Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
That Others score is pretty high.
Interesting that we have another decline in ReformUK, but with the Tories only picking up a small fraction.
If we present this poll with changes on the Ipsos for January then the changes are huge. LAB 41 (-8) CON 20 (-7) LDM 11 (+4) GRN 11 (+4) RFM 9 (+5) OTH 8 (+3)
The Labour vote could be extraordinarily efficient at the GE.
Greens building up support is safe Labour seats, the Lib Dems smashing the Tories in the blue wall, while Labour win all the marginals in the suburbs and towns (and in Scotland). They could poll less than 40 and still win a landslide.
Baxtered that gives a Lab Maj of 290, but Tories at 74 seats just about hold on as the Official Opposition.
This crude measure takes no account, of course, of swingback and tactical voting. Personally I'd be more sure of the latter than the former, but then I've always been a bit of a swingback sceptic. (Or a reluctant Swinger? No, it's too early.)
An acquaintance's office is closed for the week as loads of people have come down with Covid.
How did they know? Seriously - is anyone testing now (aside of at hospitals?)
AIUI their company provides free tests.
I think it's a fairly simple equation; working from home is doable for their industry, and if someone gets covid they're probably out for a week. If their family gets it as well, possibly longer (looking after kids etc). Even if WfH is slightly less efficient for them, you don't need to get many people getting the lurgy before the disruption gets greater than the WfH inefficiency.
Oh, and there a couple of people with cancer atm as well. Including one of the bosses...
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
That Others score is pretty high.
Interesting that we have another decline in ReformUK, but with the Tories only picking up a small fraction.
If we present this poll with changes on the Ipsos for January then the changes are huge. LAB 41 (-8) CON 20 (-7) LDM 11 (+4) GRN 11 (+4) RFM 9 (+5) OTH 8 (+3)
The Labour vote could be extraordinarily efficient at the GE.
Greens building up support is safe Labour seats, the Lib Dems smashing the Tories in the blue wall, while Labour win all the marginals in the suburbs and towns (and in Scotland). They could poll less than 40 and still win a landslide.
Yes they could. Although, the curious thing about a very efficient vote - winning large numbers of seats with only just enough votes - it's that it's not much different to a very inefficient vote - losing large numbers of seats by a small margin.
First day properly out and about since that trip to A&E - if this "100 Day Cough" isn't another strain of Covid I'll eat my hat... But, am alive - unlike the Iranian PM.
I'm glad you are back out and about.
Re covid - remember that there have always been bugs out there and pretty nasty ones too. Not every cough and cold that people get from now to the end of time will be covid.
And if you recall the testing during the pandemic - how many were actually positive among those who had symptoms? Not that many.
The Singapore pillocks are recommending masks again. That will help. A bit of dirty cloth over the face a day keeps the Doctor away
Good good. Looks like the ATACMS have arrived! A brand new ship as well, what a shame.
It looks like they sunk, or damaged, two ships at the weekend. The bingo card is slowly being filled...
In the comments someone points out that the name of the minesweeper that was talked about as sunk is the same name as the class of ship of this corvette. So probably one ship, some confusion.
This ship is capable of launching the fancy new fast zircon missile that caused such excitement when used for the first time a few months ago. Or, at least, it was. Before it was sunk.
There has to be a chance that Russia will end the war with zero surface ships in the Black Sea Fleet.
They’ve pretty much moved everything away from Sevastopol, and redeployed out of Novorossiyk a couple of hundred miles East. If the Ukranians now have missiles that can hit there, the Russian navy is screwed - as is the Kerch Bridge.
First day properly out and about since that trip to A&E - if this "100 Day Cough" isn't another strain of Covid I'll eat my hat... But, am alive - unlike the Iranian PM.
Good to hear. The FT is reporting that there’s a nasty new strain of Covid floating about. So maybe you have that?
Sympathies
Couple of family members had it recently. One flattened for a week; the other mild symptoms.
Good good. Looks like the ATACMS have arrived! A brand new ship as well, what a shame.
It looks like they sunk, or damaged, two ships at the weekend. The bingo card is slowly being filled...
In the comments someone points out that the name of the minesweeper that was talked about as sunk is the same name as the class of ship of this corvette. So probably one ship, some confusion.
This ship is capable of launching the fancy new fast zircon missile that caused such excitement when used for the first time a few months ago. Or, at least, it was. Before it was sunk.
There has to be a chance that Russia will end the war with zero surface ships in the Black Sea Fleet.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
First day properly out and about since that trip to A&E - if this "100 Day Cough" isn't another strain of Covid I'll eat my hat... But, am alive - unlike the Iranian PM.
First day properly out and about since that trip to A&E - if this "100 Day Cough" isn't another strain of Covid I'll eat my hat... But, am alive - unlike the Iranian PM.
100 day cough is another name for whooping cough. You’d know if you had that.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
That looks like a significant move to LLG.
+2 LLG -3 RefCon +2 Nats and ??
Although with Con not benefitting appreciably from the Reform drop off in any polling we can perhaps drop the rather daft association of Reform and Con as a 'unit'
The Conservatives and LDs and Others are up, Labour are down
It looks like a significant move towards the Lib Dems and the Greens. If the Reform trend continues and the Tories are still stuck, then the last hope for the Tories begins to look very thin indeed. If the Lib Dems get into the mid teens the Tories start to lose a lot more seats.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
I doubt it changes much, in Iran the Supreme Leader the Ayatollah runs things rather than the elected President
The 85 year old supreme leaders hand picked successor dying in unclarified circumstances alongside the foreign minister most definitely changes things
Raisa was just a puppet of Khameini he will find another puppet, it makes little long term difference at all
I think that’s a misreading of the situation. Clearly Khamenei is in charge, but he is 85 years old and ailing, and in any regime like Iran’s there will be a lot of palace intrigue going on behind the scenes. Given time, I expect like you that the regime will stabilise itself and coalesce around its preferred succession option. The interesting thing here is that Khamenei may, or may not, have the luxury of time.
Good good. Looks like the ATACMS have arrived! A brand new ship as well, what a shame.
It looks like they sunk, or damaged, two ships at the weekend. The bingo card is slowly being filled...
In the comments someone points out that the name of the minesweeper that was talked about as sunk is the same name as the class of ship of this corvette. So probably one ship, some confusion.
This ship is capable of launching the fancy new fast zircon missile that caused such excitement when used for the first time a few months ago. Or, at least, it was. Before it was sunk.
There has to be a chance that Russia will end the war with zero surface ships in the Black Sea Fleet.
They’ve pretty much moved everything away from Sevastopol, and redeployed out of Novorossiyk a couple of hundred miles East. If the Ukranians now have missiles that can hit there, the Russian navy is screwed - as is the Kerch Bridge.
As reported this ship was hit in Sevastopol.
I recall that the Ukrainians have mounted one naval drone attack on Novorossiyk, and Storm Shadow was used to hit a ship in Kerch. Every ship in the Black Sea Fleet is at risk, no matter where it hides.
The thing that I find most amazing about recent war news is that the Ukrainians are still using light aircraft as improvised long-range drones to hit refineries deep inside Russia, more than 1000km from the border, and the Russians are mostly missing them.
First day properly out and about since that trip to A&E - if this "100 Day Cough" isn't another strain of Covid I'll eat my hat... But, am alive - unlike the Iranian PM.
Good to hear. The FT is reporting that there’s a nasty new strain of Covid floating about. So maybe you have that?
An acquaintance's office is closed for the week as loads of people have come down with Covid.
How did they know? Seriously - is anyone testing now (aside of at hospitals?)
AIUI their company provides free tests.
I think it's a fairly simple equation; working from home is doable for their industry, and if someone gets covid they're probably out for a week. If their family gets it as well, possibly longer (looking after kids etc). Even if WfH is slightly less efficient for them, you don't need to get many people getting the lurgy before the disruption gets greater than the WfH inefficiency.
Oh, and there a couple of people with cancer atm as well. Including one of the bosses...
Do they do this for flu? Or colds etc?
Arguably we should all do the work from home if possible if we have coughs and colds. I'm just not quite sure why we still fetish covid in this way.
