movement in the US: It has been, and is, largely a grass roots woman's movement. Years ago, I recall seeing a Gallup poll finding that those who voted on that single issue were mostly women, and that those who voted on the issue were more likely to be pro-life. It wasn't particularly a partisan issue, to begin with. For example, Jesse Jackson, was pro-life, no doubt in part because black babies were more likely to be killed than white babies.
While Roe was in effect, candidates could often gain votes, net, by opposing abortion, while knowing they could do little about it.
To compare these women to the Taliban seems a little strange.
(I assume all of you know that, in some groups, girls are more likely to be killed before birth than boys.)
It is a nice effort but based on one poll years ago, versus the historically documented major role of politically conservative churches and Republicans post-Carter, hardly plausible to call it a grassroots movement, any more than any other movement with individuals involved, and not at all plausible to imply that it was women-led.
It is an age-old dilemma (cf international aid). Do you engage hoping to change minds, or disengage as a punishment to force that change.
I don't know, historically, which has worked. I know the Taliban are both pretty stubborn, ideologically, and also realise to some degree that there needs to be some pragmatism when dealing with the West. Where that leaves this measure who knows.
But more than that, as has been noted, is the absurdity of the measure the root of which is adherence to religious doctrine. There's that root cause again - religion. It really would be a better world if religion was banned, because whatever took its place would struggle to be as corrosive and harmful.
What a load of rubbish, if the world followed more of the preachings of Jesus Christ it would be a far better place
The Democrats need to reach out to the kind of Red-State women that resent being told they should never be homemakers, but don't want their rights taken away.
The problem is that the incredibly binary and polarised nature of U.S. political discourse, nowadays increasingly represented by Bluesky and Twitter, and with that trend spreading here, makes all these kinds of nuances and conversations more difficult, than they should be.
I don't think that the Democrats have said "Women should never be Homemakers", so I would be interested in where you source that idea.
The "Trad Wife" influencer thing on Social Media is partly US ultra-Fundamentalism, and partly conspicuous consumption.
In order to be a "Trad-Wife" influencer, you need to be married to a wealthy man with their own significant wealth and property, as a sort of reinvented trophy wife. We see them spending hours on hobbies such as needlework, dress-making, artisanal baking etc, but not hours cleaning bathrooms or doing laundry.
30 years ago it was possible for an unskilled man working in a unionised job at the nuclear power plant to run two cars, have a detached house in a good neighbourhood, wife at home looking after 3 kids etc, but that Simpsons lifestyle is increasingly out of reach for blue collar Americans.
If you need 2 or more incomes to pay the rent, being a Trad Wife is not possible, and Trad Husbands earning enough to support such a lifestyle have gone the way of the crinoline petticoat.
The reason more need 2 or more incomes to pay the rent/mortgage is most couples now have both partners working and earning full time so most homes need 2 incomes to be able to buy them and get a mortgage. So unless your husband is in the top 10% of earners being a Trad Wife to his Trad Husband is more difficult now
There is no doubt women are given little freedom in Afghanistan and under their strict interpretation of Sharia Islamic law there role is limited to being wives and mothers effectively. However after the western withdrawal from Kabul effectively handed the country back to the Taliban and their hardline Islamic rules there is little we can do about it now and certainly boycotting a cricket match won't make much difference.
Just as in Dubai today an 18 year old British boy has been jailed for having consensual sex with a 17 year old girl again there is little we can do about it, if you want to have the same levels of social liberalism when travelling to a conservative Islamic country as we have here then probably best to stay home. Especially if a feminist, LGBT or a teenager 16 to 18
Of course boycotting a cricket match won’t make much difference (if any).
But it’s a statement of our values. We disapprove of the way they have chosen to organise their society.
It is an age-old dilemma (cf international aid). Do you engage hoping to change minds, or disengage as a punishment to force that change.
I don't know, historically, which has worked. I know the Taliban are both pretty stubborn, ideologically, and also realise to some degree that there needs to be some pragmatism when dealing with the West. Where that leaves this measure who knows.
But more than that, as has been noted, is the absurdity of the measure the root of which is adherence to religious doctrine. There's that root cause again - religion. It really would be a better world if religion was banned, because whatever took its place would struggle to be as corrosive and harmful.
