"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
As President Elect, who will be Prez in 5 weeks, Trump has surely been briefed on the reality behind the drones. If it was all nothing he would, at least drop hints on that, or laugh it off
He is not laughing it off. He is flat out saying there is something going on, and the government knows and the government is unwilling to tell the US people
John Rentoul is right. Where is the clamour for ending district councils?
Or they could just merge district councils responsibilities into Town or Parish councils and keep county councils as is which would be far more popular than these new unitaries will be and with stronger local links
Popular how? County councils are not popular, and indeed will cover larger areas than some new unitaries might (eg Surrey County Council is so large it surely will contain at least 2 unitaries, of smaller area and thus stronger local links)
And I hate to harp on this point, but just how do you expect a parish council of 150 people to take on district council responsibilities? It remains government policy (until they remember to look at it again at least) to have more parishes emerge, not fewer, so there's not going to a consolidation of them (nor would it even work, given how many and how small many are).
Again, I think there are some real issues with the proposals, and welcome stronger powers for towns and parishes, but hinging opposition to it on the 'popularity' of districts or counties is just laughable in its misunderstanding of how people react to their local councils.
So many people do not know anything about local councils, I've had relatively senior people in local government itself ask if General Elections mean local councils change control as well. The average resident has no chance.
County councils are more popular than District councils in my experience and Parish or Town councils more popular than both.
Most District council employees would become Town council employees with a few joining Parish councils if they were merged with Parish or Town councils.
It would also mean a stronger local council for the one closest to you ie based in your nearest town or village
Most district council employees would become town council employees? You must have some enormous town council organisations round your way, given the scale of district council staff you expect them to take on.
And you will know mnay parish councils have no staff, or a single full or part time employee in many cases, especially the small ones.
So under your plans the towns and parishes owuld need to dramatically increase their precept to pay for staff - do you think that would affect their 'popularity' at all?
Especially as some big towns in the country bring in millions (104 according to the SLCC), and given the reaction in my county, people do not like that they pay so much to the towns. Raising that at all will not be popular, as many parish councils see keeping precept low as their main goal (much to frustration of unitary cllrs and districts/counties, sometimes0.
There are 10,245 parishes in England, 8,881 of which issue a precept. The average Band D parish precept is £79.71, an increase of £4.90, or 6.5% from 2022-23. 5,610 councils have precepts exceeding £10,000, down from 5,638 in 2022-23 846 councils have precepts exceeding £200,000, up from 781 in 2022-23 308 councils have precepts exceeding £500,000, up from 281 in 2022-23 104 councils have precepts exceeding £1M, up from 83 in 2022-23 https://www.slcc.co.uk/parish-precepts-2023-24/
There are multiple town councils and masses of Parish councils in district council areas so district council employees would be split between them to take on their extra responsibilities. District council precept would be scrapped so overall council tax payers would be 0 extra
You are deeply confusing me.
Are you suggesting that towns and parishes would raise their precepts to match the district council amount which will no longer exist, and they could do that without losing popularity somehow? As if residents will perform a mental calculation that they are no worse off, rather than seeing that their local parish precept has gone up by 500% (that is easily possible, with very low starting precepts).
And none of this even touches upon that most parish councils would not want to do that. You must know many parish councils - I am sure some take in more than the bear minimum in precept in order to pay for things in their parish, but plenty others surely do not. I certainly know many like that.
You have a dream for towns and parishes, which is nice, but given they mostly don't take advantage of the powers they already have, it seems unlikely they'd be capable of doing way more than they do now.
As overall council tax take would be unchanged yes as Parish and Town councils would just add on the amount DCs previously charged.
Or you could scrap DCs and split responsibilities, so county councils take on Local Plans and most planning and leisure centres and parish and town councils museums and bin collection
And you think most parish councils currently charging £10-20 per year, as some do, want to add on the DC amount to their own books, and take action relating to it?
Many councils have a maximum of 5 councillors (the minimum permitted), would that need to be increased through a mass series of community governance reviews? And many struggle to fill that many, hence so many councils not having contested elections. Indeed, it is not unheard of for no-one to put themselves forward at all and reruns needing to be raised. The principal authority can appoint people to serve as temporary councillors, but that is not sustainable, what if nobody or not enough in a village of 200 people wants to sit on the council, who then runs it? You don't have that risk with districts and counties.
Well of course if they take on some DC services.
The scrapped DC council allowances would also be used to fund Parish and Town councillor allowances for the first time, so more would stand as they would get paid for being councillors even at Parish or Town level
Technically parish councillors can receive an allowance now, though very few do (I'm aware of some towns which provide some minor amounts), and I do think even a very small amount would encourage more people. Purely volunteering vs a nominal amount to encourage the volunteering, the latter could actually be very effective.
But you'd need it to, as most do not want to do more in their parishes.
John Rentoul is right. Where is the clamour for ending district councils?
Or they could just merge district councils responsibilities into Town or Parish councils and keep county councils as is which would be far more popular than these new unitaries will be and with stronger local links
They work OK here although there have been discussions in order to merge a few more. For example Cardiff and the Vale. Although the Vale was keener to join with Bridgend. I don't want to join with Bridgend!
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
“I can confirm small aerial systems were spotted over Wright-Patterson between Friday night and Saturday morning,” base spokesman Bob Purtiman told The War Zone on Sunday in response to our questions about the sightings. “Today leaders have determined that they did not impact base residents, facilities, or assets. The Air Force is taking all appropriate measures to safeguard our installations and residents.”
The drones “ranged in sizes and configurations,” Purtiman said. “Our units are working with local authorities to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities, and assets.”
‘Most of the New Jersey drone sightings were misidentified, so it is notable that the ones spotted over Wright Patterson, as with the other U.S. military installations, were seen by trained observers that are equipped with high-end gear to maintain security and to discriminate between friend and foe.’
Well, that takes the wind out of my local government talk.
Sharp comparisons pointing out a sense of perspective are good reminders. It is one reason why I may never vote Green in a national election, because their sense of perspective is wobbly on non-environmental (and some environmental) questions.
Back when Jean Charles de Menezes was killed by the Met in error, the occasionally Bonkers Baroness, Jenny Jones, was out there rhetorically comparing the Met to the Syrian Secret Police. I agree with her on a lot of things, as will be obvious, but she also has too many araignees dans sa plafond.
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
Never mind that. I have just gone down a rabbit hole on Scittish chantreuses from the early 90s and been rendered sad by the discovery that both Charlene Spiteri and Shirley Manson are now in their late 50s.
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
Never mind that. I have just gone down a rabbit hole on Scittish chantreuses from the early 90s and been rendered sad by the discovery that both Charlene Spiteri and Shirley Manson are now in their late 50s.
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
“I can confirm small aerial systems were spotted over Wright-Patterson between Friday night and Saturday morning,” base spokesman Bob Purtiman told The War Zone on Sunday in response to our questions about the sightings. “Today leaders have determined that they did not impact base residents, facilities, or assets. The Air Force is taking all appropriate measures to safeguard our installations and residents.”
The drones “ranged in sizes and configurations,” Purtiman said. “Our units are working with local authorities to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities, and assets.”
‘Most of the New Jersey drone sightings were misidentified, so it is notable that the ones spotted over Wright Patterson, as with the other U.S. military installations, were seen by trained observers that are equipped with high-end gear to maintain security and to discriminate between friend and foe.’
Oh good we are back at trained observers again. Why on Earth do you believe anything coming out of Trumps mouth? He is a complete and utter arse who lies and blusters his way through life. And to remind you again, Gatwick was closed with no evidence of an actual drone ever being found. Who says that didn’t happen at Wright Patterson?
I'm a big fan of parishes as a tier of local government, but the idea they could all take on serious responsibilities is asking an awful lot of them.
Would you trust the Dibley Parish Council with serious responsibilities? Could they do it even if you did trust them?
There's not much that second-tier districts do. Council housing, refuse and street cleaning, car parks, planning, council tax and electoral admin, parks and recreation... That's about it.