Good morning ladies & gentlemen, comrades and colleagues.
In a stunning non-sequitur to any of today’s subjects, Mrs C and I have been breakfasting and watching our blue-tit chicks ‘almost’ preparing to leave the nest-box. Much squeaking and flapping of wings from most of them; looks like it’s going to be one of the most successful breeding seasons we’ve witnessed. 10 eggs have resulted, it appears, in eight strong chicks. We suspect they’ll fledge tomorrow.
First day properly out and about since that trip to A&E - if this "100 Day Cough" isn't another strain of Covid I'll eat my hat... But, am alive - unlike the Iranian PM.
First day properly out and about since that trip to A&E - if this "100 Day Cough" isn't another strain of Covid I'll eat my hat... But, am alive - unlike the Iranian PM.
100 day cough is another name for whooping cough. You’d know if you had that.
Is that true? I'm pretty sure I had whooping cough in 2004 (long coughing fits then a whoop as I tried to re-inflate my lungs) but it didn't last 100 days and I've heard of the 100 days cough in other contexts.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Helo + fog + mountains + VIP passengers, who decide if the flight goes ahead, is not a great combination.
The likelihood of an engineered assassination seems pretty low, as it would have required a degree of clandestine infiltration which surely would have enabled all sorts of other actions which haven't happened ? And I'm not sure how Israel would benefit anyway: it would be a massive roll of the dice with potentially very bad outcomes for them.
Israel doing stuff in Syria (which they don't then deny) is one thing; getting that close to the leadership within Iran quite another.
The man who attempted to kidnap Nancy Pelosi, and beat her husband over the head with a hammer, has been sentenced to 30 and 20 years in prison, to run concurrently.
That's the Federal Offences. State Charges still to be tried.
Potentially Mr Trump could for his Federal Crimes, if he wins the election and is not in the cell next door instead aiui.
Greg Abbott is Governor of Texas I think? The crime was in California, so that will be where his State Crimes trial will be - so it would be a stretch for Mr Abbott!
First day properly out and about since that trip to A&E - if this "100 Day Cough" isn't another strain of Covid I'll eat my hat... But, am alive - unlike the Iranian PM.
First day properly out and about since that trip to A&E - if this "100 Day Cough" isn't another strain of Covid I'll eat my hat... But, am alive - unlike the Iranian PM.
100 day cough is another name for whooping cough. You’d know if you had that.
Is that true? I'm pretty sure I had whooping cough in 2004 (long coughing fits then a whoop as I tried to re-inflate my lungs) but it didn't last 100 days and I've heard of the 100 days cough in other contexts.
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
That looks like a significant move to LLG.
+2 LLG -3 RefCon +2 Nats and ??
Although with Con not benefitting appreciably from the Reform drop off in any polling we can perhaps drop the rather daft association of Reform and Con as a 'unit'
The Conservatives and LDs and Others are up, Labour are down
It looks like a significant move towards the Lib Dems and the Greens. If the Reform trend continues and the Tories are still stuck, then the last hope for the Tories begins to look very thin indeed. If the Lib Dems get into the mid teens the Tories start to lose a lot more seats.
Not in a statistical sense of significance. Looks more like churn to me. Lab down three and Lib up three? Churn.
First day properly out and about since that trip to A&E - if this "100 Day Cough" isn't another strain of Covid I'll eat my hat... But, am alive - unlike the Iranian PM.
First day properly out and about since that trip to A&E - if this "100 Day Cough" isn't another strain of Covid I'll eat my hat... But, am alive - unlike the Iranian PM.
100 day cough is another name for whooping cough. You’d know if you had that.
Is that true? I'm pretty sure I had whooping cough in 2004 (long coughing fits then a whoop as I tried to re-inflate my lungs) but it didn't last 100 days and I've heard of the 100 days cough in other contexts.
Cool - did not know that! I'm pretty sure I've heard of it in other contexts, and viral infections can have pretty long hangovers (long covid is NOT the first example of long lasting effects of viruses, for example).
I have noticed, aht and abaht, that the incidence of mask wearing has moved from 1/1,000 to 1/750.
Including, very sadly, imo a young I'm guessing Japanese mother and her, I'm guessing, seven year old daughter walking along in the bright spring sunshine in London last week.
"The UK defence secretary, Grant Shapps, has ordered an urgent review after it emerged there is a shortage of planes for a mass parachute drop to mark the 80th anniversary of D-day."
There's a war on in Europe, but the British defence secretary has his tabloid-pleasing priorities straight.
While I agree its a waste of time and money I'm not sure who this is supposed to be impressing,
Perhaps what's left alive of the Express readership, perhaps its the military itself.
There's also a non-trivial risk of morbidity on any para jump, or there used to be anyway. I'm reminded of Alan Judd's novel 'A Breed of Heroes' which ends in just such a jump and at least one broken leg.
Plus are all our Paras current on their jump quals, I wonder? Which would mean practices and training ...
I applied to do P-Company and was knocked back on grounds of age (I was 34) with the comment, "You'll fucking cripple yourself you stupid fucking bastard."
You can see what's going behind the scenes at the MoD with this carefully confected outrage over the D-Day jump. The Para Reg, even more than most units, is always in a desperate search for relevancy because they have not jumped on an actual operation since Suez nearly 70 years ago. So if they don't regularly do this type of D-Day bollocks en masse then questions might start to be asked what the actual fucking point of them is.
Essentially, they should just be repurposed as elite mobile/light infantry.
They can go in by chopper or land or, very rarely, a mass parachute drop - but that's pretty rare these days.
An acquaintance's office is closed for the week as loads of people have come down with Covid.
How did they know? Seriously - is anyone testing now (aside of at hospitals?)
AIUI their company provides free tests.
I think it's a fairly simple equation; working from home is doable for their industry, and if someone gets covid they're probably out for a week. If their family gets it as well, possibly longer (looking after kids etc). Even if WfH is slightly less efficient for them, you don't need to get many people getting the lurgy before the disruption gets greater than the WfH inefficiency.
Oh, and there a couple of people with cancer atm as well. Including one of the bosses...
Do they do this for flu? Or colds etc?
Arguably we should all do the work from home if possible if we have coughs and colds. I'm just not quite sure why we still fetish covid in this way.
I'd have to ask - but aside from flu, there are not common tests for the others. But I do wonder if people coming into work sniffling and coughing is less appreciated than it used to be.
As for the 'fetish' of Covid - it's still a nasty little bu**er.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
Not unless they know it's an assassination, in which case, retaliation. And the culture of martyrdom makes any 'deterrent' highly unreliable in relation to the associated risk.
OTOH, Netenyahu's cabinet does contain folk probably nuttier than you - though their military, and intelligence tend more towards ruthless pragmatism.
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
That Others score is pretty high.
Interesting that we have another decline in ReformUK, but with the Tories only picking up a small fraction.
If we present this poll with changes on the Ipsos for January then the changes are huge. LAB 41 (-8) CON 20 (-7) LDM 11 (+4) GRN 11 (+4) RFM 9 (+5) OTH 8 (+3)
The Labour vote could be extraordinarily efficient at the GE.
Greens building up support is safe Labour seats, the Lib Dems smashing the Tories in the blue wall, while Labour win all the marginals in the suburbs and towns (and in Scotland). They could poll less than 40 and still win a landslide.
Yes they could. Although, the curious thing about a very efficient vote - winning large numbers of seats with only just enough votes - it's that it's not much different to a very inefficient vote - losing large numbers of seats by a small margin.
I'm looking forward to being part of an efficient Labour vote. I've always put in a solid personal performance (imho) but have often felt let down by the team, sometimes quite badly.
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
That looks like a significant move to LLG.
+2 LLG -3 RefCon +2 Nats and ??
Although with Con not benefitting appreciably from the Reform drop off in any polling we can perhaps drop the rather daft association of Reform and Con as a 'unit'
The Conservatives and LDs and Others are up, Labour are down
It looks like a significant move towards the Lib Dems and the Greens. If the Reform trend continues and the Tories are still stuck, then the last hope for the Tories begins to look very thin indeed. If the Lib Dems get into the mid teens the Tories start to lose a lot more seats.