What a load of rubbish, if the world followed more of the preachings of Jesus Christ it would be a far better place
What did Jesus say about gay marriage.
Nothing but he supported traditional heterosexual lifelong marriage which is a good thing
Chagos - £800 million a year for something we already own
Thats more than the Farmers are getting screwed for
Starmer really is a prat.
I do not know the details, but Starmer and Lammy need to come clean on this and explain the agreement and cost
All the details are in The Times today and it's as excruciatingly boring as one would imagine. Ultimately Starmer is going to do whatever Trump tells him and the only person Trump will listen to on the subject is Modi.
The only interesting bit was that the law firm that The Ludicrous Cox works for is advising the Mauritian government.
And he doesn't need to travel to Mauritius. They can hear him from here.
Seems fairly clear that Mauritius has gone into “ask for everything mode”
Well that's the art of the deal apparently. As if.
It's a weird sort of stand off because the situation on DG with the US Naval Support Facility isn't going to change no matter what is agreed or not agreed.
The Mauritians want money and the British want the matter settled and their reputation to be slightly less besmirched in international law and in actuality. As several African nations have pointed out, it's a bit much for the UK to be mounting the tall steed over the SMO when they relatively recently forcibly occupied part of Africa and shot all of the inhabitants' dogs.
And whisper it, how much of Kemi's problem is good old sexism and racism?
In that poll Kemi has a 7% lead over Farage with LD voters and an 18% lead over Farage with Tory voters but only leads Farage by 4% with Labour voters.
Reform voters unsurprisingly prefer Farage to Kemi by a massive 74% margin.
Starmer leads Farage 37% to 25% meanwhile amongst all voters.
Labour voters prefer Starmer to Farage by a massive 65% margin unsurprisingly.
LD voters prefer Starmer to Farage by a big 37% margin.
"I’m a bit surprised about the ‘wall discussion’ here. Yes, the wall was really painfully unfortunate in this instance. But take a look at the departure end of about every other runway in Europe. You’ll find busy highways, fly overs, ditches, drop offs, cliffs, oceans with or without vessels, forests, houses, McDonalds, you name it, in similar proximity, if not closer than this wall.
This aircraft had a problem that 2800 meters of runway could not solve. Let’s focus on that."
Once spent a few hours on that forum reading a great threat about celebrity passengers who are nice and not nice
Cilla came out of it badly
My company flew us to Manchester to get round the rule against mere plebs not travelling by first class rail. Cilla was on the flight back, although we only noticed her on the bus to the terminal because the plane had stopped miles away, as is usual. Cilla looked spectacular, as if she had just stepped out of a salon, probably due to being pampered by her retinue and not slumming it with the rest of us.
The Democrats need to reach out to the kind of Red-State women that resent being told they should never be homemakers, but don't want their rights taken away.
The problem is that the incredibly binary and polarised nature of U.S. political discourse, nowadays increasingly represented by Bluesky and Twitter, and with that trend spreading here, makes all these kinds of nuances and conversations more difficult, than they should be.
I don't think that the Democrats have said "Women should never be Homemakers", so I would be interested in where you source that idea.
The "Trad Wife" influencer thing on Social Media is partly US ultra-Fundamentalism, and partly conspicuous consumption.
In order to be a "Trad-Wife" influencer, you need to be married to a wealthy man with their own significant wealth and property, as a sort of reinvented trophy wife. We see them spending hours on hobbies such as needlework, dress-making, artisanal baking etc, but not hours cleaning bathrooms or doing laundry.
30 years ago it was possible for an unskilled man working in a unionised job at the nuclear power plant to run two cars, have a detached house in a good neighbourhood, wife at home looking after 3 kids etc, but that Simpsons lifestyle is increasingly out of reach for blue collar Americans.
If you need 2 or more incomes to pay the rent, being a Trad Wife is not possible, and Trad Husbands earning enough to support such a lifestyle have gone the way of the crinoline petticoat.
And "Friends" told us that barely employed single people could live glamorously in NYC. But perhaps tv has always had an element of fantasy.
"I’m a bit surprised about the ‘wall discussion’ here. Yes, the wall was really painfully unfortunate in this instance. But take a look at the departure end of about every other runway in Europe. You’ll find busy highways, fly overs, ditches, drop offs, cliffs, oceans with or without vessels, forests, houses, McDonalds, you name it, in similar proximity, if not closer than this wall.