Discretionary planning is largely on the way out, the admin is computerised, much of the rest is a bundle of contracts.
So that leaves unitaries the size of a small county to do the stuff that's expensive to do. And parishes and towns to do the nice stuff (flower beds, community halls, Christmas lunch for the seniors) and the civic stuff (a Town Mayor to do lots of photo opportunities). Stuff that doesn't really matter, doesn't cost much, doesn't need to be partisan, but makes the area feel nicer.
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
“I can confirm small aerial systems were spotted over Wright-Patterson between Friday night and Saturday morning,” base spokesman Bob Purtiman told The War Zone on Sunday in response to our questions about the sightings. “Today leaders have determined that they did not impact base residents, facilities, or assets. The Air Force is taking all appropriate measures to safeguard our installations and residents.”
The drones “ranged in sizes and configurations,” Purtiman said. “Our units are working with local authorities to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities, and assets.”
‘Most of the New Jersey drone sightings were misidentified, so it is notable that the ones spotted over Wright Patterson, as with the other U.S. military installations, were seen by trained observers that are equipped with high-end gear to maintain security and to discriminate between friend and foe.’
Unless the entire US military has gone mad - or is engaged in a humongous psy-op - then this is NOT misidentified planes, there is a kernel of reality here, which no can explain, or no one is willing toexplain
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
Never mind that. I have just gone down a rabbit hole on Scittish chantreuses from the early 90s and been rendered sad by the discovery that both Charlene Spiteri and Shirley Manson are now in their late 50s.
The fragrant Clare Grogan from a few years earlier must be sixty if she's a day.
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
Never mind that. I have just gone down a rabbit hole on Scittish chantreuses from the early 90s and been rendered sad by the discovery that both Charlene Spiteri and Shirley Manson are now in their late 50s.
It makes you wanna shout.
It does. And just sigh, wistfully, at the brevity of youth.
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
“I can confirm small aerial systems were spotted over Wright-Patterson between Friday night and Saturday morning,” base spokesman Bob Purtiman told The War Zone on Sunday in response to our questions about the sightings. “Today leaders have determined that they did not impact base residents, facilities, or assets. The Air Force is taking all appropriate measures to safeguard our installations and residents.”
The drones “ranged in sizes and configurations,” Purtiman said. “Our units are working with local authorities to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities, and assets.”
‘Most of the New Jersey drone sightings were misidentified, so it is notable that the ones spotted over Wright Patterson, as with the other U.S. military installations, were seen by trained observers that are equipped with high-end gear to maintain security and to discriminate between friend and foe.’
Oh good we are back at trained observers again. Why on Earth do you believe anything coming out of Trumps mouth? He is a complete and utter arse who lies and blusters his way through life. And to remind you again, Gatwick was closed with no evidence of an actual drone ever being found. Who says that didn’t happen at Wright Patterson?
This is not just one airbase. From the same report:
"Still, as we have reported in the past, there are several confirmed drone sightings in New Jersey reported by trained observers at Picatinny and Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey. A Coast Guard vessel off New Jersey also had a recent encounter with what it called “multiple low-altitude aircraft.” U.S. officials are still trying to discover the origin of drones that appeared over four U.S. Air Force bases in the U.K., a story we first broke. They’ve been spotted over RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and RAF Feltwell, all within close proximity, and RAF Fairford, about 130 miles to the west."
A few days ago, Ramstein Air Base in Germany joined the growing list of places registering unknown drone overflights."
Yes, it could still be a flap, but it is now a flap of quite astonishing proportions and duration, if so. And Trump's reaction tells me that there is more to this. He has surely been briefed on the truth, and if there is one thing he hates it is looking like a stupid loser. I don't think he would say this stuff if he didn't have reason to say it
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
Never mind that. I have just gone down a rabbit hole on Scittish chantreuses from the early 90s and been rendered sad by the discovery that both Charlene Spiteri and Shirley Manson are now in their late 50s.
The fragrant Clare Grogan from a few years earlier must be sixty if she's a day.
Oh god make it stop. Yes, she was half a generation previous.
A quick Google says 62. She has aged very well indeed, mind.
Charlene White to Peston "this is a massive problem for Sir Keir Starmer isn't it"
Cue Peston
2 minutes of anti SKS bull rap, ignoring the pictures on the suspects desk of him with the Camerons and the Mays and Prince Andrew.
Utterly biased, not telling the facts and basically turning it in to another anti Starmer rant whilst completely ignoring the past 14 years and overwhelming failure of security services under Cameron, May, Johnson and Truss.
Chill out tim
If shecorns is tim I'll eat my hat. It's leon.
She/he is neither - just a poorly trained Labour intern
You have got a real problem with this poster. You are very hostile. Do you think they were perhaps involved in a curry scandal in Durham in the summer of 2021?
Not really - just making a fair comment
Shecorns88 reminds me of a poster from about 15 years ago called Chamereon, who so despised Tories that he could barely bring himself to post about them without abuse or slander. (At least, that's how I remember his posts). Even his handle was an attemot to crowbar the names 'Cameron' and 'Chameleon' into a portmanteau word. And thus we learned, in effect, nothing more than "Chamereon doesn't like Tories". Though at least with Shecorns 88 we have also learned, surprisingly, of her disdain for Ray Wilkins.
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
Never mind that. I have just gone down a rabbit hole on Scittish chantreuses from the early 90s and been rendered sad by the discovery that both Charlene Spiteri and Shirley Manson are now in their late 50s.
The fragrant Clare Grogan from a few years earlier must be sixty if she's a day.
Oh god make it stop. Yes, she was half a generation previous.
A quick Google says 62. She has aged very well indeed, mind.
Ah ye gods. She was my pin-up when I were a lad. Fancied her rotten
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
“I can confirm small aerial systems were spotted over Wright-Patterson between Friday night and Saturday morning,” base spokesman Bob Purtiman told The War Zone on Sunday in response to our questions about the sightings. “Today leaders have determined that they did not impact base residents, facilities, or assets. The Air Force is taking all appropriate measures to safeguard our installations and residents.”
The drones “ranged in sizes and configurations,” Purtiman said. “Our units are working with local authorities to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities, and assets.”
‘Most of the New Jersey drone sightings were misidentified, so it is notable that the ones spotted over Wright Patterson, as with the other U.S. military installations, were seen by trained observers that are equipped with high-end gear to maintain security and to discriminate between friend and foe.’
Oh good we are back at trained observers again. Why on Earth do you believe anything coming out of Trumps mouth? He is a complete and utter arse who lies and blusters his way through life. And to remind you again, Gatwick was closed with no evidence of an actual drone ever being found. Who says that didn’t happen at Wright Patterson?
This is not just one airbase. From the same report:
"Still, as we have reported in the past, there are several confirmed drone sightings in New Jersey reported by trained observers at Picatinny and Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey. A Coast Guard vessel off New Jersey also had a recent encounter with what it called “multiple low-altitude aircraft.” U.S. officials are still trying to discover the origin of drones that appeared over four U.S. Air Force bases in the U.K., a story we first broke. They’ve been spotted over RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and RAF Feltwell, all within close proximity, and RAF Fairford, about 130 miles to the west."
A few days ago, Ramstein Air Base in Germany joined the growing list of places registering unknown drone overflights."
Yes, it could still be a flap, but it is now a flap of quite astonishing proportions and duration, if so. And Trump's reaction tells me that there is more to this. He has surely been briefed on the truth, and if there is one thing he hates it is looking like a stupid loser. I don't think he would say this stuff if he didn't have reason to say it
Who are these trained observers? And what training do they have?
Charlene White to Peston "this is a massive problem for Sir Keir Starmer isn't it"
Cue Peston
2 minutes of anti SKS bull rap, ignoring the pictures on the suspects desk of him with the Camerons and the Mays and Prince Andrew.
Utterly biased, not telling the facts and basically turning it in to another anti Starmer rant whilst completely ignoring the past 14 years and overwhelming failure of security services under Cameron, May, Johnson and Truss.