Not in a statistical sense of significance. Looks more like churn to me. Lab down three and Lib up three? Churn.
The most important thing is that another month has passed with no Conservative recovery to speak of. And gratitude for the second NI cut should have kicked in by now, shouldn't it?
For comparison, the MORI polls in late autumn '96 were around L53C30LD12. The big two were both higher (negligible Green, Reform scores) but the gap was pretty similar.
Have they kept the same methodology and processing since then?
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
Not unless they know it's an assassination, in which case, retaliation. And the culture of martyrdom makes any 'deterrent' highly unreliable in relation to the associated risk.
OTOH, Netenyahu's cabinet does contain folk probably nuttier than you - though their military, and intelligence tend more towards ruthless pragmatism.
Except…. It’s a deterrent. If you’re the next Iranian leader in line how are you feeling right now? A lot more nervous than you were yesterday, I imagine
Are you particularly minded to retaliate against Jerusalem and thus get yourself slotted three weeks later? Or are you going to cough anxiously and mutter about an unfortunate accident and then get on with other things? The second is very tempting
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Let’s be frank. The UK election is now almost a foregone conclusion and therefore we are in a tedious waiting room. Watch out for the MSM telling us otherwise. They need to feel important. Like politicians.
The interest for this site revolves around value betting, some of which may need to be esoteric. Over the next few months I’m looking for quirky but brilliant tips please!
December 12th. Maverick Malcolm may have dismissed it out of hand but it is the most plausible date I’ve yet heard mentioned. The 5th anniversary of the last one, and the final date before it becomes ridiculous.
Chris Coghlan, future leader of the LDs. Doubt you will get odds and they will have to be very long and you will probably have to wait a long time, particularly if Ed Davey stands down immediately after the next election as you will have to wait until there is a following leadership election. So firstly he has to get elected in Dorking and then establish himself in parliament (so a few years) and then there has to be a leadership election and in all that time events that don't snooker him.
Why Chris Coghlan? Because his CV is too good to be true and rather like a born again Paddy Ashdown and stands a good chance of getting elected.
An acquaintance's office is closed for the week as loads of people have come down with Covid.
How did they know? Seriously - is anyone testing now (aside of at hospitals?)
AIUI their company provides free tests.
I think it's a fairly simple equation; working from home is doable for their industry, and if someone gets covid they're probably out for a week. If their family gets it as well, possibly longer (looking after kids etc). Even if WfH is slightly less efficient for them, you don't need to get many people getting the lurgy before the disruption gets greater than the WfH inefficiency.
Oh, and there a couple of people with cancer atm as well. Including one of the bosses...
Do they do this for flu? Or colds etc?
Arguably we should all do the work from home if possible if we have coughs and colds. I'm just not quite sure why we still fetish covid in this way.
I'd have to ask - but aside from flu, there are not common tests for the others. But I do wonder if people coming into work sniffling and coughing is less appreciated than it used to be.
As for the 'fetish' of Covid - it's still a nasty little bu**er.
I'm probably just showing survivors bias as I have not yet had covid (at least never tested positive). So maybe for me it doesn't seem something to be more afraid of that flu.
I have noticed, aht and abaht, that the incidence of mask wearing has moved from 1/1,000 to 1/750.
Including, very sadly, imo a young I'm guessing Japanese mother and her, I'm guessing, seven year old daughter walking along in the bright spring sunshine in London last week.
Mask wearing among Asians (Japanese, Chinese) etc was a think before covid, certainly at the Uni you say them masking pre 2020.
Good morning ladies & gentlemen, comrades and colleagues.
In a stunning non-sequitur to any of today’s subjects, Mrs C and I have been breakfasting and watching our blue-tit chicks ‘almost’ preparing to leave the nest-box. Much squeaking and flapping of wings from most of them; looks like it’s going to be one of the most successful breeding seasons we’ve witnessed. 10 eggs have resulted, it appears, in eight strong chicks. We suspect they’ll fledge tomorrow.
How big is a blue tit chick about now? Is it distinguishable from an adult, except by size?
Cat brought in a dead blue tit yesterday. I wonder if it was a young one who had just fledged? He's not normally competent enough to catch prey, nor ruthless enough to kill.
Good good. Looks like the ATACMS have arrived! A brand new ship as well, what a shame.
It looks like they sunk, or damaged, two ships at the weekend. The bingo card is slowly being filled...
In the comments someone points out that the name of the minesweeper that was talked about as sunk is the same name as the class of ship of this corvette. So probably one ship, some confusion.
This ship is capable of launching the fancy new fast zircon missile that caused such excitement when used for the first time a few months ago. Or, at least, it was. Before it was sunk.
There has to be a chance that Russia will end the war with zero surface ships in the Black Sea Fleet.
They’ve pretty much moved everything away from Sevastopol, and redeployed out of Novorossiyk a couple of hundred miles East. If the Ukranians now have missiles that can hit there, the Russian navy is screwed - as is the Kerch Bridge.
As reported this ship was hit in Sevastopol.
I recall that the Ukrainians have mounted one naval drone attack on Novorossiyk, and Storm Shadow was used to hit a ship in Kerch. Every ship in the Black Sea Fleet is at risk, no matter where it hides.
The thing that I find most amazing about recent war news is that the Ukrainians are still using light aircraft as improvised long-range drones to hit refineries deep inside Russia, more than 1000km from the border, and the Russians are mostly missing them.
The Ukranian naval intelligence appears very good, with knowledge of where the enemy is locating the ships and able to plan attacks with several different options available via air or sea. Not bad for a country with almost no navy.
The various types of airbourne drones that have managed to get well into Russia are quite amazing, it does appear that there’s very little by way of air defences away from the war zone, and even obvious specific targets such as O&G facilities and rail headers don’t appear to be defended at all. This suggests that the Russians are terribly stretched for defensive weapons.
Just been sent a job advert for a civil service role in London.
Offering £62,000 for a job requiring you to be on site in London where the job description lists skills that earn people £120,000 working from home isn’t going to get you many candidates.
An acquaintance's office is closed for the week as loads of people have come down with Covid.
How did they know? Seriously - is anyone testing now (aside of at hospitals?)
AIUI their company provides free tests.
I think it's a fairly simple equation; working from home is doable for their industry, and if someone gets covid they're probably out for a week. If their family gets it as well, possibly longer (looking after kids etc). Even if WfH is slightly less efficient for them, you don't need to get many people getting the lurgy before the disruption gets greater than the WfH inefficiency.
Oh, and there a couple of people with cancer atm as well. Including one of the bosses...
Do they do this for flu? Or colds etc?
Arguably we should all do the work from home if possible if we have coughs and colds. I'm just not quite sure why we still fetish covid in this way.
I'd have to ask - but aside from flu, there are not common tests for the others. But I do wonder if people coming into work sniffling and coughing is less appreciated than it used to be.
As for the 'fetish' of Covid - it's still a nasty little bu**er.
It makes sense to test imo if you're feeling 'off' and about to mix with someone for whom getting it could be a big problem.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
Accident.
You were 90% wet market zoonosis until about a week ago. You’re not known for your imaginative and extrapolative capacities. And fair enough. Who wants a vivid imagination and rapid fire almost-psychotic extrapolating in an accountant? You want the opposite. No imagination at all and the narrowest of minds
Happily, the world has room for us both; indeed the world needs us both
I have noticed, aht and abaht, that the incidence of mask wearing has moved from 1/1,000 to 1/750.
Including, very sadly, imo a young I'm guessing Japanese mother and her, I'm guessing, seven year old daughter walking along in the bright spring sunshine in London last week.
Isn’t that more likely a defence against the effects of pollution?
An acquaintance's office is closed for the week as loads of people have come down with Covid.
How did they know? Seriously - is anyone testing now (aside of at hospitals?)
AIUI their company provides free tests.
I think it's a fairly simple equation; working from home is doable for their industry, and if someone gets covid they're probably out for a week. If their family gets it as well, possibly longer (looking after kids etc). Even if WfH is slightly less efficient for them, you don't need to get many people getting the lurgy before the disruption gets greater than the WfH inefficiency.
