If not then why bother ? We won’t fight for Ukraine.
Because Taiwan is integral to the economy of the western world.
As is Ukraine to Europe's security.
We have the capacity to intervene in Ukraine; Taiwan, not so much.
It's also access to the sea lanes in the region; something which is very useful to us, yet we are not securing with the even more vital Red Sea / Suez Canal.
I expect it's a sane calculated balance for Xi: he will want to be seen as the man who reunited China (*). But he also wants to keep lots of that lovely trade with the west.
Putin made that calculation twice. In 2014 he was correct. In 2022, less so.
(*) Which, as someone said below, might be why he tries elsewhere.
That's enormously advantageous to EU carmakers, given that US car makers are struggling with massive tariffs on steel and aluminum, and auto parts. It will almost certainly be cheaper to build cars in the EU and export them to the US, than to build them in the US
That's enormously advantageous to EU carmakers, given that US car makers are struggling with massive tariffs on steel and aluminum, and auto parts. It will almost certainly be cheaper to build cars in the EU and export them to the US, than to build them in the US
Spencer Hakimian @SpencerHakimian *TRUMP: EU AGREES TO PURCHASE $750B OF AMERICAN ENERGY ANNUALLY
The European Union doesn’t even consume $600B of energy per year.
That's enormously advantageous to EU carmakers, given that US car makers are struggling with massive tariffs on steel and aluminum, and auto parts. It will almost certainly be cheaper to build cars in the EU and export them to the US, than to build them in the US
Yours likely right, but let wait to see the detail. There's a huge difference between the Trump spin and the real world.
That's enormously advantageous to EU carmakers, given that US car makers are struggling with massive tariffs on steel and aluminum, and auto parts. It will almost certainly be cheaper to build cars in the EU and export them to the US, than to build them in the US
Spencer Hakimian @SpencerHakimian *TRUMP: EU AGREES TO PURCHASE $750B OF AMERICAN ENERGY ANNUALLY
The European Union doesn’t even consume $600B of energy per year.
They're going to use the surplus to melt all the shite American vehicles they're going to buy.
That's enormously advantageous to EU carmakers, given that US car makers are struggling with massive tariffs on steel and aluminum, and auto parts. It will almost certainly be cheaper to build cars in the EU and export them to the US, than to build them in the US
Spencer Hakimian @SpencerHakimian *TRUMP: EU AGREES TO PURCHASE $750B OF AMERICAN ENERGY ANNUALLY
The European Union doesn’t even consume $600B of energy per year.
They're going to use the surplus to melt all the shite American vehicles they're going to buy.
I suppose the only thing that matters is that Trump thinks its a fantastic deal. Everyone can just carry on as if nothing has happened.
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
The EU - that is, the economic actor that is the institutions of the EU - does not buy cars or oil or gas.
The EU can no more force its citizens to purchase US cars than I can make certain PBers like pineapple on pizza.
The same is true for energy.
Crude oil, LNG cargoes, middle distillates and the like are purchased by power generators, refiners and chains of petrol stations. They are not bought centrally by the government and distributed accordingly.
Now, that doesn't mean that the government can't facilitate trade. They can subsidise the building of LNG import terminals, or allow new oil pipeline to run from Milford Haven, or the like. But they can't force economic actors to do things against their best interest.
And they certainly can't make French consumers buy US made cars. (And what US made cars would they buy anyway? The US automaker all have massive European manufacturing facilities, because holding and moving inventory around the world is expensive.)
That's enormously advantageous to EU carmakers, given that US car makers are struggling with massive tariffs on steel and aluminum, and auto parts. It will almost certainly be cheaper to build cars in the EU and export them to the US, than to build them in the US
It is almost as if Trump's circle has expelled its one member who understands supply chains.
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
Are you suggesting that Donald J Trump, the most successful business man in the history of the universe, a man who fought his way up with nothing more than a small loan of a million dollars, and who famously run casinos as they had never been run before, does not understand how international trade works?
That's enormously advantageous to EU carmakers, given that US car makers are struggling with massive tariffs on steel and aluminum, and auto parts. It will almost certainly be cheaper to build cars in the EU and export them to the US, than to build them in the US
Spencer Hakimian @SpencerHakimian *TRUMP: EU AGREES TO PURCHASE $750B OF AMERICAN ENERGY ANNUALLY
The European Union doesn’t even consume $600B of energy per year.
They're going to use the surplus to melt all the shite American vehicles they're going to buy.
I suppose the only thing that matters is that Trump thinks its a fantastic deal. Everyone can just carry on as if nothing has happened.
Actually, the EU does consume more than $600bn of energy per year. In total, consumption is probably around $750bn per year.
Here's the thing. Total (not just EU) exports of US LNG are just .. checks ... $40bn/year. Even if it was all sent to the EU, and the total amount doubled (which is cleary impossible given that LNG export terminals take many years to build), it still wouldn't get anywhere close,
India are the better team. It’s only stokes that keeps us in it. And as soon as he falters - in any way - we’re a bit average. Especially in bowling
We need to find some amazing bowlers quick, for the ashes
It's wrong to say India are the better side.
The teams are quite evenly matched, with both extremely strong in the batting lineup, and both a bit light in the bowling.
India have the ICC's no 1 bowler, top ICC English bowler is Gus Atkinson, who isn't selected, maybe throwing some doubt on the rankings. Pitch and quickly softening ball have not favoured the bowlers on either side.
Tom Lehrer, the sardonic singer-songwriter-pianist who rose to national fame after his dark, tartly funny topical songs were used on the comedic ‘60s TV news show “That Was the Week That Was,” has died at age 97.
Friends said that he was found dead in his home in Cambridge, Mass., on Saturday.
I really can't give that a "like". He was never on the original TW3 (UK) afaik An unequalled combination of musical talent, intelligence and wit who was famous without going into showbiz. He stuck to his academic career
I am genuinely saddened by the death of Tom Lehrer even though he reached a grand old age. A huge part of my childhod as my parents were massive fans and as I got older and better understood his skill and his satirical genius ,my admiration only grew. The first song I ever introduced my wife to be to was a Tom Lehrer ditty. It was almost a test of her dark sense of humour and our future compatibility.
Rest in peace sir and thanks for the many decades of both delight and insight.
Rory McIlroy isn't odds on for SPOTY. I steer clear of that market, but it would be a travesty if he doesn't win it.
EDIT: Okay, I've had some of the even money on Betfair. Chloe Kelly is great, but it has to be Rory.
It should be, yes, and I hope it will be. But I can't forget 2014. Two majors for Rory inc the Open. World number one. Amazing year. And they gave it to Lewis Hamilton for winning the F1 in easily the best car, ie for beating his team mate.
It was a significant birthday for Mrs J this weekend, so I got childcare in for our son, and took her down to London (*) . Three decades ago, I would travel from St Pancras to Derby on the train. At that time St Pancras was faded grandeur; the glass of Barlow's trainshed greyed out with ancient smoke; the hotel's exterior refurbished in the 1980s, but the interior decayed, abandoned and inaccessible. The stench of diesel filled the air within the vast trainshed, as if a vast mechanical lung was exhaling within. I used to climb up the steps from King's Cross and stand, awe-struck at Scott's fantastical exterior.