This aircraft had a problem that 2800 meters of runway could not solve. Let’s focus on that."
Once spent a few hours on that forum reading a great threat about celebrity passengers who are nice and not nice
The Democrats need to reach out to the kind of Red-State women that resent being told they should never be homemakers, but don't want their rights taken away.
The problem is that the incredibly binary and polarised nature of U.S. political discourse, nowadays increasingly represented by Bluesky and Twitter, and with that trend spreading here, makes all these kinds of nuances and conversations more difficult, than they should be.
I don't think that the Democrats have said "Women should never be Homemakers", so I would be interested in where you source that idea.
The "Trad Wife" influencer thing on Social Media is partly US ultra-Fundamentalism, and partly conspicuous consumption.
In order to be a "Trad-Wife" influencer, you need to be married to a wealthy man with their own significant wealth and property, as a sort of reinvented trophy wife. We see them spending hours on hobbies such as needlework, dress-making, artisanal baking etc, but not hours cleaning bathrooms or doing laundry.
30 years ago it was possible for an unskilled man working in a unionised job at the nuclear power plant to run two cars, have a detached house in a good neighbourhood, wife at home looking after 3 kids etc, but that Simpsons lifestyle is increasingly out of reach for blue collar Americans.
If you need 2 or more incomes to pay the rent, being a Trad Wife is not possible, and Trad Husbands earning enough to support such a lifestyle have gone the way of the crinoline petticoat.
The reason more need 2 or more incomes to pay the rent/mortgage is most couples now have both partners working and earning full time so most homes need 2 incomes to be able to buy them and get a mortgage. So unless your husband is in the top 10% of earners being a Trad Wife to his Trad Husband is more difficult now
Indeed.
I'll try and dig out the programme from last year from somewhere, with both the former Hollywood actress and the down-home prairies woman.
Kemi's problem is the same as Hague's . . . as it stands the country has simply had enough of the Tories for various reasons and has no interest in what they have to say.
That's an interesting comparison because it also highlights the difference between the position of Blair and Starmer. With the exception of a hardcore of malcontents, people were reasonably comfortable with Blair as PM, but Starmer provokes opposition from all quarters.
Things will settle down, I think. People will get used to him.
People are used to him and they fucking hate him. It's not particularly his fault, most people are completely alienated from most politicians because the system of systems is falling apart.
Just to be clear about this: Does Cyclefree believe that the Loser should not have surrendered to the Taliban, and that Biden should not have botched the withdrawal of the US forces, which were providing protection for some Afghan women?
(Incidentally, Laura Bush tried hard to help Afghan women, with some success.)
The Democrats need to reach out to the kind of Red-State women that resent being told they should never be homemakers, but don't want their rights taken away.
The problem is that the incredibly binary and polarised nature of U.S. political discourse, nowadays increasingly represented by Bluesky and Twitter, and with that trend spreading here, makes all these kinds of nuances and conversations more difficult, than they should be.
I don't think that the Democrats have said "Women should never be Homemakers", so I would be interested in where you source that idea.
The "Trad Wife" influencer thing on Social Media is partly US ultra-Fundamentalism, and partly conspicuous consumption.
In order to be a "Trad-Wife" influencer, you need to be married to a wealthy man with their own significant wealth and property, as a sort of reinvented trophy wife. We see them spending hours on hobbies such as needlework, dress-making, artisanal baking etc, but not hours cleaning bathrooms or doing laundry.
30 years ago it was possible for an unskilled man working in a unionised job at the nuclear power plant to run two cars, have a detached house in a good neighbourhood, wife at home looking after 3 kids etc, but that Simpsons lifestyle is increasingly out of reach for blue collar Americans.
If you need 2 or more incomes to pay the rent, being a Trad Wife is not possible, and Trad Husbands earning enough to support such a lifestyle have gone the way of the crinoline petticoat.
And "Friends" told us that barely employed single people could live glamorously in NYC. But perhaps tv has always had an element of fantasy.
Comments
The early Ottoman empire essentially pursued the same sort of tactics, but the last Sultan ended up painting his watercolours on the French Riviera. It was the secular Turkish Nationalists that revived the violent approach.