Oh, and there a couple of people with cancer atm as well. Including one of the bosses...
Do they do this for flu? Or colds etc?
Arguably we should all do the work from home if possible if we have coughs and colds. I'm just not quite sure why we still fetish covid in this way.
I'd have to ask - but aside from flu, there are not common tests for the others. But I do wonder if people coming into work sniffling and coughing is less appreciated than it used to be.
As for the 'fetish' of Covid - it's still a nasty little bu**er.
I'm probably just showing survivors bias as I have not yet had covid (at least never tested positive). So maybe for me it doesn't seem something to be more afraid of that flu.
I got it Easter 2023, and it knocked me out for many, many weeks. I went from running marathons weekly to not being able to run more than 10k for two months. It was the worst I'd felt since i had meningitis eight years before.
If it did that to a fairly fit, vaccinated person, I wouldn't like to be unfit, older and unvaccinated.
Good good. Looks like the ATACMS have arrived! A brand new ship as well, what a shame.
It looks like they sunk, or damaged, two ships at the weekend. The bingo card is slowly being filled...
In the comments someone points out that the name of the minesweeper that was talked about as sunk is the same name as the class of ship of this corvette. So probably one ship, some confusion.
This ship is capable of launching the fancy new fast zircon missile that caused such excitement when used for the first time a few months ago. Or, at least, it was. Before it was sunk.
There has to be a chance that Russia will end the war with zero surface ships in the Black Sea Fleet.
They’ve pretty much moved everything away from Sevastopol, and redeployed out of Novorossiyk a couple of hundred miles East. If the Ukranians now have missiles that can hit there, the Russian navy is screwed - as is the Kerch Bridge.
As reported this ship was hit in Sevastopol.
I recall that the Ukrainians have mounted one naval drone attack on Novorossiyk, and Storm Shadow was used to hit a ship in Kerch. Every ship in the Black Sea Fleet is at risk, no matter where it hides.
The thing that I find most amazing about recent war news is that the Ukrainians are still using light aircraft as improvised long-range drones to hit refineries deep inside Russia, more than 1000km from the border, and the Russians are mostly missing them.
The Ukranian naval intelligence appears very good, with knowledge of where the enemy is locating the ships and able to plan attacks with several different options available via air or sea. Not bad for a country with almost no navy.
The various types of airbourne drones that have managed to get well into Russia are quite amazing, it does appear that there’s very little by way of air defences away from the war zone, and even obvious specific targets such as O&G facilities and rail headers don’t appear to be defended at all. This suggests that the Russians are terribly stretched for defensive weapons.
Good morning ladies & gentlemen, comrades and colleagues.
In a stunning non-sequitur to any of today’s subjects, Mrs C and I have been breakfasting and watching our blue-tit chicks ‘almost’ preparing to leave the nest-box. Much squeaking and flapping of wings from most of them; looks like it’s going to be one of the most successful breeding seasons we’ve witnessed. 10 eggs have resulted, it appears, in eight strong chicks. We suspect they’ll fledge tomorrow.
How big is a blue tit chick about now? Is it distinguishable from an adult, except by size?
Cat brought in a dead blue tit yesterday. I wonder if it was a young one who had just fledged? He's not normally competent enough to catch prey, nor ruthless enough to kill.
Ours seem a bit more than half the size of the parents ATM. Most of ours look like miniature adults now; all visible skin surfaces covered with feathers.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
Accident.
You were 90% wet market zoonosis until about a week ago. You’re not known for your imaginative and extrapolative capacities. And fair enough. Who wants a vivid imagination and rapid fire almost-psychotic extrapolating in an accountant? You want the opposite. No imagination at all and the narrowest of minds
Happily, the world has room for us both; indeed the world needs us both
Yes, you bring the flights of fancy, I'll bring the judgement and logic. It works.
Good morning ladies & gentlemen, comrades and colleagues.
In a stunning non-sequitur to any of today’s subjects, Mrs C and I have been breakfasting and watching our blue-tit chicks ‘almost’ preparing to leave the nest-box. Much squeaking and flapping of wings from most of them; looks like it’s going to be one of the most successful breeding seasons we’ve witnessed. 10 eggs have resulted, it appears, in eight strong chicks. We suspect they’ll fledge tomorrow.
How big is a blue tit chick about now? Is it distinguishable from an adult, except by size?
Cat brought in a dead blue tit yesterday. I wonder if it was a young one who had just fledged? He's not normally competent enough to catch prey, nor ruthless enough to kill.
Ours seem a bit more than half the size of the parents ATM. Most of ours look like miniature adults now; all visible skin surfaces covered with feathers.
Thanks. Suspect it was probably an incompetent chick then. Which hopefully means the parents are still feeding the others.
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
That looks like a significant move to LLG.
+2 LLG -3 RefCon +2 Nats and ??
Although with Con not benefitting appreciably from the Reform drop off in any polling we can perhaps drop the rather daft association of Reform and Con as a 'unit'
The Conservatives and LDs and Others are up, Labour are down
It looks like a significant move towards the Lib Dems and the Greens. If the Reform trend continues and the Tories are still stuck, then the last hope for the Tories begins to look very thin indeed. If the Lib Dems get into the mid teens the Tories start to lose a lot more seats.
If the LDs and Greens eat into Labour votes the Tories also save more seats they would otherwise have lost to Labour
Just been sent a job advert for a civil service role in London.
Offering £62,000 for a job requiring you to be on site in London where the job description lists skills that earn people £120,000 working from home isn’t going to get you many candidates.
The thread running through a lot of our national problems at the moment.
We want stuff, but don't want to pay for it. And don't see the contradiction. Perfectly human, but not a sustainable strategy.
An acquaintance's office is closed for the week as loads of people have come down with Covid.
How did they know? Seriously - is anyone testing now (aside of at hospitals?)
AIUI their company provides free tests.
I think it's a fairly simple equation; working from home is doable for their industry, and if someone gets covid they're probably out for a week. If their family gets it as well, possibly longer (looking after kids etc). Even if WfH is slightly less efficient for them, you don't need to get many people getting the lurgy before the disruption gets greater than the WfH inefficiency.
Oh, and there a couple of people with cancer atm as well. Including one of the bosses...
Do they do this for flu? Or colds etc?
Arguably we should all do the work from home if possible if we have coughs and colds. I'm just not quite sure why we still fetish covid in this way.
Exactly right. If you have cold/flu-like symptoms stay away from others. It really is that simple. My son’s best mate had a horrible cold recently that floored three of his mates (including my son) for three days. It wasn’t covid, it was a nasty cold, but what is the effing difference? The lad shouldn’t have been at school.
I would have hoped that people were over the very weird covid obsession by now. The evidence on here suggests not.
I have noticed, aht and abaht, that the incidence of mask wearing has moved from 1/1,000 to 1/750.
Including, very sadly, imo a young I'm guessing Japanese mother and her, I'm guessing, seven year old daughter walking along in the bright spring sunshine in London last week.
Mask wearing among Asians (Japanese, Chinese) etc was a think before covid, certainly at the Uni you say them masking pre 2020.
Yes true, the Asians specifically Japanese have been wearing masks for ages - the numbers I stated were for non-Asians. But this mother and child I just thought was rather sad. Although culturally they were I suppose just doing their thing.
Mr. Leon, are you in Sicily, or the south of Italy?
Matera, Basilicata. The “third oldest continuously inhabited city on earth”
I have my doubts about that claim but it is spectacular - and spectacularly strange. A truly troglodytic city of caves and grottoes. Churches carved into living rock. 50 years ago it was called Italy’s “city of shame” because of the squalid life of the cave dwellers
Now it is a massive tourist money spinner, yet it retains a fair amount of noomy magic - especially when the trippers depart in the evening
Just been sent a job advert for a civil service role in London.
Offering £62,000 for a job requiring you to be on site in London where the job description lists skills that earn people £120,000 working from home isn’t going to get you many candidates.
My 18 year old nephew's just landed his first 'proper' job with some multinational tech company - well done him! When I asked him how often he has to go into an office he looked at me like I'd gone mad. All permanent offices gone since Covid, they rent a room if they need to physically get together but that's very rare apparently.