Roll on to this weekend, and I decided to book us in for the night at the refurbished hotel. It was expensive, and I booked a room in the modern Barlow extension, but it was still the St Pancras hotel. We arrived, and we had been upgraded from a room to a suite in the original hotel.
A suite. It was massive. And our windows looked down over the coach ramp and the Euston Road. we danced around the rooms. We failed to find any convenient plugs. We glided up *that* staircase. We dared not sing 'Wannabe'.
We had our meals in the Booking Office; somewhere I used to go to buy tickets back home to my parents'. Now restored, but also perhaps having lost a certain something: purpose and decreptiude?
By nature, I am tight. I don't particularly like spending money. But this weekend was brilliant. We got taxis everywhere, to Fortnum's for afternoon tea (a very rare treat), and then the theatre. Normally, we would either walk or get the tube. But this weekend, I spent.
Even today's chaos on the ECML did not stop us: instead of waiting amongst the thousands at Kings Cross for a train back to Sr Neots, we took a train to Bedford, and got a taxi the rest of the way.
London was also at its best: electric cars were far more common than they are up here, and the air felt remarkably clean. We walked through NW1, seeing terraces of the non-identical Nash buildings that @Leon witters on about. Runners reigned in Regent's Park. The only negative were the homeless; far more prevalent on the Euston Road than litter.
We rarely do this sort of thing, but it's scarcity made it even more special. And staying at the St Pancras Hotel was a dream fulfilled: in Mrs J's case, a dream she did not know she had...
I've promised Mrs J we'll so it again for her next fiftieth birthday...
Tom Lehrer, the sardonic singer-songwriter-pianist who rose to national fame after his dark, tartly funny topical songs were used on the comedic ‘60s TV news show “That Was the Week That Was,” has died at age 97.
Friends said that he was found dead in his home in Cambridge, Mass., on Saturday.
I really can't give that a "like". He was never on the original TW3 (UK) afaik An unequalled combination of musical talent, intelligence and wit who was famous without going into showbiz. He stuck to his academic career
I am genuinely saddened by the death of Tom Lehrer even though he reached a grand old age. A huge part of my childhod as my parents were massive fans and as I got older and better understood his skill and his satirical genius ,my admiration only grew. The first song I ever introduced my wife to be to was a Tom Lehrer ditty. It was almost a test of her dark sense of humour and our future compatibility.
Rest in peace sir and thanks for the many decades of both delight and insight.
Really thought he’d make the ton. Was that song ‘Poisoning pigeons…’ by any chance?
Tom Lehrer, the sardonic singer-songwriter-pianist who rose to national fame after his dark, tartly funny topical songs were used on the comedic ‘60s TV news show “That Was the Week That Was,” has died at age 97.
Friends said that he was found dead in his home in Cambridge, Mass., on Saturday.
I really can't give that a "like". He was never on the original TW3 (UK) afaik An unequalled combination of musical talent, intelligence and wit who was famous without going into showbiz. He stuck to his academic career
I am genuinely saddened by the death of Tom Lehrer even though he reached a grand old age. A huge part of my childhod as my parents were massive fans and as I got older and better understood his skill and his satirical genius ,my admiration only grew. The first song I ever introduced my wife to be to was a Tom Lehrer ditty. It was almost a test of her dark sense of humour and our future compatibility.
Rest in peace sir and thanks for the many decades of both delight and insight.
Mine too. I got "An Evening Wasted with.." one Christmas when I was a kid.
Sometimes I don't give my mother sufficient appreciation.
Tom Lehrer, the sardonic singer-songwriter-pianist who rose to national fame after his dark, tartly funny topical songs were used on the comedic ‘60s TV news show “That Was the Week That Was,” has died at age 97.
Friends said that he was found dead in his home in Cambridge, Mass., on Saturday.
I really can't give that a "like". He was never on the original TW3 (UK) afaik An unequalled combination of musical talent, intelligence and wit who was famous without going into showbiz. He stuck to his academic career
I am genuinely saddened by the death of Tom Lehrer even though he reached a grand old age. A huge part of my childhod as my parents were massive fans and as I got older and better understood his skill and his satirical genius ,my admiration only grew. The first song I ever introduced my wife to be to was a Tom Lehrer ditty. It was almost a test of her dark sense of humour and our future compatibility.
Rest in peace sir and thanks for the many decades of both delight and insight.
Really thought he’d make the ton. Was that song ‘Poisoning pigeons…’ by any chance?
LOL. Yes it was. Though it was rapidly follwed by both the Masochism Tango and Oedipus Rex. And his Christmas Carol is by far the most common song sung at that tme of year in our household.
It was a significant birthday for Mrs J this weekend, so I got childcare in for our son, and took her down to London (*) . Three decades ago, I would travel from St Pancras to Derby on the train. At that time St Pancras was faded grandeur; the glass of Barlow's trainshed greyed out with ancient smoke; the hotel's exterior refurbished in the 1980s, but the interior decayed, abandoned and inaccessible. The stench of diesel filled the air within the vast trainshed, as if a vast mechanical lung was exhaling within. I used to climb up the steps from King's Cross and stand, awe-struck at Scott's fantastical exterior.
Roll on to this weekend, and I decided to book us in for the night at the refurbished hotel. It was expensive, and I booked a room in the modern Barlow extension, but it was still the St Pancras hotel. We arrived, and we had been upgraded from a room to a suite in the original hotel.
A suite. It was massive. And our windows looked down over the coach ramp and the Euston Road. we danced around the rooms. We failed to find any convenient plugs. We glided up *that* staircase. We dared not sing 'Wannabe'.
We had our meals in the Booking Office; somewhere I used to go to buy tickets back home to my parents'. Now restored, but also perhaps having lost a certain something: purpose and decreptiude?
By nature, I am tight. I don't particularly like spending money. But this weekend was brilliant. We got taxis everywhere, to Fortnum's for afternoon tea (a very rare treat), and then the theatre. Normally, we would either walk or get the tube. But this weekend, I spent.
Even today's chaos on the ECML did not stop us: instead of waiting amongst the thousands at Kings Cross for a train back to Sr Neots, we took a train to Bedford, and got a taxi the rest of the way.
London was also at its best: electric cars were far more common than they are up here, and the air felt remarkably clean. We walked through NW1, seeing terraces of the non-identical Nash buildings that @Leon witters on about. Runners reigned in Regent's Park. The only negative were the homeless; far more prevalent on the Euston Road than litter.
We rarely do this sort of thing, but it's scarcity made it even more special. And staying at the St Pancras Hotel was a dream fulfilled: in Mrs J's case, a dream she did not know she had...
I've promised Mrs J we'll so it again for her next fiftieth birthday...
(*) That is not a euphemism ...
That's so nice, and especially resonant for me - I spent too much of the night of the Great Storm of 1987 in a train in the train shed. though I have to echo your feelings about the diversion of the Booking Hall to other usage. The stone (or terracotta) locomotives on the frieze inside deserve to be overlooking the ticket offices as of old.