Chill out tim
The problem for Starmer is this has come out just weeks before he was glad handing President Xi and apparently Reeves is visiting China next year
As soon as January, I believe.
Well that will be embarrassing!!
Stop it. I’m splitting my sides. 😂
My mum has bought every ounce of Tory Party spin for the last 3 decades, but not even she is buying this.
What the serious flipperty fuck - as Leon might say.
The Political Party so in bed with Chinese Money and Chinese Spy’s they handed over everything to them, from pub chains to power stations, and helped them get the contracts for surveillance camera’s across our country spying on us, and Chinese supplying both our military and security networks, are trying to make out this exposé of their own behaviour and too cosy relationships with the Chinese government, is a problem for Starmer and Labour?
🤣
This will make it much harder to cosy up to China no matter the previous relationship
Chris Patten was scathing about Starmer in his interview on Sky and he knows this subject inside out
“This will make it much harder to cosy up to China, and that’s a disaaaaaaster for Labour.”
Thank goodness if no cosying up with them under Labour! We should never have been cosying up with them under the Conservatives, is the point you haven’t got yet, so I don’t understand where you are coming from. It’s like you calling the good thing a bad thing, whilst the bad thing was no thing.
Under the last Conservative government in bed with Chinese spies and influencers, China supplying both our military and security networks and vital national infrastructure like power grid, on government contracts.
This news story of past mistakes will have no impact on the Tories you can think of? Remember the chilling words that escalates a scandal into something much bigger and necessitates enquiries and lots of media traction. “Wait. There’s a pattern developing here.” The Conservative Party was in love with Putin’s money at the same time as in bed with China, government policy influenced also from the Russian influencers and spies and money?
Those photographs on the news today are absolutely horrible, 🫣
All that cosying up wasn’t happening in a vacuum at the time, was it? It’s the influence on government foreign policy the inquiries will likely be set up to get the bottom of. Cash for silence.
What Chinese tend not to know is, when i’m around them, I can understand their native tongue, so I know what they are saying when they say “these westerners all look the same to me, the round eyed b*******.” 😂
Well this is site about politics and we've just had the president elect of the USA accuse the present administation of lying about one of the biggest mysteries in years
Also, who the fuck DOESN'T like a big fat mystery in the sky? It's delicious
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
It's also going to set our AI industry back IMO. The government needs to take a pause and look at the intended and unintended consequences of the bill and rework it. Get industry experts in and not a bunch of know nothing bureaucrats to write it. The EU took the latter approach and it's hurt the tech industry there to point that it's now terminal, we can't allow that to happen here.
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
“I can confirm small aerial systems were spotted over Wright-Patterson between Friday night and Saturday morning,” base spokesman Bob Purtiman told The War Zone on Sunday in response to our questions about the sightings. “Today leaders have determined that they did not impact base residents, facilities, or assets. The Air Force is taking all appropriate measures to safeguard our installations and residents.”
The drones “ranged in sizes and configurations,” Purtiman said. “Our units are working with local authorities to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities, and assets.”
‘Most of the New Jersey drone sightings were misidentified, so it is notable that the ones spotted over Wright Patterson, as with the other U.S. military installations, were seen by trained observers that are equipped with high-end gear to maintain security and to discriminate between friend and foe.’
Oh good we are back at trained observers again. Why on Earth do you believe anything coming out of Trumps mouth? He is a complete and utter arse who lies and blusters his way through life. And to remind you again, Gatwick was closed with no evidence of an actual drone ever being found. Who says that didn’t happen at Wright Patterson?
This is not just one airbase. From the same report:
"Still, as we have reported in the past, there are several confirmed drone sightings in New Jersey reported by trained observers at Picatinny and Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey. A Coast Guard vessel off New Jersey also had a recent encounter with what it called “multiple low-altitude aircraft.” U.S. officials are still trying to discover the origin of drones that appeared over four U.S. Air Force bases in the U.K., a story we first broke. They’ve been spotted over RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and RAF Feltwell, all within close proximity, and RAF Fairford, about 130 miles to the west."
A few days ago, Ramstein Air Base in Germany joined the growing list of places registering unknown drone overflights."
Yes, it could still be a flap, but it is now a flap of quite astonishing proportions and duration, if so. And Trump's reaction tells me that there is more to this. He has surely been briefed on the truth, and if there is one thing he hates it is looking like a stupid loser. I don't think he would say this stuff if he didn't have reason to say it
Who are these trained observers? And what training do they have?
They're military personnel at a US airforce base, or RAF bases. Pretty much their entire job is staring at the sky, looking for threats
So I give them more credence than some drunk guy in Jersey City misidentifying planes heading for JFK (which is definitely happening a lot, as that same report says)
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
It's also going to set our AI industry back IMO. The government needs to take a pause and look at the intended and unintended consequences of the bill and rework it. Get industry experts in and not a bunch of know nothing bureaucrats to write it. The EU took the latter approach and it's hurt the tech industry there to point that it's now terminal, we can't allow that to happen here.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
It's also going to set our AI industry back IMO. The government needs to take a pause and look at the intended and unintended consequences of the bill and rework it. Get industry experts in and not a bunch of know nothing bureaucrats to write it. The EU took the latter approach and it's hurt the tech industry there to point that it's now terminal, we can't allow that to happen here.
I don’t think this Labour government even understand what “ unintended consequences” actually are.
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
“I can confirm small aerial systems were spotted over Wright-Patterson between Friday night and Saturday morning,” base spokesman Bob Purtiman told The War Zone on Sunday in response to our questions about the sightings. “Today leaders have determined that they did not impact base residents, facilities, or assets. The Air Force is taking all appropriate measures to safeguard our installations and residents.”
The drones “ranged in sizes and configurations,” Purtiman said. “Our units are working with local authorities to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities, and assets.”
‘Most of the New Jersey drone sightings were misidentified, so it is notable that the ones spotted over Wright Patterson, as with the other U.S. military installations, were seen by trained observers that are equipped with high-end gear to maintain security and to discriminate between friend and foe.’
Oh good we are back at trained observers again. Why on Earth do you believe anything coming out of Trumps mouth? He is a complete and utter arse who lies and blusters his way through life. And to remind you again, Gatwick was closed with no evidence of an actual drone ever being found. Who says that didn’t happen at Wright Patterson?
This is not just one airbase. From the same report:
"Still, as we have reported in the past, there are several confirmed drone sightings in New Jersey reported by trained observers at Picatinny and Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey. A Coast Guard vessel off New Jersey also had a recent encounter with what it called “multiple low-altitude aircraft.” U.S. officials are still trying to discover the origin of drones that appeared over four U.S. Air Force bases in the U.K., a story we first broke. They’ve been spotted over RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and RAF Feltwell, all within close proximity, and RAF Fairford, about 130 miles to the west."
A few days ago, Ramstein Air Base in Germany joined the growing list of places registering unknown drone overflights."
Yes, it could still be a flap, but it is now a flap of quite astonishing proportions and duration, if so. And Trump's reaction tells me that there is more to this. He has surely been briefed on the truth, and if there is one thing he hates it is looking like a stupid loser. I don't think he would say this stuff if he didn't have reason to say it
Who are these trained observers? And what training do they have?
They're military personnel at a US airforce base, or RAF bases. Pretty much their entire job is staring at the sky, looking for threats
So I give them more credence than some drunk guy in Jersey City misidentifying planes heading for JFK (which is definitely happening a lot, as that same report says)
And they are not just the latest batch of trainee airforce crew on late night guard duty looking up? Seriously? Lakenheath/Rendlesham was the guards on watch at night, if I recall correctly.
I may be wrong in all this. But it all just smacks of a self sustaining flap, and I give very little credence to (a) Trump and (b) Military spokesmen.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
It's also going to set our AI industry back IMO. The government needs to take a pause and look at the intended and unintended consequences of the bill and rework it. Get industry experts in and not a bunch of know nothing bureaucrats to write it. The EU took the latter approach and it's hurt the tech industry there to point that it's now terminal, we can't allow that to happen here.
