Do we know how many of the new cases are the 'Indian variant' and how many of the other variants?
As in are the number of non Indian variants still dropping? I suspect this is so, but have not seen it reported.
The BBC seems chilled. "Slight rise in cases" is news item #7 on the website (for those of you who refuse on principle to read the BBC).
And the main bullet points are "slight rise"..."vaccines mean we are in a very different place from the autumn"...and "Kwasi says nothing in the data to delay" reopening.
I think we're good.
If they thought they could do a May 17th and not have cases (and therefore hospitalisations) rise then we really are in trouble.
As I said a couple of nights ago, one of three things will happen to Boris Johnson.
1) He will either be thrown out of office by a vengeful electorate.
2) He will be thrown out of office by those in his party scared their chance of being at the top table is going to pass them by if they stay attached to his coattails or if he becomes an electoral liability and they have a ready-made popular successor in Rishi Sunak who will save the seats and jobs of backbenchers by the dozen.
3) He will leave on his own terms to much fanfare and then watch impotently as his reputation is trashed in the following years by an ungrateful electorate and Party.
So you are saying that he will be treated just like any other prime minister?
Er, yes.
I noted here the other day the four people who receive the most consistent vilification from all sides are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
Boris Johnson is and will be no different.
No to forget Margaret Thatcher. In fact John Major seems to be the only vaguely recent ex-PM that isn't hated on.
I voted for Major. He always struck me as too decent for politics...
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Apologies to Chameleon, I was triggered by the tirade anyone normally gets here when they raise this issue. Yes it’s fascinating and quite hard to call which way it will go from here.
Remarkable number of people here don't understand that the story is the Us military and intel REACTION, not the grainy footage itself
To wit:
"Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp discuss 2019 radar & video evidence of UFOs swarming a carrier battle group, which US Navy has acknowledged as genuine. Why r Navy officials leaking evidence & then corroborating it? Navy is driving the UFO disclosure process!"
Yea it’s really bizarre how a bunch of seemingly smart people can have such a blind spot.
The radar footage was leaked yesterday to social media influencers who specialise in UFOs. Within a few hours, this:
"Gadi Schwartz @GadiNBC Just in from Pentagon spokesperson: “I can confirm that the video you sent was taken by Navy personnel, and that the UAPTF included it in their ongoing examinations. I have no further information on it for you.”"
Good vaccine numbers today! We have 10 more days to do another 3m first doses. Let's see if we can get there.
It'd be a leap considering we've only done quarter of a million yesterday and now we're into the heavier (second) half of the week. Average over previous 7 days is 192k.
The number of first doses has been steadily rising over the last few weeks, albeit weekends tend to be slower. If we do miss it, and only average say 260k in the next 10 days, then we'll be exactly one day behind schedule.
As I said a couple of nights ago, one of three things will happen to Boris Johnson.
1) He will either be thrown out of office by a vengeful electorate.
2) He will be thrown out of office by those in his party scared their chance of being at the top table is going to pass them by if they stay attached to his coattails or if he becomes an electoral liability and they have a ready-made popular successor in Rishi Sunak who will save the seats and jobs of backbenchers by the dozen.
3) He will leave on his own terms to much fanfare and then watch impotently as his reputation is trashed in the following years by an ungrateful electorate and Party.
So you are saying that he will be treated just like any other prime minister?
Er, yes.
I noted here the other day the four people who receive the most consistent vilification from all sides are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
Boris Johnson is and will be no different.
No to forget Margaret Thatcher. In fact John Major seems to be the only vaguely recent ex-PM that isn't hated on.
Yet he got the biggest kicking from the electorate possible.
It's almost as though, having vented their spleen on him at the ballot box, the electorate are prepared to be more forgiving.
In 1992 he won though, the only UK PM and party leader to win a majority at a general election in the last 100 years after more than 10 consecutive years of their party in power. Boris will try and repeat the feat in 2024
I like a laugh as much as the next man, but try as I might I can't find a rich seam of humour in the public's indifference to government screw ups on coronavirus.
That's the thing about the public - they're on an altogether different level to you. I find that highly amusing.
You're chuckling about the public being on a different level to ME? I don't think you were. I didn't feature. Here's the sequence -
Cummings comes out and describes the chaos & complacency of much of the government's response to Covid.
Poll comes out showing no impact on public opinion.
On topic: The simple fact is that Boris's desire not to be "The Bad Guy" is the problem here. He cannot make hard choices.
Every time he has an opportunity to get ahead of the virus he throws it away by failing to restrict travel in and out of the UK.
We are an island. How hard can it be? Everyone has to come in through a Port of Entry and now that we have Brexited that means Europeans as well.
Everyone entering should be quarantined and tested. Everyone. It is not hard.
But it would not be popular and there is Boris's Achilles' heel.
His legacy will be that he managed to get the vaccine program going and then wasted the gains made by it. History will remember him as a spineless fool and possibly in the running to depose Lord North from his spot as the "Worst PM ever"
No.
As I said a couple of nights ago, one of three things will happen to Boris Johnson.
1) He will either be thrown out of office by a vengeful electorate.
2) He will be thrown out of office by those in his party scared their chance of being at the top table is going to pass them by if they stay attached to his coattails or if he becomes an electoral liability and they have a ready-made popular successor in Rishi Sunak who will save the seats and jobs of backbenchers by the dozen.
3) He will leave on his own terms to much fanfare and then watch impotently as his reputation is trashed in the following years by an ungrateful electorate and Party.
The main point of #3 kind of happens to all PM but while Thatcher was #2, #3 never really happened to her.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
Do we know how many of the new cases are the 'Indian variant' and how many of the other variants?
As in are the number of non Indian variants still dropping? I suspect this is so, but have not seen it reported.
Latest day's hospital admissions data for England lower than last week, as is total number in hospital. New cases still seem to be overwhelmingly in certain areas rather than reflective of a general untick.
On topic: The simple fact is that Boris's desire not to be "The Bad Guy" is the problem here. He cannot make hard choices.
Every time he has an opportunity to get ahead of the virus he throws it away by failing to restrict travel in and out of the UK.
We are an island. How hard can it be? Everyone has to come in through a Port of Entry and now that we have Brexited that means Europeans as well.
Everyone entering should be quarantined and tested. Everyone. It is not hard.
But it would not be popular and there is Boris's Achilles' heel.
His legacy will be that he managed to get the vaccine program going and then wasted the gains made by it. History will remember him as a spineless fool and possibly in the running to depose Lord North from his spot as the "Worst PM ever"
It is worth pointing out that .... Scotland and Wales could easily do this themselves, if it were so very vital.
Drakeford could close the English-Welsh border (preventing people reaching Wales from international airports in England). He has done it before, with police on the main roads into Wales. He could do it again.
He could also easily prevent the only international airport in Wales (Rhoose) from accepting incoming international flights, as the WG actually own the airport.
Similarly, if the Scottish Government were so minded they could easily quarantine all international travel into/out of Scotland, and monitor crossing of the English/Scottish border (easier to do than the English/Welsh border).
Of course, all 3 governments don't .... because there would be an outcry from those inconvenienced.
So, add two more to the "Spineless List" then, but in reality, policing a land border is a lot harder than policing a sea / air border. Ask the RUC who spent 30 or 40 years trying to stop terrorists from crossing back and forth between NI and the RoI
I don't think policing the English/Welsh land border is difficult -- Drakeford did it pretty successfully earlier this year.
Obviously the RUC should have employed Drakeford all those years ago....
Ah ... but so it goes.
There are many organisations who should have employed Drakeford as the go-to big man and have lived to regret it ...
Manchester United FC, Marks & Spencer, Kodak Eastwood, Xerox, the UK Labour Party ... the RUC.
Let's just say it would not have been "nul points" at Eurovision if the singing had been entrusted to Drakeford ...
Mrs Stodge and I have recently returned from our second vaccinations - to clarify, I had my second vaccination and she had hers.
We were told Excel is closing as a mass vaccination centre - presumably the owners are hoping they can have exhibitions and conferences after 21/6. The new vaccination centre will be at Westfield which sounds like it will be marketed as "shop and jab" (which isn't the current meaning of that term in our part of London). The thinking is the young hip, cool dudes (no, I've no idea either) will want to combine eating/drinking/shopping with a vaccination.
Currently, the 150,000 population in Newham over 40 splits neatly into three - one third have had both vaccinations, one third has had one vaccination and one third has had no vaccination. I've always said 20% of the over-70s haven't been vaccinated and a refusal of up to one third of the over-40 population sounds less than a runaway success for the vaccination programme. To be fair, Newham, long with Tower Hamlets, may well end up having the highest refusal levels in the country.
Mask observance on tubes and DLR 90% - enforcement 0%. As I said last night, you either have laws or you don't. If you have laws, they should be enforced with the appropriate penalties for transgressions. Obviously, 20 years jail for not wearing a mask on the DLR would be a tad draconian but instead we have the namby-pamby, wishy-washy, cancel-culture, woke Conservatives all wringing their hands about whether mask wearing is a good idea or not.
As usual, if you want a bit of sharp authoritarianism, leave it to the liberals.
It's curious: I was in New York earlier this week, and bars and restaurants are now open, people on the street are (mostly) maskless, and parks and squares are buzzing.
The one place where mask compliance was 100% was public transport: I didn't see a single person (even including an aggressive homeless panhandler) who wasn't wearing a mask on the subway.
Regarding the Luton march. Am I alone in wondering why the fuck people are protesting in this country about the relations between two other countries?
No you won't be alone. There are a number of other ultra-parochials on here.
I don’t consider myself parochial at all. Indeed, in a previous employment I worked across the world. Sometimes mediating in international troublespots. I have lived in several other countries. Nothing about me is parochial.
I simply do not see why (presumably) U.K. citizens feel the need to bring foreign wars (for this is a war) to our country.
We have tons of protests here about bad stuff going on elsewhere. And many people see this more as a systematic oppression (akin to apartheid) rather than simply another foreign war.
You just don't like the cause, that's all. Which is fair enough, but that's a different argument.
How is it "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" than what is happening to the Kurds? Or the Uighur? Or the Tibetans? Or many more?
I'm not saying it's worse than other atrocities. I'm not doing a finely calibrated rating of one against the other.
And there's something else I don't do. When there happens to be a protest in the UK against something happening elsewhere I don't leap in and say either of the following -
That the people who feel strongly enough to join the protest have questions to answer if they are not also in the habit of protesting all and sundry other issues.
That a protest in the UK is inappropriate because it relates to things happening outside the UK.
What you're doing is imputing bad faith to a protest purely because you don't like the cause. It's no different to the negative stuff that gets said about BLM - although not by you in that case since there you DO like the cause.
You're the one who used the words "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" so I think its fair to ask how that applies.
Just because people are protesting doesn't justify their protest. If people are protesting because they dislike oppression a la Kurds, Tibet, Uighur and Palestine etc consistently then I respect that.
If people are protesting because they dislike Jews, then that's no better than an EDL one.
I sense you get my point. Good.
No I don't get your point. You seem to want to justify this, without justifying it, because you know its unjustifiable.
Please can you say how it is "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)", or please can you say that it isn't and those words were inappropriate?
Ah ok. Just the once more then. I have a few minutes.
Assume there are 26 different atrocities going on in the world outside the UK - one for every letter of the alphabet, A to Z. And there's a protest going on in London about one of them. About M.
So now a common technique adopted by people who dislike and disagree with the protesters (against M) is to say the following -
"How come these people are not protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z? They're hypocrites!"
This is what you're doing here. Where M = Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
Compare with if there were a protest where M = the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs.
Would you in that case be employing the "why aren't they protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z?" technique?
I sense not.
That might make sense if the distribution of protests were even, so that 1/26th of all protests were about M. But I'll fix it for you.
Assume there are 26 different atrocities going on in the world outside the UK - one for every letter of the alphabet, A to Z. And there's a protest going on in London about one of them. About M.
Now suppose there's 25 more protests. All about M.
Now suppose that next week there'll be 26 protests. All about M.
Imagine that every weekend there's protests. All about M.
"How come these people are not protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z? They're hypocrites!"
This is happening here. Where M = Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
Compare with if there were a protest where M = the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs. Would that happen? No, because the hypocrites don't protest that.
Can you justify that?
I sense not.
My position is straightforward enough.
LOL. POTD. You need to get in touch with your subconscious.
Oh dear oh dear. Doing this now, are we.
Why do I bug you so, Captain Topping? Is it cos I don't shine my boots till I can see my own reflection in them?
Trying to help and all I get is abuse. Makes me wonder why I bother.
Hmm. Well the clock now stands at umpteen weeks since you've spoken to me with anything but facetiousness and bizarre attempted put downs.
You have your reasons, I'm sure, and each to his own, but it does seem odd.
How dare you. Attempted indeed.
And not to worry about my reasons. You have yours and I have mine.
That's the fun of it.
Ok, So long as you're having fun. Life without fun is no life at all.
How old are you, by the way? - I have you as about 55?
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Apologies to Chameleon, I was triggered by the tirade anyone normally gets here when they raise this issue. Yes it’s fascinating and quite hard to call which way it will go from here.
Remarkable number of people here don't understand that the story is the Us military and intel REACTION, not the grainy footage itself
To wit:
"Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp discuss 2019 radar & video evidence of UFOs swarming a carrier battle group, which US Navy has acknowledged as genuine. Why r Navy officials leaking evidence & then corroborating it? Navy is driving the UFO disclosure process!"
Regarding the Luton march. Am I alone in wondering why the fuck people are protesting in this country about the relations between two other countries?
No you won't be alone. There are a number of other ultra-parochials on here.
I don’t consider myself parochial at all. Indeed, in a previous employment I worked across the world. Sometimes mediating in international troublespots. I have lived in several other countries. Nothing about me is parochial.
I simply do not see why (presumably) U.K. citizens feel the need to bring foreign wars (for this is a war) to our country.
We have tons of protests here about bad stuff going on elsewhere. And many people see this more as a systematic oppression (akin to apartheid) rather than simply another foreign war.
You just don't like the cause, that's all. Which is fair enough, but that's a different argument.
How is it "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" than what is happening to the Kurds? Or the Uighur? Or the Tibetans? Or many more?
I'm not saying it's worse than other atrocities. I'm not doing a finely calibrated rating of one against the other.
And there's something else I don't do. When there happens to be a protest in the UK against something happening elsewhere I don't leap in and say either of the following -
That the people who feel strongly enough to join the protest have questions to answer if they are not also in the habit of protesting all and sundry other issues.
That a protest in the UK is inappropriate because it relates to things happening outside the UK.
What you're doing is imputing bad faith to a protest purely because you don't like the cause. It's no different to the negative stuff that gets said about BLM - although not by you in that case since there you DO like the cause.
You're the one who used the words "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" so I think its fair to ask how that applies.
Just because people are protesting doesn't justify their protest. If people are protesting because they dislike oppression a la Kurds, Tibet, Uighur and Palestine etc consistently then I respect that.
If people are protesting because they dislike Jews, then that's no better than an EDL one.
I sense you get my point. Good.
No I don't get your point. You seem to want to justify this, without justifying it, because you know its unjustifiable.
Please can you say how it is "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)", or please can you say that it isn't and those words were inappropriate?
Ah ok. Just the once more then. I have a few minutes.
Assume there are 26 different atrocities going on in the world outside the UK - one for every letter of the alphabet, A to Z. And there's a protest going on in London about one of them. About M.
So now a common technique adopted by people who dislike and disagree with the protesters (against M) is to say the following -
"How come these people are not protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z? They're hypocrites!"
This is what you're doing here. Where M = Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
Compare with if there were a protest where M = the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs.
Would you in that case be employing the "why aren't they protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z?" technique?
I sense not.
That might make sense if the distribution of protests were even, so that 1/26th of all protests were about M. But I'll fix it for you.
Assume there are 26 different atrocities going on in the world outside the UK - one for every letter of the alphabet, A to Z. And there's a protest going on in London about one of them. About M.
Now suppose there's 25 more protests. All about M.
Now suppose that next week there'll be 26 protests. All about M.
Imagine that every weekend there's protests. All about M.
"How come these people are not protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z? They're hypocrites!"
This is happening here. Where M = Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
Compare with if there were a protest where M = the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs. Would that happen? No, because the hypocrites don't protest that.
Can you justify that?
I sense not.
My position is straightforward enough.
LOL. POTD. You need to get in touch with your subconscious.
Oh dear oh dear. Doing this now, are we.
Why do I bug you so, Captain Topping? Is it cos I don't shine my boots till I can see my own reflection in them?
Trying to help and all I get is abuse. Makes me wonder why I bother.
Hmm. Well the clock now stands at umpteen weeks since you've spoken to me with anything but facetiousness and bizarre attempted put downs.
You have your reasons, I'm sure, and each to his own, but it does seem odd.
How dare you. Attempted indeed.
And not to worry about my reasons. You have yours and I have mine.
That's the fun of it.
How old are you, by the way? - I have you as about 55?
Regarding the Luton march. Am I alone in wondering why the fuck people are protesting in this country about the relations between two other countries?
No you won't be alone. There are a number of other ultra-parochials on here.
I don’t consider myself parochial at all. Indeed, in a previous employment I worked across the world. Sometimes mediating in international troublespots. I have lived in several other countries. Nothing about me is parochial.
I simply do not see why (presumably) U.K. citizens feel the need to bring foreign wars (for this is a war) to our country.
We have tons of protests here about bad stuff going on elsewhere. And many people see this more as a systematic oppression (akin to apartheid) rather than simply another foreign war.
You just don't like the cause, that's all. Which is fair enough, but that's a different argument.
As it happens, a peaceful protest outside a relevant nations embassy would not, in reality be a problem. However any protests that end in motorcades calling for mass rape (as did the recent one in London) is bringing a foreign war to this country. It must not be tolerated. It is essentially an act of war against the United Kingdom.
Well no defence from me of any of that. Not sure about "act of war against the UK", but certainly it was sordid criminality that should be prosecuted. Protests have to be against the government of Israel not against Jews generally. So long as they are, I don't see a problem, and this applies regardless of whether the protesters are active for other causes. Protesting in public against the Israeli oppression of Palestinians but not against other atrocities might be a signal of possible antisemitism but you need more evidence than that to make such an accusation. It's important to say this otherwise antisemitism can end up being used as a way of shutting down negative commentary on Israel.
Do you not find it a little suspicious that the middle east conflict is such a cause celebre for so many people, particularly those on the far left? The behaviour of Israel is often atrocious, and though it doesn't excuse them, there are probably hundreds of regimes around the world who are considerably worse.
My suspicion is that a lot of the obsession the far left has with Israel is more to do with the perceived link between Jews and capitalism. Jews=capitalism. Anti-Semitism is the one form of racism the far left secretly condones.
