I am going to set up a PB crowdfunder to help me deal with the trauma of having to spend a few hours in Kettering when my train was delayed then cancelled.
It would help fund therapy both with a doctor and of the retail therapy type.
I have been stuck in both Motherwell, and been to the little village Tennants pub for a 2 hour wait in Carstairs in the past.
The worst was getting off at the wrong stop for Plzen, at some little deserted halt and goods yard, a similar wait with some, possibly Roma, kids trying to impress me that they had a big knife and a distinctly young sister who they were happy to offer for my use. I was just English and unfased about it, said no the sister is a bit too young and went ooh that's nice to the knife. They just let me pass.
I recall arriving at Algeciras, long past midnight. The mad Irish bloke I was travelling with was negotiating about hotels with Danny Trejo's twin brother.
Very nice to hear of all the multitude of policies Andy Burnham has alongside all his proposed tax and spend changes from the other day. Would he perhaps care to win a mandate for those at the ballot box if he becomes PM, or is he just hoping to become PM and do what the hell he likes (another comparison to Truss).
We are not a Presidential democracy. Parliament is sovereign. I learned that during the EU Referendum.
A new Prime Minister doesn't have to go to the country. The Prime Minister already has a mandate because (altogether) Parliament is sovereign.
There was some chat about Ukrainian strategy in the last thread.
Their problem in 2023 was that the expectation placed on them by NATO “partners” was akin to giving a T-rex a jazz mag and asking him to tug himself off.
Ukraine faced minefields with a density of 5/m2. I am told by those that know these things that greater than 1/m2 is considered effectively impassable. But worse than that, they were pressured into such an advance without modern aviation, due to the Biden White House actively withholding it.
This meant Ukraine had no effective defence against the Russian helicopters, which merrily picked off the Ukrainian engineers that were trying to clear a passage. It was a needless massacre that was doomed to failure.
One might speculate that the counteroffensive was a sleight of hand for the Wagner coup attempt, which reportedly only failed because Lukashenko talked Prigozhin down. With the coup a failure and the UAF action in full flow, into the guns they marched. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.
I still think it’s hard to conceive of a complete military collapse for the Russia, with a seemingly unlimited political stomach for infantry losses and backed by materiel and monetary flows from the eastern hemisphere. Further, it seems to me that there is no appetite in the west for such an unpredictable and potentially chaotic outcome, save for the baltics and certain Iron Curtain countries that believe they are next in line. But you never know.
Feels a lot to me like we’re on the verge of a new escalate to deescalate phase. The games in Liverpool and Manchester conference halls might seem rather quaint before too long.
Very nice to hear of all the multitude of policies Andy Burnham has alongside all his proposed tax and spend changes from the other day. Would he perhaps care to win a mandate for those at the ballot box if he becomes PM, or is he just hoping to become PM and do what the hell he likes (another comparison to Truss).
We are not a Presidential democracy. Parliament is sovereign. I learned that during the EU Referendum.
A new Prime Minister doesn't have to go to the country. The Prime Minister already has a mandate because (altogether) Parliament is sovereign.
Constitutionally? Absolutely.
But not in the case of wider public legitimacy. This was exactly what Sunak and Truss grappled with, and lost.
Very nice to hear of all the multitude of policies Andy Burnham has alongside all his proposed tax and spend changes from the other day. Would he perhaps care to win a mandate for those at the ballot box if he becomes PM, or is he just hoping to become PM and do what the hell he likes (another comparison to Truss).
We are not a Presidential democracy. Parliament is sovereign. I learned that during the EU Referendum.
A new Prime Minister doesn't have to go to the country. The Prime Minister already has a mandate because (altogether) Parliament is sovereign.
Indeed. And the ability of Parliament to easily replace a failing PM is an advantage of a Parliamentary system over an executive President. We should not dilute this advantage by placing artificial barriers in the way of replacing failing PMs.
If you insist that a new PM has to face a general election then the most likely result is not more elections, but that failing PMs are kept in post for far longer.
As RCS keeps pointing out, households are sitting on a lot of cash and not spending it. So HMG will do the decent thing, take it off you and spend it, to save you the hassle of wondering what to do.
I know what she meant to say, but "Greater Britain" was a bit of an unfortunate moniker for a Labour conference. That was the title of the most popular imperialist tract of the later nineteenth-century, albeit Charles Dilke was, fascinatingly, a genuine leftwinger and Radical at the same time, who even helped set up the Labour party itself, after his own withdrawal from front-rank politics.
On a separate note, good to see the I.D. card petition heading towards three million.
Hopefully it will be second only, or similar in figures, to the European petition.
Greater Britain:
England Scotland Wales Northern Ireland Ireland Man Jersey Guernsey, Sark, Alderney etc.
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Actual biologists should corect me if I am wrong, but I think we can be more precise than this: "If you're XY, you're a guy. If you're XX, you're of the fairer sex."
A mammal with one -- or more -- Y chromosomes is male; otherwise they are female.
Very nice to hear of all the multitude of policies Andy Burnham has alongside all his proposed tax and spend changes from the other day. Would he perhaps care to win a mandate for those at the ballot box if he becomes PM, or is he just hoping to become PM and do what the hell he likes (another comparison to Truss).
We are not a Presidential democracy. Parliament is sovereign. I learned that during the EU Referendum.
A new Prime Minister doesn't have to go to the country. The Prime Minister already has a mandate because (altogether) Parliament is sovereign.
Indeed. And the ability of Parliament to easily replace a failing PM is an advantage of a Parliamentary system over an executive President. We should not dilute this advantage by placing artificial barriers in the way of replacing failing PMs.
If you insist that a new PM has to face a general election then the most likely result is not more elections, but that failing PMs are kept in post for far longer.
I have no problem with a party replacing a PM. If the broad trajectory of their government is similar to their predecessor; they have a legitimacy from the manifesto.
If they want to rip it all up and start again, I believe they do owe it to the country to seek a mandate. Not legally, but for the purposes of democratic legitimacy.
In what seems like the most well trodden path for lefties who start to think for themselves, Emma Watson is getting absolutely blasted on bluecry by the "tolerant" and "open minded" people of the left. Being compared to Hitler, death threats, being called a fascist all because she decided that people are free to have their own opinions.
That audience she sucked up to and cultivated by shitting all over JK Rowling has turned on her and you just love to see it. A taste of what she has been doing to people who she disagreed with for the last decade.
Watson did not "shit all over" J K Rowling. She politely expressed a different view, and one which stupid people then said: "How DARE she disagree with someone who had something to do with her employment 20 years ago!!!! She OWES J K Rowling!!!"
You can easily see it the other way from the way you put it, and that Watson decided to have her own opinions, and was shouted down by Rowling and others. I find it hard to see how you can say what Watson said recently was anything other than polite and considerate, and that Rowling's response was plain nasty.
You're literally rewriting history. For a decade the left have been trying to cancel JKR, attempted to boycott her books, games and other media she's been responsible for, it was people like Watson who were revving those people up by denouncing Rowling. Now you're saying that it was Watson and Radcliffe being cancelled? Pull the other one. What's changed is that the left lost the argument on crossdressers and transvestites pretending to be women, that has been the turning point for the return of sanity and why it seems Watson has repented from those attempts to cancel JKR.
As I said, I've got a wife and two daughters who don't have the same megaphone that JKR does to stand up to the TRA bullies, I will always be thankful that she used her voice to protect women's spaces. She deserves an apology from Watson and Radcliffe and I do hope that they begin to see after this backlash against Watson exactly what it is they encouraged and helped create with their denouncements of JKR.
I've never really got this narrative about toilets etc. Surely now trans men will have to use women's toilets. What's a woman supposed to do if she finds a person who looks like a man in the toilet? Demand that they drop their trousers to check if they are a trans man or a biological man? What's a trans man supposed to do when they are confronted or threatened every time they use a women's toilet? How will any of this make women feel any safer? How will trans women be kept safe in men's toilets? How is any of this anything other than a sideshow when most violence against women and girls is carried out by cis men and usually by someone they know?
The best solution to the toilets issue is that transsexuals are granted the use of their newly-assigned gender's facilities post surgery, as I have said on many occasions. During their transition, they should be granted the use of disabled toilet facilities which are not communal by definition.
One cannot change ones' biological sex. But if someone is in such distress at their own sex that they cannot live without altering it, society should do them the courtesy of maintaining a polite pretence. That doesn't apply to men who like wearing women's clothes but retain the distinguishing marks of their sex and enjoy the use of them.
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
I find that both FB and Prometheus have a distinct whiff of products that only exist to stop others playing in that particular ball pool.
In what seems like the most well trodden path for lefties who start to think for themselves, Emma Watson is getting absolutely blasted on bluecry by the "tolerant" and "open minded" people of the left. Being compared to Hitler, death threats, being called a fascist all because she decided that people are free to have their own opinions.
