The US is now keen to disincentivize electric vehicles:
If this was genuinely about a concern about vehicle weight, they could actually, you know, charge according to vehicle weight.
They really have gone absolutely radio rental. This would be like opposing the automobile, or the transistor. Electric vechicles, and renewable energy, and grid storage, are the future. You aren't going to win by opposing them, you will simply accelerate the accendancy of China, which is nailed on now IMHO.
We need to remember that Ford and General Motors are American car makers (and lobbyists) as well as various European and Japanese firms with car plants there. It is not just Tesla. It is not even mainly Tesla.
Afternoon all and another glorious day in Hawke’s Bay
Plenty of flapping about in Napier at the start of Art Deco Festival weekend but more locally we’ve had the Shake, Rattle & Roll lunch, not as I suspected a homage to mods and rockers but related to the 1931 earthquake and while anyone can attend it’s ostensibly for the descendants of the survivors.
What those who endured the earthquake itself would make of the world today is anyone’s guess.
I posed the question of where Britain could find an additional £60 billion to fund defence to bring it closer to 5% of GDP and needless to say the ill informed “slash and burn the public sector” brigade were out in force. This is dangerous for Reform, torn as it is between its quasi-Thatcherite leadership and its culturally conservative quasi-socialist voters.
I need to be convinced this £60 billion is a) necessary, b) affordable and c) will we get value for our investment? If anything, defence has proved as much a bottomless pit as health over the decades. I think we’re being bounced by politicians close to the defence industries and a bit of media scaremongering. Having Russia as “the threat” worked once but we now know the Warsaw Pact was largely a paper tiger though we convinced ourselves they were a force of supermen who would be at the Rhine in 72 hours and Paris in a week.
That’s NOT to say there isn’t an argument for spending in some areas such as cyber warfare and drones but the nature of war is changing and we need to urgently understand and learn what is really needed on the 21st century battlefield and the shape of that battlefield.
One of the big things in Ukraine has been a shortage of artillery shells. On both sides.
Making the metal body for an artillery shell is a complex process requiring a well setup production line. You can’t just shout “send me shells” and they appear. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Crisis_of_1915
On the other hand, they haven’t really changed much in 50 years. A stock piles of shell bodies would last forever - unfilled with explosives, they are a single piece of steel. Filling is a much easier operation.
A European joint stockpile of shell bodies would be an actual, sensible thing. A really big order for it would get the cost down. Maybe to a million shell bodies for a billion. Just keep making them and pilling them up.
Trump on Canada: "I spoke to Governor Trudeau ... they don't have military protection, and you take a look at what's going on out there ... people are in danger ... they need our protection."
That's the language of the child abuser or the wife beater.
The cost - for one siding, using old track - was just under a million pounds. It sounds a lot, and as there were existing connections, it does not involve Network Rail costs.
Infrastructure's expensive. But looking at that video, how could you do it cheaper?
Trump on Canada: "I spoke to Governor Trudeau ... they don't have military protection, and you take a look at what's going on out there ... people are in danger ... they need our protection."
Words. Utterly meaningless in the face of his real world actions.
Claiming that they need to do more to protect US citizens from environmental impacts and poor food and drug quality and safety whilst at the same time hamstringing the FDA and CDC tells you everything you need to know about how seriously Trump really takes these things.
That statement shows a remarkable lack of knowledge on what the FDA is and does.
She also, as I understand it, eventually got sacked for claiming sickies and trips to dentists when she was in fact doing Labour party business. On one of her alleged 'trips to the dentist' her manager followed her and found her out.
She also, as I understand it, eventually got sacked for claiming sickies and trips to dentists when she was in fact doing Labour party business. On one of her alleged 'trips to the dentist' her manager followed her and found her out.
To be fair, Labour Party meetings are far more painful than trips to the dentist.
One way it is interesting is I used to work at that school and with the exception of one class the real problem was the children were so apathetic they used to sit in more or less dead silence.
So something has clearly changed pretty radically in the last decade. Lockdown will no doubt be blamed but I would suggest the abolition of tolls on the Severn Bridges leading to an outflux from Bristol plus the closure of the steelworks may have more to do with it.
Comments
Not terribly warm today.
President Trump announces that the U.S. will sell India the F-35.
https://x.com/idreesali114/status/1890177866912133154
Demanding more spending is easy. You only know they're being serious when they're prepared to upset people by reallocating resources to do it.
Those parties which grew Britain’s debt when in Government aren’t the best to provide a solution.
Making the metal body for an artillery shell is a complex process requiring a well setup production line. You can’t just shout “send me shells” and they appear. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Crisis_of_1915
On the other hand, they haven’t really changed much in 50 years. A stock piles of shell bodies would last forever - unfilled with explosives, they are a single piece of steel. Filling is a much easier operation.
A European joint stockpile of shell bodies would be an actual, sensible thing. A really big order for it would get the cost down. Maybe to a million shell bodies for a billion. Just keep making them and pilling them up.
"You need me to protect you."
Oh - he is both of those.
"You made me do it. I had no other choice."
A detailed video on the construction of a 'new' railway siding, showing all the work that is required.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ1N9nE6UYM
The cost - for one siding, using old track - was just under a million pounds. It sounds a lot, and as there were existing connections, it does not involve Network Rail costs.
Infrastructure's expensive. But looking at that video, how could you do it cheaper?
(*) What d'ya mean that's just me?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/14/china-opens-recruitment-for-planetary-defence-force-amid-fears-of-asteroid-hitting-earth
I would say it's been a political journey for him, but it's probably only been a short shuffle leftwards...
Much more effective to threaten to prosecute him over his unpaid taxes.
He too wants a piece of paper.
NEW THREAD
She also, as I understand it, eventually got sacked for claiming sickies and trips to dentists when she was in fact doing Labour party business. On one of her alleged 'trips to the dentist' her manager followed her and found her out.
School plagued by bad behaviour brings in Saturday detentions
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg8yx4xj3no
One way it is interesting is I used to work at that school and with the exception of one class the real problem was the children were so apathetic they used to sit in more or less dead silence.
So something has clearly changed pretty radically in the last decade. Lockdown will no doubt be blamed but I would suggest the abolition of tolls on the Severn Bridges leading to an outflux from Bristol plus the closure of the steelworks may have more to do with it.