The DUP have withdrawn from the Stormont Executive though to stop leakage to TUV and will not return unless and until the UK government invokes Article 16
That doesn't stop the Executive from existing, does it?
The Executive currently represents 81 of the 90 Assembly members - without the DUP, the cross-community votes couldn't happen but routine business could. Whether the UU or Alliance could take the Deputy First Minister role if the DUP refused to serve, I don't know.
I suspect and hope your understanding of the functions of the NI Assembly is superior to mine.
In practical terms though without the largest Unionist party it has broken down as has the GFA until the Irish Sea border is removed.
At the time of the GFA it was the UUP the largest Unionist party, now the DUP is largest party and with the TUV makes up well over half of Unionists
I expect you are going to find as this war plays out there will be a large move by HMG to resolve the NI protocol and come together much more with the EU over lots of areas
This will have changed the dial on UK- EU relationships and for the better
It won't, Starmer might, Johnson won't.
NATO unity is separate
So you think invoking article 16 at a time when European countries need to be united would be a good look for no 10.
So no 10 would then be saying fxck unity we’ve decided to lob a grenade into UK EU relations! This obsession by some Tories about invoking Article 16 is to be blunt unhinged .
The Unionist Community are also moving towards violence in NI and riots unless the Irish Sea border is removed.
It has nothing to do with NATO, Ireland is not even in NATO
The baffling failure of Russian air power and ability to defend it's own supply lines make no sense. Mavbe he really did expect Ukraine to just roll over?
I'm inclined to think that "somebody* on the Russian side is a little complacent, or over-confident.
It must require a large number of assumptions about risk to line up 90 helicopters parked nose to tail on a road 20-25 miles inside Belarus.
RAF Basingbourn (still an MOD site) is just down the road from me. It was home to B17 aircraft of the USAAF.
Nearby there is a stately home, Wimpole Hall, which coincidentally had a wide two-mile long avenue stretching between it and the base. So the air force used it as distributed parking for their aircraft - and there are photos of these massive bombers arrayed along it.
Whenever I walk the avenue, I think of what it must have been like with all those bombers there.
Do you have a link to a photograph of that? Fascinating.
The link I gave had a diagram of the dispersal points and a wartime aerial view of them, sans aircraft. I've seen a piccie of the avenue heaving with bombers, but annoyingly I cannot immediately find it online. It may have been in a book. Sorry.
[deleted redundant content - I'd meant something else but the pics are much the same]
Nope, don't think I've read that. It's blooming annoying as I definitely saw it in a book or leaflet, and wished I'd scanned it in. I'm then fairly certain I came across the same piccie online, but cannot find it now.
It may have been a local history book from the library.
Annoying when that happens! That publisher/magazine likes to have then and now comparisons and is generally excellent for helping one visualise what things actually looked like at the time.
I live right by the old RAF Bourn (note, not Bassingbourn - I wonder if there was ever confusion with having two airfields similarly named so close). It was quite a large place for a satellite airfield, and I think had much heavier maintenance facilities than most airfields.
On the other side of the road to the airfield are a series of old wooden huts in a field - presumably old accommodation, slowly falling down. I'd love to know the history of the buildings, and am wondering if they are unusual and should be preserved? If I'm right and they are Second World War that is...
Anyone recognise what they are? Or are they just old pig sheds?
British Concrete Federation prefabs, but obviously like Nissen huts could be used for lots of things. IANAE but this looks to me like a dispersed residential site - all buildings the same pattern so far as I can see in plan view, no specialist use, single ?water tower, etc. Spread out the risk of air attack, Cookhouse elsewhere on airfield, etc.
Czech Republic and Slovakia are donating a total of €17.5 million worth of ammunition and other supplies. Belgium will provide 3,800 tonnes of fuel and 2,000 machine guns.
The DUP have withdrawn from the Stormont Executive though to stop leakage to TUV and will not return unless and until the UK government invokes Article 16
That doesn't stop the Executive from existing, does it?
The Executive currently represents 81 of the 90 Assembly members - without the DUP, the cross-community votes couldn't happen but routine business could. Whether the UU or Alliance could take the Deputy First Minister role if the DUP refused to serve, I don't know.
I suspect and hope your understanding of the functions of the NI Assembly is superior to mine.
In practical terms though without the largest Unionist party it has broken down as has the GFA until the Irish Sea border is removed.
At the time of the GFA it was the UUP the largest Unionist party, now the DUP is largest party and with the TUV makes up well over half of Unionists
I expect you are going to find as this war plays out there will be a large move by HMG to resolve the NI protocol and come together much more with the EU over lots of areas
This will have changed the dial on UK- EU relationships and for the better
It won't, Starmer might, Johnson won't.
NATO unity is separate
I am not talking about NATO but trust you to misunderstanding the post
You are deluded if you think Johnson will align closer to the EU was the point, the ERG would go mad.
Starmer might if he won the next general election, not the Tories
I am not the deluded one here
The position HY describes isn't necessarily morally right, but he's probably politically right.
This Government flip flops about on some issues, but is deeply dogmatic and inflexible on others. The insistence on picking fights over Northern Ireland, even when there are far more important priorities to attend to now and we could agree to see how the mechanisms work and revisit them in a year or two, is one example. Another is immigration and asylum. They are presently heel digging over visa free travel for the poor bloody Ukrainian refugees, and will likely continue to do so even as Poland in particular is swamped with potentially millions of arrivals. It's going to take a concerted campaign of humiliation from the entire Western alliance to get the UK to budge on this, in all likelihood.
It's based on data for voluntary forces. In the US it's less than 2% and in the UK under 0.5% at the moment.
In the IDF fewer than 4 percent of women are in combat positions such as tank commanders, infantry, helicopter or fighter pilots and don't forget they have universal conscription too.
Edit: this shouldn't surprise us. You need high levels of testosterone and aggression for close-quarters combat, and significant physical strength and endurance to deal with heavy weaponry and forced marches, so the numbers will always be heavily skewed by biological reality no matter how much we try to convince ourselves to the contrary with our weird present day social-political obsession with identity politics.
My anecdotal experience of friends kids joining the forces is that things are changing here, too.
I don’t want to get into a pissing match, but I think on this you’re on balance wrong. The numbers aren’t sufficiently skewed by biology to make much of a difference in a large number of roles - particularly when you’re talking about the very small percentage of the total population which makes up the military.
I'm not wrong in the slightest. My numbers are factually accurate and absolutely verifiable - look up US numbers, UK numbers or Israel here:
"As of 2011, 88% of all roles in the IDF were open to female candidates, while women could actually be found in 69% of all positions.[8][9]
In 2014, the IDF said that fewer than 4 percent of women are in combat positions such as light infantry, helicopter or fighter pilots, etc. Rather, they are concentrated in "combat-support".[10]"
"The most notable combat option for women is the Caracal Battalion, which is a light infantry force that is made up of 70 percent female soldiers.[3] The unit undergoes combat infantry training."
If you conscript both men and women, as Israel does, you may well have sufficient numbers to be able to form a mixed combat battalion but numbers will otherwise remain small.
There's a difference between opening up all roles to either men or women and expecting this to result in 50:50 splits in all matters, everywhere, otherwise assuming this must be discrimination.
Down that path madness lies.
Sure, even in the Red Army in WWII, where, in principle, every post was open to a woman, 97% of those who served were men.
Is it like the Spartans, who recruited/encouraged homosexuals in their army because when sexual partners were in a combat both partners would fight to the death to save the other?
I don't think that the Red Army tolerated homosexuality or lesbianism within its ranks. That was bourgeois decadence.
It took incredible courage for a woman to fight in the Red Army. If the Germans captured them, they were invariably killed, usually after a round of rape and torture beforehand.
Yes, that's what I understood. The Germans considered female Soviet soliders as unnatural whores, who deserved absolutely no mercy.
There's a scene in Cross of Iron, where the German platoon captures some women soldiers, and let them go, after disarming them. I always thought that was very unlikely, but I guess that even Sam Peckinpah was prepared to pull his punches sometimes.
On Chess.com whenever I am paired with a Russian I am refusing to play - a bit like Iran when paired with Israel.
I don't know how the site works, but would not another strategy be to play and engage in conversation at the same time, try to persuade him Putin must go!
I dont speak Russian and you only get 10 minutes on the clock
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
The DUP have withdrawn from the Stormont Executive though to stop leakage to TUV and will not return unless and until the UK government invokes Article 16
That doesn't stop the Executive from existing, does it?