It was a significant birthday for Mrs J this weekend, so I got childcare in for our son, and took her down to London (*) . Three decades ago, I would travel from St Pancras to Derby on the train. At that time St Pancras was faded grandeur; the glass of Barlow's trainshed greyed out with ancient smoke; the hotel's exterior refurbished in the 1980s, but the interior decayed, abandoned and inaccessible. The stench of diesel filled the air within the vast trainshed, as if a vast mechanical lung was exhaling within. I used to climb up the steps from King's Cross and stand, awe-struck at Scott's fantastical exterior.
Roll on to this weekend, and I decided to book us in for the night at the refurbished hotel. It was expensive, and I booked a room in the modern Barlow extension, but it was still the St Pancras hotel. We arrived, and we had been upgraded from a room to a suite in the original hotel.
A suite. It was massive. And our windows looked down over the coach ramp and the Euston Road. we danced around the rooms. We failed to find any convenient plugs. We glided up *that* staircase. We dared not sing 'Wannabe'.
We had our meals in the Booking Office; somewhere I used to go to buy tickets back home to my parents'. Now restored, but also perhaps having lost a certain something: purpose and decreptiude?
By nature, I am tight. I don't particularly like spending money. But this weekend was brilliant. We got taxis everywhere, to Fortnum's for afternoon tea (a very rare treat), and then the theatre. Normally, we would either walk or get the tube. But this weekend, I spent.
Even today's chaos on the ECML did not stop us: instead of waiting amongst the thousands at Kings Cross for a train back to Sr Neots, we took a train to Bedford, and got a taxi the rest of the way.
London was also at its best: electric cars were far more common than they are up here, and the air felt remarkably clean. We walked through NW1, seeing terraces of the non-identical Nash buildings that @Leon witters on about. Runners reigned in Regent's Park. The only negative were the homeless; far more prevalent on the Euston Road than litter.
We rarely do this sort of thing, but it's scarcity made it even more special. And staying at the St Pancras Hotel was a dream fulfilled: in Mrs J's case, a dream she did not know she had...
I've promised Mrs J we'll so it again for her next fiftieth birthday...
(*) That is not a euphemism ...
Happy birthday to Mrs J. Sounds to me like she won the lottery in her choice of hubby as well.
It was a significant birthday for Mrs J this weekend, so I got childcare in for our son, and took her down to London (*) . Three decades ago, I would travel from St Pancras to Derby on the train. At that time St Pancras was faded grandeur; the glass of Barlow's trainshed greyed out with ancient smoke; the hotel's exterior refurbished in the 1980s, but the interior decayed, abandoned and inaccessible. The stench of diesel filled the air within the vast trainshed, as if a vast mechanical lung was exhaling within. I used to climb up the steps from King's Cross and stand, awe-struck at Scott's fantastical exterior.
Roll on to this weekend, and I decided to book us in for the night at the refurbished hotel. It was expensive, and I booked a room in the modern Barlow extension, but it was still the St Pancras hotel. We arrived, and we had been upgraded from a room to a suite in the original hotel.
A suite. It was massive. And our windows looked down over the coach ramp and the Euston Road. we danced around the rooms. We failed to find any convenient plugs. We glided up *that* staircase. We dared not sing 'Wannabe'.
We had our meals in the Booking Office; somewhere I used to go to buy tickets back home to my parents'. Now restored, but also perhaps having lost a certain something: purpose and decreptiude?
By nature, I am tight. I don't particularly like spending money. But this weekend was brilliant. We got taxis everywhere, to Fortnum's for afternoon tea (a very rare treat), and then the theatre. Normally, we would either walk or get the tube. But this weekend, I spent.
Even today's chaos on the ECML did not stop us: instead of waiting amongst the thousands at Kings Cross for a train back to Sr Neots, we took a train to Bedford, and got a taxi the rest of the way.
London was also at its best: electric cars were far more common than they are up here, and the air felt remarkably clean. We walked through NW1, seeing terraces of the non-identical Nash buildings that @Leon witters on about. Runners reigned in Regent's Park. The only negative were the homeless; far more prevalent on the Euston Road than litter.
We rarely do this sort of thing, but it's scarcity made it even more special. And staying at the St Pancras Hotel was a dream fulfilled: in Mrs J's case, a dream she did not know she had...
I've promised Mrs J we'll so it again for her next fiftieth birthday...
(*) That is not a euphemism ...
That's so nice, and especially resonant for me - I spent too much of the night of the Great Storm of 1987 in a train in the train shed. though I have to echo your feelings about the diversion of the Booking Hall to other usage. The stone (or terracotta) locomotives on the frieze inside deserve to be overlooking the ticket offices as of old.
It was a significant birthday for Mrs J this weekend, so I got childcare in for our son, and took her down to London (*) . Three decades ago, I would travel from St Pancras to Derby on the train. At that time St Pancras was faded grandeur; the glass of Barlow's trainshed greyed out with ancient smoke; the hotel's exterior refurbished in the 1980s, but the interior decayed, abandoned and inaccessible. The stench of diesel filled the air within the vast trainshed, as if a vast mechanical lung was exhaling within. I used to climb up the steps from King's Cross and stand, awe-struck at Scott's fantastical exterior.
Roll on to this weekend, and I decided to book us in for the night at the refurbished hotel. It was expensive, and I booked a room in the modern Barlow extension, but it was still the St Pancras hotel. We arrived, and we had been upgraded from a room to a suite in the original hotel.
A suite. It was massive. And our windows looked down over the coach ramp and the Euston Road. we danced around the rooms. We failed to find any convenient plugs. We glided up *that* staircase. We dared not sing 'Wannabe'.
We had our meals in the Booking Office; somewhere I used to go to buy tickets back home to my parents'. Now restored, but also perhaps having lost a certain something: purpose and decreptiude?
By nature, I am tight. I don't particularly like spending money. But this weekend was brilliant. We got taxis everywhere, to Fortnum's for afternoon tea (a very rare treat), and then the theatre. Normally, we would either walk or get the tube. But this weekend, I spent.
Even today's chaos on the ECML did not stop us: instead of waiting amongst the thousands at Kings Cross for a train back to Sr Neots, we took a train to Bedford, and got a taxi the rest of the way.
London was also at its best: electric cars were far more common than they are up here, and the air felt remarkably clean. We walked through NW1, seeing terraces of the non-identical Nash buildings that @Leon witters on about. Runners reigned in Regent's Park. The only negative were the homeless; far more prevalent on the Euston Road than litter.
We rarely do this sort of thing, but it's scarcity made it even more special. And staying at the St Pancras Hotel was a dream fulfilled: in Mrs J's case, a dream she did not know she had...
I've promised Mrs J we'll so it again for her next fiftieth birthday...
(*) That is not a euphemism ...
That's so nice, and especially resonant for me - I spent too much of the night of the Great Storm of 1987 in a train in the train shed. though I have to echo your feelings about the diversion of the Booking Hall to other usage. The stone (or terracotta) locomotives on the frieze inside deserve to be overlooking the ticket offices as of old.
I doubt the US would support Taiwan with troops but would send them arms and funds etc as NATO have done with Ukraine.
Only if Japan or S Korea or the Philippinnes were invaded would the US actually go to war with China
If China blockades Taiwan even sending them arms would require breaking the blockade. China would not allow the US to simply start shipping weapons into Taiwan.