That audience she sucked up to and cultivated by shitting all over JK Rowling has turned on her and you just love to see it. A taste of what she has been doing to people who she disagreed with for the last decade.
Watson did not "shit all over" J K Rowling. She politely expressed a different view, and one which stupid people then said: "How DARE she disagree with someone who had something to do with her employment 20 years ago!!!! She OWES J K Rowling!!!"
You can easily see it the other way from the way you put it, and that Watson decided to have her own opinions, and was shouted down by Rowling and others. I find it hard to see how you can say what Watson said recently was anything other than polite and considerate, and that Rowling's response was plain nasty.
You're literally rewriting history. For a decade the left have been trying to cancel JKR, attempted to boycott her books, games and other media she's been responsible for, it was people like Watson who were revving those people up by denouncing Rowling. Now you're saying that it was Watson and Radcliffe being cancelled? Pull the other one. What's changed is that the left lost the argument on crossdressers and transvestites pretending to be women, that has been the turning point for the return of sanity and why it seems Watson has repented from those attempts to cancel JKR.
As I said, I've got a wife and two daughters who don't have the same megaphone that JKR does to stand up to the TRA bullies, I will always be thankful that she used her voice to protect women's spaces. She deserves an apology from Watson and Radcliffe and I do hope that they begin to see after this backlash against Watson exactly what it is they encouraged and helped create with their denouncements of JKR.
I've never really got this narrative about toilets etc. Surely now trans men will have to use women's toilets. What's a woman supposed to do if she finds a person who looks like a man in the toilet? Demand that they drop their trousers to check if they are a trans man or a biological man? What's a trans man supposed to do when they are confronted or threatened every time they use a women's toilet? How will any of this make women feel any safer? How will trans women be kept safe in men's toilets? How is any of this anything other than a sideshow when most violence against women and girls is carried out by cis men and usually by someone they know?
I agree that toilets are a sideshow. The most important situations are things like hospital wards, or prisons, where you have extremely vulnerable people who cannot choose to walk away from a situation they feel threatened in, due to illness and, well, imprisonment, and the State has a duty of care not to put them at risk by putting men into their space.
Trans people are people. As such, you have saints and sinners. When a trans sinner does something wrong that warrants a custodial sentence, what should be done?
Then you have a separate issue: sinners can be *weird*. In the same way (allegedly) you have some prisoners converting to Islam in order to get better meals, you might have some prisoners claiming to be trans, post arrest, in order to get some advantage, or just to be shits. After all, they're sinners. But there will also be (say) a transwoman who is in jail for fraud, who would never think of abusing anyone.
What's the answer? The GRC seems a good delineation; as does the idea that if someone is in jail for a sexual offence, they should be sent to a prison for the opposite of the gender they assaulted. But even that has complexities.
I am against the idea of trans prisoners being put in their own wing, or even a special prison somewhere in the country.
As ever, it is complex: but so are prisoners generally. Should a man who raped a man be put in jail with a load of other men, some of whom are vulnerable?
Actual biologists should corect me if I am wrong, but I think we can be more precise than this: "If you're XY, you're a guy. If you're XX, you're of the fairer sex."
A mammal with one -- or more -- Y chromosomes is male; otherwise they are female.
IIRC there are exceptions both in genes - not every human being is XX or XY - and in bodies - Caster Semenya was born with a vagina and had a F birth certificate, but had internal testes and started producing testosterone in her (so to speak) teens. My preferred sieve for a binary classification is presence/absence of a Y chromosome, but opinions differ.
EDIT: Didn't work. Curious how many other parents are hearing this all the time too, or if its just mine? Since my kids went back to school at the start of the month, all I seem to hear from them is "six seven".
I know I'm wildly out of the age range, but what does 'six seven' mean?
Gt. grandson has another two years before he starts school and everyone else, apart from Youngest Granddaughter, who I won't see until Christmas ,has left school.
It's an entirely meaningless meme based on an online video. It's been a thing for a while. The bafflement and irritation it induces among anyone over the age of 18 is no doubt part of its appeal.
I was laughed at the other day when I said something was at 6s and 7s, and the “joke” had to be explained to me. They seemed to find it hilarious.
Weirdly, when I 'quote' people I'm getting a one character too short error, unless I add something before.
PBers use < symbols when reporting polls and Vanilla throws a wobbly because it sees it as the start of an html tag and swallows the rest of the message and all of your response looking for the > which never comes to close that open tag. Just edit the original message to change the < character to the html entity.
EDIT: Didn't work. Curious how many other parents are hearing this all the time too, or if its just mine? Since my kids went back to school at the start of the month, all I seem to hear from them is "six seven".
I know I'm wildly out of the age range, but what does 'six seven' mean?
Gt. grandson has another two years before he starts school and everyone else, apart from Youngest Granddaughter, who I won't see until Christmas ,has left school.
It's an entirely meaningless meme based on an online video. It's been a thing for a while. The bafflement and irritation it induces among anyone over the age of 18 is no doubt part of its appeal.
I was laughed at the other day when I said something was at 6s and 7s, and the “joke” had to be explained to me. They seemed to find it hilarious.
It has been around forever
I think the 6-7 meme is only a few months old at most. The majority of those who find humoir in it are unaware of the phrase 'at 6s and 7s'.
Actual biologists should corect me if I am wrong, but I think we can be more precise than this: "If you're XY, you're a guy. If you're XX, you're of the fairer sex."
A mammal with one -- or more -- Y chromosomes is male; otherwise they are female.
IIRC there are exceptions both in genes - not every human being is XX or XY - and in bodies - Caster Semenya was born with a vagina and had a F birth certificate, but had internal testes and started producing testosterone in her (so to speak) teens. My preferred sieve for a binary classification is presence/absence of a Y chromosome, but opinions differ.
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
In what seems like the most well trodden path for lefties who start to think for themselves, Emma Watson is getting absolutely blasted on bluecry by the "tolerant" and "open minded" people of the left. Being compared to Hitler, death threats, being called a fascist all because she decided that people are free to have their own opinions.
That audience she sucked up to and cultivated by shitting all over JK Rowling has turned on her and you just love to see it. A taste of what she has been doing to people who she disagreed with for the last decade.
Watson did not "shit all over" J K Rowling. She politely expressed a different view, and one which stupid people then said: "How DARE she disagree with someone who had something to do with her employment 20 years ago!!!! She OWES J K Rowling!!!"
You can easily see it the other way from the way you put it, and that Watson decided to have her own opinions, and was shouted down by Rowling and others. I find it hard to see how you can say what Watson said recently was anything other than polite and considerate, and that Rowling's response was plain nasty.
You're literally rewriting history. For a decade the left have been trying to cancel JKR, attempted to boycott her books, games and other media she's been responsible for, it was people like Watson who were revving those people up by denouncing Rowling. Now you're saying that it was Watson and Radcliffe being cancelled? Pull the other one. What's changed is that the left lost the argument on crossdressers and transvestites pretending to be women, that has been the turning point for the return of sanity and why it seems Watson has repented from those attempts to cancel JKR.
As I said, I've got a wife and two daughters who don't have the same megaphone that JKR does to stand up to the TRA bullies, I will always be thankful that she used her voice to protect women's spaces. She deserves an apology from Watson and Radcliffe and I do hope that they begin to see after this backlash against Watson exactly what it is they encouraged and helped create with their denouncements of JKR.
I've never really got this narrative about toilets etc. Surely now trans men will have to use women's toilets. What's a woman supposed to do if she finds a person who looks like a man in the toilet? Demand that they drop their trousers to check if they are a trans man or a biological man? What's a trans man supposed to do when they are confronted or threatened every time they use a women's toilet? How will any of this make women feel any safer? How will trans women be kept safe in men's toilets? How is any of this anything other than a sideshow when most violence against women and girls is carried out by cis men and usually by someone they know?
The best solution to the toilets issue is that transsexuals are granted the use of their newly-assigned gender's facilities post surgery, as I have said on many occasions. During their transition, they should be granted the use of disabled toilet facilities which are not communal by definition.
One cannot change ones' biological sex. But if someone is in such distress at their own sex that they cannot live without altering it, society should do them the courtesy of maintaining a polite pretence. That doesn't apply to men who like wearing women's clothes but retain the distinguishing marks of their sex and enjoy the use of them.
Actual biologists should corect me if I am wrong, but I think we can be more precise than this: "If you're XY, you're a guy. If you're XX, you're of the fairer sex."
A mammal with one -- or more -- Y chromosomes is male; otherwise they are female.
IIRC there are exceptions both in genes - not every human being is XX or XY - and in bodies - Caster Semenya was born with a vagina and had a F birth certificate, but had internal testes and started producing testosterone in her (so to speak) teens. My preferred sieve for a binary classification is presence/absence of a Y chromosome, but opinions differ.
