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As we approach the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 – politicalbetting.com

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  • Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Why a Metropolitan Police officer? Windsor is the Thames Valley's manor.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770

    rcs1000 said:

    theProle said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    also if you look at the data quite a lot of deaths in the 60 to 79 category. i doubt all these are at deaths door and given vaccine uptake in that age group its highly unlikely they are all antivaxxers

    Again Ed Conway posted the data....it is very low among vaxxed in this age group....death are dominated by antivaxxers.

    The point is with delta, if you are unvaxxed just a matter of time until you get covid...whuch drives up hospitalisations...which drives up deaths.

    Now there are break through cases among vaccinated, and over 80s group who see break throughs that is dicey (although far better than without being vaxxed)...but we don't know how much that is due to those people already been very sickly.
    Perhaps. In the over 80's there is 3 times the IFR in the unvaxxed, but because 90% are vaxxed, the absolute numbers may well be equal. I am quite glad to see the rate for my age down to 0.1%.


    It does rather suggest that booster shots for oldies it's probably a good idea.
    Another week has passed without any decision...looks at watch...
    That and the failure to jab kids in the summer are such avoidable blunders.

    We have oodles of vaccines, it makes no sense.
    The more I read on jabbing the kids, the less I think it's a good idea.
    It's marginally beneficial to the actual kids vs catching disease.
    For the about 50% of kids who have already got Covid antibodies, it's a clear net negative (they get the side effect risks whilst gaining little or no extra immunity). From this, it may well be overall net negative for kids as a group
    James Ward's modelling posted the other night (so far his modelling seems to have outperformed most of the others) seemed to find that the societal benefits in terms of reduced hospitalisations/deaths over this winter from jabbing kids were pretty small.

    His modelling also seems to show that booster campaigns aren't necessarily the big wins you might expect either - in particular IIRC if you go too early, you can actually end up making matters worse. This is rather counterintuitive, I think as I understand it, it's to do with the booster effect dying off in the middle of your winter case peak making it a really massive peak, when just accepting a steady rate of reinfection all winter smooths the peak out, and makes the total area under the graph smaller. I think this is partly because having the vaccine then mild covid gives much better long term immunity that the vaccine + booster.
    Re no extra immunity, that's simply not true - infection plus vaccine is by far the most efficient way of preventing covid.
    well if the argument is we vaccinate kids to protect antivaxxers it seems a nonsense argument to me...
    The reason to vaccinated kids is because the fewer people pumping out viral matter, the better.

    Viral load (i.e. the amount of viral material that you receive matters).

    The bigger the dose, the more likely the infection is to break through the vaccine, and the more likely you are to end up in hospital.

    The more people who are vaccinated, the better for everyone.
  • Pulpstar said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    also if you look at the data quite a lot of deaths in the 60 to 79 category. i doubt all these are at deaths door and given vaccine uptake in that age group its highly unlikely they are all antivaxxers

    Again Ed Conway posted the data....it is very low among vaxxed in this age group....death are dominated by antivaxxers.

    The point is with delta, if you are unvaxxed just a matter of time until you get covid...whuch drives up hospitalisations...which drives up deaths.

    Now there are break through cases among vaccinated, and over 80s group who see break throughs that is dicey (although far better than without being vaxxed)...but we don't know how much that is due to those people already been very sickly.
    Perhaps. In the over 80's there is 3 times the IFR in the unvaxxed, but because 90% are vaxxed, the absolute numbers may well be equal. I am quite glad to see the rate for my age down to 0.1%.


    It does rather suggest that booster shots for oldies it's probably a good idea.
    Another week has passed without any decision...looks at watch...
    That and the failure to jab kids in the summer are such avoidable blunders.

    We have oodles of vaccines, it makes no sense.
    The JCVI is stuffed full of people that think it's morally wrong that the UK should be on 3rd doses before Africa has had its first jabs.
    That's indicative of the attitude of many in the established elites though.

    They see themselves as global citizens and don't believe the British (indeed, they even find the concept of nationhood anachronistic themselves) should be afforded any more priority than anyone else in need worldwide.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2021

    dixiedean said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The e cigarette.
    A billion people and all i got was this lousy vape....

    More seriously, they are advancing science in many areas. The one big flaw in a Chinese big state control is that being free wheeling going against the grain and suggesting completely whacky ideas isn't really encouraged....and often this is where big break throughs come from.

    If you are scared of reporting covid up the chain and those that try get punished, suggesting something that is conventional wisdom is wrong probably isn't going to get you far.

    Where as many Americans feel its the cool thing to do...fight the system, drop out of college...work on your idea in the garage....
    Maybe in tech. Much much harder to fight the 'man' in the pure sciences. Especially as he might well be on the funding committee....
    It wider than just tech. Invention, novelty and creativity is widely admired and championed. And there is many different avenues by which this is supported.

    In China, a culture of copying is seen as the clever man's way of getting ahead.
  • rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    theProle said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    also if you look at the data quite a lot of deaths in the 60 to 79 category. i doubt all these are at deaths door and given vaccine uptake in that age group its highly unlikely they are all antivaxxers

    Again Ed Conway posted the data....it is very low among vaxxed in this age group....death are dominated by antivaxxers.

    The point is with delta, if you are unvaxxed just a matter of time until you get covid...whuch drives up hospitalisations...which drives up deaths.

    Now there are break through cases among vaccinated, and over 80s group who see break throughs that is dicey (although far better than without being vaxxed)...but we don't know how much that is due to those people already been very sickly.
    Perhaps. In the over 80's there is 3 times the IFR in the unvaxxed, but because 90% are vaxxed, the absolute numbers may well be equal. I am quite glad to see the rate for my age down to 0.1%.


    It does rather suggest that booster shots for oldies it's probably a good idea.
    Another week has passed without any decision...looks at watch...
    That and the failure to jab kids in the summer are such avoidable blunders.

    We have oodles of vaccines, it makes no sense.
    The more I read on jabbing the kids, the less I think it's a good idea.
    It's marginally beneficial to the actual kids vs catching disease.
    For the about 50% of kids who have already got Covid antibodies, it's a clear net negative (they get the side effect risks whilst gaining little or no extra immunity). From this, it may well be overall net negative for kids as a group
    James Ward's modelling posted the other night (so far his modelling seems to have outperformed most of the others) seemed to find that the societal benefits in terms of reduced hospitalisations/deaths over this winter from jabbing kids were pretty small.

    His modelling also seems to show that booster campaigns aren't necessarily the big wins you might expect either - in particular IIRC if you go too early, you can actually end up making matters worse. This is rather counterintuitive, I think as I understand it, it's to do with the booster effect dying off in the middle of your winter case peak making it a really massive peak, when just accepting a steady rate of reinfection all winter smooths the peak out, and makes the total area under the graph smaller. I think this is partly because having the vaccine then mild covid gives much better long term immunity that the vaccine + booster.
    Re no extra immunity, that's simply not true - infection plus vaccine is by far the most efficient way of preventing covid.
    well if the argument is we vaccinate kids to protect antivaxxers it seems a nonsense argument to me...
    The reason to vaccinated kids is because the fewer people pumping out viral matter, the better.

    Viral load (i.e. the amount of viral material that you receive matters).

    The bigger the dose, the more likely the infection is to break through the vaccine, and the more likely you are to end up in hospital.

    The more people who are vaccinated, the better for everyone.
    but surely thats an argument for shutting nightclubs and restricting capacities at sports stadiums at least for the winter. Look what happened at wembley this summer
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,275
    Charles said:

    dixiedean said:

    Apologies if this has been posted. But this really confirms the worst about today's pensioners. Millenials take a breath before reading.

    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/sep/10/pensioners-governments-tax-triple-lock-pensions-rise-national-insurance

    As a Guardian reader and retiree I find that really embarrassing. I struggle to believe most retired Guardian readers would echo the thoughts of the four quoted.

    It's almost as if the journalist is trying too hard to deliver the Guardian's 'fuck the government' message.

    As I said on here a few days ago, the extra tax should have been raised by extending NI to all income, including pensions and earnings for the over 65s. That would have hurt me personally but would be fairer than piling more tax on those in employment.
    The issue is that pensioners have fewer options to increase their income than people of working age. So if a tax change pushes them into poverty it’s much harder to get out.
    The NI lower earnings limit would protect those on lowest income.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,275
    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,275

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    theProle said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    also if you look at the data quite a lot of deaths in the 60 to 79 category. i doubt all these are at deaths door and given vaccine uptake in that age group its highly unlikely they are all antivaxxers

    Again Ed Conway posted the data....it is very low among vaxxed in this age group....death are dominated by antivaxxers.

    The point is with delta, if you are unvaxxed just a matter of time until you get covid...whuch drives up hospitalisations...which drives up deaths.

    Now there are break through cases among vaccinated, and over 80s group who see break throughs that is dicey (although far better than without being vaxxed)...but we don't know how much that is due to those people already been very sickly.
    Perhaps. In the over 80's there is 3 times the IFR in the unvaxxed, but because 90% are vaxxed, the absolute numbers may well be equal. I am quite glad to see the rate for my age down to 0.1%.


    It does rather suggest that booster shots for oldies it's probably a good idea.
    Another week has passed without any decision...looks at watch...
    That and the failure to jab kids in the summer are such avoidable blunders.

    We have oodles of vaccines, it makes no sense.
    The more I read on jabbing the kids, the less I think it's a good idea.
    It's marginally beneficial to the actual kids vs catching disease.
    For the about 50% of kids who have already got Covid antibodies, it's a clear net negative (they get the side effect risks whilst gaining little or no extra immunity). From this, it may well be overall net negative for kids as a group
    James Ward's modelling posted the other night (so far his modelling seems to have outperformed most of the others) seemed to find that the societal benefits in terms of reduced hospitalisations/deaths over this winter from jabbing kids were pretty small.

    His modelling also seems to show that booster campaigns aren't necessarily the big wins you might expect either - in particular IIRC if you go too early, you can actually end up making matters worse. This is rather counterintuitive, I think as I understand it, it's to do with the booster effect dying off in the middle of your winter case peak making it a really massive peak, when just accepting a steady rate of reinfection all winter smooths the peak out, and makes the total area under the graph smaller. I think this is partly because having the vaccine then mild covid gives much better long term immunity that the vaccine + booster.
    Re no extra immunity, that's simply not true - infection plus vaccine is by far the most efficient way of preventing covid.
    well if the argument is we vaccinate kids to protect antivaxxers it seems a nonsense argument to me...
    The reason to vaccinated kids is because the fewer people pumping out viral matter, the better.

