Time to re-look at Guido's judgement. He was NOT exonerated. He was found NOT to have behaved honourably or wisely. (Just narrowly not to have breached the ministerial code).
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
Interesting book, although I was a bit disappointed at the revealed ultimate cause of the odd happenings (trying to avoid spoilers here, they're in the wiki article) as I'd have found something closer to home more interesting. It is a fact that we've not been particularly good at mapping/exploring the oceans (see the disappearance Malaysian Airlines 370).
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 ...
It sounds like your super smart brother has been reading F.L. Wallace's "Big Ancestor" since that more or less summarises the plot
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
You said some people ( I might refer to them as a class of people called "the Gullibles") believe the UFOs base themselves in the sea. As one of my friends is a radar expert I can tell you that artefacts are regularly seen on radar, whether these are caused by atmospherics that also cause Fata Morgana I do not know, but it seems plausible. More plausible than a visitation from Planet Zog.
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.
So somebody reacting to the BLM protests against racism in America with "but what about governance in sub Saharan Africa?" - that's valid critique in your book, is it?
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
You have to assume that something capable of faster than light travel would be watertight down to 100 metres.....or their technology is more shit than a Rolex.
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 ...
It sounds like your super smart brother has been reading F.L. Wallace's "Big Ancestor" since that more or less summarises the plot
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
Colin Angus @VictimOfMaths · 1h Just had a closer look at the latest hospital data for Bolton. Based on the age profile of cases, we can reasonably expect deaths to be ~10% of the Oct/Nov peak, but bed occupancy is already at ~1/3 and ventilator bed occupancy at ~1/2 of peak levels.
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".
You keep quoting this, not sure why. It's grotesquely unpleasant, and arrests have been made. If it was widespread, I'd expect more arrests to be made. But do you have any evidence that this was a common refrain among the demonstrators? At almost any demo, whether it be Free Palestine, BLM or EDL you will get a fringe advocating violence. The law should deal with them, and allow peaceful protestors to make their case in a free society.
No comparison with when it was last asked, but it seems to be getting moor popular, (which I think is a good thing)
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.
Embarrassing.
There is nothing at all in the column that says good idea, the bad idea column needs extra pages.
What on earth has anyone got in the good idea column other than they are mouth dribbling libertarian minded children who don’t like being told what they can or cannot do?
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 he's so smart, how come he lives in a shack on a hill?
No comparison with when it was last asked, but it seems to be getting moor popular, (which I think is a good thing)
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.
Embarrassing.
There is nothing at all in the column that says good idea, the bad idea column needs extra pages.
What on earth has anyone got in the good idea column other than they are mouth dribbling libertarian minded children who don’t like being told what they can or cannot do?
Are you in favour of people being told what they can and cannot do?
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.
They will have undoubtedly been invited, or do you think there is a conspiracy to prevent the people of Newham from getting their vaccinations? The stats are clear from other vaccination campaigns, with miserable take up rates the norm.
"Do we finally have sensor data confirming one of @LueElizondo ’s five observables? The object in the first few seconds appears to accelerate to around 1,200 miles per hour, then holds position in near hover. @JeremyCorbell"
"Update: I found the user manual for the radar system online and it shows that the range is out to the edge of the circle, not the 'Range Rings' as I measured. I re-caluclated for a distance of 444 meters over 1.33 seconds = 333m/s or 744 mph, still pretty fast average speed!"
"I'd say its not even so much the average speed as the acceleration that would be shocking. Going from a lazy 50mph to 744 in half the duration of the radar sweep (.665sec) would pull 47g's. That would ruin your weekend if you were inside."
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 he's so smart, how come he lives in a shack on a hill?
So your definition of smartness is being a banker or a wanker in Hampstead? Says quite a lot about YOU
That's where Labour will score. They're supported by the progressives. The Tories by the old. Voters are becoming more progressive as always happens and the Tories are looking stuffy in a way we haven't seen since early Thatcher
"Do we finally have sensor data confirming one of @LueElizondo ’s five observables? The object in the first few seconds appears to accelerate to around 1,200 miles per hour, then holds position in near hover. @JeremyCorbell"
"Update: I found the user manual for the radar system online and it shows that the range is out to the edge of the circle, not the 'Range Rings' as I measured. I re-caluclated for a distance of 444 meters over 1.33 seconds = 333m/s or 744 mph, still pretty fast average speed!"
"I'd say its not even so much the average speed as the acceleration that would be shocking. Going from a lazy 50mph to 744 in half the duration of the radar sweep (.665sec) would pull 47g's. That would ruin your weekend if you were inside."
lol, that looks a very reliable twitter feed you are quoting from. I am sure there are a few that provide compelling and untampered evidence that the earth is flat.
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.
Should we start to get worried about the increasing case numbers?
I'm a bit concerned, not just by the numbers but by the geographical spread of the Indian variant. It started off in a small number of local authority areas; by May 15th it had already spread to 151, I read, and I assume it's many more now. Case numbers are very small in many, but once it's seeded, without effective track, trace and isolation it could run amok. It may not kill many, but it could certainly lead to widespread pressure on hospitals.
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?
Well said.
Only thing I'd note is that Israel have annexed East Jerusalem and do offer the Palestinians in East Jerusalem Israeli citizenship and the same rights as every other Israeli citizen (though not many have chosen to take that, as they'll lose 'Palestinian citizenship' if they take Israeli).
So if East Jerusalem is Israel, and the people there can get Israeli citizenship, then any building there isn't really a settlement is it?
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".
You keep quoting this, not sure why. It's grotesquely unpleasant, and arrests have been made. If it was widespread, I'd expect more arrests to be made. But do you have any evidence that this was a common refrain among the demonstrators? At almost any demo, whether it be Free Palestine, BLM or EDL you will get a fringe advocating violence. The law should deal with them, and allow peaceful protestors to make their case in a free society.
That is true. But very few of the demonstrations are calling for a two state solution. From the River to the Sea Palestine shall be free.
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 he's so smart, how come he lives in a shack on a hill?
I think @Leon is actually trying to suggest that his brother is actually Paddington Bear. A proposition that is far more believable than the other stuff he writes.
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
You have to assume that something capable of faster than light travel would be watertight down to 100 metres.....or their technology is more shit than a Rolex.
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".
And this ends everybody's personal freedom to protest this issue? How do you justify that?
No comparison with when it was last asked, but it seems to be getting moor popular, (which I think is a good thing)
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.
Embarrassing.
There is nothing at all in the column that says good idea, the bad idea column needs extra pages.
What on earth has anyone got in the good idea column other than they are mouth dribbling libertarian minded children who don’t like being told what they can or cannot do?
Are you in favour of people being told what they can and cannot do?
Yes! Otherwise it’s anarchy. Anarchy in the UK. Is that what you want, because that is what will happen.