Predisposed gamete production is best I think.
How do you test for that, as a matter of interest?
And how do you test for it when someone walks into a public convenience?
(There are increasing reports of women who don't conform to standard gender norms being subjected to abuse for the temerity of wanting to have a pee. Just because they look different.)
Very nice to hear of all the multitude of policies Andy Burnham has alongside all his proposed tax and spend changes from the other day. Would he perhaps care to win a mandate for those at the ballot box if he becomes PM, or is he just hoping to become PM and do what the hell he likes (another comparison to Truss).
We are not a Presidential democracy. Parliament is sovereign. I learned that during the EU Referendum.
A new Prime Minister doesn't have to go to the country. The Prime Minister already has a mandate because (altogether) Parliament is sovereign.
Constitutionally? Absolutely.
But not in the case of wider public legitimacy. This was exactly what Sunak and Truss grappled with, and lost.
Sunak grappled with it, I agree. Truss didn't seem to grapple with anything.
Actual biologists should corect me if I am wrong, but I think we can be more precise than this: "If you're XY, you're a guy. If you're XX, you're of the fairer sex."
A mammal with one -- or more -- Y chromosomes is male; otherwise they are female.
I believe the technical biological definition is to do with gamete size*, but this normally correlates with chromosomes in humans, and they're easier to test for.
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
I've seen it three or four times now - it's one of my favourite films - but yes, it is totally a load of old tosh, and somebody should have knocked sense into the scriptwriters (of which Damon Lindelof was one?). And yes, it inaugurated the "Prometheus school of running away from things" meme.
Very nice to hear of all the multitude of policies Andy Burnham has alongside all his proposed tax and spend changes from the other day. Would he perhaps care to win a mandate for those at the ballot box if he becomes PM, or is he just hoping to become PM and do what the hell he likes (another comparison to Truss).
We are not a Presidential democracy. Parliament is sovereign. I learned that during the EU Referendum.
A new Prime Minister doesn't have to go to the country. The Prime Minister already has a mandate because (altogether) Parliament is sovereign.
Constitutionally? Absolutely.
But not in the case of wider public legitimacy. This was exactly what Sunak and Truss grappled with, and lost.
Sunak grappled with it, I agree. Truss didn't seem to grapple with anything.
Truss grappled with all sorts of things, including her Parliamentary colleagues and numerical reality.
UK system, highly cost effective compared with existing alternatives, desperately needed in Ukraine - and would be pretty useful for our own air defences. The US ordered first and has bought up the next couple of years of production. All for itself.
Unguided 70mm rockets with the APKWS II guidance kit from British BAE Systems have become the main weapon of the US Air Force against drones after their successful use against Houthi UAVs.
This was stated by the commander of the US Air Forces Central Command, Lieutenant General Derek France.
As he noted, "dozens" of UAVs have already been shot down with their help, which would normally require significantly more expensive and complex air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles to destroy. https://x.com/visionergeo/status/1972365042373763377
Well done MoD.
If it's such a successful product then BAE would do well to get more orders and build another production site?
The guidance system is a US development - BAe got the contract. So the US specified a weapons system, paid for development and bought the production.
It turns acheap dumb rocket into a cheap smart weapon. It's also being supplied to Ukraine.
You also need to understand that the UK has unique requirements. Such as the rockets being required to fly sideways, or Bakelite dials on the launch console.
Plus simply buying a product that already exists and works isn't very fun, is it? No potential for Important People to demonstrate their Vital Importance.
The program was a US one (originally dating back to 2005) but I think BAE developed the guidance system themselves, which is how they got the contract (Certainly true of the recent upgrade for anti-drone usage.)
It's been ordered and supplied to several other countries, and we could have ordered ourselves, including a few to Ukraine, but the US quite recently put in a mega-order for 55.000 units.
Very nice to hear of all the multitude of policies Andy Burnham has alongside all his proposed tax and spend changes from the other day. Would he perhaps care to win a mandate for those at the ballot box if he becomes PM, or is he just hoping to become PM and do what the hell he likes (another comparison to Truss).
We are not a Presidential democracy. Parliament is sovereign. I learned that during the EU Referendum.
A new Prime Minister doesn't have to go to the country. The Prime Minister already has a mandate because (altogether) Parliament is sovereign.
Indeed. And the ability of Parliament to easily replace a failing PM is an advantage of a Parliamentary system over an executive President. We should not dilute this advantage by placing artificial barriers in the way of replacing failing PMs.
If you insist that a new PM has to face a general election then the most likely result is not more elections, but that failing PMs are kept in post for far longer.
I have no problem with a party replacing a PM. If the broad trajectory of their government is similar to their predecessor; they have a legitimacy from the manifesto.
If they want to rip it all up and start again, I believe they do owe it to the country to seek a mandate. Not legally, but for the purposes of democratic legitimacy.
I generally favour more frequent elections anyway, and I think manifestos are important for political debate, opened and honesty. But the world is volatile and a government may have cause to change tack, and it's up to them to defend doing so to the electorate at the next election.
We shouldn't necessarily make it harder for a party to change direction if they've discovered that the direction they were elected on isn't working.
I know what she meant to say, but "Greater Britain" was a bit of an unfortunate moniker for a Labour conference. That was the title of the most popular imperialist tract of the later nineteenth-century, albeit Charles Dilke was, fascinatingly, a genuine leftwinger and Radical at the same time, who even helped set up the Labour party itself, after his own withdrawal from front-rank politics.
On a separate note, good to see the I.D. card petition heading towards three million.
Hopefully it will be second only, or similar in figures, to the European petition.
Greater Britain:
England Scotland Wales Northern Ireland Ireland Man Jersey Guernsey, Sark, Alderney etc.
Isle of Man, the Republic of Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, Sark etc are not parts of the United Kingdom. As you very well know, young Sunil.
Very nice to hear of all the multitude of policies Andy Burnham has alongside all his proposed tax and spend changes from the other day. Would he perhaps care to win a mandate for those at the ballot box if he becomes PM, or is he just hoping to become PM and do what the hell he likes (another comparison to Truss).
We are not a Presidential democracy. Parliament is sovereign. I learned that during the EU Referendum.
A new Prime Minister doesn't have to go to the country. The Prime Minister already has a mandate because (altogether) Parliament is sovereign.
Constitutionally? Absolutely.
But not in the case of wider public legitimacy. This was exactly what Sunak and Truss grappled with, and lost.
Sunak grappled with it, I agree. Truss didn't seem to grapple with anything.
Apart from basic sanity.
Labour would have to be literally mental to raise any tax paid by the public at this time, so I'd expect VAT to be put up to 35% by Wednesday.
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
I've seen it three or four times now - it's one of my favourite films - but yes, it is totally a load of old tosh, and somebody should have knocked sense into the scriptwriters (of which Damon Lindelof was one?). And yes, it inaugurated the "Prometheus school of running away from things" meme.
Ah, good to see that my memory isn't *that* defective. Me and Mrs J looked at each other at that point and said "WTF!"
Incidentally, I wish more writers of films set in space - particularly modern-day space - would remember the title of Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise's book: "Never Panic Early". Astronauts are trained that when a problem appears, don’t panic but instead calmly work to solve it.
Too many books and films have highly-trained people panic very early. That makes for good drama, but is really unrealistic.
(Incidentally, The Martian, particularly the book, goes a little too far the other way.)
Very nice to hear of all the multitude of policies Andy Burnham has alongside all his proposed tax and spend changes from the other day. Would he perhaps care to win a mandate for those at the ballot box if he becomes PM, or is he just hoping to become PM and do what the hell he likes (another comparison to Truss).
We are not a Presidential democracy. Parliament is sovereign. I learned that during the EU Referendum.
A new Prime Minister doesn't have to go to the country. The Prime Minister already has a mandate because (altogether) Parliament is sovereign.
Constitutionally? Absolutely.
But not in the case of wider public legitimacy. This was exactly what Sunak and Truss grappled with, and lost.
Sunak grappled with it, I agree. Truss didn't seem to grapple with anything.
Truss grappled with all sorts of things, including her Parliamentary colleagues and numerical reality.
It's just that she did so really unsuccessfully.
Truss had an unprecedented amount to grapple with in such a short time. The monarch died and was buried. There was a collapse in the LDI market, mostly caused by the failure of the Bank of England’s stress testing and oversight. There was an historic uncapped taxpayer backstop to energy prices. And US intelligence upgraded the risk of “imminent nuclear exchange” to 50%.
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
I've seen it three or four times now - it's one of my favourite films - but yes, it is totally a load of old tosh, and somebody should have knocked sense into the scriptwriters (of which Damon Lindelof was one?). And yes, it inaugurated the "Prometheus school of running away from things" meme.
Prometheus was a classic compared to the absolute rubbish of Alien Covenant. Nothing will ever get close though to Alien and then Aliens .
