Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
Indeed. It is mathematically near-certain other sentient life forms have evolved somewhere out there in the TRILLIONS of stars in billions of galaxies, with mega-bazillions of planets
And how would a super advanced civilisation explore its local galaxy? The same way the first super advanced Chinese or European or Pacific civilisations explored the world - they sent out expendable machines in the form of ships with crews prepared to die, on journeys from which they would probably not return, nonetheless hoping to find new realms.
For me it seems quite probable that the galaxy is swarming with AI-powered drones, near indestructible, able to survive enormously long interstellar journeys, which are busy sending back info about any life they find, to the Home Planet.
And that COULD be what we are seeing. Alien drones with "AI pilots", not alien life itself- tho at some point the difference between "intelligent life" and "AI" must be debatable, and perhaps absurd and irrelevant
I think once we're out there life, intelligent humanoid life at that, will be significantly more common than people realise and we'll realise that we're not particularly special as a species. It won't be in our lifetimes or our children's lifetimes but we will get out there one day.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
They came. They saw. They scarpered.
An advanced alien culture once noticed some interesting activity on our planet and sent a couple of its scientists here on a reconnaissance mission. They parked their spaceship somewhere inconspicuous (Hackney Marshes, I believe) and for a couple of weeks took readings and made notes. As they were packing up to go the junior of the two asked his boss 'What do you think, intelligent life or not?' The boss wasn't sure. 'The ones with brains, possibly. But the ones with bollocks, definitely not.'
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
I would say personally it's, mainly , Johnson getting to strut his stuff in Ukraine, with issues connected with possible war often tending to fracture leftwing/liberal coalitions of voters - see Starmer and his issues - and unite more rightwing ones. Don't forget also that in the first week or two after the Savile smear , the polls seemed more unchanged ; and with one or two even extending the Labour lead, AFAIK. Now partygate is off the menu for a bit.
labour vote is in free fall.
Don't be so ridiculous
3 consecutive polls at labour -4 is indicative of something is not right for labour
The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine “has been informed” that Wednesday, February 16 “will be the day of the attack”, according to comments attributed to Zelensky accompanying a Facebook update to the nation.
On a whim, my wife has unilaterally dealt with half term childcare issues by taking the three of them to Lanzarote, on her own. She's an impressive woman. Anyway, she's sending me photos. And it all looks lovely - except in all of them when they're not in a pool, they're all wearing masks. These are children - my oldest is 11. Even at our most draconian, we didn't force children to wear masks. It's jarring, occasionally, to be reminded that most of continental Europe outside of Scandinavia are still gripped by this psychosis. It was the same watching the rugby at the weekend - slightly shocking to be reminded that Italy is still under all sorts of restrictions. My emotional instinct is to feel as annoyed that foreigners are forcing my daughters to cover their faces as I would if they gone to Iran. Because they're doing it for a belief system that I simply don't recognise. My rational brain can rein that in a bit, of course. But only a bit. Anyway, I am dealing with my four days off from parental responsibility by stopping at the pub on the way home from work. I had mooched around the Northern Quarter in Manchester, but none of the bars really appealed. Then where the Northern Quarter meets some 1980s social housing which has been bypassed by gentrification, I saw a pub I'd never seen before. It's like Early Doors in here - but Early Doors in a Friday at 10.30pm scene. At 6.30, the place was packed, people were singing and everyone appeared to know each other. The average age is at least 50, there is no craft beer and hipsters have given the place a wide berth - but nowhere in the Northern Quarter are people having more fun than here.
The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine “has been informed” that Wednesday, February 16 “will be the day of the attack”, according to comments attributed to Zelensky accompanying a Facebook update to the nation.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
And how would a super advanced civilisation explore its local galaxy? The same way the first super advanced Chinese or European or Pacific civilisations explored the world - they sent out expendable machines in the form of ships with crews prepared to die, on journeys from which they would probably not return, nonetheless hoping to find new realms.
It's not that simple I'm afraid (see my post below). The comparison doesn't work.
In principle the idea that the early explorers were pioneering in much the same way we are now pioneering in space is an attractive one, quaint even. But it's poor science.
The barrier to interstellar flight remains the vastness of space and the need to travel as close as possible to the speed of light. If it's physically impossible to go faster than the speed of light then even if you get to 99.99% of 186,000 miles a second the sheer vastness of the universe (including our galaxy) makes interstellar flight a major problem.
It may be solvable but probably not by Christopher Nolan.
Labour polling down yet Starmer ratings up across the board, explain that then.
Of course it is amazing to see Tories now celebrate being five points behind, I remember how recently people said Labour was finished
In the present climate Starmer should be out of sight, and 3 consecutive polls has seen labour fall beyond moe
Not necessarily in the wake of a war. Don't we revert to familiarity in the early stages anyway.
Since Johnson dodged the Gray inquiry and speared Starmer in the process with the Saville slur and survived that, he seems to realise he is safe. He knows the Savile slur is a winner for him hence the smirking dismissal of the question earlier today.
Big Dog is saved, you should be relieved.
Edit. Don't forget on the earlier Opinium methodology Labour are still 10 ahead. R and W and YouGov are nonetheless looking good for Big Dog's team.
Labour polling down yet Starmer ratings up across the board, explain that then.
Of course it is amazing to see Tories now celebrate being five points behind, I remember how recently people said Labour was finished
In the present climate Starmer should be out of sight, and 3 consecutive polls has seen labour fall beyond moe
Not necessarily in the wake of a war. Don't we revert to familiarity in the early stages anyway.
Since Johnson dodged the Gray inquiry and speared Starmer in the process with the Saville slur and survived that, he seems to realise he is safe. He knows the Savile slur is a winner for him hence the smirking dismissal of the question earlier today.
The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine “has been informed” that Wednesday, February 16 “will be the day of the attack”, according to comments attributed to Zelensky accompanying a Facebook update to the nation.
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine “has been informed” that Wednesday, February 16 “will be the day of the attack”, according to comments attributed to Zelensky accompanying a Facebook update to the nation.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
They came. They saw. They scarpered.
It's an interesting one. I assume that there is intelligent life in the universe. I don't assume it's benign, pace Carl Sagan who famously in the Cosmos series suggested that any beings with the development to travel between the stars would be sufficiently developed to be benign.
We know that the biggest barrier to space travel is the vastness and the need, essentially, to travel close to the speed of light. But let's say that it's solvable.
Even then, this particular planet on which we exist is around 4.5 billion years old but only has experienced well developed human life for c. 2000 years? 3000 years? Shall we be more generous and say 4500 years at a hell of a stretch?
What are the chances that in a universe of c. 15 billion years age that these visitors would have managed to reach this planet of ours in that narrow time slot of 4500 years out of 4,500,000,000 years?
By my reckoning intelligent human life has been on this planet for 0.000001 % of its existence. Come too early and they meet a bunch of ravenous dinosaurs. Come too late and they meet a desolate wasteland after Vlad has pressed the red button.
Firstly, anyone who has been to the caves in Lascaux or Font-de-Gaume would recognize that clearly intelligent life has been around at least 35,000 years, not 3,000. But why are you assuming that aliens would only visit earth once, especially if they found any form of life on their first visit. And why would you assume that they have to visit in order to observe us? Your assumptions indicate that your aliens only have human-level technology, or at best, human-imaginable technology.
This is quite weak but I don't really have a lot of time to deal with it. Almost every part of this is flawed.
Let me just stick to one basic point: the idea that alien intelligent life is going to zip back and forth between our earth and Betelgeuse is fanciful.
Honestly, this isn't a pop at you but some people have watched too much science fiction pseudo-science and not looked at the physics of cosmology.
The distances are VAST. Even travel close to the speed of light doesn't enable life forms to treat it as if you're popping out to Sainsbury's.
The best hope for now for finding intelligent life in our galaxy is via advanced telescopes.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
They came. They saw. They scarpered.
It's an interesting one. I assume that there is intelligent life in the universe. I don't assume it's benign, pace Carl Sagan who famously in the Cosmos series suggested that any beings with the development to travel between the stars would be sufficiently developed to be benign.
We know that the biggest barrier to space travel is the vastness and the need, essentially, to travel close to the speed of light. But let's say that it's solvable.
Even then, this particular planet on which we exist is around 4.5 billion years old but only has experienced well developed human life for c. 2000 years? 3000 years? Shall we be more generous and say 4500 years at a hell of a stretch?
What are the chances that in a universe of c. 15 billion years age that these visitors would have managed to reach this planet of ours in that narrow time slot of 4500 years out of 4,500,000,000 years?
By my reckoning intelligent human life has been on this planet for 0.000001 % of its existence. Come too early and they meet a bunch of ravenous dinosaurs. Come too late and they meet a desolate wasteland after Vlad has pressed the red button.