Yes. Palestine is a touchstone cause for parts of the left. The driver for that is anti-imperialism but if you tag on an Israel = Jew equivalence, embrace of conspiracy theories about Capitalism = Jew, and Israel/Jews as global puppetmaster, etc, you have antisemitism. I think the problem under Corbyn was exaggerated and weaponized by political opponents but it wasn't fabricated. Far from it.
When his office are asking to have complaints taken to their office so they can be edited and processed, that's a big problem. He's either too stupid to see the conflict of interest, or it's the Nixon defence.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Apologies to Chameleon, I was triggered by the tirade anyone normally gets here when they raise this issue. Yes it’s fascinating and quite hard to call which way it will go from here.
Remarkable number of people here don't understand that the story is the Us military and intel REACTION, not the grainy footage itself
To wit:
"Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp discuss 2019 radar & video evidence of UFOs swarming a carrier battle group, which US Navy has acknowledged as genuine. Why r Navy officials leaking evidence & then corroborating it? Navy is driving the UFO disclosure process!"
Yea it’s really bizarre how a bunch of seemingly smart people can have such a blind spot.
The radar footage was leaked yesterday to social media influencers who specialise in UFOs. Within a few hours, this:
"Gadi Schwartz @GadiNBC Just in from Pentagon spokesperson: “I can confirm that the video you sent was taken by Navy personnel, and that the UAPTF included it in their ongoing examinations. I have no further information on it for you.”"
Mrs Stodge and I have recently returned from our second vaccinations - to clarify, I had my second vaccination and she had hers.
We were told Excel is closing as a mass vaccination centre - presumably the owners are hoping they can have exhibitions and conferences after 21/6. The new vaccination centre will be at Westfield which sounds like it will be marketed as "shop and jab" (which isn't the current meaning of that term in our part of London). The thinking is the young hip, cool dudes (no, I've no idea either) will want to combine eating/drinking/shopping with a vaccination.
Currently, the 150,000 population in Newham over 40 splits neatly into three - one third have had both vaccinations, one third has had one vaccination and one third has had no vaccination. I've always said 20% of the over-70s haven't been vaccinated and a refusal of up to one third of the over-40 population sounds less than a runaway success for the vaccination programme. To be fair, Newham, long with Tower Hamlets, may well end up having the highest refusal levels in the country.
Mask observance on tubes and DLR 90% - enforcement 0%. As I said last night, you either have laws or you don't. If you have laws, they should be enforced with the appropriate penalties for transgressions. Obviously, 20 years jail for not wearing a mask on the DLR would be a tad draconian but instead we have the namby-pamby, wishy-washy, cancel-culture, woke Conservatives all wringing their hands about whether mask wearing is a good idea or not.
As usual, if you want a bit of sharp authoritarianism, leave it to the liberals.
It's curious: I was in New York earlier this week, and bars and restaurants are now open, people on the street are (mostly) maskless, and parks and squares are buzzing.
The one place where mask compliance was 100% was public transport: I didn't see a single person (even including an aggressive homeless panhandler) who wasn't wearing a mask on the subway.
Same in London. Went to lunch yesterday - not a mask in sight. On public transport - 97% masks. Was thinking that this won't stop on June 21st. It's become quite ingrained.
This is just nonsense. Those that can't, should be protected. I object to be called a parasite. If you had read the earlier posts you would realise that I have been heavily and successfully involved in campaigns to provide such protection, entirely in my own time and at my own cost, regarding abuse by banks, insurance companies, telco and energy companies and those campaigns in each case took years to be successful and I put in a huge amount of time in doing so. Can you claim the same thing? Maybe you should think again before calling someone a parasite?
However why on earth do you want to protect those that can but wont shop around????? Why do people who can and won't hunt out a better deal need protecting from their own laziness.
When I ran my business I provided a service which was potentially identical to all my customer (it depended upon how much they used it). I gave discounts to charities, I charged big organisations more because they got a larger benefit so they were willing to pay (even though the service from me was the same). What I charged is none of your or anyone else's business.
Where do you want to draw the line on this price protection? Do we all have to submit our price list to the Govt?
Not calling you anything, of course. But I don't think that expecting everyone to be hyper-paranoid about companies ripping them off is a good idea. Sure, it makes the market fractionally more efficient, but at the expense of countless hours wading through comparison websites. I'd like the competition authorities to discourage companies from exploiting people who don't frantically switch between umpteen effectively identical companies trying to get this week's best bargain.
I'd like to stay with the same providers unless someone makes a genuine advance in service, without having to worry that they're exploiting me, and I'm grateful for the competition authorities helping with that. In the same way, I like the supermarkets with price guarantees for branded products, and wouldn't like having to go to Tesco for milk and Sainsbury for cheese. I'm not especially lazy, but I've better things to do (like posting on PB).
Nick, I don't disagree with a word of that, in fact I agree with it. Not sure how it disagrees with anything I have said though. As I said I have been deeply involved in several campaigns to reverse the exploitation by big utilities and financial organisations so I definitely have some real experience of what they can get up to and put the effort into stopping it, but regulating prices (other than to prevent exploitations of the vulnerable) is not the answer.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
Perhaps they aren't hostile, and have no desire to communicate, as they consider us a fascinating but inferior species
Why is that so outlandish? I mean, if you accept that aliens exist and are here (which is a fucking wild proposition, but we are increasingly being forced to confront it), then it is hardly a stretch to say the aliens might be nice, but don't really want to talk
When I look down in a rockpool at all the fascinating lifeforms, I don't automatically kill the little crab, and I don't try and talk to the barnacle. I might occasionally shove a stick in, just to see how the little creatures react
Maybe that is what they are doing. Just shoving a stick in the rockpool, to see how we respond
In 1992 he won though, the only PM and party leader to win a general election in the last 100 years after more than 10 consecutive years of their party in power. Boris will try and repeat the feat in 2024
We can speculate ad infinitum as to whether Margaret Thatcher would have won a fourth GE victory but the fact is she was never given the chance.
John Major won in 1992 for a number of reasons but let's not forget on his watch the Conservative majority fell from 101 to 21 and of course were Boris Johnson to achieve something similar, he would just about lose his majority (SF not withstanding).
Would it have made any difference who was Conservative leader in 1997? You were out pounding the streets as I was back then - I think we both know no one else would have done any better and plenty of the alternatives would have done worse.
The question isn't about electoral performance - it was about post-PM perceptions.
I made the comment the four individuals who seem to be constantly vilified on here are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
My contention is simply that however he finally leaves office, Boris Johnson will be an impotent bystander as his reputation is trashed both by those within the Party and those outside.
As a Conservative Party loyalist, you will be forced to support the new leader when he or she makes "coded attacks" on the Johnson leadership or administration because that's how politics works.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
I think he is just trolling you all because he has a new novel coming out that involves the lizard people. It is going to be gripping stuff and will make Dan Brown look like a literary award winner.
Regarding the Luton march. Am I alone in wondering why the fuck people are protesting in this country about the relations between two other countries?
No you won't be alone. There are a number of other ultra-parochials on here.
I don’t consider myself parochial at all. Indeed, in a previous employment I worked across the world. Sometimes mediating in international troublespots. I have lived in several other countries. Nothing about me is parochial.
I simply do not see why (presumably) U.K. citizens feel the need to bring foreign wars (for this is a war) to our country.
We have tons of protests here about bad stuff going on elsewhere. And many people see this more as a systematic oppression (akin to apartheid) rather than simply another foreign war.
You just don't like the cause, that's all. Which is fair enough, but that's a different argument.
As it happens, a peaceful protest outside a relevant nations embassy would not, in reality be a problem. However any protests that end in motorcades calling for mass rape (as did the recent one in London) is bringing a foreign war to this country. It must not be tolerated. It is essentially an act of war against the United Kingdom.
Well no defence from me of any of that. Not sure about "act of war against the UK", but certainly it was sordid criminality that should be prosecuted. Protests have to be against the government of Israel not against Jews generally. So long as they are, I don't see a problem, and this applies regardless of whether the protesters are active for other causes. Protesting in public against the Israeli oppression of Palestinians but not against other atrocities might be a signal of possible antisemitism but you need more evidence than that to make such an accusation. It's important to say this otherwise antisemitism can end up being used as a way of shutting down negative commentary on Israel.
Do you not find it a little suspicious that the middle east conflict is such a cause celebre for so many people, particularly those on the far left? The behaviour of Israel is often atrocious, and though it doesn't excuse them, there are probably hundreds of regimes around the world who are considerably worse.
My suspicion is that a lot of the obsession the far left has with Israel is more to do with the perceived link between Jews and capitalism. Jews=capitalism. Anti-Semitism is the one form of racism the far left secretly condones.
Yes. Palestine is a touchstone cause for parts of the left. The driver for that is anti-imperialism but if you tag on an Israel = Jew equivalence, embrace of conspiracy theories about Capitalism = Jew, and Israel/Jews as global puppetmaster, etc, you have antisemitism. I think the problem under Corbyn was exaggerated and weaponized by political opponents but it wasn't fabricated. Far from it.
When his office are asking to have complaints taken to their office so they can be edited and processed, that's a big problem. He's either too stupid to see the conflict of interest, or it's the Nixon defence.
Didn't it turn out that Corbyn's office was speeding up, not slowing down, processing complaints of antisemitism? This was condemned for ignoring due process, not for being antisemitic, though the report was predictably mischaracterised, iirc.
The J&J vaccine is less efficacious than Moderna or Pfizer, and (like AZ) takes time to be fully effective. The US is largely stepping back from J&J as well.
I'm surprised the EU is continuing to go down the J&J path, because I thought they'd pretty much entirely committed to Pfizer (with a little Moderna on the side) going forward
For us I am expecting it to become our pre-winter booster shot.
Though the good news there is that we might not need booster shots just yet. This has just come out in Nature, implying that the immune response might be lifelong;
People who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades, though viral variants could dampen some of the protection they offer.
The remaining question is whether and when the virus evolves enough to evade existing antibodies.
In 1992 he won though, the only PM and party leader to win a general election in the last 100 years after more than 10 consecutive years of their party in power. Boris will try and repeat the feat in 2024
We can speculate ad infinitum as to whether Margaret Thatcher would have won a fourth GE victory but the fact is she was never given the chance.
John Major won in 1992 for a number of reasons but let's not forget on his watch the Conservative majority fell from 101 to 21 and of course were Boris Johnson to achieve something similar, he would just about lose his majority (SF not withstanding).
Would it have made any difference who was Conservative leader in 1997? You were out pounding the streets as I was back then - I think we both know no one else would have done any better and plenty of the alternatives would have done worse.
The question isn't about electoral performance - it was about post-PM perceptions.
I made the comment the four individuals who seem to be constantly vilified on here are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
My contention is simply that however he finally leaves office, Boris Johnson will be an impotent bystander as his reputation is trashed both by those within the Party and those outside.
As a Conservative Party loyalist, you will be forced to support the new leader when he or she makes "coded attacks" on the Johnson leadership or administration because that's how politics works.
Most likely Thatcher would have lost, the last Gallup poll before Thatcher resigned on 22nd November 1990 had Kinnock's Labour ahead of the Tories 44.5% to 36%.
After Major was elected Tory leader and PM on 27th November the Tories had taken the lead 43.5% to 40% for Labour with Gallup.
Major lost seats but held onto power, though I agree if Starmer gets Kinnock's swing in 1992 in 2024 he will likely become PM in a hung parliament even if the Tories win most seats.
I agree no other leader would have done better in 1997 except maybe Heseltine but Blair would still have beaten him. Portillo would have done about the same as Major, Redwood worse.
Vilification is par for the course in politics and of course the Eurosceptic right still largely hate Major, it comes with the territory, you have your fans and your enemies though I agree Major probably has the fewest haters overall of recent PMs bar diehard Brexiteers
Mrs Stodge and I have recently returned from our second vaccinations - to clarify, I had my second vaccination and she had hers.
We were told Excel is closing as a mass vaccination centre - presumably the owners are hoping they can have exhibitions and conferences after 21/6. The new vaccination centre will be at Westfield which sounds like it will be marketed as "shop and jab" (which isn't the current meaning of that term in our part of London). The thinking is the young hip, cool dudes (no, I've no idea either) will want to combine eating/drinking/shopping with a vaccination.
Currently, the 150,000 population in Newham over 40 splits neatly into three - one third have had both vaccinations, one third has had one vaccination and one third has had no vaccination. I've always said 20% of the over-70s haven't been vaccinated and a refusal of up to one third of the over-40 population sounds less than a runaway success for the vaccination programme. To be fair, Newham, long with Tower Hamlets, may well end up having the highest refusal levels in the country.
Mask observance on tubes and DLR 90% - enforcement 0%. As I said last night, you either have laws or you don't. If you have laws, they should be enforced with the appropriate penalties for transgressions. Obviously, 20 years jail for not wearing a mask on the DLR would be a tad draconian but instead we have the namby-pamby, wishy-washy, cancel-culture, woke Conservatives all wringing their hands about whether mask wearing is a good idea or not.
As usual, if you want a bit of sharp authoritarianism, leave it to the liberals.
It's curious: I was in New York earlier this week, and bars and restaurants are now open, people on the street are (mostly) maskless, and parks and squares are buzzing.
The one place where mask compliance was 100% was public transport: I didn't see a single person (even including an aggressive homeless panhandler) who wasn't wearing a mask on the subway.
That makes sense given current beliefs about how the virus spreads: airborne so outside is OK and sitting in a sealed underground train is dodgy. Our guidelines come close to this as well, but in practice many people regard masks as either a magic talisman to be worn everywhere, or a useless imposition that should be worn nowhere.
In 1992 he won though, the only PM and party leader to win a general election in the last 100 years after more than 10 consecutive years of their party in power. Boris will try and repeat the feat in 2024
We can speculate ad infinitum as to whether Margaret Thatcher would have won a fourth GE victory but the fact is she was never given the chance.
John Major won in 1992 for a number of reasons but let's not forget on his watch the Conservative majority fell from 101 to 21 and of course were Boris Johnson to achieve something similar, he would just about lose his majority (SF not withstanding).
Would it have made any difference who was Conservative leader in 1997? You were out pounding the streets as I was back then - I think we both know no one else would have done any better and plenty of the alternatives would have done worse.
The question isn't about electoral performance - it was about post-PM perceptions.
I made the comment the four individuals who seem to be constantly vilified on here are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
My contention is simply that however he finally leaves office, Boris Johnson will be an impotent bystander as his reputation is trashed both by those within the Party and those outside.
As a Conservative Party loyalist, you will be forced to support the new leader when he or she makes "coded attacks" on the Johnson leadership or administration because that's how politics works.
Thank you Stodge. When I advance my “Personality Theory” I am often thrown “But Major beat Kinnock”
Yes, he beat him by 21 seats after Maggie beat him by 101. I hadn’t even looked at that.
Regarding the Luton march. Am I alone in wondering why the fuck people are protesting in this country about the relations between two other countries?
No you won't be alone. There are a number of other ultra-parochials on here.
I don’t consider myself parochial at all. Indeed, in a previous employment I worked across the world. Sometimes mediating in international troublespots. I have lived in several other countries. Nothing about me is parochial.
I simply do not see why (presumably) U.K. citizens feel the need to bring foreign wars (for this is a war) to our country.
We have tons of protests here about bad stuff going on elsewhere. And many people see this more as a systematic oppression (akin to apartheid) rather than simply another foreign war.
You just don't like the cause, that's all. Which is fair enough, but that's a different argument.
As it happens, a peaceful protest outside a relevant nations embassy would not, in reality be a problem. However any protests that end in motorcades calling for mass rape (as did the recent one in London) is bringing a foreign war to this country. It must not be tolerated. It is essentially an act of war against the United Kingdom.
Well no defence from me of any of that. Not sure about "act of war against the UK", but certainly it was sordid criminality that should be prosecuted. Protests have to be against the government of Israel not against Jews generally. So long as they are, I don't see a problem, and this applies regardless of whether the protesters are active for other causes. Protesting in public against the Israeli oppression of Palestinians but not against other atrocities might be a signal of possible antisemitism but you need more evidence than that to make such an accusation. It's important to say this otherwise antisemitism can end up being used as a way of shutting down negative commentary on Israel.
Do you not find it a little suspicious that the middle east conflict is such a cause celebre for so many people, particularly those on the far left? The behaviour of Israel is often atrocious, and though it doesn't excuse them, there are probably hundreds of regimes around the world who are considerably worse.
My suspicion is that a lot of the obsession the far left has with Israel is more to do with the perceived link between Jews and capitalism. Jews=capitalism. Anti-Semitism is the one form of racism the far left secretly condones.
Yes. Palestine is a touchstone cause for parts of the left. The driver for that is anti-imperialism but if you tag on an Israel = Jew equivalence, embrace of conspiracy theories about Capitalism = Jew, and Israel/Jews as global puppetmaster, etc, you have antisemitism. I think the problem under Corbyn was exaggerated and weaponized by political opponents but it wasn't fabricated. Far from it.
When his office are asking to have complaints taken to their office so they can be edited and processed, that's a big problem. He's either too stupid to see the conflict of interest, or it's the Nixon defence.
Didn't it turn out that Corbyn's office was speeding up, not slowing down, processing complaints of antisemitism? This was condemned for ignoring due process, not for being antisemitic, though the report was predictably mischaracterised, iirc.
We set out our findings that the Labour Party’s response to antisemitism complaints has been inconsistent, poor, and lacking in transparency, in terms of its process and decision-making, record-keeping, long delays and communication with complainants.
And from p70:
The Labour Party acknowledged that some complaints had been dealt with too slowly. Delays in progressing complaints were also common in our complaint sample.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Apologies to Chameleon, I was triggered by the tirade anyone normally gets here when they raise this issue. Yes it’s fascinating and quite hard to call which way it will go from here.
Remarkable number of people here don't understand that the story is the Us military and intel REACTION, not the grainy footage itself
To wit:
"Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp discuss 2019 radar & video evidence of UFOs swarming a carrier battle group, which US Navy has acknowledged as genuine. Why r Navy officials leaking evidence & then corroborating it? Navy is driving the UFO disclosure process!"
Yea it’s really bizarre how a bunch of seemingly smart people can have such a blind spot.
The radar footage was leaked yesterday to social media influencers who specialise in UFOs. Within a few hours, this:
"Gadi Schwartz @GadiNBC Just in from Pentagon spokesperson: “I can confirm that the video you sent was taken by Navy personnel, and that the UAPTF included it in their ongoing examinations. I have no further information on it for you.”"
The Pentagon/US Navy knew the video had been leaked, they even had a statement ready to go, giving confirmation, and verifying the vid.