Very nice to hear of all the multitude of policies Andy Burnham has alongside all his proposed tax and spend changes from the other day. Would he perhaps care to win a mandate for those at the ballot box if he becomes PM, or is he just hoping to become PM and do what the hell he likes (another comparison to Truss).
We are not a Presidential democracy. Parliament is sovereign. I learned that during the EU Referendum.
A new Prime Minister doesn't have to go to the country. The Prime Minister already has a mandate because (altogether) Parliament is sovereign.
Constitutionally? Absolutely.
But not in the case of wider public legitimacy. This was exactly what Sunak and Truss grappled with, and lost.
Sunak grappled with it, I agree. Truss didn't seem to grapple with anything.
Truss grappled with all sorts of things, including her Parliamentary colleagues and numerical reality.
It's just that she did so really unsuccessfully.
Truss had an unprecedented amount to grapple with in such a short time. The monarch died and was buried. There was a collapse in the LDI market, mostly caused by the failure of the Bank of England’s stress testing and oversight. There was an historic uncapped taxpayer backstop to energy prices. And US intelligence upgraded the risk of “imminent nuclear exchange” to 50%.
Yet, instead of dealing with these issues, funeral apart, she bounced through massive unfunded tax cuts.
EDIT: Didn't work. Curious how many other parents are hearing this all the time too, or if its just mine? Since my kids went back to school at the start of the month, all I seem to hear from them is "six seven".
I know I'm wildly out of the age range, but what does 'six seven' mean?
Gt. grandson has another two years before he starts school and everyone else, apart from Youngest Granddaughter, who I won't see until Christmas ,has left school.
It's an entirely meaningless meme based on an online video. It's been a thing for a while. The bafflement and irritation it induces among anyone over the age of 18 is no doubt part of its appeal.
I was laughed at the other day when I said something was at 6s and 7s, and the “joke” had to be explained to me. They seemed to find it hilarious.
It has been around forever
I think the 6-7 meme is only a few months old at most. The majority of those who find humoir in it are unaware of the phrase 'at 6s and 7s'.
hmmm, that is just ignorance , very little new nowadays especially, the country has gone down the toilet.
There was some chat about Ukrainian strategy in the last thread.
Their problem in 2023 was that the expectation placed on them by NATO “partners” was akin to giving a T-rex a jazz mag and asking him to tug himself off.
Ukraine faced minefields with a density of 5/m2. I am told by those that know these things that greater than 1/m2 is considered effectively impassable. But worse than that, they were pressured into such an advance without modern aviation, due to the Biden White House actively withholding it.
This meant Ukraine had no effective defence against the Russian helicopters, which merrily picked off the Ukrainian engineers that were trying to clear a passage. It was a needless massacre that was doomed to failure.
One might speculate that the counteroffensive was a sleight of hand for the Wagner coup attempt, which reportedly only failed because Lukashenko talked Prigozhin down. With the coup a failure and the UAF action in full flow, into the guns they marched. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.
I still think it’s hard to conceive of a complete military collapse for the Russia, with a seemingly unlimited political stomach for infantry losses and backed by materiel and monetary flows from the eastern hemisphere. Further, it seems to me that there is no appetite in the west for such an unpredictable and potentially chaotic outcome, save for the baltics and certain Iron Curtain countries that believe they are next in line. But you never know.
Feels a lot to me like we’re on the verge of a new escalate to deescalate phase. The games in Liverpool and Manchester conference halls might seem rather quaint before too long.
Defeating Russia in Russia may be more realistic than doing so in Ukraine.
Not to say that it's close to happening yet. But sufficiently degrading Russia's oil / gas production and bringing the war to Moscow and St Petersburg is going to do more to destabilise Russia than winning 10kms of mine-filled no man's land.
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
I've seen it three or four times now - it's one of my favourite films - but yes, it is totally a load of old tosh, and somebody should have knocked sense into the scriptwriters (of which Damon Lindelof was one?). And yes, it inaugurated the "Prometheus school of running away from things" meme.
Prometheus was a classic compared to the absolute rubbish of Alien Covenant. Nothing will ever get close though to Alien and then Aliens .
Trump just announced Blair is to be involved in the running of Gaza, per the Telegraph.
Words fail me.
He says Bibi has agreed but not Hamas, claims he's 'heard' they will accept. Turned to him and said if they don't 'Bibi, you will need to do what you need to do'.
I know what she meant to say, but "Greater Britain" was a bit of an unfortunate moniker for a Labour conference. That was the title of the most popular imperialist tract of the later nineteenth-century, albeit Charles Dilke was, fascinatingly, a genuine leftwinger and Radical at the same time, who even helped set up the Labour party itself, after his own withdrawal from front-rank politics.
On a separate note, good to see the I.D. card petition heading towards three million.
Hopefully it will be second only, or similar in figures, to the European petition.
Greater Britain:
England Scotland Wales Northern Ireland Ireland Man Jersey Guernsey, Sark, Alderney etc.
Isle of Man, the Republic of Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, Sark etc are not parts of the United Kingdom. As you very well know, young Sunil.
Very nice to hear of all the multitude of policies Andy Burnham has alongside all his proposed tax and spend changes from the other day. Would he perhaps care to win a mandate for those at the ballot box if he becomes PM, or is he just hoping to become PM and do what the hell he likes (another comparison to Truss).
We are not a Presidential democracy. Parliament is sovereign. I learned that during the EU Referendum.
A new Prime Minister doesn't have to go to the country. The Prime Minister already has a mandate because (altogether) Parliament is sovereign.
Constitutionally? Absolutely.
But not in the case of wider public legitimacy. This was exactly what Sunak and Truss grappled with, and lost.
Sunak grappled with it, I agree. Truss didn't seem to grapple with anything.
Truss grappled with all sorts of things, including her Parliamentary colleagues and numerical reality.
It's just that she did so really unsuccessfully.
Truss had an unprecedented amount to grapple with in such a short time. The monarch died and was buried. There was a collapse in the LDI market, mostly caused by the failure of the Bank of England’s stress testing and oversight. There was an historic uncapped taxpayer backstop to energy prices. And US intelligence upgraded the risk of “imminent nuclear exchange” to 50%.
Yet, instead of dealing with these issues, funeral apart, she bounced through massive unfunded tax cuts.
It is not Truss's tax cuts that were the main problem but that she had so brazenly sidelined the BoE, OBR and any other "adults in the room" which spooked the markets – what was this big secret Truss must be hiding?
Very nice to hear of all the multitude of policies Andy Burnham has alongside all his proposed tax and spend changes from the other day. Would he perhaps care to win a mandate for those at the ballot box if he becomes PM, or is he just hoping to become PM and do what the hell he likes (another comparison to Truss).
We are not a Presidential democracy. Parliament is sovereign. I learned that during the EU Referendum.
A new Prime Minister doesn't have to go to the country. The Prime Minister already has a mandate because (altogether) Parliament is sovereign.
Constitutionally? Absolutely.
But not in the case of wider public legitimacy. This was exactly what Sunak and Truss grappled with, and lost.
Sunak grappled with it, I agree. Truss didn't seem to grapple with anything.
Truss grappled with all sorts of things, including her Parliamentary colleagues and numerical reality.
It's just that she did so really unsuccessfully.
Truss had an unprecedented amount to grapple with in such a short time. The monarch died and was buried. There was a collapse in the LDI market, mostly caused by the failure of the Bank of England’s stress testing and oversight. There was an historic uncapped taxpayer backstop to energy prices. And US intelligence upgraded the risk of “imminent nuclear exchange” to 50%.
Yet, instead of dealing with these issues, funeral apart, she bounced through massive unfunded tax cuts.
Most of the taxpayer burden came from the energy backstop rather than tax cuts but this was not understood by the official opposition or media. Had we experienced a colder than average winter in 2022-3, price simulations showed some pretty spectacular taxpayer bills.
Not to give her too much of the credit but I do not recall nuclear exchange in autumn 2022. I remember the week when she mysteriously missed PMQs, it took a year or two for us to find out why. She looked like a rabbit in the headlights when she emerged and it was nothing to do with LDI.
Trump just announced Blair is to be involved in the running of Gaza, per the Telegraph.
Words fail me.
He says Bibi has agreed but not Hamas, claims he's 'heard' they will accept. Turned to him and said if they don't 'Bibi, you will need to do what you need to do'.
Statesmanship, eh?
What do we suppose Hamas will make of digital ID cards, PFI and invading Iraq…
Trump just announced Blair is to be involved in the running of Gaza, per the Telegraph.
Words fail me.
He says Bibi has agreed but not Hamas, claims he's 'heard' they will accept. Turned to him and said if they don't 'Bibi, you will need to do what you need to do'.
Statesmanship, eh?
The IDF of 1967 conquered Gaza in under 48 hours. Why is it taking Bibi nearly two YEARS?
