I’ve just spent a couple of hours listening to Sean Gabb’s lectures on Nero.
He concludes that he did murder his brother, mother and wife; castrate Sporus in an attempt to turn him into a woman; and burn Christians as human torches.
A right wing talking head the other day called Sir Grinch's last Christmas in No. 10. I don’t think I see it now sadly, but I don't predict things getting much better for his Government.
They're not likely to get better for *any* government.
One possible exception to that will be the government of either Russia or Ukraine, as it seems unlikely the war will last beyond this year. If Ukraine implodes, that will be to put it mildly suboptimal for Volodomyr Zelensky. If, on the other hand, the Russian economy tanks entirely and Putin has to withdraw from Ukraine this will damage his own government beyond repair.
If, of course, the Orange Haired One decides to impose a silly peace on both so he can lie about his deal making abilities then that will be suboptimal for both, probably more so for Ukraine as at least what Putin has can be spun as a victory.
This has got to be peak Trump derangement syndrome I'm afraid. A 'silly peace'. Is that one where people stop killing each other in red noses, overlarge shoes and squirty flowers?
The Header picture has something of "Charlie's Angels Post Plastic Surgery" about it.
More worryingly, even though satirical it's a very 2020s influencer vibe.
It reminds me horribly of a photo I received from three girls in the US announcing that they were my new agents. Hi Roger. We're so excited to be working with you. We're three sisters. Marlene Darlene and Charlene ......
.....and it wasn't a joke or an influencer and I was so angry
And how are Marlene, Darlene and Charlene working out?
Sorry I posted without explanation. As I was being asked to work quite regularly in the US the idea that a producer thought it acceptable to get three attractive salesgirls to hawk my reel around on his behalf was not something I found acceptable so despite their engaging looks and Texas twangs i had to face the embarrassment of saying sorry Darlene Marlene and Charlene but I don't work with sales people!
Philip Schofield never recovered after jumping the queue.
That reminds me of something I saw back in 2010.
I was on a train going to Birmingham on business and sitting quietly working and minding my own business in the Quiet Compartment. In barged the Deputy Prime Minister, and, though there were plenty of spare seats on the train, his security detail for some reason decided they wanted our table and chucked the three of us sitting there off.
They did so perfectly politely, but unmistakably firmly - they'd obviously done it many times before. He could have sat in plenty of other seats in the compartment.
Then, after I'd sat down and was back to my spreadsheets, Clegg decided to have a long call on his mobile phone with his Spanish wife, speaking unnecessarily loudly, with head tilted up so his voice spread throughout the compartment, from his mannger, I assume he wanted to show everybody watching that he was fluent in Spanish.
Anyway, that confirmed what I'd already thought - attention seeking, playing to the gallery, inconsideration to lesser beings and outright narcissism aren't so much occasional vices of most successful politicians as their dominant characteristics.
I recall someone trying to make a thing of Cameron looking bored while sitting in a departure lounge with the family.
Who doesn’t love sitting for 2 hours on uncomfortable seats at Gatwick?
It will help stuff Russia which is a great thing. Time to sink their shadow fleet of tankers and stop their oil as well.
Will also boost exports of US gas, which will cheer up the orange nutter.
That's a declining sum game at least in the UK - Gas usage peaked about 20 years ago here, and has fallen by well over a third since.
It's also a capacity problem for the USA. It's not clear that they have the ability to export much more.
Gasification trains* are, strangely, slightly easier to build than regas trains.
Floating gasification trains are now built in specialist shipyards, for example.
*”trains” is the term used for the equipment which forms a long, multistage process at both ends. One turns gas into liquid, the other turns liquid into gas. Both are fun, since they involve enormous amounts of flammable gas, and huge amounts of energy being added or removed from said gas.
When you say gasification, do you mean liquefaction?
If so, I disagree. Liquefaction plant requires proprietary technology from one of only a handful of suppliers, whereas they even let folk like me have a bash at designing import/revaporisation plants. Not gone bang yet!
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
My hope is that there will be a deal with Putin/Russia when Russia have been forced into such a bad position that the 1991 borders and an end to the fighting will be a relief to Russia, and better than the fighting continuing.
We're not there yet, but with Ukrainian forces in Kursk, and continuing attacks on Russian targets inside Russia, and assassinations of senior personnel in Moscow/St Petersburg, I can see how we might get to such a point, if Ukraine receives the Western support that it requires.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
A right wing talking head the other day called Sir Grinch's last Christmas in No. 10. I don’t think I see it now sadly, but I don't predict things getting much better for his Government.
They're not likely to get better for *any* government.
One possible exception to that will be the government of either Russia or Ukraine, as it seems unlikely the war will last beyond this year. If Ukraine implodes, that will be to put it mildly suboptimal for Volodomyr Zelensky. If, on the other hand, the Russian economy tanks entirely and Putin has to withdraw from Ukraine this will damage his own government beyond repair.
If, of course, the Orange Haired One decides to impose a silly peace on both so he can lie about his deal making abilities then that will be suboptimal for both, probably more so for Ukraine as at least what Putin has can be spun as a victory.
This has got to be peak Trump derangement syndrome I'm afraid. A 'silly peace'. Is that one where people stop killing each other in red noses, overlarge shoes and squirty flowers?
How about “not a peace but handing victory to aggressors?”
Which will mean having to do this all over again. In Finland or Estonia.
Labour back to regular 35% polling by year end as the more educated and realistic citizens realise they are putting the key foundations and building blocks in place to rebuild a broken Country.
Starmer method driven methodical approach starts to work.
Badenoch starts to gain a foothold over Reform with Tories edging up to high 20s
The Reform bubble starts to burst, driven by chaos and possible riots it the US and UK with Farage instigating and getting widespread rebuttal for it.
Expect further corruption issues to affect Farage and Lowe especially and a general repulsion towards MAGA and Musk.
Elsewhere possible exile for Andrew Windsor, divorce for William Windsor and increasing calls for a second Brexit vote.
Some interesting predictions there! I am not sure which is the least probable.
Politically, I expect Starmer and Badenoch to continue floundering, but am sceptical on current polling. The big movement is not Lab to Con or Lab to Reform, it is Lab to DK/WNV, which is in large part down to post electoral ennui.
Can Deliverism deliver for Starmer? I think there will be big improvements in a number of key national metrics including NHS waiting lists and immigration numbers, but never enough for some people.
Economically I expect a middling performance, with most other developed countries also in the economic doldrums, dragged down by demographics and ageing industries.
Farage will enjoy the limelight, but the ongoing car crash across the Atlantic will tarnish him significantly.
I am not particularly a Royal watcher, but the King does look rather old and frail. I can't see him lasting more than a couple of years, so William will be on his best behaviour, in public at least. I think he will be a rather headstrong King when the time comes, and that will adversely impacted support for the Monarchy, particularly in other Commonwealth Realms.
I doubt it, William is more popular than Charles across the Commonwealth realms, has no interest in any political role other than his Earthshot prize and homeless campaigns and has even said he may give up being permanent head of the Commonwealth as King but rotate the role amongst Commonwealth heads of state
Personally I think the Commonwealth should go - it is just a relic of Empire. Maybe shut it down after 100 years (2048/9 ?). For giggles, I would have the next head of the Commonwealth to be from a country where homosexuality is banned.
In fact, the Commonwealth is 99 years old - it was established by the Balfour Declaration (no, not that one - apparently there were two) at the 1926 Imperial Conference. So its centenary is next year.
But just because something is a relic of Empire doesn't mean it should go. If anything, it means it should probably last forever.
Or should we reintroduce the global slave trade? Or deport our non-white population? Or should the Indians start burning their widows again? Or maybe the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand should commit national suicide?
At present, it won't last. China has successfully stoked anger within it to direct fire at Britain for Reparations™ and India and South Africa have checked out. We lack the confidence to assert and lead it, partly due to shit like Decolonisation and all the other handwringing that goes with it.
Only HMQ held it together.
Commonwealth or no Commonwealth black majority nations will still seek reparations and still not get any and India and S Africa remain in it.
It is no longer the place of the UK to lead it though, it should be a genuine Commonwealth of culture and exchange not a legacy of Empire and top down from Britain. Hence Prince William was correct to say he would not be head of the Commonwealth when he becomes King but the position should rotate amongst Commonwealth heads of state instead
It will help stuff Russia which is a great thing. Time to sink their shadow fleet of tankers and stop their oil as well.
Will also boost exports of US gas, which will cheer up the orange nutter.
That's a declining sum game at least in the UK - Gas usage peaked about 20 years ago here, and has fallen by well over a third since.
It's also a capacity problem for the USA. It's not clear that they have the ability to export much more.
Gasification trains* are, strangely, slightly easier to build than regas trains.
Floating gasification trains are now built in specialist shipyards, for example.
*”trains” is the term used for the equipment which forms a long, multistage process at both ends. One turns gas into liquid, the other turns liquid into gas. Both are fun, since they involve enormous amounts of flammable gas, and huge amounts of energy being added or removed from said gas.
When you say gasification, do you mean liquefaction?
If so, I disagree. Liquefaction plant requires proprietary technology from one of only a handful of suppliers, whereas they even let folk like me have a bash at designing import/revaporisation plants. Not gone bang yet!
Yes, sorry. New Years Brain.
It depends, I think, on which end you do separation of fractions. Liquefaction tended (a few years back, anyway), for the most part, to be straight up compression/heat removal, keep all the fractions. To keep the kit simpler and more compact (for a strange value of compact!)
Or has that changed?
The compaction to get it in a single ship hull must be fun, though.
(It's been given away, now, after being empty since 1984. It looks like parts of the Barbican, but buildings like that need big cashflow through them to stay in condition.)
I went to Casino in October. It’s quite a sad town. It’s a place of pilgrimage to Poles, Germans, Americans, New Zealanders, and Indians. But, the locals just want to forget about the battle that destroyed their town.
My late grandfather fought at Casino, certainly a key battle in the Italian campaign
Sadiq Khan has been accused of politicising London's New Year's Eve fireworks last night with a hidden message in the music pointing to Labour's General Election win.
Viewers claimed the Mayor used part of his 11-minute display to poke fun at Rishi Sunak's rain-soaked general election announcement at Downing Street in May.
Seriously gusty out on the coastal path, this morning. But the high winds have subsided, the heavens have opened, and fortunately the dog and I are back inside.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
If it is a 'defining issue' it will only be because Musk is race-baiting for his mate Farage.
And you're slurping up the hate.
(And no, I am not defending the shits who committed the crimes; or the people who covered it up. But if you think Musk is making these comments from a good place, then I've got a Hyperloop to sell you.)