That's the way America's heading - regressing, I would argue. And I hope to God it's not an idea that will take off over here.
I think (a) inflation made the incumbents unpopular, (b) there's a Fox News etc. bubble pumping out propaganda to a chunk of the population (we even see some here believing it), and (c) a very strong 2-party system means that dissatisfaction with the Dems helps the Reps regardless of the candidate/policy platform (and vice versa).
Just as in Dubai today an 18 year old British boy has been jailed for having consensual sex with a 17 year old girl again there is little we can do about it, if you want to have the same levels of social liberalism when travelling to a conservative Islamic country as we have here then probably best to stay home. Especially if a feminist, LGBT or a teenager 16 to 18
Some of these are uneducated people from very repressive family environments who have no concept
of their rights as women, and others are former liberals who feel that the modern liberal movement berates them if they decide to take a more traditional home-based role. So part of the problem is ignorance and Trumpist prejudice, and part of it is the particular recent styie of liberal rhetoric on these issues.
Carter, of course, has also started to intervene in Afghanistan, which the incoming administration continued.
The policy line between the two, in not a few areas (see also, for instance, deregulation) was not quite as bright as has been painted.
One Carter policy which Reagan did completely trash was on climate change.
But for that we might already be at net zero - and the US, not China the dominant renewables manufacturer.
I don't know much about that particular airport but you have to do something about planes which go over the end of the runway. without the wall it would have crashed into something (probably the landing assistance equipment at that end of the runway). The theory is they were coming in too fast and had issues with the front nose gear. with only 1 engine providing reverse thrust and without proper landing gear braking they were always going off the end of the runway.
Anyway, I totally agree with you about this topic. The Taliban is extreme and particularly horrible but you can get a sense of what we're talking about pretty much anywhere and everywhere. The notion that men are the main show in life - the players if you like - and woman are subsidiary, there to support, succour, praise, cheer, and decorate. I think this feeling is common and deep-rooted (and not confined to men). It's not niche, it's mainstream.
South Africa were banned from the Olympics in 1964
South Africa were suspended by FIFA in 1961 and 1965
I don't think we will be giving cricket to much credit when English individuals and rebel tours flouted the boycott with reletive immunity.
Derek Underwood & Mike Gatting later became presidents of MCC
I don't know, historically, which has worked. I know the Taliban are both pretty stubborn, ideologically, and also realise to some degree that there needs to be some pragmatism when dealing with the West. Where that leaves this measure who knows.
But more than that, as has been noted, is the absurdity of the measure the root of which is adherence to religious doctrine. There's that root cause again - religion. It really would be a better world if religion was banned, because whatever took its place would struggle to be as corrosive and harmful.
The problem is that the incredibly binary and polarised nature of U.S. political discourse, nowadays increasingly represented by Bluesky and Twitter, and with that trend spreading here, makes all these kinds of nuances and conversations more difficult, than they should be.
They make Hitler look like a wet lettuce.
On social issues Carter was relatively conservative, certainly compared to Democrats now, pro traditional marriage and personally opposed to abortion and an evangelical Baptist. Fiscally though he believed government had a role to play in helping the poor even if he was no socialist and he also tried to promote peace abroad as with the Camp David accords.
Carter was probably therefore the US President closest to the teachings of Jesus Christ of any of them and in his personal life was also faithfully married to his wife for over 70 years
I think they spilt the Mongols pint.
The sad fact is that extreme violence is very effective. At least Mongolia has now matured, and become a much more peacefully-minded society.
it's difficult to know what the pilots could have done differently and been more successful. with only 1 engine providing reverse thrust and improper support from the landing gear keeping the plane from veering off the runway halfway down is also an issue.
did they carry too much speed? did they have the altitude to lose speed? was the plane functioning well enough to allow them to do another go-around and come in more slowly?
some of the outcomes of the investigation will be on the airport and its response.
My dad worked for a vending machine company. He always timed his visits, with me alongside, to replenish the cigarette machines at the same time as home John Player League matches, so we got in for free.
Timur rebuilt it to its greatest extent a couple of centuries on.
Most remarkable is that it was known as the breadbasket of Central Asia, whereas today Afghanistan is barely self-sufficient in agriculture.