The most likely intervention - and the US has wargamed this multiple times - is long range air strikes against a Chinese blockade or invasion fleet.
It was a significant birthday for Mrs J this weekend, so I got childcare in for our son, and took her down to London (*) . Three decades ago, I would travel from St Pancras to Derby on the train. At that time St Pancras was faded grandeur; the glass of Barlow's trainshed greyed out with ancient smoke; the hotel's exterior refurbished in the 1980s, but the interior decayed, abandoned and inaccessible. The stench of diesel filled the air within the vast trainshed, as if a vast mechanical lung was exhaling within. I used to climb up the steps from King's Cross and stand, awe-struck at Scott's fantastical exterior.
Roll on to this weekend, and I decided to book us in for the night at the refurbished hotel. It was expensive, and I booked a room in the modern Barlow extension, but it was still the St Pancras hotel. We arrived, and we had been upgraded from a room to a suite in the original hotel.
A suite. It was massive. And our windows looked down over the coach ramp and the Euston Road. we danced around the rooms. We failed to find any convenient plugs. We glided up *that* staircase. We dared not sing 'Wannabe'.
We had our meals in the Booking Office; somewhere I used to go to buy tickets back home to my parents'. Now restored, but also perhaps having lost a certain something: purpose and decreptiude?
By nature, I am tight. I don't particularly like spending money. But this weekend was brilliant. We got taxis everywhere, to Fortnum's for afternoon tea (a very rare treat), and then the theatre. Normally, we would either walk or get the tube. But this weekend, I spent.
Even today's chaos on the ECML did not stop us: instead of waiting amongst the thousands at Kings Cross for a train back to Sr Neots, we took a train to Bedford, and got a taxi the rest of the way.
London was also at its best: electric cars were far more common than they are up here, and the air felt remarkably clean. We walked through NW1, seeing terraces of the non-identical Nash buildings that @Leon witters on about. Runners reigned in Regent's Park. The only negative were the homeless; far more prevalent on the Euston Road than litter.
We rarely do this sort of thing, but it's scarcity made it even more special. And staying at the St Pancras Hotel was a dream fulfilled: in Mrs J's case, a dream she did not know she had...
I've promised Mrs J we'll so it again for her next fiftieth birthday...
(*) That is not a euphemism ...
That's so nice, and especially resonant for me - I spent too much of the night of the Great Storm of 1987 in a train in the train shed. though I have to echo your feelings about the diversion of the Booking Hall to other usage. The stone (or terracotta) locomotives on the frieze inside deserve to be overlooking the ticket offices as of old.
I have to ask: what frieze?
Quite right - not a continuous carved frieze, sorry, brain fart. Memory is one of the carved capitals from which the arches of the blind arcading, or the ceiling timbers, spring, but I can't lay my paws on Jack Simmons's classic study of the station to confirm this.
India are the better team. It’s only stokes that keeps us in it. And as soon as he falters - in any way - we’re a bit average. Especially in bowling
We need to find some amazing bowlers quick, for the ashes
It's wrong to say India are the better side.
The teams are quite evenly matched, with both extremely strong in the batting lineup, and both a bit light in the bowling.
India have the ICC's no 1 bowler, top ICC English bowler is Gus Atkinson, who isn't selected, maybe throwing some doubt on the rankings. Pitch and quickly softening ball have not favoured the bowlers on either side.
Having recently lost two truly great bowlers in Anderson and Broad I think it was inevitable that England would struggle to get a really strong bowling line up for a while. Archer is part of the picture but has had little game time for years. I have a lot of time for Atkinson, Imthink Olly Robinson is good too but seems out of favour. Wood when fit is always value. Ultimately though both attacks have fallen victim to Bazball pitches. An older style pitch was meant to break down and become harder to play on. This one was an absolute road, givevor take the odd ball. People laud Lara’s great knock but that one might as well have been played on the M1, so road like was the pitch. Same here. Buckets of runs but in the end a tame draw.
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
Are you suggesting that Donald J Trump, the most successful business man in the history of the universe, a man who fought his way up with nothing more than a small loan of a million dollars, and who famously run casinos as they had never been run before, does not understand how international trade works?
How very dare you sir!
Yes, Donald J Trump. That guy, the guy who... er.... got elected to the most powerful position on earth. Twice
Really sorry to hear about Tom Leherer. I remember my parents getting reel to reel tapes of his songs in 1967 or 68 in a market in Singapore. At the time I was not allowed to listen to Vatican Rag because it was blasphemous but we all laughed along to Who's Next, Pollution, Verner Von Brown, New Maths, the Elements and so many others. A genius.
It was a significant birthday for Mrs J this weekend, so I got childcare in for our son, and took her down to London (*) . Three decades ago, I would travel from St Pancras to Derby on the train. At that time St Pancras was faded grandeur; the glass of Barlow's trainshed greyed out with ancient smoke; the hotel's exterior refurbished in the 1980s, but the interior decayed, abandoned and inaccessible. The stench of diesel filled the air within the vast trainshed, as if a vast mechanical lung was exhaling within. I used to climb up the steps from King's Cross and stand, awe-struck at Scott's fantastical exterior.
Roll on to this weekend, and I decided to book us in for the night at the refurbished hotel. It was expensive, and I booked a room in the modern Barlow extension, but it was still the St Pancras hotel. We arrived, and we had been upgraded from a room to a suite in the original hotel.
A suite. It was massive. And our windows looked down over the coach ramp and the Euston Road. we danced around the rooms. We failed to find any convenient plugs. We glided up *that* staircase. We dared not sing 'Wannabe'.
We had our meals in the Booking Office; somewhere I used to go to buy tickets back home to my parents'. Now restored, but also perhaps having lost a certain something: purpose and decreptiude?
By nature, I am tight. I don't particularly like spending money. But this weekend was brilliant. We got taxis everywhere, to Fortnum's for afternoon tea (a very rare treat), and then the theatre. Normally, we would either walk or get the tube. But this weekend, I spent.
Even today's chaos on the ECML did not stop us: instead of waiting amongst the thousands at Kings Cross for a train back to Sr Neots, we took a train to Bedford, and got a taxi the rest of the way.
London was also at its best: electric cars were far more common than they are up here, and the air felt remarkably clean. We walked through NW1, seeing terraces of the non-identical Nash buildings that @Leon witters on about. Runners reigned in Regent's Park. The only negative were the homeless; far more prevalent on the Euston Road than litter.
We rarely do this sort of thing, but it's scarcity made it even more special. And staying at the St Pancras Hotel was a dream fulfilled: in Mrs J's case, a dream she did not know she had...
I've promised Mrs J we'll so it again for her next fiftieth birthday...
(*) That is not a euphemism ...
That's so nice, and especially resonant for me - I spent too much of the night of the Great Storm of 1987 in a train in the train shed. though I have to echo your feelings about the diversion of the Booking Hall to other usage. The stone (or terracotta) locomotives on the frieze inside deserve to be overlooking the ticket offices as of old.
I have to ask: what frieze?
Quite right - not a continuous carved frieze, sorry, brain fart. Memory is one of the carved capitals from which the arches of the blind arcading, or the ceiling timbers, spring, but I can't lay my paws on Jack Simmons's classic study of the station to confirm this.