Chris Dobey, like his football team, Newcastle, showing he has no bottle when it comes to the crunch and missed 5 match darts. Should have won already. Price winding him up too as only Price does. His head is going.
A right wing talking head the other day called Sir Grinch's last Christmas in No. 10. I don’t think I see it now sadly, but I don't predict things getting much better for his Government.
They're not likely to get better for *any* government.
One possible exception to that will be the government of either Russia or Ukraine, as it seems unlikely the war will last beyond this year. If Ukraine implodes, that will be to put it mildly suboptimal for Volodomyr Zelensky. If, on the other hand, the Russian economy tanks entirely and Putin has to withdraw from Ukraine this will damage his own government beyond repair.
If, of course, the Orange Haired One decides to impose a silly peace on both so he can lie about his deal making abilities then that will be suboptimal for both, probably more so for Ukraine as at least what Putin has can be spun as a victory.
This has got to be peak Trump derangement syndrome I'm afraid. A 'silly peace'. Is that one where people stop killing each other in red noses, overlarge shoes and squirty flowers?
It's shorthand, obvs - for an unstable truce which probably means another round, in due course.
Do your usual checking notes thing to see if that's ever happened to Ukraine before...
Philip Schofield never recovered after jumping the queue.
That reminds me of something I saw back in 2010.
I was on a train going to Birmingham on business and sitting quietly working and minding my own business in the Quiet Compartment. In barged the Deputy Prime Minister, and, though there were plenty of spare seats on the train, his security detail for some reason decided they wanted our table and chucked the three of us sitting there off.
They did so perfectly politely, but unmistakably firmly - they'd obviously done it many times before. He could have sat in plenty of other seats in the compartment.
Then, after I'd sat down and was back to my spreadsheets, Clegg decided to have a long call on his mobile phone with his Spanish wife, speaking unnecessarily loudly, with head tilted up so his voice spread throughout the compartment, from his mannger, I assume he wanted to show everybody watching that he was fluent in Spanish.
Anyway, that confirmed what I'd already thought - attention seeking, playing to the gallery, inconsideration to lesser beings and outright narcissism aren't so much occasional vices of most successful politicians as their dominant characteristics.
And now Clegg earns $2 million a year working for Zuckerberg in California and probably only flies first class or travels in chauffeur driven cars and never uses the train and has even less connection with the public than he did as Deputy PM
A right wing talking head the other day called Sir Grinch's last Christmas in No. 10. I don’t think I see it now sadly, but I don't predict things getting much better for his Government.
They're not likely to get better for *any* government.
One possible exception to that will be the government of either Russia or Ukraine, as it seems unlikely the war will last beyond this year. If Ukraine implodes, that will be to put it mildly suboptimal for Volodomyr Zelensky. If, on the other hand, the Russian economy tanks entirely and Putin has to withdraw from Ukraine this will damage his own government beyond repair.
If, of course, the Orange Haired One decides to impose a silly peace on both so he can lie about his deal making abilities then that will be suboptimal for both, probably more so for Ukraine as at least what Putin has can be spun as a victory.
This has got to be peak Trump derangement syndrome I'm afraid. A 'silly peace'. Is that one where people stop killing each other in red noses, overlarge shoes and squirty flowers?
You're right, it should be a foolish peace or stupid peace or self-defeating peace. Silly is far too tame a term to use.
It's a temporary truce that makes matters worse not better. Aggressors need to both lose and be seen to lose.
A right wing talking head the other day called Sir Grinch's last Christmas in No. 10. I don’t think I see it now sadly, but I don't predict things getting much better for his Government.
They're not likely to get better for *any* government.
One possible exception to that will be the government of either Russia or Ukraine, as it seems unlikely the war will last beyond this year. If Ukraine implodes, that will be to put it mildly suboptimal for Volodomyr Zelensky. If, on the other hand, the Russian economy tanks entirely and Putin has to withdraw from Ukraine this will damage his own government beyond repair.
If, of course, the Orange Haired One decides to impose a silly peace on both so he can lie about his deal making abilities then that will be suboptimal for both, probably more so for Ukraine as at least what Putin has can be spun as a victory.
This has got to be peak Trump derangement syndrome I'm afraid. A 'silly peace'. Is that one where people stop killing each other in red noses, overlarge shoes and squirty flowers?
How about “not a peace but handing victory to aggressors?”
Which will mean having to do this all over again. In Finland or Estonia.
You may think it would be misguided, but it is not 'a silly peace'.
And forget Russia regrouping for a second go - it's us who needs a breather to 'regroup'. Our army, navy and airforce need to be running at a level where they are capable of defending the country before we even *think* about sending more arms and cash to Ukraine - that is basic defence 101; it shouldn't even be a controversial opinion. Russia may be considered a big threat, but it is a million miles from being the only one.
It will help stuff Russia which is a great thing. Time to sink their shadow fleet of tankers and stop their oil as well.
Will also boost exports of US gas, which will cheer up the orange nutter.
That's a declining sum game at least in the UK - Gas usage peaked about 20 years ago here, and has fallen by well over a third since.
It's also a capacity problem for the USA. It's not clear that they have the ability to export much more.
The Army of Loft Laggers must have done a cracking job making our homes more energy efficient.
Or more likely that CCGTs are running at lower load factors.
It's both, and other factors such as LED lights and the start of the pivot away from gas heating.
As an overall number, overall energy intensity per household is down by about 1/3 since 2000. A lot of that is the army of loft laggers and the others. You also see the trend in improvement in EPC levels, and newbuild requirements. The overall reduction is a little lower because of eg smaller households and more of them.
Still lots to do, but it's mucho progress.
This btw is one of the reasons why international comparisons around energy prices are misleading - the USA has low energy prices, but they use about twice as much energy as we do this side of the pond. The better comparison is actual bills.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
If it is a 'defining issue' it will only be because Musk is race-baiting for his mate Farage.
And you're slurping up the hate.
(And no, I am not defending the shits who committed the crimes; or the people who covered it up. But if you think Musk is making these comments from a good place, then I've got a Hyperloop to sell you.)
You perfectly illustrate the pathological thinking that enabled the cover up.
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
Trump in the game does increase the chances of escalation as much as it increases the chance of Ukraine being forced to concede. Trump didn’t want to intervene in Syria on his previous watch, until he saw photos of what Assad had been doing.
I'm not sure that Western Europe, willing or not to replace the Americans, will be that decisive. The real Russian position appears to be reabsorption of the eastern provinces and Crimea - Putin is unlikely to really want the western provinces with their predominantly anti-Russian populations. Conversely the Ukrainian public seem less willing to stick to the "not an inch" position, and the government is probably less keen on the heavily damaged and underpopulated eastern provinces than it seems. So a deal isn't all that unlikely, but may hinge on how far Russia gets a gradual relaxation of sanctions if it doesn't proceed to "and now, Moldova and Transdniester". The most likely in the short to medium term is probably failure to get that, and a cold peace with borders roughly as they are.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
If it is a 'defining issue' it will only be because Musk is race-baiting for his mate Farage.
And you're slurping up the hate.
(And no, I am not defending the shits who committed the crimes; or the people who covered it up. But if you think Musk is making these comments from a good place, then I've got a Hyperloop to sell you.)
The simple answer, since the evidence was destroyed, is to put those involved in hiding what happened (police and officials) on one of the sex offenders registers.
That will sort out the criminals and the fuckwits trying to make political capital out of it.
I’ve just spent a couple of hours listening to Sean Gabb’s lectures on Nero.
He concludes that he did murder his brother, mother and wife; castrate Sporus in an attempt to turn him into a woman; and burn Christians as human torches.
But that aside, he was quite a reasonable ruler.
Who ended up being killed by his private secretary after losing power, what goes around comes around
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
If it is a 'defining issue' it will only be because Musk is race-baiting for his mate Farage.
And you're slurping up the hate.
(And no, I am not defending the shits who committed the crimes; or the people who covered it up. But if you think Musk is making these comments from a good place, then I've got a Hyperloop to sell you.)
Ignoring the 'wrong people' is how we got here in the first place.
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
My hope is that there will be a deal with Putin/Russia when Russia have been forced into such a bad position that the 1991 borders and an end to the fighting will be a relief to Russia, and better than the fighting continuing.
We're not there yet, but with Ukrainian forces in Kursk, and continuing attacks on Russian targets inside Russia, and assassinations of senior personnel in Moscow/St Petersburg, I can see how we might get to such a point, if Ukraine receives the Western support that it requires.
We’re still some months away from that sort of scenario though. I think it would require a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and also, realistically, the knives to come out for Putin in the Kremlin. This is very much his SMO, and it will take another leader to throw in the towel. I’d love to see Putin at the Hague, but swinging from a lamppost or a drop from a high window would be fitting alternatives.
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
Trump in the game does increase the chances of escalation as much as it increases the chance of Ukraine being forced to concede. Trump didn’t want to intervene in Syria on his previous watch, until he saw photos of what Assad had been doing.
I'm not sure that Western Europe, willing or not to replace the Americans, will be that decisive. The real Russian position appears to be reabsorption of the eastern provinces and Crimea - Putin is unlikely to really want the western provinces with their predominantly anti-Russian populations. Conversely the Ukrainian public seem less willing to stick to the "not an inch" position, and the government is probably less keen on the heavily damaged and underpopulated eastern provinces than it seems. So a deal isn't all that unlikely, but may hinge on how far Russia gets a gradual relaxation of sanctions if it doesn't proceed to "and now, Moldova and Transdniester". The most likely in the short to medium term is probably failure to get that, and a cold peace with borders roughly as they are.
There no actual evidence of any of that.
The just pre-war poll conducted by CNN says that you be giving huge numbers of people to a nation they don’t want live in.
Does this mean that if Ukraine hangs onto their Kursk salient and expels the inhabitants, they get to keep that?
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
Trump in the game does increase the chances of escalation as much as it increases the chance of Ukraine being forced to concede. Trump didn’t want to intervene in Syria on his previous watch, until he saw photos of what Assad had been doing.
I'm not sure that Western Europe, willing or not to replace the Americans, will be that decisive. The real Russian position appears to be reabsorption of the eastern provinces and Crimea - Putin is unlikely to really want the western provinces with their predominantly anti-Russian populations. Conversely the Ukrainian public seem less willing to stick to the "not an inch" position, and the government is probably less keen on the heavily damaged and underpopulated eastern provinces than it seems. So a deal isn't all that unlikely, but may hinge on how far Russia gets a gradual relaxation of sanctions if it doesn't proceed to "and now, Moldova and Transdniester". The most likely in the short to medium term is probably failure to get that, and a cold peace with borders roughly as they are.