Firstly, anyone who has been to the caves in Lascaux or Font-de-Gaume would recognize that clearly intelligent life has been around at least 35,000 years, not 3,000. But why are you assuming that aliens would only visit earth once, especially if they found any form of life on their first visit. And why would you assume that they have to visit in order to observe us? Your assumptions indicate that your aliens only have human-level technology, or at best, human-imaginable technology.
This is quite weak but I don't really have a lot of time to deal with it. Almost every part of this is flawed.
Let me just stick to one basic point: the idea that alien intelligent life is going to zip back and forth between our earth and Betelgeuse is fanciful.
Honestly, this isn't a pop at you but some people have watched too much science fiction pseudo-science and not looked at the physics of cosmology.
The distances are VAST. Even travel close to the speed of light doesn't enable life forms to treat it as if you're popping out to Sainsbury's.
The best hope for now for finding intelligent life in our galaxy is via advanced telescopes.
I'm not a physicist. But - wouldn't the image in a telescope travel at the speed of light as well?
Four years to the next nearest solar system, if memory serves.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
It feels like we're alone, though, doesn't it?
Said every teenager, ever.
Exactly! No-one is more purely perceptive than a teenager. The more you move away from the age of 15 the more cluttered up you get.
I have to admit to being a fan of Russian spokespeople. A great dry sense of humour (which the Russians are famous for anyway) but it does make some of those who interview them sound rather leaden footed
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
It feels like we're alone, though, doesn't it?
A common feeling in primitive but intelligent species
Plenty of isolated Pacific, Amazonian and oceanic insular tribes have believed they were essentially alone (apart from Gods and spirits - possibly, tellingly, folklore derived from glimpses of other humans). Even quite advanced civilisations like the Aztecs of MesoAmerica thought Mexico was basically IT, and were culturally shattered by the arrival of Spanish galleons
Check out Contact Art drawn by remote Aboriginals on the rocks and barks of north Australia - in Kakadu and Arnhemland, or Garig Ganak Barlu (I've been there, and boy, you do feel alone). They painted technology they could not possibly comprehend, and they did it with great skill and sadness, as if they could foresee their impending destruction. they were right. Immensely moving
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
I would say personally it's, mainly , Johnson getting to strut his stuff in Ukraine, with issues connected with possible war often tending to fracture leftwing/liberal coalitions of voters - see Starmer and his issues - and unite more rightwing ones. Don't forget also that in the first week or two after the Savile smear , the polls seemed more unchanged ; and with one or two even extending the Labour lead, AFAIK. Now partygate is off the menu for a bit.
But is it not understood, it takes that fortnight for stories to work their way into the polling. The afternoon Boris flagged this up, it was just a Westminster bubble thing, the last few weeks just about everyone has heard the claim.
Also the trend isn’t much of a Conservative or Boris recovery - the trend is a marginally up Conservative vote whilst Labour vote is collapsing.
Also Boris and his government don’t sound remotely convincing over Ukraine, starting to take incoming from their own benches now after the bad week UK government had last week on Ukraine. Maybe that is because they made such a pigs ear of Afghanistan. Or maybe it’s just Boris hated not trusted each time he speaks now, everyone would prefer Rishi Sunak and and Ben Wallace managing the Ukraine crisis rather than 🛒 and 🥜
But as far as we can see polling trend here, Conservatives not recovering much whilst labour vote is in free fall.
Hm, I personally would say the Tories consolidating, and the left-of-centre always in double trouble on war issues - criticised from the left for being too compromised on issues of peace, and under a cloud of doubt as the not most reliable option in a war situation, from the right. That would also tally with a greater loss than Tory gain, to my mind, because I think there are fewer primarily militarily and strategically than peace-minded Labour voters.
So what is the Conservative governments message and policies regarding Ukraine? Send anti tank weapons, call for restraint from the Russians whilst threatening the Russian people with sanctions and hardship?
If you are standing shoulder to shoulder with someone who is about to be invaded because of stated aim of joining NATO and the EU, surely you Should be their advocate for fast track membership of NATO? Surely if you are going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rights of a Nation to remain democratic and Sovereign, you threaten the invader with a no fly zone?
Truth is, there is nothing in this governments stance and rhetoric the Labour front bench will have any problem endorsing or voting for.
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
The DfE don't require masks in schools. The advice on unis was separate and I don't think it's been withdrawn.
Mask wearing has more or less vanished in my school.
Edit - my mistake, the guidance was withdrawn for unis on the 27th January
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
They came. They saw. They scarpered.
It's an interesting one. I assume that there is intelligent life in the universe. I don't assume it's benign, pace Carl Sagan who famously in the Cosmos series suggested that any beings with the development to travel between the stars would be sufficiently developed to be benign.
We know that the biggest barrier to space travel is the vastness and the need, essentially, to travel close to the speed of light. But let's say that it's solvable.
Even then, this particular planet on which we exist is around 4.5 billion years old but only has experienced well developed human life for c. 2000 years? 3000 years? Shall we be more generous and say 4500 years at a hell of a stretch?
What are the chances that in a universe of c. 15 billion years age that these visitors would have managed to reach this planet of ours in that narrow time slot of 4500 years out of 4,500,000,000 years?
By my reckoning intelligent human life has been on this planet for 0.000001 % of its existence. Come too early and they meet a bunch of ravenous dinosaurs. Come too late and they meet a desolate wasteland after Vlad has pressed the red button.
Firstly, anyone who has been to the caves in Lascaux or Font-de-Gaume would recognize that clearly intelligent life has been around at least 35,000 years, not 3,000. But why are you assuming that aliens would only visit earth once, especially if they found any form of life on their first visit. And why would you assume that they have to visit in order to observe us? Your assumptions indicate that your aliens only have human-level technology, or at best, human-imaginable technology.
This is quite weak but I don't really have a lot of time to deal with it. Almost every part of this is flawed.
Let me just stick to one basic point: the idea that alien intelligent life is going to zip back and forth between our earth and Betelgeuse is fanciful.
Honestly, this isn't a pop at you but some people have watched too much science fiction pseudo-science and not looked at the physics of cosmology.
The distances are VAST. Even travel close to the speed of light doesn't enable life forms to treat it as if you're popping out to Sainsbury's.
The best hope for now for finding intelligent life in our galaxy is via advanced telescopes.
I'm not a physicist. But - wouldn't the image in a telescope travel at the speed of light as well?
Four years to the next nearest solar system, if memory serves.
Radio telescopes are really useful in this regard and the James Webb in terms of the infrared spectrum (though less about finding alien life). There are several other amazing telescopes in development across all spectrums of light and sound.
But on your point, yes and no. Yes you're right. Light takes that long to reach us. But the good thing about that is that we don't have to take that long to receive it. Anything emitted, say, 1 million years ago (a speck in the time of the universe) might reach us today. Of course, we wouldn't be able to transmit back but we'd be able to know the intelligent life was there.
On a whim, my wife has unilaterally dealt with half term childcare issues by taking the three of them to Lanzarote, on her own. She's an impressive woman. Anyway, she's sending me photos. And it all looks lovely - except in all of them when they're not in a pool, they're all wearing masks. These are children - my oldest is 11. Even at our most draconian, we didn't force children to wear masks. It's jarring, occasionally, to be reminded that most of continental Europe outside of Scandinavia are still gripped by this psychosis. It was the same watching the rugby at the weekend - slightly shocking to be reminded that Italy is still under all sorts of restrictions. My emotional instinct is to feel as annoyed that foreigners are forcing my daughters to cover their faces as I would if they gone to Iran. Because they're doing it for a belief system that I simply don't recognise. My rational brain can rein that in a bit, of course. But only a bit. Anyway, I am dealing with my four days off from parental responsibility by stopping at the pub on the way home from work. I had mooched around the Northern Quarter in Manchester, but none of the bars really appealed. Then where the Northern Quarter meets some 1980s social housing which has been bypassed by gentrification, I saw a pub I'd never seen before. It's like Early Doors in here - but Early Doors in a Friday at 10.30pm scene. At 6.30, the place was packed, people were singing and everyone appeared to know each other. The average age is at least 50, there is no craft beer and hipsters have given the place a wide berth - but nowhere in the Northern Quarter are people having more fun than here.
Karaoke now well underway. Elvis featuring heavily.
The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine “has been informed” that Wednesday, February 16 “will be the day of the attack”, according to comments attributed to Zelensky accompanying a Facebook update to the nation.
By whom? Surely even Lavrov isn't dense enough to send through the day of the false flag operation to the enemy in advance?
If there is a war, I suspect that it will be mainly conducted in cyberspace. Perhaps the widespread (and unexplained) electricity blackout over much of North London and Hertfordshire last night was a first skirmish.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
I have been informed that the uni’s approach has come from above and also have evidence from another uni of the same message. It is couched as advice, but it’s definitely coming from somewhere.