This is all done quite deliberately. An agenda. Slow disclosure of information.
So what is going on?
1. Either some massive US psy-ops on the entire world, maybe aimed at enemies
2. They are panicked about incredible Chinese tech and want to alert complacent politicians?
3. We are being habituated to the idea that ET has landed. Probably in the ocean
The thing that no one seems to be talking about is SpaceX.
Re-useable first-stages? I mean, come on. Whoosh, off to the edge of space (and out of visibility) and then a bit later (ostensibly) the same rocket comes neatly down to earth. Whatever. It's impossible - SLS can't do it, ULA can't do it. It's clearly cover for aliens incoming on the 'returned' first stage (in fact purpose-built alien landers).
The current UFO video stuff is all put out by Musk to distract us from what is really happening. Wake up sheeple!
(Leon, I'm just teasing, not really trying to argue against what you're saying. There are some odd observations, but at present they're just odd observations. The explanations will be interesting, for sure, whatever they are. If just odd glitches, that's interesting enough. I'll wait for proper evidence from reputable sources, because there's nothing I can do with internet videos. I can become a believer, but where does that get me? If the aliens are here, there's nothing I can do. They'll either come and say hi - we'll know straight away or be told later, presumably - or kill us all or do their observations, get some scrap book photos and disappear off to the next interesting star system. There are enough mysteries/problems in this world that I can do something about tackling, so I'll focus on those for now.)
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Apologies to Chameleon, I was triggered by the tirade anyone normally gets here when they raise this issue. Yes it’s fascinating and quite hard to call which way it will go from here.
Remarkable number of people here don't understand that the story is the Us military and intel REACTION, not the grainy footage itself
To wit:
"Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp discuss 2019 radar & video evidence of UFOs swarming a carrier battle group, which US Navy has acknowledged as genuine. Why r Navy officials leaking evidence & then corroborating it? Navy is driving the UFO disclosure process!"
Yea it’s really bizarre how a bunch of seemingly smart people can have such a blind spot.
I am not just "seemingly" smart and I don't have a blind spot. I just can't get excited about this at second hand - I want to be shown, not told.
The leaks are not leaks BTW they are disclosures following foi requests.
The most parsimonious explanation for all this is that an elite cabal within US politics, military and intel is conducting an enormous psy-ops campaign on the entire world, involving former presidents and senior senators and directors of the CIA. Perhaps they are doing it to disguise their own incredible advances in technology, or they are doing it to terrify the Chinese
That is the LEAST outrageous explanation for this weirdness: a vast conspiracy at the heart of Washington, where President Obama goes on TV to deceive people
And this "doesn't excite" you?! Yet the by election of Batley and Spen DOES?
Do we know how many of the new cases are the 'Indian variant' and how many of the other variants?
As in are the number of non Indian variants still dropping? I suspect this is so, but have not seen it reported.
The BBC seems chilled. "Slight rise in cases" is news item #7 on the website (for those of you who refuse on principle to read the BBC).
And the main bullet points are "slight rise"..."vaccines mean we are in a very different place from the autumn"...and "Kwasi says nothing in the data to delay" reopening.
I think we're good.
If they thought they could do a May 17th and not have cases (and therefore hospitalisations) rise then we really are in trouble.
This is true, but I worry more about the shrill voices out there. Certainly the idea that the vaccine is resulting in people being less sick, even if needing hospital is good news. There is a lot to unpick. Where are the cases rising, among who, are they vaccinated, is it the school kids (half term now may help). Lots to go on, and I think we must just sit back and wait now. And keep vaccinating.
An absolute cynic in me thinks that cases rising as we approach the youngsters is no bad thing - it might focus some minds on actually getting the jab.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
Perhaps they aren't hostile, and have no desire to communicate, as they consider us a fascinating but inferior species
Why is that so outlandish? I mean, if you accept that aliens exist and are here (which is a fucking wild proposition, but we are increasingly being forced to confront it), then it is hardly a stretch to say the aliens might be nice, but don't really want to talk
When I look down in a rockpool at all the fascinating lifeforms, I don't automatically kill the little crab, and I don't try and talk to the barnacle. I might occasionally shove a stick in, just to see how the little creatures react
Maybe that is what they are doing. Just shoving a stick in the rockpool, to see how we respond
The point is, we are not on the cusp of a great leap forward in understanding. It has been clear for years that some of the UFO stuff is genuinely inexplicable, so that's not news. US presidents and admirals and such are not renowned for their prowess at explaining the inexplicable, so it's much more likely that they have decided to change their policy of cover up in the hope that someone in the audience will be able to work out the answer, than that they are going to disclose that the Pentagon is working closely with operating thetans from the planet Tharg.
The J&J vaccine is less efficacious than Moderna or Pfizer, and (like AZ) takes time to be fully effective. The US is largely stepping back from J&J as well.
I'm surprised the EU is continuing to go down the J&J path, because I thought they'd pretty much entirely committed to Pfizer (with a little Moderna on the side) going forward
For us I am expecting it to become our pre-winter booster shot.
Though the good news there is that we might not need booster shots just yet. This has just come out in Nature, implying that the immune response might be lifelong;
People who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades, though viral variants could dampen some of the protection they offer.
The remaining question is whether and when the virus evolves enough to evade existing antibodies.
Indeed its possible that if enough of the kids get it, they would never need a jab. Genuine covid parties for the under 10's...
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Apologies to Chameleon, I was triggered by the tirade anyone normally gets here when they raise this issue. Yes it’s fascinating and quite hard to call which way it will go from here.
Remarkable number of people here don't understand that the story is the Us military and intel REACTION, not the grainy footage itself
To wit:
"Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp discuss 2019 radar & video evidence of UFOs swarming a carrier battle group, which US Navy has acknowledged as genuine. Why r Navy officials leaking evidence & then corroborating it? Navy is driving the UFO disclosure process!"
Yea it’s really bizarre how a bunch of seemingly smart people can have such a blind spot.
The radar footage was leaked yesterday to social media influencers who specialise in UFOs. Within a few hours, this:
"Gadi Schwartz @GadiNBC Just in from Pentagon spokesperson: “I can confirm that the video you sent was taken by Navy personnel, and that the UAPTF included it in their ongoing examinations. I have no further information on it for you.”"
The Pentagon/US Navy knew the video had been leaked, they even had a statement ready to go, giving confirmation, and verifying the vid.
This is all done quite deliberately. An agenda. Slow disclosure of information.
So what is going on?
1. Either some massive US psy-ops on the entire world, maybe aimed at enemies
2. They are panicked about incredible Chinese tech and want to alert complacent politicians?
3. We are being habituated to the idea that ET has landed. Probably in the ocean
The thing that no one seems to be talking about is SpaceX.
Re-useable first-stages? I mean, come on. Whoosh, off to the edge of space (and out of visibility) and then a bit later (ostensibly) the same rocket comes neatly down to earth. Whatever. It's impossible - SLS can't do it, ULA can't do it. It's clearly cover for aliens incoming on the 'returned' first stage (in fact purpose-built alien landers).
The current UFO video stuff is all put out by Musk to distract us from what is really happening. Wake up sheeple!
(Leon, I'm just teasing, not really trying to argue against what you're saying. There are some odd observations, but at present they're just odd observations. The explanations will be interesting, for sure, whatever they are. If just odd glitches, that's interesting enough. I'll wait for proper evidence from reputable sources, because there's nothing I can do with internet videos. I can become a believer, but where does that get me? If the aliens are here, there's nothing I can do. They'll either come and say hi - we'll know straight away or be told later, presumably - or kill us all or do their observations, get some scrap book photos and disappear off to the next interesting star system. There are enough mysteries/problems in this world that I can do something about tackling, so I'll focus on those for now.)
This attitude bewilders me, to be honest
At the very least this is an astonishing revelation of a grand political conspiracy, which goes to the heart of the American establishment
The other explanations, 1. the Chinese can fly at 15,000 mph, 2. aliens are here, are also pretty damn interesting, to my mind
In 1992 he won though, the only PM and party leader to win a general election in the last 100 years after more than 10 consecutive years of their party in power. Boris will try and repeat the feat in 2024
We can speculate ad infinitum as to whether Margaret Thatcher would have won a fourth GE victory but the fact is she was never given the chance.
John Major won in 1992 for a number of reasons but let's not forget on his watch the Conservative majority fell from 101 to 21 and of course were Boris Johnson to achieve something similar, he would just about lose his majority (SF not withstanding).
Would it have made any difference who was Conservative leader in 1997? You were out pounding the streets as I was back then - I think we both know no one else would have done any better and plenty of the alternatives would have done worse.
The question isn't about electoral performance - it was about post-PM perceptions.
I made the comment the four individuals who seem to be constantly vilified on here are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
My contention is simply that however he finally leaves office, Boris Johnson will be an impotent bystander as his reputation is trashed both by those within the Party and those outside.
As a Conservative Party loyalist, you will be forced to support the new leader when he or she makes "coded attacks" on the Johnson leadership or administration because that's how politics works.
Thank you Stodge. When I advance my “Personality Theory” I am often thrown “But Major beat Kinnock”
Yes, he beat him by 21 seats after Maggie beat him by 101. I hadn’t even looked at that.
Now, Boris (+80) vs Sir Keir...
If you are suggesting that those with charismatic personality always beat those without, you need to look a little further back at Mr Atlee. You might also wonder how Bill Gates became the world's riches man (at one stage).
I am not even convinced Margaret Thatcher was particularly charismatic. She had gravitas certainly. Charisma is often in the eye of the gullible.
In 1992 he won though, the only PM and party leader to win a general election in the last 100 years after more than 10 consecutive years of their party in power. Boris will try and repeat the feat in 2024
We can speculate ad infinitum as to whether Margaret Thatcher would have won a fourth GE victory but the fact is she was never given the chance.
John Major won in 1992 for a number of reasons but let's not forget on his watch the Conservative majority fell from 101 to 21 and of course were Boris Johnson to achieve something similar, he would just about lose his majority (SF not withstanding).
Would it have made any difference who was Conservative leader in 1997? You were out pounding the streets as I was back then - I think we both know no one else would have done any better and plenty of the alternatives would have done worse.
The question isn't about electoral performance - it was about post-PM perceptions.
I made the comment the four individuals who seem to be constantly vilified on here are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
My contention is simply that however he finally leaves office, Boris Johnson will be an impotent bystander as his reputation is trashed both by those within the Party and those outside.
As a Conservative Party loyalist, you will be forced to support the new leader when he or she makes "coded attacks" on the Johnson leadership or administration because that's how politics works.
Thank you Stodge. When I advance my “Personality Theory” I am often thrown “But Major beat Kinnock”
Yes, he beat him by 21 seats after Maggie beat him by 101. I hadn’t even looked at that.
Now, Boris (+80) vs Sir Keir...
IIRC, as another street-pounder around the time, Major was seen as a nice guy, and his abandonment of the Poll Tax probably swung things enough.
Thank you Stodge. When I advance my “Personality Theory” I am often thrown “But Major beat Kinnock”
Yes, he beat him by 21 seats after Maggie beat him by 101. I hadn’t even looked at that.
Now, Boris (+80) vs Sir Keir...
I'm not making any point or comparison between Major & Kinnock as against Johnson & Starmer.
I merely pointed out the fact Major won the 1992 election but the majority was reduced from 101 to 21.
I think "John Major" was one of the main reasons why that happened with "Neil Kinnock" probably as big if not a bigger reason. The mood was less for Major to be Prime Minister than it was for Kinnock NOT to be Prime Minister.
By 1997, a lot had changed - none of it favourably for John Major.
@Malmesbury asserted earlier it was the Conservative Party getting the kicking not John Major. The problem with that was Major had been Conservative leader for nearly seven years and it had all happened on his watch. His inability to control elements within his party accentuated his downfall as he looked nice but weak.
Regarding the Luton march. Am I alone in wondering why the fuck people are protesting in this country about the relations between two other countries?
No you won't be alone. There are a number of other ultra-parochials on here.
I don’t consider myself parochial at all. Indeed, in a previous employment I worked across the world. Sometimes mediating in international troublespots. I have lived in several other countries. Nothing about me is parochial.
I simply do not see why (presumably) U.K. citizens feel the need to bring foreign wars (for this is a war) to our country.
We have tons of protests here about bad stuff going on elsewhere. And many people see this more as a systematic oppression (akin to apartheid) rather than simply another foreign war.
You just don't like the cause, that's all. Which is fair enough, but that's a different argument.
How is it "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" than what is happening to the Kurds? Or the Uighur? Or the Tibetans? Or many more?
I'm not saying it's worse than other atrocities. I'm not doing a finely calibrated rating of one against the other.
And there's something else I don't do. When there happens to be a protest in the UK against something happening elsewhere I don't leap in and say either of the following -
That the people who feel strongly enough to join the protest have questions to answer if they are not also in the habit of protesting all and sundry other issues.
That a protest in the UK is inappropriate because it relates to things happening outside the UK.
What you're doing is imputing bad faith to a protest purely because you don't like the cause. It's no different to the negative stuff that gets said about BLM - although not by you in that case since there you DO like the cause.
You're the one who used the words "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" so I think its fair to ask how that applies.
Just because people are protesting doesn't justify their protest. If people are protesting because they dislike oppression a la Kurds, Tibet, Uighur and Palestine etc consistently then I respect that.
If people are protesting because they dislike Jews, then that's no better than an EDL one.
Just remember if you are a left wing oppressor you are celebrated.
I like a laugh as much as the next man, but try as I might I can't find a rich seam of humour in the public's indifference to government screw ups on coronavirus.
That's the thing about the public - they're on an altogether different level to you. I find that highly amusing.
You're chuckling about the public being on a different level to ME? I don't think you were. I didn't feature. Here's the sequence -
Cummings comes out and describes the chaos & complacency of much of the government's response to Covid.
Poll comes out showing no impact on public opinion.
Felix falls off his chair.
There was an impact!
There's a difference between indifference and unmoved. Anyone who worked in any organisation last March knows the complete chaos that happened. To somehow expect the government to be any different and and to characterise this as complacency is wrong. My wife has worked in the voluntary and public sector for her entire career and cannot stand Boris, but even she has said consistently that it is rich to severely criticise the government as the other lot wouldn't have done any better!
Regarding the Luton march. Am I alone in wondering why the fuck people are protesting in this country about the relations between two other countries?
No you won't be alone. There are a number of other ultra-parochials on here.
I don’t consider myself parochial at all. Indeed, in a previous employment I worked across the world. Sometimes mediating in international troublespots. I have lived in several other countries. Nothing about me is parochial.
I simply do not see why (presumably) U.K. citizens feel the need to bring foreign wars (for this is a war) to our country.
We have tons of protests here about bad stuff going on elsewhere. And many people see this more as a systematic oppression (akin to apartheid) rather than simply another foreign war.
You just don't like the cause, that's all. Which is fair enough, but that's a different argument.
How is it "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" than what is happening to the Kurds? Or the Uighur? Or the Tibetans? Or many more?
I'm not saying it's worse than other atrocities. I'm not doing a finely calibrated rating of one against the other.
And there's something else I don't do. When there happens to be a protest in the UK against something happening elsewhere I don't leap in and say either of the following -
That the people who feel strongly enough to join the protest have questions to answer if they are not also in the habit of protesting all and sundry other issues.
That a protest in the UK is inappropriate because it relates to things happening outside the UK.
What you're doing is imputing bad faith to a protest purely because you don't like the cause. It's no different to the negative stuff that gets said about BLM - although not by you in that case since there you DO like the cause.
You're the one who used the words "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" so I think its fair to ask how that applies.
Just because people are protesting doesn't justify their protest. If people are protesting because they dislike oppression a la Kurds, Tibet, Uighur and Palestine etc consistently then I respect that.
If people are protesting because they dislike Jews, then that's no better than an EDL one.
I sense you get my point. Good.
No I don't get your point. You seem to want to justify this, without justifying it, because you know its unjustifiable.
Please can you say how it is "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)", or please can you say that it isn't and those words were inappropriate?
Ah ok. Just the once more then. I have a few minutes.
Assume there are 26 different atrocities going on in the world outside the UK - one for every letter of the alphabet, A to Z. And there's a protest going on in London about one of them. About M.
So now a common technique adopted by people who dislike and disagree with the protesters (against M) is to say the following -
"How come these people are not protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z? They're hypocrites!"
This is what you're doing here. Where M = Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
Compare with if there were a protest where M = the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs.
Would you in that case be employing the "why aren't they protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z?" technique?
I sense not.
whataboutery is what you are looking for.
Yes. Whataboutery to discredit a protest. That seems to be what's happening in places.
No, that's not it. The protestors will most likely discredit themselves, based on past performance, and if they didn't then there wouldn't be a problem.
It's just that I (and, thankfully, it seems, most sane people here) would prefer they weren't given the opportunity in the first place.
What, you'd ban a protest in case there was unlawful behaviour?
Hell yes.
More specifically, I'd ban protests where history has proven that the "protestors" are using their supposed cause as a front to commit unlawful behaviour.
Again, ask yourself why you are so keen to preserve this right to protest over the right of others not to be racially abused.
Surely outside the script of Minority Report you prosecute a crime after the event. The only exception to this that comes to mind is where there is hard evidence of people specifically plotting a crime.
And I wouldn't say I am keen to treat a pro-Palestine protest any different to others. What makes you think that?
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
Perhaps they aren't hostile, and have no desire to communicate, as they consider us a fascinating but inferior species
Why is that so outlandish? I mean, if you accept that aliens exist and are here (which is a fucking wild proposition, but we are increasingly being forced to confront it), then it is hardly a stretch to say the aliens might be nice, but don't really want to talk
When I look down in a rockpool at all the fascinating lifeforms, I don't automatically kill the little crab, and I don't try and talk to the barnacle. I might occasionally shove a stick in, just to see how the little creatures react
Maybe that is what they are doing. Just shoving a stick in the rockpool, to see how we respond
Well by definition it is outlandish
And yes they could just be looking at the ant hill while the kettle is boiling.
That said, you know my views on why this is happening right now. People are in a weakened and receptive mental state. They have been beaten down by having to face the virus and hence are more prepared to accept the existence or authority of aliens/god/the Chief Medical Officer than in usual times.
I can't say that aliens don't exist although my thinking they are more likely to be tiny blobs 1,000,000 light years away on a planet somewhere, but just as I am a sceptic about most things, this is one where I am super-sceptical.
In 1992 he won though, the only PM and party leader to win a general election in the last 100 years after more than 10 consecutive years of their party in power. Boris will try and repeat the feat in 2024
We can speculate ad infinitum as to whether Margaret Thatcher would have won a fourth GE victory but the fact is she was never given the chance.