Although cannabis may have some medical uses in strictly controlled circumstances, smoking it or munching on space cakes is simply not good for you. Opium poppy derivatives have medical uses, but that doesn’t make heroin healthy. It’s called Dope for a reason – bad for your brain, bad for your lungs, bad for your heart, bad for agitating or instigating mental health problems like schizophrenia and depression, terrible risk if you plan to do anything like a car or machinery. And it creates crime and injury from crime. The more people feeling they can do it because it’s decriminalised, the more crime and disorder there will be.
You have anything in “it’s a great idea” column that merely counterbalances all those facts and truths?
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 he's so smart, how come he lives in a shack on a hill?
Plenty of supersmart people decide that the way to get the life they want is to withdraw from society.
Sometimes, talking to yourself is the only way to get an intelligent conversation.
I admit it, part of me is going to miss the year of lockdown.
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?
Well said.
Only thing I'd not is that Israel have annexed East Jerusalem and do offer the Palestinians in East Jerusalem Israeli citizenship (though not many have chosen to take that, as they'll lose 'Palestinian citizenship' if they take Israeli).
So if East Jerusalem is Israel, and the people there can get Israeli citizenship, then any building there isn't really a settlement is it?
Annexation plus citizenship is morally very different to annexation plus leaving the inhabitants in a stateless limbo situation.
It's not necessarily perfect*, but at least it's recognising those people have the same rights as the rest of your citizens.
"William Amos: 'Deeply embarrassed' Canadian MP who appeared naked in virtual meeting caught out again It comes just a month after Mr Amos appeared naked on an internal parliamentary feed, making headlines around the world."
"Do we finally have sensor data confirming one of @LueElizondo ’s five observables? The object in the first few seconds appears to accelerate to around 1,200 miles per hour, then holds position in near hover. @JeremyCorbell"
"Update: I found the user manual for the radar system online and it shows that the range is out to the edge of the circle, not the 'Range Rings' as I measured. I re-caluclated for a distance of 444 meters over 1.33 seconds = 333m/s or 744 mph, still pretty fast average speed!"
"I'd say its not even so much the average speed as the acceleration that would be shocking. Going from a lazy 50mph to 744 in half the duration of the radar sweep (.665sec) would pull 47g's. That would ruin your weekend if you were inside."
lol, that looks a very reliable twitter feed you are quoting from. I am sure there are a few that provide compelling and untampered evidence that the earth is flat.
This is citizen journalism. You are free to offer a superior analysis of the USS Omaha radar footage, if you can manage it (footage which, remember, has been verified by the Pentagon: it's real)
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.
I said it was a real problem (although not mainly on that as evidence - a lot of the interference was to speed things up). It was a real problem that was also exaggerated and weaponized by political opponents, many of whom didn't give a shit about antisemitism.
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 he's so smart, how come he lives in a shack on a hill?
Plenty of supersmart people decide that the way to get the life they want is to withdraw from society.
Sometimes, talking to yourself is the only way to get an intelligent conversation.
I admit it, part of me is going to miss the year of lockdown.
Yup. If I was not in my present position I would certainly consider buggering off grid somewhere. Would I miss much of modern life? No.
A nice little island off the Scottish coast with some rescue shelter dogs and a decent sized library would see me settled.
Until I tripped over one of the dogs and died slowly and painfully and they ate me.
Belgian (population one sixth the UK) criteria for unlocking:
One of the conditions for Belgium to further loosen its coronavirus restrictions on June 9 has been met, with fewer than 500 patients with COVID-19 in intensive care units on Thursday, Steven Van Gucht, a virologist and the government’s COVID spokesperson, said at a press conference Friday.
On June 9, hotels and restaurants will be allowed to offer indoor dining again; theaters and cinemas will open their doors; and workers will begin a staggered return to the office, starting with one day a week. Belgians will also be allowed to invite up to four people to their homes.
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 he's so smart, how come he lives in a shack on a hill?
So your definition of smartness is being a banker or a wanker in Hampstead? Says quite a lot about YOU
Joking!
Gosh, some of you reactionary reductives just lately. Lighten up.
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!
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.
If they haven’t been invited, it’s a shocking failure by the local NHS when in the rest of England, they’re down to inviting all in their thirties.
If they’ve been invited and refused, I’m reminded of the Pterry quote: “The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences. It’s the freedom on which all the others are based.”
If they choose to face a novel virus with a naive immune system while in a more vulnerable demographic, there are consequences to that choice. They will end up contributing to herd immunity one way or the other: through injection or infection. Their choice.
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 he's so smart, how come he lives in a shack on a hill?
Plenty of supersmart people decide that the way to get the life they want is to withdraw from society.
Sometimes, talking to yourself is the only way to get an intelligent conversation.
I admit it, part of me is going to miss the year of lockdown.
- Yes, it's been a blast in many ways. Let's hope people don't just go back to exactly how they were.
They will have undoubtedly been invited, or do you think there is a conspiracy to prevent the people of Newham from getting their vaccinations? The stats are clear from other vaccination campaigns, with miserable take up rates the norm.
I'm not suggesting a conspiracy - I am suggesting Newham has been slower than other areas to get its population vaccinated but I'll also offer the thought Newham is a "young" area (older people as a proportion of the population much lower than other parts of London) and perhaps the initial vaccination effort (quite rightly) was directed at areas with older populations.
That said, we have a situation where some are (with justification) claiming a successful vaccination rollout and champing at the bit for the ending of all restrictions yet I live in an area where a third of the over-40 population have not been vaccinated and I see the possibility of more cases and, to be blunt, more deaths as these 50,000 people go back to normal lives and move around.
Now, what I am NOT arguing for is a continuation of restrictions. Those who have refused the vaccine have the right to refuse it but that must not be used as a justification for prolonging restrictions. However, Government and the NHS must be aware there were thousands of unvaccinated people who will continue to be a risk to themselves (no real risk to the vaccinated) and the likelihood of a continuing undercurrent of cases especially if more easily transmissible variants emerge.
I'm not sure that they have overpromised and underdelivered. To date afaics the Govt are just sticking to the declared unlocking schedule.
I would expect them to follow a 'working hard to fix it' narrative, then come out with something around 6-12 of June to make it clear and get a +ve narrative running into the Chesham and Amersham Event.
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.
So somebody reacting to the BLM protests against racism in America with "but what about governance in sub Saharan Africa?" - that's valid critique in your book, is it?
That.... doesn't look very good, to my untrained eye
I think that if this Indian variant causes a knock back of the 21st, the PM will have some hard questions to answer about how and why so many cases were allowed into the country. I am not one for wishing he gets the boot (the alternative is unlikely to do better) but this could cause a major dent in the Tory vote in a way the Cummings saga was never going to.
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.
Sure, "in some cases". What you said was that the report was "predictably mischaracterised", which was bollocks. It says, as clear as day, that typically, the problem was slowing down, not speeding up.
They will have undoubtedly been invited, or do you think there is a conspiracy to prevent the people of Newham from getting their vaccinations? The stats are clear from other vaccination campaigns, with miserable take up rates the norm.