I have to admit to being a fan of Russian spokespeople. A great dry sense of humour (which the Russians are famous for anyway) but it does make some of those who interview them sound rather leaden footed
I enjoyed the former Ukrainian defence minister on C4 news. "They are going to die"
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
And how would a super advanced civilisation explore its local galaxy? The same way the first super advanced Chinese or European or Pacific civilisations explored the world - they sent out expendable machines in the form of ships with crews prepared to die, on journeys from which they would probably not return, nonetheless hoping to find new realms.
It's not that simple I'm afraid (see my post below). The comparison doesn't work.
In principle the idea that the early explorers were pioneering in much the same way we are now pioneering in space is an attractive one, quaint even. But it's poor science.
The barrier to interstellar flight remains the vastness of space and the need to travel as close as possible to the speed of light. If it's physically impossible to go faster than the speed of light then even if you get to 99.99% of 186,000 miles a second the sheer vastness of the universe (including our galaxy) makes interstellar flight a major problem.
It may be solvable but probably not by Christopher Nolan.
But it is what we have done, even in our own primitive way. Our first space probes have already gone beyond the edge of the solar system, and are right now sailing into deep space
The universe is at least 15 billion years old (possibly trillions, and it is possibly one of trillions of multiverse universes all interacting, etc etc). From what we can see of life on earth -all life shares one telling characteristic. It seeks to go forth and multiply. It is compelled to explore, and expand
It feels like a universal rule. We can therefore expect to be visited, at least by machines. Maybe via wormholes! Yay wormholes
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
With me it's a mixture of conformity (a much underrated quality) and having got used to wearing one in the supermarket. I reckon I'll keep with it until it drops below 60% - then I might start going commando again.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
And how would a super advanced civilisation explore its local galaxy? The same way the first super advanced Chinese or European or Pacific civilisations explored the world - they sent out expendable machines in the form of ships with crews prepared to die, on journeys from which they would probably not return, nonetheless hoping to find new realms.
Von Neumann machines. Unless FTL travel turns out to be possible and cheap.
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
I would say personally it's, mainly , Johnson getting to strut his stuff in Ukraine, with issues connected with possible war often tending to fracture leftwing/liberal coalitions of voters - see Starmer and his issues - and unite more rightwing ones. Don't forget also that in the first week or two after the Savile smear , the polls seemed more unchanged ; and with one or two even extending the Labour lead, AFAIK. Now partygate is off the menu for a bit.
But is it not understood, it takes that fortnight for stories to work their way into the polling. The afternoon Boris flagged this up, it was just a Westminster bubble thing, the last few weeks just about everyone has heard the claim.
Also the trend isn’t much of a Conservative or Boris recovery - the trend is a marginally up Conservative vote whilst Labour vote is collapsing.
Also Boris and his government don’t sound remotely convincing over Ukraine, starting to take incoming from their own benches now after the bad week UK government had last week on Ukraine. Maybe that is because they made such a pigs ear of Afghanistan. Or maybe it’s just Boris hated not trusted each time he speaks now, everyone would prefer Rishi Sunak and and Ben Wallace managing the Ukraine crisis rather than 🛒 and 🥜
But as far as we can see polling trend here, Conservatives not recovering much whilst labour vote is in free fall.
Hm, I personally would say the Tories consolidating, and the left-of-centre always in double trouble on war issues - criticised from the left for being too compromised on issues of peace, and under a cloud of doubt as the not most reliable option in a war situation, from the right. That would also tally with a greater loss than Tory gain, to my mind, because I think there are fewer primarily militarily and strategically than peace-minded Labour voters.
So what is the Conservative governments message and policies regarding Ukraine? Send anti tank weapons, call for restraint from the Russians whilst threatening the Russian people with sanctions and hardship?
If you are standing shoulder to shoulder with someone who is about to be invaded because of stated aim of joining NATO and the EU, surely you Should be their advocate for fast track membership of NATO? Surely if you are going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rights of a Nation to remain democratic and Sovereign, you threaten the invader with a no fly zone?
Truth is, there is nothing in this governments stance and rhetoric the Labour front bench will have any problem endorsing or voting for.
I personally wouldn't support a no-fly zone. Quite a high risk of escalation, and this isn't Saddam we're talking about, dont't forget.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
They came. They saw. They scarpered.
It's an interesting one. I assume that there is intelligent life in the universe. I don't assume it's benign, pace Carl Sagan who famously in the Cosmos series suggested that any beings with the development to travel between the stars would be sufficiently developed to be benign.
We know that the biggest barrier to space travel is the vastness and the need, essentially, to travel close to the speed of light. But let's say that it's solvable.
Even then, this particular planet on which we exist is around 4.5 billion years old but only has experienced well developed human life for c. 2000 years? 3000 years? Shall we be more generous and say 4500 years at a hell of a stretch?
What are the chances that in a universe of c. 15 billion years age that these visitors would have managed to reach this planet of ours in that narrow time slot of 4500 years out of 4,500,000,000 years?
By my reckoning intelligent human life has been on this planet for 0.000001 % of its existence. Come too early and they meet a bunch of ravenous dinosaurs. Come too late and they meet a desolate wasteland after Vlad has pressed the red button.
Firstly, anyone who has been to the caves in Lascaux or Font-de-Gaume would recognize that clearly intelligent life has been around at least 35,000 years, not 3,000. But why are you assuming that aliens would only visit earth once, especially if they found any form of life on their first visit. And why would you assume that they have to visit in order to observe us? Your assumptions indicate that your aliens only have human-level technology, or at best, human-imaginable technology.
They aren't constrained by human level tech, but they are constrained by the laws of physics. Places in space are... far apart.
On a whim, my wife has unilaterally dealt with half term childcare issues by taking the three of them to Lanzarote, on her own. She's an impressive woman. Anyway, she's sending me photos. And it all looks lovely - except in all of them when they're not in a pool, they're all wearing masks. These are children - my oldest is 11. Even at our most draconian, we didn't force children to wear masks. It's jarring, occasionally, to be reminded that most of continental Europe outside of Scandinavia are still gripped by this psychosis. It was the same watching the rugby at the weekend - slightly shocking to be reminded that Italy is still under all sorts of restrictions. My emotional instinct is to feel as annoyed that foreigners are forcing my daughters to cover their faces as I would if they gone to Iran. Because they're doing it for a belief system that I simply don't recognise. My rational brain can rein that in a bit, of course. But only a bit. Anyway, I am dealing with my four days off from parental responsibility by stopping at the pub on the way home from work. I had mooched around the Northern Quarter in Manchester, but none of the bars really appealed. Then where the Northern Quarter meets some 1980s social housing which has been bypassed by gentrification, I saw a pub I'd never seen before. It's like Early Doors in here - but Early Doors in a Friday at 10.30pm scene. At 6.30, the place was packed, people were singing and everyone appeared to know each other. The average age is at least 50, there is no craft beer and hipsters have given the place a wide berth - but nowhere in the Northern Quarter are people having more fun than here.
Karaoke now well underway. Elvis featuring heavily.
I see why the hipsters have given it a wide berth...
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
I would say personally it's, mainly , Johnson getting to strut his stuff in Ukraine, with issues connected with possible war often tending to fracture leftwing/liberal coalitions of voters - see Starmer and his issues - and unite more rightwing ones. Don't forget also that in the first week or two after the Savile smear , the polls seemed more unchanged ; and with one or two even extending the Labour lead, AFAIK. Now partygate is off the menu for a bit.
But is it not understood, it takes that fortnight for stories to work their way into the polling. The afternoon Boris flagged this up, it was just a Westminster bubble thing, the last few weeks just about everyone has heard the claim.
Also the trend isn’t much of a Conservative or Boris recovery - the trend is a marginally up Conservative vote whilst Labour vote is collapsing.
Also Boris and his government don’t sound remotely convincing over Ukraine, starting to take incoming from their own benches now after the bad week UK government had last week on Ukraine. Maybe that is because they made such a pigs ear of Afghanistan. Or maybe it’s just Boris hated not trusted each time he speaks now, everyone would prefer Rishi Sunak and and Ben Wallace managing the Ukraine crisis rather than 🛒 and 🥜
But as far as we can see polling trend here, Conservatives not recovering much whilst labour vote is in free fall.
Hm, I personally would say the Tories consolidating, and the left-of-centre always in double trouble on war issues - criticised from the left for being too compromised on issues of peace, and under a cloud of doubt as the not most reliable option in a war situation, from the right. That would also tally with a greater loss than Tory gain, to my mind, because I think there are fewer primarily militarily and strategically than peace-minded Labour voters.
So what is the Conservative governments message and policies regarding Ukraine? Send anti tank weapons, call for restraint from the Russians whilst threatening the Russian people with sanctions and hardship?
If you are standing shoulder to shoulder with someone who is about to be invaded because of stated aim of joining NATO and the EU, surely you Should be their advocate for fast track membership of NATO? Surely if you are going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rights of a Nation to remain democratic and Sovereign, you threaten the invader with a no fly zone?