    Viral load (i.e. the amount of viral material that you receive matters).

    The bigger the dose, the more likely the infection is to break through the vaccine, and the more likely you are to end up in hospital.

    The more people who are vaccinated, the better for everyone.
    but surely thats an argument for shutting nightclubs and restricting capacities at sports stadiums at least for the winter. Look what happened at wembley this summer
    To be fair, I suspect we'd still have lost on penalties, even in front of an empty stadium.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145

    Foxy said:

    "Physician, heal thyself" has proven to be out of reach for Foxy, so he will have to haunt PB literally rather than figuratively from now on.

    I think you should have qualified that as a draft self-obit... I'd hate for anyone to get the wrong idea!
    It gave me a very bad fright - I hadn't realised it was draft ...
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145
    edited September 2021

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
    Tea, tofu, printing, gunpowder ...

    Edit: silk, too. Joseph Needham probably made a full list in his works, which i have never read.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    rcs1000 said:

    Charles said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    No pictures just text "Terrorists fly plane into building in US" so I pictured a cessna type plane flying into a 2 story Midwest farmhouse sort of building

    Sitting on a plane at Charles de Gaulle wondering why they had ampped up security and none of the TVs were working
    How funny, I was also in Paris that day. A colleague of mine said "you know what, I think we should take the Eurostar back". Which was just as well, because if we'd gone to CdG, we would have gotten stuck in Paris.
    They let us fly… that was the day I started working on Sanofi’s hostile bid for Aventis
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    Phil said:

    On 9/11 - I imagine we were some of the last people in Europe to find out about it as my wife & I were on our honeymoon at the time & were halfway up a mountain in southern Spain.

    Never heard it called that before…
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065

    Foxy said:

    "Physician, heal thyself" has proven to be out of reach for Foxy, so he will have to haunt PB literally rather than figuratively from now on.

    I think you should have qualified that as a draft self-obit... I'd hate for anyone to get the wrong idea!
    I may choose to identify as a poltergeist...
    Carnyx said:

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
    Tea, tofu, printing, gunpowder ...

    Edit: silk, too. Joseph Needham probably made a full list in his works, which i have never read.
    Spectacles too.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919

    Pulpstar said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    also if you look at the data quite a lot of deaths in the 60 to 79 category. i doubt all these are at deaths door and given vaccine uptake in that age group its highly unlikely they are all antivaxxers

    Again Ed Conway posted the data....it is very low among vaxxed in this age group....death are dominated by antivaxxers.

    The point is with delta, if you are unvaxxed just a matter of time until you get covid...whuch drives up hospitalisations...which drives up deaths.

    Now there are break through cases among vaccinated, and over 80s group who see break throughs that is dicey (although far better than without being vaxxed)...but we don't know how much that is due to those people already been very sickly.
    Perhaps. In the over 80's there is 3 times the IFR in the unvaxxed, but because 90% are vaxxed, the absolute numbers may well be equal. I am quite glad to see the rate for my age down to 0.1%.


    It does rather suggest that booster shots for oldies it's probably a good idea.
    Another week has passed without any decision...looks at watch...
    That and the failure to jab kids in the summer are such avoidable blunders.

    We have oodles of vaccines, it makes no sense.
    The JCVI is stuffed full of people that think it's morally wrong that the UK should be on 3rd doses before Africa has had its first jabs.
    That's indicative of the attitude of many in the established elites though.

    They see themselves as global citizens and don't believe the British (indeed, they even find the concept of nationhood anachronistic themselves) should be afforded any more priority than anyone else in need worldwide.
    Even the purely self-interested should be carefully weighing up the pros & cons of vaccinating the rest of the world before giving UK citizens a 3rd jab - an unvaccinated population is (I believe) a much better breeding ground for new variants than a vaccinated one & the absolute last thing we need is a variant coming out that escapes existing vaccines.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Still seems quiet to me.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,275
    ydoethur said:

    Phil said:

    On 9/11 - I imagine we were some of the last people in Europe to find out about it as my wife & I were on our honeymoon at the time & were halfway up a mountain in southern Spain.

    Never heard it called that before…
    I was just relived to hear that @Phil and his missus "topped out the next morning". Must have been a long night.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    To raise the obituary issue again, I certainly have left a note to my family to tell this, and one or two sites that I visit in various guises, that I won't be posting again. TBH, I think it's only fair.

    My father died just before Christmas, before my mother 'done her cards' so he included a note to say it was now 'just her'.
    She then moved house and deleted quite a few of fathers business contacts from her address book. They were, after all, his associates, not really friends. Close to the following Christmas I had a couple of phone calls asking very cautiously for her address.
  • I wonder if "quasi ineffective" will be charged too?

    France’s former health minister Agnès Buzyn has been charged over her handling of the Covid-19 pandemic after investigators at a special court in Paris concluded there were grounds to prosecute her.

    Buzyn has been charged with “endangering the lives of others”, according to the prosecutor in a special court that deals with ministerial accountability. A second possible offence of “failure to stop a disaster” was not brought.


    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/frances-former-health-minister-charged-over-handling-of-covid-crisis
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    "Physician, heal thyself" has proven to be out of reach for Foxy, so he will have to haunt PB literally rather than figuratively from now on.

    I think you should have qualified that as a draft self-obit... I'd hate for anyone to get the wrong idea!
    I may choose to identify as a poltergeist...
    Carnyx said:

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
    Tea, tofu, printing, gunpowder ...

    Edit: silk, too. Joseph Needham probably made a full list in his works, which i have never read.
    Spectacles too.
    Paper money. Compartmentalised ships with bulkheads (though those are so different from Western carvel and clinker build that I'm not sure there is any connection).
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,275
    Carnyx said:

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
    Tea, tofu, printing, gunpowder ...

    Edit: silk, too. Joseph Needham probably made a full list in his works, which i have never read.
    Yep. So nothing in the last 1000 years.

    Superpowers are not built on sweat alone.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    Phil said:

    Pulpstar said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    also if you look at the data quite a lot of deaths in the 60 to 79 category. i doubt all these are at deaths door and given vaccine uptake in that age group its highly unlikely they are all antivaxxers

    Again Ed Conway posted the data....it is very low among vaxxed in this age group....death are dominated by antivaxxers.

    The point is with delta, if you are unvaxxed just a matter of time until you get covid...whuch drives up hospitalisations...which drives up deaths.

    Now there are break through cases among vaccinated, and over 80s group who see break throughs that is dicey (although far better than without being vaxxed)...but we don't know how much that is due to those people already been very sickly.
    Perhaps. In the over 80's there is 3 times the IFR in the unvaxxed, but because 90% are vaxxed, the absolute numbers may well be equal. I am quite glad to see the rate for my age down to 0.1%.


    It does rather suggest that booster shots for oldies it's probably a good idea.
    Another week has passed without any decision...looks at watch...
    That and the failure to jab kids in the summer are such avoidable blunders.

    We have oodles of vaccines, it makes no sense.
    The JCVI is stuffed full of people that think it's morally wrong that the UK should be on 3rd doses before Africa has had its first jabs.
    That's indicative of the attitude of many in the established elites though.

    They see themselves as global citizens and don't believe the British (indeed, they even find the concept of nationhood anachronistic themselves) should be afforded any more priority than anyone else in need worldwide.
    Even the purely self-interested should be carefully weighing up the pros & cons of vaccinating the rest of the world before giving UK citizens a 3rd jab - an unvaccinated population is (I believe) a much better breeding ground for new variants than a vaccinated one & the absolute last thing we need is a variant coming out that escapes existing vaccines.
    Whilst I’m not sure giving boosters to the vulnerable would make much difference to the global picture, I’m fine with that approach.

    However, if that is the decision, then all restrictions need to be ended now. No isolating, no testing just in case. Just get on with life.
  • rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    stodge said:

    Brief afternoon all :)

    On topic, unless Sadiq Khan wants to go back to Westminster (as part of a winning Labour Party presumably) he may as well stay Mayor until 2028 then find a Westminster seat in London (East Ham?) and then be part of the winning Labour Party.

    Will he win in 2024?

    Bailey did much better than many expected or anticipated including me. He won a Ward in Newham (Custom House) by 789 to 742 and the Conservative candidate in the East Ham Central by election polled a respectable 30%.

    The question then becomes - who is the Conservative candidate that can reach the parts even Shaun Bailey couldn't reach? Unless Bailey finds a safe Westminster seat, I'm sure he'll be in the running for another go and there's the thing - he can either have the relatively certainty and obscurity of being a backbench MP or the uncertainty and profile of being London Mayor.

    @TSE seems certain he knows the outcome of the next GE - as Richard Hoiles once said of Frankie Dettori after the Nunthorpe "he's sure I'm not".

    Iff things generally remain the way they are then I'd expect the Conservatives to win the next election.

    But oppositions don't win elections but governments lose them.

    As I mentioned to JohnO I can easily see a situation where the blue wall crumbles and the Conservatives lose 50 seats in England & Wales and five seats in Scotland and kaboom, we have a Labour led government because no one will go into coalition/supply and confidence agreement.

    I mean the DUP will never back Boris Johnson or the modern day Tories for putting a border down the Irish Sea, I think we can rule out the Lib Dems as well, cannot imagine Sinn Fein breaking their abstentionism to give the Tories a majority and I know climate change is an issue but cannot see hell freezing over and us having a Tory/SNP coalition at Westminster.
    I can see the SNP offering to allow through a Queens Speech in return for a referendum.
    Nope.
    Surely there would be no time more proprietous for an independence vote than when there's a Tory government?
    The SNP will not be propping up a Tory Queen’s Speech under any circumstances whatsoever. It is a complete non-starter, and to be fair I think thinking Tories understand that very well.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    rcs1000 said:

    Charles said:

    dixiedean said:

    Apologies if this has been posted. But this really confirms the worst about today's pensioners. Millenials take a breath before reading.

    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/sep/10/pensioners-governments-tax-triple-lock-pensions-rise-national-insurance

    Pretty depressing. But we don’t know if they were carefully curated by the guardian
    Yes we do.

    They were carefully curated by the Guardian.