I don’t think this Labour government even understand what “ unintended consequences” actually are.
Indeed, I had a quick look at the research on the inheritance tax exemption changes and I think it's correct that more money will be lost from behavioural changes than will be raised by the tax. What bothers me is that no one did this beforehand, so the government is left with ploughing on and damaging the economy and family run businesses or they have an embarrassing climb down. It's about as bad as Liz Truss right now, indeed the first Labour budget leaves is with more borrowing than Liz Truss called for.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
It's also going to set our AI industry back IMO. The government needs to take a pause and look at the intended and unintended consequences of the bill and rework it. Get industry experts in and not a bunch of know nothing bureaucrats to write it. The EU took the latter approach and it's hurt the tech industry there to point that it's now terminal, we can't allow that to happen here.
I don’t think this Labour government even understand what “ unintended consequences” actually are.
Some of the unintended consequences could be unexpectedly positive too.
Personally I would rather abolish the County Council and keep the District Council.
The government's preferred number of 1/2 a million per unitary does not, unless I'm mistaken, explain why that is more beneficial. Feels very 'plucked out of a drawer in Whitehall', plenty of existing unitaries are not that big.
Wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that there was a vague upwards 'regrading' if you were a Whitehall civil servant "responsible for" 1/2 million or more people in an area.
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
“I can confirm small aerial systems were spotted over Wright-Patterson between Friday night and Saturday morning,” base spokesman Bob Purtiman told The War Zone on Sunday in response to our questions about the sightings. “Today leaders have determined that they did not impact base residents, facilities, or assets. The Air Force is taking all appropriate measures to safeguard our installations and residents.”
The drones “ranged in sizes and configurations,” Purtiman said. “Our units are working with local authorities to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities, and assets.”
‘Most of the New Jersey drone sightings were misidentified, so it is notable that the ones spotted over Wright Patterson, as with the other U.S. military installations, were seen by trained observers that are equipped with high-end gear to maintain security and to discriminate between friend and foe.’
Oh good we are back at trained observers again. Why on Earth do you believe anything coming out of Trumps mouth? He is a complete and utter arse who lies and blusters his way through life. And to remind you again, Gatwick was closed with no evidence of an actual drone ever being found. Who says that didn’t happen at Wright Patterson?
This is not just one airbase. From the same report:
"Still, as we have reported in the past, there are several confirmed drone sightings in New Jersey reported by trained observers at Picatinny and Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey. A Coast Guard vessel off New Jersey also had a recent encounter with what it called “multiple low-altitude aircraft.” U.S. officials are still trying to discover the origin of drones that appeared over four U.S. Air Force bases in the U.K., a story we first broke. They’ve been spotted over RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and RAF Feltwell, all within close proximity, and RAF Fairford, about 130 miles to the west."
A few days ago, Ramstein Air Base in Germany joined the growing list of places registering unknown drone overflights."
Yes, it could still be a flap, but it is now a flap of quite astonishing proportions and duration, if so. And Trump's reaction tells me that there is more to this. He has surely been briefed on the truth, and if there is one thing he hates it is looking like a stupid loser. I don't think he would say this stuff if he didn't have reason to say it
Who are these trained observers? And what training do they have?
They're military personnel at a US airforce base, or RAF bases. Pretty much their entire job is staring at the sky, looking for threats
So I give them more credence than some drunk guy in Jersey City misidentifying planes heading for JFK (which is definitely happening a lot, as that same report says)
And they are not just the latest batch of trainee airforce crew on late night guard duty looking up? Seriously? Lakenheath/Rendlesham was the guards on watch at night, if I recall correctly.
I may be wrong in all this. But it all just smacks of a self sustaining flap, and I give very little credence to (a) Trump and (b) Military spokesmen.
You could be right, still
But there is lots of evidence you're not, yet none of it is conclusive
My best guess
15% chance this is psy-ops 15% chance this is some hi tech stuff they want to hide (but have to train?) 15% chance this is training for some disaster (see public reaction?) 15% chance this is an actual disaster they are trying to avert (the nuke theory) 15% chance this is a flap 25% chance all the other whacko theories: China, pranksters, Russia, interdimensions, a space time glitch, aliens, God, or we are in the Simulation
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
LFGSS (a cycling forum) is just going to shut up shop entirely: https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/401475/ I suspect a lot of smaller fora might follow in their footsteps.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
What are our duties under this new unfreespeech regime? Is it like a superinjunction, where we can't even say that X has happened, or can I say that "X has happened but under OSA I can't discuss it"
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
What are our duties under this new unfreespeech regime? Is it like a superinjunction, where we can't even say that X has happened, or can I say that "X has happened but under OSA I can't discuss it"
(narrator: the OSA was introduced under a Conservative Government and is not being repealed under a Labour Govt. Vote accordingly)
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
It's also going to set our AI industry back IMO. The government needs to take a pause and look at the intended and unintended consequences of the bill and rework it. Get industry experts in and not a bunch of know nothing bureaucrats to write it. The EU took the latter approach and it's hurt the tech industry there to point that it's now terminal, we can't allow that to happen here.
I don’t think this Labour government even understand what “ unintended consequences” actually are.
Indeed, I had a quick look at the research on the inheritance tax exemption changes and I think it's correct that more money will be lost from behavioural changes than will be raised by the tax. What bothers me is that no one did this beforehand, so the government is left with ploughing on and damaging the economy and family run businesses or they have an embarrassing climb down. It's about as bad as Liz Truss right now, indeed the first Labour budget leaves is with more borrowing than Liz Truss called for.
Yes; for farmers though there would, unless tweaked, be some hard cases for a few years while the 7 year rule works itself in (farmers never needed to bother) in general they will, despite the talk, avoid the tax.
As for billionaires buying up rural counties to avoid IHT; no doubt other tricks are around - not least the 7 year rule - but has it occurred to the government that it still has the attractions of attracting tax at 20% in place of 40% for everyone else.
IHT is so ludicrous, random and capricious that it should be abolished and replaced with low level assets taxes without exemptions.
I once literally bumped into Kurt Cobain. Nothing sexual happened. Though I did apologise (as did he - the minx).
Cameron Diaz, at the peak of her beauty, once handed me a beer
I was at a party in LA, a very posh post-Oscars party, but I was more interested in having a beer, so I asked the girl near the massive fridge to "hand me a beer, please?" and she did and then I looked up and she gave me that smile and I realised it was Cameron Diaz
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
Just sat down on the Northern Line at Embankment and a older bloke sitting next to me said on his phone quite loudly "I've just been speaking in the Lords about football". Nice to live in a country where members of the upper house still use public transport. Probably isn't true in many countries.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
LFGSS (a cycling forum) is just going to shut up shop entirely: https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/401475/ I suspect a lot of smaller fora might follow in their footsteps.
The guy does mention contributing to the code behind Vanilla. So perhaps he is a wrong'un.
(More seriously - sad times. I'm sure there's more to come. The informed will at least close down before they are picked off)
We're watching the Netflix docudrama on Winston Churchill and it's got great production values but it's definitely made for an American audience. It's so overly dramatic and the American commentators are a bit useless tbh, not sure what George Bush adds to the conversation.
As President Elect, who will be Prez in 5 weeks, Trump has surely been briefed on the reality behind the drones. If it was all nothing he would, at least drop hints on that, or laugh it off
He is not laughing it off. He is flat out saying there is something going on, and the government knows and the government is unwilling to tell the US people
It's sorry and tawdry end to the whole UAP saga. It was always a load of Government drones up there to gaslight people (exactly as I said at the very beginning) - according to that Twitter thread, one reason is because they want more powers over private drone flights. Standard MO. Good luck to Trump cleansing the state of these people.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
“I can confirm small aerial systems were spotted over Wright-Patterson between Friday night and Saturday morning,” base spokesman Bob Purtiman told The War Zone on Sunday in response to our questions about the sightings. “Today leaders have determined that they did not impact base residents, facilities, or assets. The Air Force is taking all appropriate measures to safeguard our installations and residents.”