John Major won in 1992 for a number of reasons but let's not forget on his watch the Conservative majority fell from 101 to 21 and of course were Boris Johnson to achieve something similar, he would just about lose his majority (SF not withstanding).
Would it have made any difference who was Conservative leader in 1997? You were out pounding the streets as I was back then - I think we both know no one else would have done any better and plenty of the alternatives would have done worse.
The question isn't about electoral performance - it was about post-PM perceptions.
I made the comment the four individuals who seem to be constantly vilified on here are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
My contention is simply that however he finally leaves office, Boris Johnson will be an impotent bystander as his reputation is trashed both by those within the Party and those outside.
As a Conservative Party loyalist, you will be forced to support the new leader when he or she makes "coded attacks" on the Johnson leadership or administration because that's how politics works.
The jury not even sworn in as to how Boris will be perceived once he loses office. He has only run a majority government for a few weeks before the pandemic hit. Attlee has never really been trashed, nor has Churchill. In many respects Heath was trashed for both taking us into Europe, and the way he did it, even while were still in it, and the massively pro EU faction never made him an iconic figure. Strange that.
It is possible that Boris will in time have an imperishable reputation for being the person who singly made all the difference in all ways over Brexit - he personally made a difference in 2016 and he got us out.
That depends really on things like whether it proves to be true (as I think) that the EU has become something so inherently contradictory that it cannot for ever be sustained.
And Boris may be the person who turned the Tory party into one that is much less class and wealth based too.
So looking at the NHS admissions data, 27 in Wales. What's going on there? Is this so odd reporting (seem to remember something odd about wales admissions before in the pandemic?)
Thank you Stodge. When I advance my “Personality Theory” I am often thrown “But Major beat Kinnock”
Yes, he beat him by 21 seats after Maggie beat him by 101. I hadn’t even looked at that.
Now, Boris (+80) vs Sir Keir...
I'm not making any point or comparison between Major & Kinnock as against Johnson & Starmer.
I merely pointed out the fact Major won the 1992 election but the majority was reduced from 101 to 21.
I think "John Major" was one of the main reasons why that happened with "Neil Kinnock" probably as big if not a bigger reason. The mood was less for Major to be Prime Minister than it was for Kinnock NOT to be Prime Minister.
By 1997, a lot had changed - none of it favourably for John Major.
@Malmesbury asserted earlier it was the Conservative Party getting the kicking not John Major. The problem with that was Major had been Conservative leader for nearly seven years and it had all happened on his watch. His inability to control elements within his party accentuated his downfall as he looked nice but weak.
Indeed. Major and his soap-box possibly prevented things from being worse for the Tories.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Apologies to Chameleon, I was triggered by the tirade anyone normally gets here when they raise this issue. Yes it’s fascinating and quite hard to call which way it will go from here.
Remarkable number of people here don't understand that the story is the Us military and intel REACTION, not the grainy footage itself
To wit:
"Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp discuss 2019 radar & video evidence of UFOs swarming a carrier battle group, which US Navy has acknowledged as genuine. Why r Navy officials leaking evidence & then corroborating it? Navy is driving the UFO disclosure process!"
Yea it’s really bizarre how a bunch of seemingly smart people can have such a blind spot.
The radar footage was leaked yesterday to social media influencers who specialise in UFOs. Within a few hours, this:
"Gadi Schwartz @GadiNBC Just in from Pentagon spokesperson: “I can confirm that the video you sent was taken by Navy personnel, and that the UAPTF included it in their ongoing examinations. I have no further information on it for you.”"
The Pentagon/US Navy knew the video had been leaked, they even had a statement ready to go, giving confirmation, and verifying the vid.
This is all done quite deliberately. An agenda. Slow disclosure of information.
So what is going on?
1. Either some massive US psy-ops on the entire world, maybe aimed at enemies
2. They are panicked about incredible Chinese tech and want to alert complacent politicians?
3. We are being habituated to the idea that ET has landed. Probably in the ocean
The thing that no one seems to be talking about is SpaceX.
Re-useable first-stages? I mean, come on. Whoosh, off to the edge of space (and out of visibility) and then a bit later (ostensibly) the same rocket comes neatly down to earth. Whatever. It's impossible - SLS can't do it, ULA can't do it. It's clearly cover for aliens incoming on the 'returned' first stage (in fact purpose-built alien landers).
The current UFO video stuff is all put out by Musk to distract us from what is really happening. Wake up sheeple!
(Leon, I'm just teasing, not really trying to argue against what you're saying. There are some odd observations, but at present they're just odd observations. The explanations will be interesting, for sure, whatever they are. If just odd glitches, that's interesting enough. I'll wait for proper evidence from reputable sources, because there's nothing I can do with internet videos. I can become a believer, but where does that get me? If the aliens are here, there's nothing I can do. They'll either come and say hi - we'll know straight away or be told later, presumably - or kill us all or do their observations, get some scrap book photos and disappear off to the next interesting star system. There are enough mysteries/problems in this world that I can do something about tackling, so I'll focus on those for now.)
This attitude bewilders me, to be honest
At the very least this is an astonishing revelation of a grand political conspiracy, which goes to the heart of the American establishment
The other explanations, 1. the Chinese can fly at 15,000 mph, 2. aliens are here, are also pretty damn interesting, to my mind
It would be dull if we were all the same
The world (and beyond) is full of mysteries. I'm only undergrad in physics, but I'm aware of enough mysteries there of a truly fundamental nature (explaining how the hell very big and very small things behave the way they do) to last several lifetimes of endeavour. I moved away from physics post-graduation because I wanted to tackle smaller problems I could be pretty sure of doing something about in my lifetime and getting to see the results. I'm glad that there are people probing the fundamentals of physics. I'm happy there are people looking into these weird videos (I hope there are some serious scientists doing so) but it's not for me. Too pie in the sky, I guess. Maybe I'm just a small problem kind of guy.
The other thing (with the silly SpaceX stuff) is that we're in a world full of wonder. SpaceX, mRNA vaccines (pace of all Covid vaccine development) etc etc. There's plenty of wonder and mystery to go round.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
I think he is just trolling you all because he has a new novel coming out that involves the lizard people. It is going to be gripping stuff and will make Dan Brown look like a literary award winner.
As with god, I am pursuing a they don't exist strategy until or unless I have a visitation while I'm in the queue at Mickey D's.
NICOLA Sturgeon has warned people not to follow the example set by Scottish Green co-leader Patrick Harvie, who this week broke Covid rules to have a pint.
Mr Harvie and two other Green MSPs, co-leader Lorna Slater and Ross Greer, and a fourth person were caught breaking the three household limit in an Edinburgh bar on Tuesday.
As it happens, a peaceful protest outside a relevant nations embassy would not, in reality be a problem. However any protests that end in motorcades calling for mass rape (as did the recent one in London) is bringing a foreign war to this country. It must not be tolerated. It is essentially an act of war against the United Kingdom.
Well no defence from me of any of that. Not sure about "act of war against the UK", but certainly it was sordid criminality that should be prosecuted. Protests have to be against the government of Israel not against Jews generally. So long as they are, I don't see a problem, and this applies regardless of whether the protesters are active for other causes. Protesting in public against the Israeli oppression of Palestinians but not against other atrocities might be a signal of possible antisemitism but you need more evidence than that to make such an accusation. It's important to say this otherwise antisemitism can end up being used as a way of shutting down negative commentary on Israel.
Do you not find it a little suspicious that the middle east conflict is such a cause celebre for so many people, particularly those on the far left? The behaviour of Israel is often atrocious, and though it doesn't excuse them, there are probably hundreds of regimes around the world who are considerably worse.
My suspicion is that a lot of the obsession the far left has with Israel is more to do with the perceived link between Jews and capitalism. Jews=capitalism. Anti-Semitism is the one form of racism the far left secretly condones.
Yes. Palestine is a touchstone cause for parts of the left. The driver for that is anti-imperialism but if you tag on an Israel = Jew equivalence, embrace of conspiracy theories about Capitalism = Jew, and Israel/Jews as global puppetmaster, etc, you have antisemitism. I think the problem under Corbyn was exaggerated and weaponized by political opponents but it wasn't fabricated. Far from it.
I think there may be a grain of idealogical merit in what Mr Foreman proposes. Nonetheless, problems under Corbyn were exacerbated by the simple fact that he and his pals conflated expansionism and violence by the Netanyahu regime as representative of Jewish people across the world, particularly those in the Labour Party and more specifically those called Luciana Berger.
I am not sure what happened there. My post starts with "I think".
THIS IS WHERE MY RESPONSE STARTS -
Part of the problem is that far too many on the Left identify automatically with whoever they think is less powerful and are automatically hostile to the more powerful party, without necessarily knowing anything about any particular situation. It is silly because right and wrong does not automatically track power relations. The weak are not automatically in the right nor are the more powerful automatically in the wrong.
But that sort of lazy shorthand is all too common and results in people imposing an ignorant view on complex situations and casting people or groups as victims, regardless of what they do or any evidence to the contrary.
ROGER
The reason for the obsession with Israel is because of the many connections between the two countries. Only Russia have more of their citizens living there than the UK. This doesn't apply to the Congo or Ruanda or China.
You might as well ask why a bombing that kills four in Paris or Washington makes it first item on the news whereas a train crash in Mozambique isn't nor a bombing in the Yemen. They are our kith and kin. Their values should be ours
I can't see any evidence that it's to do with money. Imperialism. As it was in South Africa A quasi European country is expected to respect European values. It didn't. It was racist and imperialist and MOST in this country found it objectionable.
Regarding the Luton march. Am I alone in wondering why the fuck people are protesting in this country about the relations between two other countries?
No you won't be alone. There are a number of other ultra-parochials on here.
I don’t consider myself parochial at all. Indeed, in a previous employment I worked across the world. Sometimes mediating in international troublespots. I have lived in several other countries. Nothing about me is parochial.
I simply do not see why (presumably) U.K. citizens feel the need to bring foreign wars (for this is a war) to our country.
We have tons of protests here about bad stuff going on elsewhere. And many people see this more as a systematic oppression (akin to apartheid) rather than simply another foreign war.
You just don't like the cause, that's all. Which is fair enough, but that's a different argument.
How is it "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" than what is happening to the Kurds? Or the Uighur? Or the Tibetans? Or many more?
I'm not saying it's worse than other atrocities. I'm not doing a finely calibrated rating of one against the other.
And there's something else I don't do. When there happens to be a protest in the UK against something happening elsewhere I don't leap in and say either of the following -
That the people who feel strongly enough to join the protest have questions to answer if they are not also in the habit of protesting all and sundry other issues.
That a protest in the UK is inappropriate because it relates to things happening outside the UK.
What you're doing is imputing bad faith to a protest purely because you don't like the cause. It's no different to the negative stuff that gets said about BLM - although not by you in that case since there you DO like the cause.
You're the one who used the words "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" so I think its fair to ask how that applies.
Just because people are protesting doesn't justify their protest. If people are protesting because they dislike oppression a la Kurds, Tibet, Uighur and Palestine etc consistently then I respect that.
If people are protesting because they dislike Jews, then that's no better than an EDL one.
I sense you get my point. Good.
No I don't get your point. You seem to want to justify this, without justifying it, because you know its unjustifiable.
Please can you say how it is "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)", or please can you say that it isn't and those words were inappropriate?
Ah ok. Just the once more then. I have a few minutes.
Assume there are 26 different atrocities going on in the world outside the UK - one for every letter of the alphabet, A to Z. And there's a protest going on in London about one of them. About M.
So now a common technique adopted by people who dislike and disagree with the protesters (against M) is to say the following -
"How come these people are not protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z? They're hypocrites!"
This is what you're doing here. Where M = Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
Compare with if there were a protest where M = the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs.
Would you in that case be employing the "why aren't they protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z?" technique?
I sense not.
whataboutery is what you are looking for.
Yes. Whataboutery to discredit a protest. That seems to be what's happening in places.
No, that's not it. The protestors will most likely discredit themselves, based on past performance, and if they didn't then there wouldn't be a problem.
It's just that I (and, thankfully, it seems, most sane people here) would prefer they weren't given the opportunity in the first place.
What, you'd ban a protest in case there was unlawful behaviour?
Hell yes.
More specifically, I'd ban protests where history has proven that the "protestors" are using their supposed cause as a front to commit unlawful behaviour.
Again, ask yourself why you are so keen to preserve this right to protest over the right of others not to be racially abused.
Surely outside the script of Minority Report you prosecute a crime after the event. The only exception to this that comes to mind is where there is hard evidence of people specifically plotting a crime.
And I wouldn't say I am keen to treat a pro-Palestine protest any different to others. What makes you think that?
"fuck the jews, rape their women, free palestine".
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Apologies to Chameleon, I was triggered by the tirade anyone normally gets here when they raise this issue. Yes it’s fascinating and quite hard to call which way it will go from here.
Remarkable number of people here don't understand that the story is the Us military and intel REACTION, not the grainy footage itself
To wit:
"Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp discuss 2019 radar & video evidence of UFOs swarming a carrier battle group, which US Navy has acknowledged as genuine. Why r Navy officials leaking evidence & then corroborating it? Navy is driving the UFO disclosure process!"
Yea it’s really bizarre how a bunch of seemingly smart people can have such a blind spot.
I am not just "seemingly" smart and I don't have a blind spot. I just can't get excited about this at second hand - I want to be shown, not told.
The leaks are not leaks BTW they are disclosures following foi requests.
The most parsimonious explanation for all this is that an elite cabal within US politics, military and intel is conducting an enormous psy-ops campaign on the entire world, involving former presidents and senior senators and directors of the CIA. Perhaps they are doing it to disguise their own incredible advances in technology, or they are doing it to terrify the Chinese
That is the LEAST outrageous explanation for this weirdness: a vast conspiracy at the heart of Washington, where President Obama goes on TV to deceive people
And this "doesn't excite" you?! Yet the by election of Batley and Spen DOES?
Show us the beef. Everything might be as you say, but at the moment you are telling me: I have a copy of the most erotic porn video ever made, but I can only show you photographs of the erections it has caused in people who have actually seen it.
In 1992 he won though, the only PM and party leader to win a general election in the last 100 years after more than 10 consecutive years of their party in power. Boris will try and repeat the feat in 2024
We can speculate ad infinitum as to whether Margaret Thatcher would have won a fourth GE victory but the fact is she was never given the chance.
John Major won in 1992 for a number of reasons but let's not forget on his watch the Conservative majority fell from 101 to 21 and of course were Boris Johnson to achieve something similar, he would just about lose his majority (SF not withstanding).
Would it have made any difference who was Conservative leader in 1997? You were out pounding the streets as I was back then - I think we both know no one else would have done any better and plenty of the alternatives would have done worse.
The question isn't about electoral performance - it was about post-PM perceptions.
I made the comment the four individuals who seem to be constantly vilified on here are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
My contention is simply that however he finally leaves office, Boris Johnson will be an impotent bystander as his reputation is trashed both by those within the Party and those outside.
As a Conservative Party loyalist, you will be forced to support the new leader when he or she makes "coded attacks" on the Johnson leadership or administration because that's how politics works.
Thank you Stodge. When I advance my “Personality Theory” I am often thrown “But Major beat Kinnock”
Yes, he beat him by 21 seats after Maggie beat him by 101. I hadn’t even looked at that.
Now, Boris (+80) vs Sir Keir...
If you are suggesting that those with charismatic personality always beat those without, you need to look a little further back at Mr Atlee. You might also wonder how Bill Gates became the world's riches man (at one stage).
I am not even convinced Margaret Thatcher was particularly charismatic. She had gravitas certainly. Charisma is often in the eye of the gullible.
I start from 1979 as that’s when IPSOS-MORI started polling the question. So, sorry, Atlee doesn’t make the cut. It’s more of a modern phenomenon anyway I’d say, reality tv, dumbing down etc
Obvs the fact I use IPSOS-MORI rather than my own opinion is a solid filter for gullibility. Thanks for the advice though
Thank you Stodge. When I advance my “Personality Theory” I am often thrown “But Major beat Kinnock”
Yes, he beat him by 21 seats after Maggie beat him by 101. I hadn’t even looked at that.
Now, Boris (+80) vs Sir Keir...
I'm not making any point or comparison between Major & Kinnock as against Johnson & Starmer.
I merely pointed out the fact Major won the 1992 election but the majority was reduced from 101 to 21.
I think "John Major" was one of the main reasons why that happened with "Neil Kinnock" probably as big if not a bigger reason. The mood was less for Major to be Prime Minister than it was for Kinnock NOT to be Prime Minister.
By 1997, a lot had changed - none of it favourably for John Major.
@Malmesbury asserted earlier it was the Conservative Party getting the kicking not John Major. The problem with that was Major had been Conservative leader for nearly seven years and it had all happened on his watch. His inability to control elements within his party accentuated his downfall as he looked nice but weak.
Yes I know you’re not making the comparison, but the fact he lost 80 of Thatchers seats to the same LotO is a helpful finding
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
I think he is just trolling you all because he has a new novel coming out that involves the lizard people. It is going to be gripping stuff and will make Dan Brown look like a literary award winner.
As with god, I am pursuing a they don't exist strategy until or unless I have a visitation while I'm in the queue at Mickey D's.
It is possible they have already visited you. Perhaps your scepticism is a result of the the nanoparticle implant they injected you to ensure you did not recall a whole platoon of them rogering you senseless in the restroom at Mickey D's?
In 1992 he won though, the only PM and party leader to win a general election in the last 100 years after more than 10 consecutive years of their party in power. Boris will try and repeat the feat in 2024
We can speculate ad infinitum as to whether Margaret Thatcher would have won a fourth GE victory but the fact is she was never given the chance.
John Major won in 1992 for a number of reasons but let's not forget on his watch the Conservative majority fell from 101 to 21 and of course were Boris Johnson to achieve something similar, he would just about lose his majority (SF not withstanding).
Would it have made any difference who was Conservative leader in 1997? You were out pounding the streets as I was back then - I think we both know no one else would have done any better and plenty of the alternatives would have done worse.
The question isn't about electoral performance - it was about post-PM perceptions.
I made the comment the four individuals who seem to be constantly vilified on here are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
My contention is simply that however he finally leaves office, Boris Johnson will be an impotent bystander as his reputation is trashed both by those within the Party and those outside.
As a Conservative Party loyalist, you will be forced to support the new leader when he or she makes "coded attacks" on the Johnson leadership or administration because that's how politics works.
Thank you Stodge. When I advance my “Personality Theory” I am often thrown “But Major beat Kinnock”
Yes, he beat him by 21 seats after Maggie beat him by 101. I hadn’t even looked at that.
Now, Boris (+80) vs Sir Keir...
If you are suggesting that those with charismatic personality always beat those without, you need to look a little further back at Mr Atlee. You might also wonder how Bill Gates became the world's riches man (at one stage).