    Nuance doesn't sell papers (or bring in clicks, shares and other engagement).
    There’s a difference between reasonable expectation and proof you know…
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    Norway votes on Monday and one of the last opinion polls (you'd think) for the daily paper Dagavisen

    Changes from 2017 Storting election

    Labour: 26.9% (-0.5)
    Conservative: 18.9% (-6.1)
    Centre Party: 14.8% (+4.5)
    Progress Party: 11.9% (-3.3)
    Socialist Left: 7.7% (+1.7)
    Greens: 4.8% (+1.6)
    Red Party: 4.6% (+2.2)
    Liberal: 4.5% (+0.1)
    Christian People's Party: 3.3% (-0.9)

    A much better poll for Centre and a worse poll for Socialist Left than others I've seen in recent days. The paper used to be pro-Labour until the 1990s but has been more Independent since.

    In terms of the blocs, the centre-left (Labour, Centre, Socialist Left and Red) is on 54% and the ruling centre-right bloc (Conservative, Progress, Liberal, Christian People's Party) is on 38.6%. That's a bigger gap than some other polls which had it down to 10%. The Dagavisen figure is a swing of some 8.75% from the centre-right to the centre-left since 2017.

    The Labour leader supposedly did well in the television debates and looks set to take over as Prime Minister unless there's a significant last minute change.

    Norway has 19 multi-member constituencies which return 150 MPs to the Storting. A further 19 are "levelling" seats. The number of seats returned for each constituency depends on population and geographic size. Oslo returns 19 MPs, the Far North 5 for example.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2021

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    stodge said:

    Brief afternoon all :)

    On topic, unless Sadiq Khan wants to go back to Westminster (as part of a winning Labour Party presumably) he may as well stay Mayor until 2028 then find a Westminster seat in London (East Ham?) and then be part of the winning Labour Party.

    Will he win in 2024?

    Bailey did much better than many expected or anticipated including me. He won a Ward in Newham (Custom House) by 789 to 742 and the Conservative candidate in the East Ham Central by election polled a respectable 30%.

    The question then becomes - who is the Conservative candidate that can reach the parts even Shaun Bailey couldn't reach? Unless Bailey finds a safe Westminster seat, I'm sure he'll be in the running for another go and there's the thing - he can either have the relatively certainty and obscurity of being a backbench MP or the uncertainty and profile of being London Mayor.

    @TSE seems certain he knows the outcome of the next GE - as Richard Hoiles once said of Frankie Dettori after the Nunthorpe "he's sure I'm not".

    Iff things generally remain the way they are then I'd expect the Conservatives to win the next election.

    But oppositions don't win elections but governments lose them.

    As I mentioned to JohnO I can easily see a situation where the blue wall crumbles and the Conservatives lose 50 seats in England & Wales and five seats in Scotland and kaboom, we have a Labour led government because no one will go into coalition/supply and confidence agreement.

    I mean the DUP will never back Boris Johnson or the modern day Tories for putting a border down the Irish Sea, I think we can rule out the Lib Dems as well, cannot imagine Sinn Fein breaking their abstentionism to give the Tories a majority and I know climate change is an issue but cannot see hell freezing over and us having a Tory/SNP coalition at Westminster.
    I can see the SNP offering to allow through a Queens Speech in return for a referendum.
    Nope.
    Surely there would be no time more proprietous for an independence vote than when there's a Tory government?
    The SNP will not be propping up a Tory Queen’s Speech under any circumstances whatsoever. It is a complete non-starter, and to be fair I think thinking Tories understand that very well.
    Absolutely, I would prefer opposition or even a Grand Coalition with Labour to doing any deal with the SNP
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145
    kle4 said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Still seems quiet to me.
    More than two hours to midnight, mind.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,275
    Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    "Physician, heal thyself" has proven to be out of reach for Foxy, so he will have to haunt PB literally rather than figuratively from now on.

    I think you should have qualified that as a draft self-obit... I'd hate for anyone to get the wrong idea!
    I may choose to identify as a poltergeist...
    Carnyx said:

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
    Tea, tofu, printing, gunpowder ...

    Edit: silk, too. Joseph Needham probably made a full list in his works, which i have never read.
    Spectacles too.
    Paper money. Compartmentalised ships with bulkheads (though those are so different from Western carvel and clinker build that I'm not sure there is any connection).
    Still waiting for a meaningful example from the past 100-200 years.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    So HMG and the Tory Party are involved in a purely civil case affecting the Duke of York in a private matter? That is taking the Henrician settlement rather too far.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    I remember the death of Diana, Princess of Wales as one of those things you don't forget.

    We had been to a wedding in Reading on the Saturday and got back home in the early hours of Sunday morning, got home to have a drink and open the letters that had been delivered during, switched on Sky News to hear that she had been in a car accident but it was nothing serious, went to bed.

    Woke up at 11am on the Sunday to go shopping at Sainsbury's, got to the supermarket and there was this weird chatter and I couldn't understand it, then picked up my copy of The Sunday Telegraph which had 'Diana dead' on its front pages like all other papers.

    Went home and told my mother and she was shocked and in denial because they said it wasn't serious a few hours earlier.

    My experience was rather different. I had returned from a family meal to celebrate my parents' wedding anniversary and settled down to watch a film on ITV or Channel 4. At about 1am - just after my mother had retired to bed - there was a newsflash during a commercial break. It was already known that Dodi had died and Diana was said to be in a critical condition. When I turned on the radio at 7am it was clear that she too had passed away.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2021
    THE TIMES: PM eyes another decade

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1436425573715353612?s=20

    Having a giraffe...be lucky to last until the next GE at this rate. And won't be busto by then?
  • TIMES FRONT: Ministers drop shake-up of planning laws

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1436425928889016324?s=20
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,275
    edited September 2021
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    I'd pay them to take him.

    Aside from satisfying the demands of justice, think how much it would save the country.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065

    Carnyx said:

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
    Tea, tofu, printing, gunpowder ...

    Edit: silk, too. Joseph Needham probably made a full list in his works, which i have never read.
    Yep. So nothing in the last 1000 years.

    Superpowers are not built on sweat alone.
    I little bit of the same hubris that meant that Singapore would never fall to the Japanese, and that British motorcycles would always dominate.

    China has a lot of people and they are not automatons. There is and always has been a vibrant culture of creativity in China, and China has a long history of learning from other countries and cultures as part of that.
  • TIMES FRONT: Ministers drop shake-up of planning laws

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1436425928889016324?s=20

    Of course . . . 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    edited September 2021

    TIMES FRONT: Ministers drop shake-up of planning laws

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1436425928889016324?s=20

    Someone is getting frit now.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2021
    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
    Tea, tofu, printing, gunpowder ...

    Edit: silk, too. Joseph Needham probably made a full list in his works, which i have never read.
    Yep. So nothing in the last 1000 years.

    Superpowers are not built on sweat alone.
    I little bit of the same hubris that meant that Singapore would never fall to the Japanese, and that British motorcycles would always dominate.

    China has a lot of people and they are not automatons. There is and always has been a vibrant culture of creativity in China, and China has a long history of learning from other countries and cultures as part of that.
    I think China wins the AI arms race. That is the most crucial battle for the future of the world.

    They have the skills, the determination, and most crucial has access to massive amounts of data, while the likes of the US argue over not just privacy but issues around race, sex, etc in every data sets and methodology....and potentially if any one company should ever be able to have access to just powerful data.
  • Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    "Physician, heal thyself" has proven to be out of reach for Foxy, so he will have to haunt PB literally rather than figuratively from now on.

    I think you should have qualified that as a draft self-obit... I'd hate for anyone to get the wrong idea!
    I may choose to identify as a poltergeist...
    Carnyx said:

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
    Tea, tofu, printing, gunpowder ...

    Edit: silk, too. Joseph Needham probably made a full list in his works, which i have never read.
    Spectacles too.
    Paper money. Compartmentalised ships with bulkheads (though those are so different from Western carvel and clinker build that I'm not sure there is any connection).
    Still waiting for a meaningful example from the past 100-200 years.
    Communist capitalism.

    Actually, strike that. Orwell did predict that in Animal Farm.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
    Paper? Gunpowder?
  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Posts: 1,151
    edited September 2021

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    stodge said:

    Brief afternoon all :)

    On topic, unless Sadiq Khan wants to go back to Westminster (as part of a winning Labour Party presumably) he may as well stay Mayor until 2028 then find a Westminster seat in London (East Ham?) and then be part of the winning Labour Party.

    Will he win in 2024?

    Bailey did much better than many expected or anticipated including me. He won a Ward in Newham (Custom House) by 789 to 742 and the Conservative candidate in the East Ham Central by election polled a respectable 30%.

    The question then becomes - who is the Conservative candidate that can reach the parts even Shaun Bailey couldn't reach? Unless Bailey finds a safe Westminster seat, I'm sure he'll be in the running for another go and there's the thing - he can either have the relatively certainty and obscurity of being a backbench MP or the uncertainty and profile of being London Mayor.

    @TSE seems certain he knows the outcome of the next GE - as Richard Hoiles once said of Frankie Dettori after the Nunthorpe "he's sure I'm not".

    Iff things generally remain the way they are then I'd expect the Conservatives to win the next election.

    But oppositions don't win elections but governments lose them.

    As I mentioned to JohnO I can easily see a situation where the blue wall crumbles and the Conservatives lose 50 seats in England & Wales and five seats in Scotland and kaboom, we have a Labour led government because no one will go into coalition/supply and confidence agreement.

    I mean the DUP will never back Boris Johnson or the modern day Tories for putting a border down the Irish Sea, I think we can rule out the Lib Dems as well, cannot imagine Sinn Fein breaking their abstentionism to give the Tories a majority and I know climate change is an issue but cannot see hell freezing over and us having a Tory/SNP coalition at Westminster.
    I can see the SNP offering to allow through a Queens Speech in return for a referendum.
    Nope.
    Surely there would be no time more proprietous for an independence vote than when there's a Tory government?
    The SNP will not be propping up a Tory Queen’s Speech under any circumstances whatsoever. It is a complete non-starter, and to be fair I think thinking Tories understand that very well.
    Yeah. Even leaving aside it would resurrect SLAB from the grave, Sturgeon - unlike say Salmond, who would be willing to deal with the Tories if it happened to suit the interests of the SNP - is genuinely ideologically opposed to the Tories.
    No chance of it happening.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    No he doesn't. There must be a rule that the more you insist you will go on forever the less likely it is (the 'full confidence in the manager/minister' rule perhaps).