The drones “ranged in sizes and configurations,” Purtiman said. “Our units are working with local authorities to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities, and assets.”
‘Most of the New Jersey drone sightings were misidentified, so it is notable that the ones spotted over Wright Patterson, as with the other U.S. military installations, were seen by trained observers that are equipped with high-end gear to maintain security and to discriminate between friend and foe.’
Oh good we are back at trained observers again. Why on Earth do you believe anything coming out of Trumps mouth? He is a complete and utter arse who lies and blusters his way through life. And to remind you again, Gatwick was closed with no evidence of an actual drone ever being found. Who says that didn’t happen at Wright Patterson?
This is not just one airbase. From the same report:
"Still, as we have reported in the past, there are several confirmed drone sightings in New Jersey reported by trained observers at Picatinny and Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey. A Coast Guard vessel off New Jersey also had a recent encounter with what it called “multiple low-altitude aircraft.” U.S. officials are still trying to discover the origin of drones that appeared over four U.S. Air Force bases in the U.K., a story we first broke. They’ve been spotted over RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and RAF Feltwell, all within close proximity, and RAF Fairford, about 130 miles to the west."
A few days ago, Ramstein Air Base in Germany joined the growing list of places registering unknown drone overflights."
Yes, it could still be a flap, but it is now a flap of quite astonishing proportions and duration, if so. And Trump's reaction tells me that there is more to this. He has surely been briefed on the truth, and if there is one thing he hates it is looking like a stupid loser. I don't think he would say this stuff if he didn't have reason to say it
Who are these trained observers? And what training do they have?
I'm struck by the idea that air defence in the modern era comprises sitting out, sometimes in the dark, with a pair of binoculars like the Observer Corps in the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
As President Elect, who will be Prez in 5 weeks, Trump has surely been briefed on the reality behind the drones. If it was all nothing he would, at least drop hints on that, or laugh it off
He is not laughing it off. He is flat out saying there is something going on, and the government knows and the government is unwilling to tell the US people
It's sorry and tawdry end to the whole UAP saga. It was always a load of Government drones up there to gaslight people (exactly as I said at the very beginning) - according to that Twitter thread, one reason is because they want more powers over private drone flights. Standard MO. Good luck to Trump cleansing the state of these people.
I've heard that theory too, it's some gaslighting job to tighten the laws as a consequence. I don't buy it
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
Ignoring the hate provisions, say you were a guy boasting on PB about using prostitutes then you and potentially PB would be on hook because sheer number of prostitutes that are under age/trafficked/groomed/enslaved because said guy and PB could be enabling a harm.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
Ignoring the hate provisions, say you were a guy boasting on PB about using prostitutes then you and potentially PB would be on hook because sheer number of prostitutes that are under age/trafficked/groomed/enslaved because said guy and PB could be enabling a harm.
I don't think I've ever heard a kid say "Father Christmas". Almost certainly not outside of a schmaltzy movie.
A stern word is had with my kids if they get too American. This includes "Santa Claus." Father Christmas all the way in the Cookie household.
I've also never heard a single person say 'Father Christmas' in real life. I thought it was the kind of thing you hired Brian Blessed to say in a John Lewis advert.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
I don't think I've ever heard a kid say "Father Christmas". Almost certainly not outside of a schmaltzy movie.
A stern word is had with my kids if they get too American. This includes "Santa Claus." Father Christmas all the way in the Cookie household.
I've also never heard a single person say 'Father Christmas' in real life. I thought it was the kind of thing you hired Brian Blessed to say in a John Lewis advert.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
Wow. That looks incredibly wide in its scope, to this layman's eye
It's a laundry list, for sure. But I don't see which part goes to TSE's concerns about libel.
So it is well known that PB is read by senior politicians, including an incumbent PM and a First Minister of Scotland, say some posters posted defamatory content about a senior politician that could be considered a harm.
Because the bill is so broad we won't know exactly how things will be interpreted until we seem some examples and PB doesn't want to be a test case.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
Wow. That looks incredibly wide in its scope, to this layman's eye
It's a laundry list, for sure. But I don't see which part goes to TSE's concerns about libel.
So it is well known that PB is read by senior politicians, including an incumbent PM and a First Minister of Scotland, say some posters posted defamatory content about a senior politician that could be considered a harm.
Because the bill is so broad we won't know exactly how things will be interpreted until we seem some examples and PB doesn't want to be a test case.
Do you know how much decent lawyers cost?
The last time I used a lawyer, for intellectual property, about 15 years ago, they quoted £600 ph but charged me £300 ph on the basis I was a "new client". I suspect that £300 was the rate for everyone, and £600 was the "piss off" rate. I suppose those figures would now be £500/£1000.
They did bill in 6 min / 10-per-hour segments though, so reviewing a perfunctory email reply was "only" £30.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
Wow. That looks incredibly wide in its scope, to this layman's eye
It's a laundry list, for sure. But I don't see which part goes to TSE's concerns about libel.
So it is well known that PB is read by senior politicians, including an incumbent PM and a First Minister of Scotland, say some posters posted defamatory content about a senior politician that could be considered a harm.
Because the bill is so broad we won't know exactly how things will be interpreted until we seem some examples and PB doesn't want to be a test case.
Do you know how much decent lawyers cost?
Their sock and shoe bill alone would make you a regular person blush.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
Wow. That looks incredibly wide in its scope, to this layman's eye
It's a laundry list, for sure. But I don't see which part goes to TSE's concerns about libel.
So it is well known that PB is read by senior politicians, including an incumbent PM and a First Minister of Scotland, say some posters posted defamatory content about a senior politician that could be considered a harm.
Because the bill is so broad we won't know exactly how things will be interpreted until we seem some examples and PB doesn't want to be a test case.
Do you know how much decent lawyers cost?
The last time I used a lawyer, for intellectual property, about 15 years ago, they quoted £600 ph but charged me £300 ph on the basis I was a "new client". I suspect that £300 was the rate for everyone, and £600 was the "piss off" rate. I suppose those figures would now be £500/£1000.
They did bill in 6 min / 10-per-hour segments though, so reviewing a perfunctory email reply was "only" £30.
Come, brave ChatGPT. Sweep all before you and then recommend an especially long Radiohead track to relax to.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
Wow. That looks incredibly wide in its scope, to this layman's eye
It's a laundry list, for sure. But I don't see which part goes to TSE's concerns about libel.
So it is well known that PB is read by senior politicians, including an incumbent PM and a First Minister of Scotland, say some posters posted defamatory content about a senior politician that could be considered a harm.
Because the bill is so broad we won't know exactly how things will be interpreted until we seem some examples and PB doesn't want to be a test case.
Do you know how much decent lawyers cost?
The last time I used a lawyer, for intellectual property, about 15 years ago, they quoted £600 ph but charged me £300 ph on the basis I was a "new client". I suspect that £300 was the rate for everyone, and £600 was the "piss off" rate. I suppose those figures would now be £500/£1000.
They did bill in 6 min / 10-per-hour segments though, so reviewing a perfunctory email reply was "only" £30.
Come, brave ChatGPT. Sweep all before you and then recommend an especially long Radiohead track to relax to.
The worst part was they only confirmed what I already thought. But that's still work.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
Wow. That looks incredibly wide in its scope, to this layman's eye
It's a laundry list, for sure. But I don't see which part goes to TSE's concerns about libel.
So it is well known that PB is read by senior politicians, including an incumbent PM and a First Minister of Scotland, say some posters posted defamatory content about a senior politician that could be considered a harm.
Because the bill is so broad we won't know exactly how things will be interpreted until we seem some examples and PB doesn't want to be a test case.
Do you know how much decent lawyers cost?
A lot of it seems to apply to "large services" only, which are defined as having 7 million monthly UK users.
Below that is a tier of "services with more than 700,000 monthly users".
Would numbers be defined by Vanilla users or PB users?
I would think only Facebook would reach 7 million? Maybe TwiX?