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
I've seen it three or four times now - it's one of my favourite films - but yes, it is totally a load of old tosh, and somebody should have knocked sense into the scriptwriters (of which Damon Lindelof was one?). And yes, it inaugurated the "Prometheus school of running away from things" meme.
Ah, good to see that my memory isn't *that* defective. Me and Mrs J looked at each other at that point and said "WTF!"
Incidentally, I wish more writers of films set in space - particularly modern-day space - would remember the title of Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise's book: "Never Panic Early". Astronauts are trained that when a problem appears, don’t panic but instead calmly work to solve it.
Too many books and films have highly-trained people panic very early. That makes for good drama, but is really unrealistic.
(Incidentally, The Martian, particularly the book, goes a little too far the other way.)
Trump just announced Blair is to be involved in the running of Gaza, per the Telegraph.
Words fail me.
He says Bibi has agreed but not Hamas, claims he's 'heard' they will accept. Turned to him and said if they don't 'Bibi, you will need to do what you need to do'.
Statesmanship, eh?
What do we suppose Hamas will make of digital ID cards, PFI and invading Iraq…
I'd like to thank Donnie for saving me some cash on drugs because watching this makes me feel like I am tripping.
He appears to be reading from notes, which makes me wonder if this is deliberately scripted to be a rambling stream of consciousness, or he's not reading what is in from of him.
There was some chat about Ukrainian strategy in the last thread.
Their problem in 2023 was that the expectation placed on them by NATO “partners” was akin to giving a T-rex a jazz mag and asking him to tug himself off.
Ukraine faced minefields with a density of 5/m2. I am told by those that know these things that greater than 1/m2 is considered effectively impassable. But worse than that, they were pressured into such an advance without modern aviation, due to the Biden White House actively withholding it.
This meant Ukraine had no effective defence against the Russian helicopters, which merrily picked off the Ukrainian engineers that were trying to clear a passage. It was a needless massacre that was doomed to failure.
One might speculate that the counteroffensive was a sleight of hand for the Wagner coup attempt, which reportedly only failed because Lukashenko talked Prigozhin down. With the coup a failure and the UAF action in full flow, into the guns they marched. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.
I still think it’s hard to conceive of a complete military collapse for the Russia, with a seemingly unlimited political stomach for infantry losses and backed by materiel and monetary flows from the eastern hemisphere. Further, it seems to me that there is no appetite in the west for such an unpredictable and potentially chaotic outcome, save for the baltics and certain Iron Curtain countries that believe they are next in line. But you never know.
Feels a lot to me like we’re on the verge of a new escalate to deescalate phase. The games in Liverpool and Manchester conference halls might seem rather quaint before too long.
Defeating Russia in Russia may be more realistic than doing so in Ukraine.
Not to say that it's close to happening yet. But sufficiently degrading Russia's oil / gas production and bringing the war to Moscow and St Petersburg is going to do more to destabilise Russia than winning 10kms of mine-filled no man's land.
On a rather transactional note, just showing that an imperial war of conquest - as Russia's invasion of Ukraine is - does not get you a net benefit might pause the hand of other would-be imperialists. If Russia was to 'win' the territory it has gained so far, it will take decades to regain the money, people and reputation lost in its tawdry war.
In other words they'win', but the win is so pyrrhic that it would have been better not to do the darned thing in the first place.
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
I've seen it three or four times now - it's one of my favourite films - but yes, it is totally a load of old tosh, and somebody should have knocked sense into the scriptwriters (of which Damon Lindelof was one?). And yes, it inaugurated the "Prometheus school of running away from things" meme.
Ah, good to see that my memory isn't *that* defective. Me and Mrs J looked at each other at that point and said "WTF!"
Incidentally, I wish more writers of films set in space - particularly modern-day space - would remember the title of Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise's book: "Never Panic Early". Astronauts are trained that when a problem appears, don’t panic but instead calmly work to solve it.
Too many books and films have highly-trained people panic very early. That makes for good drama, but is really unrealistic.
(Incidentally, The Martian, particularly the book, goes a little too far the other way.)
I’m not so sure on your last point. As many people noted, the early astronauts were selected for their “uncritical willingness to face danger.” That is, not panic in the face of imminent death.
The crew of Apollo 204 were found dead, two guys waiting in their couches for the hatch to be opened, the chap whose job it was to open the hatch, part way through opening it. They omitted to panic, while burning to death.
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
I've seen it three or four times now - it's one of my favourite films - but yes, it is totally a load of old tosh, and somebody should have knocked sense into the scriptwriters (of which Damon Lindelof was one?). And yes, it inaugurated the "Prometheus school of running away from things" meme.
Prometheus was a classic compared to the absolute rubbish of Alien Covenant. Nothing will ever get close though to Alien and then Aliens .
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
I've seen it three or four times now - it's one of my favourite films - but yes, it is totally a load of old tosh, and somebody should have knocked sense into the scriptwriters (of which Damon Lindelof was one?). And yes, it inaugurated the "Prometheus school of running away from things" meme.
Ah, good to see that my memory isn't *that* defective. Me and Mrs J looked at each other at that point and said "WTF!"
Incidentally, I wish more writers of films set in space - particularly modern-day space - would remember the title of Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise's book: "Never Panic Early". Astronauts are trained that when a problem appears, don’t panic but instead calmly work to solve it.
Too many books and films have highly-trained people panic very early. That makes for good drama, but is really unrealistic.
(Incidentally, The Martian, particularly the book, goes a little too far the other way.)
We’re getting Project Hail Mary next year.
I haven't read the PHM book. I quite enjoyed his previous book Artemis, although that won't be made in a film in the current environment, as it has a (shock, horror!) female protagonist. Worse, she is BLACK !!!! How WOKE!!!!
I also enjoyed The Martian book, but got a bit fed up with the "He's fixed the problem! Oh no! There's another peril!" trend through the book. The film thankfully dialled back on that a little, to its benefit, and made the film IMO better than the book. And it's unusual for me to say that.
Trump now pitching yet again for this bloody nobel peace prize.
He thinks he's going to sort it in a jiffy, tea and medals all round then a shit ton of money to be made turning Gaza into the new Dubai by the sounds of it. With Tony as Governor General in a splendid hat.
Actual biologists should corect me if I am wrong, but I think we can be more precise than this: "If you're XY, you're a guy. If you're XX, you're of the fairer sex."
A mammal with one -- or more -- Y chromosomes is male; otherwise they are female.
Swyer syndrome is when a person has XY (male) chromosomes and functional female genitalia (vulva). While XY chromosomes usually result in the development of a penis and scrotum, people with Swyer syndrome develop a vagina, uterus and fallopian tubes.
People with Swyer syndrome don’t have sex glands (ovaries or testicles). Instead, they have functionless scar tissue (called streak gonads). This means they won’t go through puberty unless they have hormone replacement therapy. They also won’t become pregnant naturally but can conceive through egg donation.
Swyer syndrome is a rare condition that affects about 1 in 80,000 births."
Male or female?
And if they use female toilets from birth, but only have the disorder diagnosed later (often when puberty doesn't hit normally) are you really going to banish them from the ladies? When they are pregnant?
This, for me, is the clincher DSD that says we have to have flexibility in the approach and look at each set of cases, rather than trying for absolutely rigid definitials.
There was some chat about Ukrainian strategy in the last thread.
Their problem in 2023 was that the expectation placed on them by NATO “partners” was akin to giving a T-rex a jazz mag and asking him to tug himself off.
Ukraine faced minefields with a density of 5/m2. I am told by those that know these things that greater than 1/m2 is considered effectively impassable. But worse than that, they were pressured into such an advance without modern aviation, due to the Biden White House actively withholding it.
This meant Ukraine had no effective defence against the Russian helicopters, which merrily picked off the Ukrainian engineers that were trying to clear a passage. It was a needless massacre that was doomed to failure.
One might speculate that the counteroffensive was a sleight of hand for the Wagner coup attempt, which reportedly only failed because Lukashenko talked Prigozhin down. With the coup a failure and the UAF action in full flow, into the guns they marched. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.
I still think it’s hard to conceive of a complete military collapse for the Russia, with a seemingly unlimited political stomach for infantry losses and backed by materiel and monetary flows from the eastern hemisphere. Further, it seems to me that there is no appetite in the west for such an unpredictable and potentially chaotic outcome, save for the baltics and certain Iron Curtain countries that believe they are next in line. But you never know.
Feels a lot to me like we’re on the verge of a new escalate to deescalate phase. The games in Liverpool and Manchester conference halls might seem rather quaint before too long.
Defeating Russia in Russia may be more realistic than doing so in Ukraine.
Not to say that it's close to happening yet. But sufficiently degrading Russia's oil / gas production and bringing the war to Moscow and St Petersburg is going to do more to destabilise Russia than winning 10kms of mine-filled no man's land.