A deal might happen with adequate security guarantees for Ukraine - which basically means either NATO membership, or western troops on the ground in Ukraine.
But as Trump has made it quite clear that he won't be party to any such guarantee, it's again up to Europe and Ukraine. It's not something Trump can impose.
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
My hope is that there will be a deal with Putin/Russia when Russia have been forced into such a bad position that the 1991 borders and an end to the fighting will be a relief to Russia, and better than the fighting continuing.
We're not there yet, but with Ukrainian forces in Kursk, and continuing attacks on Russian targets inside Russia, and assassinations of senior personnel in Moscow/St Petersburg, I can see how we might get to such a point, if Ukraine receives the Western support that it requires.
We’re still some months away from that sort of scenario though. I think it would require a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and also, realistically, the knives to come out for Putin in the Kremlin. This is very much his SMO, and it will take another leader to throw in the towel. I’d love to see Putin at the Hague, but swinging from a lamppost or a drop from a high window would be fitting alternatives.
Hence his insistence on removal of the Ukrainian government and blocking any accommodation between Ukraine and NATO or the EU.
If he doesn’t get he removal of the government (replacement with pro-Putinists) and both NATO and the EU blocked - then its window time for him.
The island news this new year’s day is: an air ambulance call to a head-on crash, one arrest after an elderly motorist ran down a pedestrian, one serious fire at a domestic property in east Cowes, fastcat services to the mainland cancelled due to adverse weather, the body of a man found at a marina, a flood alert for part of the island, a whole flock of sheep loose on a residential road, and the hospital is full of the elderly struck down with winter flu. And someone dumped a whole leftover Xmas dinner outside the island’s vet surgery.
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
My hope is that there will be a deal with Putin/Russia when Russia have been forced into such a bad position that the 1991 borders and an end to the fighting will be a relief to Russia, and better than the fighting continuing.
We're not there yet, but with Ukrainian forces in Kursk, and continuing attacks on Russian targets inside Russia, and assassinations of senior personnel in Moscow/St Petersburg, I can see how we might get to such a point, if Ukraine receives the Western support that it requires.
We’re still some months away from that sort of scenario though. I think it would require a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and also, realistically, the knives to come out for Putin in the Kremlin. This is very much his SMO, and it will take another leader to throw in the towel. I’d love to see Putin at the Hague, but swinging from a lamppost or a drop from a high window would be fitting alternatives.
Hence his insistence on removal of the Ukrainian government and blocking any accommodation between Ukraine and NATO or the EU.
If he doesn’t get he removal of the government (replacement with pro-Putinists) and both NATO and the EU blocked - then its window time for him.
But, the price for Ukraine leaving Kursk is EU and NATO membership.
I’ve just spent a couple of hours listening to Sean Gabb’s lectures on Nero.
He concludes that he did murder his brother, mother and wife; castrate Sporus in an attempt to turn him into a woman; and burn Christians as human torches.
But that aside, he was quite a reasonable ruler.
Who ended up being killed by his private secretary after losing power, what goes around comes around
Afternoon, everyone. Just a small sliver of good news. I've commented before about my problems with getting my driving licence back, and how I'd reached the situation where DVLA wanted me to have some lessons before I could have it. Well, I've had the first one, and the instructor was rather wondering why I was having all the problems. Said my driving was fine; bit cautious maybe and there were one or two habits I'd got into over the years which I ought to sort out but nothing major. So I rather hope that by the summer I should be driving again. 'All' I've got to do is sort out how I get some sort of Zimmer or other walking frame in and out of the car so that I can walk from the car to where I want to be.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
If it is a 'defining issue' it will only be because Musk is race-baiting for his mate Farage.
And you're slurping up the hate.
(And no, I am not defending the shits who committed the crimes; or the people who covered it up. But if you think Musk is making these comments from a good place, then I've got a Hyperloop to sell you.)
Ignoring the 'wrong people' is how we got here in the first place.
Even ignoring the ‘right people’ like Ann Cryer too, who was shunned by many in her own party for raising the issue and accused of having malign motives.
I’ve just spent a couple of hours listening to Sean Gabb’s lectures on Nero.
He concludes that he did murder his brother, mother and wife; castrate Sporus in an attempt to turn him into a woman; and burn Christians as human torches.
But that aside, he was quite a reasonable ruler.
Who ended up being killed by his private secretary after losing power, what goes around comes around
Eh? Not the stories I read. Different death.
Either stabbed himself or got his secretary to do it?
I’ve just spent a couple of hours listening to Sean Gabb’s lectures on Nero.
He concludes that he did murder his brother, mother and wife; castrate Sporus in an attempt to turn him into a woman; and burn Christians as human torches.
But that aside, he was quite a reasonable ruler.
Who ended up being killed by his private secretary after losing power, what goes around comes around
Eh? Not the stories I read. Different death.
Either stabbed himself or got his secretary to do it?
Depends on the source, IIRC?
Getting your secretary to do it still counted as suicide at the time, if a rather mean and second-rate one, come to think of it, so that might explain the cross purposes as well.
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
Trump in the game does increase the chances of escalation as much as it increases the chance of Ukraine being forced to concede. Trump didn’t want to intervene in Syria on his previous watch, until he saw photos of what Assad had been doing.
I'm not sure that Western Europe, willing or not to replace the Americans, will be that decisive. The real Russian position appears to be reabsorption of the eastern provinces and Crimea - Putin is unlikely to really want the western provinces with their predominantly anti-Russian populations. Conversely the Ukrainian public seem less willing to stick to the "not an inch" position, and the government is probably less keen on the heavily damaged and underpopulated eastern provinces than it seems. So a deal isn't all that unlikely, but may hinge on how far Russia gets a gradual relaxation of sanctions if it doesn't proceed to "and now, Moldova and Transdniester". The most likely in the short to medium term is probably failure to get that, and a cold peace with borders roughly as they are.
Nonsense.
Russia’s objective is to trash the place, physically and economically, so that it can’t become a more prosperous example, right on their doorstep, of how much better Russians could live, were they ever able to free themselves from the proto-communist dictatorships they have ‘enjoyed’ (sic) since you were supporting them from the ignorance of your younger days.
I’ve just spent a couple of hours listening to Sean Gabb’s lectures on Nero.
He concludes that he did murder his brother, mother and wife; castrate Sporus in an attempt to turn him into a woman; and burn Christians as human torches.
But that aside, he was quite a reasonable ruler.
Who ended up being killed by his private secretary after losing power, what goes around comes around
Eh? Not the stories I read. Different death.
Either stabbed himself or got his secretary to do it?
Depends on the source, IIRC?
Getting your secretary to do it still counted as suicide at the time, if a rather mean and second-rate one, come to think of it, so that might explain the cross purposes as well.
Or his secretary did it, then sold it as suicide, to avoid repercussions.
The one that sticks in the mind is Walter Tirel -
"He accidentally killed the king. Poor chap. Quick, give him some nice land to take his mind off the tragedy."
It will help stuff Russia which is a great thing. Time to sink their shadow fleet of tankers and stop their oil as well.
Will also boost exports of US gas, which will cheer up the orange nutter.
That's a declining sum game at least in the UK - Gas usage peaked about 20 years ago here, and has fallen by well over a third since.
It's also a capacity problem for the USA. It's not clear that they have the ability to export much more.
The Army of Loft Laggers must have done a cracking job making our homes more energy efficient.
Or more likely that CCGTs are running at lower load factors.
It's both, and other factors such as LED lights and the start of the pivot away from gas heating.
As an overall number, overall energy intensity per household is down by about 1/3 since 2000. A lot of that is the army of loft laggers and the others. You also see the trend in improvement in EPC levels, and newbuild requirements. The overall reduction is a little lower because of eg smaller households and more of them.
Still lots to do, but it's mucho progress.
This btw is one of the reasons why international comparisons around energy prices are misleading - the USA has low energy prices, but they use about twice as much energy as we do this side of the pond. The better comparison is actual bills.
I saw that. By then Mr Chump will be starting the next round of his "how do I stay out of prison" maze game.
They also have an issue that domestic production is not that much greater than domestic consumption in the USA.
2023 production was 103 billion cubic feet per day (from Google - bloody American units), and your graph has export capacity increasing from ~11 bcf to ~24 bcf per day in 5 years - which only from 10% to 23.5% of *last* years production.
It's tight supply at that end, and it's not clear how much more Europe needs to import.
Total European imports were 14.9 bcf per day in 2023 (UK + EU27), half of which comes from the USA. Imports from Russia in 2023 were 3,4 bcf per day (both stats Google), so it's not clear how much more can be pulled in from the USA of that extra capacity. Even 100% of imports plus 100% of substituting what is left would not absorb all of the extra capacity. And we are all reducing consumption, and all of that reduction could come off the imported fraction.
Not clear, but potentially tight for the USA exporters.
It will help stuff Russia which is a great thing. Time to sink their shadow fleet of tankers and stop their oil as well.
Will also boost exports of US gas, which will cheer up the orange nutter.
That's a declining sum game at least in the UK - Gas usage peaked about 20 years ago here, and has fallen by well over a third since.
It's also a capacity problem for the USA. It's not clear that they have the ability to export much more.
Gasification trains* are, strangely, slightly easier to build than regas trains.
Floating gasification trains are now built in specialist shipyards, for example.
*”trains” is the term used for the equipment which forms a long, multistage process at both ends. One turns gas into liquid, the other turns liquid into gas. Both are fun, since they involve enormous amounts of flammable gas, and huge amounts of energy being added or removed from said gas.
When you say gasification, do you mean liquefaction?
If so, I disagree. Liquefaction plant requires proprietary technology from one of only a handful of suppliers, whereas they even let folk like me have a bash at designing import/revaporisation plants. Not gone bang yet!
Yes, sorry. New Years Brain.
It depends, I think, on which end you do separation of fractions. Liquefaction tended (a few years back, anyway), for the most part, to be straight up compression/heat removal, keep all the fractions. To keep the kit simpler and more compact (for a strange value of compact!)
Or has that changed?
The compaction to get it in a single ship hull must be fun, though.
What scale of import plants are you designing?
At the liquefaction plant, you need quite a bit of pre-treatment of the natural gas. Dehydration, CO2 removal, etc.
At the import terminal, then depending on the spec of the LNG, you may need to ballast with nitrogen or LPG to meet pipeline specs for CV and Wobbe.
I've not been directly involved in an LNG import project EPC contract for a good few years, but I was lead process engineer on a large scale terminal in Europe, and on FEED studies for a couple of others.
