Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
I prefer cycling to a car. It's far easier to engage with the environment I'm travelling through, finding somewhere to park is less of a hassle, I can more easily go past people who are dithering ahead of me.
The car is useful when there's something large to bring back from Ikea though.
Cars are essential in rural areas. Looking at a journey that might take me or my other half half an hour in the car would be over 3 hours on public transport, with 5 changes and about an hour walking round with 20+ kilos of feed. And that's just the outward leg.
Cars are essential in rural areas covering about 15% of the population. If the other 85% of the population don't have an adequate public transport service, the problem is with the public transport system, not people being anti-car.
Without a car Mrs C & I would have to significantly rejig our social lives for the worse. There are only two larger nearby towns to which I can go by bus, East and West. To go to the populations centres, North and South requires two buses or bus and train. And before anyone suggests going by bike, sadly that's not an option for me any more, and never really was for my wife.
What many urbanites fail to understand, is that before the car, travel was extremely limited for many people living in the countryside. They were, fairly literally, stuck where they lived.
Reverting to the pre-car situation would either mean de-populating the countryside, almost completely, or a return to a world where many people lived and died a few miles from where they were born.
Police tell me Jake Davison had a firearm licence but they do not know if he had a licence for the weapon he used last night. They reiterate that they have ruled out terrorism, despite the gunman’s apparent affiliation with the online group Incel. https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1426134125988175875
We need a better definition of "terrorism"
It's come to mean brown people doing bad things in the last 20 years or so.
I disagree, actually. What they're saying is that the victims were known to the killer.
To be honest, quite why anyone would have thought such an incident might be anything other than a domestic incident, I don't know.
It might have been a spree killing (see the US), or it might have been a terrorist attack (see NZ)
It costs me close to £5 to travel the ≈ 10 miles into Newcastle and back on the bus. For that I get the privilege of waiting up to an hour for one to arrive.
Brilliant they are.
Newcastle used to have a brilliant integrated transport system with tickets interchangeable from bus to metro to take you into the centre. Then Thatcher buggered it up.
My organisation has (as participants in COP, Nov 1-12) just been briefed that in order for delegates to get around easily with COP restrictions, residents and commuters in and around Glasgow will be asked not to use public transport in that period.
There is not here, nor is there in the US, the political will to send the hundreds of thousands of troops there that would be required to make and then keep the peace.
It seems to me that what was really needed was for the bad guys to be wiped out. But there's certainly no will for that.
Define "bad guys"
Al Qaeda are long gone in Afghanistan - in the shifting sands of alliances there, all the warlords are now buying into the "Taliban" franchise. Which means something different to the Taliban of 20 years back.
The important bit of the Taliban franchise is the Koran waving bit - "We Are More Muslim Than Everyone Else".
Which means, in turn, that those in the franchise must be more blessed by God. In all their doings.... Which is a very useful flag of convenience for those in the war lording business.
So you have the same bunch of people signing up to a name that doesn't mean what it used to.
Who are you going to kill and why?
It's a fair point. What I'm getting at is that I got the impression that our soldiers were not in a position to take out the people they were fighting. Didn't someone get done for murder? I just think we're too squeamish to do what's required. It's a bit like at the end of WW2 us allowing the Nazis to carry on living as they want to so long as they don't try to take power again.
It was tricky to establish who exactly was a ideological, fanatical Talib and who was merely a farmer who picked up an ancient AK47 to defend his land and family from what he perceived to be infidel invaders.
It is impossible to defeat guerrillas if they have the support of the local population.
So we decided on a policy of winning hearts and minds, which meant we restrained ourselves in the use of firepower, trying to avoid killing the farmers with ancient AKs, which would not be good for winning hearts and minds, to put it mildly. We tried to do the nice stuff. Healthcare, infrastructure. Throw money around. It didn’t really work.
We perhaps forget that the Taliban had won the civil war. We upended that after 9/11. They never went away and are now obviously resurgent.
Occupying Germany, a modern country with an educated population and good infrastructure, is vastly different to occupying a country like Afghan which is still very much tribal, uneducated and is very, very difficult terrain - poorly connected valleys and deserts.
The desire to get Bin Laden blinded our militaries and politicians to the lessons of Vietnam and the Russian Afghan experience. We cannot impose our systems and values on societies that do not want them.
We went there to keep the terrorists out, not to turn it into Canada.
You keep saying the same thing again and again. ‘We got rid of Al Qaeda, if they return we will re-invade and take them out again.’
With the greatest of respect, that is the most simplistic view. You don’t really know what you’re talking about.
If we didn’t want to turn it into Canada, why do we spend 20 years there, chucking money at it, trying to build a democracy - and failing?
We did seriously degrade Al Qaeda, for a while at least, so why didn’t we leave when we did that? Why didn’t we leave when Bin Laden was killed?
As Al Qaeda can return
They never went away. Al Qaeda means ‘the base’ - the base of a franchise model. There are innumerable splinter groups who are Al Qaeda by any other name.
Bin Laden established a set of ideas, an approach, that anyone can take up. For example all the self radicalised bombers who’ve carried out attacks in the West with no direct contact with Al Qaeda. We can’t bomb everyone, across the globe, who subscribes to Bin Laden’s propaganda, who may carry out a terrorist attack.
Why not? We can identify and arrest those in the West planning terrorist attacks using intelligence services and outside the west we can also bomb any terrorist camps in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia where terrorists are being trained to attack the West.
Otherwise we will get future 9/11s and more 7/7s again
Yeah, good look with all that. What if people don’t crop up on the intelligence service’s radar, like the 7/7 bombers didn’t?
Are we going to continue to ignore international law and national boundaries and bomb wherever we want illegally, thus increasing resentment of the west and being a recruiting sergeant for Al Qaeda and it’s offshoots?
And you fundamentally misunderstand one of the main aims of 9/11. It was to provoke the west into unwinnable wars in Muslim countries, to demonstrate that the west is ‘weak’, that its populations will not tolerate the demands on blood and treasure that are needed to fight and win sustainably, in the long term, in Muslim lands.
What happened in Iraq and what is happening in Afghanistan currently demonstrate the accuracy of Bin Laden’s hypothesis.
We are at war with international extremist terrorism and have been since 9/11.
Yes, we will not always win it but that does not mean it must be at the top of the intelligence services radar.
Since 9/11 we have had no attacks on the same scale. Even before 9/11 Bin Laden had already attacked the WTO once before in 1993 and US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 well before any invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.
There is nothing illegal about bombing militants training camps except according to the most wet leftists
Hey, you’re a neo-con! I can’t say I admire your blatant disregard for international law, but it’s revealing that you are so sanguine about jettisoning this stuff when it suits. An example of western hypocrisy that plays well with the terrorist recruiters.
No there hasn’t been a big terrorist attack in the west since 9/11. There’s no need. The Islamists are playing the long game, we have shown we lack the stomach to stay in these countries long-term. Job done.
In which case the terrorists will just come to us again, as they were already doing well before 9/11.