The Executive currently represents 81 of the 90 Assembly members - without the DUP, the cross-community votes couldn't happen but routine business could. Whether the UU or Alliance could take the Deputy First Minister role if the DUP refused to serve, I don't know.
I suspect and hope your understanding of the functions of the NI Assembly is superior to mine.
In practical terms though without the largest Unionist party it has broken down as has the GFA until the Irish Sea border is removed.
At the time of the GFA it was the UUP the largest Unionist party, now the DUP is largest party and with the TUV makes up well over half of Unionists
I expect you are going to find as this war plays out there will be a large move by HMG to resolve the NI protocol and come together much more with the EU over lots of areas
This will have changed the dial on UK- EU relationships and for the better
Personally I wish we would see Northern Ireland as an opportunity. We are finding it more difficult than hoped for to trade in goods with the EU. Under the terms of the Brexit deal, NI is effectively within the EU. But we have greater control over NI than we do over anywhere else in the EU, owing to it being a part of the UK. So it's a massive test bed and opportunity to get things right, not just move goods successfully to and from NI, but to do so with the whole of the EU.
The other issue is what happens IF Putin falls? The idea we will see a new more amenable leader willing to move away from China and towards the West seems romantically fanciful. Indeed, the humiliation of Putin now may create more problems later - this is why we need to give Russia a face-saving way out (if that means Putin is removed by the Russians, that's their business) and an opportunity in time to re-build and strengthen the relationships that matter not the gangster cronyism which doesn't.
Agreed on the first point. On the second, I don't see any face-saving way out for Russia. The Ukrainians won't accept Russia being allowed to keep its ill gotten gains, and Russia's neighbours to the West (except for Belarus, which it will eventually annex,) are now all so frightened of Russian aggression that Russia has forfeited any right to ask them to compromise over their future choices, even assuming that it had any such right to begin with. If Russia is beaten in Ukraine, Ukraine will then demand to join NATO and it will be hard to reward the Ukrainian's heroic resistance with anything short of it. Finland, and possibly Sweden as well, will also be sorely tempted to do so now that we have had this graphic reminder of the kind of barbarity that we are dealing with.
We can offer all the reassurances we can to the effect that the West won't cross Russia's own internationally recognised frontier - backed up with the very reasonable observation that we, unlike they, haven't violated those boundaries since we worked together to destroy the Nazi Reich in 1945 - but the Russians themselves are so bloody insecure and paranoid that they won't accept them. And there's no way acceptable to the Ukrainians that ends in anything other than a complete Russian surrender of its stolen lands; there might be room to concede a referendum in Crimea, but that's about it.
About the best we can do is offer to co-operate with them on the construction of fixed fortifications - literally, that each of us should build thick walls and ditches all the way down our mutual border, to demonstrate that it is permanently fixed and to make warfare across that frontier more difficult. I don't see what other mutually acceptable means exist to offer Russia any reassurance at all. The trust doesn't exist for anything else, and it won't do for so long as Russia remains an autocracy.
The Ukrainians won't accept Russia being allowed to keep its ill gotten gains
They may not have a choice, even in a pretty decent outcome, given the disparities in scales. If Russia is beaten in Ukraine, Ukraine will then demand to join NATO and it will be hard to reward the Ukrainian's heroic resistance with anything short of it
Oh I imagine at least a couple of NATO members could be relied upon to say no. Working with, yes, but the days of desperately wanting new members, no.
The baffling failure of Russian air power and ability to defend it's own supply lines make no sense. Mavbe he really did expect Ukraine to just roll over?
I'm inclined to think that "somebody* on the Russian side is a little complacent, or over-confident.
It must require a large number of assumptions about risk to line up 90 helicopters parked nose to tail on a road 20-25 miles inside Belarus.
RAF Basingbourn (still an MOD site) is just down the road from me. It was home to B17 aircraft of the USAAF.
Nearby there is a stately home, Wimpole Hall, which coincidentally had a wide two-mile long avenue stretching between it and the base. So the air force used it as distributed parking for their aircraft - and there are photos of these massive bombers arrayed along it.
Whenever I walk the avenue, I think of what it must have been like with all those bombers there.
Do you have a link to a photograph of that? Fascinating.
The link I gave had a diagram of the dispersal points and a wartime aerial view of them, sans aircraft. I've seen a piccie of the avenue heaving with bombers, but annoyingly I cannot immediately find it online. It may have been in a book. Sorry.
[deleted redundant content - I'd meant something else but the pics are much the same]
Nope, don't think I've read that. It's blooming annoying as I definitely saw it in a book or leaflet, and wished I'd scanned it in. I'm then fairly certain I came across the same piccie online, but cannot find it now.
It may have been a local history book from the library.
Annoying when that happens! That publisher/magazine likes to have then and now comparisons and is generally excellent for helping one visualise what things actually looked like at the time.
I live right by the old RAF Bourn (note, not Bassingbourn - I wonder if there was ever confusion with having two airfields similarly named so close). It was quite a large place for a satellite airfield, and I think had much heavier maintenance facilities than most airfields.
On the other side of the road to the airfield are a series of old wooden huts in a field - presumably old accommodation, slowly falling down. I'd love to know the history of the buildings, and am wondering if they are unusual and should be preserved? If I'm right and they are Second World War that is...
Anyone recognise what they are? Or are they just old pig sheds?
British Concrete Federation prefabs, but obviously like Nissen huts could be used for lots of things. IANAE but this looks to me like a dispersed residential site - all buildings the same pattern so far as I can see in plan view, no specialist use, single ?water tower, etc. Spread out the risk of air attack, Cookhouse elsewhere on airfield, etc.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Russia has a gigantic nuclear arsenal and control of it rests in the hands of a delusional, megalomaniacal, paranoid fascist lunatic. And if, pray God, the bastard dies before he decides to go down in a blaze of glory and turn us all to ash with him, then whatever comes after him likely won't be very much better.
The West can play the long game with China, with a reasonable degree of confidence that it won't end with us all dying horribly. Russia, on the other hand, is a lost cause. It is the land of despots, it's a vicious antagonist, and the leopard won't change its spots. And, since we can't defang the leopard - we can't wish its nuclear weapons away, sadly - then the next best thing we can do is try to cage it. All of the doors between civilized Europe and the Russian Federation should be slammed and welded shut.
I don't believe in lost causes.
They've been threatening us all with death by nuclear holocaust more or less continuously since the 1950s. The gap between the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Putin lasted about five minutes, and if we're actually lucky enough to live to see the end of Putin then there'll be another tyrant after him, and another one after that.
It's Russia. It's their culture, it's their tradition. Look at how much progress has been made in the post-Soviet Baltics, and in Georgia and Ukraine despite Putin doing his best to degrade and destroy them. And then look at Russia. They've actually gone backwards since Gorbachev. It is a deeply, deeply regressive police state, shot through with hatred - often officially sanctioned - for racial, sexual and gender minorities, as well as for any form of opposition. A terror state, with a neo-imperialist at its heart whose mission in life is to subject as many human beings as possible to that terror.
One naturally feels sorry for the likes of brave Alexei Navalny, but the Russian resisters, such as they are, are on a hiding to nothing. Russia is about subjugating its own populace and that of its neighbours alike to the will of whatever autocrat reigns at the time, either by terrifying them with threats or with sheer brute force. Yes, there's a coup every now and then, or even a revolution, but it always reverts to type in the end.
I don't buy this analysis. You are generalising enormously about Russia. There could well be another way. As I see it, in its move towards liberalism, social progress, multi culturalism and the advancement of 'human rights'; the west has become increasingly intolerant of certain deeply held traditional beliefs and ideas, which are very common elsewhere in the world. Putin has very successfully exploited this, to his advantage.
If we are stuck with hopes that Russia will change to be 'more like us', then we are probably going to be stuck forever with some variation of the situation we are facing today.
The baffling failure of Russian air power and ability to defend it's own supply lines make no sense. Mavbe he really did expect Ukraine to just roll over?
I'm inclined to think that "somebody* on the Russian side is a little complacent, or over-confident.
It must require a large number of assumptions about risk to line up 90 helicopters parked nose to tail on a road 20-25 miles inside Belarus.
RAF Basingbourn (still an MOD site) is just down the road from me. It was home to B17 aircraft of the USAAF.
Nearby there is a stately home, Wimpole Hall, which coincidentally had a wide two-mile long avenue stretching between it and the base. So the air force used it as distributed parking for their aircraft - and there are photos of these massive bombers arrayed along it.
Whenever I walk the avenue, I think of what it must have been like with all those bombers there.
Do you have a link to a photograph of that? Fascinating.