I am not even convinced Margaret Thatcher was particularly charismatic. She had gravitas certainly. Charisma is often in the eye of the gullible.
I start from 1979 as that’s when IPSOS-MORI started polling the question. So, sorry, Atlee doesn’t make the cut. It’s more of a modern phenomenon anyway I’d say, reality tv, dumbing down etc
Obvs the fact I use IPSOS-MORI rather than my own opinion is a solid filter for gullibility. Thanks for the advice though
Biden beat Trump though, despite the fact Trump was more charismatic, same applied when Hollande beat Sarkozy in 2012.
Charisma normally wins but not always, especially if the incumbent is unpopular and the mood is for change then a dull leader can win provided they are not seen as too extreme
Regarding the Luton march. Am I alone in wondering why the fuck people are protesting in this country about the relations between two other countries?
No you won't be alone. There are a number of other ultra-parochials on here.
I don’t consider myself parochial at all. Indeed, in a previous employment I worked across the world. Sometimes mediating in international troublespots. I have lived in several other countries. Nothing about me is parochial.
I simply do not see why (presumably) U.K. citizens feel the need to bring foreign wars (for this is a war) to our country.
We have tons of protests here about bad stuff going on elsewhere. And many people see this more as a systematic oppression (akin to apartheid) rather than simply another foreign war.
You just don't like the cause, that's all. Which is fair enough, but that's a different argument.
As it happens, a peaceful protest outside a relevant nations embassy would not, in reality be a problem. However any protests that end in motorcades calling for mass rape (as did the recent one in London) is bringing a foreign war to this country. It must not be tolerated. It is essentially an act of war against the United Kingdom.
Well no defence from me of any of that. Not sure about "act of war against the UK", but certainly it was sordid criminality that should be prosecuted. Protests have to be against the government of Israel not against Jews generally. So long as they are, I don't see a problem, and this applies regardless of whether the protesters are active for other causes. Protesting in public against the Israeli oppression of Palestinians but not against other atrocities might be a signal of possible antisemitism but you need more evidence than that to make such an accusation. It's important to say this otherwise antisemitism can end up being used as a way of shutting down negative commentary on Israel.
Do you not find it a little suspicious that the middle east conflict is such a cause celebre for so many people, particularly those on the far left? The behaviour of Israel is often atrocious, and though it doesn't excuse them, there are probably hundreds of regimes around the world who are considerably worse.
My suspicion is that a lot of the obsession the far left has with Israel is more to do with the perceived link between Jews and capitalism. Jews=capitalism. Anti-Semitism is the one form of racism the far left secretly condones.
Yes. Palestine is a touchstone cause for parts of the left. The driver for that is anti-imperialism but if you tag on an Israel = Jew equivalence, embrace of conspiracy theories about Capitalism = Jew, and Israel/Jews as global puppetmaster, etc, you have antisemitism. I think the problem under Corbyn was exaggerated and weaponized by political opponents but it wasn't fabricated. Far from it.
When his office are asking to have complaints taken to their office so they can be edited and processed, that's a big problem. He's either too stupid to see the conflict of interest, or it's the Nixon defence.
Didn't it turn out that Corbyn's office was speeding up, not slowing down, processing complaints of antisemitism? This was condemned for ignoring due process, not for being antisemitic, though the report was predictably mischaracterised, iirc.
We set out our findings that the Labour Party’s response to antisemitism complaints has been inconsistent, poor, and lacking in transparency, in terms of its process and decision-making, record-keeping, long delays and communication with complainants.
And from p70:
The Labour Party acknowledged that some complaints had been dealt with too slowly. Delays in progressing complaints were also common in our complaint sample.
From your link: We received representations noting that the intervention of LOTO staff in some antisemitism cases was to press for action to be taken, and that this could not amount to a disadvantage. We accept that, in some cases, the LOTO staff interference catalysed action. However, the inappropriateness of political interference in antisemitism complaints is not necessarily about the particular outcomes that it led to, but rather the contamination (and / or the perception of contamination) of the fairness of the process.
In other words, the EHRC found that Labour's procedures were not fit for purpose, rather than saying they were stacked against complaints.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
I think he is just trolling you all because he has a new novel coming out that involves the lizard people. It is going to be gripping stuff and will make Dan Brown look like a literary award winner.
As with god, I am pursuing a they don't exist strategy until or unless I have a visitation while I'm in the queue at Mickey D's.
It is possible they have already visited you. Perhaps your scepticism is a result of the the nanoparticle implant they injected you to ensure you did not recall a whole platoon of them rogering you senseless in the restroom at Mickey D's?
Yes that is true. I wondered why I walked with a limp for a few weeks earlier this year.
So looking at the NHS admissions data, 27 in Wales. What's going on there? Is this so odd reporting (seem to remember something odd about wales admissions before in the pandemic?)
One thing about Wales (knowledge from another project I'm involved with) is that it's not at all uncommon for Wales residents to be treated in England hospitals - not sure how much for Covid,* but for parts of Wales the nearest/most accessible centre is not in Wales. In those cases, the data likely do a round trip from NHS England (provider) to NHS Wales (payer) and might take longer to get into the stats (if, indeed, the stats are based on residence, not treatment location).
*really not sure - a big issue in the project I'm on, but somes of that's a bit more specialist treatments, perhaps
Regarding the Luton march. Am I alone in wondering why the fuck people are protesting in this country about the relations between two other countries?
No you won't be alone. There are a number of other ultra-parochials on here.
I don’t consider myself parochial at all. Indeed, in a previous employment I worked across the world. Sometimes mediating in international troublespots. I have lived in several other countries. Nothing about me is parochial.
I simply do not see why (presumably) U.K. citizens feel the need to bring foreign wars (for this is a war) to our country.
We have tons of protests here about bad stuff going on elsewhere. And many people see this more as a systematic oppression (akin to apartheid) rather than simply another foreign war.
You just don't like the cause, that's all. Which is fair enough, but that's a different argument.
How is it "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" than what is happening to the Kurds? Or the Uighur? Or the Tibetans? Or many more?
I'm not saying it's worse than other atrocities. I'm not doing a finely calibrated rating of one against the other.
And there's something else I don't do. When there happens to be a protest in the UK against something happening elsewhere I don't leap in and say either of the following -
That the people who feel strongly enough to join the protest have questions to answer if they are not also in the habit of protesting all and sundry other issues.
That a protest in the UK is inappropriate because it relates to things happening outside the UK.
What you're doing is imputing bad faith to a protest purely because you don't like the cause. It's no different to the negative stuff that gets said about BLM - although not by you in that case since there you DO like the cause.
You're the one who used the words "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" so I think its fair to ask how that applies.
Just because people are protesting doesn't justify their protest. If people are protesting because they dislike oppression a la Kurds, Tibet, Uighur and Palestine etc consistently then I respect that.
If people are protesting because they dislike Jews, then that's no better than an EDL one.
I sense you get my point. Good.
No I don't get your point. You seem to want to justify this, without justifying it, because you know its unjustifiable.
Please can you say how it is "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)", or please can you say that it isn't and those words were inappropriate?
Ah ok. Just the once more then. I have a few minutes.
Assume there are 26 different atrocities going on in the world outside the UK - one for every letter of the alphabet, A to Z. And there's a protest going on in London about one of them. About M.
So now a common technique adopted by people who dislike and disagree with the protesters (against M) is to say the following -
"How come these people are not protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z? They're hypocrites!"
This is what you're doing here. Where M = Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
Compare with if there were a protest where M = the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs.
Would you in that case be employing the "why aren't they protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z?" technique?
I sense not.
whataboutery is what you are looking for.
Yes. Whataboutery to discredit a protest. That seems to be what's happening in places.
No, that's not it. The protestors will most likely discredit themselves, based on past performance, and if they didn't then there wouldn't be a problem.
It's just that I (and, thankfully, it seems, most sane people here) would prefer they weren't given the opportunity in the first place.
What, you'd ban a protest in case there was unlawful behaviour?
Hell yes.
More specifically, I'd ban protests where history has proven that the "protestors" are using their supposed cause as a front to commit unlawful behaviour.
Again, ask yourself why you are so keen to preserve this right to protest over the right of others not to be racially abused.
Surely outside the script of Minority Report you prosecute a crime after the event. The only exception to this that comes to mind is where there is hard evidence of people specifically plotting a crime.
And I wouldn't say I am keen to treat a pro-Palestine protest any different to others. What makes you think that?
"fuck the jews, rape their women, free palestine".
In 1992 he won though, the only PM and party leader to win a general election in the last 100 years after more than 10 consecutive years of their party in power. Boris will try and repeat the feat in 2024
We can speculate ad infinitum as to whether Margaret Thatcher would have won a fourth GE victory but the fact is she was never given the chance.
John Major won in 1992 for a number of reasons but let's not forget on his watch the Conservative majority fell from 101 to 21 and of course were Boris Johnson to achieve something similar, he would just about lose his majority (SF not withstanding).
Would it have made any difference who was Conservative leader in 1997? You were out pounding the streets as I was back then - I think we both know no one else would have done any better and plenty of the alternatives would have done worse.
The question isn't about electoral performance - it was about post-PM perceptions.
I made the comment the four individuals who seem to be constantly vilified on here are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
My contention is simply that however he finally leaves office, Boris Johnson will be an impotent bystander as his reputation is trashed both by those within the Party and those outside.
As a Conservative Party loyalist, you will be forced to support the new leader when he or she makes "coded attacks" on the Johnson leadership or administration because that's how politics works.
The jury not even sworn in as to how Boris will be perceived once he loses office. He has only run a majority government for a few weeks before the pandemic hit. Attlee has never really been trashed, nor has Churchill. In many respects Heath was trashed for both taking us into Europe, and the way he did it, even while were still in it, and the massively pro EU faction never made him an iconic figure. Strange that.
It is possible that Boris will in time have an imperishable reputation for being the person who singly made all the difference in all ways over Brexit - he personally made a difference in 2016 and he got us out.
That depends really on things like whether it proves to be true (as I think) that the EU has become something so inherently contradictory that it cannot for ever be sustained.
And Boris may be the person who turned the Tory party into one that is much less class and wealth based too.
The LDs are now the posh party, not the Tories, Boris has played a key part in that
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
I think he is just trolling you all because he has a new novel coming out that involves the lizard people. It is going to be gripping stuff and will make Dan Brown look like a literary award winner.
As with god, I am pursuing a they don't exist strategy until or unless I have a visitation while I'm in the queue at Mickey D's.
And even if I did have a visitation I would put it down to the creation of my mind rather than anything else.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
Perhaps they aren't hostile, and have no desire to communicate, as they consider us a fascinating but inferior species
Why is that so outlandish? I mean, if you accept that aliens exist and are here (which is a fucking wild proposition, but we are increasingly being forced to confront it), then it is hardly a stretch to say the aliens might be nice, but don't really want to talk
When I look down in a rockpool at all the fascinating lifeforms, I don't automatically kill the little crab, and I don't try and talk to the barnacle. I might occasionally shove a stick in, just to see how the little creatures react
Maybe that is what they are doing. Just shoving a stick in the rockpool, to see how we respond
Well by definition it is outlandish
And yes they could just be looking at the ant hill while the kettle is boiling.
That said, you know my views on why this is happening right now. People are in a weakened and receptive mental state. They have been beaten down by having to face the virus and hence are more prepared to accept the existence or authority of aliens/god/the Chief Medical Officer than in usual times.
I can't say that aliens don't exist although my thinking they are more likely to be tiny blobs 1,000,000 light years away on a planet somewhere, but just as I am a sceptic about most things, this is one where I am super-sceptical.
I was chatting with my super smart brother yesterday, all about this (he lives in a shack on a hill in Peru)
During the chat, I developed an evolutionary theory to explain what is happening. Here it is:
Perhaps there is a bug in the human brain, undetectable to humans themselves, that means total proof of God/aliens/parallel dimensions is never accepted or even processed, because it is too destabilising
A hominid that evolved a mental heuristic that says “filter out any evidence of overwhelmingly weird, scary things about which I can do nothing except weep ” would have a Darwinian advantage. While all the other hominids without the Ignore Aliens Heuristic are lying on the floor weeping with fear and anguish at the Big Tings In De Sky, the cheerfully unaware hominid goes about the forest, eating the nicest berries, and having more kids
This might explain why all the evidence of Truly Weird Shit (ghosts, God, aliens) is so enigmatic. The footage so grainy, metaphorically and literally. The heuristic is fighting reality
When might such a heuristic break down, opening the doors of perception, and enabling us to the see the flying saucers? When we have just been through a terrible and extraordinary crisis, which tells us that terrible, extraordinary things DO happen - and shatters our Normalcy Bias
The last big UFO flap came after the Second World War. This one comes after a global plague.
What we are seeing, then, is a glimpse of REALITY that is normally hidden from us by the structure of our minds
The estimated reproduction "R" number in England has likely crept over 1 and the epidemic could be growing by as much as 3% each day, Britain's health ministry said on Friday.
The estimated R number was between 1.0 and 1.1, meaning that on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 10 and 11 other people. Last week, it was estimated at between 0.9 and 1.1.
Looking forwards and extrapolating this week onwards, I reckon Groups 1-8 will be double-dosed-plus-two-weeks by the 21st, and we'll have got all of Groups 1-9 fully protected by one week after that.
This will be pretty significant, hospitalisation-wise. More than half of Phase 2 adults will have been single-jabbed-and-protected by then as well, so we'd be looking at around a ten-fold reduction in ICU demand against case levels, I'd guess.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
Perhaps they aren't hostile, and have no desire to communicate, as they consider us a fascinating but inferior species
Why is that so outlandish? I mean, if you accept that aliens exist and are here (which is a fucking wild proposition, but we are increasingly being forced to confront it), then it is hardly a stretch to say the aliens might be nice, but don't really want to talk
When I look down in a rockpool at all the fascinating lifeforms, I don't automatically kill the little crab, and I don't try and talk to the barnacle. I might occasionally shove a stick in, just to see how the little creatures react
Maybe that is what they are doing. Just shoving a stick in the rockpool, to see how we respond
Well by definition it is outlandish
And yes they could just be looking at the ant hill while the kettle is boiling.
That said, you know my views on why this is happening right now. People are in a weakened and receptive mental state. They have been beaten down by having to face the virus and hence are more prepared to accept the existence or authority of aliens/god/the Chief Medical Officer than in usual times.
I can't say that aliens don't exist although my thinking they are more likely to be tiny blobs 1,000,000 light years away on a planet somewhere, but just as I am a sceptic about most things, this is one where I am super-sceptical.
I was chatting with my super smart brother yesterday, all about this (he lives in a shack on a hill in Peru)
During the chat, I developed an evolutionary theory to explain what is happening. Here it is:
Perhaps there is a bug in the human brain, undetectable to humans themselves, that means total proof of God/aliens/parallel dimensions is never accepted or even processed, because it is too destabilising
A hominid that evolved a mental heuristic that says “filter out any evidence of overwhelmingly weird, scary things about which I can do nothing except weep ” would have a Darwinian advantage. While all the other hominids without the Ignore Aliens Heuristic are lying on the floor weeping with fear and anguish at the Big Tings In De Sky, the cheerfully unaware hominid goes about the forest, eating the nicest berries, and having more kids
This might explain why all the evidence of Truly Weird Shit (ghosts, God, aliens) is so enigmatic. The footage so grainy, metaphorically and literally. The heuristic is fighting reality
When might such a heuristic break down, opening the doors of perception, and enabling us to the see the flying saucers? When we have just been through a terrible and extraordinary crisis, which tells us that terrible, extraordinary things DO happen - and shatters our Normalcy Bias
The last big UFO flap came after the Second World War. This one comes after a global plague.
What we are seeing, then, is a glimpse of REALITY that is normally hidden from us by the structure of our minds
If this is a dream and I'm about to wake up without having had prolonged and exotic sex with a series of A-list Hollywood actresses, I will be furious.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
I think he is just trolling you all because he has a new novel coming out that involves the lizard people. It is going to be gripping stuff and will make Dan Brown look like a literary award winner.
As with god, I am pursuing a they don't exist strategy until or unless I have a visitation while I'm in the queue at Mickey D's.
And even if I did have a visitation I would put it down to the creation of my mind rather than anything else.
Well, QED. You have the Ignore Aliens Heuristic. There is literally no evidence that you would ever believe, even if ET got out his intergalactic love bassoon at your request, etc etc
As I said a couple of nights ago, one of three things will happen to Boris Johnson.
1) He will either be thrown out of office by a vengeful electorate.
2) He will be thrown out of office by those in his party scared their chance of being at the top table is going to pass them by if they stay attached to his coattails or if he becomes an electoral liability and they have a ready-made popular successor in Rishi Sunak who will save the seats and jobs of backbenchers by the dozen.
3) He will leave on his own terms to much fanfare and then watch impotently as his reputation is trashed in the following years by an ungrateful electorate and Party.
So you are saying that he will be treated just like any other prime minister?
Er, yes.
I noted here the other day the four people who receive the most consistent vilification from all sides are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
Boris Johnson is and will be no different.
No to forget Margaret Thatcher. In fact John Major seems to be the only vaguely recent ex-PM that isn't hated on.
I voted for Major. He always struck me as too decent for politics...
Edwina excepted
Well, if you are going to criticise John Major for failing to keep his dick in his pants, you can hardly defend the current incumbent of No.10 on that basis....... but compared to Boris, Major is a candidate for sainthood.
As it happens, a peaceful protest outside a relevant nations embassy would not, in reality be a problem. However any protests that end in motorcades calling for mass rape (as did the recent one in London) is bringing a foreign war to this country. It must not be tolerated. It is essentially an act of war against the United Kingdom.
Well no defence from me of any of that. Not sure about "act of war against the UK", but certainly it was sordid criminality that should be prosecuted. Protests have to be against the government of Israel not against Jews generally. So long as they are, I don't see a problem, and this applies regardless of whether the protesters are active for other causes. Protesting in public against the Israeli oppression of Palestinians but not against other atrocities might be a signal of possible antisemitism but you need more evidence than that to make such an accusation. It's important to say this otherwise antisemitism can end up being used as a way of shutting down negative commentary on Israel.
Do you not find it a little suspicious that the middle east conflict is such a cause celebre for so many people, particularly those on the far left? The behaviour of Israel is often atrocious, and though it doesn't excuse them, there are probably hundreds of regimes around the world who are considerably worse.
My suspicion is that a lot of the obsession the far left has with Israel is more to do with the perceived link between Jews and capitalism. Jews=capitalism. Anti-Semitism is the one form of racism the far left secretly condones.