Yes I am more of a neo-con than a pacifist on this, international law is made by the UN and the security council, including the UK and US, have vetos on UN action, we make international law along with any treaties we sign
Just to check, were there zero terrorist attacks on Britain's from the invasion of Afghanistan to today?
I'm just reading one of the DCI Banks books, 'Past Reason Hated', written in 1991. Some major characters in it are lesbian, and the attitude of the other characters towards them would be totally unacceptable nowadays - even in Yorkshire.
Societal attitudes can change very rapidly, as can concepts of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, or even 'good' and 'evil'. And the movement may not always be in directions we currently see as being positive.
Very true. I really like the Peter Robinson DCI Banks series, and it's done a decent job of plotting changes in attitudes over the years, even though the central character remains mostly unchanged as the world develops around him.
You might like Susie Steiner's books like Missing, Presumed too (though sadly there may be no more as she's gone blind). The first was about Yorkshire farmers; the later ones crime novels with some social observation and interestingly nuanced characters (though the last one, Remain Silent, was a bit too political even for me).
Read a Raymond Chandler the other day, for a book group to which I belong. The sexism and homophobia would get the book refused by any publisher today, or at least would require considerable revision before publication
There's a line in The Big Sleep which says something like "He hit me, but a pansy's got no iron in his bones no matter what he looks like."
If you've enjoyed the bumper swings in Inverness West (where there was 31% in 2017 for parties/Independents not contesting the by-election) and Dalry & West Kilbride (45% spare), then just wait til we get the figures from Wick and East Caithness (64% spare).
My organisation has (as participants in COP, Nov 1-12) just been briefed that in order for delegates to get around easily with COP restrictions, residents and commuters in and around Glasgow will be asked not to use public transport in that period.
I can see that going down really, really well.
Like Londoners in 2012. Who will be lighting the blue touchpaper?
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
I think there is something in this. The European Union is about dong things in a collective way, as is public transport. Brexit is about doing things yourself, as is private cars.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
I prefer cycling to a car. It's far easier to engage with the environment I'm travelling through, finding somewhere to park is less of a hassle, I can more easily go past people who are dithering ahead of me.
The car is useful when there's something large to bring back from Ikea though.
Cars are essential in rural areas. Looking at a journey that might take me or my other half half an hour in the car would be over 3 hours on public transport, with 5 changes and about an hour walking round with 20+ kilos of feed. And that's just the outward leg.
Cars are essential in rural areas covering about 15% of the population. If the other 85% of the population don't have an adequate public transport service, the problem is with the public transport system, not people being anti-car.
Without a car Mrs C & I would have to significantly rejig our social lives for the worse. There are only two larger nearby towns to which I can go by bus, East and West. To go to the populations centres, North and South requires two buses or bus and train. And before anyone suggests going by bike, sadly that's not an option for me any more, and never really was for my wife.
What many urbanites fail to understand, is that before the car, travel was extremely limited for many people living in the countryside. They were, fairly literally, stuck where they lived.
Reverting to the pre-car situation would either mean de-populating the countryside, almost completely, or a return to a world where many people lived and died a few miles from where they were born.
Even the invention of the bicycle stirred up the gene pool, with people marrying people from 2 villages away rather than just the one.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
I prefer cycling to a car. It's far easier to engage with the environment I'm travelling through, finding somewhere to park is less of a hassle, I can more easily go past people who are dithering ahead of me.
The car is useful when there's something large to bring back from Ikea though.
Cars are essential in rural areas. Looking at a journey that might take me or my other half half an hour in the car would be over 3 hours on public transport, with 5 changes and about an hour walking round with 20+ kilos of feed. And that's just the outward leg.
Cars are essential in rural areas covering about 15% of the population. If the other 85% of the population don't have an adequate public transport service, the problem is with the public transport system, not people being anti-car.
Without a car Mrs C & I would have to significantly rejig our social lives for the worse. There are only two larger nearby towns to which I can go by bus, East and West. To go to the populations centres, North and South requires two buses or bus and train. And before anyone suggests going by bike, sadly that's not an option for me any more, and never really was for my wife.
What many urbanites fail to understand, is that before the car, travel was extremely limited for many people living in the countryside. They were, fairly literally, stuck where they lived.
Reverting to the pre-car situation would either mean de-populating the countryside, almost completely, or a return to a world where many people lived and died a few miles from where they were born.
Even the invention of the bicycle stirred up the gene pool, with people marrying people from 2 villages away rather than just the one.
Yes - it was a radical change, when it first arrived.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
I prefer cycling to a car. It's far easier to engage with the environment I'm travelling through, finding somewhere to park is less of a hassle, I can more easily go past people who are dithering ahead of me.
The car is useful when there's something large to bring back from Ikea though.
Cars are essential in rural areas. Looking at a journey that might take me or my other half half an hour in the car would be over 3 hours on public transport, with 5 changes and about an hour walking round with 20+ kilos of feed. And that's just the outward leg.
Cars are essential in rural areas covering about 15% of the population. If the other 85% of the population don't have an adequate public transport service, the problem is with the public transport system, not people being anti-car.
Without a car Mrs C & I would have to significantly rejig our social lives for the worse. There are only two larger nearby towns to which I can go by bus, East and West. To go to the populations centres, North and South requires two buses or bus and train. And before anyone suggests going by bike, sadly that's not an option for me any more, and never really was for my wife.
What many urbanites fail to understand, is that before the car, travel was extremely limited for many people living in the countryside. They were, fairly literally, stuck where they lived.
Reverting to the pre-car situation would either mean de-populating the countryside, almost completely, or a return to a world where many people lived and died a few miles from where they were born.
I don't think anyone is suggesting reverting to a pre-car situation! As you say, cars are pretty much essential in most rural settings. It's in towns and cities (and between them) that alternatives to car transport need to be given more consideration.
I'm just reading one of the DCI Banks books, 'Past Reason Hated', written in 1991. Some major characters in it are lesbian, and the attitude of the other characters towards them would be totally unacceptable nowadays - even in Yorkshire.
Societal attitudes can change very rapidly, as can concepts of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, or even 'good' and 'evil'. And the movement may not always be in directions we currently see as being positive.
Very true. I really like the Peter Robinson DCI Banks series, and it's done a decent job of plotting changes in attitudes over the years, even though the central character remains mostly unchanged as the world develops around him.
You might like Susie Steiner's books like Missing, Presumed too (though sadly there may be no more as she's gone blind). The first was about Yorkshire farmers; the later ones crime novels with some social observation and interestingly nuanced characters (though the last one, Remain Silent, was a bit too political even for me).
Read a Raymond Chandler the other day, for a book group to which I belong. The sexism and homophobia would get the book refused by any publisher today, or at least would require considerable revision before publication
There's a line in The Big Sleep which says something like "He hit me, but a pansy's got no iron in his bones no matter what he looks like."
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
I prefer cycling to a car. It's far easier to engage with the environment I'm travelling through, finding somewhere to park is less of a hassle, I can more easily go past people who are dithering ahead of me.