Truth is, there is nothing in this governments stance and rhetoric the Labour front bench will have any problem endorsing or voting for.
I personally wouldn't support a no-fly zone. Quite a high risk of escalation, and this isn't Saddam we're talking about, dont't forget.
What would be the point of a no-fly zone? Haven't drones largely rendered that idea obsolete anyway?
Labour polling down yet Starmer ratings up across the board, explain that then.
Of course it is amazing to see Tories now celebrate being five points behind, I remember how recently people said Labour was finished
In the present climate Starmer should be out of sight, and 3 consecutive polls has seen labour fall beyond moe
Not necessarily in the wake of a war. Don't we revert to familiarity in the early stages anyway.
Since Johnson dodged the Gray inquiry and speared Starmer in the process with the Saville slur and survived that, he seems to realise he is safe. He knows the Savile slur is a winner for him hence the smirking dismissal of the question earlier today.
Big Dog is saved, you should be relieved.
Starmer should.
Maybe Johnson will develop into the great Churchillian Statesman he so desires to emulate. Cometh the hour cometh the Big Dog?
The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine “has been informed” that Wednesday, February 16 “will be the day of the attack”, according to comments attributed to Zelensky accompanying a Facebook update to the nation.
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
I would say personally it's, mainly , Johnson getting to strut his stuff in Ukraine, with issues connected with possible war often tending to fracture leftwing/liberal coalitions of voters - see Starmer and his issues - and unite more rightwing ones. Don't forget also that in the first week or two after the Savile smear , the polls seemed more unchanged ; and with one or two even extending the Labour lead, AFAIK. Now partygate is off the menu for a bit.
But is it not understood, it takes that fortnight for stories to work their way into the polling. The afternoon Boris flagged this up, it was just a Westminster bubble thing, the last few weeks just about everyone has heard the claim.
Also the trend isn’t much of a Conservative or Boris recovery - the trend is a marginally up Conservative vote whilst Labour vote is collapsing.
Also Boris and his government don’t sound remotely convincing over Ukraine, starting to take incoming from their own benches now after the bad week UK government had last week on Ukraine. Maybe that is because they made such a pigs ear of Afghanistan. Or maybe it’s just Boris hated not trusted each time he speaks now, everyone would prefer Rishi Sunak and and Ben Wallace managing the Ukraine crisis rather than 🛒 and 🥜
But as far as we can see polling trend here, Conservatives not recovering much whilst labour vote is in free fall.
Hm, I personally would say the Tories consolidating, and the left-of-centre always in double trouble on war issues - criticised from the left for being too compromised on issues of peace, and under a cloud of doubt as the not most reliable option in a war situation, from the right. That would also tally with a greater loss than Tory gain, to my mind, because I think there are fewer primarily militarily and strategically than peace-minded Labour voters.
So what is the Conservative governments message and policies regarding Ukraine? Send anti tank weapons, call for restraint from the Russians whilst threatening the Russian people with sanctions and hardship?
If you are standing shoulder to shoulder with someone who is about to be invaded because of stated aim of joining NATO and the EU, surely you Should be their advocate for fast track membership of NATO? Surely if you are going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rights of a Nation to remain democratic and Sovereign, you threaten the invader with a no fly zone?
Truth is, there is nothing in this governments stance and rhetoric the Labour front bench will have any problem endorsing or voting for.
I personally wouldn't support a no-fly zone. Quite a high risk of escalation, and this isn't Saddam we're talking about, dont't forget.
It is a very different war without air superiority, and at the very least contested air.
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
Mask use anecdote in the big Teso at Gorton - low.
Perhaps more worryingly there was no fuel at the pumps this morning... it was £1.459 for diesel though which is as cheap as I've seen fuel anywhere except Costco.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
It feels like we're alone, though, doesn't it?
A common feeling in primitive but intelligent species
Plenty of isolated Pacific, Amazonian and oceanic insular tribes have believed they were essentially alone (apart from Gods and spirits - possibly, tellingly, folklore derived from glimpses of other humans). Even quite advanced civilisations like the Aztecs of MesoAmerica thought Mexico was basically IT, and were culturally shattered by the arrival of Spanish galleons
Check out Contact Art drawn by remote Aboriginals on the rocks and barks of north Australia - in Kakadu and Arnhemland, or Garig Ganak Barlu (I've been there, and boy, you do feel alone). They painted technology they could not possibly comprehend, and they did it with great skill and sadness, as if they could foresee their impending destruction. they were right. Immensely moving
It's immensely moving and indeed mindblowing either way. Alone is immensely moving and mindblowing, not alone is immensely moving and mindblowing. Best, therefore, to only think about in a limited and highly controlled way. Have a box, bring it out now and again, open the lid, have a quick look and a ponder, then slam the lid and phone somebody bluff and reassuringly grounded.
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
With me it's a mixture of conformity (a much underrated quality) and having got used to wearing one in the supermarket. I reckon I'll keep with it until it drops below 60% - then I might start going commando again.
I didn't think I'd be the first to demask. I thought thr balance between wanting to demask and wanting to conform would see me demasking when about 30% of others were doing so.
I was quite surprised that my level was about 5%. If there was one other person unmasked then I would unmask too.
I don't want to make people uncomfortable or worried. But if people are only waiting for me to unmask before doing so, then I don't mind sticking out.
The key point to be aware of with the will-they-won't-they Russian invasion is that absolutely no-one will jump to Ukraine's aid if Russia does invade. Everyone knows this. The West's options are to sanction Russia after the fact, such that Russia ends up as Iran Mark II. (I note Iran's GDP per head is half what it was in the seventies).
The question now is whether there is value in the West doing a deal with Russia that accepts Russia will continue to destabilise Ukraine, but stops short of actual invasion. The West might be interested in such a deal because it doesn't want to apply severe sanctions on Russia. They hurt the West too and they are one shot leaving it with no further leverage. The outcome will be bad for Ukraine under all circumstances but this way they may avoid total annihilation.
There is a lot of risk with attempting a deal: Putin may overplay his hand, demand more than the West is prepared to offer, forcing him into a corner. The West could agree a deal with Putin, only for him to renege, which doesn't do anything for its credibility. Finally if there is a deal it rewards Russian aggression, which is not a good pattern.
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
I would say personally it's, mainly , Johnson getting to strut his stuff in Ukraine, with issues connected with possible war often tending to fracture leftwing/liberal coalitions of voters - see Starmer and his issues - and unite more rightwing ones. Don't forget also that in the first week or two after the Savile smear , the polls seemed more unchanged ; and with one or two even extending the Labour lead, AFAIK. Now partygate is off the menu for a bit.
But is it not understood, it takes that fortnight for stories to work their way into the polling. The afternoon Boris flagged this up, it was just a Westminster bubble thing, the last few weeks just about everyone has heard the claim.
Also the trend isn’t much of a Conservative or Boris recovery - the trend is a marginally up Conservative vote whilst Labour vote is collapsing.
Also Boris and his government don’t sound remotely convincing over Ukraine, starting to take incoming from their own benches now after the bad week UK government had last week on Ukraine. Maybe that is because they made such a pigs ear of Afghanistan. Or maybe it’s just Boris hated not trusted each time he speaks now, everyone would prefer Rishi Sunak and and Ben Wallace managing the Ukraine crisis rather than 🛒 and 🥜
But as far as we can see polling trend here, Conservatives not recovering much whilst labour vote is in free fall.
Hm, I personally would say the Tories consolidating, and the left-of-centre always in double trouble on war issues - criticised from the left for being too compromised on issues of peace, and under a cloud of doubt as the not most reliable option in a war situation, from the right. That would also tally with a greater loss than Tory gain, to my mind, because I think there are fewer primarily militarily and strategically than peace-minded Labour voters.
So what is the Conservative governments message and policies regarding Ukraine? Send anti tank weapons, call for restraint from the Russians whilst threatening the Russian people with sanctions and hardship?
If you are standing shoulder to shoulder with someone who is about to be invaded because of stated aim of joining NATO and the EU, surely you Should be their advocate for fast track membership of NATO? Surely if you are going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rights of a Nation to remain democratic and Sovereign, you threaten the invader with a no fly zone?
Truth is, there is nothing in this governments stance and rhetoric the Labour front bench will have any problem endorsing or voting for.
I personally wouldn't support a no-fly zone. Quite a high risk of escalation, and this isn't Saddam we're talking about, dont't forget.
It is a very different war without air superiority, and at the very least contested air.
The West itself shooting down Russian aircraft, even unmanned, could take us further than the Cuban missile crisis in this situation, I would say. I'm sure that military planners know that, which is why it isn't really being raised.