It will help stuff Russia which is a great thing. Time to sink their shadow fleet of tankers and stop their oil as well.
Will also boost exports of US gas, which will cheer up the orange nutter.
That's a declining sum game at least in the UK - Gas usage peaked about 20 years ago here, and has fallen by well over a third since.
It's also a capacity problem for the USA. It's not clear that they have the ability to export much more.
The Army of Loft Laggers must have done a cracking job making our homes more energy efficient.
Or more likely that CCGTs are running at lower load factors.
It's both, and other factors such as LED lights and the start of the pivot away from gas heating.
As an overall number, overall energy intensity per household is down by about 1/3 since 2000. A lot of that is the army of loft laggers and the others. You also see the trend in improvement in EPC levels, and newbuild requirements. The overall reduction is a little lower because of eg smaller households and more of them.
Still lots to do, but it's mucho progress.
This btw is one of the reasons why international comparisons around energy prices are misleading - the USA has low energy prices, but they use about twice as much energy as we do this side of the pond. The better comparison is actual bills.
I’ve just spent a couple of hours listening to Sean Gabb’s lectures on Nero.
He concludes that he did murder his brother, mother and wife; castrate Sporus in an attempt to turn him into a woman; and burn Christians as human torches.
But that aside, he was quite a reasonable ruler.
Who ended up being killed by his private secretary after losing power, what goes around comes around
Eh? Not the stories I read. Different death.
Either stabbed himself or got his secretary to do it?
Depends on the source, IIRC?
Getting your secretary to do it still counted as suicide at the time, if a rather mean and second-rate one, come to think of it, so that might explain the cross purposes as well.
Or his secretary did it, then sold it as suicide, to avoid repercussions.
The one that sticks in the mind is Walter Tirel -
"He accidentally killed the king. Poor chap. Quick, give him some nice land to take his mind off the tragedy."
I’ve just spent a couple of hours listening to Sean Gabb’s lectures on Nero.
He concludes that he did murder his brother, mother and wife; castrate Sporus in an attempt to turn him into a woman; and burn Christians as human torches.
But that aside, he was quite a reasonable ruler.
Did he fiddle while Rome burned ? Or was that an urban myth.
It will help stuff Russia which is a great thing. Time to sink their shadow fleet of tankers and stop their oil as well.
Will also boost exports of US gas, which will cheer up the orange nutter.
That's a declining sum game at least in the UK - Gas usage peaked about 20 years ago here, and has fallen by well over a third since.
It's also a capacity problem for the USA. It's not clear that they have the ability to export much more.
Gasification trains* are, strangely, slightly easier to build than regas trains.
Floating gasification trains are now built in specialist shipyards, for example.
*”trains” is the term used for the equipment which forms a long, multistage process at both ends. One turns gas into liquid, the other turns liquid into gas. Both are fun, since they involve enormous amounts of flammable gas, and huge amounts of energy being added or removed from said gas.
When you say gasification, do you mean liquefaction?
If so, I disagree. Liquefaction plant requires proprietary technology from one of only a handful of suppliers, whereas they even let folk like me have a bash at designing import/revaporisation plants. Not gone bang yet!
Yes, sorry. New Years Brain.
It depends, I think, on which end you do separation of fractions. Liquefaction tended (a few years back, anyway), for the most part, to be straight up compression/heat removal, keep all the fractions. To keep the kit simpler and more compact (for a strange value of compact!)
Or has that changed?
The compaction to get it in a single ship hull must be fun, though.
What scale of import plants are you designing?
At the liquefaction plant, you need quite a bit of pre-treatment of the natural gas. Dehydration, CO2 removal, etc.
At the import terminal, then depending on the spec of the LNG, you may need to ballast with nitrogen or LPG to meet pipeline specs for CV and Wobbe.
I've not been directly involved in an LNG import project EPC contract for a good few years, but I was lead process engineer on a large scale terminal in Europe, and on FEED studies for a couple of others.
Which end were you separating the fractions?
IIRC in Woodside, Australia, they were doing all the processing in the liquefaction trains, including faction removal. But that was a vast, sprawling plant, covering multiple square KM.
For floating, IIRC, they were looking at total input liquefaction which would cause CO2 and water to ice out and dump that in a cycle. Leave the fractions in....
It will help stuff Russia which is a great thing. Time to sink their shadow fleet of tankers and stop their oil as well.
Will also boost exports of US gas, which will cheer up the orange nutter.
That's a declining sum game at least in the UK - Gas usage peaked about 20 years ago here, and has fallen by well over a third since.
It's also a capacity problem for the USA. It's not clear that they have the ability to export much more.
The Army of Loft Laggers must have done a cracking job making our homes more energy efficient.
Or more likely that CCGTs are running at lower load factors.
It's both, and other factors such as LED lights and the start of the pivot away from gas heating.
As an overall number, overall energy intensity per household is down by about 1/3 since 2000. A lot of that is the army of loft laggers and the others. You also see the trend in improvement in EPC levels, and newbuild requirements. The overall reduction is a little lower because of eg smaller households and more of them.
Still lots to do, but it's mucho progress.
This btw is one of the reasons why international comparisons around energy prices are misleading - the USA has low energy prices, but they use about twice as much energy as we do this side of the pond. The better comparison is actual bills.
That's due to smaller homes here than in the US, not better insulation though, right?
I don't have comparative numbers to hand, and the USA has a set of climates from nearly Canada to nearly Mexico so it is difficult to compare, which is I guess Spain / Southern Italy to Sweden, via Eastern Central European countries, roughly. We are an outlier due to the Gulf Stream.
Though looking at USA homes being built, I think that they are more the Second Little Pig rather than the Third Little Pig, and they seem to be built in some places in the expectation that Hurricane Bad Wolf will blow them away.
Naturally they have weirdly illogical units for insulation as well so comparison is a multistage calculation; when I have done comparisons (eg with the couple of Usonian passive house specialists I have known online) I get the impression that it is more lax and they do high energy to warm or cool, rather than stabilisation by keeping warmth or coolth in.
I’ve just spent a couple of hours listening to Sean Gabb’s lectures on Nero.
He concludes that he did murder his brother, mother and wife; castrate Sporus in an attempt to turn him into a woman; and burn Christians as human torches.
But that aside, he was quite a reasonable ruler.
Who ended up being killed by his private secretary after losing power, what goes around comes around
Eh? Not the stories I read. Different death.
Either stabbed himself or got his secretary to do it?
Depends on the source, IIRC?
Getting your secretary to do it still counted as suicide at the time, if a rather mean and second-rate one, come to think of it, so that might explain the cross purposes as well.
Or his secretary did it, then sold it as suicide, to avoid repercussions.
The one that sticks in the mind is Walter Tirel -
"He accidentally killed the king. Poor chap. Quick, give him some nice land to take his mind off the tragedy."
It will help stuff Russia which is a great thing. Time to sink their shadow fleet of tankers and stop their oil as well.
Will also boost exports of US gas, which will cheer up the orange nutter.
That's a declining sum game at least in the UK - Gas usage peaked about 20 years ago here, and has fallen by well over a third since.
It's also a capacity problem for the USA. It's not clear that they have the ability to export much more.
Gasification trains* are, strangely, slightly easier to build than regas trains.
Floating gasification trains are now built in specialist shipyards, for example.
*”trains” is the term used for the equipment which forms a long, multistage process at both ends. One turns gas into liquid, the other turns liquid into gas. Both are fun, since they involve enormous amounts of flammable gas, and huge amounts of energy being added or removed from said gas.
When you say gasification, do you mean liquefaction?
If so, I disagree. Liquefaction plant requires proprietary technology from one of only a handful of suppliers, whereas they even let folk like me have a bash at designing import/revaporisation plants. Not gone bang yet!
Yes, sorry. New Years Brain.
It depends, I think, on which end you do separation of fractions. Liquefaction tended (a few years back, anyway), for the most part, to be straight up compression/heat removal, keep all the fractions. To keep the kit simpler and more compact (for a strange value of compact!)
Or has that changed?
The compaction to get it in a single ship hull must be fun, though.
What scale of import plants are you designing?
At the liquefaction plant, you need quite a bit of pre-treatment of the natural gas. Dehydration, CO2 removal, etc.
At the import terminal, then depending on the spec of the LNG, you may need to ballast with nitrogen or LPG to meet pipeline specs for CV and Wobbe.
I've not been directly involved in an LNG import project EPC contract for a good few years, but I was lead process engineer on a large scale terminal in Europe, and on FEED studies for a couple of others.
Which end were you separating the fractions?
IIRC in Woodside, Australia, they were doing all the processing in the liquefaction trains, including faction removal. But that was a vast, sprawling plant, covering multiple square KM.
For floating, IIRC, they were looking at total input liquefaction which would cause CO2 and water to ice out and dump that in a cycle. Leave the fractions in....
It will help stuff Russia which is a great thing. Time to sink their shadow fleet of tankers and stop their oil as well.
Will also boost exports of US gas, which will cheer up the orange nutter.
That's a declining sum game at least in the UK - Gas usage peaked about 20 years ago here, and has fallen by well over a third since.
It's also a capacity problem for the USA. It's not clear that they have the ability to export much more.
Gasification trains* are, strangely, slightly easier to build than regas trains.
Floating gasification trains are now built in specialist shipyards, for example.
*”trains” is the term used for the equipment which forms a long, multistage process at both ends. One turns gas into liquid, the other turns liquid into gas. Both are fun, since they involve enormous amounts of flammable gas, and huge amounts of energy being added or removed from said gas.
When you say gasification, do you mean liquefaction?
If so, I disagree. Liquefaction plant requires proprietary technology from one of only a handful of suppliers, whereas they even let folk like me have a bash at designing import/revaporisation plants. Not gone bang yet!
Yes, sorry. New Years Brain.
It depends, I think, on which end you do separation of fractions. Liquefaction tended (a few years back, anyway), for the most part, to be straight up compression/heat removal, keep all the fractions. To keep the kit simpler and more compact (for a strange value of compact!)
Or has that changed?
The compaction to get it in a single ship hull must be fun, though.
What scale of import plants are you designing?
At the liquefaction plant, you need quite a bit of pre-treatment of the natural gas. Dehydration, CO2 removal, etc.
At the import terminal, then depending on the spec of the LNG, you may need to ballast with nitrogen or LPG to meet pipeline specs for CV and Wobbe.
I've not been directly involved in an LNG import project EPC contract for a good few years, but I was lead process engineer on a large scale terminal in Europe, and on FEED studies for a couple of others.
Which end were you separating the fractions?
IIRC in Woodside, Australia, they were doing all the processing in the liquefaction trains, including faction removal. But that was a vast, sprawling plant, covering multiple square KM.