I'm not suggesting a conspiracy - I am suggesting Newham has been slower than other areas to get its population vaccinated but I'll also offer the thought Newham is a "young" area (older people as a proportion of the population much lower than other parts of London) and perhaps the initial vaccination effort (quite rightly) was directed at areas with older populations.
That said, we have a situation where some are (with justification) claiming a successful vaccination rollout and champing at the bit for the ending of all restrictions yet I live in an area where a third of the over-40 population have not been vaccinated and I see the possibility of more cases and, to be blunt, more deaths as these 50,000 people go back to normal lives and move around.
Now, what I am NOT arguing for is a continuation of restrictions. Those who have refused the vaccine have the right to refuse it but that must not be used as a justification for prolonging restrictions. However, Government and the NHS must be aware there were thousands of unvaccinated people who will continue to be a risk to themselves (no real risk to the vaccinated) and the likelihood of a continuing undercurrent of cases especially if more easily transmissible variants emerge.
You may have had a point has the take up rates in Newham for other vaccines not also been miserably low. The people have been offered, they just don’t want it.
That.... doesn't look very good, to my untrained eye
I think that if this Indian variant causes a knock back of the 21st, the PM will have some hard questions to answer about how and why so many cases were allowed into the country. I am not one for wishing he gets the boot (the alternative is unlikely to do better) but this could cause a major dent in the Tory vote in a way the Cummings saga was never going to.
The cases are rising in unvaccinated, younger people.
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 he's so smart, how come he lives in a shack on a hill?
Because he's smart enough to know ahead of time that hardly anyone lying on their deathbed ever regrets not spending more time in the office?
Belgian (population one sixth the UK) criteria for unlocking:
One of the conditions for Belgium to further loosen its coronavirus restrictions on June 9 has been met, with fewer than 500 patients with COVID-19 in intensive care units on Thursday, Steven Van Gucht, a virologist and the government’s COVID spokesperson, said at a press conference Friday.
On June 9, hotels and restaurants will be allowed to offer indoor dining again; theaters and cinemas will open their doors; and workers will begin a staggered return to the office, starting with one day a week. Belgians will also be allowed to invite up to four people to their homes.
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 ...
What we do believe is that a vaccine (especially both doses given) means you do not have a naive immune system against this novel virus. It gives ones immune system a running start and allows the acquired immune system to start with the recipe for protection.
It does seem that even against B.1.617.2 that protection against hospitalisation is around 85%+ with one dose and comfortably over 95% with both.
As long as deaths follow a similar pattern, that makes it slightly less dangerous than seasonal flu with an averagely effective annual flu vaccine.
So, no, it wouldn’t render it perfectly safe. But it would make the risk balance tilt firmly in favour of opening up and allowing the vast majority (if not all) of other activities to resume or continue - with the concomitant effects on the wider health service and mental health.
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.
If they haven’t been invited, it’s a shocking failure by the local NHS when in the rest of England, they’re down to inviting all in their thirties.
If they’ve been invited and refused, I’m reminded of the Pterry quote: “The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences. It’s the freedom on which all the others are based.”
If they choose to face a novel virus with a naive immune system while in a more vulnerable demographic, there are consequences to that choice. They will end up contributing to herd immunity one way or the other: through injection or infection. Their choice.
I was er.. discussing this, with a FOAF who was vociferous that it couldn't possibly be the responsibility of members of a minority that they weren't vaccinated. Apparently it must be conspiracy of racist GPs or something.
Absolutely mind-boggling UFO news clip from NBC. They are taking this very seriously in America
"The world is getting a glimpse at leaked military radar readings showing possible UFO activity near a Navy warship off the coast of California. @GadiNBC has more"
That.... doesn't look very good, to my untrained eye
I think that if this Indian variant causes a knock back of the 21st, the PM will have some hard questions to answer about how and why so many cases were allowed into the country. I am not one for wishing he gets the boot (the alternative is unlikely to do better) but this could cause a major dent in the Tory vote in a way the Cummings saga was never going to.
The cases are rising in unvaccinated, younger people.
The older groups are actually showing a fall.
Can you give me a steer on to the likely explanation for this? Thank you.
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".
You keep quoting this, not sure why. It's grotesquely unpleasant, and arrests have been made. If it was widespread, I'd expect more arrests to be made. But do you have any evidence that this was a common refrain among the demonstrators? At almost any demo, whether it be Free Palestine, BLM or EDL you will get a fringe advocating violence. The law should deal with them, and allow peaceful protestors to make their case in a free society.
That is true. But very few of the demonstrations are calling for a two state solution. From the River to the Sea Palestine shall be free.
What would jews make of that?
Plus check out the flags.
Israel seems to have abandoned the 2 state solution in recent times.
"Do we finally have sensor data confirming one of @LueElizondo ’s five observables? The object in the first few seconds appears to accelerate to around 1,200 miles per hour, then holds position in near hover. @JeremyCorbell"
"Update: I found the user manual for the radar system online and it shows that the range is out to the edge of the circle, not the 'Range Rings' as I measured. I re-caluclated for a distance of 444 meters over 1.33 seconds = 333m/s or 744 mph, still pretty fast average speed!"
"I'd say its not even so much the average speed as the acceleration that would be shocking. Going from a lazy 50mph to 744 in half the duration of the radar sweep (.665sec) would pull 47g's. That would ruin your weekend if you were inside."
These objects do not appear to interact with the physical stuff around them. And yet radar waves bounce off them.
Am I the only person that thinks that is odd? Because it's a hell of a lot easier to let radar waves go through an object than to have an object occupy the same physical space as air or water, without affecting the air or water in any way.
Indeed, I'd suggest the really extraordinary thing is that radar waves bounce off these objects, but water and air do not.
That.... doesn't look very good, to my untrained eye
I think that if this Indian variant causes a knock back of the 21st, the PM will have some hard questions to answer about how and why so many cases were allowed into the country. I am not one for wishing he gets the boot (the alternative is unlikely to do better) but this could cause a major dent in the Tory vote in a way the Cummings saga was never going to.
The cases are rising in unvaccinated, younger people.
The older groups are actually showing a fall.
No surprise given the vast crowds of youths taking advantage of the first nice day to be completely pissed singing and shouting on the Metro last night. Harrumph. Signed. A miserable old fart.
No comparison with when it was last asked, but it seems to be getting moor popular, (which I think is a good thing)
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.
Embarrassing.
There is nothing at all in the column that says good idea, the bad idea column needs extra pages.
What on earth has anyone got in the good idea column other than they are mouth dribbling libertarian minded children who don’t like being told what they can or cannot do?
Are you in favour of people being told what they can and cannot do?
Yes! Otherwise it’s anarchy. Anarchy in the UK. Is that what you want, because that is what will happen.