    I doubt he'd even want it. I do think he will want to fight the next GE, since winning a big majority is good, but winning at least two GEs is another feather in the cap. I'm also sure he wants to at least beat Cameron as his 'girly swot' comments suggest he is pretty insecure if he's at the height of his power and still needs to boost himself with petty insults when commenting on serious work.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    In 1914 my family are supposed to have received news late. My grandparents, plus their two young children were holidaying with my grandmothers relations in a farm in a remote part of Central Wales, and the men ran out of tobacco. My grandfather, since the others were busy with the farm, saddled up one of the horses and rode down to the town to buy some, and discovered that the country had been at war for a week.

    I cannot now check on the accuracy of the story, of course, but my grandmother's family did live on such a farm.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,275
    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
    Tea, tofu, printing, gunpowder ...

    Edit: silk, too. Joseph Needham probably made a full list in his works, which i have never read.
    Yep. So nothing in the last 1000 years.

    Superpowers are not built on sweat alone.
    I little bit of the same hubris that meant that Singapore would never fall to the Japanese, and that British motorcycles would always dominate.

    China has a lot of people and they are not automatons. There is and always has been a vibrant culture of creativity in China, and China has a long history of learning from other countries and cultures as part of that.
    It's not hubris, it's a genuine question. China has the population, the resources, the organisation, to become what it is: the workshop of the world.

    I genuinely don't see the invention and development of new ideas though. Maybe that's just where we are in time, and those innovations will come.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    TIMES FRONT: Ministers drop shake-up of planning laws

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1436425928889016324?s=20

    Hah, least unexpected u-turn ever. If the impending councillor revolt in the Shires was not enough Chesham and Amersham delivered the final blow
  • rcs1000 said:

    theProle said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    also if you look at the data quite a lot of deaths in the 60 to 79 category. i doubt all these are at deaths door and given vaccine uptake in that age group its highly unlikely they are all antivaxxers

    Again Ed Conway posted the data....it is very low among vaxxed in this age group....death are dominated by antivaxxers.

    The point is with delta, if you are unvaxxed just a matter of time until you get covid...whuch drives up hospitalisations...which drives up deaths.

    Now there are break through cases among vaccinated, and over 80s group who see break throughs that is dicey (although far better than without being vaxxed)...but we don't know how much that is due to those people already been very sickly.
    Perhaps. In the over 80's there is 3 times the IFR in the unvaxxed, but because 90% are vaxxed, the absolute numbers may well be equal. I am quite glad to see the rate for my age down to 0.1%.


    It does rather suggest that booster shots for oldies it's probably a good idea.
    Another week has passed without any decision...looks at watch...
    That and the failure to jab kids in the summer are such avoidable blunders.

    We have oodles of vaccines, it makes no sense.
    The more I read on jabbing the kids, the less I think it's a good idea.
    It's marginally beneficial to the actual kids vs catching disease.
    For the about 50% of kids who have already got Covid antibodies, it's a clear net negative (they get the side effect risks whilst gaining little or no extra immunity). From this, it may well be overall net negative for kids as a group
    James Ward's modelling posted the other night (so far his modelling seems to have outperformed most of the others) seemed to find that the societal benefits in terms of reduced hospitalisations/deaths over this winter from jabbing kids were pretty small.

    His modelling also seems to show that booster campaigns aren't necessarily the big wins you might expect either - in particular IIRC if you go too early, you can actually end up making matters worse. This is rather counterintuitive, I think as I understand it, it's to do with the booster effect dying off in the middle of your winter case peak making it a really massive peak, when just accepting a steady rate of reinfection all winter smooths the peak out, and makes the total area under the graph smaller. I think this is partly because having the vaccine then mild covid gives much better long term immunity that the vaccine + booster.
    Re no extra immunity, that's simply not true - infection plus vaccine is by far the most efficient way of preventing covid.
    That's infection + vaccine is the ultimate is fairly obviously true, but AFAIK we don't have a proper equivalent data to the vaccine efficacy data for prior infection alone.

    Given we're seeing comparatively few reinfections, I think its very likely that prior infection alone gives an "efficacy" that's better than the MRNA vaccines - probably north of 90% against symptomatic infection.

    That leaves little extra immunity available for the vaccines to "top up", even if the combination got you to 100%, that's only a 10% boost - so the benefit from having the vaccine after Covid is going to be between small and negligible.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    @Cyclefree

    It's strange we should ever have thought differently.

    The real, unintential joke about The Life of Brian was the belief that religious fundamentalism was on the way out. A few months before the Islamic Republic was established in Iran.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    TIMES FRONT: Ministers drop shake-up of planning laws

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1436425928889016324?s=20

    No surprise, the party was facing heavy losses in the local elections next year in the Home Counties unless they did
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    stodge said:

    Brief afternoon all :)

    On topic, unless Sadiq Khan wants to go back to Westminster (as part of a winning Labour Party presumably) he may as well stay Mayor until 2028 then find a Westminster seat in London (East Ham?) and then be part of the winning Labour Party.

    Will he win in 2024?

    Bailey did much better than many expected or anticipated including me. He won a Ward in Newham (Custom House) by 789 to 742 and the Conservative candidate in the East Ham Central by election polled a respectable 30%.

    The question then becomes - who is the Conservative candidate that can reach the parts even Shaun Bailey couldn't reach? Unless Bailey finds a safe Westminster seat, I'm sure he'll be in the running for another go and there's the thing - he can either have the relatively certainty and obscurity of being a backbench MP or the uncertainty and profile of being London Mayor.

    @TSE seems certain he knows the outcome of the next GE - as Richard Hoiles once said of Frankie Dettori after the Nunthorpe "he's sure I'm not".

    Iff things generally remain the way they are then I'd expect the Conservatives to win the next election.

    But oppositions don't win elections but governments lose them.

    As I mentioned to JohnO I can easily see a situation where the blue wall crumbles and the Conservatives lose 50 seats in England & Wales and five seats in Scotland and kaboom, we have a Labour led government because no one will go into coalition/supply and confidence agreement.

    I mean the DUP will never back Boris Johnson or the modern day Tories for putting a border down the Irish Sea, I think we can rule out the Lib Dems as well, cannot imagine Sinn Fein breaking their abstentionism to give the Tories a majority and I know climate change is an issue but cannot see hell freezing over and us having a Tory/SNP coalition at Westminster.
    I can see the SNP offering to allow through a Queens Speech in return for a referendum.
    Nope.
    Surely there would be no time more proprietous for an independence vote than when there's a Tory government?
    The SNP will not be propping up a Tory Queen’s Speech under any circumstances whatsoever. It is a complete non-starter, and to be fair I think thinking Tories understand that very well.
    Yeah. Even leaving aside it would resurrect SLAB from the grave, Sturgeon - unlike say Salmond, who would be willing to deal with the Tories if it happened to suit the interests of the SNP - is genuinely ideologically opposed to the Tories.
    No chance of it happening.
    Alex Salmond is many thongs but he is not a doadealwiththetorieser.

  • HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    stodge said:

    Brief afternoon all :)

    On topic, unless Sadiq Khan wants to go back to Westminster (as part of a winning Labour Party presumably) he may as well stay Mayor until 2028 then find a Westminster seat in London (East Ham?) and then be part of the winning Labour Party.

    Will he win in 2024?

    Bailey did much better than many expected or anticipated including me. He won a Ward in Newham (Custom House) by 789 to 742 and the Conservative candidate in the East Ham Central by election polled a respectable 30%.

    The question then becomes - who is the Conservative candidate that can reach the parts even Shaun Bailey couldn't reach? Unless Bailey finds a safe Westminster seat, I'm sure he'll be in the running for another go and there's the thing - he can either have the relatively certainty and obscurity of being a backbench MP or the uncertainty and profile of being London Mayor.

    @TSE seems certain he knows the outcome of the next GE - as Richard Hoiles once said of Frankie Dettori after the Nunthorpe "he's sure I'm not".

    Iff things generally remain the way they are then I'd expect the Conservatives to win the next election.

    But oppositions don't win elections but governments lose them.

    As I mentioned to JohnO I can easily see a situation where the blue wall crumbles and the Conservatives lose 50 seats in England & Wales and five seats in Scotland and kaboom, we have a Labour led government because no one will go into coalition/supply and confidence agreement.

    I mean the DUP will never back Boris Johnson or the modern day Tories for putting a border down the Irish Sea, I think we can rule out the Lib Dems as well, cannot imagine Sinn Fein breaking their abstentionism to give the Tories a majority and I know climate change is an issue but cannot see hell freezing over and us having a Tory/SNP coalition at Westminster.
    I can see the SNP offering to allow through a Queens Speech in return for a referendum.
    Nope.
    Surely there would be no time more proprietous for an independence vote than when there's a Tory government?
    The SNP will not be propping up a Tory Queen’s Speech under any circumstances whatsoever. It is a complete non-starter, and to be fair I think thinking Tories understand that very well.
    Absolutely, I would prefer opposition or even a Grand Coalition with Labour to doing any deal with the SNP
    There's more chance of me moving to Epping than Labour agreeing to a Grand Coalition with your lot! (PS I would never move to Epping).
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2021

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
    Tea, tofu, printing, gunpowder ...

    Edit: silk, too. Joseph Needham probably made a full list in his works, which i have never read.
    Yep. So nothing in the last 1000 years.

    Superpowers are not built on sweat alone.
    I little bit of the same hubris that meant that Singapore would never fall to the Japanese, and that British motorcycles would always dominate.

    China has a lot of people and they are not automatons. There is and always has been a vibrant culture of creativity in China, and China has a long history of learning from other countries and cultures as part of that.
    It's not hubris, it's a genuine question. China has the population, the resources, the organisation, to become what it is: the workshop of the world.

    I genuinely don't see the invention and development of new ideas though. Maybe that's just where we are in time, and those innovations will come.
    They have already started transitioning beyond the workshop of the world. They are now becoming much more like say a Japan or South Korea, where they are taking ideas (often by stealing IP) and building on them, and becoming the leaders in that sector. To do so, that does take the development of new ideas.