On a rather transactional note, just showing that an imperial war of conquest - as Russia's invasion of Ukraine is - does not get you a net benefit might pause the hand of other would-be imperialists. If Russia was to 'win' the territory it has gained so far, it will take decades to regain the money, people and reputation lost in its tawdry war.
In other words they'win', but the win is so pyrrhic that it would have been better not to do the darned thing in the first place.
You need to try and put yourself in the mindset of an imperialist. He doesn’t give a shit about the things you mention. It’s only about history recording the glorious shifting of lines on a map.
It is why those hoping for the total collapse of the Russian war machine, followed by the likely fragmentation of the Russian state, are broadly seen by western policy makers as so dangerous. At some point the only way to ensure history does not record you as the leader who caused the total disintegration of Mother Russia, is to make sure there is no one around to write or read a history book.
In laying out his plan, Trump is saying Hamas must agree to the 20 points he has proposed that include conditions it has already publicly rejected, or else he will give Israel a green-light to eliminate all of Hamas.
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
I've seen it three or four times now - it's one of my favourite films - but yes, it is totally a load of old tosh, and somebody should have knocked sense into the scriptwriters (of which Damon Lindelof was one?). And yes, it inaugurated the "Prometheus school of running away from things" meme.
Ah, good to see that my memory isn't *that* defective. Me and Mrs J looked at each other at that point and said "WTF!"
Incidentally, I wish more writers of films set in space - particularly modern-day space - would remember the title of Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise's book: "Never Panic Early". Astronauts are trained that when a problem appears, don’t panic but instead calmly work to solve it.
Too many books and films have highly-trained people panic very early. That makes for good drama, but is really unrealistic.
(Incidentally, The Martian, particularly the book, goes a little too far the other way.)
We’re getting Project Hail Mary next year.
I haven't read the PHM book. I quite enjoyed his previous book Artemis, although that won't be made in a film in the current environment, as it has a (shock, horror!) female protagonist. Worse, she is BLACK !!!! How WOKE!!!!
I also enjoyed The Martian book, but got a bit fed up with the "He's fixed the problem! Oh no! There's another peril!" trend through the book. The film thankfully dialled back on that a little, to its benefit, and made the film IMO better than the book. And it's unusual for me to say that.
PHM is more like The Martian with less of the maths on show. The kind of thing you want for the beach.
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
I've seen it three or four times now - it's one of my favourite films - but yes, it is totally a load of old tosh, and somebody should have knocked sense into the scriptwriters (of which Damon Lindelof was one?). And yes, it inaugurated the "Prometheus school of running away from things" meme.
Prometheus was a classic compared to the absolute rubbish of Alien Covenant. Nothing will ever get close though to Alien and then Aliens .
Alien Covenant is to Prometheus as Westworld series 2 is to Westworld series 1. It's just *awful*.
In what seems like the most well trodden path for lefties who start to think for themselves, Emma Watson is getting absolutely blasted on bluecry by the "tolerant" and "open minded" people of the left. Being compared to Hitler, death threats, being called a fascist all because she decided that people are free to have their own opinions.
That audience she sucked up to and cultivated by shitting all over JK Rowling has turned on her and you just love to see it. A taste of what she has been doing to people who she disagreed with for the last decade.
Watson did not "shit all over" J K Rowling. She politely expressed a different view, and one which stupid people then said: "How DARE she disagree with someone who had something to do with her employment 20 years ago!!!! She OWES J K Rowling!!!"
You can easily see it the other way from the way you put it, and that Watson decided to have her own opinions, and was shouted down by Rowling and others. I find it hard to see how you can say what Watson said recently was anything other than polite and considerate, and that Rowling's response was plain nasty.
You're literally rewriting history. For a decade the left have been trying to cancel JKR, attempted to boycott her books, games and other media she's been responsible for, it was people like Watson who were revving those people up by denouncing Rowling. Now you're saying that it was Watson and Radcliffe being cancelled? Pull the other one. What's changed is that the left lost the argument on crossdressers and transvestites pretending to be women, that has been the turning point for the return of sanity and why it seems Watson has repented from those attempts to cancel JKR.
As I said, I've got a wife and two daughters who don't have the same megaphone that JKR does to stand up to the TRA bullies, I will always be thankful that she used her voice to protect women's spaces. She deserves an apology from Watson and Radcliffe and I do hope that they begin to see after this backlash against Watson exactly what it is they encouraged and helped create with their denouncements of JKR.
I've never really got this narrative about toilets etc. Surely now trans men will have to use women's toilets. What's a woman supposed to do if she finds a person who looks like a man in the toilet? Demand that they drop their trousers to check if they are a trans man or a biological man? What's a trans man supposed to do when they are confronted or threatened every time they use a women's toilet? How will any of this make women feel any safer? How will trans women be kept safe in men's toilets? How is any of this anything other than a sideshow when most violence against women and girls is carried out by cis men and usually by someone they know?
It's about power and violence, sexual or physical. Pretending trans man and trans women are the same thing is unhelpful.
EDIT: Didn't work. Curious how many other parents are hearing this all the time too, or if its just mine? Since my kids went back to school at the start of the month, all I seem to hear from them is "six seven".
Lol. Very much this.
They are at sixes and sevens. Confused. Shrugs. Six 7.
Sixes and sevens wasn’t confusion
Two guilds were fighting over their respective positions in the order of precedence (the skinners and the merchant Taylors)
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
I've seen it three or four times now - it's one of my favourite films - but yes, it is totally a load of old tosh, and somebody should have knocked sense into the scriptwriters (of which Damon Lindelof was one?). And yes, it inaugurated the "Prometheus school of running away from things" meme.
Ah, good to see that my memory isn't *that* defective. Me and Mrs J looked at each other at that point and said "WTF!"
Incidentally, I wish more writers of films set in space - particularly modern-day space - would remember the title of Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise's book: "Never Panic Early". Astronauts are trained that when a problem appears, don’t panic but instead calmly work to solve it.
Too many books and films have highly-trained people panic very early. That makes for good drama, but is really unrealistic.
(Incidentally, The Martian, particularly the book, goes a little too far the other way.)
I’m not so sure on your last point. As many people noted, the early astronauts were selected for their “uncritical willingness to face danger.” That is, not panic in the face of imminent death.
The crew of Apollo 204 were found dead, two guys waiting in their couches for the hatch to be opened, the chap whose job it was to open the hatch, part way through opening it. They omitted to panic, while burning to death.
Surely that's the point I'm making. Yes, they died. But if they had panicked, they would not have survived. In fact, they almost certainly have been less likely to survive.
I heard an interview with Haise about his book, and IIRC he said that there is a time to panic, and that he had panicked in the past. But panic should never be the first, or second, response, and especially if you had been trained in the environment you were in. If you were in an unfamiliar environment, and had calmly tried all you know, panic away.
It's why the book was titled "Never Panic Early", and not "Never Panic"
It was a really good interview. it might have been the Space Show.
In what seems like the most well trodden path for lefties who start to think for themselves, Emma Watson is getting absolutely blasted on bluecry by the "tolerant" and "open minded" people of the left. Being compared to Hitler, death threats, being called a fascist all because she decided that people are free to have their own opinions.
That audience she sucked up to and cultivated by shitting all over JK Rowling has turned on her and you just love to see it. A taste of what she has been doing to people who she disagreed with for the last decade.
Watson did not "shit all over" J K Rowling. She politely expressed a different view, and one which stupid people then said: "How DARE she disagree with someone who had something to do with her employment 20 years ago!!!! She OWES J K Rowling!!!"
You can easily see it the other way from the way you put it, and that Watson decided to have her own opinions, and was shouted down by Rowling and others. I find it hard to see how you can say what Watson said recently was anything other than polite and considerate, and that Rowling's response was plain nasty.
You're literally rewriting history. For a decade the left have been trying to cancel JKR, attempted to boycott her books, games and other media she's been responsible for, it was people like Watson who were revving those people up by denouncing Rowling. Now you're saying that it was Watson and Radcliffe being cancelled? Pull the other one. What's changed is that the left lost the argument on crossdressers and transvestites pretending to be women, that has been the turning point for the return of sanity and why it seems Watson has repented from those attempts to cancel JKR.
As I said, I've got a wife and two daughters who don't have the same megaphone that JKR does to stand up to the TRA bullies, I will always be thankful that she used her voice to protect women's spaces. She deserves an apology from Watson and Radcliffe and I do hope that they begin to see after this backlash against Watson exactly what it is they encouraged and helped create with their denouncements of JKR.