The link I gave had a diagram of the dispersal points and a wartime aerial view of them, sans aircraft. I've seen a piccie of the avenue heaving with bombers, but annoyingly I cannot immediately find it online. It may have been in a book. Sorry.
[deleted redundant content - I'd meant something else but the pics are much the same]
Nope, don't think I've read that. It's blooming annoying as I definitely saw it in a book or leaflet, and wished I'd scanned it in. I'm then fairly certain I came across the same piccie online, but cannot find it now.
It may have been a local history book from the library.
Annoying when that happens! That publisher/magazine likes to have then and now comparisons and is generally excellent for helping one visualise what things actually looked like at the time.
I live right by the old RAF Bourn (note, not Bassingbourn - I wonder if there was ever confusion with having two airfields similarly named so close). It was quite a large place for a satellite airfield, and I think had much heavier maintenance facilities than most airfields.
On the other side of the road to the airfield are a series of old wooden huts in a field - presumably old accommodation, slowly falling down. I'd love to know the history of the buildings, and am wondering if they are unusual and should be preserved? If I'm right and they are Second World War that is...
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
We are not on the Continent.
This is basic geography.
In which you are wrong. We are part of the European continent by any normal definition.
These people just make up their own facts to suit them. They end up looking like complete idiots, posting tripe like that.
Not a very successful attempt at mockery then, or a very successful post full stop. Geographically, we are separated from the Continent of Europe by the sea. Geologically, we may be connected by a shelf, but unless the Russians are going to develop gills, it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
Indeed, but that quote itself defines Islands as separate to (though grouped with) the nearest landmass. That's all I'm saying. We are part of Europe but we aren't part of continental Europe.
Europe isn't even a real continent anyway. We are a Eurasian island chain and they are an Eurasian peninsular.
The other issue is what happens IF Putin falls? The idea we will see a new more amenable leader willing to move away from China and towards the West seems romantically fanciful. Indeed, the humiliation of Putin now may create more problems later - this is why we need to give Russia a face-saving way out (if that means Putin is removed by the Russians, that's their business) and an opportunity in time to re-build and strengthen the relationships that matter not the gangster cronyism which doesn't.
Agreed on the first point. On the second, I don't see any face-saving way out for Russia. The Ukrainians won't accept Russia being allowed to keep its ill gotten gains, and Russia's neighbours to the West (except for Belarus, which it will eventually annex,) are now all so frightened of Russian aggression that Russia has forfeited any right to ask them to compromise over their future choices, even assuming that it had any such right to begin with. If Russia is beaten in Ukraine, Ukraine will then demand to join NATO and it will be hard to reward the Ukrainian's heroic resistance with anything short of it. Finland, and possibly Sweden as well, will also be sorely tempted to do so now that we have had this graphic reminder of the kind of barbarity that we are dealing with.
We can offer all the reassurances we can to the effect that the West won't cross Russia's own internationally recognised frontier - backed up with the very reasonable observation that we, unlike they, haven't violated those boundaries since we worked together to destroy the Nazi Reich in 1945 - but the Russians themselves are so bloody insecure and paranoid that they won't accept them. And there's no way acceptable to the Ukrainians that ends in anything other than a complete Russian surrender of its stolen lands; there might be room to concede a referendum in Crimea, but that's about it.
About the best we can do is offer to co-operate with them on the construction of fixed fortifications - literally, that each of us should build thick walls and ditches all the way down our mutual border, to demonstrate that it is permanently fixed and to make warfare across that frontier more difficult. I don't see what other mutually acceptable means exist to offer Russia any reassurance at all. The trust doesn't exist for anything else, and it won't do for so long as Russia remains an autocracy.
For me, the solution lies somewhere in Eastward expansion of the EU, but not of NATO, along with some form of EU associate member status for Russia.
The DUP have withdrawn from the Stormont Executive though to stop leakage to TUV and will not return unless and until the UK government invokes Article 16
That doesn't stop the Executive from existing, does it?
The Executive currently represents 81 of the 90 Assembly members - without the DUP, the cross-community votes couldn't happen but routine business could. Whether the UU or Alliance could take the Deputy First Minister role if the DUP refused to serve, I don't know.
I suspect and hope your understanding of the functions of the NI Assembly is superior to mine.
In practical terms though without the largest Unionist party it has broken down as has the GFA until the Irish Sea border is removed.
At the time of the GFA it was the UUP the largest Unionist party, now the DUP is largest party and with the TUV makes up well over half of Unionists
I expect you are going to find as this war plays out there will be a large move by HMG to resolve the NI protocol and come together much more with the EU over lots of areas
This will have changed the dial on UK- EU relationships and for the better
It won't, Starmer might, Johnson won't.
NATO unity is separate
I am not talking about NATO but trust you to misunderstanding the post
You are deluded if you think Johnson will align closer to the EU was the point, the ERG would go mad.
Starmer might if he won the next general election, not the Tories
The baffling failure of Russian air power and ability to defend it's own supply lines make no sense. Mavbe he really did expect Ukraine to just roll over?
I'm inclined to think that "somebody* on the Russian side is a little complacent, or over-confident.
It must require a large number of assumptions about risk to line up 90 helicopters parked nose to tail on a road 20-25 miles inside Belarus.
RAF Basingbourn (still an MOD site) is just down the road from me. It was home to B17 aircraft of the USAAF.
Nearby there is a stately home, Wimpole Hall, which coincidentally had a wide two-mile long avenue stretching between it and the base. So the air force used it as distributed parking for their aircraft - and there are photos of these massive bombers arrayed along it.
Whenever I walk the avenue, I think of what it must have been like with all those bombers there.
Do you have a link to a photograph of that? Fascinating.
The link I gave had a diagram of the dispersal points and a wartime aerial view of them, sans aircraft. I've seen a piccie of the avenue heaving with bombers, but annoyingly I cannot immediately find it online. It may have been in a book. Sorry.
[deleted redundant content - I'd meant something else but the pics are much the same]
Nope, don't think I've read that. It's blooming annoying as I definitely saw it in a book or leaflet, and wished I'd scanned it in. I'm then fairly certain I came across the same piccie online, but cannot find it now.
It may have been a local history book from the library.
Annoying when that happens! That publisher/magazine likes to have then and now comparisons and is generally excellent for helping one visualise what things actually looked like at the time.
I live right by the old RAF Bourn (note, not Bassingbourn - I wonder if there was ever confusion with having two airfields similarly named so close). It was quite a large place for a satellite airfield, and I think had much heavier maintenance facilities than most airfields.
On the other side of the road to the airfield are a series of old wooden huts in a field - presumably old accommodation, slowly falling down. I'd love to know the history of the buildings, and am wondering if they are unusual and should be preserved? If I'm right and they are Second World War that is...
Anyone recognise what they are? Or are they just old pig sheds?
British Concrete Federation prefabs, but obviously like Nissen huts could be used for lots of things. IANAE but this looks to me like a dispersed residential site - all buildings the same pattern so far as I can see in plan view, no specialist use, single ?water tower, etc. Spread out the risk of air attack, Cookhouse elsewhere on airfield, etc.
Wow, thanks. I've read that third link several times before, but it never quite sunk in.
Are they unusual survivors?
No idea, not least because they must have been common - literally built like Nissen huts. They would have to be some unusual variant. But the prefab museum people should know. Also worth a look woiuld be the Enbglish Heritage register and the Defence of the Realm website [edit: forget that DotR Project, it's anti-invasion, so not relevant).
It is perhaps worth reflecting on the idea that, in the olden days, the story we would be hearing on TV and in the newspapers is that the Russians are making huge gains and are about to take the capital. It is only because of social media that we know more about what is going on.
Germany now totally isolated in its opposition to kicking Russia out of SWIFT: Italy, Austria, Cyprus are in favor, Hungary as well according to Poland's PM. Chancellor Olaf Scholz could announce a change of position still this afternoon.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
We are not on the Continent.
This is basic geography.
In which you are wrong. We are part of the European continent by any normal definition.
These people just make up their own facts to suit them. They end up looking like complete idiots, posting tripe like that.
Not a very successful attempt at mockery then, or a very successful post full stop. Geographically, we are separated from the Continent of Europe by the sea. Geologically, we may be connected by a shelf, but unless the Russians are going to develop gills, it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
Indeed, but that quote itself defines Islands as separate to (though grouped with) the nearest landmass. That's all I'm saying. We are part of Europe but we aren't part of continental Europe.
Europe isn't even a real continent anyway. We are a Eurasian island chain and they are an Eurasian peninsular.
The baffling failure of Russian air power and ability to defend it's own supply lines make no sense. Mavbe he really did expect Ukraine to just roll over?