The car is useful when there's something large to bring back from Ikea though.
Cars are essential in rural areas. Looking at a journey that might take me or my other half half an hour in the car would be over 3 hours on public transport, with 5 changes and about an hour walking round with 20+ kilos of feed. And that's just the outward leg.
Cars are essential in rural areas covering about 15% of the population. If the other 85% of the population don't have an adequate public transport service, the problem is with the public transport system, not people being anti-car.
How would you define rural areas? I live in a town of approx 5000. The next nearest town of 7000 is approx 10 miles away. Am I rural or urban?
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
I think average population density is about 53 per square km, so there's plenty of room to turn the whole planet into suburbia and feed ourselves on hydroponics, if that's your dystopia of choice.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
Can anyone translate for me ?
Looks pretty lucid to me. Was Look and Learn before your time? (I appreciate Gernsback probably was). Short version: cars are not viable in the long term, because space and resources.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
Can anyone translate for me ?
Looks pretty lucid to me. Was Look and Learn before your time? (I appreciate Gernsback probably was). Short version: cars are not viable in the long term, because space and resources.
They are quite viable at current UK population densities. Which are substantially higher than most of the planet.
The only problem would come if you try to fit an ever growing population in the same space.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
Can anyone translate for me ?
The planet is fucked unless there are substantially fewer humans in it.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
I think average population density is about 53 per square km, so there's plenty of room to turn the whole planet into suburbia and feed ourselves on hydroponics, if that's your dystopia of choice.
That is an insanely pointless statistic. We have maxed out the habitable earth, which is why people live the way they live in Delhi and Calcutta. California is a real time illustration of what happens when you try to inhabit the desert - fires and no water. No water = no hydroponics.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
I prefer cycling to a car. It's far easier to engage with the environment I'm travelling through, finding somewhere to park is less of a hassle, I can more easily go past people who are dithering ahead of me.
The car is useful when there's something large to bring back from Ikea though.
Cars are essential in rural areas. Looking at a journey that might take me or my other half half an hour in the car would be over 3 hours on public transport, with 5 changes and about an hour walking round with 20+ kilos of feed. And that's just the outward leg.
Cars are essential in rural areas covering about 15% of the population. If the other 85% of the population don't have an adequate public transport service, the problem is with the public transport system, not people being anti-car.
How would you define rural areas? I live in a town of approx 5000. The next nearest town of 7000 is approx 10 miles away. Am I rural or urban?
Complex. Skim-reading the methodology, it seems you are borderline:
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
I think average population density is about 53 per square km, so there's plenty of room to turn the whole planet into suburbia and feed ourselves on hydroponics, if that's your dystopia of choice.
That is an insanely pointless statistic. We have maxed out the habitable earth, which is why people live the way they live in Delhi and Calcutta. California is a real time illustration of what happens when you try to inhabit the desert - fires and no water. No water = no hydroponics.
In 2014 I spent a weekend reading the 137 page manifesto of Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger, a 22 year old who shot 6 people in an Incel/Entitlement rage. The detail of his resentment and extremely vivid revenge fantasies is specific, violent and visceral https://twitter.com/janinegibson/status/1426145531844255744
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
I think average population density is about 53 per square km, so there's plenty of room to turn the whole planet into suburbia and feed ourselves on hydroponics, if that's your dystopia of choice.
That is an insanely pointless statistic. We have maxed out the habitable earth, which is why people live the way they live in Delhi and Calcutta. California is a real time illustration of what happens when you try to inhabit the desert - fires and no water. No water = no hydroponics.
In 2014 I spent a weekend reading the 137 page manifesto of Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger, a 22 year old who shot 6 people in an Incel/Entitlement rage. The detail of his resentment and extremely vivid revenge fantasies is specific, violent and visceral https://twitter.com/janinegibson/status/1426145531844255744
A psychological state not a terrorist. A nutter if you like.
I'm just reading one of the DCI Banks books, 'Past Reason Hated', written in 1991. Some major characters in it are lesbian, and the attitude of the other characters towards them would be totally unacceptable nowadays - even in Yorkshire.
Societal attitudes can change very rapidly, as can concepts of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, or even 'good' and 'evil'. And the movement may not always be in directions we currently see as being positive.
Very true. I really like the Peter Robinson DCI Banks series, and it's done a decent job of plotting changes in attitudes over the years, even though the central character remains mostly unchanged as the world develops around him.
You might like Susie Steiner's books like Missing, Presumed too (though sadly there may be no more as she's gone blind). The first was about Yorkshire farmers; the later ones crime novels with some social observation and interestingly nuanced characters (though the last one, Remain Silent, was a bit too political even for me).
Read a Raymond Chandler the other day, for a book group to which I belong. The sexism and homophobia would get the book refused by any publisher today, or at least would require considerable revision before publication
There's a line in The Big Sleep which says something like "He hit me, but a pansy's got no iron in his bones no matter what he looks like."
In 2014 I spent a weekend reading the 137 page manifesto of Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger, a 22 year old who shot 6 people in an Incel/Entitlement rage. The detail of his resentment and extremely vivid revenge fantasies is specific, violent and visceral https://twitter.com/janinegibson/status/1426145531844255744
That Santa Barbara shooter didn't know his victims. Is there a suggestion that that is the same in Plymouth?
I'm just reading one of the DCI Banks books, 'Past Reason Hated', written in 1991. Some major characters in it are lesbian, and the attitude of the other characters towards them would be totally unacceptable nowadays - even in Yorkshire.
Societal attitudes can change very rapidly, as can concepts of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, or even 'good' and 'evil'. And the movement may not always be in directions we currently see as being positive.
Very true. I really like the Peter Robinson DCI Banks series, and it's done a decent job of plotting changes in attitudes over the years, even though the central character remains mostly unchanged as the world develops around him.
You might like Susie Steiner's books like Missing, Presumed too (though sadly there may be no more as she's gone blind). The first was about Yorkshire farmers; the later ones crime novels with some social observation and interestingly nuanced characters (though the last one, Remain Silent, was a bit too political even for me).
Read a Raymond Chandler the other day, for a book group to which I belong. The sexism and homophobia would get the book refused by any publisher today, or at least would require considerable revision before publication
There's a line in The Big Sleep which says something like "He hit me, but a pansy's got no iron in his bones no matter what he looks like."
That's one of the lines in my mind!
Replied to your PM
Many thanks. Will forward to her daughter.
I'd looked higher up the page, but obviously hadn't gone far enough!
Surely even a terrorist cause must have some fulfillable political aims. All the murder and mayhem in the world aren't going to make women desperate to have sex with sad, ugly blokes.
The Taliban have made it quite clear that their government will implement sharia law. That probably has a significant amount of support among the Afghan population, if not all. Sharia law is abhorrent to most of us in the West. But since it follows from the culture and religion the Afghans are attached to - aided by support from Pakistan - there is not a lot we can do about it.