On a whim, my wife has unilaterally dealt with half term childcare issues by taking the three of them to Lanzarote, on her own. She's an impressive woman. Anyway, she's sending me photos. And it all looks lovely - except in all of them when they're not in a pool, they're all wearing masks. These are children - my oldest is 11. Even at our most draconian, we didn't force children to wear masks. It's jarring, occasionally, to be reminded that most of continental Europe outside of Scandinavia are still gripped by this psychosis. It was the same watching the rugby at the weekend - slightly shocking to be reminded that Italy is still under all sorts of restrictions. My emotional instinct is to feel as annoyed that foreigners are forcing my daughters to cover their faces as I would if they gone to Iran. Because they're doing it for a belief system that I simply don't recognise. My rational brain can rein that in a bit, of course. But only a bit. Anyway, I am dealing with my four days off from parental responsibility by stopping at the pub on the way home from work. I had mooched around the Northern Quarter in Manchester, but none of the bars really appealed. Then where the Northern Quarter meets some 1980s social housing which has been bypassed by gentrification, I saw a pub I'd never seen before. It's like Early Doors in here - but Early Doors in a Friday at 10.30pm scene. At 6.30, the place was packed, people were singing and everyone appeared to know each other. The average age is at least 50, there is no craft beer and hipsters have given the place a wide berth - but nowhere in the Northern Quarter are people having more fun than here.
Karaoke now well underway. Elvis featuring heavily.
I see why the hipsters have given it a wide berth...
The guy doing karaoke is wearing a high-vis coat. This is the least hipster place in the Northern Quarter. Consequently, you have actual conversations with other customers. None of them necessarily make sense, but that's a secondary issue.
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
Mask use anecdote in the big Teso at Gorton - low.
Perhaps more worryingly there was no fuel at the pumps this morning... it was £1.459 for diesel though which is as cheap as I've seen fuel anywhere except Costco.
The Tesco nearest me was tomato-less today with ongoing shortages. Is that still the Brexit related driver shortage?
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
Mask use anecdote in the big Teso at Gorton - low.
Perhaps more worryingly there was no fuel at the pumps this morning... it was £1.459 for diesel though which is as cheap as I've seen fuel anywhere except Costco.
The Tesco nearest me was tomato-less today with ongoing shortages. Is that still the Brexit related driver shortage?
No. The PB Tories in the morning thread assured me that Brexit is a success...
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
Mask use anecdote in the big Teso at Gorton - low.
Perhaps more worryingly there was no fuel at the pumps this morning... it was £1.459 for diesel though which is as cheap as I've seen fuel anywhere except Costco.
The Tesco nearest me was tomato-less today with ongoing shortages. Is that still the Brexit related driver shortage?
Now you mention it, there were a couple of gaps on Sainsbury's shelves but I thought maybe it was due to Valentine's Day moving stock around or something.
#BREAKING: Russian units have left their assembly areas and begun to move into attack positions. Some long-range artillery and rocket launchers have also been moved into firing positions- US official to @CBSNews reports
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
With me it's a mixture of conformity (a much underrated quality) and having got used to wearing one in the supermarket. I reckon I'll keep with it until it drops below 60% - then I might start going commando again.
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
Mask use anecdote in the big Teso at Gorton - low.
Perhaps more worryingly there was no fuel at the pumps this morning... it was £1.459 for diesel though which is as cheap as I've seen fuel anywhere except Costco.
I don't think I knew you were in Manchester Pulpstar.
Maybe the price is why there was no fuel. I haven’t seen any shortages anywhere else.
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
That supports my view of the situation. There is a solid majority against many of the policies espoused by labour activists and as national policy under Corbyn. Starmer has signalled a retreat but hasn't reassured sufficiently (yet) and may never do so. I suspect that more of BoJo's disgraceful antics and the likely economic problems would swing more votes to Labour. However, Labour are strongly running against the ideological "grain" of the majority at present and are more than capable of losing the next election which an opposition should really be strong favourites to win.
"Ideological grain" is a good term. I'm as sure as needs be that this photo will be memed for the election campaign:
Excellent news, Isam's back!
Are you still ok with our £300/£100 bet on Starmer PM after the GE? I do hope so.
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
Interesting because the two shops are only a few minutes walk apart from each other. I used to shop in them both.
What is the mask compliance like in the rest of Sale?
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
Mask use anecdote in the big Teso at Gorton - low.
Perhaps more worryingly there was no fuel at the pumps this morning... it was £1.459 for diesel though which is as cheap as I've seen fuel anywhere except Costco.
The Tesco nearest me was tomato-less today with ongoing shortages. Is that still the Brexit related driver shortage?
Now you mention it, there were a couple of gaps on Sainsbury's shelves but I thought maybe it was due to Valentine's Day moving stock around or something.
Unless we are all giving romantic packs of tomatoes for Valentines, I don't think so. Normally there are a dozen varieties in that supermarket.
On a whim, my wife has unilaterally dealt with half term childcare issues by taking the three of them to Lanzarote, on her own. She's an impressive woman. Anyway, she's sending me photos. And it all looks lovely - except in all of them when they're not in a pool, they're all wearing masks. These are children - my oldest is 11. Even at our most draconian, we didn't force children to wear masks. It's jarring, occasionally, to be reminded that most of continental Europe outside of Scandinavia are still gripped by this psychosis. It was the same watching the rugby at the weekend - slightly shocking to be reminded that Italy is still under all sorts of restrictions. My emotional instinct is to feel as annoyed that foreigners are forcing my daughters to cover their faces as I would if they gone to Iran. Because they're doing it for a belief system that I simply don't recognise. My rational brain can rein that in a bit, of course. But only a bit. Anyway, I am dealing with my four days off from parental responsibility by stopping at the pub on the way home from work. I had mooched around the Northern Quarter in Manchester, but none of the bars really appealed. Then where the Northern Quarter meets some 1980s social housing which has been bypassed by gentrification, I saw a pub I'd never seen before. It's like Early Doors in here - but Early Doors in a Friday at 10.30pm scene. At 6.30, the place was packed, people were singing and everyone appeared to know each other. The average age is at least 50, there is no craft beer and hipsters have given the place a wide berth - but nowhere in the Northern Quarter are people having more fun than here.
Karaoke now well underway. Elvis featuring heavily.
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
I would say personally it's, mainly , Johnson getting to strut his stuff in Ukraine, with issues connected with possible war often tending to fracture leftwing/liberal coalitions of voters - see Starmer and his issues - and unite more rightwing ones. Don't forget also that in the first week or two after the Savile smear , the polls seemed more unchanged ; and with one or two even extending the Labour lead, AFAIK. Now partygate is off the menu for a bit.
But is it not understood, it takes that fortnight for stories to work their way into the polling. The afternoon Boris flagged this up, it was just a Westminster bubble thing, the last few weeks just about everyone has heard the claim.
Also the trend isn’t much of a Conservative or Boris recovery - the trend is a marginally up Conservative vote whilst Labour vote is collapsing.
Also Boris and his government don’t sound remotely convincing over Ukraine, starting to take incoming from their own benches now after the bad week UK government had last week on Ukraine. Maybe that is because they made such a pigs ear of Afghanistan. Or maybe it’s just Boris hated not trusted each time he speaks now, everyone would prefer Rishi Sunak and and Ben Wallace managing the Ukraine crisis rather than 🛒 and 🥜
But as far as we can see polling trend here, Conservatives not recovering much whilst labour vote is in free fall.
Hm, I personally would say the Tories consolidating, and the left-of-centre always in double trouble on war issues - criticised from the left for being too compromised on issues of peace, and under a cloud of doubt as the not most reliable option in a war situation, from the right. That would also tally with a greater loss than Tory gain, to my mind, because I think there are fewer primarily militarily and strategically than peace-minded Labour voters.
So what is the Conservative governments message and policies regarding Ukraine? Send anti tank weapons, call for restraint from the Russians whilst threatening the Russian people with sanctions and hardship?
If you are standing shoulder to shoulder with someone who is about to be invaded because of stated aim of joining NATO and the EU, surely you Should be their advocate for fast track membership of NATO? Surely if you are going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rights of a Nation to remain democratic and Sovereign, you threaten the invader with a no fly zone?
Truth is, there is nothing in this governments stance and rhetoric the Labour front bench will have any problem endorsing or voting for.
I personally wouldn't support a no-fly zone. Quite a high risk of escalation, and this isn't Saddam we're talking about, dont't forget.
It is a very different war without air superiority, and at the very least contested air.
The West itself shooting down Russian aircraft, even unmanned, could take us further than the Cuban missile crisis in this situation, I would say. I'm sure that military planners know that, which is why it isn't really being raised.
Exactly, Ukraine is a non NATO nation and if Russia invades it will be economic sanctions only from the West
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
Mask use anecdote in the big Teso at Gorton - low.
Perhaps more worryingly there was no fuel at the pumps this morning... it was £1.459 for diesel though which is as cheap as I've seen fuel anywhere except Costco.