Although cannabis may have some medical uses in strictly controlled circumstances, smoking it or munching on space cakes is simply not good for you. Opium poppy derivatives have medical uses, but that doesn’t make heroin healthy. It’s called Dope for a reason – bad for your brain, bad for your lungs, bad for your heart, bad for agitating or instigating mental health problems like schizophrenia and depression, terrible risk if you plan to do anything like a car or machinery. And it creates crime and injury from crime. The more people feeling they can do it because it’s decriminalised, the more crime and disorder there will be.
You have anything in “it’s a great idea” column that merely counterbalances all those facts and truths?
I like it, it has neither done me any harm nor caused me to harm anyone else, and I seriously dispute your qualifications to tell me what is good for me.
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?
Well said.
Only thing I'd note is that Israel have annexed East Jerusalem and do offer the Palestinians in East Jerusalem Israeli citizenship and the same rights as every other Israeli citizen (though not many have chosen to take that, as they'll lose 'Palestinian citizenship' if they take Israeli).
So if East Jerusalem is Israel, and the people there can get Israeli citizenship, then any building there isn't really a settlement is it?
"Well said" followed by denial of the main point made.
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?
I don't agree, at all. There's a clear majority in Israel in support of a two/three state solution in principle. The problem is finding a negotiation partner who is willing and able to guarantee the safety of Israel's borders following any such deal. Abbas and the PLO aren't able, and Hamas aren't willing.
There is also a host of intermediary problems to clear first, starting with: how do you resolve the fact that Gaza and the West Bank can't be part of the same contiguous state without dividing Israel into two instead? That alone is enough to nix the initial negotiations, even before you get to the really thorny questions like how what you do with East Jerusalem, and continuing Jewish access to sites like Hebron.
That.... doesn't look very good, to my untrained eye
I think that if this Indian variant causes a knock back of the 21st, the PM will have some hard questions to answer about how and why so many cases were allowed into the country. I am not one for wishing he gets the boot (the alternative is unlikely to do better) but this could cause a major dent in the Tory vote in a way the Cummings saga was never going to.
The cases are rising in unvaccinated, younger people.
The older groups are actually showing a fall.
Can you give me a steer on to the likely explanation for this? Thank you.
Being vaccinated protects you from getting COVID. A lot.
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
When you open your mind to the idea that senior members of the US establishment think we’re seeing non-human tech, it is actually quite fun, not frightening.
Sure, aliens. Natch.
Interdimensional visitors? One to get the string theorists excited. If they’re 5th dimensional, they’d be able to anticipate every outcome. That would be odd.
But what if they’re terrestrial based intelligence that we previously haven’t noticed? Graham Hancock might say humans from the pre Younger Dryas period. Perhaps. That’d be interesting. Atlantis!
But what if they’re non human earthlings. Now that’s interesting. Depths of the ocean? Well maybe. Sounds a bit Jar Jar Binks. But what if the ocean is merely the curtain to their stage? And they’ve evolved under the earth’s crust in caverns, and in the absence of sunlight the heat from the mantle acted as the heat source necessary for the development of life.
Anyway I doubt Biden has much to say about any of that and nor do most of the senators involved. They’re just thinking “who buzzed my ships!”. We need this to move out of the Defense world so broader minds can be put to work figuring it out.
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.
Putin is also an awesome election winner. I am not sure it takes him out of the "absolute scumbag" category though.
That.... doesn't look very good, to my untrained eye
I think that if this Indian variant causes a knock back of the 21st, the PM will have some hard questions to answer about how and why so many cases were allowed into the country. I am not one for wishing he gets the boot (the alternative is unlikely to do better) but this could cause a major dent in the Tory vote in a way the Cummings saga was never going to.
The cases are rising in unvaccinated, younger people.
The older groups are actually showing a fall.
Can you give me a steer on to the likely explanation for this? Thank you.
Being vaccinated protects you from getting COVID. A lot.
Yep. I get that. I was under the misapprehension that you had meant the proportion of COVID cases that were unvaccinated was higher amongst young people than older ones.
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 he's so smart, how come he lives in a shack on a hill?
Because he's smart enough to know ahead of time that hardly anyone lying on their deathbed ever regrets not spending more time in the office?
Yes, shack sounds great. I was only joshing. Guy's just as smart as his brother, I dare say.
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?
Well said.
Only thing I'd note is that Israel have annexed East Jerusalem and do offer the Palestinians in East Jerusalem Israeli citizenship and the same rights as every other Israeli citizen (though not many have chosen to take that, as they'll lose 'Palestinian citizenship' if they take Israeli).
So if East Jerusalem is Israel, and the people there can get Israeli citizenship, then any building there isn't really a settlement is it?
"Well said" followed by denial of the main point made.
Great stuff.
Its not a denial of the main point.
The main point was that either the land is Israel's (in which case the residents should get citizenship), or its not (in which case no settlements). Well East Jerusalem has been annexed and the residents all offered citizenship, so that does match @rcs1000 concerns does it not? 🤔
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".
You keep quoting this, not sure why. It's grotesquely unpleasant, and arrests have been made. If it was widespread, I'd expect more arrests to be made. But do you have any evidence that this was a common refrain among the demonstrators? At almost any demo, whether it be Free Palestine, BLM or EDL you will get a fringe advocating violence. The law should deal with them, and allow peaceful protestors to make their case in a free society.
That is true. But very few of the demonstrations are calling for a two state solution. From the River to the Sea Palestine shall be free.
What would jews make of that?
Plus check out the flags.
Israel seems to have abandoned the 2 state solution in recent times.
Yes it does seem so. "Facts on the ground" have taken precedence.
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?
It is some 21 years since I was in Jerusalem, just before the Intifada kicked off. Most of Israel is fine, and it is a lovely country to live in. It is the finest place in the Middle East to be Jewish, Christian, Druze, Bahai or even some Islamic sects, or for that matter Athiest, Female, Gay or Trans.
The behaviour of the settlers is appalling though. I was staying with a Palestinian family, and the daily humiliations as they drove us from place to place in the Westbank from settlers and soldiers would make anyone's patience snap.
"Do we finally have sensor data confirming one of @LueElizondo ’s five observables? The object in the first few seconds appears to accelerate to around 1,200 miles per hour, then holds position in near hover. @JeremyCorbell"
"Update: I found the user manual for the radar system online and it shows that the range is out to the edge of the circle, not the 'Range Rings' as I measured. I re-caluclated for a distance of 444 meters over 1.33 seconds = 333m/s or 744 mph, still pretty fast average speed!"
"I'd say its not even so much the average speed as the acceleration that would be shocking. Going from a lazy 50mph to 744 in half the duration of the radar sweep (.665sec) would pull 47g's. That would ruin your weekend if you were inside."
These objects do not appear to interact with the physical stuff around them. And yet radar waves bounce off them.
Am I the only person that thinks that is odd? Because it's a hell of a lot easier to let radar waves go through an object than to have an object occupy the same physical space as air or water, without affecting the air or water in any way.
Indeed, I'd suggest the really extraordinary thing is that radar waves bounce off these objects, but water and air do not.