    What they are less good at, and as I started down thread, I think it is a negative of China's managed capitalist / authoritarian approach, is ripping up the convention wisdom and having that tectonic shift, which completely shifts a whole field overnight.
  • rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    stodge said:

    Brief afternoon all :)

    On topic, unless Sadiq Khan wants to go back to Westminster (as part of a winning Labour Party presumably) he may as well stay Mayor until 2028 then find a Westminster seat in London (East Ham?) and then be part of the winning Labour Party.

    Will he win in 2024?

    Bailey did much better than many expected or anticipated including me. He won a Ward in Newham (Custom House) by 789 to 742 and the Conservative candidate in the East Ham Central by election polled a respectable 30%.

    The question then becomes - who is the Conservative candidate that can reach the parts even Shaun Bailey couldn't reach? Unless Bailey finds a safe Westminster seat, I'm sure he'll be in the running for another go and there's the thing - he can either have the relatively certainty and obscurity of being a backbench MP or the uncertainty and profile of being London Mayor.

    @TSE seems certain he knows the outcome of the next GE - as Richard Hoiles once said of Frankie Dettori after the Nunthorpe "he's sure I'm not".

    Iff things generally remain the way they are then I'd expect the Conservatives to win the next election.

    But oppositions don't win elections but governments lose them.

    As I mentioned to JohnO I can easily see a situation where the blue wall crumbles and the Conservatives lose 50 seats in England & Wales and five seats in Scotland and kaboom, we have a Labour led government because no one will go into coalition/supply and confidence agreement.

    I mean the DUP will never back Boris Johnson or the modern day Tories for putting a border down the Irish Sea, I think we can rule out the Lib Dems as well, cannot imagine Sinn Fein breaking their abstentionism to give the Tories a majority and I know climate change is an issue but cannot see hell freezing over and us having a Tory/SNP coalition at Westminster.
    I can see the SNP offering to allow through a Queens Speech in return for a referendum.
    Nope.
    Surely there would be no time more proprietous for an independence vote than when there's a Tory government?
    The SNP will not be propping up a Tory Queen’s Speech under any circumstances whatsoever. It is a complete non-starter, and to be fair I think thinking Tories understand that very well.
    Yeah. Even leaving aside it would resurrect SLAB from the grave, Sturgeon - unlike say Salmond, who would be willing to deal with the Tories if it happened to suit the interests of the SNP - is genuinely ideologically opposed to the Tories.
    No chance of it happening.
    That’s a revisionist angle. Salmond would never have supported a Tory Queen’s Speech either.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Foxy said:

    TIMES FRONT: Ministers drop shake-up of planning laws

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1436425928889016324?s=20

    Someone is getting frit now.
    Those plans were dead on arrival, so the timing might well be a coincidence, but perhaps having pushed the issue of the tax rise through MPs they didn't want to test them further.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    Alleged. And the evidence is very shaky. She has tried a number of legal routes without success to date.

    she clearly suffered hugely at the hands of Epstein and his associates and is a very damaged young women. That doesn’t mean Prince Andrew is guilty
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2021

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    The accuser was 17, not really a child and above the age of consent here and she is still alive to tell her tale, unlike Harry Dunn.

    It was also not an accident, the CPS charged her with causing death by dangerous driving in absentia
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,275
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
    Paper? Gunpowder?
    Last 200 years?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    Alistair said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    stodge said:

    Brief afternoon all :)

    On topic, unless Sadiq Khan wants to go back to Westminster (as part of a winning Labour Party presumably) he may as well stay Mayor until 2028 then find a Westminster seat in London (East Ham?) and then be part of the winning Labour Party.

    Will he win in 2024?

    Bailey did much better than many expected or anticipated including me. He won a Ward in Newham (Custom House) by 789 to 742 and the Conservative candidate in the East Ham Central by election polled a respectable 30%.

    The question then becomes - who is the Conservative candidate that can reach the parts even Shaun Bailey couldn't reach? Unless Bailey finds a safe Westminster seat, I'm sure he'll be in the running for another go and there's the thing - he can either have the relatively certainty and obscurity of being a backbench MP or the uncertainty and profile of being London Mayor.

    @TSE seems certain he knows the outcome of the next GE - as Richard Hoiles once said of Frankie Dettori after the Nunthorpe "he's sure I'm not".

    Iff things generally remain the way they are then I'd expect the Conservatives to win the next election.

    But oppositions don't win elections but governments lose them.

    As I mentioned to JohnO I can easily see a situation where the blue wall crumbles and the Conservatives lose 50 seats in England & Wales and five seats in Scotland and kaboom, we have a Labour led government because no one will go into coalition/supply and confidence agreement.

    I mean the DUP will never back Boris Johnson or the modern day Tories for putting a border down the Irish Sea, I think we can rule out the Lib Dems as well, cannot imagine Sinn Fein breaking their abstentionism to give the Tories a majority and I know climate change is an issue but cannot see hell freezing over and us having a Tory/SNP coalition at Westminster.
    I can see the SNP offering to allow through a Queens Speech in return for a referendum.
    Nope.
    Surely there would be no time more proprietous for an independence vote than when there's a Tory government?
    The SNP will not be propping up a Tory Queen’s Speech under any circumstances whatsoever. It is a complete non-starter, and to be fair I think thinking Tories understand that very well.
    Yeah. Even leaving aside it would resurrect SLAB from the grave, Sturgeon - unlike say Salmond, who would be willing to deal with the Tories if it happened to suit the interests of the SNP - is genuinely ideologically opposed to the Tories.
    No chance of it happening.
    Alex Salmond is many thongs but he is not a doadealwiththetorieser.

    Please!

    The mental image of Alex Salmond and thongs in the same sentence! The horror...
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    stodge said:

    Brief afternoon all :)

    On topic, unless Sadiq Khan wants to go back to Westminster (as part of a winning Labour Party presumably) he may as well stay Mayor until 2028 then find a Westminster seat in London (East Ham?) and then be part of the winning Labour Party.

    Will he win in 2024?

    Bailey did much better than many expected or anticipated including me. He won a Ward in Newham (Custom House) by 789 to 742 and the Conservative candidate in the East Ham Central by election polled a respectable 30%.

    The question then becomes - who is the Conservative candidate that can reach the parts even Shaun Bailey couldn't reach? Unless Bailey finds a safe Westminster seat, I'm sure he'll be in the running for another go and there's the thing - he can either have the relatively certainty and obscurity of being a backbench MP or the uncertainty and profile of being London Mayor.

    @TSE seems certain he knows the outcome of the next GE - as Richard Hoiles once said of Frankie Dettori after the Nunthorpe "he's sure I'm not".

    Iff things generally remain the way they are then I'd expect the Conservatives to win the next election.

    But oppositions don't win elections but governments lose them.

    As I mentioned to JohnO I can easily see a situation where the blue wall crumbles and the Conservatives lose 50 seats in England & Wales and five seats in Scotland and kaboom, we have a Labour led government because no one will go into coalition/supply and confidence agreement.

    I mean the DUP will never back Boris Johnson or the modern day Tories for putting a border down the Irish Sea, I think we can rule out the Lib Dems as well, cannot imagine Sinn Fein breaking their abstentionism to give the Tories a majority and I know climate change is an issue but cannot see hell freezing over and us having a Tory/SNP coalition at Westminster.
    I can see the SNP offering to allow through a Queens Speech in return for a referendum.
    Nope.
    Surely there would be no time more proprietous for an independence vote than when there's a Tory government?
    The SNP will not be propping up a Tory Queen’s Speech under any circumstances whatsoever. It is a complete non-starter, and to be fair I think thinking Tories understand that very well.
    Absolutely, I would prefer opposition or even a Grand Coalition with Labour to doing any deal with the SNP
    There's more chance of me moving to Epping than Labour agreeing to a Grand Coalition with your lot! (PS I would never move to Epping).
    There is, or at least used to be, a very good butchers in Epping, who, if I recall correctly, made excellent pork pies.
  • Alistair said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    stodge said:

    Brief afternoon all :)

    On topic, unless Sadiq Khan wants to go back to Westminster (as part of a winning Labour Party presumably) he may as well stay Mayor until 2028 then find a Westminster seat in London (East Ham?) and then be part of the winning Labour Party.

    Will he win in 2024?

    Bailey did much better than many expected or anticipated including me. He won a Ward in Newham (Custom House) by 789 to 742 and the Conservative candidate in the East Ham Central by election polled a respectable 30%.

    The question then becomes - who is the Conservative candidate that can reach the parts even Shaun Bailey couldn't reach? Unless Bailey finds a safe Westminster seat, I'm sure he'll be in the running for another go and there's the thing - he can either have the relatively certainty and obscurity of being a backbench MP or the uncertainty and profile of being London Mayor.

    @TSE seems certain he knows the outcome of the next GE - as Richard Hoiles once said of Frankie Dettori after the Nunthorpe "he's sure I'm not".

    Iff things generally remain the way they are then I'd expect the Conservatives to win the next election.

    But oppositions don't win elections but governments lose them.

    As I mentioned to JohnO I can easily see a situation where the blue wall crumbles and the Conservatives lose 50 seats in England & Wales and five seats in Scotland and kaboom, we have a Labour led government because no one will go into coalition/supply and confidence agreement.

    I mean the DUP will never back Boris Johnson or the modern day Tories for putting a border down the Irish Sea, I think we can rule out the Lib Dems as well, cannot imagine Sinn Fein breaking their abstentionism to give the Tories a majority and I know climate change is an issue but cannot see hell freezing over and us having a Tory/SNP coalition at Westminster.
    I can see the SNP offering to allow through a Queens Speech in return for a referendum.
    Nope.
    Surely there would be no time more proprietous for an independence vote than when there's a Tory government?
    The SNP will not be propping up a Tory Queen’s Speech under any circumstances whatsoever. It is a complete non-starter, and to be fair I think thinking Tories understand that very well.
    Yeah. Even leaving aside it would resurrect SLAB from the grave, Sturgeon - unlike say Salmond, who would be willing to deal with the Tories if it happened to suit the interests of the SNP - is genuinely ideologically opposed to the Tories.
    No chance of it happening.
    Alex Salmond is many thongs but he is not a doadealwiththetorieser.

    So he didn't rely on the SCONS at all to pass his budgets in his first term?
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,545
    edited September 2021

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    People who are interested in cultures point to Al Andalus and note how much more civilised the Arabs were compared with the Europeans. Europe learnt everything from the Arabs: medicine, astronomy, navigation, philosophy, sofas, ice cream, romantic poetry, universities, castle design, irrigation...