The Tesco nearest me was tomato-less today with ongoing shortages. Is that still the Brexit related driver shortage?
No. The PB Tories in the morning thread assured me that Brexit is a success...
Starmer seems to think so as he declared today labour will not rejoin the EU
The key point to be aware of with the will-they-won't-they Russian invasion is that absolutely no-one will jump to Ukraine's aid if Russia does invade. Everyone knows this. The West's options are to sanction Russia after the fact, such that Russia ends up as Iran Mark II. (I note Iran's GDP per head is half what it was in the seventies).
The question now is whether there is value in the West doing a deal with Russia that accepts Russia will continue to destabilise Ukraine, but stops short of actual invasion. The West might be interested in such a deal because it doesn't want to apply severe sanctions on Russia. They hurt the West too and they are one shot leaving it with no further leverage. The outcome will be bad for Ukraine under all circumstances but this way they may avoid total annihilation.
There is a lot of risk with attempting a deal: Putin may overplay his hand, demand more than the West is prepared to offer, forcing him into a corner. The West could agree a deal with Putin, only for him to renege, which doesn't do anything for its credibility. Finally if there is a deal it rewards Russian aggression, which is not a good pattern.
Why would anyone do a deal with somebody who has repeatedly demonstrated he thinks rules and laws apply to other people?
The comparisons with Hitler are more than a little overblown, but in one respect they are similar - Hitler didn't care about rules and agreements. He did whatever suited him, often improvising impulsively as he felt like it. So does Putin.
If we signed a treaty with him that agreed he could have the land around the Sea of Azov in exchange for being nice to the Ukraine in future, in six months he'll be after Odessa.
So it would be foolish to do a deal. Just punish him as far as can be. It wouldn't be that difficult to freeze his banking system harder than Molotov's smile.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
Indeed. It is mathematically near-certain other sentient life forms have evolved somewhere out there in the TRILLIONS of stars in billions of galaxies, with mega-bazillions of planets
And how would a super advanced civilisation explore its local galaxy? The same way the first super advanced Chinese or European or Pacific civilisations explored the world - they sent out expendable machines in the form of ships with crews prepared to die, on journeys from which they would probably not return, nonetheless hoping to find new realms.
For me it seems quite probable that the galaxy is swarming with AI-powered drones, near indestructible, able to survive enormously long interstellar journeys, which are busy sending back info about any life they find, to the Home Planet.
And that COULD be what we are seeing. Alien drones with "AI pilots", not alien life itself- tho at some point the difference between "intelligent life" and "AI" must be debatable, and perhaps absurd and irrelevant
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
I would say personally it's, mainly , Johnson getting to strut his stuff in Ukraine, with issues connected with possible war often tending to fracture leftwing/liberal coalitions of voters - see Starmer and his issues - and unite more rightwing ones. Don't forget also that in the first week or two after the Savile smear , the polls seemed more unchanged ; and with one or two even extending the Labour lead, AFAIK. Now partygate is off the menu for a bit.
But is it not understood, it takes that fortnight for stories to work their way into the polling. The afternoon Boris flagged this up, it was just a Westminster bubble thing, the last few weeks just about everyone has heard the claim.
Also the trend isn’t much of a Conservative or Boris recovery - the trend is a marginally up Conservative vote whilst Labour vote is collapsing.
Also Boris and his government don’t sound remotely convincing over Ukraine, starting to take incoming from their own benches now after the bad week UK government had last week on Ukraine. Maybe that is because they made such a pigs ear of Afghanistan. Or maybe it’s just Boris hated not trusted each time he speaks now, everyone would prefer Rishi Sunak and and Ben Wallace managing the Ukraine crisis rather than 🛒 and 🥜
But as far as we can see polling trend here, Conservatives not recovering much whilst labour vote is in free fall.
Hm, I personally would say the Tories consolidating, and the left-of-centre always in double trouble on war issues - criticised from the left for being too compromised on issues of peace, and under a cloud of doubt as the not most reliable option in a war situation, from the right. That would also tally with a greater loss than Tory gain, to my mind, because I think there are fewer primarily militarily and strategically than peace-minded Labour voters.
So what is the Conservative governments message and policies regarding Ukraine? Send anti tank weapons, call for restraint from the Russians whilst threatening the Russian people with sanctions and hardship?
If you are standing shoulder to shoulder with someone who is about to be invaded because of stated aim of joining NATO and the EU, surely you Should be their advocate for fast track membership of NATO? Surely if you are going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rights of a Nation to remain democratic and Sovereign, you threaten the invader with a no fly zone?
Truth is, there is nothing in this governments stance and rhetoric the Labour front bench will have any problem endorsing or voting for.
I personally wouldn't support a no-fly zone. Quite a high risk of escalation, and this isn't Saddam we're talking about, dont't forget.
So shoulder to shoulder for Sovereignty and Democracy, only when the opponent is a pip squeak you can crush under foot, you are suggesting is this government policy regards Ukraine? Actually I wouldn’t argue with that, it rings true and matches as Ben Wallace loudly flagged up, there’s more than a whiff of 1938 appeasement built into that - it’s certainly identical to the 1945 sell outs to Russia.
So that only leaves a negotiated settlement as the best way forward? Where for example Ukraine has intent to join both NATO and retake Crimea from Russia - is it clear what the governments formulae are for the negotiated peace? Is it clear which items of the Minsk Protocols the UK could endorse and which would be red lines? What have they actually told the British electorate that is helpful and meaningful?
There are increasing voices now from within the Conservatives whether the Government have the right policy for this crisis, or just hollow rhetoric. And there are other voices in the financial media questioning if we can go through with or sustain the threatened sanctions. Failing to prevent the war and having to go through with sanctions and retaliations won’t be good for British business or anyone in UK either - at what point does the UK government have a dialogue with us about the need for that?
The key point to be aware of with the will-they-won't-they Russian invasion is that absolutely no-one will jump to Ukraine's aid if Russia does invade. Everyone knows this. The West's options are to sanction Russia after the fact, such that Russia ends up as Iran Mark II. (I note Iran's GDP per head is half what it was in the seventies).
The question now is whether there is value in the West doing a deal with Russia that accepts Russia will continue to destabilise Ukraine, but stops short of actual invasion. The West might be interested in such a deal because it doesn't want to apply severe sanctions on Russia. They hurt the West too and they are one shot leaving it with no further leverage. The outcome will be bad for Ukraine under all circumstances but this way they may avoid total annihilation.
There is a lot of risk with attempting a deal: Putin may overplay his hand, demand more than the West is prepared to offer, forcing him into a corner. The West could agree a deal with Putin, only for him to renege, which doesn't do anything for its credibility. Finally if there is a deal it rewards Russian aggression, which is not a good pattern.
Your Iran stat is startling. Presumably that's in real terms? That is, each Iranian can afford half as much stuff as his counterpart in the 70s?
#BREAKING: Russian units have left their assembly areas and begun to move into attack positions. Some long-range artillery and rocket launchers have also been moved into firing positions- US official to @CBSNews reports
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
They came. They saw. They scarpered.
It's an interesting one. I assume that there is intelligent life in the universe. I don't assume it's benign, pace Carl Sagan who famously in the Cosmos series suggested that any beings with the development to travel between the stars would be sufficiently developed to be benign.
We know that the biggest barrier to space travel is the vastness and the need, essentially, to travel close to the speed of light. But let's say that it's solvable.
Even then, this particular planet on which we exist is around 4.5 billion years old but only has experienced well developed human life for c. 2000 years? 3000 years? Shall we be more generous and say 4500 years at a hell of a stretch?
What are the chances that in a universe of c. 15 billion years age that these visitors would have managed to reach this planet of ours in that narrow time slot of 4500 years out of 4,500,000,000 years?
By my reckoning intelligent human life has been on this planet for 0.000001 % of its existence. Come too early and they meet a bunch of ravenous dinosaurs. Come too late and they meet a desolate wasteland after Vlad has pressed the red button.
Firstly, anyone who has been to the caves in Lascaux or Font-de-Gaume would recognize that clearly intelligent life has been around at least 35,000 years, not 3,000. But why are you assuming that aliens would only visit earth once, especially if they found any form of life on their first visit. And why would you assume that they have to visit in order to observe us? Your assumptions indicate that your aliens only have human-level technology, or at best, human-imaginable technology.
They aren't constrained by human level tech, but they are constrained by the laws of physics. Places in space are... far apart.
There is also a statistical argument to explain the Fermi Paradox - namely that we are 13 billion years into the life of a universe that may last a trillion or 100 trillion years. In other words we are in the "fires of creation" stage since the universe will go dark long before it expires.
Perhaps we are alone because we live in the first 0.013% of the universe;s expected life (1.3% if you only allow a trillion year life span).
#BREAKING: Russian units have left their assembly areas and begun to move into attack positions. Some long-range artillery and rocket launchers have also been moved into firing positions- US official to @CBSNews reports
I wonder what "event" Putin is going to use to justify an invasion.