I'm inclined to think that "somebody* on the Russian side is a little complacent, or over-confident.
It must require a large number of assumptions about risk to line up 90 helicopters parked nose to tail on a road 20-25 miles inside Belarus.
RAF Basingbourn (still an MOD site) is just down the road from me. It was home to B17 aircraft of the USAAF.
Nearby there is a stately home, Wimpole Hall, which coincidentally had a wide two-mile long avenue stretching between it and the base. So the air force used it as distributed parking for their aircraft - and there are photos of these massive bombers arrayed along it.
Whenever I walk the avenue, I think of what it must have been like with all those bombers there.
Do you have a link to a photograph of that? Fascinating.
The link I gave had a diagram of the dispersal points and a wartime aerial view of them, sans aircraft. I've seen a piccie of the avenue heaving with bombers, but annoyingly I cannot immediately find it online. It may have been in a book. Sorry.
[deleted redundant content - I'd meant something else but the pics are much the same]
Nope, don't think I've read that. It's blooming annoying as I definitely saw it in a book or leaflet, and wished I'd scanned it in. I'm then fairly certain I came across the same piccie online, but cannot find it now.
It may have been a local history book from the library.
Annoying when that happens! That publisher/magazine likes to have then and now comparisons and is generally excellent for helping one visualise what things actually looked like at the time.
I live right by the old RAF Bourn (note, not Bassingbourn - I wonder if there was ever confusion with having two airfields similarly named so close). It was quite a large place for a satellite airfield, and I think had much heavier maintenance facilities than most airfields.
On the other side of the road to the airfield are a series of old wooden huts in a field - presumably old accommodation, slowly falling down. I'd love to know the history of the buildings, and am wondering if they are unusual and should be preserved? If I'm right and they are Second World War that is...
Anyone recognise what they are? Or are they just old pig sheds?
British Concrete Federation prefabs, but obviously like Nissen huts could be used for lots of things. IANAE but this looks to me like a dispersed residential site - all buildings the same pattern so far as I can see in plan view, no specialist use, single ?water tower, etc. Spread out the risk of air attack, Cookhouse elsewhere on airfield, etc.
Wow, thanks. I've read that third link several times before, but it never quite sunk in.
Are they unusual survivors?
No idea, not least because they must have been common - literally built like Nissen huts. They would have to be some unusual variant. But the prefab museum people should know. Also worth a look woiuld be the Enbglish Heritage register and the Defence of the Realm website [edit: forget that DotR Project, it's anti-invasion, so not relevant).
Thanks. I might drop them a line; they're quite fascinating structures, clearly visible in the field on a couple of my regular running routes. It seems a shame that they're derelict, especially given their local history as shown on one of your links.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
We are not on the Continent.
This is basic geography.
In which you are wrong. We are part of the European continent by any normal definition.
These people just make up their own facts to suit them. They end up looking like complete idiots, posting tripe like that.
Not a very successful attempt at mockery then, or a very successful post full stop. Geographically, we are separated from the Continent of Europe by the sea. Geologically, we may be connected by a shelf, but unless the Russians are going to develop gills, it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
Indeed, but that quote itself defines Islands as separate to (though grouped with) the nearest landmass. That's all I'm saying. We are part of Europe but we aren't part of continental Europe.
Europe isn't even a real continent anyway. We are a Eurasian island chain and they are an Eurasian peninsular.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Just so we are clear here, the Russian attack on Ukraine isn't going badly wrong because some people thought the place would be taken over in 48 hours. The assault on Kiev as yet hasn't hit full pelt but isn't yet a disaster. The attack in the south east is going ok. Only the North Eastern/Eastern assaults appear initially to have gone badly in the first stages. If there is one failure though its the suppression of air defences. I'm not sure how much of the Ukrainian airforce is left but the ground based air defence appears to be functioning. Russia has large air superiority but doesn't seem to have applied it as you'd think they would. Whether its that they haven't or can't is an open question.
If Kiev is under effective Russian control in a week and the country (or whatever part of it Putin is aiming for) is under effective control within 3 weeks that's still good going. Plus the Russians have more formations to play and stories have it the Belarussians are apparently due to commit their forces in next 48-72 hours after Russian demands of old President Big Hat. Its not known if the Ukrainians have the anywhere between 50-75k of reservists fully committed either admittedly but the assumption they have less cards to play.
There was a post last night on attacking the Russian logistical tail as both a tactical and strategic aim and I mentioned that I'd not seen much evidence of it. Today there is some evidence of this occurring, columns of fuel vehicles, engineering kit and so on being destroyed/abandoned, largely it seems, via airstrikes.
From a wider point of view if the West is shipping substantial kit via South East Poland what are the Russians going to do to interdict it and where are they going to try it? |Anyone who follows the aircraft tracking sites can't help but see US tankers up in the air frequently in that part of Poland. Part of that is supporting air intelligence craft but part of it is refuelling fighter aircraft that appear to be providing an air screen over the main logistics hub.
If continued high-grade supplies of anti armour and anti-air weaponry can get to the likes of Kiev, its going to get messy, especially since the Russians look to be on for some kind of large scale heliborne assault somewhere in that area. The possibility of losing several tens of aircraft over a week or so is a lot to contend with. Can the West, though, really move with enough speed?
As for the reported Bosphorus Straits closure that's a real wildcard. Hard to know its impact.
" some people thought the place would be taken over in 48 hours. "
IANAE expert, obvs., but the Russian strategy does confuse me. I'd have expected them to go for a shock-and-awe approach to knock Ukraine out quickly, as any delay risks other nations getting their ducks in order and causing problems. Once they've won Ukraine, it's a fait accompli.
Instead, they seem almost to be going about it half-hearted. Had they hoped Ukraine would crumble, or is this all to some other plan? If so, what's the advantage to Russia?
Well we don't know what all the military/territorial objectives are even if we do know the plan is to dump the current Ukrainian government and effectively neuter its military.
Shock and awe in the sense that we have seen it before means days upon days of massive air and missile strikes. Its not really Russian doctrine and they don't necessarily have the capacity to do it the way the US does. The US and its allies could stick up hundreds of aircraft day in, day out in a sustained tempo with large air refuelling capacity. Russia can't.
What they have done though, particularly in relation to Kiev is a fairly familiar Russian approach; rapid tank assault with lots of special operations or other elite formations such as airborne actions in and around the capital to sow confusion and/or attempt to decapitate leaderships and resistance. What I posted over a week ago about watching for 'plain clothes' actions in Kiev is very much in evidence. The locals appear to be rounding up plenty of guys in civvies over the last 48 hours.
Very much part of Russian doctrine, yet missing so far, is massive suppressive fire by artillery. Maybe they didn't feel as if they needed it or consider it expedient to use it, but they have the kit in-theater to do so. You suspect they will deploy it but I am assuming the Ukrainians have dispersed/ are staying in urban areas in order to reduce its expediency or effect.
Finally its possible that the Ukrainians have proved better than expected and the Russians just have ropey execution at the moment though overall the attack doesn't seem to be going so bad
It is perhaps worth reflecting on the idea that, in the olden days, the story we would be hearing on TV and in the newspapers is that the Russians are making huge gains and are about to take the capital. It is only because of social media that we know more about what is going on.
See the Friedman article I posted earlier from NY Times.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
I respect your credentials, but I am interested in hearing your answer to Ishmael's last question.
I think these are from the Netherlands and the Germans are no longer blocking them; the Germans aren't actually sending weapons yet. Because perverse principles.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
The DUP have withdrawn from the Stormont Executive though to stop leakage to TUV and will not return unless and until the UK government invokes Article 16
That doesn't stop the Executive from existing, does it?
The Executive currently represents 81 of the 90 Assembly members - without the DUP, the cross-community votes couldn't happen but routine business could. Whether the UU or Alliance could take the Deputy First Minister role if the DUP refused to serve, I don't know.
I suspect and hope your understanding of the functions of the NI Assembly is superior to mine.
In practical terms though without the largest Unionist party it has broken down as has the GFA until the Irish Sea border is removed.
At the time of the GFA it was the UUP the largest Unionist party, now the DUP is largest party and with the TUV makes up well over half of Unionists
I expect you are going to find as this war plays out there will be a large move by HMG to resolve the NI protocol and come together much more with the EU over lots of areas
This will have changed the dial on UK- EU relationships and for the better
It won't, Starmer might, Johnson won't.
NATO unity is separate
I am not talking about NATO but trust you to misunderstanding the post
You are deluded if you think Johnson will align closer to the EU was the point, the ERG would go mad.