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
Wow. That looks incredibly wide in its scope, to this layman's eye
It's a laundry list, for sure. But I don't see which part goes to TSE's concerns about libel.
So it is well known that PB is read by senior politicians, including an incumbent PM and a First Minister of Scotland, say some posters posted defamatory content about a senior politician that could be considered a harm.
Because the bill is so broad we won't know exactly how things will be interpreted until we seem some examples and PB doesn't want to be a test case.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
Wow. That looks incredibly wide in its scope, to this layman's eye
It's a laundry list, for sure. But I don't see which part goes to TSE's concerns about libel.
So it is well known that PB is read by senior politicians, including an incumbent PM and a First Minister of Scotland, say some posters posted defamatory content about a senior politician that could be considered a harm.
Because the bill is so broad we won't know exactly how things will be interpreted until we seem some examples and PB doesn't want to be a test case.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
It's also going to set our AI industry back IMO. The government needs to take a pause and look at the intended and unintended consequences of the bill and rework it. Get industry experts in and not a bunch of know nothing bureaucrats to write it. The EU took the latter approach and it's hurt the tech industry there to point that it's now terminal, we can't allow that to happen here.
I don’t think this Labour government even understand what “ unintended consequences” actually are.
Indeed, I had a quick look at the research on the inheritance tax exemption changes and I think it's correct that more money will be lost from behavioural changes than will be raised by the tax. What bothers me is that no one did this beforehand, so the government is left with ploughing on and damaging the economy and family run businesses or they have an embarrassing climb down. It's about as bad as Liz Truss right now, indeed the first Labour budget leaves is with more borrowing than Liz Truss called for.
That the Truss budget was an economic disaster I keep calling out as a myth and lie of “let them eat cake” proportions.
The budget itself was only a giveaway of about £12B once the stealth taxes were properly included. That took a week to understand, but BBC, Sky, etc already told us on the day it was costly, expensive budget and never apologised for calling it so wrong.
All currency’s were being whacked by the dollar that week. The borrowing costs had been climbing all year and went even higher under Sunak without same hysterical media reporting. The pension issue was nothing to do with Truss budget, but Sunak’s awful treasury unaware the issue of bad hedging had been building in pensions some time.
In terms of the political fury at cutting the top rate of tax, it was only a tax invented in 2010 as Gordon Brown salted the earth ahead of a Conservative win - and Osborne had already halved it to applause, not anger.
From the moment Truss stood up to give her victory speech, without acknowledging Sunak or shaking his hand, the Tory MPs were determined to get rid of her, so it was weeks of Tory and Labour both spreading the same lies about a budget. Sunak largely implemented and Labour largely backed Truss budget after Truss was gone.
The unintended consequences of the blue on blue, was it gave the impression Tories crashed economy, and that lost them many votes in 2024. They got Rishi as leader, but trashed their parties credibility whilst doing it.
What caused Truss problems with the markets was a promise outside the budget - to continue the energy pay outs all up to the election, 2.5 years - would still being paid this week to show how stupid the promise was, backed up by press releases boasting it would cost 8% of GDP. The unintended consequence of that promise (not going through the OBR) was market evaluation of upwards of £250B paying that one item alone. Hunt’s first action was to announce just six months not all up to election, and instantly the markets happy, like a volcano that’s just had sacrifice thrown in it.
That’s the true history. PB like everywhere else in political media, prefers convenient myths, and rarely mentions unintended consequences.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
It's also going to set our AI industry back IMO. The government needs to take a pause and look at the intended and unintended consequences of the bill and rework it. Get industry experts in and not a bunch of know nothing bureaucrats to write it. The EU took the latter approach and it's hurt the tech industry there to point that it's now terminal, we can't allow that to happen here.
I don’t think this Labour government even understand what “ unintended consequences” actually are.
Indeed, I had a quick look at the research on the inheritance tax exemption changes and I think it's correct that more money will be lost from behavioural changes than will be raised by the tax. What bothers me is that no one did this beforehand, so the government is left with ploughing on and damaging the economy and family run businesses or they have an embarrassing climb down. It's about as bad as Liz Truss right now, indeed the first Labour budget leaves is with more borrowing than Liz Truss called for.
That the Truss budget was an economic disaster I keep calling out as a myth and lie of “let them eat cake” proportions.
The budget itself was only a giveaway of about £12B once the stealth taxes were properly included. That took a week to understand, but BBC, Sky, etc already told us on the day it was costly, expensive budget and never apologised for calling it so wrong.
All currency’s were being whacked by the dollar that week. The borrowing costs had been climbing all year and went even higher under Sunak without same hysterical media reporting. The pension issue was nothing to do with Truss budget, but Sunak’s awful treasury unaware the issue of bad hedging had been building in pensions some time.
In terms of the political fury at cutting the top rate of tax, it was only a tax invented in 2010 as Gordon Brown salted the earth ahead of a Conservative win - and Osborne had already halved it to applause, not anger.
From the moment Truss stood up to give her victory speech, without acknowledging Sunak or shaking his hand, the Tory MPs were determined to get rid of her, so it was weeks of Tory and Labour both spreading the same lies about a budget. Sunak largely implemented and Labour largely backed Truss budget after Truss was gone.
The unintended consequences of the blue on blue, was it gave the impression Tories crashed economy, and that lost them many votes in 2024. They got Rishi as leader, but trashed their parties credibility whilst doing it.
What caused Truss problems with the markets was a promise outside the budget - to continue the energy pay outs all up to the election, 2.5 years - would still being paid this week to show how stupid the promise was, backed up by press releases boasting it would cost 8% of GDP. The unintended consequence of that promise (not going through the OBR) was market evaluation of upwards of £250B paying that one item alone. Hunt’s first action was to announce just six months not all up to election, and instantly the markets happy, like a volcano that’s just had sacrifice thrown in it.
That’s the true history. PB like everywhere else in political media, prefers convenient myths, and rarely mentions unintended consequences.
The removal of IR35 would have created a £20-30bn reduction in Employer NI revenue - we were rapidly setting up what would have been a very large accountancy firm for the market it was going to create. Heck we expect 40,000 lorry drivers to switch to self employment before we looked at other areas..
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
Wow. That looks incredibly wide in its scope, to this layman's eye
It's a laundry list, for sure. But I don't see which part goes to TSE's concerns about libel.
So it is well known that PB is read by senior politicians, including an incumbent PM and a First Minister of Scotland, say some posters posted defamatory content about a senior politician that could be considered a harm.
Because the bill is so broad we won't know exactly how things will be interpreted until we seem some examples and PB doesn't want to be a test case.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Point of order, I didn't read about it from X, I heard about stuff from someone close to a story. Some of us have connections, darling
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
Wow. That looks incredibly wide in its scope, to this layman's eye
It's a laundry list, for sure. But I don't see which part goes to TSE's concerns about libel.
So it is well known that PB is read by senior politicians, including an incumbent PM and a First Minister of Scotland, say some posters posted defamatory content about a senior politician that could be considered a harm.
Because the bill is so broad we won't know exactly how things will be interpreted until we seem some examples and PB doesn't want to be a test case.
Do you know how much decent lawyers cost?
No. Do you know any?
I once instructed Lord Grabiner QC* at £3,500 per hour plus VAT and disbursements.
"I believe the U.S. Government knows what the “drones” are and doesn’t wish to clear this up definitively, preferring panic & loss of credibility to disclosure.
That is the least crazy thing that could be happening. And that is totally crazy."
Of course it knows. It knows that they are aeroplanes.
So why doesn't Trump say that? Belittle the story, accuse the government of allowing hysteria to multiply
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
Never mind that. I have just gone down a rabbit hole on Scittish chantreuses from the early 90s and been rendered sad by the discovery that both Charlene Spiteri and Shirley Manson are now in their late 50s.
The fragrant Clare Grogan from a few years earlier must be sixty if she's a day.
