Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
So why are they hiding? If they have the technology to make interstellar travel possible they surely have absolutely nothing to fear from us. Why would they be sneaking about watching the equivalent of some canoeing by tribesmen from their gunship? You'd think, having come all that way, they might want to say hi.
The Prime Directive. General Order 1: "No starship may interfere with the normal development of any alien life or society."
On topic surely the better bet is election winner than democratic nominee. Hard to see which Republicans beat him, whereas several Democratic candidates including Harris could get beat.
It amuses me that you think this story will have no bearing on who the next president will be.
It has a bearing, believers will flock to the Republicans and that will put off the majority who will vote Democrat. Anyway aliens are ineligible to run for President, whether illegal aliens or intergalactic ones.
We need to consider which well-known politicians may turn out to secretly be...non-natural citizens.
This sort of comment of course has always been seen in jest. But the truth is, the formal knowledge (rather than the belief) that these things are flying around us will raise many uncomfortable questions.
This is true, and you might be proven right. But normalcy when it comes to alien existence has survived decades of UFO theorists insisting that the truth will soon be revealed, so I'm hedging my bets on that side.
This is true but it’s now gone beyond the crank UFO conspiracists to the central instruments of US government. Biden may decide the best course is to do what they did in 2020, release a few bits and bobs of military surveillance without explanation. And hope no one much notices. Let the ex officials say what they want but nothing from a serving cabinet minister or advisor.
The difference this time is that Congress has the bit between its teeth and will likely demand to know why the Executive is so confident that China or Russia isn’t flying over US nuclear bases with impunity.
From personal experience, as I approach 83 lots of bits of my body don't seem to work quite as well as Once Upon a Time. Nothing serious, just a general 'not as quickly as once'. I think, although others may disagree, that my mind is no worse than it was, but I do find myself taking note of my body and, at least sometimes, thinking a bit more carefully about what I'm doing or saying.
My hearing isn't as good now, though, nor is my ability to balance. I find myself grabbing support more often. And I really must sell my bicycle. The thought that I might ride it again worries my wife.
I can't remember what it used to be like...
Get a tricycle, and keep sleeping upstairs. Once you stop being active, it can all go very quickly indeed.
Happened to mum.
Yes, to my mum too - she had a fall, decided to stay in bed nearly all the time for some weeks, and in no time she was unable to get out.
But I also agree with OKC about the mind - my dad said when he was in his late 60s that he didn't feel different from when he was 40, except a bit less energetic. Short of actual illness, I think that's the general experience. Sometimes inconvenient too - your idea of who's attractive to you settles when you're 35-40, and you don't instinctively adjust to start fancying septuagenarians (and need to remember that the 40-year-olds will feel the same about you).
Also, if your physical health goes badly downhill, there's a real problem - my uncle has advanced Parkinson's, and can barely speak,but when he can get something out it's as calm, intelligent and perceptive as ever. It's heart-breaking to see (by video link as he's a long way away) as there seems nothing to be done - his nursing home has put him on light tranquillisers, and maybe that's the least bad option, getting stronger towards the end?
she got a green certificate as a result without which she would not have been able to travel. It was apparently very common and the airline would not even let you fly if you didn't have the certificate.
Proof of vaccination before being allowed into countries is nothing new.
Very true, and of course there was much more compulsory isolation etc.
I am satisfied if there are short sunset clauses and as little extension as possible. I might even be persuadable of an ID card (yes, I know).
My comment here is about the unlikelihood of powers being withdrawn in the EU. The foundational ethos is "Ever Closer Union", and the establishment mean it.
I do not see them giving competencies back, but the centre is a dog's' dinner. So either bloat followed by eventual fracture as it turns into an elephant balancing on a toadstool, or necessary and painful reform.
Which way will it go?
But we are probably decades from either eventuality.
Yes.
I've been interested by reactions to the "future of Europe" conference, where there is very much a divide between the "old core" and the new peripheries.
The peripheralists came up with a paper, and the bewailings from the Brussels' correspondents were astonishing.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2020/12/14/relaunch-or-disintegration-what-covid-19-means-for-the-future-of-europe/ The Covid-19 epidemic has been a testing time for the European Union, and for much of the world. Some see it as a pivotal experience for the EU, accelerating European integration in unexpected ways. Others see the epidemic as draining power from Brussels to national capitals, as states, and even regions and cities are the prime actors in efforts to bolster public health.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
You seem aptly-named...
Go and watch what is being said in America on national TV by very senior government figures. The US public is being softened up. In the UK there’s almost zero media coverage of these quite startling and unsettling revelations, I can only assume due to a D Notice. What it does mean is people like your good self are going to be even more shocked if the Americans make full disclosure because you’re not seeing it coming.
We have had four years of very senior government figures saying incredibly stupid things.
Likely scenarios:
There are aliens and they have not found us. There are aliens and they have found us but do not get involved as we are irrelevant to them. There are no aliens.
Unlikely scenarios:
There are aliens and they have kept quiet up to now, but will suddenly cause mass interference with the planet in the next 4 years.
You’re missing the point. We could only but guess about the intentions of whoever/whatever is flying these craft. The key story is that organs of the US government are ALREADY saying they do not have air superiority even over their own nuclear bases. It amazes me how many people do not see this as the only story really worth talking about.
When the US government concludes, “don’t worry about it, they’re not from round here”, might that not cause a seismic change to society?
From personal experience, as I approach 83 lots of bits of my body don't seem to work quite as well as Once Upon a Time. Nothing serious, just a general 'not as quickly as once'. I think, although others may disagree, that my mind is no worse than it was, but I do find myself taking note of my body and, at least sometimes, thinking a bit more carefully about what I'm doing or saying.
My hearing isn't as good now, though, nor is my ability to balance. I find myself grabbing support more often. And I really must sell my bicycle. The thought that I might ride it again worries my wife.
I can't remember what it used to be like...
Get a tricycle, and keep sleeping upstairs. Once you stop being active, it can all go very quickly indeed.
Happened to mum.
Yes, to my mum too - she had a fall, decided to stay in bed nearly all the time for some weeks, and in no time she was unable to get out.
But I also agree with OKC about the mind - my dad said when he was in his late 60s that he didn't feel different from when he was 40, except a bit less energetic. Short of actual illness, I think that's the general experience. Sometimes inconvenient too - your idea of who's attractive to you settles when you're 35-40, and you don't instinctively adjust to start fancying septuagenarians (and need to remember that the 40-year-olds will feel the same about you).
Also, if your physical health goes badly downhill, there's a real problem - my uncle has advanced Parkinson's, and can barely speak,but when he can get something out it's as calm, intelligent and perceptive as ever. It's heart-breaking to see (by video link as he's a long way away) as there seems nothing to be done - his nursing home has put him on light tranquillisers, and maybe that's the least bad option, getting stronger towards the end?
A very good friend's mum used to go shopping in central Surbiton in the 1980s on a trike.
I totally understand the rationale for the play. However, nobody will touch the Tories with a 20 foot poll. Last time there was an understanding between the Unionist parties there was a collapse in their support and a spike in the SNP's.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
You seem aptly-named...
Go and watch what is being said in America on national TV by very senior government figures. The US public is being softened up. In the UK there’s almost zero media coverage of these quite startling and unsettling revelations, I can only assume due to a D Notice. What it does mean is people like your good self are going to be even more shocked if the Americans make full disclosure because you’re not seeing it coming.
We have had four years of very senior government figures saying incredibly stupid things.
Likely scenarios:
There are aliens and they have not found us. There are aliens and they have found us but do not get involved as we are irrelevant to them. There are no aliens.
Unlikely scenarios:
There are aliens and they have kept quiet up to now, but will suddenly cause mass interference with the planet in the next 4 years.
You’re missing the point. We could only but guess about the intentions of whoever/whatever is flying these craft. The key story is that organs of the US government are ALREADY saying they do not have air superiority even over their own nuclear bases. It amazes me how many people do not see this as the only story really worth talking about.
When the US government concludes, “don’t worry about it, they’re not from round here”, might that not cause a seismic change to society?
To be honest, if aliens decide to do a few flyovers on Earth each year to build up their version of intergalactic maps or whatever they are supposedly doing I absolutely couldnt care less. I just want to be able to meet friends and family, travel and do things again.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
You seem aptly-named...
Go and watch what is being said in America on national TV by very senior government figures. The US public is being softened up. In the UK there’s almost zero media coverage of these quite startling and unsettling revelations, I can only assume due to a D Notice. What it does mean is people like your good self are going to be even more shocked if the Americans make full disclosure because you’re not seeing it coming.
We have had four years of very senior government figures saying incredibly stupid things.
Likely scenarios:
There are aliens and they have not found us. There are aliens and they have found us but do not get involved as we are irrelevant to them. There are no aliens.
Unlikely scenarios:
There are aliens and they have kept quiet up to now, but will suddenly cause mass interference with the planet in the next 4 years.
You’re missing the point. We could only but guess about the intentions of whoever/whatever is flying these craft. The key story is that organs of the US government are ALREADY saying they do not have air superiority even over their own nuclear bases. It amazes me how many people do not see this as the only story really worth talking about.
When the US government concludes, “don’t worry about it, they’re not from round here”, might that not cause a seismic change to society?
To be honest, if aliens decide to do a few flyovers on Earth each year to build up their version of intergalactic maps or whatever they are supposedly doing I absolutely couldnt care less. I just want to be able to meet friends and family, travel and do things again.
I don’t think that’s an unusual position to be honest.
I totally understand the rationale for the play. However, nobody will touch the Tories with a 20 foot poll. Last time there was an understanding between the Unionist parties there was a collapse in their support and a spike in the SNP's.
The best way is to fight their own campaigns and let some tactical voting happen naturally
If my wife and I were in Scotland in May we would tactically vote anyway
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
So why are they hiding? If they have the technology to make interstellar travel possible they surely have absolutely nothing to fear from us. Why would they be sneaking about watching the equivalent of some canoeing by tribesmen from their gunship? You'd think, having come all that way, they might want to say hi.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
Stock markets looking like a sell for May this year, then? As if the virus and the possible Taiwan confrontation weren't concerns enough.
Sell in May and go away?
In a world of QE and most assets in bubbles, sell into what?
The stock market may be inflated beyond "normal reality" but for a sustained crash doesn't something have to be better value? Not sure what that is, unless it is simply cash and a guaranteed loss each year, and that doesn't sound like something todays generations will accept.
In the (hypothetical) case of a crash, people will just sell, and not worry about what to buy instead. Traditionally the sign of an impending crash was when people unaccustomed to investment started asking questions about it. The fact that so many people have their cash in markets for want of any interest-bearing alternative is actually an additional risk factor.
I just spoke to my parents, they’re off this morning to meet for the first time their new grandson, my nephew, who’s eight weeks old. And it’s a sunny day for them.
All is good in the world - or at least getting slowly better.
I totally understand the rationale for the play. However, nobody will touch the Tories with a 20 foot poll. Last time there was an understanding between the Unionist parties there was a collapse in their support and a spike in the SNP's.
I can see why the SCons would like it to happen but SLab have their tails up (based on reality or not), so why should they taint themselves? The SCons just look weak and it once again demonstrates that for years that they literally have had no policy offer other than no to Indyref2.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
So why are they hiding? If they have the technology to make interstellar travel possible they surely have absolutely nothing to fear from us. Why would they be sneaking about watching the equivalent of some canoeing by tribesmen from their gunship? You'd think, having come all that way, they might want to say hi.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
Or more likely there are glitches in equipment, people making mis-identifications and mistakes, and an awful lot of people 'want tot believe'.
I'd love it to be true, but just don't think it is. Sorry. Best chance of alien life in our lifetimes - somewhere else in the solar system, possible Jupiter's moons.
From personal experience, as I approach 83 lots of bits of my body don't seem to work quite as well as Once Upon a Time. Nothing serious, just a general 'not as quickly as once'. I think, although others may disagree, that my mind is no worse than it was, but I do find myself taking note of my body and, at least sometimes, thinking a bit more carefully about what I'm doing or saying.