For those looking for conspiracy in the Iranian helicopter crash, it doesn't even have to be Israel / Mossad job. Remember within Iran and even within the Iranian regime, the president had plenty of enemies and with the supreme leader well into their 80s and has cancer, it could also be some internal deskchair shuffling.
An acquaintance's office is closed for the week as loads of people have come down with Covid.
How did they know? Seriously - is anyone testing now (aside of at hospitals?)
AIUI their company provides free tests.
I think it's a fairly simple equation; working from home is doable for their industry, and if someone gets covid they're probably out for a week. If their family gets it as well, possibly longer (looking after kids etc). Even if WfH is slightly less efficient for them, you don't need to get many people getting the lurgy before the disruption gets greater than the WfH inefficiency.
Oh, and there a couple of people with cancer atm as well. Including one of the bosses...
Do they do this for flu? Or colds etc?
Arguably we should all do the work from home if possible if we have coughs and colds. I'm just not quite sure why we still fetish covid in this way.
Exactly right. If you have cold/flu-like symptoms stay away from others. It really is that simple. My son’s best mate had a horrible cold recently that floored three of his mates (including my son) for three days. It wasn’t covid, it was a nasty cold, but what is the effing difference? The lad shouldn’t have been at school.
I would have hoped that people were over the very weird covid obsession by now. The evidence on here suggests not.
I hope that in time, where we have mostly moved on from this fixation on dragging yourself into the office unwell, we eventually also move on from the fixation on working at all when feeling poorly. I can understand not taking the whole day off for a mild sniffle, but if you genuinely are feeling under the weather the best thing you can do for your body is rest, even for a day.
Re new COVID. I have been totally knocked out for past week. Felt dreadful, asleep for 20hrs a day. Starting to think I might have had my yearly dose of it.
Good morning ladies & gentlemen, comrades and colleagues.
In a stunning non-sequitur to any of today’s subjects, Mrs C and I have been breakfasting and watching our blue-tit chicks ‘almost’ preparing to leave the nest-box. Much squeaking and flapping of wings from most of them; looks like it’s going to be one of the most successful breeding seasons we’ve witnessed. 10 eggs have resulted, it appears, in eight strong chicks. We suspect they’ll fledge tomorrow.
How big is a blue tit chick about now? Is it distinguishable from an adult, except by size?
Cat brought in a dead blue tit yesterday. I wonder if it was a young one who had just fledged? He's not normally competent enough to catch prey, nor ruthless enough to kill.
Ours seem a bit more than half the size of the parents ATM. Most of ours look like miniature adults now; all visible skin surfaces covered with feathers.
Thanks. Suspect it was probably an incompetent chick then. Which hopefully means the parents are still feeding the others.
Once the chicks leave the nest I think the parents assist them with feeding for a few days. The parents usually sit on a nearby branch and encourage the young to leave the nest-box and ‘jump’ towards them. I’ve not seen one on the ground but it’s not easy to watch the fledging process at our box.
Somebody linked MENA earlier, with respect to the helicopter crash.
It says he was "martyred", which is a rather expansive use of the term - flying into a mountain in the fog in a helicopter.
Allah's Apostle said, "Five are regarded as martyrs: They are those who die because of plague, abdominal disease, drowning or a falling building etc., and the martyrs in Allah's cause."
— Collected by Muhammad al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari
Standards of koranic scholarship on here need brushing up.
This was an issue with flight MH370 that the pilot might have thought flying into the sea got him to heaven quick. I don't know whether crashing helicopters count as falling buildings etc.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Helo + fog + mountains + VIP passengers, who decide if the flight goes ahead, is not a great combination.
The likelihood of an engineered assassination seems pretty low, as it would have required a degree of clandestine infiltration which surely would have enabled all sorts of other actions which haven't happened ? And I'm not sure how Israel would benefit anyway: it would be a massive roll of the dice with potentially very bad outcomes for them.
Israel doing stuff in Syria (which they don't then deny) is one thing; getting that close to the leadership within Iran quite another.
If this was an assassination the most likely culprit is from within the regime. Raisi was apparently lined up to takeover from the Supreme Leader. Anyone else who fancied the top job has an unusually open window of opportunity now.
Good good. Looks like the ATACMS have arrived! A brand new ship as well, what a shame.
It looks like they sunk, or damaged, two ships at the weekend. The bingo card is slowly being filled...
In the comments someone points out that the name of the minesweeper that was talked about as sunk is the same name as the class of ship of this corvette. So probably one ship, some confusion.
This ship is capable of launching the fancy new fast zircon missile that caused such excitement when used for the first time a few months ago. Or, at least, it was. Before it was sunk.
There has to be a chance that Russia will end the war with zero surface ships in the Black Sea Fleet.
They’ve pretty much moved everything away from Sevastopol, and redeployed out of Novorossiyk a couple of hundred miles East. If the Ukranians now have missiles that can hit there, the Russian navy is screwed - as is the Kerch Bridge.
As reported this ship was hit in Sevastopol.
I recall that the Ukrainians have mounted one naval drone attack on Novorossiyk, and Storm Shadow was used to hit a ship in Kerch. Every ship in the Black Sea Fleet is at risk, no matter where it hides.
The thing that I find most amazing about recent war news is that the Ukrainians are still using light aircraft as improvised long-range drones to hit refineries deep inside Russia, more than 1000km from the border, and the Russians are mostly missing them.
The Ukranian naval intelligence appears very good, with knowledge of where the enemy is locating the ships and able to plan attacks with several different options available via air or sea. Not bad for a country with almost no navy.
The various types of airbourne drones that have managed to get well into Russia are quite amazing, it does appear that there’s very little by way of air defences away from the war zone, and even obvious specific targets such as O&G facilities and rail headers don’t appear to be defended at all. This suggests that the Russians are terribly stretched for defensive weapons.
Space Russia is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
(After a while the style settles down a bit and it begins to tell you things you really need to know, like the fact that the fabulously beautiful planet Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion by ten billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete while on the planet is surgically removed from your body weight when you leave...) *
* Waiting to hear from Leon that this is how Italy now works.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Helo + fog + mountains + VIP passengers, who decide if the flight goes ahead, is not a great combination.
The likelihood of an engineered assassination seems pretty low, as it would have required a degree of clandestine infiltration which surely would have enabled all sorts of other actions which haven't happened ? And I'm not sure how Israel would benefit anyway: it would be a massive roll of the dice with potentially very bad outcomes for them.
Israel doing stuff in Syria (which they don't then deny) is one thing; getting that close to the leadership within Iran quite another.
If this was an assassination the most likely culprit is from within the regime. Raisi was apparently lined up to takeover from the Supreme Leader. Anyone else who fancied the top job has an unusually open window of opportunity now.
Indeed. Prighozin was obviously a bomb, but Putin had better access to the plane than mossad to Iranian Hueys.
Re new COVID. I have been totally knocked out for past week. Felt dreadful, asleep for 20hrs a day. Starting to think I might have had my yearly dose of it.
Just been sent a job advert for a civil service role in London.
Offering £62,000 for a job requiring you to be on site in London where the job description lists skills that earn people £120,000 working from home isn’t going to get you many candidates.
My 18 year old nephew's just landed his first 'proper' job with some multinational tech company - well done him! When I asked him how often he has to go into an office he looked at me like I'd gone mad. All permanent offices gone since Covid, they rent a room if they need to physically get together but that's very rare apparently.
I was talking to a fairly new neighbour on Saturday. Apparently she works for the Welsh Government. From N Essex.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
Accident.
You were 90% wet market zoonosis until about a week ago. You’re not known for your imaginative and extrapolative capacities. And fair enough. Who wants a vivid imagination and rapid fire almost-psychotic extrapolating in an accountant? You want the opposite. No imagination at all and the narrowest of minds
Happily, the world has room for us both; indeed the world needs us both
Yes, you bring the flights of fancy, I'll bring the judgement and logic. It works.
This is, in essence, one of the unique strengths of this site. Not only do the interesting stories get flagged here first, they then get rigorously checked by a sceptical audience. Any story has to be pretty robust to withstand that.