Starmer might if he won the next general election, not the Tories
I am not the deluded one here
The position HY describes isn't necessarily morally right, but he's probably politically right.
This Government flip flops about on some issues, but is deeply dogmatic and inflexible on others. The insistence on picking fights over Northern Ireland, even when there are far more important priorities to attend to now and we could agree to see how the mechanisms work and revisit them in a year or two, is one example. Another is immigration and asylum. They are presently heel digging over visa free travel for the poor bloody Ukrainian refugees, and will likely continue to do so even as Poland in particular is swamped with potentially millions of arrivals. It's going to take a concerted campaign of humiliation from the entire Western alliance to get the UK to budge on this, in all likelihood.
On the asylum topic, here's another possible reason why the Home Office is heel digging:
Does the UK have a moral obligation to offer asylum to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion?
The head of MI6 has revealed he believes Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine will probably be “unwinnable” because the Russian president will never secure a wider political victory
The other issue is what happens IF Putin falls? The idea we will see a new more amenable leader willing to move away from China and towards the West seems romantically fanciful. Indeed, the humiliation of Putin now may create more problems later - this is why we need to give Russia a face-saving way out (if that means Putin is removed by the Russians, that's their business) and an opportunity in time to re-build and strengthen the relationships that matter not the gangster cronyism which doesn't.
Agreed on the first point. On the second, I don't see any face-saving way out for Russia. The Ukrainians won't accept Russia being allowed to keep its ill gotten gains, and Russia's neighbours to the West (except for Belarus, which it will eventually annex,) are now all so frightened of Russian aggression that Russia has forfeited any right to ask them to compromise over their future choices, even assuming that it had any such right to begin with. If Russia is beaten in Ukraine, Ukraine will then demand to join NATO and it will be hard to reward the Ukrainian's heroic resistance with anything short of it. Finland, and possibly Sweden as well, will also be sorely tempted to do so now that we have had this graphic reminder of the kind of barbarity that we are dealing with.
We can offer all the reassurances we can to the effect that the West won't cross Russia's own internationally recognised frontier - backed up with the very reasonable observation that we, unlike they, haven't violated those boundaries since we worked together to destroy the Nazi Reich in 1945 - but the Russians themselves are so bloody insecure and paranoid that they won't accept them. And there's no way acceptable to the Ukrainians that ends in anything other than a complete Russian surrender of its stolen lands; there might be room to concede a referendum in Crimea, but that's about it.
About the best we can do is offer to co-operate with them on the construction of fixed fortifications - literally, that each of us should build thick walls and ditches all the way down our mutual border, to demonstrate that it is permanently fixed and to make warfare across that frontier more difficult. I don't see what other mutually acceptable means exist to offer Russia any reassurance at all. The trust doesn't exist for anything else, and it won't do for so long as Russia remains an autocracy.
For me, the solution lies somewhere in Eastward expansion of the EU, but not of NATO, along with some form of EU associate member status for Russia.
TWO SPEED EU. Yay !
Indeed. I've never been against the EU, not even against the UK's participation in it, just against the unacceptable loss of our sovereignty inherent in full membership.
The baffling failure of Russian air power and ability to defend it's own supply lines make no sense. Mavbe he really did expect Ukraine to just roll over?
I'm inclined to think that "somebody* on the Russian side is a little complacent, or over-confident.
It must require a large number of assumptions about risk to line up 90 helicopters parked nose to tail on a road 20-25 miles inside Belarus.
RAF Basingbourn (still an MOD site) is just down the road from me. It was home to B17 aircraft of the USAAF.
Nearby there is a stately home, Wimpole Hall, which coincidentally had a wide two-mile long avenue stretching between it and the base. So the air force used it as distributed parking for their aircraft - and there are photos of these massive bombers arrayed along it.
Whenever I walk the avenue, I think of what it must have been like with all those bombers there.
Do you have a link to a photograph of that? Fascinating.
The link I gave had a diagram of the dispersal points and a wartime aerial view of them, sans aircraft. I've seen a piccie of the avenue heaving with bombers, but annoyingly I cannot immediately find it online. It may have been in a book. Sorry.
[deleted redundant content - I'd meant something else but the pics are much the same]
Nope, don't think I've read that. It's blooming annoying as I definitely saw it in a book or leaflet, and wished I'd scanned it in. I'm then fairly certain I came across the same piccie online, but cannot find it now.
It may have been a local history book from the library.
Annoying when that happens! That publisher/magazine likes to have then and now comparisons and is generally excellent for helping one visualise what things actually looked like at the time.
I live right by the old RAF Bourn (note, not Bassingbourn - I wonder if there was ever confusion with having two airfields similarly named so close). It was quite a large place for a satellite airfield, and I think had much heavier maintenance facilities than most airfields.
On the other side of the road to the airfield are a series of old wooden huts in a field - presumably old accommodation, slowly falling down. I'd love to know the history of the buildings, and am wondering if they are unusual and should be preserved? If I'm right and they are Second World War that is...
Anyone recognise what they are? Or are they just old pig sheds?
British Concrete Federation prefabs, but obviously like Nissen huts could be used for lots of things. IANAE but this looks to me like a dispersed residential site - all buildings the same pattern so far as I can see in plan view, no specialist use, single ?water tower, etc. Spread out the risk of air attack, Cookhouse elsewhere on airfield, etc.
Wow, thanks. I've read that third link several times before, but it never quite sunk in.
Are they unusual survivors?
No idea, not least because they must have been common - literally built like Nissen huts. They would have to be some unusual variant. But the prefab museum people should know. Also worth a look woiuld be the Enbglish Heritage register and the Defence of the Realm website [edit: forget that DotR Project, it's anti-invasion, so not relevant).
Thanks. I might drop them a line; they're quite fascinating structures, clearly visible in the field on a couple of my regular running routes. It seems a shame that they're derelict, especially given their local history as shown on one of your links.
'domestic site' is also worth a try as well as 'dispersed site' (I think 'dispersAL' was for the planes).
Found a map, looks as if it was on one of the sites (no detail at the level of hut alas)
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
We are not on the Continent.
This is basic geography.
In which you are wrong. We are part of the European continent by any normal definition.
These people just make up their own facts to suit them. They end up looking like complete idiots, posting tripe like that.
Not a very successful attempt at mockery then, or a very successful post full stop. Geographically, we are separated from the Continent of Europe by the sea. Geologically, we may be connected by a shelf, but unless the Russians are going to develop gills, it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The mid-Atlantic plate runs right through Iceland, meaning the north-western side of the island is on the North American continent, with the south-eastern side on Europe.
We're talking landmass, not plates! Otherwise India isn't part of Asia!
Correct
this is a fallacy which irritates the fuck out of me. You have continents (big bits) and islands (small bits) so you have the continent which we are not part of because we are an island. But if you say so there's a bunch of hebephrenic dweebs who make out like you have said something almost as terrible as saying that a person with a cock and balls might be a laydee but that's not where the smart money is, because they think that plate tectonics = continental drift, when it really, really doesn't.
Also, Spain and Portugal are deffo in Africa on this theory.
Never do meth, kids. Not even once.
I've never seen anyone get so mad about the definition of continent before. I cannot say I anticipated that.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
The baffling failure of Russian air power and ability to defend it's own supply lines make no sense. Mavbe he really did expect Ukraine to just roll over?
I'm inclined to think that "somebody* on the Russian side is a little complacent, or over-confident.
It must require a large number of assumptions about risk to line up 90 helicopters parked nose to tail on a road 20-25 miles inside Belarus.
RAF Basingbourn (still an MOD site) is just down the road from me. It was home to B17 aircraft of the USAAF.
Nearby there is a stately home, Wimpole Hall, which coincidentally had a wide two-mile long avenue stretching between it and the base. So the air force used it as distributed parking for their aircraft - and there are photos of these massive bombers arrayed along it.
Whenever I walk the avenue, I think of what it must have been like with all those bombers there.
Do you have a link to a photograph of that? Fascinating.
The link I gave had a diagram of the dispersal points and a wartime aerial view of them, sans aircraft. I've seen a piccie of the avenue heaving with bombers, but annoyingly I cannot immediately find it online. It may have been in a book. Sorry.
[deleted redundant content - I'd meant something else but the pics are much the same]
Nope, don't think I've read that. It's blooming annoying as I definitely saw it in a book or leaflet, and wished I'd scanned it in. I'm then fairly certain I came across the same piccie online, but cannot find it now.
It may have been a local history book from the library.