My hearing isn't as good now, though, nor is my ability to balance. I find myself grabbing support more often. And I really must sell my bicycle. The thought that I might ride it again worries my wife.
I can't remember what it used to be like...
Get a tricycle, and keep sleeping upstairs. Once you stop being active, it can all go very quickly indeed.
Happened to mum.
Yes, to my mum too - she had a fall, decided to stay in bed nearly all the time for some weeks, and in no time she was unable to get out.
But I also agree with OKC about the mind - my dad said when he was in his late 60s that he didn't feel different from when he was 40, except a bit less energetic. Short of actual illness, I think that's the general experience. Sometimes inconvenient too - your idea of who's attractive to you settles when you're 35-40, and you don't instinctively adjust to start fancying septuagenarians (and need to remember that the 40-year-olds will feel the same about you).
Also, if your physical health goes badly downhill, there's a real problem - my uncle has advanced Parkinson's, and can barely speak,but when he can get something out it's as calm, intelligent and perceptive as ever. It's heart-breaking to see (by video link as he's a long way away) as there seems nothing to be done - his nursing home has put him on light tranquillisers, and maybe that's the least bad option, getting stronger towards the end?
Google the Otago programme. Was hugely successful in New Zealand, reducing falls and other injuries among the elderly by a simple exercise programme including such stuff as standing on one leg and walking backwards around a chair (edit/ not at the same time!). It's supposed to be being adopted by the NHS but I haven't seen much since the initial announcement.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
So why are they hiding? If they have the technology to make interstellar travel possible they surely have absolutely nothing to fear from us. Why would they be sneaking about watching the equivalent of some canoeing by tribesmen from their gunship? You'd think, having come all that way, they might want to say hi.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
Stock markets looking like a sell for May this year, then? As if the virus and the possible Taiwan confrontation weren't concerns enough.
Sell in May and go away?
In a world of QE and most assets in bubbles, sell into what?
The stock market may be inflated beyond "normal reality" but for a sustained crash doesn't something have to be better value? Not sure what that is, unless it is simply cash and a guaranteed loss each year, and that doesn't sound like something todays generations will accept.
In the (hypothetical) case of a crash, people will just sell, and not worry about what to buy instead. Traditionally the sign of an impending crash was when people unaccustomed to investment started asking questions about it. The fact that so many people have their cash in markets for want of any interest-bearing alternative is actually an additional risk factor.
Sure, and that happened last March, but it wasnt a sustained crash, not because the economy was doing fantastically or future dividend flows looked secure, but imo at least was reversed because of further QE and that the alternatives to the stock market were either worse or guaranteeing a loss with cash. It is hard for asset managers to make a living if they suggest park it in cash.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
You seem aptly-named...
Go and watch what is being said in America on national TV by very senior government figures. The US public is being softened up. In the UK there’s almost zero media coverage of these quite startling and unsettling revelations, I can only assume due to a D Notice. What it does mean is people like your good self are going to be even more shocked if the Americans make full disclosure because you’re not seeing it coming.
I'll be pleasantly surprised. An interesting turn of events!
Of course it's not possible to be certain. But the US has a history of implausible belief in strange flying objects even in the semi-mainstream. You don't have to look far in the GOP to find people who think the UN uses black helicopters to spy on them.
People don't walk away from positions of great power and so I have little doubt that Biden intends to run again so long as his health holds up. IMO it won't, but this is nothing more than a hunch and a rather unwelcome one too, so let's not pursue.
The bet I like the most for WH24 is laying Donald Trump. America has been there, done that. It was emotional for everyone. It was crazy in every sense of the word. It's not the sort of thing you do twice.
Hope you have switched to laying election winner only and come out of republican nominee? For disclosure I am red on him election winner, green the nominee.
I'm laying both - but I agree the really safe lay is for the Presidency.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
I'm not sure either Rubio or a Trump appointee (previously only known for being one of the most conservative members of Congress and lying on his cv) are particularly credible. Anyway what Ratcliffe said is some things are "hard to explain" "hard to explain" isn't the same as "it must be aliens" unless you are Rimmer from Red Dwarf.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
I'm not sure either Rubio or a Trump appointee (previously only known for being one of the most conservative members of Congress and lying on his cv) are particularly credible. Anyway what Ratcliffe said is some things are "hard to explain" "hard to explain" isn't the same as "it must be aliens" unless you are Rimmer from Red Dwarf.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
So why are they hiding? If they have the technology to make interstellar travel possible they surely have absolutely nothing to fear from us. Why would they be sneaking about watching the equivalent of some canoeing by tribesmen from their gunship? You'd think, having come all that way, they might want to say hi.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
One thing I've mulled over a while now. I'm a huge Fortean Time fan, have been all my life. I'm fascinated by anything out of the normal. Ghosts I believe can be explained as misperception (the mind telling stories on limited input, such as the old woman in white my aunt saw, when I saw a barn owl). Poltergeists on the other hand I am drawn too the presence of usually teenage or early adolescent girls. Are they skilled pranksters? Probably, but there is huge testimony around poltergeist cases. Cryptozoology is also fascinating, whether it is the survival of presumed extinct species such as the thylacine (plausible) or Nessie beine a plesiosaur (less plausible). As a resident of Warminster, I live in a once famous UFO hot spot. Reading the literature there is nothing there that cannot be rationally explained, like a report of glowing orange orbs that seem to jump hugely in space (more likely flares thatr extinguish and are replace by new ones). My mulling is based on the ever greater number of cameras to hand everywhere. How many ABC's have been reported where if only a camera was on hand could we finally have proof? Well now most everyone has them, and yet the evidence is hardly overwhelming. Same for UFO's.
I'd love to be wrong, but the modern age is making the world a less strange place in many ways...
she got a green certificate as a result without which she would not have been able to travel. It was apparently very common and the airline would not even let you fly if you didn't have the certificate.
Proof of vaccination before being allowed into countries is nothing new.
Very true, and of course there was much more compulsory isolation etc.
I am satisfied if there are short sunset clauses and as little extension as possible. I might even be persuadable of an ID card (yes, I know).
My comment here is about the unlikelihood of powers being withdrawn in the EU. The foundational ethos is "Ever Closer Union", and the establishment mean it.
I do not see them giving competencies back, but the centre is a dog's' dinner. So either bloat followed by eventual fracture as it turns into an elephant balancing on a toadstool, or necessary and painful reform.
Which way will it go?
But we are probably decades from either eventuality.
Yes.
I've been interested by reactions to the "future of Europe" conference, where there is very much a divide between the "old core" and the new peripheries.
The peripheralists came up with a paper, and the bewailings from the Brussels' correspondents were astonishing.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2020/12/14/relaunch-or-disintegration-what-covid-19-means-for-the-future-of-europe/ The Covid-19 epidemic has been a testing time for the European Union, and for much of the world. Some see it as a pivotal experience for the EU, accelerating European integration in unexpected ways. Others see the epidemic as draining power from Brussels to national capitals, as states, and even regions and cities are the prime actors in efforts to bolster public health.
An interesting point in the LSE piece:
An ECFR opinion poll last year showed that more than half the respondents in 14 countries believed that the EU is likely to collapse within a generation, even though a majority said that they themselves supported the European project.
The EU will continue centralising, quicker or slower according to crisis.
One day it will face a crisis of legitimacy, but it’s impossible to predict when.
A Len Pen Presidency in France could perhaps hasten this crisis.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
I'm not sure either Rubio or a Trump appointee (previously only known for being one of the most conservative members of Congress and lying on his cv) are particularly credible. Anyway what Ratcliffe said is some things are "hard to explain" "hard to explain" isn't the same as "it must be aliens" unless you are Rimmer from Red Dwarf.
The aliens duplicated your post to reduce your CREDIBILITY!!! What more PROOF do you need????
To be honest this is a matter for the insurance industry to resolve, not UK taxpayers
So people have organised a festival, sold out all the tickets, and *then* realised they couldn’t get insurance against a pandemic which has been in the news for the past year?
Small businesses have reported a marked drop in exports to the EU as another company bemoaned the post-Brexit “nightmare” of delivery delays and increased costs.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), a lobby group, said 35 of the 132 exporters it surveyed had temporarily suspended trade with the EU or stopped it permanently. One in 10 of the exporters surveyed said they were also considering giving up trade with EU customers.
Some smaller business have been badly affected by the overnight change in trade rules on 31 December, with new paperwork and a rush to secure delivery space causing widespread delays and extra costs. UK exports to the EU fell by 41% in January, according to government figures.
There was another report I read over the weekend of a Cheese company who had been vocal enough expressing his frustration on Twitter to get a government minister to ring him. The government said nothing would change to make export to the EU viable again, but had he considered the huge opportunities exporting to places like Canada?
The Tories - formerly the party of business - don't understand how business works. "Can't just just trade with x" is a stupid question. If trade with x was preferable or more profitable or even viable compared to trade with the EU they would already be doing so. Just because the Tories have torpedoed these company's ability to have an export trade with their biggest market doesn't miraculously remove the massive barriers to trade with the rest of the world.
It’s all ME! ME! ME! isn’t it though?
The electorate decided they wanted a different relationship with the EU. It would be great if we could continue to trade with the EU on historical terms while in this new relationship structure.
But if the EU doesn’t want to - as is their right - and the UK doesn’t want to - as is their right - then what the government minister said is absolutely right.
Why should the convenience of their blessed cheese maker be more significant than the wishes of the electorate as a whole?
Can anyone point me to a good and detailed account of the cartoon imbroglio at Batley Grammar School?
I'm really interested in the content of the lesson, and the particular cartoons published - which seem to be from one of the Charlie Hebdo sets.
But we seem to have the usual rabbit hole - "we are going to spend ages talking about this, but it's sooooooooooooooooooo offensive that we will not show the picture / read out the tweet" etc.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
So why are they hiding? If they have the technology to make interstellar travel possible they surely have absolutely nothing to fear from us. Why would they be sneaking about watching the equivalent of some canoeing by tribesmen from their gunship? You'd think, having come all that way, they might want to say hi.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
One thing I've mulled over a while now. I'm a huge Fortean Time fan, have been all my life. I'm fascinated by anything out of the normal. Ghosts I believe can be explained as misperception (the mind telling stories on limited input, such as the old woman in white my aunt saw, when I saw a barn owl). Poltergeists on the other hand I am drawn too the presence of usually teenage or early adolescent girls. Are they skilled pranksters? Probably, but there is huge testimony around poltergeist cases. Cryptozoology is also fascinating, whether it is the survival of presumed extinct species such as the thylacine (plausible) or Nessie beine a plesiosaur (less plausible). As a resident of Warminster, I live in a once famous UFO hot spot. Reading the literature there is nothing there that cannot be rationally explained, like a report of glowing orange orbs that seem to jump hugely in space (more likely flares thatr extinguish and are replace by new ones). My mulling is based on the ever greater number of cameras to hand everywhere. How many ABC's have been reported where if only a camera was on hand could we finally have proof? Well now most everyone has them, and yet the evidence is hardly overwhelming. Same for UFO's.
I'd love to be wrong, but the modern age is making the world a less strange place in many ways...
The three videos released by the Navy last year combined visual, infrared and radar. And were backed up by multiple credible eye witnesses. The suspicion that there are many such recordings has just been confirmed by the last DNI. And not only that but that there is also satellite imagery to match up with it.
“But but he was in the Trump government and disagrees with me on abortion” says Kamski.
Rubio and others have been careful not to use the words “aliens” or “extra terrestrials” because they know how it makes them sound. So instead they’re stopping just short but openly confirming that the US is not the most advanced proponent of military technology on earth, by a very long way. Harry Reid has gone a little further than the Republicans but people that see every issue through the prism of political affiliation prefer to ignore that.
I've got tickets for The Open at Sandwich on 15 July. I've wondered what the drop dead date is for the in terms of spending money on setting up grandstands etc. The other issue is they use a park and ride system there, which could be problematic if we haven't fully opened by then.