I've never really got this narrative about toilets etc. Surely now trans men will have to use women's toilets. What's a woman supposed to do if she finds a person who looks like a man in the toilet? Demand that they drop their trousers to check if they are a trans man or a biological man? What's a trans man supposed to do when they are confronted or threatened every time they use a women's toilet? How will any of this make women feel any safer? How will trans women be kept safe in men's toilets? How is any of this anything other than a sideshow when most violence against women and girls is carried out by cis men and usually by someone they know?
It's about power and violence, sexual or physical. Pretending trans man and trans women are the same thing is unhelpful.
There was some chat about Ukrainian strategy in the last thread.
Their problem in 2023 was that the expectation placed on them by NATO “partners” was akin to giving a T-rex a jazz mag and asking him to tug himself off.
Ukraine faced minefields with a density of 5/m2. I am told by those that know these things that greater than 1/m2 is considered effectively impassable. But worse than that, they were pressured into such an advance without modern aviation, due to the Biden White House actively withholding it.
This meant Ukraine had no effective defence against the Russian helicopters, which merrily picked off the Ukrainian engineers that were trying to clear a passage. It was a needless massacre that was doomed to failure.
One might speculate that the counteroffensive was a sleight of hand for the Wagner coup attempt, which reportedly only failed because Lukashenko talked Prigozhin down. With the coup a failure and the UAF action in full flow, into the guns they marched. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.
I still think it’s hard to conceive of a complete military collapse for the Russia, with a seemingly unlimited political stomach for infantry losses and backed by materiel and monetary flows from the eastern hemisphere. Further, it seems to me that there is no appetite in the west for such an unpredictable and potentially chaotic outcome, save for the baltics and certain Iron Curtain countries that believe they are next in line. But you never know.
Feels a lot to me like we’re on the verge of a new escalate to deescalate phase. The games in Liverpool and Manchester conference halls might seem rather quaint before too long.
Defeating Russia in Russia may be more realistic than doing so in Ukraine.
Not to say that it's close to happening yet. But sufficiently degrading Russia's oil / gas production and bringing the war to Moscow and St Petersburg is going to do more to destabilise Russia than winning 10kms of mine-filled no man's land.
On a rather transactional note, just showing that an imperial war of conquest - as Russia's invasion of Ukraine is - does not get you a net benefit might pause the hand of other would-be imperialists. If Russia was to 'win' the territory it has gained so far, it will take decades to regain the money, people and reputation lost in its tawdry war.
In other words they'win', but the win is so pyrrhic that it would have been better not to do the darned thing in the first place.
I don't think Russia's failure in that sense would deter China from attacking Taiwan. I think it would be easy for the Chinese to imagine that they wouldn't make the same mistakes, and that their military was better prepared.
The deterrence that might work would be in demonstrating that the West had the resolve and capability to defeat such a war of conquest. The obsession across the West with not escalating, of being deterred by Russia from fully supporting Ukraine, of negotiating with ourselves the extent of the concessions we will make to Russia, of our failure to stop buying Russian oil and gas, our failure to ramp up ammunition and weapons production - all this will demonstrate to China that we lack the will and means to prevent a Chinese conquest of Taiwan.
The effects of our failure are bad enough for Ukraine and other Eastern European democracies, but the consequences are that much more severe and wide-ranging.
If China attempts an invasion of Taiwan we are completely fucked.
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
I've seen it three or four times now - it's one of my favourite films - but yes, it is totally a load of old tosh, and somebody should have knocked sense into the scriptwriters (of which Damon Lindelof was one?). And yes, it inaugurated the "Prometheus school of running away from things" meme.
Ah, good to see that my memory isn't *that* defective. Me and Mrs J looked at each other at that point and said "WTF!"
Incidentally, I wish more writers of films set in space - particularly modern-day space - would remember the title of Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise's book: "Never Panic Early". Astronauts are trained that when a problem appears, don’t panic but instead calmly work to solve it.
Too many books and films have highly-trained people panic very early. That makes for good drama, but is really unrealistic.
(Incidentally, The Martian, particularly the book, goes a little too far the other way.)
We’re getting Project Hail Mary next year.
I haven't read the PHM book. I quite enjoyed his previous book Artemis, although that won't be made in a film in the current environment, as it has a (shock, horror!) female protagonist. Worse, she is BLACK !!!! How WOKE!!!!
I also enjoyed The Martian book, but got a bit fed up with the "He's fixed the problem! Oh no! There's another peril!" trend through the book. The film thankfully dialled back on that a little, to its benefit, and made the film IMO better than the book. And it's unusual for me to say that.
Artemis was his difficult second album. He tried to prove he could write a black woman and didn't really pull it off, underperforming in sales. PHM was a return to the Martian format of "massive geek overcomes problems thru Science!" and returned to his normal sales levels.
Burnham should think before sounding off. I realise that this report is in the Torygraph, but even so.
He is - he wants Starmer's job and as I added he wants to rejoin the EU
So he wants us to abandon the pound and join the single currency then?
Madness on stilts.
Sweden has managed to avoid it, and if they actually wanted us back, so would we.
It's really not a problem to avoid the Euro: the Czech Republic and Hungary both joined the EU more than 20 years ago (and after the Euro came into being), and neither of them are Eurozone members.
Polish GDP is half as big again as Sweden's... No plans to get rid of the Zloty.
Actual biologists should corect me if I am wrong, but I think we can be more precise than this: "If you're XY, you're a guy. If you're XX, you're of the fairer sex."
A mammal with one -- or more -- Y chromosomes is male; otherwise they are female.
Swyer syndrome is when a person has XY (male) chromosomes and functional female genitalia (vulva). While XY chromosomes usually result in the development of a penis and scrotum, people with Swyer syndrome develop a vagina, uterus and fallopian tubes.
People with Swyer syndrome don’t have sex glands (ovaries or testicles). Instead, they have functionless scar tissue (called streak gonads). This means they won’t go through puberty unless they have hormone replacement therapy. They also won’t become pregnant naturally but can conceive through egg donation.
Swyer syndrome is a rare condition that affects about 1 in 80,000 births."
Male or female?
And if they use female toilets from birth, but only have the disorder diagnosed later (often when puberty doesn't hit normally) are you really going to banish them from the ladies? When they are pregnant?
This, for me, is the clincher DSD that says we have to have flexibility in the approach and look at each set of cases, rather than trying for absolutely rigid definitials.
WTF, one in 80K , how many will get pregnant and surely the one or two of them can use a disabled toilet, get a grip of yourself and give your head a wobble.
Actual biologists should corect me if I am wrong, but I think we can be more precise than this: "If you're XY, you're a guy. If you're XX, you're of the fairer sex."
A mammal with one -- or more -- Y chromosomes is male; otherwise they are female.
Swyer syndrome is when a person has XY (male) chromosomes and functional female genitalia (vulva). While XY chromosomes usually result in the development of a penis and scrotum, people with Swyer syndrome develop a vagina, uterus and fallopian tubes.
People with Swyer syndrome don’t have sex glands (ovaries or testicles). Instead, they have functionless scar tissue (called streak gonads). This means they won’t go through puberty unless they have hormone replacement therapy. They also won’t become pregnant naturally but can conceive through egg donation.
Swyer syndrome is a rare condition that affects about 1 in 80,000 births."
Male or female?
And if they use female toilets from birth, but only have the disorder diagnosed later (often when puberty doesn't hit normally) are you really going to banish them from the ladies? When they are pregnant?
This, for me, is the clincher DSD that says we have to have flexibility in the approach and look at each set of cases, rather than trying for absolutely rigid definitials.
The prevalence of that and similar conditions is probably under-reported, as it needs to be tested for, and the outside publicly-visible consequences might be just "he/she didn't grow up" or "They can't get pregnant" or "They can't get their wife pregnant", etc, etc, to varying degrees. You may only know you have such a condition when you are tested.
UK system, highly cost effective compared with existing alternatives, desperately needed in Ukraine - and would be pretty useful for our own air defences. The US ordered first and has bought up the next couple of years of production. All for itself.
Unguided 70mm rockets with the APKWS II guidance kit from British BAE Systems have become the main weapon of the US Air Force against drones after their successful use against Houthi UAVs.
This was stated by the commander of the US Air Forces Central Command, Lieutenant General Derek France.
As he noted, "dozens" of UAVs have already been shot down with their help, which would normally require significantly more expensive and complex air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles to destroy. https://x.com/visionergeo/status/1972365042373763377
Well done MoD.
We could delay delivery like they have with our F35Bs
“If Hamas rejects your plan, Mr. President, or if they supposedly accepted and then basically do everything to counter it, then Israel will finish the job by itself,” Netanyahu said.
Mind you I also feel that another load of retelling of HP to be maintained for another decade is a combination of flogging a dead horse and naked greed.
HBO/WB appear to be redoing Potter because they're having trouble coming up with anything new.