Yes, I thought the same. Mad. But then the whole thing is MAD
"UFO SWARM: A self-illuminated sphere at least six feet in diameter flew alongside one of the Navy warships for an extended period off the coast of San Diego in 2019 and was observed through a thermal sensor."
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?
I don't agree, at all. There's a clear majority in Israel in support of a two/three state solution in principle. The problem is finding a negotiation partner who is willing and able to guarantee the safety of Israel's borders following any such deal. Abbas and the PLO aren't able, and Hamas aren't willing.
There is also a host of intermediary problems to clear first, starting with: how do you resolve the fact that Gaza and the West Bank can't be part of the same contiguous state without dividing Israel into two instead? That alone is enough to nix the initial negotiations, even before you get to the really thorny questions like how what you do with East Jerusalem, and continuing Jewish access to sites like Hebron.
I just googled and see that yes indeed there seems to be a majority public opinion for a two state solution. What is Bibi's view? Just let it peter out? What is the official position?
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".
You keep quoting this, not sure why. It's grotesquely unpleasant, and arrests have been made. If it was widespread, I'd expect more arrests to be made. But do you have any evidence that this was a common refrain among the demonstrators? At almost any demo, whether it be Free Palestine, BLM or EDL you will get a fringe advocating violence. The law should deal with them, and allow peaceful protestors to make their case in a free society.
That is true. But very few of the demonstrations are calling for a two state solution. From the River to the Sea Palestine shall be free.
What would jews make of that?
Plus check out the flags.
Israel seems to have abandoned the 2 state solution in recent times.
Considering Arafat abandoned it and Hamas deny Israel's right to even exist, a 2 state solution seems impossible.
A 3 state solution is the only viable solution as far as I can see, but it won't happen.
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.
So somebody reacting to the BLM protests against racism in America with "but what about governance in sub Saharan Africa?" - that's valid critique in your book, is it?
Thanks for the question. See above.
What, so you DO see "But what about governance in sub Saharan Africa?" as a perfectly valid reaction to protests against racist policing in America?
Surprised if that's the case. And apols if I've misread your slightly gnomic response.
Absolutely mind-boggling UFO news clip from NBC. They are taking this very seriously in America
"The world is getting a glimpse at leaked military radar readings showing possible UFO activity near a Navy warship off the coast of California. @GadiNBC has more"
I have no independent way of knowing how boggled to be; not difficult to film a space invaders screen while having people off camera saying Holy shit dude in American accents. I agree with you that the US authorities can't explain this stuff, but all that's happening is that they have stopped pretending nothing is happening, when we knew something was happening all along anyway. So how much further forward will we actually be?
No comparison with when it was last asked, but it seems to be getting moor popular, (which I think is a good thing)
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.
Embarrassing.
There is nothing at all in the column that says good idea, the bad idea column needs extra pages.
What on earth has anyone got in the good idea column other than they are mouth dribbling libertarian minded children who don’t like being told what they can or cannot do?
Are you in favour of people being told what they can and cannot do?
Yes! Otherwise it’s anarchy. Anarchy in the UK. Is that what you want, because that is what will happen.
Although cannabis may have some medical uses in strictly controlled circumstances, smoking it or munching on space cakes is simply not good for you. Opium poppy derivatives have medical uses, but that doesn’t make heroin healthy. It’s called Dope for a reason – bad for your brain, bad for your lungs, bad for your heart, bad for agitating or instigating mental health problems like schizophrenia and depression, terrible risk if you plan to do anything like a car or machinery. And it creates crime and injury from crime. The more people feeling they can do it because it’s decriminalised, the more crime and disorder there will be.
You have anything in “it’s a great idea” column that merely counterbalances all those facts and truths?
I like it, it has neither done me any harm nor caused me to harm anyone else, and I seriously dispute your qualifications to tell me what is good for me.
I am the most suited person to tell you the road you should be on, and help you to think again, my child.
Let me tell you where your reasoning has gone wrong, and use the PB community as example.
Fork in the road, PB community goes down the road of legalising dope, bad for their brain, bad for their lungs, bad for their heart, bad for agitating or instigating mental health problems like schizophrenia and depression. All those things will go up amongst the beautiful people posting here. More accidents from using cars and machinery. More posters committing crime and disorder, and in doing so hurting others, perfectly beautiful and innocent people.
Alternatively, follow lead of TSE, which looking at polling shows the sanity resides with the conservatives just like him, go on the cross trainer or bike as alternative to doing dope, lose some weight. Sit under a tree or take a walk in nature, and meditate, or better use the time doing a good deed for someone, such as bit of pastoral care and lifting their mental well being?
We have been put on this earth to build our resilience, not our dependence’s.
Can you see the error of your ways now? Your greedy selfish, thoughtless, destructive ways and psychologies
But if.... "A self-illuminated sphere at least six feet in diameter flew alongside one of the Navy warships for an extended period off the coast of San Diego in 2019 and was observed through a thermal sensor"...... why the F isn't there a good cameraphone video of it?
If it was day we could see it. If it was night, we would see the lights
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?
I don't agree, at all. There's a clear majority in Israel in support of a two/three state solution in principle. The problem is finding a negotiation partner who is willing and able to guarantee the safety of Israel's borders following any such deal. Abbas and the PLO aren't able, and Hamas aren't willing.
There is also a host of intermediary problems to clear first, starting with: how do you resolve the fact that Gaza and the West Bank can't be part of the same contiguous state without dividing Israel into two instead? That alone is enough to nix the initial negotiations, even before you get to the really thorny questions like how what you do with East Jerusalem, and continuing Jewish access to sites like Hebron.
If I were a Palestinian living in the occupied territories, I would support Hamas.
Obviously.
Because I would have an Israeli occupying force in my country. Pushing other Palestinians off the land with guns.
Why wouldn't you support the one group willing to fight back and inflict pain on the people who are inflicting pain on you?
Put your empathy cap on for a second, and ask who you'd support if you were a Palestinian? You'd be throwing rocks at Israeli military vehicles, not hoping they would deign to offer you something in the future.
Irrespective of your views regarding the Israeli public, the reality is that Israeli government policy is to give monetary subsidies and military support to those who wish to settle in the occupied territories.
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.
So somebody reacting to the BLM protests against racism in America with "but what about governance in sub Saharan Africa?" - that's valid critique in your book, is it?
Thanks for the question. See above.
What, so you DO see "But what about governance in sub Saharan Africa?" as a perfectly valid reaction to protests against racist policing in America?
Surprised if that's the case. And apols if I've misread your slightly gnomic response.
My view is this: I do not support or condone the murder of blacks in America, segregated public transport in South Africa or the shelling of Gaza. If you feel strongly about it do something courageous and relevant: Rob a bank, use the proceeds to fly to Philadelphia or Joburg or Jerusalem and punch a policeman and go to prison. What use is risk free virtue signalling in an uninvolved third country?
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?
Well said.