Jeezo, if I’d ever known it I’d forgotten that Broony wanted kids to pledge allegiance to the flag.
Quite an interesting overview of how the UJ has been used and marketed by various governments over the years. Not sure if the current iteration of scatter cushions and the image of a stripped off BJ leaping on a blowsy grifter wrapped in the fleg will sweep the nation.
I've got tickets for The Open at Sandwich on 15 July. I've wondered what the drop dead date is for the in terms of spending money on setting up grandstands etc. The other issue is they use a park and ride system there, which could be problematic if we haven't fully opened by then.
Did you buy them fresh or roll over tickets you had from last year?
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
So why are they hiding? If they have the technology to make interstellar travel possible they surely have absolutely nothing to fear from us. Why would they be sneaking about watching the equivalent of some canoeing by tribesmen from their gunship? You'd think, having come all that way, they might want to say hi.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
One thing I've mulled over a while now. I'm a huge Fortean Time fan, have been all my life. I'm fascinated by anything out of the normal. Ghosts I believe can be explained as misperception (the mind telling stories on limited input, such as the old woman in white my aunt saw, when I saw a barn owl). Poltergeists on the other hand I am drawn too the presence of usually teenage or early adolescent girls. Are they skilled pranksters? Probably, but there is huge testimony around poltergeist cases. Cryptozoology is also fascinating, whether it is the survival of presumed extinct species such as the thylacine (plausible) or Nessie beine a plesiosaur (less plausible). As a resident of Warminster, I live in a once famous UFO hot spot. Reading the literature there is nothing there that cannot be rationally explained, like a report of glowing orange orbs that seem to jump hugely in space (more likely flares thatr extinguish and are replace by new ones). My mulling is based on the ever greater number of cameras to hand everywhere. How many ABC's have been reported where if only a camera was on hand could we finally have proof? Well now most everyone has them, and yet the evidence is hardly overwhelming. Same for UFO's.
I'd love to be wrong, but the modern age is making the world a less strange place in many ways...
The three videos released by the Navy last year combined visual, infrared and radar. And were backed up by multiple credible eye witnesses. The suspicion that there are many such recordings has just been confirmed by the last DNI. And not only that but that there is also satellite imagery to match up with it.
“But but he was in the Trump government and disagrees with me on abortion” says Kamski.
Rubio and others have been careful not to use the words “aliens” or “extra terrestrials” because they know how it makes them sound. So instead they’re stopping just short but openly confirming that the US is not the most advanced proponent of military technology on earth, by a very long way. Harry Reid has gone a little further than the Republicans but people that see every issue through the prism of political affiliation prefer to ignore that.
Credible eye witnesses is a classic fallacy. Its commonly attributed to certain professions so that their testimony gets more weight/belief than others. Police are a good example.
As I said - I'd be delighted, but I just don't think so.
Jeezo, if I’d ever known it I’d forgotten that Broony wanted kids to pledge allegiance to the flag.
Quite an interesting overview of how the UJ has been used and marketed by various governments over the years. Not sure if the current iteration of scatter cushions and the image of a stripped off BJ leaping on a blowsy grifter wrapped in the fleg will sweep the nation.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
So why are they hiding? If they have the technology to make interstellar travel possible they surely have absolutely nothing to fear from us. Why would they be sneaking about watching the equivalent of some canoeing by tribesmen from their gunship? You'd think, having come all that way, they might want to say hi.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
One thing I've mulled over a while now. I'm a huge Fortean Time fan, have been all my life. I'm fascinated by anything out of the normal. Ghosts I believe can be explained as misperception (the mind telling stories on limited input, such as the old woman in white my aunt saw, when I saw a barn owl). Poltergeists on the other hand I am drawn too the presence of usually teenage or early adolescent girls. Are they skilled pranksters? Probably, but there is huge testimony around poltergeist cases. Cryptozoology is also fascinating, whether it is the survival of presumed extinct species such as the thylacine (plausible) or Nessie beine a plesiosaur (less plausible). As a resident of Warminster, I live in a once famous UFO hot spot. Reading the literature there is nothing there that cannot be rationally explained, like a report of glowing orange orbs that seem to jump hugely in space (more likely flares thatr extinguish and are replace by new ones). My mulling is based on the ever greater number of cameras to hand everywhere. How many ABC's have been reported where if only a camera was on hand could we finally have proof? Well now most everyone has them, and yet the evidence is hardly overwhelming. Same for UFO's.
I'd love to be wrong, but the modern age is making the world a less strange place in many ways...
The three videos released by the Navy last year combined visual, infrared and radar. And were backed up by multiple credible eye witnesses. The suspicion that there are many such recordings has just been confirmed by the last DNI. And not only that but that there is also satellite imagery to match up with it.
“But but he was in the Trump government and disagrees with me on abortion” says Kamski.
Rubio and others have been careful not to use the words “aliens” or “extra terrestrials” because they know how it makes them sound. So instead they’re stopping just short but openly confirming that the US is not the most advanced proponent of military technology on earth, by a very long way. Harry Reid has gone a little further than the Republicans but people that see every issue through the prism of political affiliation prefer to ignore that.
Credible eye witnesses is a classic fallacy. Its commonly attributed to certain professions so that their testimony gets more weight/belief than others. Police are a good example.
As I said - I'd be delighted, but I just don't think so.
How to explain the visual and radar data? My friend helped design the software detecting suite used in the USS Theodore Roosevelt videos. He’s a physicist. A sceptic. Said he could not explain it and had no better answer than aliens.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
I think if Biden said "we are not alone in the universe" then that would be proof of dementia, not aliens.
You are saying that because you have not been paying attention and/or you can’t confront the enormity of what’s being said by increasingly senior figures.
Alternatively you add 2 plus 2 together to equal banana.
There are always some people willing to say the truth is out there, doesn't make Mulder and Scully real.
Joe Biden may occasionally sound mentally wayward but at 78 he looks extremely physically fit - fitter than Trump was.
Or, let's put this another way, would anyone seriously doubt that the Queen at 80 should have stood down on health grounds?
Biden also has a 69 year old wife who looks very fit. I think it's a factor to include.
All in all I think Biden will stand again, thus stopping a Democrat internal war.
He’ll be 82 come the start of his second term. He’ll turn 86 just before he would leave office.
I just don’t think it’s credible to have him run again.
When the Queen turned 80 you would presumably have said the same of her at 94? Yet she seems in fine fettle, totally in control of her faculties and managed to give a stirring address to the nation last year.
I think this is all a load of ageist fuss about nothing. Biden seems on good form and going strong.
Whether he lasts through the whole of his second term though is a slightly different matter. The brilliant move would be to stand again, win and then step aside after two years. The mechanisms for that are less assured in the US than the UK but it's possible.
Either way at the moment I think this is just punters rummaging around in the bottom of the barrel. I agree with Pip Moss. Biden will stand again. No reason for him not to.
The Queen is doing far less work now than she was 15 years ago, with William in particular taking up a lot of the slack. These days she seems to do only a few hours ‘work’ a week, and to have stopped travelling abroad. Not surprising given her age.
It is not credible for the President, who has substantial executive duties and will have to attend a huge number of foreign events, to do that.
I think even Biden would pause at the prospect of another 15 years.
For me this is a bet on health. What are the chances of a 78 year old with an extremely stressful and demanding job being fit enough to go again in 3* years time? I think that they are poor. He's already fallen down airplane steps, he wasn't the clearest speaker to start with and things are going to be seriously tough over the next 3 years as America tries to recover from Covid. I can see that he will commit himself to that task as well as focus on getting some of his beloved infrastructure going and not be "distracted" by the campaign to be re-elected.
* 3 because that is when he would need to be committed to running again.
Why would the fact that he's a life long stutterer have any bearing on whether he runs again ?
Jeezo, if I’d ever known it I’d forgotten that Broony wanted kids to pledge allegiance to the flag.
Quite an interesting overview of how the UJ has been used and marketed by various governments over the years. Not sure if the current iteration of scatter cushions and the image of a stripped off BJ leaping on a blowsy grifter wrapped in the fleg will sweep the nation.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
So why are they hiding? If they have the technology to make interstellar travel possible they surely have absolutely nothing to fear from us. Why would they be sneaking about watching the equivalent of some canoeing by tribesmen from their gunship? You'd think, having come all that way, they might want to say hi.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
One thing I've mulled over a while now. I'm a huge Fortean Time fan, have been all my life. I'm fascinated by anything out of the normal. Ghosts I believe can be explained as misperception (the mind telling stories on limited input, such as the old woman in white my aunt saw, when I saw a barn owl). Poltergeists on the other hand I am drawn too the presence of usually teenage or early adolescent girls. Are they skilled pranksters? Probably, but there is huge testimony around poltergeist cases. Cryptozoology is also fascinating, whether it is the survival of presumed extinct species such as the thylacine (plausible) or Nessie beine a plesiosaur (less plausible). As a resident of Warminster, I live in a once famous UFO hot spot. Reading the literature there is nothing there that cannot be rationally explained, like a report of glowing orange orbs that seem to jump hugely in space (more likely flares thatr extinguish and are replace by new ones). My mulling is based on the ever greater number of cameras to hand everywhere. How many ABC's have been reported where if only a camera was on hand could we finally have proof? Well now most everyone has them, and yet the evidence is hardly overwhelming. Same for UFO's.
I'd love to be wrong, but the modern age is making the world a less strange place in many ways...
The three videos released by the Navy last year combined visual, infrared and radar. And were backed up by multiple credible eye witnesses. The suspicion that there are many such recordings has just been confirmed by the last DNI. And not only that but that there is also satellite imagery to match up with it.
“But but he was in the Trump government and disagrees with me on abortion” says Kamski.
Rubio and others have been careful not to use the words “aliens” or “extra terrestrials” because they know how it makes them sound. So instead they’re stopping just short but openly confirming that the US is not the most advanced proponent of military technology on earth, by a very long way. Harry Reid has gone a little further than the Republicans but people that see every issue through the prism of political affiliation prefer to ignore that.
Credible eye witnesses is a classic fallacy. Its commonly attributed to certain professions so that their testimony gets more weight/belief than others. Police are a good example.
As I said - I'd be delighted, but I just don't think so.
How to explain the visual and radar data? My friend helped design the software detecting suite used in the USS Theodore Roosevelt videos. He’s a physicist. A sceptic. Said he could not explain it and had no better answer than aliens.
No better answer does not mean aliens is the right answer though. I know its different but early radar was plagued by 'angels' etc, and now we now much more. The great danger is linking two or three events to fit an explanation. Not sure which 'classic' case it was in the UK, but it might have been Lakenheath-Bentwaters was a good example of this. The danger is taking any evidence and reaching aliens as the answer (very much in the style of Rimmer in Red Dwarf).
The one thing Biden has going for him is the prospect of Trump as the Republican candidate. In those circumstances then I can see Biden playing the “I defeated him last time” card.
But should the republicans look like sorting their shit out, then I think Biden looks like a one term president.
The chances of the latter occurrence are, IMO, minimal.
I've got tickets for The Open at Sandwich on 15 July. I've wondered what the drop dead date is for the in terms of spending money on setting up grandstands etc. The other issue is they use a park and ride system there, which could be problematic if we haven't fully opened by then.
Did you buy them fresh or roll over tickets you had from last year?
Rolled over from last year. I have bought tickets for the India test at Lords in August. Hopefully that should be fine - not like they have to make any decisions until late in the day, unlike The Open.
Arsenal season ticket renewal in May should be interesting. Personally I think the clubs should just wait until they know for sure that we're back to full stadiums.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
I think if Biden said "we are not alone in the universe" then that would be proof of dementia, not aliens.
You are saying that because you have not been paying attention and/or you can’t confront the enormity of what’s being said by increasingly senior figures.
Alternatively you add 2 plus 2 together to equal banana.
There are always some people willing to say the truth is out there, doesn't make Mulder and Scully real.