Yes. Palestine is a touchstone cause for parts of the left. The driver for that is anti-imperialism but if you tag on an Israel = Jew equivalence, embrace of conspiracy theories about Capitalism = Jew, and Israel/Jews as global puppetmaster, etc, you have antisemitism. I think the problem under Corbyn was exaggerated and weaponized by political opponents but it wasn't fabricated. Far from it.
I think there may be a grain of idealogical merit in what Mr Foreman proposes. Nonetheless, problems under Corbyn were exacerbated by the simple fact that he and his pals conflated expansionism and violence by the Netanyahu regime as representative of Jewish people across the world, particularly those in the Labour Party and more specifically those called Luciana Berger.
I am not sure what happened there. My post starts with "I think".
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
Perhaps they aren't hostile, and have no desire to communicate, as they consider us a fascinating but inferior species
Why is that so outlandish? I mean, if you accept that aliens exist and are here (which is a fucking wild proposition, but we are increasingly being forced to confront it), then it is hardly a stretch to say the aliens might be nice, but don't really want to talk
When I look down in a rockpool at all the fascinating lifeforms, I don't automatically kill the little crab, and I don't try and talk to the barnacle. I might occasionally shove a stick in, just to see how the little creatures react
Maybe that is what they are doing. Just shoving a stick in the rockpool, to see how we respond
Well by definition it is outlandish
And yes they could just be looking at the ant hill while the kettle is boiling.
That said, you know my views on why this is happening right now. People are in a weakened and receptive mental state. They have been beaten down by having to face the virus and hence are more prepared to accept the existence or authority of aliens/god/the Chief Medical Officer than in usual times.
I can't say that aliens don't exist although my thinking they are more likely to be tiny blobs 1,000,000 light years away on a planet somewhere, but just as I am a sceptic about most things, this is one where I am super-sceptical.
I was chatting with my super smart brother yesterday, all about this (he lives in a shack on a hill in Peru)
During the chat, I developed an evolutionary theory to explain what is happening. Here it is:
Perhaps there is a bug in the human brain, undetectable to humans themselves, that means total proof of God/aliens/parallel dimensions is never accepted or even processed, because it is too destabilising
A hominid that evolved a mental heuristic that says “filter out any evidence of overwhelmingly weird, scary things about which I can do nothing except weep ” would have a Darwinian advantage. While all the other hominids without the Ignore Aliens Heuristic are lying on the floor weeping with fear and anguish at the Big Tings In De Sky, the cheerfully unaware hominid goes about the forest, eating the nicest berries, and having more kids
This might explain why all the evidence of Truly Weird Shit (ghosts, God, aliens) is so enigmatic. The footage so grainy, metaphorically and literally. The heuristic is fighting reality
When might such a heuristic break down, opening the doors of perception, and enabling us to the see the flying saucers? When we have just been through a terrible and extraordinary crisis, which tells us that terrible, extraordinary things DO happen - and shatters our Normalcy Bias
The last big UFO flap came after the Second World War. This one comes after a global plague.
What we are seeing, then, is a glimpse of REALITY that is normally hidden from us by the structure of our minds
Congratulations. That's dependent related existence. Edit. Replying to Leon. No idea how the bit above came as well.
The estimated reproduction "R" number in England has likely crept over 1 and the epidemic could be growing by as much as 3% each day, Britain's health ministry said on Friday.
The estimated R number was between 1.0 and 1.1, meaning that on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 10 and 11 other people. Last week, it was estimated at between 0.9 and 1.1.
Germany's BioNTech asked Taiwan to remove the word "country" from theirplanned joint announcement on a COVID-19 vaccine sale to the island, its health minister said, as he outlined the collapse of the deal which Taipei blames on China.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
I think he is just trolling you all because he has a new novel coming out that involves the lizard people. It is going to be gripping stuff and will make Dan Brown look like a literary award winner.
As with god, I am pursuing a they don't exist strategy until or unless I have a visitation while I'm in the queue at Mickey D's.
And even if I did have a visitation I would put it down to the creation of my mind rather than anything else.
Well, QED. You have the Ignore Aliens Heuristic. There is literally no evidence that you would ever believe, even if ET got out his intergalactic love bassoon at your request, etc etc
It is of course exactly the same argument (?) that religious folk have. He knows you don't believe in Him but He loves you anyway.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
I think he is just trolling you all because he has a new novel coming out that involves the lizard people. It is going to be gripping stuff and will make Dan Brown look like a literary award winner.
As with god, I am pursuing a they don't exist strategy until or unless I have a visitation while I'm in the queue at Mickey D's.
And even if I did have a visitation I would put it down to the creation of my mind rather than anything else.
It is possible that we are all figments of your imagination, or indeed, from my perspective that you are all figments of mine. I have come to the conclusion that this is demonstrably untrue because I just read Leon's post and I know that i could not have made that up. It is, also possible, of course, that he is an alien.
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
Perhaps they aren't hostile, and have no desire to communicate, as they consider us a fascinating but inferior species
Why is that so outlandish? I mean, if you accept that aliens exist and are here (which is a fucking wild proposition, but we are increasingly being forced to confront it), then it is hardly a stretch to say the aliens might be nice, but don't really want to talk
When I look down in a rockpool at all the fascinating lifeforms, I don't automatically kill the little crab, and I don't try and talk to the barnacle. I might occasionally shove a stick in, just to see how the little creatures react
Maybe that is what they are doing. Just shoving a stick in the rockpool, to see how we respond
Well by definition it is outlandish
And yes they could just be looking at the ant hill while the kettle is boiling.
That said, you know my views on why this is happening right now. People are in a weakened and receptive mental state. They have been beaten down by having to face the virus and hence are more prepared to accept the existence or authority of aliens/god/the Chief Medical Officer than in usual times.
I can't say that aliens don't exist although my thinking they are more likely to be tiny blobs 1,000,000 light years away on a planet somewhere, but just as I am a sceptic about most things, this is one where I am super-sceptical.
I was chatting with my super smart brother yesterday, all about this (he lives in a shack on a hill in Peru)
During the chat, I developed an evolutionary theory to explain what is happening. Here it is:
Perhaps there is a bug in the human brain, undetectable to humans themselves, that means total proof of God/aliens/parallel dimensions is never accepted or even processed, because it is too destabilising
A hominid that evolved a mental heuristic that says “filter out any evidence of overwhelmingly weird, scary things about which I can do nothing except weep ” would have a Darwinian advantage. While all the other hominids without the Ignore Aliens Heuristic are lying on the floor weeping with fear and anguish at the Big Tings In De Sky, the cheerfully unaware hominid goes about the forest, eating the nicest berries, and having more kids
This might explain why all the evidence of Truly Weird Shit (ghosts, God, aliens) is so enigmatic. The footage so grainy, metaphorically and literally. The heuristic is fighting reality
When might such a heuristic break down, opening the doors of perception, and enabling us to the see the flying saucers? When we have just been through a terrible and extraordinary crisis, which tells us that terrible, extraordinary things DO happen - and shatters our Normalcy Bias
The last big UFO flap came after the Second World War. This one comes after a global plague.
What we are seeing, then, is a glimpse of REALITY that is normally hidden from us by the structure of our minds
I'm confident British people won't fall for any of this nonsense. Not sure about Americans.
I wonder what belief in aliens (or lack of belief) correlates with?
It is postulated that there's a strong correlation between humans with the vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2) and belief in God and other mystical experiences. I'm guessing that @Leon has the "God Gene".
The estimated reproduction "R" number in England has likely crept over 1 and the epidemic could be growing by as much as 3% each day, Britain's health ministry said on Friday.
The estimated R number was between 1.0 and 1.1, meaning that on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 10 and 11 other people. Last week, it was estimated at between 0.9 and 1.1.
It doesn't matter how high the R number is if nearly everyone is vaccinated. (I think that's right).
It also is much less important if the absolute number of cases is low. In truth the R number throughout most of the UK is well below 1 - and in some parts quite a bit above...
As I said a couple of nights ago, one of three things will happen to Boris Johnson.
1) He will either be thrown out of office by a vengeful electorate.
2) He will be thrown out of office by those in his party scared their chance of being at the top table is going to pass them by if they stay attached to his coattails or if he becomes an electoral liability and they have a ready-made popular successor in Rishi Sunak who will save the seats and jobs of backbenchers by the dozen.
3) He will leave on his own terms to much fanfare and then watch impotently as his reputation is trashed in the following years by an ungrateful electorate and Party.
So you are saying that he will be treated just like any other prime minister?
Er, yes.
I noted here the other day the four people who receive the most consistent vilification from all sides are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
Boris Johnson is and will be no different.
No to forget Margaret Thatcher. In fact John Major seems to be the only vaguely recent ex-PM that isn't hated on.
I voted for Major. He always struck me as too decent for politics...
Edwina excepted
Well, if you are going to criticise John Major for failing to keep his dick in his pants, you can hardly defend the current incumbent of No.10 on that basis....... but compared to Boris, Major is a candidate for sainthood.
I once knew someone that stood next to him in a urinal and decided to have a peek. Apparently he said he could see why Edwina seemed so happy!
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
Perhaps they aren't hostile, and have no desire to communicate, as they consider us a fascinating but inferior species
Why is that so outlandish? I mean, if you accept that aliens exist and are here (which is a fucking wild proposition, but we are increasingly being forced to confront it), then it is hardly a stretch to say the aliens might be nice, but don't really want to talk
When I look down in a rockpool at all the fascinating lifeforms, I don't automatically kill the little crab, and I don't try and talk to the barnacle. I might occasionally shove a stick in, just to see how the little creatures react
Maybe that is what they are doing. Just shoving a stick in the rockpool, to see how we respond
Well by definition it is outlandish
And yes they could just be looking at the ant hill while the kettle is boiling.
That said, you know my views on why this is happening right now. People are in a weakened and receptive mental state. They have been beaten down by having to face the virus and hence are more prepared to accept the existence or authority of aliens/god/the Chief Medical Officer than in usual times.
I can't say that aliens don't exist although my thinking they are more likely to be tiny blobs 1,000,000 light years away on a planet somewhere, but just as I am a sceptic about most things, this is one where I am super-sceptical.
I was chatting with my super smart brother yesterday, all about this (he lives in a shack on a hill in Peru)
During the chat, I developed an evolutionary theory to explain what is happening. Here it is:
Perhaps there is a bug in the human brain, undetectable to humans themselves, that means total proof of God/aliens/parallel dimensions is never accepted or even processed, because it is too destabilising
A hominid that evolved a mental heuristic that says “filter out any evidence of overwhelmingly weird, scary things about which I can do nothing except weep ” would have a Darwinian advantage. While all the other hominids without the Ignore Aliens Heuristic are lying on the floor weeping with fear and anguish at the Big Tings In De Sky, the cheerfully unaware hominid goes about the forest, eating the nicest berries, and having more kids
This might explain why all the evidence of Truly Weird Shit (ghosts, God, aliens) is so enigmatic. The footage so grainy, metaphorically and literally. The heuristic is fighting reality
When might such a heuristic break down, opening the doors of perception, and enabling us to the see the flying saucers? When we have just been through a terrible and extraordinary crisis, which tells us that terrible, extraordinary things DO happen - and shatters our Normalcy Bias
The last big UFO flap came after the Second World War. This one comes after a global plague.
What we are seeing, then, is a glimpse of REALITY that is normally hidden from us by the structure of our minds
This reminds me of the answer to a question in RE that 7-year-old me desperately wanted to write but didn't quite dare to:
Q: Why did Moses talk to the burning bush? A: Because he was mad.
As it happens, a peaceful protest outside a relevant nations embassy would not, in reality be a problem. However any protests that end in motorcades calling for mass rape (as did the recent one in London) is bringing a foreign war to this country. It must not be tolerated. It is essentially an act of war against the United Kingdom.
Well no defence from me of any of that. Not sure about "act of war against the UK", but certainly it was sordid criminality that should be prosecuted. Protests have to be against the government of Israel not against Jews generally. So long as they are, I don't see a problem, and this applies regardless of whether the protesters are active for other causes. Protesting in public against the Israeli oppression of Palestinians but not against other atrocities might be a signal of possible antisemitism but you need more evidence than that to make such an accusation. It's important to say this otherwise antisemitism can end up being used as a way of shutting down negative commentary on Israel.
Do you not find it a little suspicious that the middle east conflict is such a cause celebre for so many people, particularly those on the far left? The behaviour of Israel is often atrocious, and though it doesn't excuse them, there are probably hundreds of regimes around the world who are considerably worse.
My suspicion is that a lot of the obsession the far left has with Israel is more to do with the perceived link between Jews and capitalism. Jews=capitalism. Anti-Semitism is the one form of racism the far left secretly condones.
Yes. Palestine is a touchstone cause for parts of the left. The driver for that is anti-imperialism but if you tag on an Israel = Jew equivalence, embrace of conspiracy theories about Capitalism = Jew, and Israel/Jews as global puppetmaster, etc, you have antisemitism. I think the problem under Corbyn was exaggerated and weaponized by political opponents but it wasn't fabricated. Far from it.
I think there may be a grain of idealogical merit in what Mr Foreman proposes. Nonetheless, problems under Corbyn were exacerbated by the simple fact that he and his pals conflated expansionism and violence by the Netanyahu regime as representative of Jewish people across the world, particularly those in the Labour Party and more specifically those called Luciana Berger.
I am not sure what happened there. My post starts with "I think".
THIS IS WHERE MY RESPONSE STARTS -
Part of the problem is that far too many on the Left identify automatically with whoever they think is less powerful and are automatically hostile to the more powerful party, without necessarily knowing anything about any particular situation. It is silly because right and wrong does not automatically track power relations. The weak are not automatically in the right nor are the more powerful automatically in the wrong.
But that sort of lazy shorthand is all too common and results in people imposing an ignorant view on complex situations and casting people or groups as victims, regardless of what they do or any evidence to the contrary.
ROGER
The reason for the obsession with Israel is because of the many connections between the two countries. Only Russia have more of their citizens living there than the UK. This doesn't apply to the Congo or Ruanda or China.
You might as well ask why a bombing that kills four in Paris or Washington makes it first item on the news whereas a train crash in Mozambique isn't nor a bombing in the Yemen. They are our kith and kin. Their values should be ours
I can't see any evidence that it's to do with money. Imperialism. As it was in South Africa A quasi European country is expected to respect European values. It didn't. It was racist and imperialist and MOST in this country found it objectionable.
==================================== (Comment on the above)
All single issue fanatics do something like this:
1 Yes indeed there are evils in the world.
2 I am going to focus on one of them and claim your attention and demand your support.
3 Every reference to every other evil in the world when I am talking to you is whatabouttery.
4 Every other evil in the world is somehow arguable, discussable and relates to other evils in the world and I am not talking about it so shut up and educate yourself.
Recent nice example: BLM in relation to the quality of governance in black led countries in sub Saharan Africa.
As I said a couple of nights ago, one of three things will happen to Boris Johnson.
1) He will either be thrown out of office by a vengeful electorate.
2) He will be thrown out of office by those in his party scared their chance of being at the top table is going to pass them by if they stay attached to his coattails or if he becomes an electoral liability and they have a ready-made popular successor in Rishi Sunak who will save the seats and jobs of backbenchers by the dozen.
3) He will leave on his own terms to much fanfare and then watch impotently as his reputation is trashed in the following years by an ungrateful electorate and Party.
So you are saying that he will be treated just like any other prime minister?
Er, yes.
I noted here the other day the four people who receive the most consistent vilification from all sides are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
Boris Johnson is and will be no different.
No to forget Margaret Thatcher. In fact John Major seems to be the only vaguely recent ex-PM that isn't hated on.
I voted for Major. He always struck me as too decent for politics...
Edwina excepted
Well, if you are going to criticise John Major for failing to keep his dick in his pants, you can hardly defend the current incumbent of No.10 on that basis....... but compared to Boris, Major is a candidate for sainthood.
I never did, Major has more personal morals than Boris and May has more personal morals than both but that does not change the fact Boris is by far the better campaigner and election winner.
As it happens, a peaceful protest outside a relevant nations embassy would not, in reality be a problem. However any protests that end in motorcades calling for mass rape (as did the recent one in London) is bringing a foreign war to this country. It must not be tolerated. It is essentially an act of war against the United Kingdom.
Well no defence from me of any of that. Not sure about "act of war against the UK", but certainly it was sordid criminality that should be prosecuted. Protests have to be against the government of Israel not against Jews generally. So long as they are, I don't see a problem, and this applies regardless of whether the protesters are active for other causes. Protesting in public against the Israeli oppression of Palestinians but not against other atrocities might be a signal of possible antisemitism but you need more evidence than that to make such an accusation. It's important to say this otherwise antisemitism can end up being used as a way of shutting down negative commentary on Israel.
Do you not find it a little suspicious that the middle east conflict is such a cause celebre for so many people, particularly those on the far left? The behaviour of Israel is often atrocious, and though it doesn't excuse them, there are probably hundreds of regimes around the world who are considerably worse.
My suspicion is that a lot of the obsession the far left has with Israel is more to do with the perceived link between Jews and capitalism. Jews=capitalism. Anti-Semitism is the one form of racism the far left secretly condones.
Yes. Palestine is a touchstone cause for parts of the left. The driver for that is anti-imperialism but if you tag on an Israel = Jew equivalence, embrace of conspiracy theories about Capitalism = Jew, and Israel/Jews as global puppetmaster, etc, you have antisemitism. I think the problem under Corbyn was exaggerated and weaponized by political opponents but it wasn't fabricated. Far from it.
I think there may be a grain of idealogical merit in what Mr Foreman proposes. Nonetheless, problems under Corbyn were exacerbated by the simple fact that he and his pals conflated expansionism and violence by the Netanyahu regime as representative of Jewish people across the world, particularly those in the Labour Party and more specifically those called Luciana Berger.
I am not sure what happened there. My post starts with "I think".
ANY explanation of the UFO story would now be the biggest security story in 70 years
The more outrageous explanation would be the biggest story EVER, and still it is a contender
Wanna see some decent footage of something interesting. I can make fuzzy dots move around fast on a screen or (with a laser pointer off ebay) round the sky, and I'm not excited by talk of flir and 100gs.
I bet the June info dump will be a heavily redacted damp squib.
Except you wouldn't be able to persuade Obama with your laser pointer off eBay
Ishmael is right about one thing though, the June report is highly unlikely to shed much light. At best it will be a waypoint to a more comprehensive report later. Unless that is, Biden knows the answer is exotic and decides to lay his cards.
Looks unlikely, given the dirty tricks they’re using against Elizondo. The latest FOI request has ended with the Pentagon admitting it has deleted all of Elizondo’s emails with no backup. Doesn’t sound much like standard protocol but I’m sure Philip can explain why they’d have done that.