If he wanted to really troll us, he would say Ukrainian secret agents masquerading as tourists visiting the cathedral had committed an atrocity in Rostov on Don.
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
That supports my view of the situation. There is a solid majority against many of the policies espoused by labour activists and as national policy under Corbyn. Starmer has signalled a retreat but hasn't reassured sufficiently (yet) and may never do so. I suspect that more of BoJo's disgraceful antics and the likely economic problems would swing more votes to Labour. However, Labour are strongly running against the ideological "grain" of the majority at present and are more than capable of losing the next election which an opposition should really be strong favourites to win.
"Ideological grain" is a good term. I'm as sure as needs be that this photo will be memed for the election campaign:
Excellent news, Isam's back!
Are you still ok with our £300/£100 bet on Starmer PM after the GE? I do hope so.
#BREAKING: Russian units have left their assembly areas and begun to move into attack positions. Some long-range artillery and rocket launchers have also been moved into firing positions- US official to @CBSNews reports
"A pretext for war? Russian TV propagandists claim 'thousands of civilians have been tortured and savagely killed' by Ukraine amid invasion fears - and Moscow threatens to FIRE on US ships in its waters after submarine row"
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
Indeed. It is mathematically near-certain other sentient life forms have evolved somewhere out there in the TRILLIONS of stars in billions of galaxies, with mega-bazillions of planets
And how would a super advanced civilisation explore its local galaxy? The same way the first super advanced Chinese or European or Pacific civilisations explored the world - they sent out expendable machines in the form of ships with crews prepared to die, on journeys from which they would probably not return, nonetheless hoping to find new realms.
For me it seems quite probable that the galaxy is swarming with AI-powered drones, near indestructible, able to survive enormously long interstellar journeys, which are busy sending back info about any life they find, to the Home Planet.
And that COULD be what we are seeing. Alien drones with "AI pilots", not alien life itself- tho at some point the difference between "intelligent life" and "AI" must be debatable, and perhaps absurd and irrelevant
#BREAKING: Russian units have left their assembly areas and begun to move into attack positions. Some long-range artillery and rocket launchers have also been moved into firing positions- US official to @CBSNews reports
I wonder what "event" Putin is going to use to justify an invasion.
Those Ukranians are crazy - they are utterly powerless before the mighty Russian army who will wreak such vengeance, yet also desperate to launch an assault on Russia.
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
Mask use anecdote in the big Teso at Gorton - low.
Perhaps more worryingly there was no fuel at the pumps this morning... it was £1.459 for diesel though which is as cheap as I've seen fuel anywhere except Costco.
The Tesco nearest me was tomato-less today with ongoing shortages. Is that still the Brexit related driver shortage?
No. The PB Tories in the morning thread assured me that Brexit is a success...
Starmer seems to think so as he declared today labour will not rejoin the EU
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Couldn't Boris Johnson at least pretended he disapproves of death threats against the Leader of the Opposition?
The only day he has been close to losing his job was when he tried to do the apology interview. He is hopeless at it and it takes away several of the key USPs of his "Boris" persona. His electoral chances improve if he does not give a shit about whatever he does wrong, hence that is what we will get from now on.
His judgment is Tory MPs will not have the character to act against him for it, and that the public may forgive him by 2024. He is probably right on the former and quite possibly on the latter as well.
All he has to say is, "Of course no-one should be subject to death threats". Dunno. Johnson is so far from any normally acceptable behaviour, let alone decency, my tiny brain doesn't encompass it.
Have you ever considered he quite likely doesn't give a toss if the threats were indeed enacted?
Perhaps Cressida could stand for Mayor of London. Running on her record......
...but would the Labour Party select a woman, especially a lesbian candidate?
Dick is almost certainly a LD not Labour and not Tory either
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
Mask use anecdote in the big Teso at Gorton - low.
Perhaps more worryingly there was no fuel at the pumps this morning... it was £1.459 for diesel though which is as cheap as I've seen fuel anywhere except Costco.
The Tesco nearest me was tomato-less today with ongoing shortages. Is that still the Brexit related driver shortage?
No. The PB Tories in the morning thread assured me that Brexit is a success...
Starmer seems to think so as he declared today labour will not rejoin the EU
You are right Big G - in all the other goings on it’s under the radar this is the first time the Labour leadership have stated this clear position since the morning of the 2016 referendum outcome.
Maybe Starmer thinks it’s a good day to bury bad news 😁
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
Mask use anecdote in the big Teso at Gorton - low.
Perhaps more worryingly there was no fuel at the pumps this morning... it was £1.459 for diesel though which is as cheap as I've seen fuel anywhere except Costco.
The Tesco nearest me was tomato-less today with ongoing shortages. Is that still the Brexit related driver shortage?
No. The PB Tories in the morning thread assured me that Brexit is a success...
Starmer seems to think so as he declared today labour will not rejoin the EU
I expect Starmer has learned the correct level of "truth" from the Irish Sea border method that Boris exhibited. Id Starmer an election we shall join EFTA/ EEA instead
The key point to be aware of with the will-they-won't-they Russian invasion is that absolutely no-one will jump to Ukraine's aid if Russia does invade. Everyone knows this. The West's options are to sanction Russia after the fact, such that Russia ends up as Iran Mark II. (I note Iran's GDP per head is half what it was in the seventies).
The question now is whether there is value in the West doing a deal with Russia that accepts Russia will continue to destabilise Ukraine, but stops short of actual invasion. The West might be interested in such a deal because it doesn't want to apply severe sanctions on Russia. They hurt the West too and they are one shot leaving it with no further leverage. The outcome will be bad for Ukraine under all circumstances but this way they may avoid total annihilation.
There is a lot of risk with attempting a deal: Putin may overplay his hand, demand more than the West is prepared to offer, forcing him into a corner. The West could agree a deal with Putin, only for him to renege, which doesn't do anything for its credibility. Finally if there is a deal it rewards Russian aggression, which is not a good pattern.
Why would anyone do a deal with somebody who has repeatedly demonstrated he thinks rules and laws apply to other people?
The comparisons with Hitler are more than a little overblown, but in one respect they are similar - Hitler didn't care about rules and agreements. He did whatever suited him, often improvising impulsively as he felt like it. So does Putin.
If we signed a treaty with him that agreed he could have the land around the Sea of Azov in exchange for being nice to the Ukraine in future, in six months he'll be after Odessa.
So it would be foolish to do a deal. Just punish him as far as can be. It wouldn't be that difficult to freeze his banking system harder than Molotov's smile.
One major difference with Hitler as it turned out is that other countries did eventually go to war against him. The chances of anyone coming to Ukraine's defence to push back a Russian attack is nil. No-one is spelling it out, but everyone knows this. The leverage that the West has is after the effect sanctions, which results in Ukraine being destroyed and no further leverage over Russia possible. I don't think a deal that aims to pre-empt that outcome is necessarily stupid. There is a lot of risk in attempting it, but as I have said there is also a lot of risk in not attempting it.
Another disgraceful episode in British colonialism
I know little of the history, but this comment struck me as odd:
The official reason given for the Mauritian government's excursion is to map reefs around the archipelago - but Mr Jugnauth described the visit as "the first time Mauritius has led an expedition to this part of its territory".
Surely that’s not true. It would rather undermine their claim.
The United States is temporarily closing its embassy in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital and moving embassy operations to Lviv, a city much farther from Russian territory, the State Department said on Monday, citing the Russian military buildup near Ukraine.
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Tailing off a bit in my Waitrose now. Maybe 80% cf the previous 95%.
I'm not sure DfE are advising mask use. Granted this is schools not unis, but the pressure in Trafford comes from Trafford public health. Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
Mask use anecdote in the big Teso at Gorton - low.
Perhaps more worryingly there was no fuel at the pumps this morning... it was £1.459 for diesel though which is as cheap as I've seen fuel anywhere except Costco.
The Tesco nearest me was tomato-less today with ongoing shortages. Is that still the Brexit related driver shortage?
No. The PB Tories in the morning thread assured me that Brexit is a success...
Starmer seems to think so as he declared today labour will not rejoin the EU
Isn't that a statement of fact rather than a policy?
#BREAKING: Russian units have left their assembly areas and begun to move into attack positions. Some long-range artillery and rocket launchers have also been moved into firing positions- US official to @CBSNews reports
I wonder what "event" Putin is going to use to justify an invasion.
If he wanted to really troll us, he would say Ukrainian secret agents masquerading as tourists visiting the cathedral had committed an atrocity in Rostov on Don.
"A pretext for war? Russian TV propagandists claim 'thousands of civilians have been tortured and savagely killed' by Ukraine amid invasion fears - and Moscow threatens to FIRE on US ships in its waters after submarine row"
This is EXACTLY what AUKUS intel predicted. False Flag stuff today and tomorrow, attack on Wednesday
But Macron was so confidently leaking that Ukraine giving up NATO ambitions would lead to peace. You're surely not telling me that Macron giving everything up has made precisely zero difference?