Whether Afghanistan could have developed into a democratic state with an Islamic culture but without the awfulness of sharia is a question to which I have no answer. The evidence from other countries in the region - at least at this time - seems not.
Or, if it does, it requires a much better government and much more long-term support than the West was prepared to give.
At any event, it is all a colossal waste - of investment and lives - and a tragedy for the Afghan people, women above all. And, potentially, a risk if it becomes a breeding ground for anti-Western terrorists again.
Generally speaking, it appears that attempts by a foreign power to "civilise" another country by force are doomed to failure, aside from virtually wiping out the native population and replacing it with your own (e.g. the Americas). It appears that the motivation to do so has to come from the people themselves, as our own history also attests. Perhaps the best that we can do is to refuse to deal with authoritarian leaders while, at the same time, offering whatever support we can to the general population. Stopping our supply of weaponry to Saudi Arabia might be a good start.
It seems to have worked in certain countries after World War 2.
I personally think it’s a waste of the 450 British deaths to let Kabul fall to the Taliban again but it’s too late now. There’s no appetite for war in the west.
There were those who said the same of the 58,000 Americans (plus 5,100 South Koreans and 500 Australians) killed in Vietnam.
Ultimately, the question is not whether it was right to withdraw (a rare time I find myself in agreement with Donald Trump) because if after 20 years the Taleban had not been beaten they were never going to be. Sadly, the question is was it ever worth it in the first place?
And whatever we as a country and the families of the soldiers lost the Afghan people, particularly as @Cyclefree notes Afghan women, have lost and will lose a great deal more.
There has been no terrorist attack on a western city on the scale of 9/11 since the invasion yes.
If Afghanistan becomes a terrorist haven again however sadly we cannot be sure that will still be the case in years to come
That polling suggests a pretty sizeable chunk of the electorate want neither Johnson nor Starmer. They want somebody else.
Can you blame them?
LOL no.
The point was made recently that politicians are popular when they are giving out money and some tories are probably wondering if Sunak is popular partly because of furlough etc.
If Sunak's popularity survives the winter, and a tough budget, then, maybe they will move...??
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
I think average population density is about 53 per square km, so there's plenty of room to turn the whole planet into suburbia and feed ourselves on hydroponics, if that's your dystopia of choice.
That is an insanely pointless statistic. We have maxed out the habitable earth, which is why people live the way they live in Delhi and Calcutta. California is a real time illustration of what happens when you try to inhabit the desert - fires and no water. No water = no hydroponics.
The scale of California fires are largely caused by global temperature rises, not by population density. Much of the US could fit substantially larger cities in, especially in the South East (excluding Florida). The same is true of Africa, if it was a better run place. I agree with you India is overpopulated.
It costs me close to £5 to travel the ≈ 10 miles into Newcastle and back on the bus. For that I get the privilege of waiting up to an hour for one to arrive.
Brilliant they are.
Newcastle used to have a brilliant integrated transport system with tickets interchangeable from bus to metro to take you into the centre. Then Thatcher buggered it up.
True but it doesn't help Gallowgate - and it confirms something I said earlier this week. Unless public transport is painless and frequent the car becomes a lot more popular, even if parking cost more than £5.
It's easy to understand why "graduates" tend to vote Labour. In too many cases they have mortgaged their lives for a crap degree at a crap university with nothing to show for it except a sad, fading selfie with a mortarboard. The beneficiaries of this scandal are the legion of social science and arts academics who live high on the hog thanks to their students' borrowed money and would otherwise be unemployable. It's not immediately clear how a vote for Labour offers salvation for the unfortunate victims, but they probably think it's better than doing nothing.
The contempt for the young runs strong in you. University applications are at an all time high.
One of the points about university is that it takes you out of the comfortable circle of family and friends you grew up with, and is a crash course in rubbing along with all sorts of unfamiliar people. That's perhaps underestimated as a factor in influencing political attitudes ?
My organisation has (as participants in COP, Nov 1-12) just been briefed that in order for delegates to get around easily with COP restrictions, residents and commuters in and around Glasgow will be asked not to use public transport in that period.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
I think average population density is about 53 per square km, so there's plenty of room to turn the whole planet into suburbia and feed ourselves on hydroponics, if that's your dystopia of choice.
That is an insanely pointless statistic. We have maxed out the habitable earth, which is why people live the way they live in Delhi and Calcutta. California is a real time illustration of what happens when you try to inhabit the desert - fires and no water. No water = no hydroponics.
The scale of California fires are largely caused by global temperature rises, not by population density. Much of the US could fit substantially larger cities in, especially in the South East (excluding Florida). The same is true of Africa, if it was a better run place. I agree with you India is overpopulated.
They may be caused by global temperature rises (themselves caused by population increases: more people = more fossil fuel burners). Their effect is to make California less and less habitable. Fresh water looks even more of an issue than fires in California, and that is a straightforward population-driven shortage.
I'm just reading one of the DCI Banks books, 'Past Reason Hated', written in 1991. Some major characters in it are lesbian, and the attitude of the other characters towards them would be totally unacceptable nowadays - even in Yorkshire.
Societal attitudes can change very rapidly, as can concepts of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, or even 'good' and 'evil'. And the movement may not always be in directions we currently see as being positive.
Very true. I really like the Peter Robinson DCI Banks series, and it's done a decent job of plotting changes in attitudes over the years, even though the central character remains mostly unchanged as the world develops around him.
You might like Susie Steiner's books like Missing, Presumed too (though sadly there may be no more as she's gone blind). The first was about Yorkshire farmers; the later ones crime novels with some social observation and interestingly nuanced characters (though the last one, Remain Silent, was a bit too political even for me).
Read a Raymond Chandler the other day, for a book group to which I belong. The sexism and homophobia would get the book refused by any publisher today, or at least would require considerable revision before publication
I had the same reaction on re-reading Chandler three decades on. Bit of a reality check on how society's (and my) attitudes have changed.
I'm just reading one of the DCI Banks books, 'Past Reason Hated', written in 1991. Some major characters in it are lesbian, and the attitude of the other characters towards them would be totally unacceptable nowadays - even in Yorkshire.
Societal attitudes can change very rapidly, as can concepts of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, or even 'good' and 'evil'. And the movement may not always be in directions we currently see as being positive.
Very true. I really like the Peter Robinson DCI Banks series, and it's done a decent job of plotting changes in attitudes over the years, even though the central character remains mostly unchanged as the world develops around him.
You might like Susie Steiner's books like Missing, Presumed too (though sadly there may be no more as she's gone blind). The first was about Yorkshire farmers; the later ones crime novels with some social observation and interestingly nuanced characters (though the last one, Remain Silent, was a bit too political even for me).
Read a Raymond Chandler the other day, for a book group to which I belong. The sexism and homophobia would get the book refused by any publisher today, or at least would require considerable revision before publication
I had the same reaction on re-reading Chandler three decades on. Bit of a reality check on how society's (and my) attitudes have changed.