Yes, I don't expect much from the report. A holding position
However they have gone beyond the point where they can put the ET genie back in the you're-a-nutter lamp
Jeez Leon can you please tell me why these aliens haven't zapped the White House or flattened Chicago (or Cheltenham or Chongqing)?
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
Perhaps they aren't hostile, and have no desire to communicate, as they consider us a fascinating but inferior species
Why is that so outlandish? I mean, if you accept that aliens exist and are here (which is a fucking wild proposition, but we are increasingly being forced to confront it), then it is hardly a stretch to say the aliens might be nice, but don't really want to talk
When I look down in a rockpool at all the fascinating lifeforms, I don't automatically kill the little crab, and I don't try and talk to the barnacle. I might occasionally shove a stick in, just to see how the little creatures react
Maybe that is what they are doing. Just shoving a stick in the rockpool, to see how we respond
Well by definition it is outlandish
And yes they could just be looking at the ant hill while the kettle is boiling.
That said, you know my views on why this is happening right now. People are in a weakened and receptive mental state. They have been beaten down by having to face the virus and hence are more prepared to accept the existence or authority of aliens/god/the Chief Medical Officer than in usual times.
I can't say that aliens don't exist although my thinking they are more likely to be tiny blobs 1,000,000 light years away on a planet somewhere, but just as I am a sceptic about most things, this is one where I am super-sceptical.
I was chatting with my super smart brother yesterday, all about this (he lives in a shack on a hill in Peru)
During the chat, I developed an evolutionary theory to explain what is happening. Here it is:
Perhaps there is a bug in the human brain, undetectable to humans themselves, that means total proof of God/aliens/parallel dimensions is never accepted or even processed, because it is too destabilising
A hominid that evolved a mental heuristic that says “filter out any evidence of overwhelmingly weird, scary things about which I can do nothing except weep ” would have a Darwinian advantage. While all the other hominids without the Ignore Aliens Heuristic are lying on the floor weeping with fear and anguish at the Big Tings In De Sky, the cheerfully unaware hominid goes about the forest, eating the nicest berries, and having more kids
This might explain why all the evidence of Truly Weird Shit (ghosts, God, aliens) is so enigmatic. The footage so grainy, metaphorically and literally. The heuristic is fighting reality
When might such a heuristic break down, opening the doors of perception, and enabling us to the see the flying saucers? When we have just been through a terrible and extraordinary crisis, which tells us that terrible, extraordinary things DO happen - and shatters our Normalcy Bias
The last big UFO flap came after the Second World War. This one comes after a global plague.
What we are seeing, then, is a glimpse of REALITY that is normally hidden from us by the structure of our minds
Congratulations. That's dependent related existence. Edit. Replying to Leon. No idea how the bit above came as well.
As I said a couple of nights ago, one of three things will happen to Boris Johnson.
1) He will either be thrown out of office by a vengeful electorate.
2) He will be thrown out of office by those in his party scared their chance of being at the top table is going to pass them by if they stay attached to his coattails or if he becomes an electoral liability and they have a ready-made popular successor in Rishi Sunak who will save the seats and jobs of backbenchers by the dozen.
3) He will leave on his own terms to much fanfare and then watch impotently as his reputation is trashed in the following years by an ungrateful electorate and Party.
So you are saying that he will be treated just like any other prime minister?
Er, yes.
I noted here the other day the four people who receive the most consistent vilification from all sides are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
Boris Johnson is and will be no different.
No to forget Margaret Thatcher. In fact John Major seems to be the only vaguely recent ex-PM that isn't hated on.
I voted for Major. He always struck me as too decent for politics...
Edwina excepted
Well, if you are going to criticise John Major for failing to keep his dick in his pants, you can hardly defend the current incumbent of No.10 on that basis....... but compared to Boris, Major is a candidate for sainthood.
I never did, Major has more personal morals than Boris and May has more personal morals than both but that does not change the fact Boris is by far the better campaigner and election winner.
Also, the "they are there but don't want to make contact" idea is a very comforting one in several respects.
Aliens then become pre-fall man and the CIA/Biden/USAF become the serpent.
Then there is the guardian angel angle. They are there but are just looking representing a greater power which I can look to in difficult times. Perhaps they would help me then.
And then there is the neat explanation for a series of uncertain phenomena.
(Of course for bonkers/unexplained phenomena we need look no further than some of the farther reaches of our oceans but for some reason no one thinks the aliens arrived and headed straight underwater.)
On the subject of Palestine and Israel, it seems one can support Israel's right to exist, and to actively defend itself against external attacks, but also be horrified by the continued and creeping annexation of Israel's neighbours via settlements, and the willingness of many (otherwise perfectly sensible) people to defend Israel's creation of an apartheid state in Palestine.
And it seems that the two sides seem very unwilling to even acknowledge these issues. Supporters of Palestine reply with Whatabout... While supporters of Israel do the same.
The other side's intransigence allows one to avoid absolutely all consideration of whether one's own side is behaving morally.
There remains a fundament question that needs to be settled: are the West Bank and Gaza part of Israel or not?
If they are, then those people that were born and live there are Israeli citizens, and need to be given the same rights as every other Israeli citizen.
If they are not, then Israelis have no right to settle in Palestine, and the Palestinians have the same rights of self governance as anyone else.
Regarding the Luton march. Am I alone in wondering why the fuck people are protesting in this country about the relations between two other countries?
No you won't be alone. There are a number of other ultra-parochials on here.
I don’t consider myself parochial at all. Indeed, in a previous employment I worked across the world. Sometimes mediating in international troublespots. I have lived in several other countries. Nothing about me is parochial.
I simply do not see why (presumably) U.K. citizens feel the need to bring foreign wars (for this is a war) to our country.
We have tons of protests here about bad stuff going on elsewhere. And many people see this more as a systematic oppression (akin to apartheid) rather than simply another foreign war.
You just don't like the cause, that's all. Which is fair enough, but that's a different argument.
How is it "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" than what is happening to the Kurds? Or the Uighur? Or the Tibetans? Or many more?
I'm not saying it's worse than other atrocities. I'm not doing a finely calibrated rating of one against the other.
And there's something else I don't do. When there happens to be a protest in the UK against something happening elsewhere I don't leap in and say either of the following -
That the people who feel strongly enough to join the protest have questions to answer if they are not also in the habit of protesting all and sundry other issues.
That a protest in the UK is inappropriate because it relates to things happening outside the UK.
What you're doing is imputing bad faith to a protest purely because you don't like the cause. It's no different to the negative stuff that gets said about BLM - although not by you in that case since there you DO like the cause.
You're the one who used the words "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" so I think its fair to ask how that applies.
Just because people are protesting doesn't justify their protest. If people are protesting because they dislike oppression a la Kurds, Tibet, Uighur and Palestine etc consistently then I respect that.
If people are protesting because they dislike Jews, then that's no better than an EDL one.
I sense you get my point. Good.
No I don't get your point. You seem to want to justify this, without justifying it, because you know its unjustifiable.
Please can you say how it is "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)", or please can you say that it isn't and those words were inappropriate?
Ah ok. Just the once more then. I have a few minutes.
Assume there are 26 different atrocities going on in the world outside the UK - one for every letter of the alphabet, A to Z. And there's a protest going on in London about one of them. About M.
So now a common technique adopted by people who dislike and disagree with the protesters (against M) is to say the following -
"How come these people are not protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z? They're hypocrites!"
This is what you're doing here. Where M = Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
Compare with if there were a protest where M = the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs.
Would you in that case be employing the "why aren't they protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z?" technique?
I sense not.
whataboutery is what you are looking for.
Yes. Whataboutery to discredit a protest. That seems to be what's happening in places.
No, that's not it. The protestors will most likely discredit themselves, based on past performance, and if they didn't then there wouldn't be a problem.
It's just that I (and, thankfully, it seems, most sane people here) would prefer they weren't given the opportunity in the first place.
If someone can't divine the hidden and nuanced meaning of "fuck the jews, rape their women, free palestine" then I think you are slightly wasting your time.
I could say the same to you!
I live in hope. Kinabalu is clearly intelligent enough to get the point some day.
LOL That is true!
He is very intelligent and it's just so frustrating - he is so confused about his own life story (working class northern lad made good now living a life of privelege) that he is unable to give that intelligence free rein as he is so used to having to live amongst what is supposed to be for someone of his background the enemy class. Except he is now a fully paid up member.
Well thanks for the (sort of!) compliment - and great to be back 'In The Psychiatrists Chair' - however the logic doesn't work at all here. It's totally jaundiced. Of course my interiors would be less messy if I'd bred whippets instead of drifting into the venal worthlessness of the City. But, you know, and literally, c'est la vie. Life IS messy. Fact is, most people construct false narratives for their life which serve to validate themselves. That I don't do this is imho my very best feature, other than my plump, oh-so-kissable lips.
US Senate votes 54 - 35 in favor of establishing an independent commission to investigate the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th. The vote fails because it doesn't have 60 in favor. That a vote can "fail" with a 19 vote margin is reason enough to nuke the filibuster now
Also, the "they are there but don't want to make contact" idea is a very comforting one in several respects.
Aliens then become pre-fall man and the CIA/Biden/USAF become the serpent.
Then there is the guardian angel angle. They are there but are just looking representing a greater power which I can look to in difficult times. Perhaps they would help me then.
And then there is the neat explanation for a series of uncertain phenomena.
(Of course for bonkers/unexplained phenomena we need look no further than some of the farther reaches of our oceans but for some reason no one thinks the aliens arrived and headed straight underwater.)
Some people think exactly that. The UFOs "base themselves" underwater, hence the many sightings over the sea
US Senate votes 54 - 35 in favor of establishing an independent commission to investigate the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th. The vote fails because it doesn't have 60 in favor. That a vote can "fail" with a 19 vote margin is reason enough to nuke the filibuster now
Also, the "they are there but don't want to make contact" idea is a very comforting one in several respects.
Aliens then become pre-fall man and the CIA/Biden/USAF become the serpent.
Then there is the guardian angel angle. They are there but are just looking representing a greater power which I can look to in difficult times. Perhaps they would help me then.
And then there is the neat explanation for a series of uncertain phenomena.
(Of course for bonkers/unexplained phenomena we need look no further than some of the farther reaches of our oceans but for some reason no one thinks the aliens arrived and headed straight underwater.)
Some people think exactly that. The UFOs "base themselves" underwater, hence the many sightings over the sea
We have reached quite a crazy juncture
If they base themselves underwater let's just leave them to it, we don't want to wake the Kraken.
Also, the "they are there but don't want to make contact" idea is a very comforting one in several respects.
Aliens then become pre-fall man and the CIA/Biden/USAF become the serpent.
Then there is the guardian angel angle. They are there but are just looking representing a greater power which I can look to in difficult times. Perhaps they would help me then.
And then there is the neat explanation for a series of uncertain phenomena.
(Of course for bonkers/unexplained phenomena we need look no further than some of the farther reaches of our oceans but for some reason no one thinks the aliens arrived and headed straight underwater.)
Some people think exactly that. The UFOs "base themselves" underwater, hence the many sightings over the sea
We have reached quite a crazy juncture
More likely it is the Fata Morgana effect, combined with a huge number of human beings who are supremely gullible. Perhaps.
Looking forwards and extrapolating this week onwards, I reckon Groups 1-8 will be double-dosed-plus-two-weeks by the 21st, and we'll have got all of Groups 1-9 fully protected by one week after that.
This will be pretty significant, hospitalisation-wise. More than half of Phase 2 adults will have been single-jabbed-and-protected by then as well, so we'd be looking at around a ten-fold reduction in ICU demand against case levels, I'd guess.
That'll help a lot.
There's a lot of generalisations in all that.
Worth re-stating in Newham 50,000 people aged 40 or over have yet to have a first vaccination. Have they been invited and refused or have they not been invited? I don't know for sure.
50,000 others have had their first vaccination - hopefully many of those have appointments over the next 2-3 weeks.
50,000, like me and Mrs Stodge have had both vaccinations.
"A tale of three numbers" - so to speak - but with barely one third of the over-40s doubly vaccinated, we've still got a long way to go.
On the subject of Palestine and Israel, it seems one can support Israel's right to exist, and to actively defend itself against external attacks, but also be horrified by the continued and creeping annexation of Israel's neighbours via settlements, and the willingness of many (otherwise perfectly sensible) people to defend Israel's creation of an apartheid state in Palestine.
And it seems that the two sides seem very unwilling to even acknowledge these issues. Supporters of Palestine reply with Whatabout... While supporters of Israel do the same.
The other side's intransigence allows one to avoid absolutely all consideration of whether one's own side is behaving morally.
There remains a fundament question that needs to be settled: are the West Bank and Gaza part of Israel or not?
If they are, then those people that were born and live there are Israeli citizens, and need to be given the same rights as every other Israeli citizen.
If they are not, then Israelis have no right to settle in Palestine, and the Palestinians have the same rights of self governance as anyone else.
Which is it, boys?
As Harry Hill said on his ch4 Friday Night show in 1998
The estimated reproduction "R" number in England has likely crept over 1 and the epidemic could be growing by as much as 3% each day, Britain's health ministry said on Friday.
The estimated R number was between 1.0 and 1.1, meaning that on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 10 and 11 other people. Last week, it was estimated at between 0.9 and 1.1.
It doesn't matter how high the R number is if nearly everyone is vaccinated. (I think that's right).
If you really believe vaccinated people never suffer from severe illness or die, that would be true. But surely you know that's not true.
Otherwise, a certain percentage of of the people who get COVID-19 will die. So the more people who get COVID-19, the more people will die. So the bigger the R number, the more people will die.
A lot of people here seem to have taken in well-intentioned propaganda designed to encourage people to be vaccinated, and somehow transmuted it into a quasi-religious faith that vaccines will protect them from any harm whether they get COVID-19 or not. And impelled them to go and spread the word online ...
Regarding the Luton march. Am I alone in wondering why the fuck people are protesting in this country about the relations between two other countries?
No you won't be alone. There are a number of other ultra-parochials on here.
I don’t consider myself parochial at all. Indeed, in a previous employment I worked across the world. Sometimes mediating in international troublespots. I have lived in several other countries. Nothing about me is parochial.
I simply do not see why (presumably) U.K. citizens feel the need to bring foreign wars (for this is a war) to our country.
We have tons of protests here about bad stuff going on elsewhere. And many people see this more as a systematic oppression (akin to apartheid) rather than simply another foreign war.
You just don't like the cause, that's all. Which is fair enough, but that's a different argument.
How is it "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" than what is happening to the Kurds? Or the Uighur? Or the Tibetans? Or many more?
I'm not saying it's worse than other atrocities. I'm not doing a finely calibrated rating of one against the other.
And there's something else I don't do. When there happens to be a protest in the UK against something happening elsewhere I don't leap in and say either of the following -
That the people who feel strongly enough to join the protest have questions to answer if they are not also in the habit of protesting all and sundry other issues.
That a protest in the UK is inappropriate because it relates to things happening outside the UK.
What you're doing is imputing bad faith to a protest purely because you don't like the cause. It's no different to the negative stuff that gets said about BLM - although not by you in that case since there you DO like the cause.
You're the one who used the words "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)" so I think its fair to ask how that applies.
Just because people are protesting doesn't justify their protest. If people are protesting because they dislike oppression a la Kurds, Tibet, Uighur and Palestine etc consistently then I respect that.
If people are protesting because they dislike Jews, then that's no better than an EDL one.
I sense you get my point. Good.
No I don't get your point. You seem to want to justify this, without justifying it, because you know its unjustifiable.
Please can you say how it is "a more systematic oppression (akin to apartheid)", or please can you say that it isn't and those words were inappropriate?
Ah ok. Just the once more then. I have a few minutes.
Assume there are 26 different atrocities going on in the world outside the UK - one for every letter of the alphabet, A to Z. And there's a protest going on in London about one of them. About M.
So now a common technique adopted by people who dislike and disagree with the protesters (against M) is to say the following -
"How come these people are not protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z? They're hypocrites!"
This is what you're doing here. Where M = Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
Compare with if there were a protest where M = the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs.
Would you in that case be employing the "why aren't they protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z?" technique?
I sense not.
That might make sense if the distribution of protests were even, so that 1/26th of all protests were about M. But I'll fix it for you.
Assume there are 26 different atrocities going on in the world outside the UK - one for every letter of the alphabet, A to Z. And there's a protest going on in London about one of them. About M.
Now suppose there's 25 more protests. All about M.
Now suppose that next week there'll be 26 protests. All about M.
Imagine that every weekend there's protests. All about M.
"How come these people are not protesting against A thru L, and N thru Z? They're hypocrites!"
This is happening here. Where M = Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
Compare with if there were a protest where M = the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs. Would that happen? No, because the hypocrites don't protest that.
Can you justify that?
I sense not.
My position is straightforward enough.
LOL. POTD. You need to get in touch with your subconscious.
Oh dear oh dear. Doing this now, are we.
Why do I bug you so, Captain Topping? Is it cos I don't shine my boots till I can see my own reflection in them?
Trying to help and all I get is abuse. Makes me wonder why I bother.
Hmm. Well the clock now stands at umpteen weeks since you've spoken to me with anything but facetiousness and bizarre attempted put downs.
You have your reasons, I'm sure, and each to his own, but it does seem odd.
How dare you. Attempted indeed.
And not to worry about my reasons. You have yours and I have mine.
That's the fun of it.
How old are you, by the way? - I have you as about 55?
Looking forwards and extrapolating this week onwards, I reckon Groups 1-8 will be double-dosed-plus-two-weeks by the 21st, and we'll have got all of Groups 1-9 fully protected by one week after that.
This will be pretty significant, hospitalisation-wise. More than half of Phase 2 adults will have been single-jabbed-and-protected by then as well, so we'd be looking at around a ten-fold reduction in ICU demand against case levels, I'd guess.
That'll help a lot.
There's a lot of generalisations in all that.
Worth re-stating in Newham 50,000 people aged 40 or over have yet to have a first vaccination. Have they been invited and refused or have they not been invited? I don't know for sure.
50,000 others have had their first vaccination - hopefully many of those have appointments over the next 2-3 weeks.
50,000, like me and Mrs Stodge have had both vaccinations.
"A tale of three numbers" - so to speak - but with barely one third of the over-40s doubly vaccinated, we've still got a long way to go.
One dose still gives a lot of protection - and the speed at which it gives protection is rising, as we move onto Moderna and Pfizer for younger cohorts.
The estimated reproduction "R" number in England has likely crept over 1 and the epidemic could be growing by as much as 3% each day, Britain's health ministry said on Friday.
The estimated R number was between 1.0 and 1.1, meaning that on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 10 and 11 other people. Last week, it was estimated at between 0.9 and 1.1.