I have never seen an episode of the X Files or Star Trek. I didn’t have a lot of interest in it until the formal release of unexplainable evidence by the US military and the subsequent public statements by senior officials who have no incentive to lie and every incentive to keep quiet.
I get that you prefer to jest than confront what’s happening. This happened in the Uk and elsewhere with Covid. At a time it was abundantly clear in Asia what was happening, our next king but one was making jokes about having a cough a film premiere and our Prime Minister was shaking hands with covid patients.
Meanwhile some of us were busy preparing our personal and financial affairs so we could make out like bandits on the markets when the penny dropped for everyone else and be as well prepared as possible for what was coming.
Small businesses have reported a marked drop in exports to the EU as another company bemoaned the post-Brexit “nightmare” of delivery delays and increased costs.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), a lobby group, said 35 of the 132 exporters it surveyed had temporarily suspended trade with the EU or stopped it permanently. One in 10 of the exporters surveyed said they were also considering giving up trade with EU customers.
Some smaller business have been badly affected by the overnight change in trade rules on 31 December, with new paperwork and a rush to secure delivery space causing widespread delays and extra costs. UK exports to the EU fell by 41% in January, according to government figures.
There was another report I read over the weekend of a Cheese company who had been vocal enough expressing his frustration on Twitter to get a government minister to ring him. The government said nothing would change to make export to the EU viable again, but had he considered the huge opportunities exporting to places like Canada?
The Tories - formerly the party of business - don't understand how business works. "Can't just just trade with x" is a stupid question. If trade with x was preferable or more profitable or even viable compared to trade with the EU they would already be doing so. Just because the Tories have torpedoed these company's ability to have an export trade with their biggest market doesn't miraculously remove the massive barriers to trade with the rest of the world.
It’s all ME! ME! ME! isn’t it though?
The electorate decided they wanted a different relationship with the EU. It would be great if we could continue to trade with the EU on historical terms while in this new relationship structure.
But if the EU doesn’t want to - as is their right - and the UK doesn’t want to - as is their right - then what the government minister said is absolutely right.
Why should the convenience of their blessed cheese maker be more significant than the wishes of the electorate as a whole?
Because the electorate are largely clueless about what Brexit means. If the campaign had set out that a vote for Brexit was a vote to knacker industry and our balance of payments then your point would be valid.
Politically there is a bear trap awaiting the Tories. Punters largely voted Brexit to be better off. Whether that was because there'd be less forriners or because they thought there was too much bureaucracy holding us back or whatever, nobody voted to be worse off. Shagging British industry because of political incompetence is not going to win votes in the long term.
I assume that the Canal normally operates to close to capacity - how long will the backlog take to clear?
I assume they all have their deli tickets handy.
I’ll bet there are minimum safe distances between ships traversing the canal regs that will be rapidly dumped. Let’s hope there are no more freak winds/ breakdowns..
I assume that the Canal normally operates to close to capacity - how long will the backlog take to clear?
I assume they all have their deli tickets handy.
It’s usually pretty close to capacity, could take another week or more to clear the traffic jam, although a few vessels will have diverted. Even if they float her now, it’ll still take most of the rest of the day to drag her out of the canal, then they’ll need to inspect and repair the canal itself - certainly before the bigger ships are allowed through.
It’ll be like Heathrow the day after a snowstorm. Even when the airport is back open, there’s planes, pilots and passengers scattered all over the place, wanting to get back at the same time!
Mr. Pioneers, the absence of an actual Leave prospectus was the reason such an attack couldn't be made (or a defence of leaving on that basis). The absence of such was the strangest decision Cameron made as it was both legitimate and would've helped his side.
Instead, it just became pro/anti the EU rather than the current arrangement (as was) versus a specific alternative.
I've got tickets for The Open at Sandwich on 15 July. I've wondered what the drop dead date is for the in terms of spending money on setting up grandstands etc. The other issue is they use a park and ride system there, which could be problematic if we haven't fully opened by then.
Did you buy them fresh or roll over tickets you had from last year?
Rolled over from last year. I have bought tickets for the India test at Lords in August. Hopefully that should be fine - not like they have to make any decisions until late in the day, unlike The Open.
Arsenal season ticket renewal in May should be interesting. Personally I think the clubs should just wait until they know for sure that we're back to full stadiums.
Yes, I have to decide whether to renew my (premier league) season ticket by April 29. I suspect I'm not alone in being undecided, both in respect of whether we'll get a full season and in respect of whether I'll overcome my caution about the virus to mingle happily with 30,000 others. It's a problem (of the first world variety).
Small businesses have reported a marked drop in exports to the EU as another company bemoaned the post-Brexit “nightmare” of delivery delays and increased costs.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), a lobby group, said 35 of the 132 exporters it surveyed had temporarily suspended trade with the EU or stopped it permanently. One in 10 of the exporters surveyed said they were also considering giving up trade with EU customers.
Some smaller business have been badly affected by the overnight change in trade rules on 31 December, with new paperwork and a rush to secure delivery space causing widespread delays and extra costs. UK exports to the EU fell by 41% in January, according to government figures.
There was another report I read over the weekend of a Cheese company who had been vocal enough expressing his frustration on Twitter to get a government minister to ring him. The government said nothing would change to make export to the EU viable again, but had he considered the huge opportunities exporting to places like Canada?
The Tories - formerly the party of business - don't understand how business works. "Can't just just trade with x" is a stupid question. If trade with x was preferable or more profitable or even viable compared to trade with the EU they would already be doing so. Just because the Tories have torpedoed these company's ability to have an export trade with their biggest market doesn't miraculously remove the massive barriers to trade with the rest of the world.
It’s all ME! ME! ME! isn’t it though?
The electorate decided they wanted a different relationship with the EU. It would be great if we could continue to trade with the EU on historical terms while in this new relationship structure.
But if the EU doesn’t want to - as is their right - and the UK doesn’t want to - as is their right - then what the government minister said is absolutely right.
Why should the convenience of their blessed cheese maker be more significant than the wishes of the electorate as a whole?
You're rather missing the point. One of the premises of Brexit was that not only would trade with the EU continue but that new markets would open up. So far we have not had new markets opened up. Rather there have been roll over trade agreements ie the same agreements as we had before.
What is being pointed out is that the opposite appears to be happening. Our ability to export to the EU is being significantly harmed (so the trade deficit in goods so bewailed as a bad consequence of the Single Market by some on here will likely widen) but alternative new - and profitable - markets are simply not there. If it was possible to trade profitably with Canada before don't you think this cheese maker and others would have done it?
The government has wrongly tried to claim these are teething problems. They are not. They are the very deliberate choice made by this government and the government then lied about the consequences of that choice. We are now in a position when in a supposedly United Kingdom suppliers are simply refusing to sell goods to part of the same country because it is practically impossible to do so. That market has been lost, EU markets have been lost and, for many suppliers, markets thousands of miles away are simply not practicable or profitable.
And it's not really ME ME ME either. Exports are how we earn our way in the world. If we can't earn how do we live? The consequences of making it impossible for this cheesemaker and many others like him to export will be borne not just by him but by the rest of us.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
So why are they hiding? If they have the technology to make interstellar travel possible they surely have absolutely nothing to fear from us. Why would they be sneaking about watching the equivalent of some canoeing by tribesmen from their gunship? You'd think, having come all that way, they might want to say hi.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
One thing I've mulled over a while now. I'm a huge Fortean Time fan, have been all my life. I'm fascinated by anything out of the normal. Ghosts I believe can be explained as misperception (the mind telling stories on limited input, such as the old woman in white my aunt saw, when I saw a barn owl). Poltergeists on the other hand I am drawn too the presence of usually teenage or early adolescent girls. Are they skilled pranksters? Probably, but there is huge testimony around poltergeist cases. Cryptozoology is also fascinating, whether it is the survival of presumed extinct species such as the thylacine (plausible) or Nessie beine a plesiosaur (less plausible). As a resident of Warminster, I live in a once famous UFO hot spot. Reading the literature there is nothing there that cannot be rationally explained, like a report of glowing orange orbs that seem to jump hugely in space (more likely flares thatr extinguish and are replace by new ones). My mulling is based on the ever greater number of cameras to hand everywhere. How many ABC's have been reported where if only a camera was on hand could we finally have proof? Well now most everyone has them, and yet the evidence is hardly overwhelming. Same for UFO's.
I'd love to be wrong, but the modern age is making the world a less strange place in many ways...
The three videos released by the Navy last year combined visual, infrared and radar. And were backed up by multiple credible eye witnesses. The suspicion that there are many such recordings has just been confirmed by the last DNI. And not only that but that there is also satellite imagery to match up with it.
“But but he was in the Trump government and disagrees with me on abortion” says Kamski.
Rubio and others have been careful not to use the words “aliens” or “extra terrestrials” because they know how it makes them sound. So instead they’re stopping just short but openly confirming that the US is not the most advanced proponent of military technology on earth, by a very long way. Harry Reid has gone a little further than the Republicans but people that see every issue through the prism of political affiliation prefer to ignore that.
Credible eye witnesses is a classic fallacy. Its commonly attributed to certain professions so that their testimony gets more weight/belief than others. Police are a good example.
As I said - I'd be delighted, but I just don't think so.
How to explain the visual and radar data? My friend helped design the software detecting suite used in the USS Theodore Roosevelt videos. He’s a physicist. A sceptic. Said he could not explain it and had no better answer than aliens.
No better answer does not mean aliens is the right answer though. I know its different but early radar was plagued by 'angels' etc, and now we now much more. The great danger is linking two or three events to fit an explanation. Not sure which 'classic' case it was in the UK, but it might have been Lakenheath-Bentwaters was a good example of this. The danger is taking any evidence and reaching aliens as the answer (very much in the style of Rimmer in Red Dwarf).
Commander Fravor, who has spoken of what he saw firsthand flying from the Nimitz, has pondered what the response would have been if the craft had had a Russian flag painted on the side. Multiple eye witness, infrared, visual video and radar all point to a non-US craft flying sorties in the middle of a US exercise but with technologies that far surpass their own. If it had a Russian flag on the side, what would have happened? Would the response really have been “don’t worry about it mate, it’s just some sort of glitch”.
Mr. Pioneers, the absence of an actual Leave prospectus was the reason such an attack couldn't be made (or a defence of leaving on that basis). The absence of such was the strangest decision Cameron made as it was both legitimate and would've helped his side.
Instead, it just became pro/anti the EU rather than the current arrangement (as was) versus a specific alternative.
Cameron never thought for a moment he would actually *lose*.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
I think if Biden said "we are not alone in the universe" then that would be proof of dementia, not aliens.
You are saying that because you have not been paying attention and/or you can’t confront the enormity of what’s being said by increasingly senior figures.
Alternatively you add 2 plus 2 together to equal banana.
There are always some people willing to say the truth is out there, doesn't make Mulder and Scully real.
I have never seen an episode of the X Files or Star Trek. I didn’t have a lot of interest in it until the formal release of unexplainable evidence by the US military and the subsequent public statements by senior officials who have no incentive to lie and every incentive to keep quiet.
I get that you prefer to jest than confront what’s happening. This happened in the Uk and elsewhere with Covid. At a time it was abundantly clear in Asia what was happening, our next king but one was making jokes about having a cough a film premiere and our Prime Minister was shaking hands with covid patients.
Meanwhile some of us were busy preparing our personal and financial affairs so we could make out like bandits on the markets when the penny dropped for everyone else and be as well prepared as possible for what was coming.
The aliens are very shy though aren't they?
Or maybe it is some adolescents aliens joy riding in front of a Tomcat for a few seconds before disappearing just to wind up the pilot.
Mr. Pioneers, the absence of an actual Leave prospectus was the reason such an attack couldn't be made (or a defence of leaving on that basis). The absence of such was the strangest decision Cameron made as it was both legitimate and would've helped his side.
Instead, it just became pro/anti the EU rather than the current arrangement (as was) versus a specific alternative.
But David was an idiot as we can more demonstrate with his decision to work for Greensill thinking it would make him his millions.