Re new COVID. I have been totally knocked out for past week. Felt dreadful, asleep for 20hrs a day. Starting to think I might have had my yearly dose of it.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Helo + fog + mountains + VIP passengers, who decide if the flight goes ahead, is not a great combination.
The likelihood of an engineered assassination seems pretty low, as it would have required a degree of clandestine infiltration which surely would have enabled all sorts of other actions which haven't happened ? And I'm not sure how Israel would benefit anyway: it would be a massive roll of the dice with potentially very bad outcomes for them.
Israel doing stuff in Syria (which they don't then deny) is one thing; getting that close to the leadership within Iran quite another.
If this was an assassination the most likely culprit is from within the regime. Raisi was apparently lined up to takeover from the Supreme Leader. Anyone else who fancied the top job has an unusually open window of opportunity now.
But @Nigelb is simply wrong. There is a massive benefit for Israel - in deterring future Iranian leaders from launching any more missile attacks. If you think that it’s 78% certain you will be personally murdered by Mossad within a month of ordering any attack on Jerusalem then you’re quite likely to decide against it, aren’t you?
This does not mean it IS Israel - there are several parties who arguably benefit from this and of course it really could be an accident
But saying there is no motivation and no obvious gain for Israel is flat out wrong
Re new COVID. I have been totally knocked out for past week. Felt dreadful, asleep for 20hrs a day. Starting to think I might have had my yearly dose of it.
Were you fully vaxxed?
Yes, but not had any boosters after the initial round. Since then I think I have had COVID once a year. Never anything long term serious, but a week of shittyness.
Mr. Leon, are you in Sicily, or the south of Italy?
Matera, Basilicata. The “third oldest continuously inhabited city on earth”
I have my doubts about that claim but it is spectacular - and spectacularly strange. A truly troglodytic city of caves and grottoes. Churches carved into living rock. 50 years ago it was called Italy’s “city of shame” because of the squalid life of the cave dwellers
Now it is a massive tourist money spinner, yet it retains a fair amount of noomy magic - especially when the trippers depart in the evening
No coincidence that an Italian physicist living in a cave in the Basilicata region originated the theory of dark Matera.
An acquaintance's office is closed for the week as loads of people have come down with Covid.
How did they know? Seriously - is anyone testing now (aside of at hospitals?)
AIUI their company provides free tests.
I think it's a fairly simple equation; working from home is doable for their industry, and if someone gets covid they're probably out for a week. If their family gets it as well, possibly longer (looking after kids etc). Even if WfH is slightly less efficient for them, you don't need to get many people getting the lurgy before the disruption gets greater than the WfH inefficiency.
Oh, and there a couple of people with cancer atm as well. Including one of the bosses...
Do they do this for flu? Or colds etc?
Arguably we should all do the work from home if possible if we have coughs and colds. I'm just not quite sure why we still fetish covid in this way.
I'd have to ask - but aside from flu, there are not common tests for the others. But I do wonder if people coming into work sniffling and coughing is less appreciated than it used to be.
As for the 'fetish' of Covid - it's still a nasty little bu**er.
I'm probably just showing survivors bias as I have not yet had covid (at least never tested positive). So maybe for me it doesn't seem something to be more afraid of that flu.
I got it Easter 2023, and it knocked me out for many, many weeks. I went from running marathons weekly to not being able to run more than 10k for two months. It was the worst I'd felt since i had meningitis eight years before.
If it did that to a fairly fit, vaccinated person, I wouldn't like to be unfit, older and unvaccinated.
Very true, but who is unvaccinated now? And if unvaccinated has almost certainly received natures vaccination (the Novak Jokovic approach).
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
That looks like a significant move to LLG.
+2 LLG -3 RefCon +2 Nats and ??
Although with Con not benefitting appreciably from the Reform drop off in any polling we can perhaps drop the rather daft association of Reform and Con as a 'unit'
The Conservatives and LDs and Others are up, Labour are down
It looks like a significant move towards the Lib Dems and the Greens. If the Reform trend continues and the Tories are still stuck, then the last hope for the Tories begins to look very thin indeed. If the Lib Dems get into the mid teens the Tories start to lose a lot more seats.
If the LDs and Greens eat into Labour votes the Tories also save more seats they would otherwise have lost to Labour
Depends where though. If the LDs eat into the Labour vote in the LD targets (ie tactical voting) then the Tories will lose more seats. From some of the polls it looks like Labour are building up quite a lot of votes in non target seats that the LDs are after. If that switches from Lab to LDs in those seats then the Tories will be in big trouble. Admittedly that is not clear yet, but if the LDs do go up in the polls that is a nightmare scenario for the Tories.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Helo + fog + mountains + VIP passengers, who decide if the flight goes ahead, is not a great combination.
The likelihood of an engineered assassination seems pretty low, as it would have required a degree of clandestine infiltration which surely would have enabled all sorts of other actions which haven't happened ? And I'm not sure how Israel would benefit anyway: it would be a massive roll of the dice with potentially very bad outcomes for them.
Israel doing stuff in Syria (which they don't then deny) is one thing; getting that close to the leadership within Iran quite another.
If this was an assassination the most likely culprit is from within the regime. Raisi was apparently lined up to takeover from the Supreme Leader. Anyone else who fancied the top job has an unusually open window of opportunity now.
But @Nigelb is simply wrong. There is a massive benefit for Israel - in deterring future Iranian leaders from launching any more missile attacks. If you think that it’s 78% certain you will be personally murdered by Mossad within a month of ordering any attack on Jerusalem then you’re quite likely to decide against it, aren’t you?
This does not mean it IS Israel - there are several parties who benefit from this and of course it really could be an accident
But saying there is no motivation and no obvious gain for Israel is flat out wrong
It's pure conspiracy theory/speculation theory, but if I were the head of MOSSAD, it's exactly what I'd do.
Plausible deniability with just a hint of "nothing is beyond our reach" to scare the next guy into taking a more passive position.
As you say, cui bono. We'll never know.
The Smolensk air disaster over Russia that wiped out the entire Polish government is another one. Supposedly it's about 50/50 in Poland in terms of people believing the Russians did it. We'll never know, but the sheer number of people who think they did it, has coloured Polish politics ever since. Imagine if Nigel Farage had died in that plane crash, and also the plane was on its way to the EU. Imagine.
Mr. Leon, interesting. As you say, the claim may be doubtful (my go to would be Damascus and other cities there and further east), but Italy has been inhabited for quite some time, so it's possible.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
Accident.
You were 90% wet market zoonosis until about a week ago. You’re not known for your imaginative and extrapolative capacities. And fair enough. Who wants a vivid imagination and rapid fire almost-psychotic extrapolating in an accountant? You want the opposite. No imagination at all and the narrowest of minds
Happily, the world has room for us both; indeed the world needs us both
Yes, you bring the flights of fancy, I'll bring the judgement and logic. It works.
This is, in essence, one of the unique strengths of this site. Not only do the interesting stories get flagged here first, they then get rigorously checked by a sceptical audience. Any story has to be pretty robust to withstand that.
One of the best things about this site is the army of fact-checkers. Having terrible opinions is one thing, but post something materially incorrect and you soon get told!
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
Accident.
You were 90% wet market zoonosis until about a week ago. You’re not known for your imaginative and extrapolative capacities. And fair enough. Who wants a vivid imagination and rapid fire almost-psychotic extrapolating in an accountant? You want the opposite. No imagination at all and the narrowest of minds
Happily, the world has room for us both; indeed the world needs us both
Yes, you bring the flights of fancy, I'll bring the judgement and logic. It works.
This is, in essence, one of the unique strengths of this site. Not only do the interesting stories get flagged here first, they then get rigorously checked by a sceptical audience. Any story has to be pretty robust to withstand that.
One of the best things about this site is the army of fact-checkers. Having terrible opinions is one thing, but post something materially incorrect and you soon get told!
Morning all. This month's Ipsos is out, headline figures are Lab 41 (-3) Con 20 (+1) LD 11 (+3) Green 11 (!) (+2) Ref 9 (-4) Others 8 (+2)
That looks like a significant move to LLG.