One (weird) question I had from the Booking Office: the foils (lights) at the top of the windows were three, four or five petalled, seemingly at random (tresfoil, quatrefoil, cinquefoil). The pattern was different from one side of the Booking Office to the other. I wondered why. Mrs J smiled and sipped her drink...
India are the better team. It’s only stokes that keeps us in it. And as soon as he falters - in any way - we’re a bit average. Especially in bowling
We need to find some amazing bowlers quick, for the ashes
It's wrong to say India are the better side.
The teams are quite evenly matched, with both extremely strong in the batting lineup, and both a bit light in the bowling.
India have the ICC's no 1 bowler, top ICC English bowler is Gus Atkinson, who isn't selected, maybe throwing some doubt on the rankings. Pitch and quickly softening ball have not favoured the bowlers on either side.
Yes, India are palpably the superior bowling side, and roughly as good as us with the bat, so I make them the better team. It really is Stokes that makes the diff
It was a significant birthday for Mrs J this weekend, so I got childcare in for our son, and took her down to London (*) . Three decades ago, I would travel from St Pancras to Derby on the train. At that time St Pancras was faded grandeur; the glass of Barlow's trainshed greyed out with ancient smoke; the hotel's exterior refurbished in the 1980s, but the interior decayed, abandoned and inaccessible. The stench of diesel filled the air within the vast trainshed, as if a vast mechanical lung was exhaling within. I used to climb up the steps from King's Cross and stand, awe-struck at Scott's fantastical exterior.
Roll on to this weekend, and I decided to book us in for the night at the refurbished hotel. It was expensive, and I booked a room in the modern Barlow extension, but it was still the St Pancras hotel. We arrived, and we had been upgraded from a room to a suite in the original hotel.
A suite. It was massive. And our windows looked down over the coach ramp and the Euston Road. we danced around the rooms. We failed to find any convenient plugs. We glided up *that* staircase. We dared not sing 'Wannabe'.
We had our meals in the Booking Office; somewhere I used to go to buy tickets back home to my parents'. Now restored, but also perhaps having lost a certain something: purpose and decreptiude?
By nature, I am tight. I don't particularly like spending money. But this weekend was brilliant. We got taxis everywhere, to Fortnum's for afternoon tea (a very rare treat), and then the theatre. Normally, we would either walk or get the tube. But this weekend, I spent.
Even today's chaos on the ECML did not stop us: instead of waiting amongst the thousands at Kings Cross for a train back to Sr Neots, we took a train to Bedford, and got a taxi the rest of the way.
London was also at its best: electric cars were far more common than they are up here, and the air felt remarkably clean. We walked through NW1, seeing terraces of the non-identical Nash buildings that @Leon witters on about. Runners reigned in Regent's Park. The only negative were the homeless; far more prevalent on the Euston Road than litter.
We rarely do this sort of thing, but it's scarcity made it even more special. And staying at the St Pancras Hotel was a dream fulfilled: in Mrs J's case, a dream she did not know she had...
I've promised Mrs J we'll so it again for her next fiftieth birthday...
(*) That is not a euphemism ...
Very nice. I am glad you enjoyed the Nash Terraces. They are sublime
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
Are you suggesting that Donald J Trump, the most successful business man in the history of the universe, a man who fought his way up with nothing more than a small loan of a million dollars, and who famously run casinos as they had never been run before, does not understand how international trade works?
How very dare you sir!
Yes, Donald J Trump. That guy, the guy who... er.... got elected to the most powerful position on earth. Twice
What a thicko
Is there any correlation between electoral success and IQ ?
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
Are you suggesting that Donald J Trump, the most successful business man in the history of the universe, a man who fought his way up with nothing more than a small loan of a million dollars, and who famously run casinos as they had never been run before, does not understand how international trade works?
How very dare you sir!
Yes, Donald J Trump. That guy, the guy who... er.... got elected to the most powerful position on earth. Twice
What a thicko
Plenty of very intelligent people don't understand international finance.
And plenty of incredibly dumb people get elected to even very high offices. Have you ever read the speeches of Warren G. Harding?
Edit - and the point I was actually making, although I realise a man who doesn't understand how his washing machine works may not have fully grasped it, is that Trump isn't actually much good at business. I don't think that's a controversial point. He's lost several fortunes and it has become very clear he rebuilt himself each time through fraud and graft, later through reality TV and finally through being elected President and milking the office for all it's worth.
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
Are you suggesting that Donald J Trump, the most successful business man in the history of the universe, a man who fought his way up with nothing more than a small loan of a million dollars, and who famously run casinos as they had never been run before, does not understand how international trade works?
How very dare you sir!
Yes, Donald J Trump. That guy, the guy who... er.... got elected to the most powerful position on earth. Twice
What a thicko
Is there any correlation between electoral success and IQ ?
In an advanced mature democracy like the USA, very very much Yes
The inability of PB to grasp this is fucking dreary. And, indeed, sad evidence of PB's intellectual mediocrity
Trump is many bad things: an egotist, a narcissist, a pus*y grabber, a wanker, a blowhard, a tit, possibly a rapist, certainly a toad of the first water. He is probably unfit to be POTUS and he might deserve to be in jail. But he is also notably clever and cunning, and he knows how to game the American electoral system. And he's often very sharp, and quite often rather funny
It was a significant birthday for Mrs J this weekend, so I got childcare in for our son, and took her down to London (*) . Three decades ago, I would travel from St Pancras to Derby on the train. At that time St Pancras was faded grandeur; the glass of Barlow's trainshed greyed out with ancient smoke; the hotel's exterior refurbished in the 1980s, but the interior decayed, abandoned and inaccessible. The stench of diesel filled the air within the vast trainshed, as if a vast mechanical lung was exhaling within. I used to climb up the steps from King's Cross and stand, awe-struck at Scott's fantastical exterior.
Roll on to this weekend, and I decided to book us in for the night at the refurbished hotel. It was expensive, and I booked a room in the modern Barlow extension, but it was still the St Pancras hotel. We arrived, and we had been upgraded from a room to a suite in the original hotel.
A suite. It was massive. And our windows looked down over the coach ramp and the Euston Road. we danced around the rooms. We failed to find any convenient plugs. We glided up *that* staircase. We dared not sing 'Wannabe'.
We had our meals in the Booking Office; somewhere I used to go to buy tickets back home to my parents'. Now restored, but also perhaps having lost a certain something: purpose and decreptiude?
By nature, I am tight. I don't particularly like spending money. But this weekend was brilliant. We got taxis everywhere, to Fortnum's for afternoon tea (a very rare treat), and then the theatre. Normally, we would either walk or get the tube. But this weekend, I spent.
Even today's chaos on the ECML did not stop us: instead of waiting amongst the thousands at Kings Cross for a train back to Sr Neots, we took a train to Bedford, and got a taxi the rest of the way.
London was also at its best: electric cars were far more common than they are up here, and the air felt remarkably clean. We walked through NW1, seeing terraces of the non-identical Nash buildings that @Leon witters on about. Runners reigned in Regent's Park. The only negative were the homeless; far more prevalent on the Euston Road than litter.
We rarely do this sort of thing, but it's scarcity made it even more special. And staying at the St Pancras Hotel was a dream fulfilled: in Mrs J's case, a dream she did not know she had...