Read the Ed McBain 87th precinct books.
First one's were written and released in the 50s, last one in the 2000s. Always set in "the now".
It is basically a perfect look at the changing attitudes to race, gender and sexuality in America.
In the first books Racial slurs are used casually and without comment, by the 90s very much not so.
It's easy to understand why "graduates" tend to vote Labour. In too many cases they have mortgaged their lives for a crap degree at a crap university with nothing to show for it except a sad, fading selfie with a mortarboard. The beneficiaries of this scandal are the legion of social science and arts academics who live high on the hog thanks to their students' borrowed money and would otherwise be unemployable. It's not immediately clear how a vote for Labour offers salvation for the unfortunate victims, but they probably think it's better than doing nothing.
The contempt for the young runs strong in you. University applications are at an all time high.
One of the points about university is that it takes you out of the comfortable circle of family and friends you grew up with, and is a crash course in rubbing along with all sorts of unfamiliar people. That's perhaps underestimated as a factor in influencing political attitudes ?
For most people, that is work. And work probably does it better because not everyone is the same age, and your employer does not really care about you in the same way as your family, school and even university do. But yes, part of growing up is learning how to get along and work with people you don't necessarily like, sometimes on tasks you don't like.
But the best single predictor of who you vote for is who your parents vote for.
Part of this is accepting buses can't make a profit. Their purpose is to transport people who, for whatever reason, don't use cars, How much we are prepared to pay for that is moot. But, as Gallowgate points out, if it is a fiver for a 6 mile round trip, once every half hour to the nearest town, as it is for me, then nobody can really moan about congestion or lack of parking. Nor that rural folk find it hard to hold down work or run a business.
In 2014 I spent a weekend reading the 137 page manifesto of Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger, a 22 year old who shot 6 people in an Incel/Entitlement rage. The detail of his resentment and extremely vivid revenge fantasies is specific, violent and visceral https://twitter.com/janinegibson/status/1426145531844255744
It depends what you count as terrorism. His murders were clearly ideological, but they weren't part of an even vaguely organised attempt to influence society - it was a random individual radicalised but not even slightly co-ordinated.
For some people, that's enough to be terrorism. For others, it's a hate crime but it falls just short. I think either definition is reasonable and, personally, I don't see why there is energy being expended on arguing about it.
Whether a 'mere' hate crime or a lone wolf terrorist, the societal response should be the same. Focus more on how to spot the risk factors of individuals in advance, and try to tackle the ideology and radicalising influences to prevent others trying.
Part of this is accepting buses can't make a profit. Their purpose is to transport people who, for whatever reason, don't use cars, How much we are prepared to pay for that is moot. But, as Gallowgate points out, if it is a fiver for a 6 mile round trip, once every half hour to the nearest town, as it is for me, then nobody can really moan about congestion or lack of parking. Nor that rural folk find it hard to hold down work or run a business.
I think it is reasonable to expect a journey by a car with four seats to cost four times the equivalent bus fare (where there is one), regardless of how many people travel in it. It doesn't just mean more expensive car journeys; we should aim to make public transport cheaper.
I would look to level the playing field on cost in the first instance. If people stick with cars for convenience, that's their choice.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
I think average population density is about 53 per square km, so there's plenty of room to turn the whole planet into suburbia and feed ourselves on hydroponics, if that's your dystopia of choice.
That is an insanely pointless statistic. We have maxed out the habitable earth, which is why people live the way they live in Delhi and Calcutta. California is a real time illustration of what happens when you try to inhabit the desert - fires and no water. No water = no hydroponics.
The scale of California fires are largely caused by global temperature rises, not by population density. Much of the US could fit substantially larger cities in, especially in the South East (excluding Florida). The same is true of Africa, if it was a better run place. I agree with you India is overpopulated.
They may be caused by global temperature rises (themselves caused by population increases: more people = more fossil fuel burners). Their effect is to make California less and less habitable. Fresh water looks even more of an issue than fires in California, and that is a straightforward population-driven shortage.
There is nothing inherent in the use of fossil fuels. It's like a family of six all using taxis and buying takeaways the whole time and then saying "the reason we are short on money is too many kids".
As for water, that is something highly local. Europeans commenting on California's problems is a bit like Americans talking about Africa. The lack of proximity causes too much generalization. The problems are in the arid south, not in the north, and are largely because of poor water practices (e.g. a desire to have English style lawns). But overall the state is 40% bigger than Italy with half the population.
We point and shriek in shock at the odd dodgy half a million pound NHS contract to a relative of a Minister, duck houses and first home-second home expense claims.
UK politicians are rank amateurs claiming pin-money compared to Republican Governors, Senators and Representatives.
In 2014 I spent a weekend reading the 137 page manifesto of Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger, a 22 year old who shot 6 people in an Incel/Entitlement rage. The detail of his resentment and extremely vivid revenge fantasies is specific, violent and visceral https://twitter.com/janinegibson/status/1426145531844255744
It depends what you count as terrorism. His murders were clearly ideological, but they weren't part of an even vaguely organised attempt to influence society - it was a random individual radicalised but not even slightly co-ordinated.
For some people, that's enough to be terrorism. For others, it's a hate crime but it falls just short. I think either definition is reasonable and, personally, I don't see why there is energy being expended on arguing about it.
Whether a 'mere' hate crime or a lone wolf terrorist, the societal response should be the same. Focus more on how to spot the risk factors of individuals in advance, and try to tackle the ideology and radicalising influences to prevent others trying.
There is quite a lot at stake for some people to show the motivation not to say ethnic identity of people who commit such crimes.
Let's say there are two incidents - one a demonstrably and self-declared Islamic terrorist on a shooting spree. The other this guy.
This guy = terrorist = 50% of terrorist incidents are islamist-motivated This guy =/= terrorist = 100% of terrorist incidents are islamist-motivated
We point and shriek in shock at the odd dodgy half a million pound NHS contract to a relative of a Minister, duck houses and first home-second home expense claims.
UK politicians are rank amateurs claiming pin-money compared to Republican Governors, Senators and Representatives.
Democrats are much nicer, that Cuomo chap being a particular example.
I'm with Hyufd on this. The 'War on terror' was about containment and control. And Biden's just given it all up.
The War Against Terror was about taking control of oil-rich parts of the world. What do they care about control? Or terrorism for that matter - remember that the CIA literally created this monster to attack the Soviets.
There was a review in the LRB the other week (i'll try and find it) about this. If the CIA devoted less time to its whizz-bang, James Bond, special/black ops type stuff (starting with the overthrow of Mosaddegh and continuing to the present day) and more time on actual intelligence gathering (notable failures including, but not limited to, 9/11) the world would not be in the mess it is in today.
There are entire histories written of the CIA which suggest that the world would be a better place, to the benefit of the US, had it never existed.
We point and shriek in shock at the odd dodgy half a million pound NHS contract to a relative of a Minister, duck houses and first home-second home expense claims.
UK politicians are rank amateurs claiming pin-money compared to Republican Governors, Senators and Representatives.
