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Unquiet flows the Don – politicalbetting.com
Unquiet flows the Don – politicalbetting.com
4) Succeeded in appointing his cronies and sycophants to cabinet posts (even though you would not want a cabinet with this many screws loose);
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Excellent header and just how or when this insanity will end is anyone's guess as is the damage to economies across the globe
Today's inflation fall looks like the lull before the storm as huge rises in water, council tax [ours 9.7%], energy, broadband phone and TV increases plus others
I cannot see a silver lining for labour and certainly not whilst Reeves is COE
Donald Trump's face - you couldn't make it up...
Perhaps he should have it tattooed on?
$NVDA says the U.S. government has banned exports of its H20 chips to China indefinitely, citing national security risks tied to potential supercomputing use. As a result, NVIDIA expects to take a charge of up to $5.5 billion in its fiscal Q1 ending April 27, tied to H20 inventory, purchase commitments, and related reserves.
https://x.com/wallstengine/status/1912257489468551376
The US system's much heralded checks are useless against an authoritarian (GOP) POTUS, recent history is that the innate Republican bias in the 2 houses limits even a popular Dem POTUS.
"And Quiet Flows the Don" was the title given a literary flourish by the publishers of Stephens' translation because they felt a western audience wouldn't know the Don was river and the title would make no sense. Hence the addition of "Flows".
Grab people off the street at random
Deport them
Courts complain
El Salvador says you can't have them back
Trump pays El Savador for their services.
That is the established process. What are the courts going to do about it?
"UK housebuilding risks being held up by brick shortage. Is wood the answer?"
https://www.ft.com/content/29d81d8e-9299-4af2-9ca9-3d499eb2d13d
Bricks have failed. Wood is expensive. Build houses out of STRAW.
Wood is expensive.
So it should be 'Unquiet Don?'
Reduced interest rates slowly is another.
And year on year 10% reduction in the energy price cap Q1 2024 to Q1 2025. Though that is not itself a specific policy.
100 per cent quieter would be good.
Do a jail release when El Salvador plays ball.
Other woods, less so.
The loud wailing there of "What air defence doing?" doesn't help the silence either.
IMO there's a fair bit of positional bollocks in that story. eg
Timber construction has long been widely used in North America, Scandinavia and Scotland, but has struggled for traction in England — where houses are typically still built by hand out of bricks and blocks.
In fact the timber frame share in England has been increasing over time. It is now moving towards 25%, and is up by about 10% in a decade - which is quite a change.
I mean, there's a fairly old house in Stratford lived in by some bloke called Shagstaffe I think, that's timber. And up in @Big_G_NorthWales neck of the woods, Aberconwy House is made of timber. Plus 25 Church Street in @Leon's favourite town in all the world, and no. 1 Culver Street, and Gooch Sports, they're all made of timber and date from the 15th century. And Ledbury Market House, that's timber. And in Stafford, the town museum is timber. As for Lichfield, don't get me started. There's more wood in the housing stock than in Trump's head.
It's just that between deforestation, massive fires due to cramped urban areas and a climate that means wood tends to rot quite quickly we've tended to go more with brick as it's more durable.
Which all means the amount of breeze-blocks (which is otherwise used to build the inner skin) are in much less demand. It'd be interesting to know if the brick skin is because it is the best material for our climate, or just tradition/preference.
(*) I have no idea if the first-fix services are in place in the wooden frames.
Hegseth, Gabbard, Vance, Navarro...
Here's another example for my photo quota - start with DONG:
Early days but i think we can afford to be optimistic
Latest MIC leadership polling. Amongst 2024 Tory voters barely a third think Badenoch best PM. Farage next most popular, but surprising support for Starmer too.
It would be partly determined by planning requirements and the vernacular. In the Peak District Park for example, the Planning Authority (which is the park) would typically require stone or mainly stone for the outer finish.
As for integrity what is it about her accepting freebies right left and centre
The point is rather that the special exemption was announced all of ... a week ago.
PS I now see I am late to this thought. See above.
Welcome to St. Andrews Church, Greensted, The oldest wooden Church in the World, and the oldest ‘Stave Built’ timber building in Europe.
The church represents some 1300 years of English history and Christian worship.
http://www.greenstedchurch.org.uk/history.html
https://bsky.app/profile/jeffsharlet.bsky.social/post/3lmumkhpaa22d
Perhaps we need Bill Ackman to start crying about it on Twitter again.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/16/homeland_security_funding_for_cve/
The US government today ends its funding for the CVE database, that is the classification of computer security holes. With a bit of luck someone else will step in, cybersecurity being fairly important in the modern world.
Visa revoked of math professor, University of Houston confirms
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/uh-visa-revoked-math-professor-20277600.php
...Jeon's most recent curriculum vitae posted to the UH website showed that he was a postdoctoral scholar at Ohio State University from September 2022 to June 2024. He began teaching at UH in fall 2024, according to the resume.
UH officials said they were not aware of other faculty affected by visa terminations.
"Due to the unexpected termination of my visa – an issue that has recently impacted many international scholars – I must return to Korea immediately to resolve my immigration status," he wrote. "As a result, I will no longer be able to continue teaching."