Small businesses have reported a marked drop in exports to the EU as another company bemoaned the post-Brexit “nightmare” of delivery delays and increased costs.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), a lobby group, said 35 of the 132 exporters it surveyed had temporarily suspended trade with the EU or stopped it permanently. One in 10 of the exporters surveyed said they were also considering giving up trade with EU customers.
Some smaller business have been badly affected by the overnight change in trade rules on 31 December, with new paperwork and a rush to secure delivery space causing widespread delays and extra costs. UK exports to the EU fell by 41% in January, according to government figures.
There was another report I read over the weekend of a Cheese company who had been vocal enough expressing his frustration on Twitter to get a government minister to ring him. The government said nothing would change to make export to the EU viable again, but had he considered the huge opportunities exporting to places like Canada?
The Tories - formerly the party of business - don't understand how business works. "Can't just just trade with x" is a stupid question. If trade with x was preferable or more profitable or even viable compared to trade with the EU they would already be doing so. Just because the Tories have torpedoed these company's ability to have an export trade with their biggest market doesn't miraculously remove the massive barriers to trade with the rest of the world.
It’s all ME! ME! ME! isn’t it though?
The electorate decided they wanted a different relationship with the EU. It would be great if we could continue to trade with the EU on historical terms while in this new relationship structure.
But if the EU doesn’t want to - as is their right - and the UK doesn’t want to - as is their right - then what the government minister said is absolutely right.
Why should the convenience of their blessed cheese maker be more significant than the wishes of the electorate as a whole?
You're rather missing the point. One of the premises of Brexit was that not only would trade with the EU continue but that new markets would open up. So far we have not had new markets opened up. Rather there have been roll over trade agreements ie the same agreements as we had before.
What is being pointed out is that the opposite appears to be happening. Our ability to export to the EU is being significantly harmed (so the trade deficit in goods so bewailed as a bad consequence of the Single Market by some on here will likely widen) but alternative new - and profitable - markets are simply not there. If it was possible to trade profitably with Canada before don't you think this cheese maker and others would have done it?
The government has wrongly tried to claim these are teething problems. They are not. They are the very deliberate choice made by this government and the government then lied about the consequences of that choice. We are now in a position when in a supposedly United Kingdom suppliers are simply refusing to sell goods to part of the same country because it is practically impossible to do so. That market has been lost, EU markets have been lost and, for many suppliers, markets thousands of miles away are simply not practicable or profitable.
And it's not really ME ME ME either. Exports are how we earn our way in the world. If we can't earn how do we live? The consequences of making it impossible for this cheesemaker and many others like him to export will be borne not just by him but by the rest of us.
Except that the Government is opening up markets. We're in negotiations to expand our trade deal with Canada and Japan beyond the rollover one, we're in negotiations with India, Australia and others, we're in negotiations with the USA and just got tariffs on Scotch dropped thanks to unilateral actions taken on New Year's Day, and we're in negotiations with the CPTPP that if we joined would be bigger than the entire EU itself.
The disruption with Europe is immediate and especially in short-term, the benefits of independence will take time but are for the medium to long-term.
Can anyone point me to a good and detailed account of the cartoon imbroglio at Batley Grammar School?
I'm really interested in the content of the lesson, and the particular cartoons published - which seem to be from one of the Charlie Hebdo sets.
But we seem to have the usual rabbit hole - "we are going to spend ages talking about this, but it's sooooooooooooooooooo offensive that we will not show the picture / read out the tweet" etc.
I wonder if those Hebdo cartoons - those specifically - have become like the N word for Muslims? Regardless of context and intent, deployment by an outsider risks enormous offence and therefore the best and safest approach, the default in almost all circumstances, is to not. Find another way.
And yes, I know, "blasphemy law by the back door" and "where do you draw the line?" bla bla, I do get that point, and it's a good one, but still. A civilized society is not driven by absolutist principles. Absolutist principles are for extremists and zealots and this includes "free speech" extremists and zealots.
We "draw the line" with things all the time. We weigh up competing interests and values, micro vs macro, long vs short term, theory vs practice, and we decide where the sweet spot lies. We don't always get it right, but we have a bash. It's one of the many things that make this country a very amenable place to live.
Small businesses have reported a marked drop in exports to the EU as another company bemoaned the post-Brexit “nightmare” of delivery delays and increased costs.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), a lobby group, said 35 of the 132 exporters it surveyed had temporarily suspended trade with the EU or stopped it permanently. One in 10 of the exporters surveyed said they were also considering giving up trade with EU customers.
Some smaller business have been badly affected by the overnight change in trade rules on 31 December, with new paperwork and a rush to secure delivery space causing widespread delays and extra costs. UK exports to the EU fell by 41% in January, according to government figures.
There was another report I read over the weekend of a Cheese company who had been vocal enough expressing his frustration on Twitter to get a government minister to ring him. The government said nothing would change to make export to the EU viable again, but had he considered the huge opportunities exporting to places like Canada?
The Tories - formerly the party of business - don't understand how business works. "Can't just just trade with x" is a stupid question. If trade with x was preferable or more profitable or even viable compared to trade with the EU they would already be doing so. Just because the Tories have torpedoed these company's ability to have an export trade with their biggest market doesn't miraculously remove the massive barriers to trade with the rest of the world.
It’s all ME! ME! ME! isn’t it though?
The electorate decided they wanted a different relationship with the EU. It would be great if we could continue to trade with the EU on historical terms while in this new relationship structure.
But if the EU doesn’t want to - as is their right - and the UK doesn’t want to - as is their right - then what the government minister said is absolutely right.
Why should the convenience of their blessed cheese maker be more significant than the wishes of the electorate as a whole?
You're rather missing the point. One of the premises of Brexit was that not only would trade with the EU continue but that new markets would open up. So far we have not had new markets opened up. Rather there have been roll over trade agreements ie the same agreements as we had before.
What is being pointed out is that the opposite appears to be happening. Our ability to export to the EU is being significantly harmed (so the trade deficit in goods so bewailed as a bad consequence of the Single Market by some on here will likely widen) but alternative new - and profitable - markets are simply not there. If it was possible to trade profitably with Canada before don't you think this cheese maker and others would have done it?
The government has wrongly tried to claim these are teething problems. They are not. They are the very deliberate choice made by this government and the government then lied about the consequences of that choice. We are now in a position when in a supposedly United Kingdom suppliers are simply refusing to sell goods to part of the same country because it is practically impossible to do so. That market has been lost, EU markets have been lost and, for many suppliers, markets thousands of miles away are simply not practicable or profitable.
And it's not really ME ME ME either. Exports are how we earn our way in the world. If we can't earn how do we live? The consequences of making it impossible for this cheesemaker and many others like him to export will be borne not just by him but by the rest of us.
Except that the Government is opening up markets. We're in negotiations to expand our trade deal with Canada and Japan beyond the rollover one, we're in negotiations with India, Australia and others, we're in negotiations with the USA and just got tariffs on Scotch dropped thanks to unilateral actions taken on New Year's Day, and we're in negotiations with the CPTPP that if we joined would be bigger than the entire EU itself.
The disruption with Europe is immediate and especially in short-term, the benefits of independence will take time but are for the medium to long-term.
You miss out the fundamental issue - transport costs often make it uneconomic.
If you business is selling stuff that can't be transported further than say 1000 miles closing of all markets within 1000 miles does make exporting things a tad difficult.
Small businesses have reported a marked drop in exports to the EU as another company bemoaned the post-Brexit “nightmare” of delivery delays and increased costs.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), a lobby group, said 35 of the 132 exporters it surveyed had temporarily suspended trade with the EU or stopped it permanently. One in 10 of the exporters surveyed said they were also considering giving up trade with EU customers.
Some smaller business have been badly affected by the overnight change in trade rules on 31 December, with new paperwork and a rush to secure delivery space causing widespread delays and extra costs. UK exports to the EU fell by 41% in January, according to government figures.
There was another report I read over the weekend of a Cheese company who had been vocal enough expressing his frustration on Twitter to get a government minister to ring him. The government said nothing would change to make export to the EU viable again, but had he considered the huge opportunities exporting to places like Canada?
The Tories - formerly the party of business - don't understand how business works. "Can't just just trade with x" is a stupid question. If trade with x was preferable or more profitable or even viable compared to trade with the EU they would already be doing so. Just because the Tories have torpedoed these company's ability to have an export trade with their biggest market doesn't miraculously remove the massive barriers to trade with the rest of the world.
It’s all ME! ME! ME! isn’t it though?
The electorate decided they wanted a different relationship with the EU. It would be great if we could continue to trade with the EU on historical terms while in this new relationship structure.
But if the EU doesn’t want to - as is their right - and the UK doesn’t want to - as is their right - then what the government minister said is absolutely right.
Why should the convenience of their blessed cheese maker be more significant than the wishes of the electorate as a whole?
You're rather missing the point. One of the premises of Brexit was that not only would trade with the EU continue but that new markets would open up. So far we have not had new markets opened up. Rather there have been roll over trade agreements ie the same agreements as we had before.
What is being pointed out is that the opposite appears to be happening. Our ability to export to the EU is being significantly harmed (so the trade deficit in goods so bewailed as a bad consequence of the Single Market by some on here will likely widen) but alternative new - and profitable - markets are simply not there. If it was possible to trade profitably with Canada before don't you think this cheese maker and others would have done it?
The government has wrongly tried to claim these are teething problems. They are not. They are the very deliberate choice made by this government and the government then lied about the consequences of that choice. We are now in a position when in a supposedly United Kingdom suppliers are simply refusing to sell goods to part of the same country because it is practically impossible to do so. That market has been lost, EU markets have been lost and, for many suppliers, markets thousands of miles away are simply not practicable or profitable.
And it's not really ME ME ME either. Exports are how we earn our way in the world. If we can't earn how do we live? The consequences of making it impossible for this cheesemaker and many others like him to export will be borne not just by him but by the rest of us.
Except that the Government is opening up markets. We're in negotiations to expand our trade deal with Canada and Japan beyond the rollover one, we're in negotiations with India, Australia and others, we're in negotiations with the USA and just got tariffs on Scotch dropped thanks to unilateral actions taken on New Year's Day, and we're in negotiations with the CPTPP that if we joined would be bigger than the entire EU itself.
The disruption with Europe is immediate and especially in short-term, the benefits of independence will take time but are for the medium to long-term.
You miss out the fundamental issue - transport costs often make it uneconomic.
If you business is selling stuff that can't be transported further than say 1000 miles closing of all markets within 1000 miles does make exporting things a tad difficult.
I miss it out because its not the be all and end all.
Despite the UK being fully integrated into the EU, despite the EU being our closest market, despite transport costs, despite the lack of barriers, despite the absence of trade deals we're now seeking . . . the EU was already a minority of our exports.
If transport costs were the be all and end all then the EU would have the overwhelming majority of our exports, not a minority.
Trade with the EU is not "closed" its just a touch more difficult than before. Trade with the rest of the world wasn't closed, it just wasn't as open as it will be in the future. Its a balancing act.
Small businesses have reported a marked drop in exports to the EU as another company bemoaned the post-Brexit “nightmare” of delivery delays and increased costs.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), a lobby group, said 35 of the 132 exporters it surveyed had temporarily suspended trade with the EU or stopped it permanently. One in 10 of the exporters surveyed said they were also considering giving up trade with EU customers.
Some smaller business have been badly affected by the overnight change in trade rules on 31 December, with new paperwork and a rush to secure delivery space causing widespread delays and extra costs. UK exports to the EU fell by 41% in January, according to government figures.
There was another report I read over the weekend of a Cheese company who had been vocal enough expressing his frustration on Twitter to get a government minister to ring him. The government said nothing would change to make export to the EU viable again, but had he considered the huge opportunities exporting to places like Canada?
The Tories - formerly the party of business - don't understand how business works. "Can't just just trade with x" is a stupid question. If trade with x was preferable or more profitable or even viable compared to trade with the EU they would already be doing so. Just because the Tories have torpedoed these company's ability to have an export trade with their biggest market doesn't miraculously remove the massive barriers to trade with the rest of the world.