Democrats are much nicer, that Cuomo chap being a particular example.
I wouldn't dream of defending Cuomo's alleged wandering hands, or Bill Clinton's use of cigars for that matter.
We point and shriek in shock at the odd dodgy half a million pound NHS contract to a relative of a Minister, duck houses and first home-second home expense claims.
UK politicians are rank amateurs claiming pin-money compared to Republican Governors, Senators and Representatives.
Democrats are much nicer, that Cuomo chap being a particular example.
Will did all that at the beginning of the thread, with plenty fine exemplars on both sides of the aisle.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
6% of the country is inhabitated.
In other words, you are innumerate and your claims are just nonsensical.
I'm just reading one of the DCI Banks books, 'Past Reason Hated', written in 1991. Some major characters in it are lesbian, and the attitude of the other characters towards them would be totally unacceptable nowadays - even in Yorkshire.
Societal attitudes can change very rapidly, as can concepts of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, or even 'good' and 'evil'. And the movement may not always be in directions we currently see as being positive.
Very true. I really like the Peter Robinson DCI Banks series, and it's done a decent job of plotting changes in attitudes over the years, even though the central character remains mostly unchanged as the world develops around him.
You might like Susie Steiner's books like Missing, Presumed too (though sadly there may be no more as she's gone blind). The first was about Yorkshire farmers; the later ones crime novels with some social observation and interestingly nuanced characters (though the last one, Remain Silent, was a bit too political even for me).
Read a Raymond Chandler the other day, for a book group to which I belong. The sexism and homophobia would get the book refused by any publisher today, or at least would require considerable revision before publication
This exchange of letters between Chandler and Fleming might be of interest. https://www.thelondonmagazine.org/archive-notes-on-raymond-chandler-ian-fleming/ Including the description of a novel beverage that sounds slightly @Leon ... ‘Shall be in and around New York and Vermont for the first fortnight in August and, in the unlikely event you should happen to be in reach of the area, please let me or the Macmillans, New York, know and we will share a Coke in which the contents of a benzedrine inhaler have been soaked overnight. Which, I understand, is the fashionable drink in your country at the moment.’
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
I think average population density is about 53 per square km, so there's plenty of room to turn the whole planet into suburbia and feed ourselves on hydroponics, if that's your dystopia of choice.
That is an insanely pointless statistic. We have maxed out the habitable earth, which is why people live the way they live in Delhi and Calcutta. California is a real time illustration of what happens when you try to inhabit the desert - fires and no water. No water = no hydroponics.
The scale of California fires are largely caused by global temperature rises, not by population density. Much of the US could fit substantially larger cities in, especially in the South East (excluding Florida). The same is true of Africa, if it was a better run place. I agree with you India is overpopulated.
They may be caused by global temperature rises (themselves caused by population increases: more people = more fossil fuel burners). Their effect is to make California less and less habitable. Fresh water looks even more of an issue than fires in California, and that is a straightforward population-driven shortage.
There is nothing inherent in the use of fossil fuels. It's like a family of six all using taxis and buying takeaways the whole time and then saying "the reason we are short on money is too many kids".
As for water, that is something highly local. Europeans commenting on California's problems is a bit like Americans talking about Africa. The lack of proximity causes too much generalization. The problems are in the arid south, not in the north, and are largely because of poor water practices (e.g. a desire to have English style lawns). But overall the state is 40% bigger than Italy with half the population.
Loving the pompous generalization in your second sentence followed by the condemnation of over generalization in your third. But thank you for the insight that S California is drier than N California, quality information I would not otherwise have acquired. Except, hang on a moment, yes I would because I have recently been to both. Have you?
"largely because of poor water practices" is ill-informed nonsense as a moment's glance at some actual stats would tell you.
I'm with Hyufd on this. The 'War on terror' was about containment and control. And Biden's just given it all up.
The War Against Terror was about taking control of oil-rich parts of the world. What do they care about control? Or terrorism for that matter - remember that the CIA literally created this monster to attack the Soviets.
There was a review in the LRB the other week (i'll try and find it) about this. If the CIA devoted less time to its whizz-bang, James Bond, special/black ops type stuff (starting with the overthrow of Mosaddegh and continuing to the present day) and more time on actual intelligence gathering (notable failures including, but not limited to, 9/11) the world would not be in the mess it is in today.
There are entire histories written of the CIA which suggest that the world would be a better place, to the benefit of the US, had it never existed.
There is not here, nor is there in the US, the political will to send the hundreds of thousands of troops there that would be required to make and then keep the peace.
It seems to me that what was really needed was for the bad guys to be wiped out. But there's certainly no will for that.
Oh absolutely. We all want the bad guys to be wiped out. It's doing it that has proved so tricky.
I am not sure that we do. What we really want is for the "bad guys" to repent and reform. It is not possible to wipe out evil by wiping out "evil" people, because the battle between good and evil is an internal one in every individuals soul, and one that never reaches conclusion in this life. We can only wipe out evil by wiping ourselves out.
Indeed, recognising that some of our own motivations and desires are evil is the first step to rooting out the causes of war.
Trident at your service.
You’ll find it just outside Scotland’s biggest city. For some reason they didn’t want it just outside England’s biggest city. They must think we’re more evil than they are.
Geography is not your strong point I assume.
Oh sure, Trident is located in Jockland because of “geography”. Nothing to do with Jock lives being worth less.
On topic, I'd love to see a breakdown of voting intention based on type of university.
The traditional universities that were formed in the early thirteenth century as opposed to those who attended former polytechnics that became universities under Mrs Thatcher/John Major's policies.
Also a split by degree taken and degree classification.
Bear in mind this ward is located in one of the just 12 Westminster seats held by the LibDems. The curious thing, really, is why they did quite so badly in the previous election. Good result for them though, and will encourage the sitting LibDem MP, Jamie Stone.
Incidentally, the LibDems also gained a seat in Inverness, while the Scottish Tories had a pretty spectacular gain (from SNP) in Ayrshire. Not quite everything is going Nicola's way.
We point and shriek in shock at the odd dodgy half a million pound NHS contract to a relative of a Minister, duck houses and first home-second home expense claims.
UK politicians are rank amateurs claiming pin-money compared to Republican Governors, Senators and Representatives.
I once gave a talk to a Chinese delegation about how Parliament works, and by way of avoiding it being a puff piece I told them about the expenses scandal, duck house, expensive carpets and all. They smiled politely at the idea that this was REAL corruption.
On topic, I'd love to see a breakdown of voting intention based on type of university.
The traditional universities that were formed in the early thirteenth century as opposed to those who attended former polytechnics that became universities under Mrs Thatcher/John Major's policies.
Also a split by degree taken and degree classification.
Now that's getting complicated.
Is someone with a Social Sciences Desmond from a Russell Group University more likely to vote Tory than someone with an Engineering First from a former Poly, or vice versa? Vice versa in my case.