Yesterday I learned, from watching The Chase, that the Spandau Ballet song True was written about her.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
It's also going to set our AI industry back IMO. The government needs to take a pause and look at the intended and unintended consequences of the bill and rework it. Get industry experts in and not a bunch of know nothing bureaucrats to write it. The EU took the latter approach and it's hurt the tech industry there to point that it's now terminal, we can't allow that to happen here.
I don’t think this Labour government even understand what “ unintended consequences” actually are.
Indeed, I had a quick look at the research on the inheritance tax exemption changes and I think it's correct that more money will be lost from behavioural changes than will be raised by the tax. What bothers me is that no one did this beforehand, so the government is left with ploughing on and damaging the economy and family run businesses or they have an embarrassing climb down. It's about as bad as Liz Truss right now, indeed the first Labour budget leaves is with more borrowing than Liz Truss called for.
That the Truss budget was an economic disaster I keep calling out as a myth and lie of “let them eat cake” proportions.
The budget itself was only a giveaway of about £12B once the stealth taxes were properly included. That took a week to understand, but BBC, Sky, etc already told us on the day it was costly, expensive budget and never apologised for calling it so wrong.
All currency’s were being whacked by the dollar that week. The borrowing costs had been climbing all year and went even higher under Sunak without same hysterical media reporting. The pension issue was nothing to do with Truss budget, but Sunak’s awful treasury unaware the issue of bad hedging had been building in pensions some time.
In terms of the political fury at cutting the top rate of tax, it was only a tax invented in 2010 as Gordon Brown salted the earth ahead of a Conservative win - and Osborne had already halved it to applause, not anger.
From the moment Truss stood up to give her victory speech, without acknowledging Sunak or shaking his hand, the Tory MPs were determined to get rid of her, so it was weeks of Tory and Labour both spreading the same lies about a budget. Sunak largely implemented and Labour largely backed Truss budget after Truss was gone.
The unintended consequences of the blue on blue, was it gave the impression Tories crashed economy, and that lost them many votes in 2024. They got Rishi as leader, but trashed their parties credibility whilst doing it.
What caused Truss problems with the markets was a promise outside the budget - to continue the energy pay outs all up to the election, 2.5 years - would still being paid this week to show how stupid the promise was, backed up by press releases boasting it would cost 8% of GDP. The unintended consequence of that promise (not going through the OBR) was market evaluation of upwards of £250B paying that one item alone. Hunt’s first action was to announce just six months not all up to election, and instantly the markets happy, like a volcano that’s just had sacrifice thrown in it.
That’s the true history. PB like everywhere else in political media, prefers convenient myths, and rarely mentions unintended consequences.
The removal of IR35 would have created a £20-30bn reduction in Employer NI revenue - we were rapidly setting up what would have been a very large accountancy firm for the market it was going to create. Heck we expect 40,000 lorry drivers to switch to self employment before we looked at other areas..
Except the budget would not have removed IR35. All it proposed was returning to the situation prior to the last set of reforms in 2021. It was those reforms that caught so many people in incorrect status decisions and killed contracting for many businesses.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
Yup.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
You could hold all those for whatever is Leon’s wacko theory of the day in the pending folder, and then release them once we’re all asleep?
As far as I am aware, the red coated, bearded, welly wearing chap has always been Santa in the West of Scotland, never Father Christmas. Is that also the case in other places?
My memories of childhood are distant and faint, but I think he was -- this was the late '70s -- Father Xmas and Santa was seen as an Americanism.
For me the definitive guide is Joan Gale Thomas in 'My book about Christmas' first publ 1946, last reprinted 1979. I had it read to me, I once upon a time read it to my children, my children now read it to their children, and so on in perpetuity.
She uses the term Father Christmas throughout, but in an indented note adds: 'Sometimes Father Christmas is called Santa Claus, which means St Nicholas'.
It is steeped in the world of the post war middle class and tells the story and the whole thing wonderfully well.
This fellow who creeps into children's bedrooms with no safeguarding and gives big presents to rich children and nothing to poor children worries me.
Father Christmas sounds like a priest. Santa is an anagram of Satan. It's all a bit worrying.
We had a pair of visiting American colleagues who could not get over the fact that the soft drink Vimto is an anagram of vomit.
This may have already been discussed, but have the mods / OGH considered the impact the Online Safety Bill is going to have on PB when it goes into law next March?
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
It's also going to set our AI industry back IMO. The government needs to take a pause and look at the intended and unintended consequences of the bill and rework it. Get industry experts in and not a bunch of know nothing bureaucrats to write it. The EU took the latter approach and it's hurt the tech industry there to point that it's now terminal, we can't allow that to happen here.
I don’t think this Labour government even understand what “ unintended consequences” actually are.
Indeed, I had a quick look at the research on the inheritance tax exemption changes and I think it's correct that more money will be lost from behavioural changes than will be raised by the tax. What bothers me is that no one did this beforehand, so the government is left with ploughing on and damaging the economy and family run businesses or they have an embarrassing climb down. It's about as bad as Liz Truss right now, indeed the first Labour budget leaves is with more borrowing than Liz Truss called for.
That the Truss budget was an economic disaster I keep calling out as a myth and lie of “let them eat cake” proportions.
The budget itself was only a giveaway of about £12B once the stealth taxes were properly included. That took a week to understand, but BBC, Sky, etc already told us on the day it was costly, expensive budget and never apologised for calling it so wrong.
All currency’s were being whacked by the dollar that week. The borrowing costs had been climbing all year and went even higher under Sunak without same hysterical media reporting. The pension issue was nothing to do with Truss budget, but Sunak’s awful treasury unaware the issue of bad hedging had been building in pensions some time.
In terms of the political fury at cutting the top rate of tax, it was only a tax invented in 2010 as Gordon Brown salted the earth ahead of a Conservative win - and Osborne had already halved it to applause, not anger.
From the moment Truss stood up to give her victory speech, without acknowledging Sunak or shaking his hand, the Tory MPs were determined to get rid of her, so it was weeks of Tory and Labour both spreading the same lies about a budget. Sunak largely implemented and Labour largely backed Truss budget after Truss was gone.
The unintended consequences of the blue on blue, was it gave the impression Tories crashed economy, and that lost them many votes in 2024. They got Rishi as leader, but trashed their parties credibility whilst doing it.
What caused Truss problems with the markets was a promise outside the budget - to continue the energy pay outs all up to the election, 2.5 years - would still being paid this week to show how stupid the promise was, backed up by press releases boasting it would cost 8% of GDP. The unintended consequence of that promise (not going through the OBR) was market evaluation of upwards of £250B paying that one item alone. Hunt’s first action was to announce just six months not all up to election, and instantly the markets happy, like a volcano that’s just had sacrifice thrown in it.
That’s the true history. PB like everywhere else in political media, prefers convenient myths, and rarely mentions unintended consequences.
The removal of IR35 would have created a £20-30bn reduction in Employer NI revenue - we were rapidly setting up what would have been a very large accountancy firm for the market it was going to create. Heck we expect 40,000 lorry drivers to switch to self employment before we looked at other areas..
Except the budget would not have removed IR35. All it proposed was returning to the situation prior to the last set of reforms in 2021. It was those reforms that caught so many people in incorrect status decisions and killed contracting for many businesses.
It was rolling back to the prior to 2020/1 version I was talking about. And that figure came from 2 driver recruitment agencies..
Comments
AI IS USELESS.
He is not laughing it off. He is flat out saying there is something going on, and the government knows and the government is unwilling to tell the US people
But you'd need it to, as most do not want to do more in their parishes.
He doens't. He explictly says "something strange is going on", and when he's asked if he's been briefed he says "no comment" - he surely has been briefed. He will be president in about a month
Also, this:
"Drone Incursions Closed Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s Airspace Friday Night
Wright Patterson AFB, a high-profile base that's home to critical Air Force units, is the latest installation to deal with mysterious drones.