It’s all ME! ME! ME! isn’t it though?
The electorate decided they wanted a different relationship with the EU. It would be great if we could continue to trade with the EU on historical terms while in this new relationship structure.
But if the EU doesn’t want to - as is their right - and the UK doesn’t want to - as is their right - then what the government minister said is absolutely right.
Why should the convenience of their blessed cheese maker be more significant than the wishes of the electorate as a whole?
You're rather missing the point. One of the premises of Brexit was that not only would trade with the EU continue but that new markets would open up. So far we have not had new markets opened up. Rather there have been roll over trade agreements ie the same agreements as we had before.
What is being pointed out is that the opposite appears to be happening. Our ability to export to the EU is being significantly harmed (so the trade deficit in goods so bewailed as a bad consequence of the Single Market by some on here will likely widen) but alternative new - and profitable - markets are simply not there. If it was possible to trade profitably with Canada before don't you think this cheese maker and others would have done it?
The government has wrongly tried to claim these are teething problems. They are not. They are the very deliberate choice made by this government and the government then lied about the consequences of that choice. We are now in a position when in a supposedly United Kingdom suppliers are simply refusing to sell goods to part of the same country because it is practically impossible to do so. That market has been lost, EU markets have been lost and, for many suppliers, markets thousands of miles away are simply not practicable or profitable.
And it's not really ME ME ME either. Exports are how we earn our way in the world. If we can't earn how do we live? The consequences of making it impossible for this cheesemaker and many others like him to export will be borne not just by him but by the rest of us.
Except that the Government is opening up markets. We're in negotiations to expand our trade deal with Canada and Japan beyond the rollover one, we're in negotiations with India, Australia and others, we're in negotiations with the USA and just got tariffs on Scotch dropped thanks to unilateral actions taken on New Year's Day, and we're in negotiations with the CPTPP that if we joined would be bigger than the entire EU itself.
The disruption with Europe is immediate and especially in short-term, the benefits of independence will take time but are for the medium to long-term.
Also those tariffs on Scotch were part of ones the US dropped entirely the following day.
Can anyone point me to a good and detailed account of the cartoon imbroglio at Batley Grammar School?
I'm really interested in the content of the lesson, and the particular cartoons published - which seem to be from one of the Charlie Hebdo sets.
But we seem to have the usual rabbit hole - "we are going to spend ages talking about this, but it's sooooooooooooooooooo offensive that we will not show the picture / read out the tweet" etc.
I wonder if those Hebdo cartoons - those specifically - have become like the N word for Muslims? Regardless of context and intent, deployment by an outsider risks enormous offence and therefore the best and safest approach, the default in almost all circumstances, is to not. Find another way.
And yes, I know, "blasphemy law by the back door" and "where do you draw the line?" bla bla, I do get that point, and it's a good one, but still. A civilized society is not driven by absolutist principles. Absolutist principles are for extremists and zealots and this includes "free speech" extremists and zealots.
We "draw the line" with things all the time. We weigh up competing interests and values, micro vs macro, long vs short term, theory vs practice, and we decide where the sweet spot lies. We don't always get it right, but we have a bash. It's one of the many things that make this country a very amenable place to live.
I think you have to be sensitive about religion - I remember Jehovah's Witnesses in my junior school being excused from assembly, which contained CofE propaganda - but I'm inclined to think that we'd be better off just scrapping RE from the curriculum. I don't want kids learning about religions if it is a simply promotion of religions.
Small businesses have reported a marked drop in exports to the EU as another company bemoaned the post-Brexit “nightmare” of delivery delays and increased costs.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), a lobby group, said 35 of the 132 exporters it surveyed had temporarily suspended trade with the EU or stopped it permanently. One in 10 of the exporters surveyed said they were also considering giving up trade with EU customers.
Some smaller business have been badly affected by the overnight change in trade rules on 31 December, with new paperwork and a rush to secure delivery space causing widespread delays and extra costs. UK exports to the EU fell by 41% in January, according to government figures.
There was another report I read over the weekend of a Cheese company who had been vocal enough expressing his frustration on Twitter to get a government minister to ring him. The government said nothing would change to make export to the EU viable again, but had he considered the huge opportunities exporting to places like Canada?
The Tories - formerly the party of business - don't understand how business works. "Can't just just trade with x" is a stupid question. If trade with x was preferable or more profitable or even viable compared to trade with the EU they would already be doing so. Just because the Tories have torpedoed these company's ability to have an export trade with their biggest market doesn't miraculously remove the massive barriers to trade with the rest of the world.
It’s all ME! ME! ME! isn’t it though?
The electorate decided they wanted a different relationship with the EU. It would be great if we could continue to trade with the EU on historical terms while in this new relationship structure.
But if the EU doesn’t want to - as is their right - and the UK doesn’t want to - as is their right - then what the government minister said is absolutely right.
Why should the convenience of their blessed cheese maker be more significant than the wishes of the electorate as a whole?
You're rather missing the point. One of the premises of Brexit was that not only would trade with the EU continue but that new markets would open up. So far we have not had new markets opened up. Rather there have been roll over trade agreements ie the same agreements as we had before.
What is being pointed out is that the opposite appears to be happening. Our ability to export to the EU is being significantly harmed (so the trade deficit in goods so bewailed as a bad consequence of the Single Market by some on here will likely widen) but alternative new - and profitable - markets are simply not there. If it was possible to trade profitably with Canada before don't you think this cheese maker and others would have done it?
The government has wrongly tried to claim these are teething problems. They are not. They are the very deliberate choice made by this government and the government then lied about the consequences of that choice. We are now in a position when in a supposedly United Kingdom suppliers are simply refusing to sell goods to part of the same country because it is practically impossible to do so. That market has been lost, EU markets have been lost and, for many suppliers, markets thousands of miles away are simply not practicable or profitable.
And it's not really ME ME ME either. Exports are how we earn our way in the world. If we can't earn how do we live? The consequences of making it impossible for this cheesemaker and many others like him to export will be borne not just by him but by the rest of us.
Except that the Government is opening up markets. We're in negotiations to expand our trade deal with Canada and Japan beyond the rollover one, we're in negotiations with India, Australia and others, we're in negotiations with the USA and just got tariffs on Scotch dropped thanks to unilateral actions taken on New Year's Day, and we're in negotiations with the CPTPP that if we joined would be bigger than the entire EU itself.
The disruption with Europe is immediate and especially in short-term, the benefits of independence will take time but are for the medium to long-term.
Also those tariffs on Scotch were part of ones the US dropped entirely the following day.
Only because we were first movers. We broke the impasse.
If our independence leads to global freer trade then that's a good thing not a bad thing.
I've got tickets for The Open at Sandwich on 15 July. I've wondered what the drop dead date is for the in terms of spending money on setting up grandstands etc. The other issue is they use a park and ride system there, which could be problematic if we haven't fully opened by then.
Did you buy them fresh or roll over tickets you had from last year?
Rolled over from last year. I have bought tickets for the India test at Lords in August. Hopefully that should be fine - not like they have to make any decisions until late in the day, unlike The Open.
Arsenal season ticket renewal in May should be interesting. Personally I think the clubs should just wait until they know for sure that we're back to full stadiums.
Ah right. We had them last year too but took the money back option. Regret that now since it might be hard to re-buy. No Woods - my sporting idol - but it should be a great event.
Can anyone point me to a good and detailed account of the cartoon imbroglio at Batley Grammar School?
I'm really interested in the content of the lesson, and the particular cartoons published - which seem to be from one of the Charlie Hebdo sets.
But we seem to have the usual rabbit hole - "we are going to spend ages talking about this, but it's sooooooooooooooooooo offensive that we will not show the picture / read out the tweet" etc.
I wonder if those Hebdo cartoons - those specifically - have become like the N word for Muslims? Regardless of context and intent, deployment by an outsider risks enormous offence and therefore the best and safest approach, the default in almost all circumstances, is to not. Find another way.
And yes, I know, "blasphemy law by the back door" and "where do you draw the line?" bla bla, I do get that point, and it's a good one, but still. A civilized society is not driven by absolutist principles. Absolutist principles are for extremists and zealots and this includes "free speech" extremists and zealots.
We "draw the line" with things all the time. We weigh up competing interests and values, micro vs macro, long vs short term, theory vs practice, and we decide where the sweet spot lies. We don't always get it right, but we have a bash. It's one of the many things that make this country a very amenable place to live.
I think you have to be sensitive about religion - I remember Jehovah's Witnesses in my junior school being excused from assembly, which contained CofE propaganda - but I'm inclined to think that we'd be better off just scrapping RE from the curriculum. I don't want kids learning about religions if it is a simply promotion of religions.
You have to be as sensitive as Monty Python were with Christianity.
Mr. Pioneers, the absence of an actual Leave prospectus was the reason such an attack couldn't be made (or a defence of leaving on that basis). The absence of such was the strangest decision Cameron made as it was both legitimate and would've helped his side.
Instead, it just became pro/anti the EU rather than the current arrangement (as was) versus a specific alternative.
But David was an idiot as we can more demonstrate with his decision to work for Greensill thinking it would make him his millions.
Anyone with even a passing knowledge of global commodities knew all about Gupta and to avoid him with a bargepole.
Looks increasingly like the thing Biden will be known for in history is being the “we are not alone in the universe” president. When this many senior political officials are queuing up on TV to only barely stop short of saying it, it can’t be long before the President decides he may as well go the whole hog and etch his place in history.
Once you’ve done that, you’d really need to have an extreme personal circumstance to walk away. I therefore think he’ll run. How the world will look and feel after everyone’s absorbed this info who knows.
It’s only fair that the Americans should go first, its emptier spots having been the aliens’ short break venue of choice for such a long time.
Well it seems to be the oceans not the landmasses with the most military encounters. Whether that’s because there’s more active military assets at sea I don’t know. Either way, it’s going to be quite hard to row back from what’s been said in the last year and particularly the last few weeks. Though I appreciate that 90% of people won’t take any notice until it’s the president himself saying it.
The deadline for publication of the unclassified report required by one of the provisions Trump slipped into the coronavirus bill approaches, and there is increasing media chatter. Whether anything notable will actually be revealed remains to be seen.
I don’t understand what you mean by “whether anything notable will actually be revealed”.
The last Director of National Intelligence has just said that not only do they have many more combined video/radar/eye witness incidents akin to USS Nimitz, but satellite imagery as well. Of objects “breaking the sound barrier without causing a sonic boom”. Or Rubio this week: “well we have these things flying over military installations and military exercises. We know they’re not ours, they’re not registered with the FAA and in many cases they’re exhibiting technology the likes of which we’ve never seen before.... it’s very simple. There are things flying over national security assets, we don’t know who they are, we have to find out”.
I am reminded of last year when Sean was correctly taking the piss out of people for debating pay schemes in care homes or whatever it was, as the coronavirus was quietly doing its thing under the surface.
I’ve refrained from saying anything about this so far on Mike’s behalf, given how little UK media coverage there has been I can only assume a D Notice is in place. Now both the guardian and Sunday times are printing it, it’s fair game.
It’s the biggest story of human history. And it’s fascinating how few people seem to have noticed it’s happening.
So why are they hiding? If they have the technology to make interstellar travel possible they surely have absolutely nothing to fear from us. Why would they be sneaking about watching the equivalent of some canoeing by tribesmen from their gunship? You'd think, having come all that way, they might want to say hi.
They’re not hiding are they. If they were hiding we wouldn’t have seen them. Which means either they don’t care. Or they’re deliberately gradually exposing themselves.
But your question is quite irrelevant to the main point. Some of the most senior figures in the US are going on the record to say there are physics-defying craft interfering with US military assets.