There is not here, nor is there in the US, the political will to send the hundreds of thousands of troops there that would be required to make and then keep the peace.
It seems to me that what was really needed was for the bad guys to be wiped out. But there's certainly no will for that.
Oh absolutely. We all want the bad guys to be wiped out. It's doing it that has proved so tricky.
I am not sure that we do. What we really want is for the "bad guys" to repent and reform. It is not possible to wipe out evil by wiping out "evil" people, because the battle between good and evil is an internal one in every individuals soul, and one that never reaches conclusion in this life. We can only wipe out evil by wiping ourselves out.
Indeed, recognising that some of our own motivations and desires are evil is the first step to rooting out the causes of war.
Trident at your service.
You’ll find it just outside Scotland’s biggest city. For some reason they didn’t want it just outside England’s biggest city. They must think we’re more evil than they are.
Geography is not your strong point I assume.
Oh sure, Trident is located in Jockland because of “geography”. Nothing to do with Jock lives being worth less.
Well, yes. If Scotland was a landlocked country, you probably wouldn't have a submarine base. But the deep lochs and easy access to the North Atlantic also make it rather useful.
BTW, is 'Jock' now an acceptable word to use for our Scottish friends?
There is not here, nor is there in the US, the political will to send the hundreds of thousands of troops there that would be required to make and then keep the peace.
It seems to me that what was really needed was for the bad guys to be wiped out. But there's certainly no will for that.
Oh absolutely. We all want the bad guys to be wiped out. It's doing it that has proved so tricky.
I am not sure that we do. What we really want is for the "bad guys" to repent and reform. It is not possible to wipe out evil by wiping out "evil" people, because the battle between good and evil is an internal one in every individuals soul, and one that never reaches conclusion in this life. We can only wipe out evil by wiping ourselves out.
Indeed, recognising that some of our own motivations and desires are evil is the first step to rooting out the causes of war.
Trident at your service.
You’ll find it just outside Scotland’s biggest city. For some reason they didn’t want it just outside England’s biggest city. They must think we’re more evil than they are.
Geography is not your strong point I assume.
Oh sure, Trident is located in Jockland because of “geography”. Nothing to do with Jock lives being worth less.
The literal reason for locating the original Polaris in Scotland was geography. It is quite clear in the various minutes and documents preserved at Kew.
Simply, Polaris had a limited range. That meant that to reach its targets in the USSR, the submarines needed to be in the Arctic, near the edge of the ice cap. This was a fundamental limit of missile technology of the time.
The other issue was that by far the noisiest part of a nuclear submarine was the reactor cooling pumps. At very low power levels these could be turned off - limiting the submarine to 2-4 knots.
The time taken for a submarine to deploy from Portsmouth to its patrol zone at walking speed (essentially) would mean that the transit would take weeks. All this added up to needing 5 submarines to keep at least one on patrol.
By shifting the main operating base to Scotland, the time to get on patrol station was cut massively. Which in turn allowed the reduction of the required force to 4 submarines.
Trident doesn't have the limited range, and the submarines are essentially silent at 15-20 knots. The reason for continuing to base the submarines in Scotland was that it was cheaper than building a new base elsewhere.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Rory Stewart on R4 this morning was equally devastating about the consequences of the abrupt decision to pull out. As he pointed out, things were being held together by a few thousand troops, and air support, which while costly, represented a fraction of what had previously been spent. The US decision is at least defensible; the manner in which it has been carried out is not.
The Afghan regime deserve some blame too, for utterly failing to plan for the consequences.
"The Afghan regime" .... "utterly failing to plan for the consequences"
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
As to pulling out. It is inevitable, for the UK. Do it now or wait until it gets to the roof of the Embassy.
The only way to have changed this result would been to have changed the culture of Afghanistan.
Which, interestingly, is the one thing everyone involved agreed not to do.
The culture of Afghanistan has been changed, significantly. There is a whole generation which has grown up under the US occupation, and a large number of them have had access to education which simply didn't exist prior to that. Though of course other parts of the country had no such thing.
Whether it might have been possible for an Afghan government to consolidate its forces in defensible regions and hold out against the Taliban is pretty well moot now - but they didn't even make the attempt.
The Taliban did not exist before the mid-1990s, let alone run the country. Basically, it was a foreign-financed and armed militia which won what was effectively a low-level civil war after the Soviet invasion and departure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power
ETA at least in its urban centres, if not always outside, Afghanistan was a relatively modern, westernised state.
It is true. I spent an interesting evening once with a retired medical missionary who had spent the Sixties and Seventies in Kabul, doing clinics all over the country. It seemed quite a comfortable existence, and while his Christianity was low key, it was not disapproved of.
The disconnect between the middle classes and the blue collar workers outside the big cities is a world wide phenomenon. I don't think this is snobbery, more lack of interest, and that is mutual. What fascinates and obsesses one is thought dull or irrelevant by the other. I think Brexit has increased this, as the Remainers that I know simply ignore Brexit and the Brexiteers as far as they can. If the folk of Hartlepool dislike what I value, then I see no reason to listen to them.
I think the car versus no car polling with social class splits the other day was fascinating. Basically social class was absolutely irrelevant, car versus no car summed up the polling divide perfectly.
Which probably reflects the city versus provincial split.
To me cars represent the very best of transportation. Personal, individual, on demand, can be personalised, can be controlled etc.
For others cars are the worst form of transportation and they'd rather get on trains commuting with other people (shudder) on preset routes.
Is there any surprise that car drivers are more likely to be individualists and train commuters collectivists?
Thankfully like with Brexit, the car is king in marginal seats.
The divide is more between those who inhabit an adolescent Hugo Gernsback/Look and Learn technofuturama dream, and adults. Cars are all those things, but we cannot afford them without running out of space for roads and carparks, and resources for making cars. Especially not if we are going to put every slumdwelling family in the world into their own nice detached res. with a car on the driveway, and if you think the world is as yet underpopulated and there are not enough slumdwellers. Yebbut TECHNOLOGEEEE is not an answer to this point, unless it is miniaturisation technology which reduces us all to the size of ants.
6% of the country is inhabitated.
In other words, you are innumerate and your claims are just nonsensical.
No, true innumeracy is offering a naked percentage as if, without context, it meant anything at all. Drink this drink, it is only 6% cyanide. Mao was an OK guy, he killed less than 6% of the world's population.
Bear in mind this ward is located in one of the just 12 Westminster seats held by the LibDems. The curious thing, really, is why they did quite so badly in the previous election. Good result for them though, and will encourage the sitting LibDem MP, Jamie Stone.
Incidentally, the LibDems also gained a seat in Inverness, while the Scottish Tories had a pretty spectacular gain (from SNP) in Ayrshire. Not quite everything is going Nicola's way.
Tricky to interpret - it's under Scottish multimember voting and the two who won last time were Independent at stage 1, then SCUP and SNP at stage 8 ... and it's one of the Independents who resigned to trigger the by election. Second top, but as she was not a party member, there is no simple comparison. It is an LD area anyway.