Comments
They should be out of sight
https://twitter.com/vplus/status/1493294997029928960?s=21
She's an impressive woman.
Anyway, she's sending me photos. And it all looks lovely - except in all of them when they're not in a pool, they're all wearing masks. These are children - my oldest is 11. Even at our most draconian, we didn't force children to wear masks.
It's jarring, occasionally, to be reminded that most of continental Europe outside of Scandinavia are still gripped by this psychosis.
It was the same watching the rugby at the weekend - slightly shocking to be reminded that Italy is still under all sorts of restrictions.
My emotional instinct is to feel as annoyed that foreigners are forcing my daughters to cover their faces as I would if they gone to Iran. Because they're doing it for a belief system that I simply don't recognise.
My rational brain can rein that in a bit, of course. But only a bit.
Anyway, I am dealing with my four days off from parental responsibility by stopping at the pub on the way home from work. I had mooched around the Northern Quarter in Manchester, but none of the bars really appealed. Then where the Northern Quarter meets some 1980s social housing which has been bypassed by gentrification, I saw a pub I'd never seen before. It's like Early Doors in here - but Early Doors in a Friday at 10.30pm scene. At 6.30, the place was packed, people were singing and everyone appeared to know each other. The average age is at least 50, there is no craft beer and hipsters have given the place a wide berth - but nowhere in the Northern Quarter are people having more fun than here.
In principle the idea that the early explorers were pioneering in much the same way we are now pioneering in space is an attractive one, quaint even. But it's poor science.
The barrier to interstellar flight remains the vastness of space and the need to travel as close as possible to the speed of light. If it's physically impossible to go faster than the speed of light then even if you get to 99.99% of 186,000 miles a second the sheer vastness of the universe (including our galaxy) makes interstellar flight a major problem.
It may be solvable but probably not by Christopher Nolan.
Since Johnson dodged the Gray inquiry and speared Starmer in the process with the Saville slur and survived that, he seems to realise he is safe. He knows the Savile slur is a winner for him hence the smirking dismissal of the question earlier today.
Big Dog is saved, you should be relieved.
Edit. Don't forget on the earlier Opinium methodology Labour are still 10 ahead. R and W and YouGov are nonetheless looking good for Big Dog's team.
4️⃣8️⃣
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Let me just stick to one basic point: the idea that alien intelligent life is going to zip back and forth between our earth and Betelgeuse is fanciful.
Honestly, this isn't a pop at you but some people have watched too much science fiction pseudo-science and not looked at the physics of cosmology.
The distances are VAST. Even travel close to the speed of light doesn't enable life forms to treat it as if you're popping out to Sainsbury's.
The best hope for now for finding intelligent life in our galaxy is via advanced telescopes.
Four years to the next nearest solar system, if memory serves.
Plenty of isolated Pacific, Amazonian and oceanic insular tribes have believed they were essentially alone (apart from Gods and spirits - possibly, tellingly, folklore derived from glimpses of other humans). Even quite advanced civilisations like the Aztecs of MesoAmerica thought Mexico was basically IT, and were culturally shattered by the arrival of Spanish galleons
Check out Contact Art drawn by remote Aboriginals on the rocks and barks of north Australia - in Kakadu and Arnhemland, or Garig Ganak Barlu (I've been there, and boy, you do feel alone). They painted technology they could not possibly comprehend, and they did it with great skill and sadness, as if they could foresee their impending destruction. they were right. Immensely moving
Who, quite frankly, need putting back in their box.
In Sale, mask compliance in Sainsburys (c. 60%) comfortably above that in Tesco (c. 20%). Messaging in both is very similar. Partly I put it down to people conforming to those around them. And partly a subtle socio-economic difference between the two.
If you are standing shoulder to shoulder with someone who is about to be invaded because of stated aim of joining NATO and the EU, surely you Should be their advocate for fast track membership of NATO? Surely if you are going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rights of a Nation to remain democratic and Sovereign, you threaten the invader with a no fly zone?
Truth is, there is nothing in this governments stance and rhetoric the Labour front bench will have any problem endorsing or voting for.
Mask wearing has more or less vanished in my school.
Edit - my mistake, the guidance was withdrawn for unis on the 27th January
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1048605/180122_Higher_education_COVID-19_operational_guidance.pdf (page 8)
HOWEVER they note that local public health boards may require them, as in your case.
But on your point, yes and no. Yes you're right. Light takes that long to reach us. But the good thing about that is that we don't have to take that long to receive it. Anything emitted, say, 1 million years ago (a speck in the time of the universe) might reach us today. Of course, we wouldn't be able to transmit back but we'd be able to know the intelligent life was there.
As we look out we look back.
The universe is at least 15 billion years old (possibly trillions, and it is possibly one of trillions of multiverse universes all interacting, etc etc). From what we can see of life on earth -all life shares one telling characteristic. It seeks to go forth and multiply. It is compelled to explore, and expand
It feels like a universal rule. We can therefore expect to be visited, at least by machines. Maybe via wormholes! Yay wormholes
The false flag operation will be virtual, it has probably already been filmed.
Perhaps more worryingly there was no fuel at the pumps this morning... it was £1.459 for diesel though which is as cheap as I've seen fuel anywhere except Costco.
I was quite surprised that my level was about 5%. If there was one other person unmasked then I would unmask too.
I don't want to make people uncomfortable or worried. But if people are only waiting for me to unmask before doing so, then I don't mind sticking out.
The question now is whether there is value in the West doing a deal with Russia that accepts Russia will continue to destabilise Ukraine, but stops short of actual invasion. The West might be interested in such a deal because it doesn't want to apply severe sanctions on Russia. They hurt the West too and they are one shot leaving it with no further leverage. The outcome will be bad for Ukraine under all circumstances but this way they may avoid total annihilation.
There is a lot of risk with attempting a deal: Putin may overplay his hand, demand more than the West is prepared to offer, forcing him into a corner. The West could agree a deal with Putin, only for him to renege, which doesn't do anything for its credibility. Finally if there is a deal it rewards Russian aggression, which is not a good pattern.
This is the least hipster place in the Northern Quarter.
Consequently, you have actual conversations with other customers.
None of them necessarily make sense, but that's a secondary issue.
https://twitter.com/ELINTNews/status/1493299560449519618?s=20&t=VapjW_WkL9ShkFnwI50EWQ
Maybe the price is why there was no fuel. I haven’t seen any shortages anywhere else.
What is the mask compliance like in the rest of Sale?
The comparisons with Hitler are more than a little overblown, but in one respect they are similar - Hitler didn't care about rules and agreements. He did whatever suited him, often improvising impulsively as he felt like it. So does Putin.
If we signed a treaty with him that agreed he could have the land around the Sea of Azov in exchange for being nice to the Ukraine in future, in six months he'll be after Odessa.
So it would be foolish to do a deal. Just punish him as far as can be. It wouldn't be that difficult to freeze his banking system harder than Molotov's smile.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
And, god, his BO must be really something, size of that table.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60378487
Another disgraceful episode in British colonialism
So that only leaves a negotiated settlement as the best way forward? Where for example Ukraine has intent to join both NATO and retake Crimea from Russia - is it clear what the governments formulae are for the negotiated peace? Is it clear which items of the Minsk Protocols the UK could endorse and which would be red lines? What have they actually told the British electorate that is helpful and meaningful?
There are increasing voices now from within the Conservatives whether the Government have the right policy for this crisis, or just hollow rhetoric. And there are other voices in the financial media questioning if we can go through with or sustain the threatened sanctions. Failing to prevent the war and having to go through with sanctions and retaliations won’t be good for British business or anyone in UK either - at what point does the UK government have a dialogue with us about the need for that?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/story-of-chagos-islands-is-one-of-the-most-shameful-in-recent-british-history-6fc07rst0fg
Well done Mauritius for telling Britain to fuck off.
Perhaps we are alone because we live in the first 0.013% of the universe;s expected life (1.3% if you only allow a trillion year life span).
Most of history has not happened yet.
"A pretext for war? Russian TV propagandists claim 'thousands of civilians have been tortured and savagely killed' by Ukraine amid invasion fears - and Moscow threatens to FIRE on US ships in its waters after submarine row"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10510145/Russian-state-media-begins-propaganda-push-amid-fears-Ukraine-invasion-imminent.html
This is EXACTLY what AUKUS intel predicted. False Flag stuff today and tomorrow, attack on Wednesday
Maybe Starmer thinks it’s a good day to bury bad news 😁
The official reason given for the Mauritian government's excursion is to map reefs around the archipelago - but Mr Jugnauth described the visit as "the first time Mauritius has led an expedition to this part of its territory".
Surely that’s not true. It would rather undermine their claim.
NY Times blog