Only thing I'd note is that Israel have annexed East Jerusalem and do offer the Palestinians in East Jerusalem Israeli citizenship and the same rights as every other Israeli citizen (though not many have chosen to take that, as they'll lose 'Palestinian citizenship' if they take Israeli).
So if East Jerusalem is Israel, and the people there can get Israeli citizenship, then any building there isn't really a settlement is it?
"Well said" followed by denial of the main point made.
Great stuff.
Its not a denial of the main point.
The main point was that either the land is Israel's (in which case the residents should get citizenship), or its not (in which case no settlements). Well East Jerusalem has been annexed and the residents all offered citizenship, so that does match @rcs1000 concerns does it not? 🤔
Not so straightforward as that, there are about 360 000 Palestinian Arabs in East Jerusalem, but:
"Over 95% of East Jerusalemite Palestinians retain residency status rather than citizenship. Application for citizenship have grown from 69 (2003) to over 1,000 (2018) but obtaining Israel citizenship has been described as an uphill battle, with the number of applicants who receive a positive response meager. Obtaining an appointment for an interview alone can take 3 years followed by another 3 to 4 years to obtain a decision one way or another. Of 1,081 requests in 2016 only 7 were approved, though by 2018, 353 approvals were given to the 1,012 Palestinians applying. Lack of sufficient fluency in Hebrew, suspicions the applicant might have property in the West Bank, or be a security risk (such as having once visited a relative gaoled on security grounds) are considered impediments."
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?
I don't agree, at all. There's a clear majority in Israel in support of a two/three state solution in principle. The problem is finding a negotiation partner who is willing and able to guarantee the safety of Israel's borders following any such deal. Abbas and the PLO aren't able, and Hamas aren't willing.
There is also a host of intermediary problems to clear first, starting with: how do you resolve the fact that Gaza and the West Bank can't be part of the same contiguous state without dividing Israel into two instead? That alone is enough to nix the initial negotiations, even before you get to the really thorny questions like how what you do with East Jerusalem, and continuing Jewish access to sites like Hebron.
If I were a Palestinian living in the occupied territories, I would support Hamas.
Obviously.
Because I would have an Israeli occupying force in my country. Pushing other Palestinians off the land with guns.
Why wouldn't you support the one group willing to fight back and inflict pain on the people who are inflicting pain on you?
Put your empathy cap on for a second, and ask who you'd support if you were a Palestinian? You'd be throwing rocks at Israeli military vehicles, not hoping they would deign to offer you something in the future.
Irrespective of your views regarding the Israeli public, the reality is that Israeli government policy is to give monetary subsidies and military support to those who wish to settle in the occupied territories.
I suppose a question to ask is why didn't Hamas give the let's all get along strategy a go in Gaza.
As I understand it they never did.
I think that is informing to a large extent the Israeli response.
"Do we finally have sensor data confirming one of @LueElizondo ’s five observables? The object in the first few seconds appears to accelerate to around 1,200 miles per hour, then holds position in near hover. @JeremyCorbell"
"Update: I found the user manual for the radar system online and it shows that the range is out to the edge of the circle, not the 'Range Rings' as I measured. I re-caluclated for a distance of 444 meters over 1.33 seconds = 333m/s or 744 mph, still pretty fast average speed!"
"I'd say its not even so much the average speed as the acceleration that would be shocking. Going from a lazy 50mph to 744 in half the duration of the radar sweep (.665sec) would pull 47g's. That would ruin your weekend if you were inside."
These objects do not appear to interact with the physical stuff around them. And yet radar waves bounce off them.
Am I the only person that thinks that is odd? Because it's a hell of a lot easier to let radar waves go through an object than to have an object occupy the same physical space as air or water, without affecting the air or water in any way.
Indeed, I'd suggest the really extraordinary thing is that radar waves bounce off these objects, but water and air do not.
Robert there are many extraordinary elements of this that noone can readily explain. That does not mean the observations are false. On the contrary, it makes them more rather than less interesting.
Absolutely mind-boggling UFO news clip from NBC. They are taking this very seriously in America
"The world is getting a glimpse at leaked military radar readings showing possible UFO activity near a Navy warship off the coast of California. @GadiNBC has more"
I have no independent way of knowing how boggled to be; not difficult to film a space invaders screen while having people off camera saying Holy shit dude in American accents. I agree with you that the US authorities can't explain this stuff, but all that's happening is that they have stopped pretending nothing is happening, when we knew something was happening all along anyway. So how much further forward will we actually be?
Did we really "know" something was happening "all along anyway"? Did we *know* that we were being buzzed by inexplicable aircraft that can apparently bend - or smash - the laws of physics?!
I never got that memo. Maybe that's why I'm fascinated
No comparison with when it was last asked, but it seems to be getting moor popular, (which I think is a good thing)
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.
Embarrassing.
There is nothing at all in the column that says good idea, the bad idea column needs extra pages.
What on earth has anyone got in the good idea column other than they are mouth dribbling libertarian minded children who don’t like being told what they can or cannot do?
Are you in favour of people being told what they can and cannot do?
Yes! Otherwise it’s anarchy. Anarchy in the UK. Is that what you want, because that is what will happen.
Although cannabis may have some medical uses in strictly controlled circumstances, smoking it or munching on space cakes is simply not good for you. Opium poppy derivatives have medical uses, but that doesn’t make heroin healthy. It’s called Dope for a reason – bad for your brain, bad for your lungs, bad for your heart, bad for agitating or instigating mental health problems like schizophrenia and depression, terrible risk if you plan to do anything like a car or machinery. And it creates crime and injury from crime. The more people feeling they can do it because it’s decriminalised, the more crime and disorder there will be.
You have anything in “it’s a great idea” column that merely counterbalances all those facts and truths?
I like it, it has neither done me any harm nor caused me to harm anyone else, and I seriously dispute your qualifications to tell me what is good for me.
I am the most suited person to tell you the road you should be on, and help you to think again, my child.
Let me tell you where your reasoning has gone wrong, and use the PB community as example.
Fork in the road, PB community goes down the road of legalising dope, bad for their brain, bad for their lungs, bad for their heart, bad for agitating or instigating mental health problems like schizophrenia and depression. All those things will go up amongst the beautiful people posting here. More accidents from using cars and machinery. More posters committing crime and disorder, and in doing so hurting others, perfectly beautiful and innocent people.
Alternatively, follow lead of TSE, which looking at polling shows the sanity resides with the conservatives just like him, go on the cross trainer or bike as alternative to doing dope, lose some weight. Sit under a tree or take a walk in nature, and meditate, or better use the time doing a good deed for someone, such as bit of pastoral care and lifting their mental well being?
We have been put on this earth to build our resilience, not our dependence’s.
Can you see the error of your ways now? Your greedy selfish, thoughtless, destructive ways and psychologies
Are you tripping? Kudos if you are: I am much more concerned about the legality of psilocybin than of cannabis.
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?