Universities are tracking the terminations in a federal database of international students and exchange visitors called SEVIS, which is managed by the Department of Homeland Security. The change means that they no longer have legal status, regardless of whether their visa was revoked. People with terminated records in the system are required to leave the U.S. immediately and not return, though some circumstances could provide them a grace period...
That’s assuming we can get the 3000 page reports on nothing written in time.
The biggest problem will be the high price of industrial electricity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Don,_Aberdeenshire
Bit of classy classicism as well.
'The river was recorded by the 2nd century AD cosmographer Ptolemy of Alexandria (d. c 168) as Δηουανα Devona,[1] meaning 'goddess', an indication the river was once a sacred one. Near Kintore, not distant from the Don, is the Deers Den Roman Camp.'
I’m at my French place this week. See that wooden construction? An oak lean-to my neighbour got built last year, with rather fetching traditional wooden roof tiles.
Her being into all things eco and artisanal (and having lots of contacts in that world through her career in street theatre), she got it built by artisans who had spent the previous 2 years working on the new roof for notre dame.
Apparently it was an absolute bonanza for the global woodcraft and stone masonry fraternity. People came from all over the world to work for months or years on what was the biggest project of their lives.
But as you say many politicians simply do not seem to understand the word integrity
Here's a video from Type Ashton, a youtuber from the USA now living in Germany, returning home to walk her 1980s route to school in small-town Illinois, and to compare what her children do in Deutschland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkhxWteFcQ4
- they have hardly any MPs left (about 120; they lost 250 MPs last July)
- Boris purged a lot of the experienced ones
- almost every criticism of Labour at PMQs can be knocked back by Starmer saying the Tories started it (whatever "it" is)
None of that changes under Jenrick.Wild story in the WSJ.
It’s paywalled so I’ll screenshot some key excerpts below.
But basically it’s about how Mark Zuckerberg spent millions trying to suck up to Trump so Meta only had to pay $450M (instead of $30B that the FTC wanted) to settle an antitrust case against them.
https://x.com/admcrlsn/status/1912336854227038631
I guess Nvidia didn't hand over a large enough bung.
Now they're left with about 400k H200s in inventory.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1328455/Ill-huff-Ill-puff-Britains-biggest-straw-house-nears-completion.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/15/pentagons-digital-resignations-00290930
I believe cruise liner bedrooms are built in a similar manner, and then placed in position on the hull.
Which is why the GOP have such a narrow majority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections
I have no clue what a Jenrick-led Conservative Party would be like, neither do you and neither, I suspect, does he. Jenrick would soon find out you can't out-Reform Reform and it would be a dutch auction between the two parties to see who could come up with the most ludicrous policy on immigration, housing, the economy etc.
Badenoch's problem (which Jenrick would share) is at the moment she comes over as a one-dimensional whiny, angry person. She's always cross and upset with everything - she needs to smile, have a little humour and not take herself so seriously at times. Even Margaret Thatcher had the occasional laugh - remember the pro-Europe jumper from 1975?
On Success no. 6, I'd say it's more that he's succeeded in getting into Mr Putin's comic book. They aren't complimentary so much as laughing at him.
On failure no. 5, that may be a question of time - time to replace the senior people to those who will just do what he wants, where 'senior' goes as far down the hierarchy as necessary.
Find random reasons, make a list, chuck them out with no delay, no checking, no due process, no humanity, and no thought for the consequences; take America back 100 years.
I was listening earlier to a Maga "intellectual" defending he assault on Harvard.
The "reasoning" is characteristic.
https://youtu.be/gSwMQXcvcoo?t=70
But cleaning mortar of bricks is not easy. You soon get fed up with the chisel and hammer.
Edit: although I do like the idea of a architectural 'savage' firm...
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdFxG1ob/
Jenrick's latest pronouncements are against Islamist gangs running prisons, which, as Starmer will remind everyone, started under the Conservatives, along with prison overcrowding, access to boiling oil and so on and so forth.
Most damning of all, Jenrick is a Cambridge-educated lawyer.
We're currently getting a new flat door installed. Fire service/council have been doing a survey and we're told our current one will make excellent kindling.
Well worth a listen.
Became a play called "The Cult of Water". And a (short!) book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cult-Water-David-Bramwell-Fowler/dp/1912722720
Also, more conventionally: Walter Scott - Ivanhoe, which opens with:
In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by
the river Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest,
covering the greater part of the beautiful hills and valleys
which lie between Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster.
The remains of this extensive wood are still to be seen at the
noble seats of Wentworth, of Warncliffe Park, and around
Rotherham. Here haunted of yore the fabulous Dragon of Wantley;
here were fought many of the most desperate battles during the
Civil Wars of the Roses; and here also flourished in ancient
times those bands of gallant outlaws, whose deeds have been
rendered so popular in English song.
Set against that, there's the whole Tawdry Bob thing.
But the big issues would remain. He was part of the 2019-24 government, and that failed utterly. Farage wasn't. Furthermore, Nigel has started quality in a way that is in a different league.
No one wants to spend their Easter weekend stuck in traffic.
So we're lifting more than a thousand miles of roadworks over Easter.
And to save you money, we've frozen fuel duty and delivered record funding to fix potholes.
Drivers — I'm on your side.