Thats more than the Farmers are getting screwed for
Starmer really is a prat.
Afghan women are oppressed to an extent which makes even the more misogynist wing of the Republican Party look relatively decent.
Afghan women are treated literally as captive animals, in every respect of their lives. But with less consideration than we afford to animals.
It was US males who elected George W Bush and Donald Trump
FWIW I think the view of women as somehow not fully human predates religion - which is used to justify it - rather than the other way around. See, for instance, Aristotle's view of women as no more than an empty vessel.
My instinct would be to try to use cricket to act as some sort of beacon for women in the country - oblige all participating teams to employ women on equal terms to men, or even field a women's team, or some such, and work with them on that basis. I realise that that is probably an impossibility, in which case a boycott is justified.
The worry at the moment, is that because the security situation has stabilised under the Taliban, womens' rights are being forgotten about
Their hunting techniques, which again involved co-ordinating the movements of horsemen across vast distances, were perfect training for war.
Their big weakness, exploited by neighbouring powers, was endemic warfare between clans and tribes. In Genghis Khan, they had a leader who (most unusually), was both a political and a military genius, who first crushed his rivals, and then united the tribes by turning their aggression outwards. And, he had an uncanny knack for picking gifted commanders, like Subedei and Mukhali.
They were massively outnumbered by the people of Northern China and Central Asia, so they resorted to horrendous atrocities to break resistance. You could surrender to them, and survive (they’d still plunder you). Or you could resist, and be wiped out to the last woman and child. They generally viewed peasants as being of less value than horses (they were more inclined to spare nobles, artisans, and bureaucrats, who could be of use to them). They worked out, too, that mass rape was an effective terror tactic. They never stopped innovating in war, conscripting Chinese as infantry and siege engineers.
During their conquest of Northern China, from 1211-1231, the population fell from 30m to 9m.
The "Trad Wife" influencer thing on Social Media is partly US ultra-Fundamentalism, and partly conspicuous consumption.
In order to be a "Trad-Wife" influencer, you need to be married to a wealthy man with their own significant wealth and property, as a sort of reinvented trophy wife. We see them spending hours on hobbies such as needlework, dress-making, artisanal baking etc, but not hours cleaning bathrooms or doing laundry.
30 years ago it was possible for an unskilled man working in a unionised job at the nuclear power plant to run two cars, have a detached house in a good neighbourhood, wife at home looking after 3 kids etc, but that Simpsons lifestyle is increasingly out of reach for blue collar Americans.
If you need 2 or more incomes to pay the rent, being a Trad Wife is not possible, and Trad Husbands earning enough to support such a lifestyle have gone the way of the crinoline petticoat.
The aircraft landed a long way down the runway and at considerable speed. Quite why the landing gear wasn't down is a huge open question, as its inoperability wouldn't normally result from a bird strike. It apparently landed the wrong way on the runway i.e. with the wind, which may have been necessary and may account for (some of) the excess speed but the plane didn't appear to be in *that* much trouble that it couldn't go round - and if it had gone round, it wouldn't have had a concrete wall at the end of the runway and should have been able to land at a much slower speed. Also, the flaps weren't down, increasing stall speed.
Now some or all of those might have technical explanations. Maybe there was a catastrophic loss of hydraulics. But it's an appallingly bad set of coincidences if there are no human factors involved.
The aircraft landed a long way down the runway and at considerable speed. Quite why the landing gear wasn't down is a huge open question, as its inoperability wouldn't normally result from a bird strike. It apparently landed the wrong way on the runway i.e. with the wind, which may have been necessary and may account for (some of) the excess speed but the plane didn't appear to be in *that* much trouble that it couldn't go round - and if it had gone round, it wouldn't have had a concrete wall at the end of the runway and should have been able to land at a much slower speed. Also, the flaps weren't down, increasing stall speed.
Now some or all of those might have technical explanations. Maybe there was a catastrophic loss of hydraulics. But it's an appallingly bad set of coincidences if there are no human factors involved.
Presumably much will be answered when the black box is found and downloaded.
There seems to be a concern that many of the, particularly rural, population are so grateful that the security situation is more stable, the Taliban know that they can get away with locking up and mistreating the female population, again.