For floating, IIRC, they were looking at total input liquefaction which would cause CO2 and water to ice out and dump that in a cycle. Leave the fractions in....
Can that be applied to politics?
You mean compress the politicians at 100s of pounds per square inch, use expansion cooling and then separate off the factions, to sell at a premium, as inputs for the chemical industry?
The island news this new year’s day is: an air ambulance call to a head-on crash, one arrest after an elderly motorist ran down a pedestrian, one serious fire at a domestic property in east Cowes, fastcat services to the mainland cancelled due to adverse weather, the body of a man found at a marina, a flood alert for part of the island, a whole flock of sheep loose on a residential road, and the hospital is full of the elderly struck down with winter flu. And someone dumped a whole leftover Xmas dinner outside the island’s vet surgery.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Red Funnel running to time though, and while wet it isn't particularly windy in Cowes.
Back to work tomorrow, but it's been a good break. It's a sign of aging I suppose that after a single glass of wine and a single whisky at midnight that I feel hungover. Not used to it any more!
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Is there an imprisonable offence committed by “police officers or government employees” though?
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
If it is a 'defining issue' it will only be because Musk is race-baiting for his mate Farage.
And you're slurping up the hate.
(And no, I am not defending the shits who committed the crimes; or the people who covered it up. But if you think Musk is making these comments from a good place, then I've got a Hyperloop to sell you.)
You perfectly illustrate the pathological thinking that enabled the cover up.
No, I really do not. I have commented on this many times in the past, and you would be hard-pressed to see any way in which I condoned or 'enabled' the cover-up.
But your comments show that, for you, it is not about the poor kids - but about supporting whatever game Musk is playing.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Is there an imprisonable offence committed by “police officers or government employees” though?
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
I saw that. By then Mr Chump will be starting the next round of his "how do I stay out of prison" maze game.
Is the lawfare going to resume when he can no longer become president again? Would be a bit pointless, no?
Lawfare Lol.
He's been indicted multiple times because it was the recommendation of Grand Juries of his peers, which - whatever we think of it - is the normal Usonian Judicial Process.
It looks to me as if the sentencing in New York may be preserved, as he was found guilty unanimously by the Jury on 34 out of 34 charges so that trial is complete bar the sentencing.
In most of the others I'd say that Trump will be using his powers, whether pardoning himself, or instructing his cronies to cease the prosecutions, to avoid taking responsibility for himself.
Plus of course he could have committed, or commit, more crimes.
It will help stuff Russia which is a great thing. Time to sink their shadow fleet of tankers and stop their oil as well.
Will also boost exports of US gas, which will cheer up the orange nutter.
That's a declining sum game at least in the UK - Gas usage peaked about 20 years ago here, and has fallen by well over a third since.
It's also a capacity problem for the USA. It's not clear that they have the ability to export much more.
Gasification trains* are, strangely, slightly easier to build than regas trains.
Floating gasification trains are now built in specialist shipyards, for example.
*”trains” is the term used for the equipment which forms a long, multistage process at both ends. One turns gas into liquid, the other turns liquid into gas. Both are fun, since they involve enormous amounts of flammable gas, and huge amounts of energy being added or removed from said gas.
When you say gasification, do you mean liquefaction?
If so, I disagree. Liquefaction plant requires proprietary technology from one of only a handful of suppliers, whereas they even let folk like me have a bash at designing import/revaporisation plants. Not gone bang yet!
Yes, sorry. New Years Brain.
It depends, I think, on which end you do separation of fractions. Liquefaction tended (a few years back, anyway), for the most part, to be straight up compression/heat removal, keep all the fractions. To keep the kit simpler and more compact (for a strange value of compact!)
Or has that changed?
The compaction to get it in a single ship hull must be fun, though.
What scale of import plants are you designing?
At the liquefaction plant, you need quite a bit of pre-treatment of the natural gas. Dehydration, CO2 removal, etc.
At the import terminal, then depending on the spec of the LNG, you may need to ballast with nitrogen or LPG to meet pipeline specs for CV and Wobbe.
I've not been directly involved in an LNG import project EPC contract for a good few years, but I was lead process engineer on a large scale terminal in Europe, and on FEED studies for a couple of others.
Which end were you separating the fractions?
IIRC in Woodside, Australia, they were doing all the processing in the liquefaction trains, including faction removal. But that was a vast, sprawling plant, covering multiple square KM.
For floating, IIRC, they were looking at total input liquefaction which would cause CO2 and water to ice out and dump that in a cycle. Leave the fractions in....
Drop the solids out? Clever stuff.
Gorgon in Australia has high CO2 gas, and has CO2 separation and sequestration as part of the process. But has had problems with the whole CCS malarkey.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Is there an imprisonable offence committed by “police officers or government employees” though?
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
Systematically suppressing reports of crimes, to the point of threatening/arresting both victims & relatives to shut them up, over a long period of time... that sounds, to me, like premeditated gross misconduct in a public office.
Strangely, the paperwork that would prove the trail to anyone vaguely senior was destroyed.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Is there an imprisonable offence committed by “police officers or government employees” though?
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
It will help stuff Russia which is a great thing. Time to sink their shadow fleet of tankers and stop their oil as well.
Will also boost exports of US gas, which will cheer up the orange nutter.
That's a declining sum game at least in the UK - Gas usage peaked about 20 years ago here, and has fallen by well over a third since.
It's also a capacity problem for the USA. It's not clear that they have the ability to export much more.
Gasification trains* are, strangely, slightly easier to build than regas trains.
Floating gasification trains are now built in specialist shipyards, for example.
*”trains” is the term used for the equipment which forms a long, multistage process at both ends. One turns gas into liquid, the other turns liquid into gas. Both are fun, since they involve enormous amounts of flammable gas, and huge amounts of energy being added or removed from said gas.
When you say gasification, do you mean liquefaction?
If so, I disagree. Liquefaction plant requires proprietary technology from one of only a handful of suppliers, whereas they even let folk like me have a bash at designing import/revaporisation plants. Not gone bang yet!
Yes, sorry. New Years Brain.
It depends, I think, on which end you do separation of fractions. Liquefaction tended (a few years back, anyway), for the most part, to be straight up compression/heat removal, keep all the fractions. To keep the kit simpler and more compact (for a strange value of compact!)
Or has that changed?
The compaction to get it in a single ship hull must be fun, though.
What scale of import plants are you designing?
At the liquefaction plant, you need quite a bit of pre-treatment of the natural gas. Dehydration, CO2 removal, etc.
At the import terminal, then depending on the spec of the LNG, you may need to ballast with nitrogen or LPG to meet pipeline specs for CV and Wobbe.
I've not been directly involved in an LNG import project EPC contract for a good few years, but I was lead process engineer on a large scale terminal in Europe, and on FEED studies for a couple of others.
Which end were you separating the fractions?
IIRC in Woodside, Australia, they were doing all the processing in the liquefaction trains, including faction removal. But that was a vast, sprawling plant, covering multiple square KM.
For floating, IIRC, they were looking at total input liquefaction which would cause CO2 and water to ice out and dump that in a cycle. Leave the fractions in....
Drop the solids out? Clever stuff.
Gorgon in Australia has high CO2 gas, and has CO2 separation and sequestration as part of the process. But has had problems with the whole CCS malarkey.
Not really clever - it was how lots of gases were found, in 19 cent. chemistry. The idea was to form ice at the top of a vessel (floating on the liquid gas below), let it build up and then cycle to using another vessel, IIRC. The idea was that you could make it compact, I think.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Is there an imprisonable offence committed by “police officers or government employees” though?
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
In all probability it will be ‘lessons will be learned, there’ll be an enquiry’ and the institution will protect itself.
Presumably there are also things like Perverting the Course of Justice and so on. I see no reason why that cannot apply to police or other public officials.
Perverting the course of justice is a common law offense in England and Wales that involves preventing justice from being served. It's a serious offense that can include: Giving false information to the police, Tampering with evidence, Interfering with witnesses, and Making false allegations of a crime.
Breaking: A massive ship full of containers is slowly passing by, south of the island. So if any of you is waiting for new year Chinese Amazon crap, it will be with you shortly....
A right wing talking head the other day called Sir Grinch's last Christmas in No. 10. I don’t think I see it now sadly, but I don't predict things getting much better for his Government.
They're not likely to get better for *any* government.
One possible exception to that will be the government of either Russia or Ukraine, as it seems unlikely the war will last beyond this year. If Ukraine implodes, that will be to put it mildly suboptimal for Volodomyr Zelensky. If, on the other hand, the Russian economy tanks entirely and Putin has to withdraw from Ukraine this will damage his own government beyond repair.
If, of course, the Orange Haired One decides to impose a silly peace on both so he can lie about his deal making abilities then that will be suboptimal for both, probably more so for Ukraine as at least what Putin has can be spun as a victory.
This has got to be peak Trump derangement syndrome I'm afraid. A 'silly peace'. Is that one where people stop killing each other in red noses, overlarge shoes and squirty flowers?
How about “not a peace but handing victory to aggressors?”
Which will mean having to do this all over again. In Finland or Estonia.
You may think it would be misguided, but it is not 'a silly peace'.
And forget Russia regrouping for a second go - it's us who needs a breather to 'regroup'. Our army, navy and airforce need to be running at a level where they are capable of defending the country before we even *think* about sending more arms and cash to Ukraine - that is basic defence 101; it shouldn't even be a controversial opinion. Russia may be considered a big threat, but it is a million miles from being the only one.
You need to do both at once
If you let Russia win in Ukraine while we reform our defence then our strategic position is worsened. But we do need to invest more in defence.
Fortunately we are a mid sized wealthy country that can afford it
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Is there an imprisonable offence committed by “police officers or government employees” though?
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
There's always the catch all 'misconduct in a public office' offence.
But if what we're talking about is a decade or more ago with records destroyed, @Malmesbury 's solution would be far cheaper, and wouldn't tie up the courts for the next ten years. (See the Post Office disaster.)
I've always maintained that Trump was primarily a grifter, in politics for the money he could get out of it, and therefore with no fixed ideology as such. So I feel a certain grim satisfaction in catching up with the news that Trump has reversed his policy on banning tiktok, because one of his larger donors owns a stake in the company.
In a few weeks time the President of the United States will be an individual who is determined to sell himself and his administration to the highest bidder. That's the guiding principle we should expect to see followed, and not mistake anything as part of a coherent ideology on isolationism, nationalism, populism, whatever. He will take money and do a u-turn.