+2 LLG -3 RefCon +2 Nats and ??
Although with Con not benefitting appreciably from the Reform drop off in any polling we can perhaps drop the rather daft association of Reform and Con as a 'unit'
The Conservatives and LDs and Others are up, Labour are down
It looks like a significant move towards the Lib Dems and the Greens. If the Reform trend continues and the Tories are still stuck, then the last hope for the Tories begins to look very thin indeed. If the Lib Dems get into the mid teens the Tories start to lose a lot more seats.
If the LDs and Greens eat into Labour votes the Tories also save more seats they would otherwise have lost to Labour
Depends where though. If the LDs eat into the Labour vote in the LD targets (ie tactical voting) then the Tories will lose more seats. From some of the polls it looks like Labour are building up quite a lot of votes in non target seats that the LDs are after. If that switches from Lab to LDs in those seats then the Tories will be in big trouble. Admittedly that is not clear yet, but if the LDs do go up in the polls that is a nightmare scenario for the Tories.
Large stocks of popcorn will be needed for the night of Jan 23rd 2025. Or, just possibly, Dec 12th 2024. I’m still expecting the former but Sunak’s constant references to ‘late this year’ are making me hedge a bit.
Good good. Looks like the ATACMS have arrived! A brand new ship as well, what a shame.
It looks like they sunk, or damaged, two ships at the weekend. The bingo card is slowly being filled...
In the comments someone points out that the name of the minesweeper that was talked about as sunk is the same name as the class of ship of this corvette. So probably one ship, some confusion.
This ship is capable of launching the fancy new fast zircon missile that caused such excitement when used for the first time a few months ago. Or, at least, it was. Before it was sunk.
There has to be a chance that Russia will end the war with zero surface ships in the Black Sea Fleet.
They’ve pretty much moved everything away from Sevastopol, and redeployed out of Novorossiyk a couple of hundred miles East. If the Ukranians now have missiles that can hit there, the Russian navy is screwed - as is the Kerch Bridge.
As reported this ship was hit in Sevastopol.
I recall that the Ukrainians have mounted one naval drone attack on Novorossiyk, and Storm Shadow was used to hit a ship in Kerch. Every ship in the Black Sea Fleet is at risk, no matter where it hides.
The thing that I find most amazing about recent war news is that the Ukrainians are still using light aircraft as improvised long-range drones to hit refineries deep inside Russia, more than 1000km from the border, and the Russians are mostly missing them.
The Ukranian naval intelligence appears very good, with knowledge of where the enemy is locating the ships and able to plan attacks with several different options available via air or sea. Not bad for a country with almost no navy.
The various types of airbourne drones that have managed to get well into Russia are quite amazing, it does appear that there’s very little by way of air defences away from the war zone, and even obvious specific targets such as O&G facilities and rail headers don’t appear to be defended at all. This suggests that the Russians are terribly stretched for defensive weapons.
Space Russia is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
(After a while the style settles down a bit and it begins to tell you things you really need to know, like the fact that the fabulously beautiful planet Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion by ten billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete while on the planet is surgically removed from your body weight when you leave...) *
* Waiting to hear from Leon that this is how Italy now works.
You're a few days early.
Towel Day (or if you are also a Pratchett fan then Lilac Towel Day) is not until 25th May.
I’m not saying it IS Israel. I’m merely asking the question, in a mildly provocative way
Given that Iran recently rained down a thousand missiles on Israel, it’s not stretching credulity to claim that the Israelis might have taken stealthy revenge
Doing it against a chopper in the fog and the rain gives them plausible deniability as well. So it’s doubly clever. If it’s them. Which it might not be. But it might be. Etc etc etc
Clowns In Amerigo Kate Mossad Inside Job Whatever NKVD go by now A big mountain getting in the way Pilot being a massive spanner
Take your pick or spin the wheel
Cui bono? Its not obvious
So this feels more like emotional revenge - if it’s not a simple accident - which then points to Israel or the Iranian “resistance”
For them the act itself is the benefit. A satisfying act of vengeance served cold in the fog
Well, an interesting aspect of this is that 3 WellyCopters took off and 2 made it home, the one that didnt just happened to be the one carrying the Iranian President whom they couldn't locate the site of for 12 and more hours in the same week someone tried to assassinate the Slovak president and on the same day that the first American military C17 landed in Azerbeijan in a year shortly after the Iranians left. Random Chance is a funny old thing
Yes, as you know I’m not prone to excitability or conspiracy theories but this makes me go HMMM
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
Accident.
You were 90% wet market zoonosis until about a week ago. You’re not known for your imaginative and extrapolative capacities. And fair enough. Who wants a vivid imagination and rapid fire almost-psychotic extrapolating in an accountant? You want the opposite. No imagination at all and the narrowest of minds
Happily, the world has room for us both; indeed the world needs us both
Yes, you bring the flights of fancy, I'll bring the judgement and logic. It works.
This is, in essence, one of the unique strengths of this site. Not only do the interesting stories get flagged here first, they then get rigorously checked by a sceptical audience. Any story has to be pretty robust to withstand that.
One of the best things about this site is the army of fact-checkers. Having terrible opinions is one thing, but post something materially incorrect and you soon get told!
One particular joke that eventually got out of hand was that the helicopter pilot’s was actually a Mossad agent named Eli Copter - and Hamas’ main Telegram page went on to cite that as a fact.
The Iranian Opposition are having much fun today - and who can blame them?
An acquaintance's office is closed for the week as loads of people have come down with Covid.
How did they know? Seriously - is anyone testing now (aside of at hospitals?)
AIUI their company provides free tests.
I think it's a fairly simple equation; working from home is doable for their industry, and if someone gets covid they're probably out for a week. If their family gets it as well, possibly longer (looking after kids etc). Even if WfH is slightly less efficient for them, you don't need to get many people getting the lurgy before the disruption gets greater than the WfH inefficiency.
Oh, and there a couple of people with cancer atm as well. Including one of the bosses...
Do they do this for flu? Or colds etc?
Arguably we should all do the work from home if possible if we have coughs and colds. I'm just not quite sure why we still fetish covid in this way.
Exactly right. If you have cold/flu-like symptoms stay away from others. It really is that simple. My son’s best mate had a horrible cold recently that floored three of his mates (including my son) for three days. It wasn’t covid, it was a nasty cold, but what is the effing difference? The lad shouldn’t have been at school.
I would have hoped that people were over the very weird covid obsession by now. The evidence on here suggests not.
I hope that in time, where we have mostly moved on from this fixation on dragging yourself into the office unwell, we eventually also move on from the fixation on working at all when feeling poorly. I can understand not taking the whole day off for a mild sniffle, but if you genuinely are feeling under the weather the best thing you can do for your body is rest, even for a day.
Correct. That is true of flu/covid/colds. I always advise my team to do that – the equation seems rather simple. For every day you fail to properly rest, add a day on the end of the illness period. Just go to bed.
Re new COVID. I have been totally knocked out for past week. Felt dreadful, asleep for 20hrs a day. Starting to think I might have had my yearly dose of it.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Helicopters don't seem the safety of travel methods. Anything goes wrong, you are brown bread. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, the Leicester owners, Matthew Harding....
I have noticed, aht and abaht, that the incidence of mask wearing has moved from 1/1,000 to 1/750.
Including, very sadly, imo a young I'm guessing Japanese mother and her, I'm guessing, seven year old daughter walking along in the bright spring sunshine in London last week.
Mask wearing among Asians (Japanese, Chinese) etc was a think before covid, certainly at the Uni you say them masking pre 2020.
Yes true, the Asians specifically Japanese have been wearing masks for ages - the numbers I stated were for non-Asians. But this mother and child I just thought was rather sad. Although culturally they were I suppose just doing their thing.
And the old bloke in his pumpkin coloured moleskins chuntering in the background doing his.
I don't understand why helicopters fly anywhere near fog.
Having lived in them for some time in a no green vehicle move area (which was an elaborate joke- the rovers went out regardless) I suppose when you've got to go you've got to go.
"As details slowly begin to emerge, Iranian state media is reporting that the helicopter that carried the president and foreign minister was a Bell 212.