I don't agree, at all. There's a clear majority in Israel in support of a two/three state solution in principle. The problem is finding a negotiation partner who is willing and able to guarantee the safety of Israel's borders following any such deal. Abbas and the PLO aren't able, and Hamas aren't willing.
There is also a host of intermediary problems to clear first, starting with: how do you resolve the fact that Gaza and the West Bank can't be part of the same contiguous state without dividing Israel into two instead? That alone is enough to nix the initial negotiations, even before you get to the really thorny questions like how what you do with East Jerusalem, and continuing Jewish access to sites like Hebron.
If I were a Palestinian living in the occupied territories, I would support Hamas.
Obviously.
Because I would have an Israeli occupying force in my country. Pushing other Palestinians off the land with guns.
Why wouldn't you support the one group willing to fight back and inflict pain on the people who are inflicting pain on you?
Put your empathy cap on for a second, and ask who you'd support if you were a Palestinian? You'd be throwing rocks at Israeli military vehicles, not hoping they would deign to offer you something in the future.
Irrespective of your views regarding the Israeli public, the reality is that Israeli government policy is to give monetary subsidies and military support to those who wish to settle in the occupied territories.
How is Gaza being occupied? There's no troops and no settlements in Gaza.
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.
Putin is also an awesome election winner. I am not sure it takes him out of the "absolute scumbag" category though.
No - Putin operates in an undemocratic dictatorship. To pretend parity with the UK is plain stupid.
Comments
He's a wrong 'un. Get used to it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swarm_(Schätzing_novel)
Interesting book, although I was a bit disappointed at the revealed ultimate cause of the odd happenings (trying to avoid spoilers here, they're in the wiki article) as I'd have found something closer to home more interesting. It is a fact that we've not been particularly good at mapping/exploring the oceans (see the disappearance Malaysian Airlines 370).
@VictimOfMaths
·
1h
Just had a closer look at the latest hospital data for Bolton. Based on the age profile of cases, we can reasonably expect deaths to be ~10% of the Oct/Nov peak, but bed occupancy is already at ~1/3 and ventilator bed occupancy at ~1/2 of peak levels.
https://twitter.com/VictimOfMaths/status/1398298441013469185
There is nothing at all in the column that says good idea, the bad idea column needs extra pages.
What on earth has anyone got in the good idea column other than they are mouth dribbling libertarian minded children who don’t like being told what they can or cannot do?
"Do we finally have sensor data confirming one of
@LueElizondo
’s five observables? The object in the first few seconds appears to accelerate to around 1,200 miles per hour, then holds position in near hover.
@JeremyCorbell"
"Update: I found the user manual for the radar system online and it shows that the range is out to the edge of the circle, not the 'Range Rings' as I measured. I re-caluclated for a distance of 444 meters over 1.33 seconds = 333m/s or 744 mph, still pretty fast average speed!"
"I'd say its not even so much the average speed as the acceleration that would be shocking. Going from a lazy 50mph to 744 in half the duration of the radar sweep (.665sec) would pull 47g's. That would ruin your weekend if you were inside."
https://twitter.com/4Eridani/status/1398315572174233605?s=20
Now, if deaths and hospitalisations increase a lot then yes, we worry.
The only deaths announced on the evening news are COVID ones, currently frequently in single figures (10 today).
On a day where ±1,700 other people will have died. Around 450 each from cancer and heart disease...
Only thing I'd note is that Israel have annexed East Jerusalem and do offer the Palestinians in East Jerusalem Israeli citizenship and the same rights as every other Israeli citizen (though not many have chosen to take that, as they'll lose 'Palestinian citizenship' if they take Israeli).
So if East Jerusalem is Israel, and the people there can get Israeli citizenship, then any building there isn't really a settlement is it?
What would jews make of that?
Plus check out the flags.
"Report: US Navy Has Tracked Underwater UFOs That Can Do Hundreds of Knots https://barstoolsports.com/blog/3366000/report-us-navy-has-tracked-underwater-ufos-that-can-do-hundreds-of-knots"
"US Submarines Detected Fast-Moving UFOs Underwater Ahead of Pentagon UFO Report http://dlvr.it/S0X86V"
Although cannabis may have some medical uses in strictly controlled circumstances, smoking it or munching on space cakes is simply not good for you. Opium poppy derivatives have medical uses, but that doesn’t make heroin healthy. It’s called Dope for a reason – bad for your brain, bad for your lungs, bad for your heart, bad for agitating or instigating mental health problems like schizophrenia and depression, terrible risk if you plan to do anything like a car or machinery. And it creates crime and injury from crime. The more people feeling they can do it because it’s decriminalised, the more crime and disorder there will be.
You have anything in “it’s a great idea” column that merely counterbalances all those facts and truths?
Sometimes, talking to yourself is the only way to get an intelligent conversation.
I admit it, part of me is going to miss the year of lockdown.
It's not necessarily perfect*, but at least it's recognising those people have the same rights as the rest of your citizens.
* Nothing is, of course, perfect.
It comes just a month after Mr Amos appeared naked on an internal parliamentary feed, making headlines around the world."
https://news.sky.com/story/william-amos-deeply-embarrassed-canadian-mp-who-appeared-naked-in-virtual-meeting-caught-out-again-12319247
Have a go. Knock yourself out
A nice little island off the Scottish coast with some rescue shelter dogs and a decent sized library would see me settled.
Until I tripped over one of the dogs and died slowly and painfully and they ate me.
One of the conditions for Belgium to further loosen its coronavirus restrictions on June 9 has been met, with fewer than 500 patients with COVID-19 in intensive care units on Thursday, Steven Van Gucht, a virologist and the government’s COVID spokesperson, said at a press conference Friday.
On June 9, hotels and restaurants will be allowed to offer indoor dining again; theaters and cinemas will open their doors; and workers will begin a staggered return to the office, starting with one day a week. Belgians will also be allowed to invite up to four people to their homes.
https://www.politico.eu/article/belgian-icus-hit-threshold-for-loosening-restrictions-on-june-9/
Anyone know UK ICU occupation rate?
Gosh, some of you reactionary reductives just lately. Lighten up.
May well discontinue this - turning into noise, due to too little data.
If they’ve been invited and refused, I’m reminded of the Pterry quote: “The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences. It’s the freedom on which all the others are based.”
If they choose to face a novel virus with a naive immune system while in a more vulnerable demographic, there are consequences to that choice. They will end up contributing to herd immunity one way or the other: through injection or infection. Their choice.
Again, cases rising, though admissions may be plateauing.
Both cases and admissions are strongly correlated with the un-vaccinated groups.
That said, we have a situation where some are (with justification) claiming a successful vaccination rollout and champing at the bit for the ending of all restrictions yet I live in an area where a third of the over-40 population have not been vaccinated and I see the possibility of more cases and, to be blunt, more deaths as these 50,000 people go back to normal lives and move around.