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
Trump in the game does increase the chances of escalation as much as it increases the chance of Ukraine being forced to concede. Trump didn’t want to intervene in Syria on his previous watch, until he saw photos of what Assad had been doing.
I'm not sure that Western Europe, willing or not to replace the Americans, will be that decisive. The real Russian position appears to be reabsorption of the eastern provinces and Crimea - Putin is unlikely to really want the western provinces with their predominantly anti-Russian populations. Conversely the Ukrainian public seem less willing to stick to the "not an inch" position, and the government is probably less keen on the heavily damaged and underpopulated eastern provinces than it seems. So a deal isn't all that unlikely, but may hinge on how far Russia gets a gradual relaxation of sanctions if it doesn't proceed to "and now, Moldova and Transdniester". The most likely in the short to medium term is probably failure to get that, and a cold peace with borders roughly as they are.
Lots of assumptions there Nick
I pity the poor people of Eastern Ukraine that you are willing to sacrifice
The units of measurement for insulation in the United States are feet squared times degrees Fahrenheit times hours, divided by British thermal unit (BTU), or ft² °F hr/BTU. This is an imperial system unit of measurement.
The R-value is a rating that measures the thermal resistance of insulation. It measures the amount of heat transferred through the insulation and the temperature variation over it. A higher R-value means the insulation is more effective at slowing the rate of heat transfer
And you thought converting gas from BTU to kWh was complicated !
(For the record, in the modern world R-value is 1/U-value, and is about heat getting through rather than being kept in or out. Here most of us tend to think in U-values.)
My architect dad used to rant about these especially Imperial Units for roofing used in the UK pre-decimalisation, especially one called a "square".
In the imperial system, a square is a unit of area that is equal to 100 square feet. It is used to measure the size of rooms or buildings, and is also used in the construction industry to measure the amount of material needed to cover a certain area.
The second have can bugger knowing the volume of material.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Is there an imprisonable offence committed by “police officers or government employees” though?
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
There's always the catch all 'misconduct in a public office' offence.
But if what we're talking about is a decade or more ago with records destroyed, @Malmesbury 's solution would be far cheaper, and wouldn't tie up the courts for the next ten years. (See the Post Office disaster.)
You mean declaring everyone (in officialdom) involved a cave diver?
That would be funny - if only for the violent reaction to the use of the arbitrary powers of the Home Sec.
For further LOLs, they could strip everyone involved who has dual citizenship of their passport and exile them. Again, at the Home Secs. whim.
If nothing else, it would teach the permanent state a generational lesson on the value of due process.
I’ve just spent a couple of hours listening to Sean Gabb’s lectures on Nero.
He concludes that he did murder his brother, mother and wife; castrate Sporus in an attempt to turn him into a woman; and burn Christians as human torches.
But that aside, he was quite a reasonable ruler.
Did he fiddle while Rome burned ? Or was that an urban myth.
Impossible to say. Gabb’s thesis, and it seems plausible to me, is that what brought his government down was the huge cost of suppressing first Boudicca’s revolt, and next the Judaean revolt. Big tax rises were imposed, and property confiscated on trumped-up charges (Nero generally preferred exile to executions), which turned people against him.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
If it is a 'defining issue' it will only be because Musk is race-baiting for his mate Farage.
And you're slurping up the hate.
(And no, I am not defending the shits who committed the crimes; or the people who covered it up. But if you think Musk is making these comments from a good place, then I've got a Hyperloop to sell you.)
The simple answer, since the evidence was destroyed, is to put those involved in hiding what happened (police and officials) on one of the sex offenders registers.
That will sort out the criminals and the fuckwits trying to make political capital out of it.
The Home Sec has the arbitrary power to do this.
A Judicial Review of THAT would be ... interesting.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Is there an imprisonable offence committed by “police officers or government employees” though?
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
In all probability it will be ‘lessons will be learned, there’ll be an enquiry’ and the institution will protect itself.
Presumably there are also things like Perverting the Course of Justice and so on. I see no reason why that cannot apply to police or other public officials.
Perverting the course of justice is a common law offense in England and Wales that involves preventing justice from being served. It's a serious offense that can include: Giving false information to the police, Tampering with evidence, Interfering with witnesses, and Making false allegations of a crime.
Good call. Plenty of cases of Plod being succesfully prosecuted from PCOJ
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
If it is a 'defining issue' it will only be because Musk is race-baiting for his mate Farage.
And you're slurping up the hate.
(And no, I am not defending the shits who committed the crimes; or the people who covered it up. But if you think Musk is making these comments from a good place, then I've got a Hyperloop to sell you.)
The simple answer, since the evidence was destroyed, is to put those involved in hiding what happened (police and officials) on one of the sex offenders registers.
That will sort out the criminals and the fuckwits trying to make political capital out of it.
The Home Sec has the arbitrary power to do this.
Unfortunately we don't go after the law enforcement agencies in the UK. If the police are bad then the courts are far worse. I am barely shockable but the love in which is the self-resolved Post Office Enquiry is bloody shocking to me. Yes, they are lining up the totems from the Post Office and Fujitsu - some of these will soon be taking a look on the bright side of life as in the Life of Brian. But what about the Courts ? It just will not do to say they had to assume the computers were working, that will not do. It is like saying you have to assume a lamb is the offspring of a cow and a camel. It was obvious to anyone by 2004 the programme was to use the technical term a crock of shite. Crikey even Computer Weekly worked that out by 2007. For any story to make it to CW with the greatest of respect it had to have been doing the rounds for 4 or 5 years before that.
I have no doubt Mr Winn is a good guy and he will self evidently do his best. But it is ridiculous that the judges and the lawyers who got very fat over the bogus prosecutions are not just as much in the firing line as the hapless PO staff.
The courts are there to see that justice is done. As Jimmy Carr would point out, it is their only job, their reason for existing. They failed just as much as the Post Office.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Is there an imprisonable offence committed by “police officers or government employees” though?
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Is there an imprisonable offence committed by “police officers or government employees” though?
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
Trump in the game does increase the chances of escalation as much as it increases the chance of Ukraine being forced to concede. Trump didn’t want to intervene in Syria on his previous watch, until he saw photos of what Assad had been doing.
I'm not sure that Western Europe, willing or not to replace the Americans, will be that decisive. The real Russian position appears to be reabsorption of the eastern provinces and Crimea - Putin is unlikely to really want the western provinces with their predominantly anti-Russian populations. Conversely the Ukrainian public seem less willing to stick to the "not an inch" position, and the government is probably less keen on the heavily damaged and underpopulated eastern provinces than it seems. So a deal isn't all that unlikely, but may hinge on how far Russia gets a gradual relaxation of sanctions if it doesn't proceed to "and now, Moldova and Transdniester". The most likely in the short to medium term is probably failure to get that, and a cold peace with borders roughly as they are.
Lots of assumptions there Nick
I pity the poor people of Eastern Ukraine that you are willing to sacrifice
It's not really assumptions, it's willful blindness about the opinions of the people who were living in Eastern Ukraine at the start of the war, and who are now suffering under Russian occupation.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Is there an imprisonable offence committed by “police officers or government employees” though?
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
Trump in the game does increase the chances of escalation as much as it increases the chance of Ukraine being forced to concede. Trump didn’t want to intervene in Syria on his previous watch, until he saw photos of what Assad had been doing.
I'm not sure that Western Europe, willing or not to replace the Americans, will be that decisive. The real Russian position appears to be reabsorption of the eastern provinces and Crimea - Putin is unlikely to really want the western provinces with their predominantly anti-Russian populations. Conversely the Ukrainian public seem less willing to stick to the "not an inch" position, and the government is probably less keen on the heavily damaged and underpopulated eastern provinces than it seems. So a deal isn't all that unlikely, but may hinge on how far Russia gets a gradual relaxation of sanctions if it doesn't proceed to "and now, Moldova and Transdniester". The most likely in the short to medium term is probably failure to get that, and a cold peace with borders roughly as they are.
A deal might happen with adequate security guarantees for Ukraine - which basically means either NATO membership, or western troops on the ground in Ukraine.
But as Trump has made it quite clear that he won't be party to any such guarantee, it's again up to Europe and Ukraine. It's not something Trump can impose.
I think the risk that most worries me there is that it would be a Putin tactic to tie up a chunk of the better European military forces, he could do hybrid warfare there, and pivot his forces to another NATO border.
The 50 mile Lebanon-Israel border had 10k peace keepers. The Ukraine / Russia front line and border is ~1200 miles, with another 670 miles to Belarus, and a further 300 miles to Transnistria.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
If it is a 'defining issue' it will only be because Musk is race-baiting for his mate Farage.
And you're slurping up the hate.
(And no, I am not defending the shits who committed the crimes; or the people who covered it up. But if you think Musk is making these comments from a good place, then I've got a Hyperloop to sell you.)
The simple answer, since the evidence was destroyed, is to put those involved in hiding what happened (police and officials) on one of the sex offenders registers.
That will sort out the criminals and the fuckwits trying to make political capital out of it.
The Home Sec has the arbitrary power to do this.
A Judicial Review of THAT would be ... interesting.
Bit like the passport removal thing - clearly expressed Will of Parliament, IIRC.
The courts have refused to overrule Parliament. What they have done is say that law X makes Y unlawful, and wasn’t specifically overridden. Again, IIRC.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
If it is a 'defining issue' it will only be because Musk is race-baiting for his mate Farage.
And you're slurping up the hate.
(And no, I am not defending the shits who committed the crimes; or the people who covered it up. But if you think Musk is making these comments from a good place, then I've got a Hyperloop to sell you.)
The simple answer, since the evidence was destroyed, is to put those involved in hiding what happened (police and officials) on one of the sex offenders registers.
That will sort out the criminals and the fuckwits trying to make political capital out of it.
The Home Sec has the arbitrary power to do this.
Unfortunately we don't go after the law enforcement agencies in the UK. If the police are bad then the courts are far worse. I am barely shockable but the love in which is the self-resolved Post Office Enquiry is bloody shocking to me. Yes, they are lining up the totems from the Post Office and Fujitsu - some of these will soon be taking a look on the bright side of life as in the Life of Brian. But what about the Courts ? It just will not do to say they had to assume the computers were working, that will not do. It is like saying you have to assume a lamb is the offspring of a cow and a camel. It was obvious to anyone by 2004 the programme was to use the technical term a crock of shite. Crikey even Computer Weekly worked that out by 2007. For any story to make it to CW with the greatest of respect it had to have been doing the rounds for 4 or 5 years before that.
I have no doubt Mr Winn is a good guy and he will self evidently do his best. But it is ridiculous that the judges and the lawyers who got very fat over the bogus prosecutions are not just as much in the firing line as the hapless PO staff.