It’s unclear how old the helicopter was, but this model was developed for the Canadian military in the 1960s.
(As a reminder, decades of US and international sanctions began after the Iranian revolution in 1979).
The helicopters were made by the US company Bell Helicopter and used widely by government operators, including American law enforcement agencies and Thailand’s national police."
Comments
This crude measure takes no account, of course, of swingback and tactical voting. Personally I'd be more sure of the latter than the former, but then I've always been a bit of a swingback sceptic. (Or a reluctant Swinger? No, it's too early.)
I think it's a fairly simple equation; working from home is doable for their industry, and if someone gets covid they're probably out for a week. If their family gets it as well, possibly longer (looking after kids etc). Even if WfH is slightly less efficient for them, you don't need to get many people getting the lurgy before the disruption gets greater than the WfH inefficiency.
Oh, and there a couple of people with cancer atm as well. Including one of the bosses...
One flattened for a week; the other mild symptoms.
https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1792210248331403457
The other the roject 22800 corvette 'Cyclone' equipped with Kalibr cruise missiles.
https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1792321871951921441
Random Chance is a funny old thing
Edit to add: if I was high up in Mossad (spoiler: I’m not) I would absolutely do this. And if I was Bibi I’d absolutely approve
Israel was not allowed to carpet bomb Iran after the Iranian missile attack. The Americans said Nyet
But this is the next best thing. Take out two top leaders. That’s arguably an even better deterrent (especially when done in rain and fog so an accident is plausible). This says to any future Iranian leaders - “go ahead, bomb Jerusalem, but you’ll personally be dead in a
month”
Very clever. And probably highly effective
I recall that the Ukrainians have mounted one naval drone attack on Novorossiyk, and Storm Shadow was used to hit a ship in Kerch. Every ship in the Black Sea Fleet is at risk, no matter where it hides.
The thing that I find most amazing about recent war news is that the Ukrainians are still using light aircraft as improvised long-range drones to hit refineries deep inside Russia, more than 1000km from the border, and the Russians are mostly missing them.
Covid has mutated into a train! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_755
Arguably we should all do the work from home if possible if we have coughs and colds. I'm just not quite sure why we still fetish covid in this way.
In a stunning non-sequitur to any of today’s subjects, Mrs C and I have been breakfasting and watching our blue-tit chicks ‘almost’ preparing to leave the nest-box. Much squeaking and flapping of wings from most of them; looks like it’s going to be one of the most successful breeding seasons we’ve witnessed. 10 eggs have resulted, it appears, in eight strong chicks. We suspect they’ll fledge tomorrow.
The likelihood of an engineered assassination seems pretty low, as it would have required a degree of clandestine infiltration which surely would have enabled all sorts of other actions which haven't happened ?
And I'm not sure how Israel would benefit anyway: it would be a massive roll of the dice with potentially very bad outcomes for them.
Israel doing stuff in Syria (which they don't then deny) is one thing; getting that close to the leadership within Iran quite another.
Greg Abbott is Governor of Texas I think? The crime was in California, so that will be where his State Crimes trial will be - so it would be a stretch for Mr Abbott!
Including, very sadly, imo a young I'm guessing Japanese mother and her, I'm guessing, seven year old daughter walking along in the bright spring sunshine in London last week.
They can go in by chopper or land or, very rarely, a mass parachute drop - but that's pretty rare these days.
As for the 'fetish' of Covid - it's still a nasty little bu**er.
And the culture of martyrdom makes any 'deterrent' highly unreliable in relation to the associated risk.
OTOH, Netenyahu's cabinet does contain folk probably nuttier than you - though their military, and intelligence tend more towards ruthless pragmatism.
For comparison, the MORI polls in late autumn '96 were around L53C30LD12. The big two were both higher (negligible Green, Reform scores) but the gap was pretty similar.
Have they kept the same methodology and processing since then?
Are you particularly minded to retaliate against Jerusalem and thus get yourself slotted three weeks later? Or are you going to cough anxiously and mutter about an unfortunate accident and then get on with other things? The second is very tempting
Why Chris Coghlan? Because his CV is too good to be true and rather like a born again Paddy Ashdown and stands a good chance of getting elected.
Bloody hell
Cat brought in a dead blue tit yesterday. I wonder if it was a young one who had just fledged? He's not normally competent enough to catch prey, nor ruthless enough to kill.
The various types of airbourne drones that have managed to get well into Russia are quite amazing, it does appear that there’s very little by way of air defences away from the war zone, and even obvious specific targets such as O&G facilities and rail headers don’t appear to be defended at all. This suggests that the Russians are terribly stretched for defensive weapons.
Here’s a nice collection of Ukranian drones. https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/03/23/meet-liutyi-ukraines-homegrown-drone-behind-strikes-on-russian-oil-refineries/?swcfpc=1
Offering £62,000 for a job requiring you to be on site in London where the job description lists skills that earn people £120,000 working from home isn’t going to get you many candidates.
Happily, the world has room for us both; indeed the world needs us both
If it did that to a fairly fit, vaccinated person, I wouldn't like to be unfit, older and unvaccinated.
https://what-if.xkcd.com/48/
It says he was "martyred", which is a rather expansive use of the term - flying into a mountain in the fog in a helicopter.
We want stuff, but don't want to pay for it. And don't see the contradiction. Perfectly human, but not a sustainable strategy.
I would have hoped that people were over the very weird covid obsession by now. The evidence on here suggests not.
I have my doubts about that claim but it is spectacular - and spectacularly strange. A truly troglodytic city of caves and grottoes. Churches carved into living rock. 50 years ago it was called Italy’s “city of shame” because of the squalid life of the cave dwellers
Now it is a massive tourist money spinner, yet it retains a fair amount of noomy magic - especially when the trippers depart in the evening
— Collected by Muhammad al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari
Standards of koranic scholarship on here need brushing up.
This was an issue with flight MH370 that the pilot might have thought flying into the sea got him to heaven quick. I don't know whether crashing helicopters count as falling buildings etc.
(After a while the style settles down a bit and it begins to tell you things you really need to know, like the fact that the fabulously beautiful planet Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion by ten billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete while on the planet is surgically removed from your body weight when you leave...) *
* Waiting to hear from Leon that this is how Italy now works.
Something that Trump doesn't understand. He has an authoritarian's mindset in that regard.
FWIW, Pagel says we are in another wave.
This does not mean it IS Israel - there are several parties who arguably benefit from this and of course it really could be an accident
But saying there is no motivation and no obvious gain for Israel is flat out wrong
Here all week.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Mull_of_Kintyre_Chinook_crash
Plausible deniability with just a hint of "nothing is beyond our reach" to scare the next guy into taking a more passive position.
As you say, cui bono. We'll never know.
The Smolensk air disaster over Russia that wiped out the entire Polish government is another one. Supposedly it's about 50/50 in Poland in terms of people believing the Russians did it. We'll never know, but the sheer number of people who think they did it, has coloured Polish politics ever since. Imagine if Nigel Farage had died in that plane crash, and also the plane was on its way to the EU. Imagine.
@keiranpedley
🚨New from @IpsosUK: Labour lead at 21 🚨
Labour 41% (-3 from April)
Conservative 20% (+1)
Lib Dems 11% (+2)
Greens 11% (+2)
Reform 9% (-4)
Others 8% (+2)
N=1,008. fieldwork 8-14 May"
https://x.com/keiranpedley/status/1792462013249319175
Towel Day (or if you are also a Pratchett fan then Lilac Towel Day) is not until 25th May.
Speaking of lacking judgement, this is funny:
One particular joke that eventually got out of hand was that the helicopter pilot’s was actually a Mossad agent named Eli Copter - and Hamas’ main Telegram page went on to cite that as a fact.
The Iranian Opposition are having much fun today - and who can blame them?
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202405196321
It’s unclear how old the helicopter was, but this model was developed for the Canadian military in the 1960s.
(As a reminder, decades of US and international sanctions began after the Iranian revolution in 1979).
The helicopters were made by the US company Bell Helicopter and used widely by government operators, including American law enforcement agencies and Thailand’s national police."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-69035051