One thing I've mulled over a while now. I'm a huge Fortean Time fan, have been all my life. I'm fascinated by anything out of the normal. Ghosts I believe can be explained as misperception (the mind telling stories on limited input, such as the old woman in white my aunt saw, when I saw a barn owl). Poltergeists on the other hand I am drawn too the presence of usually teenage or early adolescent girls. Are they skilled pranksters? Probably, but there is huge testimony around poltergeist cases. Cryptozoology is also fascinating, whether it is the survival of presumed extinct species such as the thylacine (plausible) or Nessie beine a plesiosaur (less plausible). As a resident of Warminster, I live in a once famous UFO hot spot. Reading the literature there is nothing there that cannot be rationally explained, like a report of glowing orange orbs that seem to jump hugely in space (more likely flares thatr extinguish and are replace by new ones). My mulling is based on the ever greater number of cameras to hand everywhere. How many ABC's have been reported where if only a camera was on hand could we finally have proof? Well now most everyone has them, and yet the evidence is hardly overwhelming. Same for UFO's.
I'd love to be wrong, but the modern age is making the world a less strange place in many ways...
The three videos released by the Navy last year combined visual, infrared and radar. And were backed up by multiple credible eye witnesses. The suspicion that there are many such recordings has just been confirmed by the last DNI. And not only that but that there is also satellite imagery to match up with it.
“But but he was in the Trump government and disagrees with me on abortion” says Kamski.
Rubio and others have been careful not to use the words “aliens” or “extra terrestrials” because they know how it makes them sound. So instead they’re stopping just short but openly confirming that the US is not the most advanced proponent of military technology on earth, by a very long way. Harry Reid has gone a little further than the Republicans but people that see every issue through the prism of political affiliation prefer to ignore that.
Credible eye witnesses is a classic fallacy. Its commonly attributed to certain professions so that their testimony gets more weight/belief than others. Police are a good example.
As I said - I'd be delighted, but I just don't think so.
How to explain the visual and radar data? My friend helped design the software detecting suite used in the USS Theodore Roosevelt videos. He’s a physicist. A sceptic. Said he could not explain it and had no better answer than aliens.
No better answer does not mean aliens is the right answer though. I know its different but early radar was plagued by 'angels' etc, and now we now much more. The great danger is linking two or three events to fit an explanation. Not sure which 'classic' case it was in the UK, but it might have been Lakenheath-Bentwaters was a good example of this. The danger is taking any evidence and reaching aliens as the answer (very much in the style of Rimmer in Red Dwarf).
Commander Fravor, who has spoken of what he saw firsthand flying from the Nimitz, has pondered what the response would have been if the craft had had a Russian flag painted on the side. Multiple eye witness, infrared, visual video and radar all point to a non-US craft flying sorties in the middle of a US exercise but with technologies that far surpass their own. If it had a Russian flag on the side, what would have happened? Would the response really have been “don’t worry about it mate, it’s just some sort of glitch”.
It would take a very specific kind of glitch to make a Russian flag visible! The obvious explanation would have been that Russian military tech was far ahead and a bit of a worry.
Like turbotubbs, I'm a skeptic here (in the genuine sense, show me the evidence and I can be convinced, but, well, Sagan standard...). The release videos are interesting, but not compelling. It definitely requies further investigation and I also will be happy if the information is shared. It's either an odd observation of something easily explained or something new (in object, or effect on observations). Potentally quite exciting either way. I'm thinking back to things like pulsars - could easily have been an alien communication (not dissimilar in some ways to the things we pump out to say we're here) but instead it was something pretty much as remarkable.
I do find it interesting to think through what we would do if we had credible evidence for life on another planet. Initially un-manned reconnaisance, I'm sure. Scope out capabilities and possible threat from other life. Then, presumably, attempt contact, but initially by radio waves or similar. Would the other life detect the signal. What would we do if not? The interesting thing, if we were talking about life from a great distance away is that, barring any big limitations in our understanding of physics, information gathered could take a very long time to reach us back here. So we might send automated, unmanned drones to do reconnaissance and it might take 50/100 years/much longer for them to get there and decades or more for the information to come back, then 50/100 years/longer to act on that information. It's not insane to think that first contact, if it ever happened, could be things whizzing around, disappearing and nothing else happening for a very long time.
Can anyone point me to a good and detailed account of the cartoon imbroglio at Batley Grammar School?
I'm really interested in the content of the lesson, and the particular cartoons published - which seem to be from one of the Charlie Hebdo sets.
But we seem to have the usual rabbit hole - "we are going to spend ages talking about this, but it's sooooooooooooooooooo offensive that we will not show the picture / read out the tweet" etc.
I wonder if those Hebdo cartoons - those specifically - have become like the N word for Muslims? Regardless of context and intent, deployment by an outsider risks enormous offence and therefore the best and safest approach, the default in almost all circumstances, is to not. Find another way.
And yes, I know, "blasphemy law by the back door" and "where do you draw the line?" bla bla, I do get that point, and it's a good one, but still. A civilized society is not driven by absolutist principles. Absolutist principles are for extremists and zealots and this includes "free speech" extremists and zealots.
We "draw the line" with things all the time. We weigh up competing interests and values, micro vs macro, long vs short term, theory vs practice, and we decide where the sweet spot lies. We don't always get it right, but we have a bash. It's one of the many things that make this country a very amenable place to live.
So - its fine to buy a post card in Iran with a picture of their prophet on it - but it must be banned in the UK because of the risk of violence?
I've got tickets for The Open at Sandwich on 15 July. I've wondered what the drop dead date is for the in terms of spending money on setting up grandstands etc. The other issue is they use a park and ride system there, which could be problematic if we haven't fully opened by then.
Did you buy them fresh or roll over tickets you had from last year?
Rolled over from last year. I have bought tickets for the India test at Lords in August. Hopefully that should be fine - not like they have to make any decisions until late in the day, unlike The Open.
Arsenal season ticket renewal in May should be interesting. Personally I think the clubs should just wait until they know for sure that we're back to full stadiums.
Ah right. We had them last year too but took the money back option. Regret that now since it might be hard to re-buy. No Woods - my sporting idol - but it should be a great event.
It could be an interesting field depending on how us and the US view sports people travelling from the US to here and then back again (oh, with a trip to Japan in between for those who play in the Olympics).
Can anyone point me to a good and detailed account of the cartoon imbroglio at Batley Grammar School?
I'm really interested in the content of the lesson, and the particular cartoons published - which seem to be from one of the Charlie Hebdo sets.
But we seem to have the usual rabbit hole - "we are going to spend ages talking about this, but it's sooooooooooooooooooo offensive that we will not show the picture / read out the tweet" etc.
I wonder if those Hebdo cartoons - those specifically - have become like the N word for Muslims? Regardless of context and intent, deployment by an outsider risks enormous offence and therefore the best and safest approach, the default in almost all circumstances, is to not. Find another way.
And yes, I know, "blasphemy law by the back door" and "where do you draw the line?" bla bla, I do get that point, and it's a good one, but still. A civilized society is not driven by absolutist principles. Absolutist principles are for extremists and zealots and this includes "free speech" extremists and zealots.
We "draw the line" with things all the time. We weigh up competing interests and values, micro vs macro, long vs short term, theory vs practice, and we decide where the sweet spot lies. We don't always get it right, but we have a bash. It's one of the many things that make this country a very amenable place to live.
I think you have to be sensitive about religion - I remember Jehovah's Witnesses in my junior school being excused from assembly, which contained CofE propaganda - but I'm inclined to think that we'd be better off just scrapping RE from the curriculum. I don't want kids learning about religions if it is a simply promotion of religions.
You have to be as sensitive as Monty Python were with Christianity.
Small businesses have reported a marked drop in exports to the EU as another company bemoaned the post-Brexit “nightmare” of delivery delays and increased costs.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), a lobby group, said 35 of the 132 exporters it surveyed had temporarily suspended trade with the EU or stopped it permanently. One in 10 of the exporters surveyed said they were also considering giving up trade with EU customers.
Some smaller business have been badly affected by the overnight change in trade rules on 31 December, with new paperwork and a rush to secure delivery space causing widespread delays and extra costs. UK exports to the EU fell by 41% in January, according to government figures.
There was another report I read over the weekend of a Cheese company who had been vocal enough expressing his frustration on Twitter to get a government minister to ring him. The government said nothing would change to make export to the EU viable again, but had he considered the huge opportunities exporting to places like Canada?
The Tories - formerly the party of business - don't understand how business works. "Can't just just trade with x" is a stupid question. If trade with x was preferable or more profitable or even viable compared to trade with the EU they would already be doing so. Just because the Tories have torpedoed these company's ability to have an export trade with their biggest market doesn't miraculously remove the massive barriers to trade with the rest of the world.
It’s all ME! ME! ME! isn’t it though?
The electorate decided they wanted a different relationship with the EU. It would be great if we could continue to trade with the EU on historical terms while in this new relationship structure.
But if the EU doesn’t want to - as is their right - and the UK doesn’t want to - as is their right - then what the government minister said is absolutely right.
Why should the convenience of their blessed cheese maker be more significant than the wishes of the electorate as a whole?
You're rather missing the point. One of the premises of Brexit was that not only would trade with the EU continue but that new markets would open up. So far we have not had new markets opened up. Rather there have been roll over trade agreements ie the same agreements as we had before.
What is being pointed out is that the opposite appears to be happening. Our ability to export to the EU is being significantly harmed (so the trade deficit in goods so bewailed as a bad consequence of the Single Market by some on here will likely widen) but alternative new - and profitable - markets are simply not there. If it was possible to trade profitably with Canada before don't you think this cheese maker and others would have done it?
The government has wrongly tried to claim these are teething problems. They are not. They are the very deliberate choice made by this government and the government then lied about the consequences of that choice. We are now in a position when in a supposedly United Kingdom suppliers are simply refusing to sell goods to part of the same country because it is practically impossible to do so. That market has been lost, EU markets have been lost and, for many suppliers, markets thousands of miles away are simply not practicable or profitable.
And it's not really ME ME ME either. Exports are how we earn our way in the world. If we can't earn how do we live? The consequences of making it impossible for this cheesemaker and many others like him to export will be borne not just by him but by the rest of us.
You have to give the Tories credit for the politics though even if the results do the country harm. To the morons out there who don't know and don't care, any problems are the fault of stupid business not doing what the government has told them to do. As the government is absolute right on everything to do with Brexit it must be the fault of remainer business idiots unable to follow the simple advice that keeps being advertised.
Can anyone point me to a good and detailed account of the cartoon imbroglio at Batley Grammar School?
I'm really interested in the content of the lesson, and the particular cartoons published - which seem to be from one of the Charlie Hebdo sets.
But we seem to have the usual rabbit hole - "we are going to spend ages talking about this, but it's sooooooooooooooooooo offensive that we will not show the picture / read out the tweet" etc.
I wonder if those Hebdo cartoons - those specifically - have become like the N word for Muslims? Regardless of context and intent, deployment by an outsider risks enormous offence and therefore the best and safest approach, the default in almost all circumstances, is to not. Find another way.
And yes, I know, "blasphemy law by the back door" and "where do you draw the line?" bla bla, I do get that point, and it's a good one, but still. A civilized society is not driven by absolutist principles. Absolutist principles are for extremists and zealots and this includes "free speech" extremists and zealots.
We "draw the line" with things all the time. We weigh up competing interests and values, micro vs macro, long vs short term, theory vs practice, and we decide where the sweet spot lies. We don't always get it right, but we have a bash. It's one of the many things that make this country a very amenable place to live.
Absolutely not.
Skin colour is something people are born with and can't change.
Religion is a belief system and like all belief systems should be able to face rigourous, fierce and offensive scrutiny and challenge.
If you can't be offensive about someone's beliefs there is no such thing as free speech.
Small businesses have reported a marked drop in exports to the EU as another company bemoaned the post-Brexit “nightmare” of delivery delays and increased costs.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), a lobby group, said 35 of the 132 exporters it surveyed had temporarily suspended trade with the EU or stopped it permanently. One in 10 of the exporters surveyed said they were also considering giving up trade with EU customers.
Some smaller business have been badly affected by the overnight change in trade rules on 31 December, with new paperwork and a rush to secure delivery space causing widespread delays and extra costs. UK exports to the EU fell by 41% in January, according to government figures.