The courts are there to see that justice is done. As Jimmy Carr would point out, it is their only job, their reason for existing. They failed just as much as the Post Office.
Wrong. The courts are there to see that the law is followed and transgressors are punished. It’s nothing to do with justice.
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
Trump in the game does increase the chances of escalation as much as it increases the chance of Ukraine being forced to concede. Trump didn’t want to intervene in Syria on his previous watch, until he saw photos of what Assad had been doing.
I'm not sure that Western Europe, willing or not to replace the Americans, will be that decisive. The real Russian position appears to be reabsorption of the eastern provinces and Crimea - Putin is unlikely to really want the western provinces with their predominantly anti-Russian populations. Conversely the Ukrainian public seem less willing to stick to the "not an inch" position, and the government is probably less keen on the heavily damaged and underpopulated eastern provinces than it seems. So a deal isn't all that unlikely, but may hinge on how far Russia gets a gradual relaxation of sanctions if it doesn't proceed to "and now, Moldova and Transdniester". The most likely in the short to medium term is probably failure to get that, and a cold peace with borders roughly as they are.
Lots of assumptions there Nick
I pity the poor people of Eastern Ukraine that you are willing to sacrifice
It's not really assumptions, it's willful blindness about the opinions of the people who were living in Eastern Ukraine at the start of the war, and who are now suffering under Russian occupation.
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Is there an imprisonable offence committed by “police officers or government employees” though?
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
Trump in the game does increase the chances of escalation as much as it increases the chance of Ukraine being forced to concede. Trump didn’t want to intervene in Syria on his previous watch, until he saw photos of what Assad had been doing.
I'm not sure that Western Europe, willing or not to replace the Americans, will be that decisive. The real Russian position appears to be reabsorption of the eastern provinces and Crimea - Putin is unlikely to really want the western provinces with their predominantly anti-Russian populations. Conversely the Ukrainian public seem less willing to stick to the "not an inch" position, and the government is probably less keen on the heavily damaged and underpopulated eastern provinces than it seems. So a deal isn't all that unlikely, but may hinge on how far Russia gets a gradual relaxation of sanctions if it doesn't proceed to "and now, Moldova and Transdniester". The most likely in the short to medium term is probably failure to get that, and a cold peace with borders roughly as they are.
A deal might happen with adequate security guarantees for Ukraine - which basically means either NATO membership, or western troops on the ground in Ukraine.
But as Trump has made it quite clear that he won't be party to any such guarantee, it's again up to Europe and Ukraine. It's not something Trump can impose.
I think the risk that most worries me there is that it would be a Putin tactic to tie up a chunk of the better European military forces, he could do hybrid warfare there, and pivot his forces to another NATO border.
The 50 mile Lebanon-Israel border had 10k peace keepers. The Ukraine / Russia front line and border is ~1200 miles, with another 670 miles to Belarus, and a further 300 miles to Transnistria.
At every stage of the Ukraine war, in 2014, and in 2022, Putin has been very confident that NATO would not get directly involved, and he would not have to fight NATO armies or airforces.
The point of European military forces in Ukraine would be to change that calculus. Any further attack would involve fighting the combined militaries of Britain, France, Germany, Poland, etc. I don't think he'd do it.
He'd only attack one of the Baltic States, say, if he thought Europe would back down and not fight back. At the moment I think Europe would fight back, but if Le Pen is President of France, Farage is Prime Minister of Britain, and the Germans unwilling to take the lead, then I could foresee Putin believing the Baltic States would be sacrificed.
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
Trump in the game does increase the chances of escalation as much as it increases the chance of Ukraine being forced to concede. Trump didn’t want to intervene in Syria on his previous watch, until he saw photos of what Assad had been doing.
I'm not sure that Western Europe, willing or not to replace the Americans, will be that decisive. The real Russian position appears to be reabsorption of the eastern provinces and Crimea - Putin is unlikely to really want the western provinces with their predominantly anti-Russian populations. Conversely the Ukrainian public seem less willing to stick to the "not an inch" position, and the government is probably less keen on the heavily damaged and underpopulated eastern provinces than it seems. So a deal isn't all that unlikely, but may hinge on how far Russia gets a gradual relaxation of sanctions if it doesn't proceed to "and now, Moldova and Transdniester". The most likely in the short to medium term is probably failure to get that, and a cold peace with borders roughly as they are.
Lots of assumptions there Nick
I pity the poor people of Eastern Ukraine that you are willing to sacrifice
It's not really assumptions, it's willful blindness about the opinions of the people who were living in Eastern Ukraine at the start of the war, and who are now suffering under Russian occupation.
Has there ever been a war in the history of mainland Europe which has left the borders of the combatants completely the same as when it started? I get the sentiment that Russia shouldn't win out of this and that it's not up to other countries to demand that Ukraine gives up sovereign territory. At the same time though the war has to end eventually and history tells us that it will probably involve some redrawing of maps.
Just a reminder: Alaska and Hawaii are both US states, so the range of climates in the US is quite large. (Even larger if you include US possessions Guam, Puerto Rico, and others.)
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
You’ve posted this, it’s a horrendous story. It really is. So many victims and victims being not only targetted by paedophiles but the Police doing nothing and in some cases arresting the victims. Disgraceful and by doing nothing they simply enable the hard right to use it for their own purposes. They don’t care about the victims any more than the Authorities do. But look at the reaction of some of the usual suspects here. Cheap digs at Musk.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Is there an imprisonable offence committed by “police officers or government employees” though?
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
There's always the catch all 'misconduct in a public office' offence.
But if what we're talking about is a decade or more ago with records destroyed, @Malmesbury 's solution would be far cheaper, and wouldn't tie up the courts for the next ten years. (See the Post Office disaster.)
You mean declaring everyone (in officialdom) involved a cave diver?
That would be funny - if only for the violent reaction to the use of the arbitrary powers of the Home Sec.
For further LOLs, they could strip everyone involved who has dual citizenship of their passport and exile them. Again, at the Home Secs. whim.
If nothing else, it would teach the permanent state a generational lesson on the value of due process.
Very odd conjunction with the Neronian discussion, all this talk of exile.
Breaking: A massive ship full of containers is slowly passing by, south of the island. So if any of you is waiting for new year Chinese Amazon crap, it will be with you shortly....
Happy new year all, from a beautiful and frosty Maconnais. After a week of freezing fog the sun is out and the world looks like Elsa has been practising for Frozen III.
Net zero sceptics will be delighted to learn that my new air source heat pump does not perform very well in minus 6. It’s warm enough inside, but it’s eating up the kilowatts like nobody’s business and keeps tripping our circuit breaker.
2024 was a lot about domestic politics, with an election as the centrepiece. 2025 feels like it’ll be all about international events. Trump’s second presidency and those tariffs, a possible denouement for good or bad in Ukraine, and a big test of nation building for the Syrians.
We - and I mean democratic nations - cannot afford Ukraine to be forced to give way. That is the truth of it. If Trump backs off Europe must take up the slack. We must see Putin and Putinism as the utter evil that it is and defend Ukraine and ourselves against it.
That assumes Trump will be chill with Europe keeping the SMO on the road. If he brokers a deal with VVP (I assume Zelenskiy can couped out of the way if necessary) then he might not want Europe fucking it up. If DJT says it's over, then it's over.
Trump clearly thinks he's going to fix a deal on Ukraine. Risk is he's not nearly as savvy in that department as he thinks he is.
My uninformed hunch is that he thinks there will be some sort of economic boost, for which he will take fulsome credit, if he shuts the SMO down. He doesn't particularly care where the line in the mud is.
If he does shut the SMO down ... My guess is Trump will go for a deal, which will fail mainly because Ukraine and Russia have incompatible goals and Putin overestimates the strength of his position, and also because Trump is a lousy negotiator. What happens next is hard to predict.
This is my view as well. Trump is not in a position to force a deal on either side, and a deal that is not accepted by Zelensky is not likely to be acceptable to the rest of Europe. The simple lesson is that Putin cannot be appeased. Nor morally should he benefit from the chaos and destruction he has wrought. There is not a deal that is acceptable to the west that will be acceptable to Russia,
Trump in the game does increase the chances of escalation as much as it increases the chance of Ukraine being forced to concede. Trump didn’t want to intervene in Syria on his previous watch, until he saw photos of what Assad had been doing.
I'm not sure that Western Europe, willing or not to replace the Americans, will be that decisive. The real Russian position appears to be reabsorption of the eastern provinces and Crimea - Putin is unlikely to really want the western provinces with their predominantly anti-Russian populations. Conversely the Ukrainian public seem less willing to stick to the "not an inch" position, and the government is probably less keen on the heavily damaged and underpopulated eastern provinces than it seems. So a deal isn't all that unlikely, but may hinge on how far Russia gets a gradual relaxation of sanctions if it doesn't proceed to "and now, Moldova and Transdniester". The most likely in the short to medium term is probably failure to get that, and a cold peace with borders roughly as they are.
Lots of assumptions there Nick
I pity the poor people of Eastern Ukraine that you are willing to sacrifice
It's not really assumptions, it's willful blindness about the opinions of the people who were living in Eastern Ukraine at the start of the war, and who are now suffering under Russian occupation.
Has there ever been a war in the history of mainland Europe which has left the borders of the combatants completely the same as when it started? I get the sentiment that Russia shouldn't win out of this and that it's not up to other countries to demand that Ukraine gives up sovereign territory. At the same time though the war has to end eventually and history tells us that it will probably involve some redrawing of maps.
Comments
He concludes that he did murder his brother, mother and wife; castrate Sporus in an attempt to turn him into a woman; and burn Christians as human torches.
But that aside, he was quite a reasonable ruler.
https://x.com/cdp1882/status/1874425677807751298
No police officer or government employee has ever been imprisoned for their gross misconduct in dealing with the grooming gangs horror.
But I’ve got plans to expose many of them in 2025 and reveal some of the senior leaders who failed to tackle the atrocity. Stay tuned.
Or more likely that CCGTs are running at lower load factors.
Who doesn’t love sitting for 2 hours on uncomfortable seats at Gatwick?
If so, I disagree. Liquefaction plant requires proprietary technology from one of only a handful of suppliers, whereas they even let folk like me have a bash at designing import/revaporisation plants. Not gone bang yet!
We're not there yet, but with Ukrainian forces in Kursk, and continuing attacks on Russian targets inside Russia, and assassinations of senior personnel in Moscow/St Petersburg, I can see how we might get to such a point, if Ukraine receives the Western support that it requires.
Still, they’re only working class girls.