Annoying when that happens! That publisher/magazine likes to have then and now comparisons and is generally excellent for helping one visualise what things actually looked like at the time.
I live right by the old RAF Bourn (note, not Bassingbourn - I wonder if there was ever confusion with having two airfields similarly named so close). It was quite a large place for a satellite airfield, and I think had much heavier maintenance facilities than most airfields.
On the other side of the road to the airfield are a series of old wooden huts in a field - presumably old accommodation, slowly falling down. I'd love to know the history of the buildings, and am wondering if they are unusual and should be preserved? If I'm right and they are Second World War that is...
Anyone recognise what they are? Or are they just old pig sheds?
British Concrete Federation prefabs, but obviously like Nissen huts could be used for lots of things. IANAE but this looks to me like a dispersed residential site - all buildings the same pattern so far as I can see in plan view, no specialist use, single ?water tower, etc. Spread out the risk of air attack, Cookhouse elsewhere on airfield, etc.
Wow, thanks. I've read that third link several times before, but it never quite sunk in.
Are they unusual survivors?
No idea, not least because they must have been common - literally built like Nissen huts. They would have to be some unusual variant. But the prefab museum people should know. Also worth a look woiuld be the Enbglish Heritage register and the Defence of the Realm website [edit: forget that DotR Project, it's anti-invasion, so not relevant).
Thanks. I might drop them a line; they're quite fascinating structures, clearly visible in the field on a couple of my regular running routes. It seems a shame that they're derelict, especially given their local history as shown on one of your links.
And this too (from the superb NLS website maps section). Amazing how many huts there were even in (apparently) 1959. Your huts are a mere remnant.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
We are not on the Continent.
This is basic geography.
In which you are wrong. We are part of the European continent by any normal definition.
These people just make up their own facts to suit them. They end up looking like complete idiots, posting tripe like that.
Not a very successful attempt at mockery then, or a very successful post full stop. Geographically, we are separated from the Continent of Europe by the sea. Geologically, we may be connected by a shelf, but unless the Russians are going to develop gills, it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The mid-Atlantic plate runs right through Iceland, meaning the north-western side of the island is on the North American continent, with the south-eastern side on Europe.
We're talking landmass, not plates! Otherwise India isn't part of Asia!
Correct
this is a fallacy which irritates the fuck out of me. You have continents (big bits) and islands (small bits) so you have the continent which we are not part of because we are an island. But if you say so there's a bunch of hebephrenic dweebs who make out like you have said something almost as terrible as saying that a person with a cock and balls might be a laydee but that's not where the smart money is, because they think that plate tectonics = continental drift, when it really, really doesn't.
Also, Spain and Portugal are deffo in Africa on this theory.
Never do meth, kids. Not even once.
I've never seen anyone get so mad about the definition of continent before. I cannot say I anticipated that.
Angry, please, not mad. We are not on the North American Plate
To quote John Donne
"No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Shit that doesn't work any more because Tyndall got the wrong end of the stick in geology O level classes."
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Not at all; simply that the Isles of Britain and Ireland are on the continental shelf - ergo prima facie part of the continent of Eurasia (and Africa too).
The head of MI6 has revealed he believes Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine will probably be “unwinnable” because the Russian president will never secure a wider political victory
He’s lost.
Even if he kills the current leadership and somehow manages to impose a degree of control he’s cemented an idea - an independent Ukraine, part of Europe, not Greater Russia. You can’t kill ideas. This one will outlast him, long after he’s an embarrassing footnote in Russian history.
Anders Åslund @anders_aslund Today, Ukraine's railway workers blew up all connections with the Russian railways. That is important to block future military supplies.
Daring to raise my head above the trench in this vicious continental definition war but hands up if you agree with me that there are 7 continents - Africa , Asia , Europe , N and C America , S.America , Oceania and Antarctica . The game Risk has it right and FIFA ,Eurasia people and Aussies are Asians people have it wrong imho. The world needs 7 continents ,any less and well its inadequate
Anders Åslund @anders_aslund Today, Ukraine's railway workers blew up all connections with the Russian railways. That is important to block future military supplies.
Anders Åslund @anders_aslund Today, Ukraine's railway workers blew up all connections with the Russian railways. That is important to block future military supplies.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Not at all; simply that the Isles of Britain and Ireland are on the continental shelf - ergo prima facie part of the continent of Eurasia (and Africa too).
The argument ex cod Latin, always a killer. Why does being on the x shelf imply x?
Anders Åslund @anders_aslund Today, Ukraine's railway workers blew up all connections with the Russian railways. That is important to block future military supplies.
I see John Rentoul saying the Sunak's pitch to be PM is about competent centrism. I don't know where he's been, but unless you are running for President of France I don't think that's a winning formula.
Anders Åslund @anders_aslund Today, Ukraine's railway workers blew up all connections with the Russian railways. That is important to block future military supplies.
Daring to raise my head above the trench in this vicious continental definition war but hands up if you agree with me that there are 7 continents - Africa , Asia , Europe , N and C America , S.America , Oceania and Antarctica . The game Risk has it right and FIFA ,Eurasia people and Aussies are Asians people have it wrong imho. The world needs 7 continents ,any less and well its inadequate
Nope. Asia/Europe is a non-starter, it would never have got off the ground if the Greeks had not had first mover advantage.
Nor of course would dividing up the Americas just because there's a thin bit in the middle. And you can't say yebbut different plates, that's like Frank Drebbin killing his 1000th drug dealer by reversing over him and then him turning out to be a drug dealer afterwards.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us...
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
Hope they pay you well for that equivocation
If you never make predictions then you can never make a bad prediction was some advice I was given early in my working life.
I have to work pretty hard to not giving people the answer 'Yes and No' to a lot of questions. Problem is people like simple yes or no answers and often there's more to it than they'd like.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us...
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
Hope they pay you well for that equivocation
If you never make predictions then you can never make a bad prediction was some advice I was given early in my working life.
I have to work pretty hard to not giving people the answer 'Yes and No' to a lot of questions. Problem is people like simple yes or not answers and often there's more to it than they'd like.
Jesus - 1 week ago I had no idea what SWIFT was and now I have to work out sub -webs of it to see what is targeted and functional of it and what is not - i am sure PB will help! Beginning to feel like Peter Mannion at that staff away day retreat he had to go to
Daring to raise my head above the trench in this vicious continental definition war but hands up if you agree with me that there are 7 continents - Africa , Asia , Europe , N and C America , S.America , Oceania and Antarctica . The game Risk has it right and FIFA ,Eurasia people and Aussies are Asians people have it wrong imho. The world needs 7 continents ,any less and well its inadequate
Nope. Asia/Europe is a non-starter, it would never have got off the ground if the Greeks had not had first mover advantage.
Nor of course would dividing up the Americas just because there's a thin bit in the middle. And you can't say yebbut different plates, that's like Frank Drebbin killing his 1000th drug dealer by reversing over him and then him turning out to be a drug dealer afterwards.
If you want a lucky seven you can have Eurasia, Africa, Australia, North America, South America, Antarctica, Greenland.
Anders Åslund @anders_aslund Today, Ukraine's railway workers blew up all connections with the Russian railways. That is important to block future military supplies.
Anders Åslund @anders_aslund Today, Ukraine's railway workers blew up all connections with the Russian railways. That is important to block future military supplies.
Musing on what is an old poll but an interesting election which is for the Northern Ireland Assembly on May 5th. SF maintains a narrow lead over the DUP with Alliance polling strongly in third and UU in fourth.
The possibility must therefore exist of Michelle O'Neill becoming First Minister - the Executive (before its suspension) had a balance of 4 DUP, 3 SF and one each from UU, SDLP and Alliance.
It may be we could be looking at 4 SF and 2 from DUP, UU and Alliance as the polling suggests.
As a complete aside, received through the letter box of Stodge Towers a powerful anti-Labour leaflet (one or two inaccuracies in all honesty) from "community campaigner" Mehmood Mirza.
Now for those who don't follow Newham politics (and why would you?), Mirza was once a staunch ally of current Newham Mayor and Council leader Roksana Fiaz who has been selected for another term as Mayor. Mirza has turned on her because she has turned on Momentum and the Corbynites and embraced the centrist path to world domination as described by SKS (apparently).
Mirza, who is very active against the Council, seems likely to stand against Fiaz as "Newham Socialist Labour" candidate (apparently Gorgeous George was also approached). Whether said NSL will put up candidates against Labour in the Council election remains the seen but two Labour Councillors have resigned the Labour Whip and the Chairs of both East Ham and West Ham CLPs have quit the party over the "coronation" of Fiaz.