There was another report I read over the weekend of a Cheese company who had been vocal enough expressing his frustration on Twitter to get a government minister to ring him. The government said nothing would change to make export to the EU viable again, but had he considered the huge opportunities exporting to places like Canada?
The Tories - formerly the party of business - don't understand how business works. "Can't just just trade with x" is a stupid question. If trade with x was preferable or more profitable or even viable compared to trade with the EU they would already be doing so. Just because the Tories have torpedoed these company's ability to have an export trade with their biggest market doesn't miraculously remove the massive barriers to trade with the rest of the world.
It’s all ME! ME! ME! isn’t it though?
The electorate decided they wanted a different relationship with the EU. It would be great if we could continue to trade with the EU on historical terms while in this new relationship structure.
But if the EU doesn’t want to - as is their right - and the UK doesn’t want to - as is their right - then what the government minister said is absolutely right.
Why should the convenience of their blessed cheese maker be more significant than the wishes of the electorate as a whole?
More to the point, why shouldn't government me honest and not pretend that Brexit hasn't completely shafted a particular set of businesses, instead of trying to pretend otherwise ? If it's a price that has to be paid, then at least own it.
Comments
The difference this time is that Congress has the bit between its teeth and will likely demand to know why the Executive is so confident that China or Russia isn’t flying over US nuclear bases with impunity.
But I also agree with OKC about the mind - my dad said when he was in his late 60s that he didn't feel different from when he was 40, except a bit less energetic. Short of actual illness, I think that's the general experience. Sometimes inconvenient too - your idea of who's attractive to you settles when you're 35-40, and you don't instinctively adjust to start fancying septuagenarians (and need to remember that the 40-year-olds will feel the same about you).
Also, if your physical health goes badly downhill, there's a real problem - my uncle has advanced Parkinson's, and can barely speak,but when he can get something out it's as calm, intelligent and perceptive as ever. It's heart-breaking to see (by video link as he's a long way away) as there seems nothing to be done - his nursing home has put him on light tranquillisers, and maybe that's the least bad option, getting stronger towards the end?
Let bygones be bygones he says as he steals chunks of her party and adopts the high ground
So if she agrees shes weak and he takes a few more liberties and if she doesnt shes small minded and chippy
Nice politics
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/03/28/snp-disarray-party-grapples-response-salmonds-rival-party/
I've been interested by reactions to the "future of Europe" conference, where there is very much a divide between the "old core" and the new peripheries.
The peripheralists came up with a paper, and the bewailings from the Brussels' correspondents were astonishing.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-leaders-eu-sign-off-conference-on-the-future-of-europe/
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2020/12/14/relaunch-or-disintegration-what-covid-19-means-for-the-future-of-europe/
The Covid-19 epidemic has been a testing time for the European Union, and for much of the world. Some see it as a pivotal experience for the EU, accelerating European integration in unexpected ways. Others see the epidemic as draining power from Brussels to national capitals, as states, and even regions and cities are the prime actors in efforts to bolster public health.
When the US government concludes, “don’t worry about it, they’re not from round here”, might that not cause a seismic change to society?
https://twitter.com/otto_english/status/1376429058469343234?s=21
With warmer weather and more easing over the next few months will HMG get a boost
Maybe that will be answered in the polls in May
https://twitter.com/coldwar_steve/status/1376264018495729673?s=21
If my wife and I were in Scotland in May we would tactically vote anyway
All is good in the world - or at least getting slowly better.
I'd love it to be true, but just don't think it is. Sorry. Best chance of alien life in our lifetimes - somewhere else in the solar system, possible Jupiter's moons.
Alien space craft - on the more unlikely side.
Of course it's not possible to be certain. But the US has a history of implausible belief in strange flying objects even in the semi-mainstream. You don't have to look far in the GOP to find people who think the UN uses black helicopters to spy on them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_helicopter
Anyway what Ratcliffe said is some things are "hard to explain"
"hard to explain" isn't the same as "it must be aliens" unless you are Rimmer from Red Dwarf.
Anyway what Ratcliffe said is some things are "hard to explain"
"hard to explain" isn't the same as "it must be aliens" unless you are Rimmer from Red Dwarf.
Cryptozoology is also fascinating, whether it is the survival of presumed extinct species such as the thylacine (plausible) or Nessie beine a plesiosaur (less plausible).
As a resident of Warminster, I live in a once famous UFO hot spot. Reading the literature there is nothing there that cannot be rationally explained, like a report of glowing orange orbs that seem to jump hugely in space (more likely flares thatr extinguish and are replace by new ones).
My mulling is based on the ever greater number of cameras to hand everywhere. How many ABC's have been reported where if only a camera was on hand could we finally have proof? Well now most everyone has them, and yet the evidence is hardly overwhelming. Same for UFO's.
I'd love to be wrong, but the modern age is making the world a less strange place in many ways...
An ECFR opinion poll last year showed that more than half the respondents in 14 countries believed that the EU is likely to collapse within a generation, even though a majority said that they themselves supported the European project.
The EU will continue centralising, quicker or slower according to crisis.
One day it will face a crisis of legitimacy, but it’s impossible to predict when.
A Len Pen Presidency in France could perhaps hasten this crisis.
The electorate decided they wanted a different relationship with the EU. It would be great if we could continue to trade with the EU on historical terms while in this new relationship structure.
But if the EU doesn’t want to - as is their right - and the UK doesn’t want to - as is their right - then what the government minister said is absolutely right.
Why should the convenience of their blessed cheese maker be more significant than the wishes of the electorate as a whole?
I'm really interested in the content of the lesson, and the particular cartoons published - which seem to be from one of the Charlie Hebdo sets.
But we seem to have the usual rabbit hole - "we are going to spend ages talking about this, but it's sooooooooooooooooooo offensive that we will not show the picture / read out the tweet" etc.
“But but he was in the Trump government and disagrees with me on abortion” says Kamski.
Rubio and others have been careful not to use the words “aliens” or “extra terrestrials” because they know how it makes them sound. So instead they’re stopping just short but openly confirming that the US is not the most advanced proponent of military technology on earth, by a very long way. Harry Reid has gone a little further than the Republicans but people that see every issue through the prism of political affiliation prefer to ignore that.
Doesn't automatically make it a good idea, but the charitable purpose of museums isn't in dispute now is it?
Quite an interesting overview of how the UJ has been used and marketed by various governments over the years. Not sure if the current iteration of scatter cushions and the image of a stripped off BJ leaping on a blowsy grifter wrapped in the fleg will sweep the nation.
https://twitter.com/ericmacx/status/1376249159947259908?s=21
As I said - I'd be delighted, but I just don't think so.
There are always some people willing to say the truth is out there, doesn't make Mulder and Scully real.
Try going through Mottram in Longdendale on a regular basis.
Exhibit A...
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/28/georgia-secretary-of-state-gop-478251
Arsenal season ticket renewal in May should be interesting. Personally I think the clubs should just wait until they know for sure that we're back to full stadiums.
https://twitter.com/AgenciesLeth/status/1376440593237295107
I assume they all have their deli tickets handy.
I get that you prefer to jest than confront what’s happening. This happened in the Uk and elsewhere with Covid. At a time it was abundantly clear in Asia what was happening, our next king but one was making jokes about having a cough a film premiere and our Prime Minister was shaking hands with covid patients.
Meanwhile some of us were busy preparing our personal and financial affairs so we could make out like bandits on the markets when the penny dropped for everyone else and be as well prepared as possible for what was coming.
Politically there is a bear trap awaiting the Tories. Punters largely voted Brexit to be better off. Whether that was because there'd be less forriners or because they thought there was too much bureaucracy holding us back or whatever, nobody voted to be worse off. Shagging British industry because of political incompetence is not going to win votes in the long term.
It’ll be like Heathrow the day after a snowstorm. Even when the airport is back open, there’s planes, pilots and passengers scattered all over the place, wanting to get back at the same time!
Instead, it just became pro/anti the EU rather than the current arrangement (as was) versus a specific alternative.
What is being pointed out is that the opposite appears to be happening. Our ability to export to the EU is being significantly harmed (so the trade deficit in goods so bewailed as a bad consequence of the Single Market by some on here will likely widen) but alternative new - and profitable - markets are simply not there. If it was possible to trade profitably with Canada before don't you think this cheese maker and others would have done it?
The government has wrongly tried to claim these are teething problems. They are not. They are the very deliberate choice made by this government and the government then lied about the consequences of that choice. We are now in a position when in a supposedly United Kingdom suppliers are simply refusing to sell goods to part of the same country because it is practically impossible to do so. That market has been lost, EU markets have been lost and, for many suppliers, markets thousands of miles away are simply not practicable or profitable.
And it's not really ME ME ME either. Exports are how we earn our way in the world. If we can't earn how do we live? The consequences of making it impossible for this cheesemaker and many others like him to export will be borne not just by him but by the rest of us.
Despite SINDY being pretty close.
Or maybe it is some adolescents aliens joy riding in front of a Tomcat for a few seconds before disappearing just to wind up the pilot.
But that doesn't mean it's remotely sensible to avoid a step that's both helpful to your own side and 100% legitimate.
The disruption with Europe is immediate and especially in short-term, the benefits of independence will take time but are for the medium to long-term.
And yes, I know, "blasphemy law by the back door" and "where do you draw the line?" bla bla, I do get that point, and it's a good one, but still. A civilized society is not driven by absolutist principles. Absolutist principles are for extremists and zealots and this includes "free speech" extremists and zealots.
We "draw the line" with things all the time. We weigh up competing interests and values, micro vs macro, long vs short term, theory vs practice, and we decide where the sweet spot lies. We don't always get it right, but we have a bash. It's one of the many things that make this country a very amenable place to live.
If you business is selling stuff that can't be transported further than say 1000 miles closing of all markets within 1000 miles does make exporting things a tad difficult.
Despite the UK being fully integrated into the EU, despite the EU being our closest market, despite transport costs, despite the lack of barriers, despite the absence of trade deals we're now seeking . . . the EU was already a minority of our exports.
If transport costs were the be all and end all then the EU would have the overwhelming majority of our exports, not a minority.
Trade with the EU is not "closed" its just a touch more difficult than before. Trade with the rest of the world wasn't closed, it just wasn't as open as it will be in the future. Its a balancing act.
If our independence leads to global freer trade then that's a good thing not a bad thing.
Just sayin’..
https://twitter.com/electionmapsuk/status/1376462222428418049?s=21
Like turbotubbs, I'm a skeptic here (in the genuine sense, show me the evidence and I can be convinced, but, well, Sagan standard...). The release videos are interesting, but not compelling. It definitely requies further investigation and I also will be happy if the information is shared. It's either an odd observation of something easily explained or something new (in object, or effect on observations). Potentally quite exciting either way. I'm thinking back to things like pulsars - could easily have been an alien communication (not dissimilar in some ways to the things we pump out to say we're here) but instead it was something pretty much as remarkable.
I do find it interesting to think through what we would do if we had credible evidence for life on another planet. Initially un-manned reconnaisance, I'm sure. Scope out capabilities and possible threat from other life. Then, presumably, attempt contact, but initially by radio waves or similar. Would the other life detect the signal. What would we do if not? The interesting thing, if we were talking about life from a great distance away is that, barring any big limitations in our understanding of physics, information gathered could take a very long time to reach us back here. So we might send automated, unmanned drones to do reconnaissance and it might take 50/100 years/much longer for them to get there and decades or more for the information to come back, then 50/100 years/longer to act on that information. It's not insane to think that first contact, if it ever happened, could be things whizzing around, disappearing and nothing else happening for a very long time.
Feck that
https://twitter.com/benarty/status/1376426619297005575?s=21
Skin colour is something people are born with and can't change.
Religion is a belief system and like all belief systems should be able to face rigourous, fierce and offensive scrutiny and challenge.
If you can't be offensive about someone's beliefs there is no such thing as free speech.
If it's a price that has to be paid, then at least own it.