Comments
Reverting to the pre-car situation would either mean de-populating the countryside, almost completely, or a return to a world where many people lived and died a few miles from where they were born.
I can see that going down really, really well.
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1426137186311843844?s=20
YouGov
Con: 40% (-1 since 5-6 Aug)
Lab: 32% (-1)
Lib Dem: 9% (+1)
Green: 7% (n/c)
SNP: 5% (n/c)
Reform UK: 2% (-1)
The only problem would come if you try to fit an ever growing population in the same space.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/2011-rural-urban-classification
Not a terrorist?
In 2014 I spent a weekend reading the 137 page manifesto of Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger, a 22 year old who shot 6 people in an Incel/Entitlement rage. The detail of his resentment and extremely vivid revenge fantasies is specific, violent and visceral
https://twitter.com/janinegibson/status/1426145531844255744
https://twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1426131570566615040
That makes me feel so much better...
I'd looked higher up the page, but obviously hadn't gone far enough!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-37592476
Lib Dem ~ 657 (27.3%, +23.6)
Fernie (Ind) ~ 622 (25.8%, +18.8)
SNP ~ 593 (24.6%, +12.9)
Conservative ~ 523 (21.7%, +7.8)
Libertarian ~ 16 (0.7%, +0.7)
LD elected stage 5.
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1426147090321838081?s=20
If Afghanistan becomes a terrorist haven again however sadly we cannot be sure that will still be the case in years to come
https://www.reddit.com/r/progun/comments/p3e4g4/these_things_dont_happen_overseas_they_said_six/
Sickening stuff
The point was made recently that politicians are popular when they are giving out money and some tories are probably wondering if Sunak is popular partly because of furlough etc.
If Sunak's popularity survives the winter, and a tough budget, then, maybe they will move...??
Right now Sunak ticks a lot of boxes.
That's perhaps underestimated as a factor in influencing political attitudes ?
Bit of a reality check on how society's (and my) attitudes have changed.
https://twitter.com/WPLGLocal10/status/1425863902815002624?s=19
First one's were written and released in the 50s, last one in the 2000s. Always set in "the now".
It is basically a perfect look at the changing attitudes to race, gender and sexuality in America.
In the first books Racial slurs are used casually and without comment, by the 90s very much not so.
But the best single predictor of who you vote for is who your parents vote for.
But, as Gallowgate points out, if it is a fiver for a 6 mile round trip, once every half hour to the nearest town, as it is for me, then nobody can really moan about congestion or lack of parking.
Nor that rural folk find it hard to hold down work or run a business.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/13/nfl-unvaccinated-players-rules-kirk-cousins-lamar-jackson
The Premier League should do the same.
For some people, that's enough to be terrorism. For others, it's a hate crime but it falls just short. I think either definition is reasonable and, personally, I don't see why there is energy being expended on arguing about it.
Whether a 'mere' hate crime or a lone wolf terrorist, the societal response should be the same. Focus more on how to spot the risk factors of individuals in advance, and try to tackle the ideology and radicalising influences to prevent others trying.
I suspect this one won't be posted three times on the same thread.
Plenty of states with lower rates.
I would look to level the playing field on cost in the first instance. If people stick with cars for convenience, that's their choice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspire_(political_party)
As for water, that is something highly local. Europeans commenting on California's problems is a bit like Americans talking about Africa. The lack of proximity causes too much generalization. The problems are in the arid south, not in the north, and are largely because of poor water practices (e.g. a desire to have English style lawns). But overall the state is 40% bigger than Italy with half the population.
UK politicians are rank amateurs claiming pin-money compared to Republican Governors, Senators and Representatives.
Let's say there are two incidents - one a demonstrably and self-declared Islamic terrorist on a shooting spree. The other this guy.
This guy = terrorist = 50% of terrorist incidents are islamist-motivated
This guy =/= terrorist = 100% of terrorist incidents are islamist-motivated
That said, the Democrats do not yet publicly fantasise about murdering their opponents to quite the same degree.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/when-they-say-they-want-kill-you-believe-them/619724/
In other words, you are innumerate and your claims are just nonsensical.
https://www.thelondonmagazine.org/archive-notes-on-raymond-chandler-ian-fleming/
Including the description of a novel beverage that sounds slightly @Leon ...
‘Shall be in and around New York and Vermont for the first fortnight in August and, in the unlikely event you should happen to be in reach of the area, please let me or the Macmillans, New York, know and we will share a Coke in which the contents of a benzedrine inhaler have been soaked overnight. Which, I understand, is the fashionable drink in your country at the moment.’
Adam Peaty has joined this year's Strictly Come Dancing.
That should help his SPOTY ambitions.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-58089932
I've hardly heard of any of this year's contestants.
BBC need to knock Strictly on the head - it used to be very popular and rightly so but it is now well past its sell-by date.
The TV companies do allow these programmes to go on for too long: eg Big Brother, X-Factor.
"largely because of poor water practices" is ill-informed nonsense as a moment's glance at some actual stats would tell you.
https://ucanr.edu/sites/UrbanHort/Water_Use_of_Turfgrass_and_Landscape_Plant_Materials/Drought_and_Landscape_Water_Use_-_Some_Persspective/
https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/
Agriculture is the killer. Again, have you been there?
WTF has Italy got to do with it?
Look back at series 1's 'celebrities'. Most of them have pretty much disappeared without trace (sadly, in the case of the one who died).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strictly_Come_Dancing_(series_1)
The traditional universities that were formed in the early thirteenth century as opposed to those who attended former polytechnics that became universities under Mrs Thatcher/John Major's policies.
Also a split by degree taken and degree classification.
Incidentally, the LibDems also gained a seat in Inverness, while the Scottish Tories had a pretty spectacular gain (from SNP) in Ayrshire. Not quite everything is going Nicola's way.
Is someone with a Social Sciences Desmond from a Russell Group University more likely to vote Tory than someone with an Engineering First from a former Poly, or vice versa? Vice versa in my case.
BTW, is 'Jock' now an acceptable word to use for our Scottish friends?
Simply, Polaris had a limited range. That meant that to reach its targets in the USSR, the submarines needed to be in the Arctic, near the edge of the ice cap. This was a fundamental limit of missile technology of the time.
The other issue was that by far the noisiest part of a nuclear submarine was the reactor cooling pumps. At very low power levels these could be turned off - limiting the submarine to 2-4 knots.
The time taken for a submarine to deploy from Portsmouth to its patrol zone at walking speed (essentially) would mean that the transit would take weeks. All this added up to needing 5 submarines to keep at least one on patrol.
By shifting the main operating base to Scotland, the time to get on patrol station was cut massively. Which in turn allowed the reduction of the required force to 4 submarines.
Trident doesn't have the limited range, and the submarines are essentially silent at 15-20 knots. The reason for continuing to base the submarines in Scotland was that it was cheaper than building a new base elsewhere.
Truly dumb.
https://ballotbox.scot/wick-by-election-2021