Which will mean having to do this all over again. In Finland or Estonia.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=62984
It is no longer the place of the UK to lead it though, it should be a genuine Commonwealth of culture and exchange not a legacy of Empire and top down from Britain. Hence Prince William was correct to say he would not be head of the Commonwealth when he becomes King but the position should rotate amongst Commonwealth heads of state instead
It depends, I think, on which end you do separation of fractions. Liquefaction tended (a few years back, anyway), for the most part, to be straight up compression/heat removal, keep all the fractions. To keep the kit simpler and more compact (for a strange value of compact!)
Or has that changed?
The compaction to get it in a single ship hull must be fun, though.
What scale of import plants are you designing?
Greater Manchester Police declares major incident over widespread flooding following heavy rain
https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2025-01-01/major-incident-declared-after-widespread-flooding-following-heavy-rain
And you're slurping up the hate.
(And no, I am not defending the shits who committed the crimes; or the people who covered it up. But if you think Musk is making these comments from a good place, then I've got a Hyperloop to sell you.)
Callan Rydz has an awesome haircut too.
Do your usual checking notes thing to see if that's ever happened to Ukraine before...
It's a temporary truce that makes matters worse not better. Aggressors need to both lose and be seen to lose.
As has been suggested about a thousand times.
And forget Russia regrouping for a second go - it's us who needs a breather to 'regroup'. Our army, navy and airforce need to be running at a level where they
are capable of defending the country before we even *think* about sending more arms and cash to Ukraine - that is basic defence 101; it shouldn't even be a controversial opinion. Russia may be considered a big threat, but it is a million miles from being the only one.
As an overall number, overall energy intensity per household is down by about 1/3 since 2000. A lot of that is the army of loft laggers and the others. You also see the trend in improvement in EPC levels, and newbuild requirements. The overall reduction is a little lower because of eg smaller households and more of them.
Still lots to do, but it's mucho progress.
This btw is one of the reasons why international comparisons around energy prices are misleading - the USA has low energy prices, but they use about twice as much energy as we do this side of the pond. The better comparison is actual bills.
My photo quota:
Source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66f13235f188a93404379f94/Energy_Consumption_in_the_UK_2024.pdf
That will sort out the criminals and the fuckwits trying to make political capital out of it.
The Home Sec has the arbitrary power to do this.
The just pre-war poll conducted by CNN says that you be giving huge numbers of people to a nation they don’t want live in.
Does this mean that if Ukraine hangs onto their Kursk salient and expels the inhabitants, they get to keep that?
But as Trump has made it quite clear that he won't be party to any such guarantee, it's again up to Europe and Ukraine. It's not something Trump can impose.
If he doesn’t get he removal of the government (replacement with pro-Putinists) and both NATO and the EU blocked - then its window time for him.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Tight spot for Putin.
Just a small sliver of good news. I've commented before about my problems with getting my driving licence back, and how I'd reached the situation where DVLA wanted me to have some lessons before I could have it.
Well, I've had the first one, and the instructor was rather wondering why I was having all the problems. Said my driving was fine; bit cautious maybe and there were one or two habits I'd got into over the years which I ought to sort out but nothing major.
So I rather hope that by the summer I should be driving again. 'All' I've got to do is sort out how I get some sort of Zimmer or other walking frame in and out of the car so that I can walk from the car to where I want to be.
Still, Musk.
Depends on the source, IIRC?
Russia’s objective is to trash the place, physically and economically, so that it can’t become a more prosperous example, right on their doorstep, of how much better Russians could live, were they ever able to free themselves from the proto-communist dictatorships they have ‘enjoyed’ (sic) since you were supporting them from the ignorance of your younger days.
The one that sticks in the mind is Walter Tirel -
"He accidentally killed the king. Poor chap. Quick, give him some nice land to take his mind off the tragedy."
They also have an issue that domestic production is not that much greater than domestic consumption in the USA.
2023 production was 103 billion cubic feet per day (from Google - bloody American units), and your graph has export capacity increasing from ~11 bcf to ~24 bcf per day in 5 years - which only from 10% to 23.5% of *last* years production.
It's tight supply at that end, and it's not clear how much more Europe needs to import.
Total European imports were 14.9 bcf per day in 2023 (UK + EU27), half of which comes from the USA. Imports from Russia in 2023 were 3,4 bcf per day (both stats Google), so it's not clear how much more can be pulled in from the USA of that extra capacity. Even 100% of imports plus 100% of substituting what is left would not absorb all of the extra capacity. And we are all reducing consumption, and all of that reduction could come off the imported fraction.
Not clear, but potentially tight for the USA exporters.
At the import terminal, then depending on the spec of the LNG, you may need to ballast with nitrogen or LPG to meet pipeline specs for CV and Wobbe.
I've not been directly involved in an LNG import project EPC contract for a good few years, but I was lead process engineer on a large scale terminal in Europe, and on FEED studies for a couple of others.
My Loft Laggers line was very tongue in cheek.
IIRC in Woodside, Australia, they were doing all the processing in the liquefaction trains, including faction removal. But that was a vast, sprawling plant, covering multiple square KM.
For floating, IIRC, they were looking at total input liquefaction which would cause CO2 and water to ice out and dump that in a cycle. Leave the fractions in....
Though looking at USA homes being built, I think that they are more the Second Little Pig rather than the Third Little Pig, and they seem to be built in some places in the expectation that Hurricane Bad Wolf will blow them away.
Naturally they have weirdly illogical units for insulation as well so comparison is a multistage calculation; when I have done comparisons (eg with the couple of Usonian passive house specialists I have known online) I get the impression that it is more lax and they do high energy to warm or cool, rather than stabilisation by keeping warmth or coolth in.
Hmmm - interesting idea.
Right, that goes in my manifesto.
Back to work tomorrow, but it's been a good break. It's a sign of aging I suppose that after a single glass of wine and a single whisky at midnight that I feel hungover. Not used to it any more!
If people were locked up for gross misconducted we’d need more jails…
That leaves the state cases. But so far, they haven't managed to amount to much.
But your comments show that, for you, it is not about the poor kids - but about supporting whatever game Musk is playing.
He's been indicted multiple times because it was the recommendation of Grand Juries of his peers, which - whatever we think of it - is the normal Usonian Judicial Process.
It looks to me as if the sentencing in New York may be preserved, as he was found guilty unanimously by the Jury on 34 out of 34 charges so that trial is complete bar the sentencing.
In most of the others I'd say that Trump will be using his powers, whether pardoning himself, or instructing his cronies to cease the prosecutions, to avoid taking responsibility for himself.
Plus of course he could have committed, or commit, more crimes.
Gorgon in Australia has high CO2 gas, and has CO2 separation and sequestration as part of the process. But has had problems with the whole CCS malarkey.
Strangely, the paperwork that would prove the trail to anyone vaguely senior was destroyed.
There is also misconduct in public office although I am not sure if the scope would cover this. Here’s an example of a conviction..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21292338
In all probability it will be ‘lessons will be learned, there’ll be an enquiry’ and the institution will protect itself.
Perverting the course of justice is a common law offense in England and Wales that involves preventing justice from being served. It's a serious offense that can include: Giving false information to the police, Tampering with evidence, Interfering with witnesses, and Making false allegations of a crime.
If you let Russia win in Ukraine while we reform our defence then our strategic position is worsened. But we do need to invest more in defence.
Fortunately we are a mid sized wealthy country that can afford it
But if what we're talking about is a decade or more ago with records destroyed, @Malmesbury 's solution would be far cheaper, and wouldn't tie up the courts for the next ten years.
(See the Post Office disaster.)
In a few weeks time the President of the United States will be an individual who is determined to sell himself and his administration to the highest bidder. That's the guiding principle we should expect to see followed, and not mistake anything as part of a coherent ideology on isolationism, nationalism, populism, whatever. He will take money and do a u-turn.
I pity the poor people of Eastern Ukraine that you are willing to sacrifice
The units of measurement for insulation in the United States are feet squared times degrees Fahrenheit times hours, divided by British thermal unit (BTU), or ft² °F hr/BTU. This is an imperial system unit of measurement.
The R-value is a rating that measures the thermal resistance of insulation. It measures the amount of heat transferred through the insulation and the temperature variation over it. A higher R-value means the insulation is more effective at slowing the rate of heat transfer
And you thought converting gas from BTU to kWh was complicated !
(For the record, in the modern world R-value is 1/U-value, and is about heat getting through rather than being kept in or out. Here most of us tend to think in U-values.)
My architect dad used to rant about these especially Imperial Units for roofing used in the UK pre-decimalisation, especially one called a "square".
In the imperial system, a square is a unit of area that is equal to 100 square feet. It is used to measure the size of rooms or buildings, and is also used in the construction industry to measure the amount of material needed to cover a certain area.
The second have can bugger knowing the volume of material.
Still used in USA-Canada, apparently.
That would be funny - if only for the violent reaction to the use of the arbitrary powers of the Home Sec.
For further LOLs, they could strip everyone involved who has dual citizenship of their passport and exile them. Again, at the Home Secs. whim.
If nothing else, it would teach the permanent state a generational lesson on the value of due process.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/former-police-officer-and-his-mother-sentenced-after-perverting-course-justice-burying
I have no doubt Mr Winn is a good guy and he will self evidently do his best. But it is ridiculous that the judges and the lawyers who got very fat over the bogus prosecutions are not just as much in the firing line as the hapless PO staff.
The courts are there to see that justice is done. As Jimmy Carr would point out, it is their only job, their reason for existing. They failed just as much as the Post Office.
As for Dobey, he has to be in the Premier League.
It’s wilful misconduct (need to prove intent) and sufficiently significant to amount to a breach of trust in the holder of the office
The 50 mile Lebanon-Israel border had 10k peace keepers. The Ukraine / Russia front line and border is ~1200 miles, with another 670 miles to Belarus, and a further 300 miles to Transnistria.
The courts have refused to overrule Parliament. What they have done is say that law X makes Y unlawful, and wasn’t specifically overridden. Again, IIRC.
The point of European military forces in Ukraine would be to change that calculus. Any further attack would involve fighting the combined militaries of Britain, France, Germany, Poland, etc. I don't think he'd do it.
He'd only attack one of the Baltic States, say, if he thought Europe would back down and not fight back. At the moment I think Europe would fight back, but if Le Pen is President of France, Farage is Prime Minister of Britain, and the Germans unwilling to take the lead, then I could foresee Putin believing the Baltic States would be sacrificed.
2. Thanks to the Supreme Court, our civil rights laws will continue to be restored. (At least 90 percent.)
I expect resistance to that continuing restoration will be fiercest at prestigious universities.