The DUP have withdrawn from the Stormont Executive though to stop leakage to TUV and will not return unless and until the UK government invokes Article 16
It would be great for all of Ireland, the rest of then Uk and probably for the EU as well is Ulster Unionists voted for the UUP in large enough numbers for them to have more votes and seats than the DUP and TUV.
Anders Åslund @anders_aslund Today, Ukraine's railway workers blew up all connections with the Russian railways. That is important to block future military supplies.
Could have just sprinkled some leaves on the line
We regret the cancellation of this service, C4 on the line. And No buffet car.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us.
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
If Ukraine is asking for something, then we should trust that it's the right course and do it. The merits should not be judged based on the advantages and disadvantages "for us". They want Russia excluded from SWIFT. So that should happen. End of argument.
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us...
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
Hope they pay you well for that equivocation
If you never make predictions then you can never make a bad prediction was some advice I was given early in my working life.
I have to work pretty hard to not giving people the answer 'Yes and No' to a lot of questions. Problem is people like simple yes or no answers and often there's more to it than they'd like.
The baffling failure of Russian air power and ability to defend it's own supply lines make no sense. Mavbe he really did expect Ukraine to just roll over?
I'm inclined to think that "somebody* on the Russian side is a little complacent, or over-confident.
It must require a large number of assumptions about risk to line up 90 helicopters parked nose to tail on a road 20-25 miles inside Belarus.
RAF Basingbourn (still an MOD site) is just down the road from me. It was home to B17 aircraft of the USAAF.
Nearby there is a stately home, Wimpole Hall, which coincidentally had a wide two-mile long avenue stretching between it and the base. So the air force used it as distributed parking for their aircraft - and there are photos of these massive bombers arrayed along it.
Whenever I walk the avenue, I think of what it must have been like with all those bombers there.
Do you have a link to a photograph of that? Fascinating.
The link I gave had a diagram of the dispersal points and a wartime aerial view of them, sans aircraft. I've seen a piccie of the avenue heaving with bombers, but annoyingly I cannot immediately find it online. It may have been in a book. Sorry.
[deleted redundant content - I'd meant something else but the pics are much the same]
Nope, don't think I've read that. It's blooming annoying as I definitely saw it in a book or leaflet, and wished I'd scanned it in. I'm then fairly certain I came across the same piccie online, but cannot find it now.
It may have been a local history book from the library.
Annoying when that happens! That publisher/magazine likes to have then and now comparisons and is generally excellent for helping one visualise what things actually looked like at the time.
I live right by the old RAF Bourn (note, not Bassingbourn - I wonder if there was ever confusion with having two airfields similarly named so close). It was quite a large place for a satellite airfield, and I think had much heavier maintenance facilities than most airfields.
On the other side of the road to the airfield are a series of old wooden huts in a field - presumably old accommodation, slowly falling down. I'd love to know the history of the buildings, and am wondering if they are unusual and should be preserved? If I'm right and they are Second World War that is...
Anyone recognise what they are? Or are they just old pig sheds?
British Concrete Federation prefabs, but obviously like Nissen huts could be used for lots of things. IANAE but this looks to me like a dispersed residential site - all buildings the same pattern so far as I can see in plan view, no specialist use, single ?water tower, etc. Spread out the risk of air attack, Cookhouse elsewhere on airfield, etc.
Wow, thanks. I've read that third link several times before, but it never quite sunk in.
Are they unusual survivors?
No idea, not least because they must have been common - literally built like Nissen huts. They would have to be some unusual variant. But the prefab museum people should know. Also worth a look woiuld be the Enbglish Heritage register and the Defence of the Realm website [edit: forget that DotR Project, it's anti-invasion, so not relevant).
Thanks. I might drop them a line; they're quite fascinating structures, clearly visible in the field on a couple of my regular running routes. It seems a shame that they're derelict, especially given their local history as shown on one of your links.
And this too (from the superb NLS website maps section). Amazing how many huts there were even in (apparently) 1959. Your huts are a mere remnant.
The DUP have withdrawn from the Stormont Executive though to stop leakage to TUV and will not return unless and until the UK government invokes Article 16
That doesn't stop the Executive from existing, does it?
The Executive currently represents 81 of the 90 Assembly members - without the DUP, the cross-community votes couldn't happen but routine business could. Whether the UU or Alliance could take the Deputy First Minister role if the DUP refused to serve, I don't know.
I suspect and hope your understanding of the functions of the NI Assembly is superior to mine.
In practical terms though without the largest Unionist party it has broken down as has the GFA until the Irish Sea border is removed.
At the time of the GFA it was the UUP the largest Unionist party, now the DUP is largest party and with the TUV makes up well over half of Unionists
I expect you are going to find as this war plays out there will be a large move by HMG to resolve the NI protocol and come together much more with the EU over lots of areas
This will have changed the dial on UK- EU relationships and for the better
It won't, Starmer might, Johnson won't.
NATO unity is separate
I am not talking about NATO but trust you to misunderstanding the post
You are deluded if you think Johnson will align closer to the EU was the point, the ERG would go mad.
Starmer might if he won the next general election, not the Tories
I am not the deluded one here
The position HY describes isn't necessarily morally right, but he's probably politically right.
This Government flip flops about on some issues, but is deeply dogmatic and inflexible on others. The insistence on picking fights over Northern Ireland, even when there are far more important priorities to attend to now and we could agree to see how the mechanisms work and revisit them in a year or two, is one example. Another is immigration and asylum. They are presently heel digging over visa free travel for the poor bloody Ukrainian refugees, and will likely continue to do so even as Poland in particular is swamped with potentially millions of arrivals. It's going to take a concerted campaign of humiliation from the entire Western alliance to get the UK to budge on this, in all likelihood.
The Home Office is institutionally racist. Discuss.
Daring to raise my head above the trench in this vicious continental definition war but hands up if you agree with me that there are 7 continents - Africa , Asia , Europe , N and C America , S.America , Oceania and Antarctica . The game Risk has it right and FIFA ,Eurasia people and Aussies are Asians people have it wrong imho. The world needs 7 continents ,any less and well its inadequate
Nope. Asia/Europe is a non-starter, it would never have got off the ground if the Greeks had not had first mover advantage.
Nor of course would dividing up the Americas just because there's a thin bit in the middle. And you can't say yebbut different plates, that's like Frank Drebbin killing his 1000th drug dealer by reversing over him and then him turning out to be a drug dealer afterwards.
If you want a lucky seven you can have Eurasia, Africa, Australia, North America, South America, Antarctica, Greenland.
As you can walk from Ushuaia to Utqiagvik, N/S America is not acceptable.
Is it going to make a difference? Weren't you saying the other day that it's worse for Russia in terms of capital flight to remain in SWIFT?
Russian exclusion from SWIFT has many benefits for us it also had a few disadvantages for us...
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
Hope they pay you well for that equivocation
If you never make predictions then you can never make a bad prediction was some advice I was given early in my working life.
I have to work pretty hard to not giving people the answer 'Yes and No' to a lot of questions. Problem is people like simple yes or no answers and often there's more to it than they'd like.
I can relate.
had to go on a court training course for witnesses for my job and the barrister said the number of people who comply with a cross examination barrister's demand that they only answer a question yes or no is amazing. Answer it in however many words you want to was his advice.
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Not at all; simply that the Isles of Britain and Ireland are on the continental shelf - ergo prima facie part of the continent of Eurasia (and Africa too).
The argument ex cod Latin, always a killer. Why does being on the x shelf imply x?
I do understand these things are hard to a Flat Earther like yourself. Or maybe you are one of the Hollow Earthers?
I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.
The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.
And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?
I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.
Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.
Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.
The Chinese are worse.
The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.
Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.
I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.
But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.
Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.
Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is
As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.
"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."
The British Isles are part of the continent of Europe because that is basic geology/geography. Just as much as Sicily of any of the Greek Islands. Luckyguy needs to go back to school.
Nope. You have swallowed the whole continental drift = plate tectonics thang. It doesn't, why would it? Continental drift theory is up there with phlogiston and the universal aether, so why would plate tectonics have anytrhing useful to say about the definition of continent?
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
You are arguing geology with a geologist? You are truly deluded.
Hahahahahaha
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Er, who said anything about continental drift before you did?
Nobody explicitly, I deduced the relationship between it and Mr Tyndall's logic fail, because I am clever like that. I may be wrong of course, but it seems the likeliest explanation of his delusion that plate tectonics, and the definition of "continent," have anything to say about each other.
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Not at all; simply that the Isles of Britain and Ireland are on the continental shelf - ergo prima facie part of the continent of Eurasia (and Africa too).