    The Arabs learnt not one single thing from Europe. A couple of centuries later Europe was ascendant and the Arab lands a backwater from which they have never recovered.

    That's the analogy for China and the West.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    TIMES FRONT: Ministers drop shake-up of planning laws

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1436425928889016324?s=20

    Someone is getting frit now.
    Those plans were dead on arrival, so the timing might well be a coincidence, but perhaps having pushed the issue of the tax rise through MPs they didn't want to test them further.
    Expected a difficult conference if they didn't drop them IMO.
  • HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    stodge said:

    Brief afternoon all :)

    On topic, unless Sadiq Khan wants to go back to Westminster (as part of a winning Labour Party presumably) he may as well stay Mayor until 2028 then find a Westminster seat in London (East Ham?) and then be part of the winning Labour Party.

    Will he win in 2024?

    Bailey did much better than many expected or anticipated including me. He won a Ward in Newham (Custom House) by 789 to 742 and the Conservative candidate in the East Ham Central by election polled a respectable 30%.

    The question then becomes - who is the Conservative candidate that can reach the parts even Shaun Bailey couldn't reach? Unless Bailey finds a safe Westminster seat, I'm sure he'll be in the running for another go and there's the thing - he can either have the relatively certainty and obscurity of being a backbench MP or the uncertainty and profile of being London Mayor.

    @TSE seems certain he knows the outcome of the next GE - as Richard Hoiles once said of Frankie Dettori after the Nunthorpe "he's sure I'm not".

    Iff things generally remain the way they are then I'd expect the Conservatives to win the next election.

    But oppositions don't win elections but governments lose them.

    As I mentioned to JohnO I can easily see a situation where the blue wall crumbles and the Conservatives lose 50 seats in England & Wales and five seats in Scotland and kaboom, we have a Labour led government because no one will go into coalition/supply and confidence agreement.

    I mean the DUP will never back Boris Johnson or the modern day Tories for putting a border down the Irish Sea, I think we can rule out the Lib Dems as well, cannot imagine Sinn Fein breaking their abstentionism to give the Tories a majority and I know climate change is an issue but cannot see hell freezing over and us having a Tory/SNP coalition at Westminster.
    I can see the SNP offering to allow through a Queens Speech in return for a referendum.
    Nope.
    Surely there would be no time more proprietous for an independence vote than when there's a Tory government?
    The SNP will not be propping up a Tory Queen’s Speech under any circumstances whatsoever. It is a complete non-starter, and to be fair I think thinking Tories understand that very well.
    Absolutely, I would prefer opposition or even a Grand Coalition with Labour to doing any deal with the SNP
    There's more chance of me moving to Epping than Labour agreeing to a Grand Coalition with your lot! (PS I would never move to Epping).
    There is, or at least used to be, a very good butchers in Epping, who, if I recall correctly, made excellent pork pies.
    Thanks OKC; I like a good pork pie. Tempting, but not quite enough to make me uproot and move to Epping.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    The accuser was 17, not a child and she is still alive to tell her tale, unlike Harry Dunn.

    It was also not an accident, the CPS charged her with causing death by dangerous driving in absentia
    The accuser is a child in the eyes of the law of New York, from where she is alleged to have been brought.
  • In 1914 my family are supposed to have received news late. My grandparents, plus their two young children were holidaying with my grandmothers relations in a farm in a remote part of Central Wales, and the men ran out of tobacco. My grandfather, since the others were busy with the farm, saddled up one of the horses and rode down to the town to buy some, and discovered that the country had been at war for a week.

    I cannot now check on the accuracy of the story, of course, but my grandmother's family did live on such a farm.

    That reminds me of a very good book series I read as a teenager down under called Tomorrow, When The War Began by John Marsden. I believe it was made a film but I haven't watched it. A group of teenagers go camping in the bush and when they come back they find that their town has been invaded as the start of an invasion of Australia.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    Foxy said:

    Farooq said:

    Twenty years ago

    Agent (whispering): "Mr President, sir, America is under attack"
    Bush (holding a children's book upside down): "I know"

    Was it really upside down? If so I share something in common with Bush: I can read a book that is upside down perfectly well (depending on the typeface used; some serif fonts are more difficult).

    My cousin can do it as well; my brother and sister cannot. Mrs J cannot. It's not something I've practiced, just something I can do for some reason.

    A real Zeroes skill.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9ewB6iUhAY
    My father taught himself to read as quickly upside down as normal. He used it in sales negotiations to read his opposite numbers position papers.
    I have never had to teach myself but for some reason I can read upside down quite easily.

    It has come in very handy in many business negotitations... especially as some people seem to assume it's impossible to read a page if it's not the right way round.
    Just tried it. No, I don't have the gift. I can do it but only very slowly.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    The accuser was 17, not a child and she is still alive to tell her tale, unlike Harry Dunn.

    It was also not an accident, the CPS charged her with causing death by dangerous driving in absentia
    The accuser is a child in the eyes of the law of New York, from where she is alleged to have been brought.
    The age of consent in New York is 17
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    The Romans invented the whoopee cushion
    I'm not sure that's really an answer to my challenge.

    What have the Chinese ever done for us?
    Paper? Gunpowder?
    Last 200 years?
    Xi Jinping Thought.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    The accuser was 17, not really a child and above the age of consent here and she is still alive to tell her tale, unlike Harry Dunn.

    It was also not an accident, the CPS charged her with causing death by dangerous driving in absentia
    18 is the age of consent in New York and she was a minor. Having sex with a minor in New York is rape, no ifs and no buts about that.

    Accidents can happen even if they're by dangerous driving. You don't accidentally rape a 17 year old.
  • Alistair said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    stodge said:

    Brief afternoon all :)

    On topic, unless Sadiq Khan wants to go back to Westminster (as part of a winning Labour Party presumably) he may as well stay Mayor until 2028 then find a Westminster seat in London (East Ham?) and then be part of the winning Labour Party.

    Will he win in 2024?

    Bailey did much better than many expected or anticipated including me. He won a Ward in Newham (Custom House) by 789 to 742 and the Conservative candidate in the East Ham Central by election polled a respectable 30%.

    The question then becomes - who is the Conservative candidate that can reach the parts even Shaun Bailey couldn't reach? Unless Bailey finds a safe Westminster seat, I'm sure he'll be in the running for another go and there's the thing - he can either have the relatively certainty and obscurity of being a backbench MP or the uncertainty and profile of being London Mayor.

    @TSE seems certain he knows the outcome of the next GE - as Richard Hoiles once said of Frankie Dettori after the Nunthorpe "he's sure I'm not".

    Iff things generally remain the way they are then I'd expect the Conservatives to win the next election.

    But oppositions don't win elections but governments lose them.

    As I mentioned to JohnO I can easily see a situation where the blue wall crumbles and the Conservatives lose 50 seats in England & Wales and five seats in Scotland and kaboom, we have a Labour led government because no one will go into coalition/supply and confidence agreement.

    I mean the DUP will never back Boris Johnson or the modern day Tories for putting a border down the Irish Sea, I think we can rule out the Lib Dems as well, cannot imagine Sinn Fein breaking their abstentionism to give the Tories a majority and I know climate change is an issue but cannot see hell freezing over and us having a Tory/SNP coalition at Westminster.
    I can see the SNP offering to allow through a Queens Speech in return for a referendum.
    Nope.
    Surely there would be no time more proprietous for an independence vote than when there's a Tory government?
    The SNP will not be propping up a Tory Queen’s Speech under any circumstances whatsoever. It is a complete non-starter, and to be fair I think thinking Tories understand that very well.
    Yeah. Even leaving aside it would resurrect SLAB from the grave, Sturgeon - unlike say Salmond, who would be willing to deal with the Tories if it happened to suit the interests of the SNP - is genuinely ideologically opposed to the Tories.
    No chance of it happening.
    Alex Salmond is many thongs but he is not a doadealwiththetorieser.

    So he didn't rely on the SCONS at all to pass his budgets in his first term?
    The Tories were daft enough to prop up an SNP minority government; more fool them. The SNP never could and never would reciprocate the favour.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,459
    edited September 2021

    TIMES FRONT: Ministers drop shake-up of planning laws

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1436425928889016324?s=20

    A while back, people started noticing that a few of the Tories' 2019 manifesto pledges were being broken.

    I think we've gone full circle now, and need to start identifying which, if any, of the Tories' 2019 manifesto pledges are being kept.

    So far, I've got Brexit on my list. Just about. (I'm not counting a new cancer wing as a new hospital, by the way).
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    FF43 said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    People who are interested in cultures point to Al Andalus and note how much more civilised the Arabs were compared with the Europeans. Europe learnt everything from the Arabs: medicine, astronomy, navigation, philosophy, sofas, ice cream, romantic poetry, universities, castle design, irrigation...

    The Arabs learnt not one single thing from Europe. A couple of centuries later Europe was ascendant and the Arab lands a backwater from which they have never recovered.

    That's the analogy between China and the West.
    If you are suggesting that the West is Andulucia, and China Renaissance Europe, it does seem rather a stretch. China is very willing to learn from outsiders though.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    How sad - https://twitter.com/nhkworld_news/status/1434774400625152002?s=21

    Dishonouring a doctor who tried to help the Afghanistan people.
  • Charles said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    Alleged. And the evidence is very shaky. She has tried a number of legal routes without success to date.

    she clearly suffered hugely at the hands of Epstein and his associates and is a very damaged young women. That doesn’t mean Prince Andrew is guilty
    Of course it doesn't mean it, but there's a process to be followed to find out if he is or isn't and he shouldn't be above the law.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    Foxy said:

    FF43 said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    People who are interested in cultures point to Al Andalus and note how much more civilised the Arabs were compared with the Europeans. Europe learnt everything from the Arabs: medicine, astronomy, navigation, philosophy, sofas, ice cream, romantic poetry, universities, castle design, irrigation...

    The Arabs learnt not one single thing from Europe. A couple of centuries later Europe was ascendant and the Arab lands a backwater from which they have never recovered.

    That's the analogy between China and the West.
    If you are suggesting that the West is Andulucia, and China Renaissance Europe, it does seem rather a stretch. China is very willing to learn from outsiders though.
    Didn't the Arabs pick up on Greek philosophy?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,585

    For any who haven't seen it this is a gripping documentary on Bush during September 11th:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000z8p5/911-inside-the-presidents-war-room

    Agree. So much insight.