Story:"
https://x.com/Aviation_Intel/status/1868391931396669893
NB in that story:
“I can confirm small aerial systems were spotted over Wright-Patterson between Friday night and Saturday morning,” base spokesman Bob Purtiman told The War Zone on Sunday in response to our questions about the sightings. “Today leaders have determined that they did not impact base residents, facilities, or assets. The Air Force is taking all appropriate measures to safeguard our installations and residents.”
The drones “ranged in sizes and configurations,” Purtiman said. “Our units are working with local authorities to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities, and assets.”
‘Most of the New Jersey drone sightings were misidentified, so it is notable that the ones spotted over Wright Patterson, as with the other U.S. military installations, were seen by trained observers that are equipped with high-end gear to maintain security and to discriminate between friend and foe.’
Back when Jean Charles de Menezes was killed by the Met in error, the occasionally Bonkers Baroness, Jenny Jones, was out there rhetorically comparing the Met to the Syrian Secret Police. I agree with her on a lot of things, as will be obvious, but she also has too many araignees dans sa plafond.
Discretionary planning is largely on the way out, the admin is computerised, much of the rest is a bundle of contracts.
So that leaves unitaries the size of a small county to do the stuff that's expensive to do. And parishes and towns to do the nice stuff (flower beds, community halls, Christmas lunch for the seniors) and the civic stuff (a Town Mayor to do lots of photo opportunities). Stuff that doesn't really matter, doesn't cost much, doesn't need to be partisan, but makes the area feel nicer.
It seems a heavy compliance burden & legal liability is going to fall on the site owners?
"Still, as we have reported in the past, there are several confirmed drone sightings in New Jersey reported by trained observers at Picatinny and Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey. A Coast Guard vessel off New Jersey also had a recent encounter with what it called “multiple low-altitude aircraft.” U.S. officials are still trying to discover the origin of drones that appeared over four U.S. Air Force bases in the U.K., a story we first broke. They’ve been spotted over RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and RAF Feltwell, all within close proximity, and RAF Fairford, about 130 miles to the west."
A few days ago, Ramstein Air Base in Germany joined the growing list of places registering unknown drone overflights."
Yes, it could still be a flap, but it is now a flap of quite astonishing proportions and duration, if so. And Trump's reaction tells me that there is more to this. He has surely been briefed on the truth, and if there is one thing he hates it is looking like a stupid loser. I don't think he would say this stuff if he didn't have reason to say it
Yes, she was half a generation previous.
A quick Google says 62. She has aged very well indeed, mind.
Thank goodness if no cosying up with them under Labour! We should never have been cosying up with them under the Conservatives, is the point you haven’t got yet, so I don’t understand where you are coming from. It’s like you calling the good thing a bad thing, whilst the bad thing was no thing.
Under the last Conservative government in bed with Chinese spies and influencers, China supplying both our military and security networks and vital national infrastructure like power grid, on government contracts.
This news story of past mistakes will have no impact on the Tories you can think of? Remember the chilling words that escalates a scandal into something much bigger and necessitates enquiries and lots of media traction. “Wait. There’s a pattern developing here.”
The Conservative Party was in love with Putin’s money at the same time as in bed with China, government policy influenced also from the Russian influencers and spies and money?
Those photographs on the news today are absolutely horrible, 🫣
All that cosying up wasn’t happening in a vacuum at the time, was it? It’s the influence on government foreign policy the inquiries will likely be set up to get the bottom of. Cash for silence.
What Chinese tend not to know is, when i’m around them, I can understand their native tongue, so I know what they are saying when they say “these westerners all look the same to me, the round eyed b*******.” 😂
Also, who the fuck DOESN'T like a big fat mystery in the sky? It's delicious
So I give them more credence than some drunk guy in Jersey City misidentifying planes heading for JFK (which is definitely happening a lot, as that same report says)
I may be wrong in all this. But it all just smacks of a self sustaining flap, and I give very little credence to (a) Trump and (b) Military spokesmen.
It's why I stamped down on the bullshit that for example Leon and Blanche were desperate to post about Starmer a few weeks ago which they read on X and turned out to be bollocks.
We might put repeat offenders in to the pending folder, so their comments are only published after the mods have checked them.
PBers are quite good at self regulating themselves but we're entering a new regulatory word. Deleting problematic posts will not be effective.
OGH has made it quite clear he doesn't want to spend his pension and his retirement dealing with legal issues.
Obviously.
But there is lots of evidence you're not, yet none of it is conclusive
My best guess
15% chance this is psy-ops
15% chance this is some hi tech stuff they want to hide (but have to train?)
15% chance this is training for some disaster (see public reaction?)
15% chance this is an actual disaster they are trying to avert (the nuke theory)
15% chance this is a flap
25% chance all the other whacko theories: China, pranksters, Russia, interdimensions, a space time glitch, aliens, God, or we are in the Simulation
*sobs quietly, alone*
THIS is what she looked like, then
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fancast/comments/1cz78o1/what_dc_character_could_young_rachel_weisz_have/
https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewmoore30/video/7432960739930836257
*checks mirror*
What happened?
Obvs I am not going to repeat anything, especially if there are insane new laws coming in. Does anyone know how bad they are going to be? Why are we self harming our tech industries? Bonkers
As for billionaires buying up rural counties to avoid IHT; no doubt other tricks are around - not least the 7 year rule - but has it occurred to the government that it still has the attractions of attracting tax at 20% in place of 40% for everyone else.
IHT is so ludicrous, random and capricious that it should be abolished and replaced with low level assets taxes without exemptions.
I was at a party in LA, a very posh post-Oscars party, but I was more interested in having a beer, so I asked the girl near the massive fridge to "hand me a beer, please?" and she did and then I looked up and she gave me that smile and I realised it was Cameron Diaz
*genuinely crying, now*
Page 77...
(More seriously - sad times. I'm sure there's more to come. The informed will at least close down before they are picked off)
http://www.daveswarbirds.com/bob/pics/cards/card-26.jpg
That could actually be the end of sites like PB
https://x.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1868718061744001277
Because the bill is so broad we won't know exactly how things will be interpreted until we seem some examples and PB doesn't want to be a test case.
Do you know how much decent lawyers cost?
They did bill in 6 min / 10-per-hour segments though, so reviewing a perfunctory email reply was "only" £30.
Didn't fancy kissing him though.
Below that is a tier of "services with more than 700,000 monthly users".
Would numbers be defined by Vanilla users or PB users?
I would think only Facebook would reach 7 million? Maybe TwiX?
The budget itself was only a giveaway of about £12B once the stealth taxes were properly included. That took a week to understand, but BBC, Sky, etc already told us on the day it was costly, expensive budget and never apologised for calling it so wrong.
All currency’s were being whacked by the dollar that week. The borrowing costs had been climbing all year and went even higher under Sunak without same hysterical media reporting. The pension issue was nothing to do with Truss budget, but Sunak’s awful treasury unaware the issue of bad hedging had been building in pensions some time.
In terms of the political fury at cutting the top rate of tax, it was only a tax invented in 2010 as Gordon Brown salted the earth ahead of a Conservative win - and Osborne had already halved it to applause, not anger.
From the moment Truss stood up to give her victory speech, without acknowledging Sunak or shaking his hand, the Tory MPs were determined to get rid of her, so it was weeks of Tory and Labour both spreading the same lies about a budget. Sunak largely implemented and Labour largely backed Truss budget after Truss was gone.
The unintended consequences of the blue on blue, was it gave the impression Tories crashed economy, and that lost them many votes in 2024. They got Rishi as leader, but trashed their parties credibility whilst doing it.
What caused Truss problems with the markets was a promise outside the budget - to continue the energy pay outs all up to the election, 2.5 years - would still being paid this week to show how stupid the promise was, backed up by press releases boasting it would cost 8% of GDP. The unintended consequence of that promise (not going through the OBR) was market evaluation of upwards of £250B paying that one item alone. Hunt’s first action was to announce just six months not all up to election, and instantly the markets happy, like a volcano that’s just had sacrifice thrown in it.
That’s the true history. PB like everywhere else in political media, prefers convenient myths, and rarely mentions unintended consequences.
*As he was then.