I've promised Mrs J we'll so it again for her next fiftieth birthday...
(*) That is not a euphemism ...
Very nice. I am glad you enjoyed the Nash Terraces. They are sublime
Meh. They're identikit housing. No individuality...
ChatGPT may be driving people to psychosis as millions of people turn to artificial intelligence (AI) for friendship and advice, NHS doctors have warned...
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
Are you suggesting that Donald J Trump, the most successful business man in the history of the universe, a man who fought his way up with nothing more than a small loan of a million dollars, and who famously run casinos as they had never been run before, does not understand how international trade works?
How very dare you sir!
Yes, Donald J Trump. That guy, the guy who... er.... got elected to the most powerful position on earth. Twice
What a thicko
Is there any correlation between electoral success and IQ ?
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
Are you suggesting that Donald J Trump, the most successful business man in the history of the universe, a man who fought his way up with nothing more than a small loan of a million dollars, and who famously run casinos as they had never been run before, does not understand how international trade works?
How very dare you sir!
Yes, Donald J Trump. That guy, the guy who... er.... got elected to the most powerful position on earth. Twice
What a thicko
Is there any correlation between electoral success and IQ ?
There's a fair bit of confounding on the relationship between any sort of success and IQ. Desire is probably more important, and many of the smartest people have decided to play a different game. (This isn't always wise, since it lets people like Trump take the crown.)
Or as a really smart guy once said,
Don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this [performing brilliant satirical songs] for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be making, oh, 3000 dollars a year just teaching.
It was a significant birthday for Mrs J this weekend, so I got childcare in for our son, and took her down to London (*) . Three decades ago, I would travel from St Pancras to Derby on the train. At that time St Pancras was faded grandeur; the glass of Barlow's trainshed greyed out with ancient smoke; the hotel's exterior refurbished in the 1980s, but the interior decayed, abandoned and inaccessible. The stench of diesel filled the air within the vast trainshed, as if a vast mechanical lung was exhaling within. I used to climb up the steps from King's Cross and stand, awe-struck at Scott's fantastical exterior.
Roll on to this weekend, and I decided to book us in for the night at the refurbished hotel. It was expensive, and I booked a room in the modern Barlow extension, but it was still the St Pancras hotel. We arrived, and we had been upgraded from a room to a suite in the original hotel.
A suite. It was massive. And our windows looked down over the coach ramp and the Euston Road. we danced around the rooms. We failed to find any convenient plugs. We glided up *that* staircase. We dared not sing 'Wannabe'.
We had our meals in the Booking Office; somewhere I used to go to buy tickets back home to my parents'. Now restored, but also perhaps having lost a certain something: purpose and decreptiude?
By nature, I am tight. I don't particularly like spending money. But this weekend was brilliant. We got taxis everywhere, to Fortnum's for afternoon tea (a very rare treat), and then the theatre. Normally, we would either walk or get the tube. But this weekend, I spent.
Even today's chaos on the ECML did not stop us: instead of waiting amongst the thousands at Kings Cross for a train back to Sr Neots, we took a train to Bedford, and got a taxi the rest of the way.
London was also at its best: electric cars were far more common than they are up here, and the air felt remarkably clean. We walked through NW1, seeing terraces of the non-identical Nash buildings that @Leon witters on about. Runners reigned in Regent's Park. The only negative were the homeless; far more prevalent on the Euston Road than litter.
We rarely do this sort of thing, but it's scarcity made it even more special. And staying at the St Pancras Hotel was a dream fulfilled: in Mrs J's case, a dream she did not know she had...
I've promised Mrs J we'll so it again for her next fiftieth birthday...
(*) That is not a euphemism ...
Very nice. I am glad you enjoyed the Nash Terraces. They are sublime
Meh. They're identikit housing. No individuality...
Fascinatingly, that was one of the accusations levelled by Victorians against Georgian housing. "It's all the same". So Victorians wanted more ornamentation - stained glass, weird balconies, ornate cornices, etc
The postwar era remains an abominable stain, however. It is probably the only architectural era, esp in housing, which has not improved over time. We are now many many decades from the housing and townscapes of the 50s and 60s, and they STILL look like shit
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
Are you suggesting that Donald J Trump, the most successful business man in the history of the universe, a man who fought his way up with nothing more than a small loan of a million dollars, and who famously run casinos as they had never been run before, does not understand how international trade works?
How very dare you sir!
Yes, Donald J Trump. That guy, the guy who... er.... got elected to the most powerful position on earth. Twice
What a thicko
Plenty of very intelligent people don't understand international finance.
And plenty of incredibly dumb people get elected to even very high offices. Have you ever read the speeches of Warren G. Harding?
Edit - and the point I was actually making, although I realise a man who doesn't understand how his washing machine works may not have fully grasped it, is that Trump isn't actually much good at business. I don't think that's a controversial point. He's lost several fortunes and it has become very clear he rebuilt himself each time through fraud and graft, later through reality TV and finally through being elected President and milking the office for all it's worth.
Trump is a senile loon.
The president is calling for the prosecution of Beyoncé…for something that did not happen.
It’s not like a dispute of fact. He’s calling for her to be charged with a crime over a nonexistent payment conjured up by supporters on social media. https://x.com/ddale8/status/1949502176759349336
Leon continues to believe that he possesses a high IQ.
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
Are you suggesting that Donald J Trump, the most successful business man in the history of the universe, a man who fought his way up with nothing more than a small loan of a million dollars, and who famously run casinos as they had never been run before, does not understand how international trade works?
How very dare you sir!
Yes, Donald J Trump. That guy, the guy who... er.... got elected to the most powerful position on earth. Twice
What a thicko
Is there any correlation between electoral success and IQ ?
In an advanced mature democracy like the USA, very very much Yes
The inability of PB to grasp this is fucking dreary. And, indeed, sad evidence of PB's intellectual mediocrity
Trump is many bad things: an egotist, a narcissist, a pus*y grabber, a wanker, a blowhard, a tit, possibly a rapist, certainly a toad of the first water. He is probably unfit to be POTUS and he might deserve to be in jail. But he is also notably clever and cunning, and he knows how to game the American electoral system. And he's often very sharp, and quite often rather funny
Sorry
He is as thick as two short planks and incredibly ignorant. How many examples of utterly stupid things he has said do you need. The list of his ignorant utterances is endless.
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
The EU - that is, the economic actor that is the institutions of the EU - does not buy cars or oil or gas.
The EU can no more force its citizens to purchase US cars than I can make certain PBers like pineapple on pizza.
The same is true for energy.
Crude oil, LNG cargoes, middle distillates and the like are purchased by power generators, refiners and chains of petrol stations. They are not bought centrally by the government and distributed accordingly.
Now, that doesn't mean that the government can't facilitate trade. They can subsidise the building of LNG import terminals, or allow new oil pipeline to run from Milford Haven, or the like. But they can't force economic actors to do things against their best interest.
And they certainly can't make French consumers buy US made cars. (And what US made cars would they buy anyway? The US automaker all have massive European manufacturing facilities, because holding and moving inventory around the world is expensive.)