    Feel bad for giggling at one point during that documentary though.
    It's excellent and shows George W Bush as very far from the idiot he was portrayed as by many at the time.

    Also, was a big fan of Condie Rice then, and still am now.
    Bush has rather deftly rewritten his own narrative for his stunned silence in the classroom. He was not a rabbit caught in the headlights, but a pensive war leader calmly planning his counter measures.

    The most startling recollection was Cheney's recalling with pride his instruction "to take it down" (United 93). Cheney really is an odd guy.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    The accuser was 17, not really a child and above the age of consent here and she is still alive to tell her tale, unlike Harry Dunn.

    It was also not an accident, the CPS charged her with causing death by dangerous driving in absentia
    18 is the age of consent in New York and she was a minor. Having sex with a minor in New York is rape, no ifs and no buts about that.

    Accidents can happen even if they're by dangerous driving. You don't accidentally rape a 17 year old.
    In any case, the idea of making justice for one case contingent on justice being done in another (wholly unrelated) one, is rank.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    HYUFD said:

    TIMES FRONT: Ministers drop shake-up of planning laws

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1436425928889016324?s=20

    No surprise, the party was facing heavy losses in the local elections next year in the Home Counties unless they did
    It's disappointing a governing party, ahead in most polls and with a majority of 80, hasn't got the courage to pursue a course of action it clearly thinks necessary to improve or alleviate the housing crisis in this country.

    If you lose a few seats and a few Councillors, so what? Isn't it more important to do the right thing for the country even if you are damned for it than to constantly back away from any serious change at the first sign of electoral disadvantage?

    Let's have a debate about this - let's have the developers explain how they would resolve the issue - let's talk about land-banking, overdevelopment and the like. Let's talk about how new developments transform existing communities and what can be done to mitigate/alleviate this.

    To the outsider, it appears the Conservatives are the Party of the developer not the party of the local community. In truth, of course, the Conservative Party (and other parties too) should be looking at the bigger picture.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2021
    I was just thinking about this....I wonder if in the long run it would be better for the US to have the likes of Google or Apple to be broken up. Not from a customer stand point, but from an invention perspective.

    Google make so much money out of ads, they have grown very fat and very inefficient (they often have numerous teams doing basically the same thing and constantly releasing crappy apps that they often already have another similar one, and end up binning both after a couple of years.

    Same with Apple, nothing they have come out with for years that is revolutionary. It is all either tech that has been for a year or two already e.g. every screen in an iPhone has been on other phones for years now. Most of their products are simply they market it better, or at best it is a very slight improvement e.g. their tag product.

    When was the last time Apple had an iPhone or iPad moment?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    stodge said:

    Brief afternoon all :)

    On topic, unless Sadiq Khan wants to go back to Westminster (as part of a winning Labour Party presumably) he may as well stay Mayor until 2028 then find a Westminster seat in London (East Ham?) and then be part of the winning Labour Party.

    Will he win in 2024?

    Bailey did much better than many expected or anticipated including me. He won a Ward in Newham (Custom House) by 789 to 742 and the Conservative candidate in the East Ham Central by election polled a respectable 30%.

    The question then becomes - who is the Conservative candidate that can reach the parts even Shaun Bailey couldn't reach? Unless Bailey finds a safe Westminster seat, I'm sure he'll be in the running for another go and there's the thing - he can either have the relatively certainty and obscurity of being a backbench MP or the uncertainty and profile of being London Mayor.

    @TSE seems certain he knows the outcome of the next GE - as Richard Hoiles once said of Frankie Dettori after the Nunthorpe "he's sure I'm not".

    Iff things generally remain the way they are then I'd expect the Conservatives to win the next election.

    But oppositions don't win elections but governments lose them.

    As I mentioned to JohnO I can easily see a situation where the blue wall crumbles and the Conservatives lose 50 seats in England & Wales and five seats in Scotland and kaboom, we have a Labour led government because no one will go into coalition/supply and confidence agreement.

    I mean the DUP will never back Boris Johnson or the modern day Tories for putting a border down the Irish Sea, I think we can rule out the Lib Dems as well, cannot imagine Sinn Fein breaking their abstentionism to give the Tories a majority and I know climate change is an issue but cannot see hell freezing over and us having a Tory/SNP coalition at Westminster.
    I can see the SNP offering to allow through a Queens Speech in return for a referendum.
    Nope.
    Surely there would be no time more proprietous for an independence vote than when there's a Tory government?
    The SNP will not be propping up a Tory Queen’s Speech under any circumstances whatsoever. It is a complete non-starter, and to be fair I think thinking Tories understand that very well.
    Absolutely, I would prefer opposition or even a Grand Coalition with Labour to doing any deal with the SNP
    There's more chance of me moving to Epping than Labour agreeing to a Grand Coalition with your lot! (PS I would never move to Epping).
    Sounds a bit like "until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill Shall come against him", which didn't end well.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    FF43 said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    People who are interested in cultures point to Al Andalus and note how much more civilised the Arabs were compared with the Europeans. Europe learnt everything from the Arabs: medicine, astronomy, navigation, philosophy, sofas, ice cream, romantic poetry, universities, castle design, irrigation...

    The Arabs learnt not one single thing from Europe. A couple of centuries later Europe was ascendant and the Arab lands a backwater from which they have never recovered.

    That's the analogy for China and the West.
    Didn’t the Arabs pinch most of their stuff from the Indus Valley civilisations?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    edited September 2021
    I find the Harry Dunn case quite disturbing. The media don’t care about the Dunn family. They’ve egged them on because it is a problem for the government.

    Sadly, humans make mistakes. We certainly shouldn’t let people off free - look at what happened to Matthew Broderick, for example - but I do feel we place to much focus on outcomes. Obviously some people drive more safely than others, but I think most people are capable of doing something they shouldn’t and then it’s just chance as to the consequences of their actions.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Twenty years ago I flew to Dallas with 2 colleagues on a business trip. We heard the news at breakfast the next morning and couldn't really comprehend it.

    We had to drive back to Philly. It took 2 days.

    We stopped overnight in Nashville.

    And I decided my time in the USA was over.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    The accuser was 17, not really a child and above the age of consent here and she is still alive to tell her tale, unlike Harry Dunn.

    It was also not an accident, the CPS charged her with causing death by dangerous driving in absentia
    18 is the age of consent in New York and she was a minor. Having sex with a minor in New York is rape, no ifs and no buts about that.

    Accidents can happen even if they're by dangerous driving. You don't accidentally rape a 17 year old.
    Can I suggest you lay off this topic? You clearly feel very strongly and we wouldn’t want OGH to get in trouble by accident
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    The police in this country is populated with a disturbing number of psychopaths.

    CCTV captured a little boy with severe autism trying to crawl away in terror as a police officer launches a savage assault.

    As the recording begins the boy, aged 10, is on the floor of a school corridor, when former Merseyside Police PC Christopher Cruise, 57, raises his leg threateningly as if he is going to launch a kick.

    The boy attempts to crawl through a door before Cruise reaches down, grabs him by the hood of his coat and drags him across the corridor while the boy's legs trail behind him.

    The child was left with injuries to his knee following the attack.

    Cruise, a former school liaison officer, was convicted of assault against the boy at Crewe Magistrates' Court - a conviction upheld by a judge at Chester Crown Court following an unsuccessful appeal.

    The incident took place in January 2020, at a special educational needs school in the Liverpool area.

    Cruise retired before the force's disciplinary process concluded, but at a hearing last month Cruise was found guilty of gross misconduct and would have been sacked if he remained on the payroll.

    That hearing was told that after the incident Cruise walked into a classroom and asked the children if they could hear the victim crying.

    He then pointed at one of the children and said: “You’re next”.

    A teacher at the school also told officers he felt Cruise was trying to intimidate him to prevent him reporting the assault during a conversation later the same day.

    After being found guilty by magistrates, Cruise, part of the force's Safer Schools unit, was fined £800 and ordered to pay £100 in compensation, as well as £500 in prosecution costs and an £85 victim surcharge.

    His appeal landed him with a further £1,620 bill in court costs.

    A relative of the child, who did not want to be named, told the ECHO: "I think he should have been put in prison.


    https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/boy-10-recoils-terror-police-21512215?_ga=2.37148256.1576846249.1631174279-1068233410.1621073320

    Safer schools unit. Ha bloody ha.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Charles said:

    FF43 said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    People who are interested in cultures point to Al Andalus and note how much more civilised the Arabs were compared with the Europeans. Europe learnt everything from the Arabs: medicine, astronomy, navigation, philosophy, sofas, ice cream, romantic poetry, universities, castle design, irrigation...

    The Arabs learnt not one single thing from Europe. A couple of centuries later Europe was ascendant and the Arab lands a backwater from which they have never recovered.

    That's the analogy for China and the West.
    Didn’t the Arabs pinch most of their stuff from the Indus Valley civilisations?
    No
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    The police in this country is populated with a disturbing number of psychopaths.

    CCTV captured a little boy with severe autism trying to crawl away in terror as a police officer launches a savage assault.

    As the recording begins the boy, aged 10, is on the floor of a school corridor, when former Merseyside Police PC Christopher Cruise, 57, raises his leg threateningly as if he is going to launch a kick.

    The boy attempts to crawl through a door before Cruise reaches down, grabs him by the hood of his coat and drags him across the corridor while the boy's legs trail behind him.

    The child was left with injuries to his knee following the attack.

    Cruise, a former school liaison officer, was convicted of assault against the boy at Crewe Magistrates' Court - a conviction upheld by a judge at Chester Crown Court following an unsuccessful appeal.

    The incident took place in January 2020, at a special educational needs school in the Liverpool area.

    Cruise retired before the force's disciplinary process concluded, but at a hearing last month Cruise was found guilty of gross misconduct and would have been sacked if he remained on the payroll.

    That hearing was told that after the incident Cruise walked into a classroom and asked the children if they could hear the victim crying.

    He then pointed at one of the children and said: “You’re next”.

    A teacher at the school also told officers he felt Cruise was trying to intimidate him to prevent him reporting the assault during a conversation later the same day.

    After being found guilty by magistrates, Cruise, part of the force's Safer Schools unit, was fined £800 and ordered to pay £100 in compensation, as well as £500 in prosecution costs and an £85 victim surcharge.