That is a deliberate reimagining of the disagreement. Eurasia was never mentioned. Hy argued that Russia threatened the UK to a greater degree than China does because we share a Continent. We don't share a Continent. We are not part of Continental Europe, and unless Russia plans to invade every other country on the way here, before getting a Eurostar ticket, it would have to invade by sea, just as China would. Therefore one that threatens us more is therefore the one with the bigger and better equipped Navy - being 'European' is neither here nor there. This daft argument about continental shelves is totally irrelevant. And the fact that we aren't on the continent has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit ffs.
Jesus - 1 week ago I had no idea what SWIFT was and now I have to work out sub -webs of it to see what is targeted and functional of it and what is not - i am sure PB will help! Beginning to feel like Peter Mannion at that staff away day retreat he had to go to
From what I'm hearing it's not the big bazooka people might hope. Not my area of expertise but the clearing system might be more important.
Also is it clear whether or not whether Erdogan has closed the Bosphorus?
Jesus - 1 week ago I had no idea what SWIFT was and now I have to work out sub -webs of it to see what is targeted and functional of it and what is not - i am sure PB will help! Beginning to feel like Peter Mannion at that staff away day retreat he had to go to
From what I'm hearing it's not the big bazooka people might hope. Not my area of expertise but the clearing system might be more important.
Also is it clear whether or not whether Erdogan has closed the Bosphorus?
Are we sure we want him to get a taste for wielding that as a weapon?
Comments
It has nothing to do with NATO, Ireland is not even in NATO
Nataliya Vasilyeva
@Nat_Vasilyeva
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4m
Police are blocking exits from the Pushkinskaya station in central Moscow, fearing anti-protests
https://twitter.com/Nat_Vasilyeva/status/1497606904356519941
https://www.prefabmuseum.uk/content/new-contributions/british-concrete-federation-huts-in-bourn-cambridgeshire
https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4802461
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cambs/vol5/pp4-16
This Government flip flops about on some issues, but is deeply dogmatic and inflexible on others. The insistence on picking fights over Northern Ireland, even when there are far more important priorities to attend to now and we could agree to see how the mechanisms work and revisit them in a year or two, is one example. Another is immigration and asylum. They are presently heel digging over visa free travel for the poor bloody Ukrainian refugees, and will likely continue to do so even as Poland in particular is swamped with potentially millions of arrivals. It's going to take a concerted campaign of humiliation from the entire Western alliance to get the UK to budge on this, in all likelihood.
There's a scene in Cross of Iron, where the German platoon captures some women soldiers, and let them go, after disarming them. I always thought that was very unlikely, but I guess that even Sam Peckinpah was prepared to pull his punches sometimes.
A final decision hasn’t been made but admin aims to make each move in conjunction with allies across Europe for maximum impact
https://twitter.com/SalehaMohsin/status/1497574435280367622
Edited extra bit: piano fans may enjoy this currently broadcasting stream from a talented Ukrainian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3clCD2NUks
Also are Spain and Portugal part of Europe or Africa?
They may not have a choice, even in a pretty decent outcome, given the disparities in scales.
If Russia is beaten in Ukraine, Ukraine will then demand to join NATO and it will be hard to reward the Ukrainian's heroic resistance with anything short of it
Oh I imagine at least a couple of NATO members could be relied upon to say no. Working with, yes, but the days of desperately wanting new members, no.
Are they unusual survivors?
If we are stuck with hopes that Russia will change to be 'more like us', then we are probably going to be stuck forever with some variation of the situation we are facing today.
https://twitter.com/vonderburchard/status/1497575210094149632?s=21
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Eurasia
#Anonymous is currently engaged in a full-blown cyber war against the Russian government and Putin's murderous war machine. https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/1497610999100329988/photo/1
Shock and awe in the sense that we have seen it before means days upon days of massive air and missile strikes. Its not really Russian doctrine and they don't necessarily have the capacity to do it the way the US does. The US and its allies could stick up hundreds of aircraft day in, day out in a sustained tempo with large air refuelling capacity. Russia can't.
What they have done though, particularly in relation to Kiev is a fairly familiar Russian approach; rapid tank assault with lots of special operations or other elite formations such as airborne actions in and around the capital to sow confusion and/or attempt to decapitate leaderships and resistance. What I posted over a week ago about watching for 'plain clothes' actions in Kiev is very much in evidence. The locals appear to be rounding up plenty of guys in civvies over the last 48 hours.
Very much part of Russian doctrine, yet missing so far, is massive suppressive fire by artillery. Maybe they didn't feel as if they needed it or consider it expedient to use it, but they have the kit in-theater to do so. You suspect they will deploy it but I am assuming the Ukrainians have dispersed/ are staying in urban areas in order to reduce its expediency or effect.
Finally its possible that the Ukrainians have proved better than expected and the Russians just have ropey execution at the moment though overall the attack doesn't seem to be going so bad
All those years of hearing 'Twll dyn pob Sais!' has an impact.
You: your head is the organ attached to the extremity of your left leg
Me: You sure?
You: Are you arguing physiology with a physiologist?
I don't know if you are a geologist or not, but I do know that you majored in neither history of science, nor logic. Geology has nothing to say about the definition of "continent", you only think it does because of a rather confused misunderstanding of Weigener's mad and untenable theories and the utterly misleading superficial resemblance between them and plate tectonics.
Spain n Portugal: E or A? Answer the Q.
Does the UK have a moral obligation to offer asylum to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion?
ALL BRITONS
Yes it does: 50%
No it does not: 32%
CON VOTERS
Yes it does: 38%
No it does not: 47%
LAB VOTERS
Yes it does: 67%
No it does not: 18%
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1497258529006268421
Found a map, looks as if it was on one of the sites (no detail at the level of hut alas)
https://wingcotomjefferson.wordpress.com/no-105-squadron-raf-bourn/
If you have a better one, please share it with the class.
Germany now backs Russian exclusion from SWIFT.
https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1497616192856637449?s=21
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=52.21125&lon=-0.04675&layers=193&b=1
To quote John Donne
"
No man is an island entire of itself; every manis a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Shit that doesn't work any more because Tyndall got the wrong end of the stick in geology O level classes."
Even if he kills the current leadership and somehow manages to impose a degree of control he’s cemented an idea - an independent Ukraine, part of Europe, not Greater Russia. You can’t kill ideas. This one will outlast him, long after he’s an embarrassing footnote in Russian history.
I was not prepared for the fisticuffs that ensued.
Anyway will go off and do something else rather than watch more Ukrainian news (pleasant as pottering around in Cambs and airfield history has been).
@lapatina_
Twitter no longer allows people in Russia to register new accounts🥳❤️💪🏼
I suspect a coup in Moscow will be more damaging than exclusion from SWIFT for Putin.
We won't know if it is the right decision for a few months, if not years.
@anders_aslund
Today, Ukraine's railway workers blew up all connections with the Russian railways. That is important to block future military supplies.
https://www.transport-network.co.uk/Salisbury-crash-Leaves-on-the-line-linked-to-accident/17611
At the time of Salisbury rail crash last Autumn, in which one train appears to have skidded into another, work to clean the rails of leaf debris had been delayed because of weekend engineering works, it has emerged.
Nor of course would dividing up the Americas just because there's a thin bit in the middle. And you can't say yebbut different plates, that's like Frank Drebbin killing his 1000th drug dealer by reversing over him and then him turning out to be a drug dealer afterwards.
Almost incontinent.
https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1497619999523065859
Trans. “Ones that don’t affect Germany”.
What you really want to use is one of these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_plough#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-279-0901-31,_Russland,_Einsatz_des_"Schienenwolf".jpg
Latvia has just joined. 🇱🇻
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1497535150791565312
The only exception to that rule would be if a course of action that risked dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia, so while we should be meeting their requests for additional weapons and resupply, we should not provide any troops on the ground or a protected air corridor within Ukraine.
Also, how widespread the dispersal pads were. Some go well into my village; you can tell by the aged, cracked concrete.
I really hope some of this history doesn't disappear once they build on Bourn airfield.
Reports are that the Russians are forming up a serious amount of field artillery including multiple rocket launch systems east of Kiev.
Also is it clear whether or not whether Erdogan has closed the Bosphorus?
In the first half of last year, the EU was dragging its feet on Trusted Trader, and the UK rightly threatened to invoke Article 16.
Since then, the government's own report to the Northern Ireland Select Committee reports good progress.
We can't invoke Article 16 if the EU is holding up their side of the bargain. It is simply morally wrong to do so.