The MAGA crowd think that the sun shines out of Trump's arse, so every MWh of solar generated in the EU counts as an import from the USA.
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
The EU - that is, the economic actor that is the institutions of the EU - does not buy cars or oil or gas.
The EU can no more force its citizens to purchase US cars than I can make certain PBers like pineapple on pizza.
The same is true for energy.
Crude oil, LNG cargoes, middle distillates and the like are purchased by power generators, refiners and chains of petrol stations. They are not bought centrally by the government and distributed accordingly.
Now, that doesn't mean that the government can't facilitate trade. They can subsidise the building of LNG import terminals, or allow new oil pipeline to run from Milford Haven, or the like. But they can't force economic actors to do things against their best interest.
And they certainly can't make French consumers buy US made cars. (And what US made cars would they buy anyway? The US automaker all have massive European manufacturing facilities, because holding and moving inventory around the world is expensive.)
The MAGA crowd think that the sun shines out of Trump's arse, so every MWh of solar generated in the EU counts as an import from the USA.
Tbf, he also produces enough hot air to power the whole of Russia.
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
Are you suggesting that Donald J Trump, the most successful business man in the history of the universe, a man who fought his way up with nothing more than a small loan of a million dollars, and who famously run casinos as they had never been run before, does not understand how international trade works?
How very dare you sir!
Yes, Donald J Trump. That guy, the guy who... er.... got elected to the most powerful position on earth. Twice
What a thicko
Plenty of very intelligent people don't understand international finance.
And plenty of incredibly dumb people get elected to even very high offices. Have you ever read the speeches of Warren G. Harding?
Edit - and the point I was actually making, although I realise a man who doesn't understand how his washing machine works may not have fully grasped it, is that Trump isn't actually much good at business. I don't think that's a controversial point. He's lost several fortunes and it has become very clear he rebuilt himself each time through fraud and graft, later through reality TV and finally through being elected President and milking the office for all it's worth.
Trump is a senile loon.
The president is calling for the prosecution of Beyoncé…for something that did not happen.
It’s not like a dispute of fact. He’s calling for her to be charged with a crime over a nonexistent payment conjured up by supporters on social media. https://x.com/ddale8/status/1949502176759349336
Leon continues to believe that he possesses a high IQ.
Home again (from prison, for the wrongly convicted postmasters?)
No. The football - the round thing in the round parcel - is coming home - the address on the parcel. So the football is coming home. It's a subtle reference to the lyric "football's coming home" from a song about the football coming home in 1996, when it didn't, speaking about when the football came home in 1966, fifty-nine years ago, left, and has wandered the world ever since, being home in other countries than this one and building extensions, repainting the walls, and installing cushions. But now it is back home everything is all right and nobody will be sad again. Happiness for all!
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
Are you suggesting that Donald J Trump, the most successful business man in the history of the universe, a man who fought his way up with nothing more than a small loan of a million dollars, and who famously run casinos as they had never been run before, does not understand how international trade works?
How very dare you sir!
Yes, Donald J Trump. That guy, the guy who... er.... got elected to the most powerful position on earth. Twice
What a thicko
Is there any correlation between electoral success and IQ ?
In an advanced mature democracy like the USA, very very much Yes
The inability of PB to grasp this is fucking dreary. And, indeed, sad evidence of PB's intellectual mediocrity
Trump is many bad things: an egotist, a narcissist, a pus*y grabber, a wanker, a blowhard, a tit, possibly a rapist, certainly a toad of the first water. He is probably unfit to be POTUS and he might deserve to be in jail. But he is also notably clever and cunning, and he knows how to game the American electoral system. And he's often very sharp, and quite often rather funny
Sorry
He is as thick as two short planks and incredibly ignorant. How many examples of utterly stupid things he has said do you need. The list of his ignorant utterances is endless.
You are so gullible.
I mean, what does one do with stupidity like this?
I guess, ignore it?
I shall do you a favour and ignore you from now on, whatever you say
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
Are you suggesting that Donald J Trump, the most successful business man in the history of the universe, a man who fought his way up with nothing more than a small loan of a million dollars, and who famously run casinos as they had never been run before, does not understand how international trade works?
How very dare you sir!
Yes, Donald J Trump. That guy, the guy who... er.... got elected to the most powerful position on earth. Twice
What a thicko
Plenty of very intelligent people don't understand international finance.
And plenty of incredibly dumb people get elected to even very high offices. Have you ever read the speeches of Warren G. Harding?
Edit - and the point I was actually making, although I realise a man who doesn't understand how his washing machine works may not have fully grasped it, is that Trump isn't actually much good at business. I don't think that's a controversial point. He's lost several fortunes and it has become very clear he rebuilt himself each time through fraud and graft, later through reality TV and finally through being elected President and milking the office for all it's worth.
Trump is a senile loon.
The president is calling for the prosecution of Beyoncé…for something that did not happen.
It’s not like a dispute of fact. He’s calling for her to be charged with a crime over a nonexistent payment conjured up by supporters on social media. https://x.com/ddale8/status/1949502176759349336
Leon continues to believe that he possesses a high IQ.
That's enormously advantageous to EU carmakers, given that US car makers are struggling with massive tariffs on steel and aluminum, and auto parts. It will almost certainly be cheaper to build cars in the EU and export them to the US, than to build them in the US
Spencer Hakimian @SpencerHakimian *TRUMP: EU AGREES TO PURCHASE $750B OF AMERICAN ENERGY ANNUALLY
The European Union doesn’t even consume $600B of energy per year.
Home again (from prison, for the wrongly convicted postmasters?)
No. The football - the round thing in the round parcel - is coming home - the address on the parcel. So the football is coming home. It's a subtle reference to the lyric "football's coming home" from a song about the football coming home in 1996, when it didn't, speaking about when the football came home in 1966, fifty-nine years ago, left, and has wandered the world ever since, being home in other countries than this one and building extensions, repainting the walls, and installing cushions. But now it is back home everything is all right and nobody will be sad again. Happiness for all!
Points 1 and 4 seem to be at odds with each other. Point 2, “up to” covers a multitude of sins but the EU is already substituting for Russian gas. Point 3 probably means the German car makers will build new plants in America rather than more Cadillacs on autobahns. Point 4, see point 2.
Underyling all this is a fundamental misconception.
Are you suggesting that Donald J Trump, the most successful business man in the history of the universe, a man who fought his way up with nothing more than a small loan of a million dollars, and who famously run casinos as they had never been run before, does not understand how international trade works?
How very dare you sir!
Yes, Donald J Trump. That guy, the guy who... er.... got elected to the most powerful position on earth. Twice
What a thicko
Is there any correlation between electoral success and IQ ?
There's a fair bit of confounding on the relationship between any sort of success and IQ. Desire is probably more important, and many of the smartest people have decided to play a different game. (This isn't always wise, since it lets people like Trump take the crown.)
Or as a really smart guy once said,
Don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this [performing brilliant satirical songs] for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be making, oh, 3000 dollars a year just teaching.
For your excellent combination of two topics of note, you win PB tonight. Nice one.
Comments
I expect it's a sane calculated balance for Xi: he will want to be seen as the man who reunited China (*). But he also wants to keep lots of that lovely trade with the west.