    His appeal landed him with a further £1,620 bill in court costs.

    A relative of the child, who did not want to be named, told the ECHO: "I think he should have been put in prison.


    https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/boy-10-recoils-terror-police-21512215?_ga=2.37148256.1576846249.1631174279-1068233410.1621073320

    Safer schools unit. Ha bloody ha.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    Farooq said:

    Twenty years ago

    Agent (whispering): "Mr President, sir, America is under attack"
    Bush (holding a children's book upside down): "I know"

    Was it really upside down? If so I share something in common with Bush: I can read a book that is upside down perfectly well (depending on the typeface used; some serif fonts are more difficult).

    My cousin can do it as well; my brother and sister cannot. Mrs J cannot. It's not something I've practiced, just something I can do for some reason.

    A real Zeroes skill.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9ewB6iUhAY
    My father taught himself to read as quickly upside down as normal. He used it in sales negotiations to read his opposite numbers position papers.
    I have never had to teach myself but for some reason I can read upside down quite easily.

    It has come in very handy in many business negotitations... especially as some people seem to assume it's impossible to read a page if it's not the right way round.
    Just tried it. No, I don't have the gift. I can do it but only very slowly.
    When I was a junior solicitor in the City I had a boss who claimed to have the gift, but didn't. So you'd go with him to meetings with other, opposing, solicitors and he'd be sitting across their desks from them squinting furiously with his neck hooked round at a more-than-90 degree angle, thinking he was invisibly practising his art, with everyone else too painfully embarrassed to point out what he was up to.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    The accuser was 17, not really a child and above the age of consent here and she is still alive to tell her tale, unlike Harry Dunn.

    It was also not an accident, the CPS charged her with causing death by dangerous driving in absentia
    18 is the age of consent in New York and she was a minor. Having sex with a minor in New York is rape, no ifs and no buts about that.

    Accidents can happen even if they're by dangerous driving. You don't accidentally rape a 17 year old.
    There is a slight difference between the cases, in that Andrew is only accused, and may be entirely innocent.

    Sacoolas admits her driving killed Harry. The only legal question is what is an appropriate punishment for an genuine mistake which results in the death of another.
    IANAL but I wouldn't have been surprised had she just gone to court and been suitably contrite if she would merely have received a suspended prison sentence, along with the loss of her driving licence and possibly some sort of fine.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    edited September 2021

    ydoethur said:

    Phil said:

    On 9/11 - I imagine we were some of the last people in Europe to find out about it as my wife & I were on our honeymoon at the time & were halfway up a mountain in southern Spain.

    Never heard it called that before…
    I was just relived to hear that @Phil and his missus "topped out the next morning". Must have been a long night.
    It was /quite/ exhausting :)

    (I’ve never been so pleased to find an unexpected bus stop as when we were on the long walk out & discovered that there was a tourist bus that used the mountain track we were walking out on.)
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    Alleged. And the evidence is very shaky. She has tried a number of legal routes without success to date.

    she clearly suffered hugely at the hands of Epstein and his associates and is a very damaged young women. That doesn’t mean Prince Andrew is guilty
    Of course it doesn't mean it, but there's a process to be followed to find out if he is or isn't and he shouldn't be above the law.
    He has just exercised his legal rights at this stage. He should have the same rights as anyone else
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited September 2021

    Charles said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    Alleged. And the evidence is very shaky. She has tried a number of legal routes without success to date.

    she clearly suffered hugely at the hands of Epstein and his associates and is a very damaged young women. That doesn’t mean Prince Andrew is guilty
    Of course it doesn't mean it, but there's a process to be followed to find out if he is or isn't and he shouldn't be above the law.
    Yet it seems very common that people imply him using legal processes, or not doing anything more than is strictly required, is indeed suggestive of guilt, or indeed indicates he is above the law in some fashion.

    It seems unpleasant to stick up for the man, Andrew that is, but is not Charles right about this one? If he is not very helpful (despite saying he would be helpful) that is not being above the law is it?
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,545
    edited September 2021
    Foxy said:

    FF43 said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    People who are interested in cultures point to Al Andalus and note how much more civilised the Arabs were compared with the Europeans. Europe learnt everything from the Arabs: medicine, astronomy, navigation, philosophy, sofas, ice cream, romantic poetry, universities, castle design, irrigation...

    The Arabs learnt not one single thing from Europe. A couple of centuries later Europe was ascendant and the Arab lands a backwater from which they have never recovered.

    That's the analogy between China and the West.
    If you are suggesting that the West is Andulucia, and China Renaissance Europe, it does seem rather a stretch. China is very willing to learn from outsiders though.
    I am suggesting technoligical invention does not necessarily drive ascendancy, contrary to the implication of @Benpointer's question, if you have a desire to learn. China is learning lots from the West, while the West is learning nothing at all from China. Just as Europe in the Middle Ages learnt everything it subsequently knew from the Arabs, while the Arabs learnt nothing from the Europeans.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    The accuser was 17, not really a child and above the age of consent here and she is still alive to tell her tale, unlike Harry Dunn.

    It was also not an accident, the CPS charged her with causing death by dangerous driving in absentia
    I'm not getting into who is right in this argument but it was an accident even if she is charged with dangerous driving. If it wasn't it would be murder and nobody is claiming that.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited September 2021
    Charles said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    The accuser was 17, not really a child and above the age of consent here and she is still alive to tell her tale, unlike Harry Dunn.

    It was also not an accident, the CPS charged her with causing death by dangerous driving in absentia
    18 is the age of consent in New York and she was a minor. Having sex with a minor in New York is rape, no ifs and no buts about that.

    Accidents can happen even if they're by dangerous driving. You don't accidentally rape a 17 year old.
    Can I suggest you lay off this topic? You clearly feel very strongly and we wouldn’t want OGH to get in trouble by accident
    I'm happy to lay off the topic if you say the same to HYUFD first.

    I wasn't going to say a word on the topic but to have his actions dismissed as inconsequential compared to a tragic car accident . . . of course innocent until proven guilty and all that jazz but accusations of sexual assault are not anything to be waved away as inconsequential. That is what got me annoyed.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2021

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Today is the end of my stint as editor of PB and I was thinking it had been a quiet stint.

    Prince Andrew has been served with the legal papers for a lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual abuse, according to a court document.

    Lawyers representing Virginia Giuffre, who is suing the Duke of York, say in the document that the civil lawsuit was handed to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of the The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, on 27 August at 9.30am.

    Sources close to the prince say he has not been served the papers in person.

    The source couldn't confirm if security had received the papers.


    https://news.sky.com/story/prince-andrew-lawyers-for-woman-suing-duke-of-york-claim-he-was-served-with-legal-papers-12404352

    Well until they send Anne Sacoolas over here they are not getting Prince Andrew
    What a weird thing to say considering the allegations
    Whatever Prince Andrew is alleged to have done he did not kill someone as Anne Sacoolas is alleged to have killed Harry Dunn.

    She is protected by US diplomatic immunity and unless they remove that we of course must not send Prince Andrew to the US
    Ah right he wasn't involved in a tragic accident like Sacoolas, where she stood by Dunn's side and waited for the Police and Ambulance to get there before he tragically died . . . he is only accused of raping a child instead.

    So much better to rape a minor, than to be involved in a tragic fatal accident.
    The accuser was 17, not really a child and above the age of consent here and she is still alive to tell her tale, unlike Harry Dunn.

    It was also not an accident, the CPS charged her with causing death by dangerous driving in absentia
    18 is the age of consent in New York and she was a minor. Having sex with a minor in New York is rape, no ifs and no buts about that.

    Accidents can happen even if they're by dangerous driving. You don't accidentally rape a 17 year old.
    'New York statutory rape law is violated when a person has consensual sexual intercourse with an individual under age under age 17, who they are not married to.'
    https://www.ageofconsent.net/states/new-york
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,545

    Foxy said:

    FF43 said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    People who are interested in cultures point to Al Andalus and note how much more civilised the Arabs were compared with the Europeans. Europe learnt everything from the Arabs: medicine, astronomy, navigation, philosophy, sofas, ice cream, romantic poetry, universities, castle design, irrigation...

    The Arabs learnt not one single thing from Europe. A couple of centuries later Europe was ascendant and the Arab lands a backwater from which they have never recovered.

    That's the analogy between China and the West.
    If you are suggesting that the West is Andulucia, and China Renaissance Europe, it does seem rather a stretch. China is very willing to learn from outsiders though.
    Didn't the Arabs pick up on Greek philosophy?
    Europeans learnt about Greek philosophy via the Arabs.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,275
    FF43 said:

    Foxy said:

    FF43 said:

    Foxy said:

    The legacy of 9/11 is the permanent eclipse of America. It was completely dominant in 2001, now it is approaching a failed state at war with itself, where a coup attempt is no bar to being a leading candidate for the presidency.


    Hard to disagree with this. Which is the next top superpower though?

    China is the obvious candidate but I was reflecting on this the other day. Surely the ability to invent and develop new technologies will be a big factor in deciding power structures in the years ahead.

    Can anyone think of a single significant technological invention to come out of China in the last few hundred years?

    Edit: I'm not allowing "covid-19" as an answer.
    People who are interested in cultures point to Al Andalus and note how much more civilised the Arabs were compared with the Europeans. Europe learnt everything from the Arabs: medicine, astronomy, navigation, philosophy, sofas, ice cream, romantic poetry, universities, castle design, irrigation...

    The Arabs learnt not one single thing from Europe. A couple of centuries later Europe was ascendant and the Arab lands a backwater from which they have never recovered.

    That's the analogy between China and the West.
    If you are suggesting that the West is Andulucia, and China Renaissance Europe, it does seem rather a stretch. China is very willing to learn from outsiders though.
    I am suggesting technoligical invention does not necessarily drive ascendancy, contrary to the implication of @Benpointer's question, if you have a desire to learn. China is learning lots from the West, while the West is learning nothing at all from China. Just as Europe in the Middle Ages learnt everything it subsequently knew from the Arabs, while the Arabs learnt nothing from the Europe.
    It's not the total picture with Europe in the middle ages though. Europe learnt from China at that time and also from it's own classical past.

    However, I suspect the biggest advantage Eurpoe had was the invention of the metal movable type, coupled with the fortuitous use of a simple alphabet.
This discussion has been closed.