It doesn't matter how high the R number is if nearly everyone is vaccinated. (I think that's right).
More people ill, more people very ill. More people dead unless other measures taken?
If the extra measures needed to cope with third wave is frustrating to you, in UK so advanced on vaccine procurement and roll out, think of the EU - where third wave means the shambles over procurement and rollout slips from merely embarrassing to mass manslaughter due to incompetence.
Also, the "they are there but don't want to make contact" idea is a very comforting one in several respects.
Aliens then become pre-fall man and the CIA/Biden/USAF become the serpent.
Then there is the guardian angel angle. They are there but are just looking representing a greater power which I can look to in difficult times. Perhaps they would help me then.
And then there is the neat explanation for a series of uncertain phenomena.
(Of course for bonkers/unexplained phenomena we need look no further than some of the farther reaches of our oceans but for some reason no one thinks the aliens arrived and headed straight underwater.)
Some people think exactly that. The UFOs "base themselves" underwater, hence the many sightings over the sea
We have reached quite a crazy juncture
More likely it is the Fata Morgana effect, combined with a huge number of human beings who are supremely gullible. Perhaps.
They caught them on radar? Fata Morgana?!
Hard to believe the whole US Navy, and its radars, can be fooled by optical illusions
Comments
And the main bullet points are "slight rise"..."vaccines mean we are in a very different place from the autumn"...and "Kwasi says nothing in the data to delay" reopening.
I think we're good.
If they thought they could do a May 17th and not have cases (and therefore hospitalisations) rise then we really are in trouble.
WFH types should check out "hybrid broadband" where regular broadband is backed up by the phone networks.
Or landed to say "hi"?
Look I'm of the view posted here the other day (apols to whoever it was): the thought that there are beings elsewhere in the universe is terrifying; the thought that there are not being elsewhere in the universe is terrifying.
But I need more proof than we have just right now.
The one place where mask compliance was 100% was public transport: I didn't see a single person (even including an aggressive homeless panhandler) who wasn't wearing a mask on the subway.
How old are you, by the way? - I have you as about 55?
The leaks are not leaks BTW they are disclosures following foi requests.
Tory voters opposed 49% to 29%, Labour voters in favour 51% to 30%
https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1398298020882661387?s=20
Hvaldimir: Seeking sanctuary for whale dubbed a Russian spy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56956365
Why is that so outlandish? I mean, if you accept that aliens exist and are here (which is a fucking wild proposition, but we are increasingly being forced to confront it), then it is hardly a stretch to say the aliens might be nice, but don't really want to talk
When I look down in a rockpool at all the fascinating lifeforms, I don't automatically kill the little crab, and I don't try and talk to the barnacle. I might occasionally shove a stick in, just to see how the little creatures react
Maybe that is what they are doing. Just shoving a stick in the rockpool, to see how we respond
John Major won in 1992 for a number of reasons but let's not forget on his watch the Conservative majority fell from 101 to 21 and of course were Boris Johnson to achieve something similar, he would just about lose his majority (SF not withstanding).
Would it have made any difference who was Conservative leader in 1997? You were out pounding the streets as I was back then - I think we both know no one else would have done any better and plenty of the alternatives would have done worse.
The question isn't about electoral performance - it was about post-PM perceptions.
I made the comment the four individuals who seem to be constantly vilified on here are Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.
My contention is simply that however he finally leaves office, Boris Johnson will be an impotent bystander as his reputation is trashed both by those within the Party and those outside.
As a Conservative Party loyalist, you will be forced to support the new leader when he or she makes "coded attacks" on the Johnson leadership or administration because that's how politics works.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9
People who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades, though viral variants could dampen some of the protection they offer.
The remaining question is whether and when the virus evolves enough to evade existing antibodies.
After Major was elected Tory leader and PM on 27th November the Tories had taken the lead 43.5% to 40% for Labour with Gallup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1992_United_Kingdom_general_election
Major lost seats but held onto power, though I agree if Starmer gets Kinnock's swing in 1992 in 2024 he will likely become PM in a hung parliament even if the Tories win most seats.
I agree no other leader would have done better in 1997 except maybe Heseltine but Blair would still have beaten him. Portillo would have done about the same as Major, Redwood worse.
Vilification is par for the course in politics and of course the Eurosceptic right still largely hate Major, it comes with the territory, you have your fans and your enemies though I agree Major probably has the fewest haters overall of recent PMs bar diehard Brexiteers
Yes, he beat him by 21 seats after Maggie beat him by 101. I hadn’t even looked at that.
Now, Boris (+80) vs Sir Keir...
From the EHRC report, p58 (https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/investigation-antisemitism-labour-party)
We set out our findings that the Labour Party’s response to antisemitism complaints has been inconsistent, poor, and lacking in transparency, in terms of its process and decision-making, record-keeping, long delays and communication with complainants.
And from p70:
The Labour Party acknowledged that some complaints had been dealt with too slowly.
Delays in progressing complaints were also common in our complaint sample.
Re-useable first-stages? I mean, come on. Whoosh, off to the edge of space (and out of visibility) and then a bit later (ostensibly) the same rocket comes neatly down to earth. Whatever. It's impossible - SLS can't do it, ULA can't do it. It's clearly cover for aliens incoming on the 'returned' first stage (in fact purpose-built alien landers).
The current UFO video stuff is all put out by Musk to distract us from what is really happening. Wake up sheeple!
(Leon, I'm just teasing, not really trying to argue against what you're saying. There are some odd observations, but at present they're just odd observations. The explanations will be interesting, for sure, whatever they are. If just odd glitches, that's interesting enough. I'll wait for proper evidence from reputable sources, because there's nothing I can do with internet videos. I can become a believer, but where does that get me? If the aliens are here, there's nothing I can do. They'll either come and say hi - we'll know straight away or be told later, presumably - or kill us all or do their observations, get some scrap book photos and disappear off to the next interesting star system. There are enough mysteries/problems in this world that I can do something about tackling, so I'll focus on those for now.)
That is the LEAST outrageous explanation for this weirdness: a vast conspiracy at the heart of Washington, where President Obama goes on TV to deceive people
And this "doesn't excite" you?! Yet the by election of Batley and Spen DOES?
An absolute cynic in me thinks that cases rising as we approach the youngsters is no bad thing - it might focus some minds on actually getting the jab.
At the very least this is an astonishing revelation of a grand political conspiracy, which goes to the heart of the American establishment
The other explanations, 1. the Chinese can fly at 15,000 mph, 2. aliens are here, are also pretty damn interesting, to my mind
I am not even convinced Margaret Thatcher was particularly charismatic. She had gravitas certainly. Charisma is often in the eye of the gullible.
I merely pointed out the fact Major won the 1992 election but the majority was reduced from 101 to 21.
I think "John Major" was one of the main reasons why that happened with "Neil Kinnock" probably as big if not a bigger reason. The mood was less for Major to be Prime Minister than it was for Kinnock NOT to be Prime Minister.
By 1997, a lot had changed - none of it favourably for John Major.
@Malmesbury asserted earlier it was the Conservative Party getting the kicking not John Major. The problem with that was Major had been Conservative leader for nearly seven years and it had all happened on his watch. His inability to control elements within his party accentuated his downfall as he looked nice but weak.
And I wouldn't say I am keen to treat a pro-Palestine protest any different to others. What makes you think that?
And yes they could just be looking at the ant hill while the kettle is boiling.
That said, you know my views on why this is happening right now. People are in a weakened and receptive mental state. They have been beaten down by having to face the virus and hence are more prepared to accept the existence or authority of aliens/god/the Chief Medical Officer than in usual times.
I can't say that aliens don't exist although my thinking they are more likely to be tiny blobs 1,000,000 light years away on a planet somewhere, but just as I am a sceptic about most things, this is one where I am super-sceptical.
It is possible that Boris will in time have an imperishable reputation for being the person who singly made all the difference in all ways over Brexit - he personally made a difference in 2016 and he got us out.
That depends really on things like whether it proves to be true (as I think) that the EU has become something so inherently contradictory that it cannot for ever be sustained.
And Boris may be the person who turned the Tory party into one that is much less class and wealth based too.
I suspect that if Boris came out in favour of legalising, then a lot of his supporters would follow, and it would be very popular overall.
But unquestionably the mood was for a change.
The world (and beyond) is full of mysteries. I'm only undergrad in physics, but I'm aware of enough mysteries there of a truly fundamental nature (explaining how the hell very big and very small things behave the way they do) to last several lifetimes of endeavour. I moved away from physics post-graduation because I wanted to tackle smaller problems I could be pretty sure of doing something about in my lifetime and getting to see the results. I'm glad that there are people probing the fundamentals of physics. I'm happy there are people looking into these weird videos (I hope there are some serious scientists doing so) but it's not for me. Too pie in the sky, I guess. Maybe I'm just a small problem kind of guy.
The other thing (with the silly SpaceX stuff) is that we're in a world full of wonder. SpaceX, mRNA vaccines (pace of all Covid vaccine development) etc etc. There's plenty of wonder and mystery to go round.
I think there may be a grain of idealogical merit in what Mr Foreman proposes. Nonetheless, problems under Corbyn were exacerbated by the simple fact that he and his pals conflated expansionism and violence by the Netanyahu regime as representative of Jewish people across the world, particularly those in the Labour Party and more specifically those called Luciana Berger.
I am not sure what happened there. My post starts with "I think".
THIS IS WHERE MY RESPONSE STARTS -
Part of the problem is that far too many on the Left identify automatically with whoever they think is less powerful and are automatically hostile to the more powerful party, without necessarily knowing anything about any particular situation. It is silly because right and wrong does not automatically track power relations. The weak are not automatically in the right nor are the more powerful automatically in the wrong.
But that sort of lazy shorthand is all too common and results in people imposing an ignorant view on complex situations and casting people or groups as victims, regardless of what they do or any evidence to the contrary.
ROGER
The reason for the obsession with Israel is because of the many connections between the two countries. Only Russia have more of their citizens living there than the UK. This doesn't apply to the Congo or Ruanda or China.
You might as well ask why a bombing that kills four in Paris or Washington makes it first item on the news whereas a train crash in Mozambique isn't nor a bombing in the Yemen. They are our kith and kin. Their values should be ours
I can't see any evidence that it's to do with money. Imperialism. As it was in South Africa A quasi European country is expected to respect European values. It didn't. It was racist and imperialist and MOST in this country found it objectionable.
Obvs the fact I use IPSOS-MORI rather than my own opinion is a solid filter for gullibility. Thanks for the advice though
Charisma normally wins but not always, especially if the incumbent is unpopular and the mood is for change then a dull leader can win provided they are not seen as too extreme
We received representations noting that the intervention of LOTO staff in some antisemitism cases was to press for action to be taken, and that this could not amount to a disadvantage. We accept that, in some cases, the LOTO staff interference catalysed action. However, the inappropriateness of political interference in antisemitism complaints is not necessarily about the particular outcomes that it led to, but rather the contamination (and / or the perception of contamination) of the fairness of the process.
In other words, the EHRC found that Labour's procedures were not fit for purpose, rather than saying they were stacked against complaints.
*really not sure - a big issue in the project I'm on, but somes of that's a bit more specialist treatments, perhaps
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/participants-in-antisemitic-car-convoy-travelled-to-london-from-across-uk/
During the chat, I developed an evolutionary theory to explain what is happening. Here it is:
Perhaps there is a bug in the human brain, undetectable to humans themselves, that means total proof of God/aliens/parallel dimensions is never accepted or even processed, because it is too destabilising
A hominid that evolved a mental heuristic that says “filter out any evidence of overwhelmingly weird, scary things about which I can do nothing except weep ” would have a Darwinian advantage. While all the other hominids without the Ignore Aliens Heuristic are lying on the floor weeping with fear and anguish at the Big Tings In De Sky, the cheerfully unaware hominid goes about the forest, eating the nicest berries, and having more kids
This might explain why all the evidence of Truly Weird Shit (ghosts, God, aliens) is so enigmatic. The footage so grainy, metaphorically and literally. The heuristic is fighting reality
When might such a heuristic break down, opening the doors of perception, and enabling us to the see the flying saucers? When we have just been through a terrible and extraordinary crisis, which tells us that terrible, extraordinary things DO happen - and shatters our Normalcy Bias
The last big UFO flap came after the Second World War. This one comes after a global plague.
What we are seeing, then, is a glimpse of REALITY that is normally hidden from us by the structure of our minds
The estimated R number was between 1.0 and 1.1, meaning that on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 10 and 11 other people. Last week, it was estimated at between 0.9 and 1.1.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/englands-estimated-covid-r-number-likely-over-1-epidemic-growing-2021-05-28/
This will be pretty significant, hospitalisation-wise.
More than half of Phase 2 adults will have been single-jabbed-and-protected by then as well, so we'd be looking at around a ten-fold reduction in ICU demand against case levels, I'd guess.
That'll help a lot.
My suspicion is that a lot of the obsession the far left has with Israel is more to do with the perceived link between Jews and capitalism. Jews=capitalism. Anti-Semitism is the one form of racism the far left secretly condones.
Yes. Palestine is a touchstone cause for parts of the left. The driver for that is anti-imperialism but if you tag on an Israel = Jew equivalence, embrace of conspiracy theories about Capitalism = Jew, and Israel/Jews as global puppetmaster, etc, you have antisemitism. I think the problem under Corbyn was exaggerated and weaponized by political opponents but it wasn't fabricated. Far from it.
I think there may be a grain of idealogical merit in what Mr Foreman proposes. Nonetheless, problems under Corbyn were exacerbated by the simple fact that he and his pals conflated expansionism and violence by the Netanyahu regime as representative of Jewish people across the world, particularly those in the Labour Party and more specifically those called Luciana Berger.
I am not sure what happened there. My post starts with "I think".
Which, in itself, sets i Congratulations. That's dependent related existence.
Edit. Replying to Leon. No idea how the bit above came as well.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-says-request-drop-word-country-preceded-biontech-vaccine-deal-collapse-2021-05-27/
It is postulated that there's a strong correlation between humans with the vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2) and belief in God and other mystical experiences. I'm guessing that @Leon has the "God Gene".
Q: Why did Moses talk to the burning bush?
A: Because he was mad.
I am not sure what happened there. My post starts with "I think".
THIS IS WHERE MY RESPONSE STARTS -
Part of the problem is that far too many on the Left identify automatically with whoever they think is less powerful and are automatically hostile to the more powerful party, without necessarily knowing anything about any particular situation. It is silly because right and wrong does not automatically track power relations. The weak are not automatically in the right nor are the more powerful automatically in the wrong.
But that sort of lazy shorthand is all too common and results in people imposing an ignorant view on complex situations and casting people or groups as victims, regardless of what they do or any evidence to the contrary.
ROGER
The reason for the obsession with Israel is because of the many connections between the two countries. Only Russia have more of their citizens living there than the UK. This doesn't apply to the Congo or Ruanda or China.
You might as well ask why a bombing that kills four in Paris or Washington makes it first item on the news whereas a train crash in Mozambique isn't nor a bombing in the Yemen. They are our kith and kin. Their values should be ours
I can't see any evidence that it's to do with money. Imperialism. As it was in South Africa A quasi European country is expected to respect European values. It didn't. It was racist and imperialist and MOST in this country found it objectionable.
====================================
(Comment on the above)
All single issue fanatics do something like this:
1 Yes indeed there are evils in the world.
2 I am going to focus on one of them and claim your attention and demand your support.
3 Every reference to every other evil in the world when I am talking to you is whatabouttery.
4 Every other evil in the world is somehow arguable, discussable and relates to other evils in the world and I am not talking about it so shut up and educate yourself.
Recent nice example: BLM in relation to the quality of governance in black led countries in sub Saharan Africa.
I think there may be a grain of idealogical merit in what Mr Foreman proposes. Nonetheless, problems under Corbyn were exacerbated by the simple fact that he and his pals conflated expansionism and violence by the Netanyahu regime as representative of Jewish people across the world, particularly those in the Labour Party and more specifically those called Luciana Berger.
I am not sure what happened there. My post starts with "I think".
Which, in itself, sets i Congratulations. That's dependent related existence.
Edit. Replying to Leon. No idea how the bit above came as well.
Bloody aliens!
Aliens then become pre-fall man and the CIA/Biden/USAF become the serpent.
Then there is the guardian angel angle. They are there but are just looking representing a greater power which I can look to in difficult times. Perhaps they would help me then.
And then there is the neat explanation for a series of uncertain phenomena.
(Of course for bonkers/unexplained phenomena we need look no further than some of the farther reaches of our oceans but for some reason no one thinks the aliens arrived and headed straight underwater.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS45xUYiEZY
ETA JP's hair and red face suggest he is morphing into Keir Starmer.
And it seems that the two sides seem very unwilling to even acknowledge these issues. Supporters of Palestine reply with Whatabout... While supporters of Israel do the same.
The other side's intransigence allows one to avoid absolutely all consideration of whether one's own side is behaving morally.
There remains a fundament question that needs to be settled: are the West Bank and Gaza part of Israel or not?
If they are, then those people that were born and live there are Israeli citizens, and need to be given the same rights as every other Israeli citizen.
If they are not, then Israelis have no right to settle in Palestine, and the Palestinians have the same rights of self governance as anyone else.
Which is it, boys?
US Senate votes 54 - 35 in favor of establishing an independent commission to investigate the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th. The vote fails because it doesn't have 60 in favor. That a vote can "fail" with a 19 vote margin is reason enough to nuke the filibuster now
https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1398312911651606530?s=20
We have reached quite a crazy juncture
Worth re-stating in Newham 50,000 people aged 40 or over have yet to have a first vaccination. Have they been invited and refused or have they not been invited? I don't know for sure.
50,000 others have had their first vaccination - hopefully many of those have appointments over the next 2-3 weeks.
50,000, like me and Mrs Stodge have had both vaccinations.
"A tale of three numbers" - so to speak - but with barely one third of the over-40s doubly vaccinated, we've still got a long way to go.
“Why not have a long, drawn out war?”
Otherwise, a certain percentage of of the people who get COVID-19 will die. So the more people who get COVID-19, the more people will die. So the bigger the R number, the more people will die.
A lot of people here seem to have taken in well-intentioned propaganda designed to encourage people to be vaccinated, and somehow transmuted it into a quasi-religious faith that vaccines will protect them from any harm whether they get COVID-19 or not. And impelled them to go and spread the word online ...
If the extra measures needed to cope with third wave is frustrating to you, in UK so advanced on vaccine procurement and roll out, think of the EU - where third wave means the shambles over procurement and rollout slips from merely embarrassing to mass manslaughter due to incompetence.
Hard to believe the whole US Navy, and its radars, can be fooled by optical illusions