Now, what I am NOT arguing for is a continuation of restrictions. Those who have refused the vaccine have the right to refuse it but that must not be used as a justification for prolonging restrictions. However, Government and the NHS must be aware there were thousands of unvaccinated people who will continue to be a risk to themselves (no real risk to the vaccinated) and the likelihood of a continuing undercurrent of cases especially if more easily transmissible variants emerge.
I'm not sure that they have overpromised and underdelivered. To date afaics the Govt are just sticking to the declared unlocking schedule.
I would expect them to follow a 'working hard to fix it' narrative, then come out with something around 6-12 of June to make it clear and get a +ve narrative running into the Chesham and Amersham Event.
I am not one for wishing he gets the boot (the alternative is unlikely to do better) but this could cause a major dent in the Tory vote in a way the Cummings saga was never going to.
The older groups are actually showing a fall.
It does seem that even against B.1.617.2 that protection against hospitalisation is around 85%+ with one dose and comfortably over 95% with both.
As long as deaths follow a similar pattern, that makes it slightly less dangerous than seasonal flu with an averagely effective annual flu vaccine.
So, no, it wouldn’t render it perfectly safe. But it would make the risk balance tilt firmly in favour of opening up and allowing the vast majority (if not all) of other activities to resume or continue - with the concomitant effects on the wider health service and mental health.
"The world is getting a glimpse at leaked military radar readings showing possible UFO activity near a Navy warship off the coast of California.
@GadiNBC has more"
https://twitter.com/TODAYshow/status/1398262582599815172?s=20
No question it should be legalised and if Boris, Patel and Rishi backed it then I think they can and would carry the party with it.
Thank you.
These objects do not appear to interact with the physical stuff around them. And yet radar waves bounce off them.
Am I the only person that thinks that is odd? Because it's a hell of a lot easier to let radar waves go through an object than to have an object occupy the same physical space as air or water, without affecting the air or water in any way.
Indeed, I'd suggest the really extraordinary thing is that radar waves bounce off these objects, but water and air do not.
North East Derbyshire - Adults - 81.7 % / 55.3 %
Shetland islands : 90.4 / 56.5%
Harrumph.
Signed. A miserable old fart.
Great stuff.
There is also a host of intermediary problems to clear first, starting with: how do you resolve the fact that Gaza and the West Bank can't be part of the same contiguous state without dividing Israel into two instead? That alone is enough to nix the initial negotiations, even before you get to the really thorny questions like how what you do with East Jerusalem, and continuing Jewish access to sites like Hebron.
Sure, aliens. Natch.
Interdimensional visitors? One to get the string theorists excited. If they’re 5th dimensional, they’d be able to anticipate every outcome. That would be odd.
But what if they’re terrestrial based intelligence that we previously haven’t noticed? Graham Hancock might say humans from the pre Younger Dryas period. Perhaps. That’d be interesting. Atlantis!
But what if they’re non human earthlings. Now that’s interesting. Depths of the ocean? Well maybe. Sounds a bit Jar Jar Binks. But what if the ocean is merely the curtain to their stage? And they’ve evolved under the earth’s crust in caverns, and in the absence of sunlight the heat from the mantle acted as the heat source necessary for the development of life.
Anyway I doubt Biden has much to say about any of that and nor do most of the senators involved. They’re just thinking “who buzzed my ships!”. We need this to move out of the Defense world so broader minds can be put to work figuring it out.
The main point was that either the land is Israel's (in which case the residents should get citizenship), or its not (in which case no settlements). Well East Jerusalem has been annexed and the residents all offered citizenship, so that does match @rcs1000 concerns does it not? 🤔
Yes I know it has lots of young people. But still.
The behaviour of the settlers is appalling though. I was staying with a Palestinian family, and the daily humiliations as they drove us from place to place in the Westbank from settlers and soldiers would make anyone's patience snap.
There won't be peace while they do these things.
"UFO SWARM: A self-illuminated sphere at least six feet in diameter flew alongside one of the Navy warships for an extended period off the coast of San Diego in 2019 and was observed through a thermal sensor."
https://twitter.com/kron4news/status/1398325303588528128?s=20
The thing is, this radar footage corroborates this now-famous (and grainy) visual footage, from the same boat at the same time
"New video taken from USS Omaha shows spherical UFO splash into ocean off San Diego: Ex-fighter pilot says airmen saw unknown aircraft off Virginia coast EVERY DAY for years calling them a 'worrying security threat' ahead of Pentagon report https://dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9580733/US-Navy-pilots-saw-UFOs-coast-Virginia-frequently-got-used-them.html #UFO #disclosure"
This is the first time a UAP has been corroborated twice over, first came the eyewitness reports, then the thermal sensor video, NOW the radar
A 3 state solution is the only viable solution as far as I can see, but it won't happen.
Surprised if that's the case. And apols if I've misread your slightly gnomic response.
Let me tell you where your reasoning has gone wrong, and use the PB community as example.
Fork in the road, PB community goes down the road of legalising dope, bad for their brain, bad for their lungs, bad for their heart, bad for agitating or instigating mental health problems like schizophrenia and depression. All those things will go up amongst the beautiful people posting here. More accidents from using cars and machinery. More posters committing crime and disorder, and in doing so hurting others, perfectly beautiful and innocent people.
Alternatively, follow lead of TSE, which looking at polling shows the sanity resides with the conservatives just like him, go on the cross trainer or bike as alternative to doing dope, lose some weight. Sit under a tree or take a walk in nature, and meditate, or better use the time doing a good deed for someone, such as bit of pastoral care and lifting their mental well being?
We have been put on this earth to build our resilience, not our dependence’s.
Can you see the error of your ways now? Your greedy selfish, thoughtless, destructive ways and psychologies
If it was day we could see it. If it was night, we would see the lights
WTF
Obviously.
Because I would have an Israeli occupying force in my country. Pushing other Palestinians off the land with guns.
Why wouldn't you support the one group willing to fight back and inflict pain on the people who are inflicting pain on you?
Put your empathy cap on for a second, and ask who you'd support if you were a Palestinian? You'd be throwing rocks at Israeli military vehicles, not hoping they would deign to offer you something in the future.
Irrespective of your views regarding the Israeli public, the reality is that Israeli government policy is to give monetary subsidies and military support to those who wish to settle in the occupied territories.
"Over 95% of East Jerusalemite Palestinians retain residency status rather than citizenship. Application for citizenship have grown from 69 (2003) to over 1,000 (2018) but obtaining Israel citizenship has been described as an uphill battle, with the number of applicants who receive a positive response meager. Obtaining an appointment for an interview alone can take 3 years followed by another 3 to 4 years to obtain a decision one way or another. Of 1,081 requests in 2016 only 7 were approved, though by 2018, 353 approvals were given to the 1,012 Palestinians applying. Lack of sufficient fluency in Hebrew, suspicions the applicant might have property in the West Bank, or be a security risk (such as having once visited a relative gaoled on security grounds) are considered impediments."
From Wikipedia.
As I understand it they never did.
I think that is informing to a large extent the Israeli response.
I never got that memo. Maybe that's why I'm fascinated