Putin made that calculation twice. In 2014 he was correct. In 2022, less so.
(*) Which, as someone said below, might be why he tries elsewhere.
What was wrong with the first penalty - the Finnish commentary here is impenetrable
The teams are quite evenly matched, with both extremely strong in the batting lineup, and both a bit light in the bowling.
Still, it’s always sad when a key game gets settled like that
England do not seem to have had the rub of the refereeing.
England's Lottie Woad delivered a statement victory on her professional debut at the Women's Scottish Open as a final-round 68 secured her second tour win.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/articles/cdd371z8pllo
A good day for England's lady sportsmen.
Our goalkeeper was the difference between the two teams ?
Spencer Hakimian
@SpencerHakimian
*TRUMP: EU AGREES TO PURCHASE $750B OF AMERICAN ENERGY ANNUALLY
The European Union doesn’t even consume $600B of energy per year.
There's a huge difference between the Trump spin and the real world.
Do gongs come in cornflakes packets now ?
EDIT: Okay, I've had some of the even money on Betfair. Chloe Kelly is great, but it has to be Rory.
And her exuberant, uncomplicated attitude to playing - and to life generally - is just wonderful.
So that deserves a gong. Nah.
The EU - that is, the economic actor that is the institutions of the EU - does not buy cars or oil or gas.
The EU can no more force its citizens to purchase US cars than I can make certain PBers like pineapple on pizza.
The same is true for energy.
Crude oil, LNG cargoes, middle distillates and the like are purchased by power generators, refiners and chains of petrol stations. They are not bought centrally by the government and distributed accordingly.
Now, that doesn't mean that the government can't facilitate trade. They can subsidise the building of LNG import terminals, or allow new oil pipeline to run from Milford Haven, or the like. But they can't force economic actors to do things against their best interest.
And they certainly can't make French consumers buy US made cars. (And what US made cars would they buy anyway? The US automaker all have massive European manufacturing facilities, because holding and moving inventory around the world is expensive.)
How very dare you sir!
Here's the thing. Total (not just EU) exports of US LNG are just .. checks ... $40bn/year. Even if it was all sent to the EU, and the total amount doubled (which is cleary impossible given that LNG export terminals take many years to build), it still wouldn't get anywhere close,
Pitch and quickly softening ball have not favoured the bowlers on either side.
Rest in peace sir and thanks for the many decades of both delight and insight.
It was a significant birthday for Mrs J this weekend, so I got childcare in for our son, and took her down to London (*) . Three decades ago, I would travel from St Pancras to Derby on the train. At that time St Pancras was faded grandeur; the glass of Barlow's trainshed greyed out with ancient smoke; the hotel's exterior refurbished in the 1980s, but the interior decayed, abandoned and inaccessible. The stench of diesel filled the air within the vast trainshed, as if a vast mechanical lung was exhaling within. I used to climb up the steps from King's Cross and stand, awe-struck at Scott's fantastical exterior.
Roll on to this weekend, and I decided to book us in for the night at the refurbished hotel. It was expensive, and I booked a room in the modern Barlow extension, but it was still the St Pancras hotel. We arrived, and we had been upgraded from a room to a suite in the original hotel.
A suite. It was massive. And our windows looked down over the coach ramp and the Euston Road. we danced around the rooms. We failed to find any convenient plugs. We glided up *that* staircase. We dared not sing 'Wannabe'.
We had our meals in the Booking Office; somewhere I used to go to buy tickets back home to my parents'. Now restored, but also perhaps having lost a certain something: purpose and decreptiude?
By nature, I am tight. I don't particularly like spending money. But this weekend was brilliant. We got taxis everywhere, to Fortnum's for afternoon tea (a very rare treat), and then the theatre. Normally, we would either walk or get the tube. But this weekend, I spent.
Even today's chaos on the ECML did not stop us: instead of waiting amongst the thousands at Kings Cross for a train back to Sr Neots, we took a train to Bedford, and got a taxi the rest of the way.
London was also at its best: electric cars were far more common than they are up here, and the air felt remarkably clean. We walked through NW1, seeing terraces of the non-identical Nash buildings that @Leon witters on about. Runners reigned in Regent's Park. The only negative were the homeless; far more prevalent on the Euston Road than litter.
We rarely do this sort of thing, but it's scarcity made it even more special. And staying at the St Pancras Hotel was a dream fulfilled: in Mrs J's case, a dream she did not know she had...
I've promised Mrs J we'll so it again for her next fiftieth birthday...
(*) That is not a euphemism ...
I got "An Evening Wasted with.." one Christmas when I was a kid.
Sometimes I don't give my mother sufficient appreciation.
Three dead in German derailment. Fallen tree suspected...
The most likely intervention - and the US has wargamed this multiple times - is long range air strikes against a Chinese blockade or invasion fleet.
Ultimately though both attacks have fallen victim to Bazball pitches. An older style pitch was meant to break down and become harder to play on. This one was an absolute road, givevor take the odd ball. People laud Lara’s great knock but that one might as well have been played on the M1, so road like was the pitch. Same here. Buckets of runs but in the end a tame draw.
Somewhere the balance needs to be adjusted.
What a thicko
(see 2nd picture down at https://thetravelista.net/home/restaurant-reviews/winter-indulgence-booking-office-london/ )
And plenty of incredibly dumb people get elected to even very high offices. Have you ever read the speeches of Warren G. Harding?
Edit - and the point I was actually making, although I realise a man who doesn't understand how his washing machine works may not have fully grasped it, is that Trump isn't actually much good at business. I don't think that's a controversial point. He's lost several fortunes and it has become very clear he rebuilt himself each time through fraud and graft, later through reality TV and finally through being elected President and milking the office for all it's worth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SJnSmQCxkg&t=1s
The inability of PB to grasp this is fucking dreary. And, indeed, sad evidence of PB's intellectual mediocrity
Trump is many bad things: an egotist, a narcissist, a pus*y grabber, a wanker, a blowhard, a tit, possibly a rapist, certainly a toad of the first water. He is probably unfit to be POTUS and he might deserve to be in jail. But he is also notably clever and cunning, and he knows how to game the American electoral system. And he's often very sharp, and quite often rather funny
Sorry
#LLMLivesMatter
Or as a really smart guy once said,
Don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this [performing brilliant satirical songs] for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be making, oh, 3000 dollars a year just teaching.
The postwar era remains an abominable stain, however. It is probably the only architectural era, esp in housing, which has not improved over time. We are now many many decades from the housing and townscapes of the 50s and 60s, and they STILL look like shit
The president is calling for the prosecution of Beyoncé…for something that did not happen.
It’s not like a dispute of fact. He’s calling for her to be charged with a crime over a nonexistent payment conjured up by supporters on social media.
https://x.com/ddale8/status/1949502176759349336
Leon continues to believe that he possesses a high IQ.
You are so gullible.
Every time I think "OK Trump is gaga" the next day he comes out and he's sharp and witty, in his dry sardonic way
Biden was just relentless decline, from 2020 on
Trump is really quite old, so one day the years will catch up, but I'm not sure that's happening yet
I guess, ignore it?
I shall do you a favour and ignore you from now on, whatever you say
You are trying to bore me into leaving the site. Got it
No wonder Trump is happy.