New from @ipsosintheuk.bsky.social
Who would make the better PM?
Kemi Badenoch 16%
Nigel Farage 23%
https://bsky.app/profile/keiranpedley.bsky.social/post/3lejg6hrb2k2s
And whisper it, how much of Kemi's problem is good old sexism and racism?
He did say the landing gear lowers automatically once unlocked, and is not dependent on the avionics
The enquiry will be interesting and no doubt lessons will need to be learned
The only interesting bit was that the law firm that The Ludicrous Cox works for is advising the Mauritian government.
So that isn't to do with the Democrats as such, but the tone of modern social media. There was a Channel 4 doc about some of these women last year.
Some were very much your stereotype Trumpist, but another group of them on the programme actually formerly worked in Hollywood, so that could probably be described as closer to coastal elites with enough money to turn Trumpist, in their home and work arrangements.
Mauritius should be told to do one, including scrapping the previously initialed agreement. If that wasn't good enough for them, it's dead. I'm no great fan of the deal but finance-free I could live with it. But they have no real claim on the islands; let those who live there (or have been displaced, where traceable) choose their sovereignty, as is consistent with international law. As for the base, a long-lease at market rates or it doesn't go anywhere.
Time will change that more than Kemi will. The next Tory PM is probably not yet in Parliament - just as Blair, Cameron and Starmer respectively were not in Parliament when their parties last lost power before they regained it.
From the non religious point of view of those who believe our values are mere personal preferences, why shouldn't the Taliban's view of women be as good as yours?
She is an unknown and is getting a lot of flack, but mainly from those who are not her target audience at this time
"I’m a bit surprised about the ‘wall discussion’ here. Yes, the wall was really painfully unfortunate in this instance. But take a look at the departure end of about every other runway in Europe. You’ll find busy highways, fly overs, ditches, drop offs, cliffs, oceans with or without vessels, forests, houses, McDonalds, you name it, in similar proximity, if not closer than this wall.
This aircraft had a problem that 2800 meters of runway could not solve. Let’s focus on that."
The problem Kemi has is that they're too fresh into Opposition to be taken seriously yet. It almost doesn't matter what she says, even if she says exactly the right thing it isn't taken seriously as it comes with the immediate retort of "well why didn't you do that in office?"
Time will heal that, but by that time Kemi probably won't be leader anymore.
6 months after the 1997 general election Blair was still in his honeymoon period and New Labour was on 52%-63% in the polls and with a massive 20-30% lead over Hague's Conservatives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2001_United_Kingdom_general_election
Nearly 6 months after this year's general election though Starmer and his government are deeply unpopular and Labour level pegging with the Tories on 26% each in the latest Electoral Calculus poll average
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20241229142523/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/britain-and-the-chagos-the-seven-year-mess-thatll-cost-us-all-8zwdqxr5t
While Roe was in effect, candidates could often gain votes, net, by opposing abortion, while knowing they could do little about it.
To compare these women to the Taliban seems a little strange.
(I assume all of you know that, in some groups, girls are more likely to be killed before birth than boys.)
Reform voters unsurprisingly prefer Farage to Kemi by a massive 74% margin.
Starmer leads Farage 37% to 25% meanwhile amongst all voters.
Labour voters prefer Starmer to Farage by a massive 65% margin unsurprisingly.
LD voters prefer Starmer to Farage by a big 37% margin.
Tory voters prefer Farage to Starmer by a 21% margin though and Reform voters unsurprisingly prefer Farage to Starmer by a huge 77% margin
https://bsky.app/profile/keiranpedley.bsky.social/post/3lejfz4jlh22s
Cilla came out of it badly
But it’s a statement of our values. We disapprove of the way they have chosen to organise their society.
The Mauritians want money and the British want the matter settled and their reputation to be slightly less besmirched in international law and in actuality. As several African nations have pointed out, it's a bit much for the UK to be mounting the tall steed over the SMO when they relatively recently forcibly occupied part of Africa and shot all of the inhabitants' dogs.
(here, I mean, not over there)
I'll try and dig out the programme from last year from somewhere, with both the former Hollywood actress and the
down-home prairies woman.
(Incidentally, Laura Bush tried hard to help Afghan women, with some success.)