I went to see Prometheus on the weekend at the BFI (cos I'm just that posh ) and it occurs to me that it and the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie have the same problem: a show runner with artistic investment in the mythos makes a brave attempt to extend the franchise, partially fails due to artistic limits[1] and audience impatience, gets cold feet, and the next movies return to the same old franchise points. If both had stuck to their guns it may have worked.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
Prometheus is overhyped rubbish. The bit where they are running away from something rolling towards them, instead of going to the side, which more than a little Tom and Jerry. There were also various other "why the **** would they do that? moments.)
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
I've seen it three or four times now - it's one of my favourite films - but yes, it is totally a load of old tosh, and somebody should have knocked sense into the scriptwriters (of which Damon Lindelof was one?). And yes, it inaugurated the "Prometheus school of running away from things" meme.
Ah, good to see that my memory isn't *that* defective. Me and Mrs J looked at each other at that point and said "WTF!"
Incidentally, I wish more writers of films set in space - particularly modern-day space - would remember the title of Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise's book: "Never Panic Early". Astronauts are trained that when a problem appears, don’t panic but instead calmly work to solve it.
Too many books and films have highly-trained people panic very early. That makes for good drama, but is really unrealistic.
(Incidentally, The Martian, particularly the book, goes a little too far the other way.)
We’re getting Project Hail Mary next year.
I haven't read the PHM book. I quite enjoyed his previous book Artemis, although that won't be made in a film in the current environment, as it has a (shock, horror!) female protagonist. Worse, she is BLACK !!!! How WOKE!!!!
I also enjoyed The Martian book, but got a bit fed up with the "He's fixed the problem! Oh no! There's another peril!" trend through the book. The film thankfully dialled back on that a little, to its benefit, and made the film IMO better than the book. And it's unusual for me to say that.
Artemis was his difficult second album. He tried to prove he could write a black woman and didn't really pull it off, underperforming in sales. PHM was a return to the Martian format of "massive geek overcomes problems thru Science!" and returned to his normal sales levels.
I'd argue that Jazz in Artemis was a much better-written and well-rounded, character than Watney in The Martian. Perhaps because, although we spend a lot of time in their heads, Jazz actually interacts with people.
I have just been out and come back to find Trump and Blair are to run Gaza
This a bit of extreme news to keep Starmer and his problems off the news tomorrow
Not sure how Labour will receive Blair's part in this if it actually happens
Just bizarre
Blair was the four quarters envoy in mid east for years. He knows this stuff.
Don't knock that aspect of this.
But the plan seems to be predicated on Hamas laying down arms.
LOL
It's a gamble on either Hamas leadership being at the stage of running out of cash/arms, or wanting a safe out to a cushier country for a big sack of hard currency.
Donald Trump will run Gaza with the assistance of Sir Tony Blair as part of the US president’s 20-point plan to end the war.
Mr Trump will oversee the transitional governance of Gaza as the head of a new body called the Board of Peace, which Sir Tony will also sit on, the White House announced.
“Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza,” the plan reads.
Comments
A new Prime Minister doesn't have to go to the country. The Prime Minister already has a mandate because (altogether) Parliament is sovereign.
Their problem in 2023 was that the expectation placed on them by NATO “partners” was akin to giving a T-rex a jazz mag and asking him to tug himself off.
Ukraine faced minefields with a density of 5/m2. I am told by those that know these things that greater than 1/m2 is considered effectively impassable. But worse than that, they were pressured into such an advance without modern aviation, due to the Biden White House actively withholding it.
This meant Ukraine had no effective defence against the Russian helicopters, which merrily picked off the Ukrainian engineers that were trying to clear a passage. It was a needless massacre that was doomed to failure.
One might speculate that the counteroffensive was a sleight of hand for the Wagner coup attempt, which reportedly only failed because Lukashenko talked Prigozhin down. With the coup a failure and the UAF action in full flow, into the guns they marched. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.
I still think it’s hard to conceive of a complete military collapse for the Russia, with a seemingly unlimited political stomach for infantry losses and backed by materiel and monetary flows from the eastern hemisphere. Further, it seems to me that there is no appetite in the west for such an unpredictable and potentially chaotic outcome, save for the baltics and certain Iron Curtain countries that believe they are next in line. But you never know.
Feels a lot to me like we’re on the verge of a new escalate to deescalate phase. The games in Liverpool and Manchester conference halls might seem rather quaint before too long.
But not in the case of wider public legitimacy. This was exactly what Sunak and Truss grappled with, and lost.
If you insist that a new PM has to face a general election then the most likely result is not more elections, but that failing PMs are kept in post for far longer.
England
Scotland
Wales
Northern Ireland
Ireland
Man
Jersey
Guernsey, Sark, Alderney etc.
[1] Rowling does too many scenes where the characters explain the plot to each other and has lost the knack of casting (holding on to Johnny Depp, for example), Scott can't tell the difference between a good script and a steaming pile of shit.
If you're XX, you're of the fairer sex."
A mammal with one -- or more -- Y chromosomes is male; otherwise they are female.
I've not been to Turkey, but used to eat it regularly when I lived a short walk from Little Istanbul (Green Lanes in London) and always loved it
I'm going to try to cook it tonight..
If they want to rip it all up and start again, I believe they do owe it to the country to seek a mandate. Not legally, but for the purposes of democratic legitimacy.
One cannot change ones' biological sex. But if someone is in such distress at their own sex that they cannot live without altering it, society should do them the courtesy of maintaining a polite pretence. That doesn't apply to men who like wearing women's clothes but retain the distinguishing marks of their sex and enjoy the use of them.
Then you have a separate issue: sinners can be *weird*. In the same way (allegedly) you have some prisoners converting to Islam in order to get better meals, you might have some prisoners claiming to be trans, post arrest, in order to get some advantage, or just to be shits. After all, they're sinners. But there will also be (say) a transwoman who is in jail for fraud, who would never think of abusing anyone.
What's the answer? The GRC seems a good delineation; as does the idea that if someone is in jail for a sexual offence, they should be sent to a prison for the opposite of the gender they assaulted. But even that has complexities.
I am against the idea of trans prisoners being put in their own wing, or even a special prison somewhere in the country.
As ever, it is complex: but so are prisoners generally. Should a man who raped a man be put in jail with a load of other men, some of whom are vulnerable?
(I hope I've remembered that correctly; I only saw it once, at the cinema...)
And how do you test for it when someone walks into a public convenience?
(There are increasing reports of women who don't conform to standard gender norms being subjected to abuse for the temerity of wanting to have a pee. Just because they look different.)
* This is why the Adeptus Astartes are female.
It's just that she did so really unsuccessfully.
It has to be expectations management, surely?
(Certainly true of the recent upgrade for anti-drone usage.)
It's been ordered and supplied to several other countries, and we could have ordered ourselves, including a few to Ukraine, but the US quite recently put in a mega-order for 55.000 units.
We shouldn't necessarily make it harder for a party to change direction if they've discovered that the direction they were elected on isn't working.
Labour would have to be literally mental to raise any tax paid by the public at this time, so I'd expect VAT to be put up to 35% by Wednesday.
Incidentally, I wish more writers of films set in space - particularly modern-day space - would remember the title of Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise's book: "Never Panic Early". Astronauts are trained that when a problem appears, don’t panic but instead calmly work to solve it.
Too many books and films have highly-trained people panic very early. That makes for good drama, but is really unrealistic.
(Incidentally, The Martian, particularly the book, goes a little too far the other way.)
Words fail me.
Not to say that it's close to happening yet. But sufficiently degrading Russia's oil / gas production and bringing the war to Moscow and St Petersburg is going to do more to destabilise Russia than winning 10kms of mine-filled no man's land.
Statesmanship, eh?
Words fail me
Not to give her too much of the credit but I do not recall nuclear exchange in autumn 2022. I remember the week when she mysteriously missed PMQs, it took a year or two for us to find out why. She looked like a rabbit in the headlights when she emerged and it was nothing to do with LDI.
He seems to be always on hand for powerful Americans, if they ask for any help. Tough on accountability, tough on the causes of accountability.
Trump to run Gaza with Blair
US president will act as head of new body called the Board of Peace
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2025/09/29/trump-gaza-peace-plan-netanyahu/ (£££)
App will detect how far commuters travel using GPS and charge them lowest possible price
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/29/train-fares-charged-tracking-passengers-phones/ (£££)
He appears to be reading from notes, which makes me wonder if this is deliberately scripted to be a rambling stream of consciousness, or he's not reading what is in from of him.
Trump/Gaza will completely dominate the next 24 hours
In other words they'win', but the win is so pyrrhic that it would have been better not to do the darned thing in the first place.
The crew of Apollo 204 were found dead, two guys waiting in their couches for the hatch to be opened, the chap whose job it was to open the hatch, part way through opening it. They omitted to panic, while burning to death.
I also enjoyed The Martian book, but got a bit fed up with the "He's fixed the problem! Oh no! There's another peril!" trend through the book. The film thankfully dialled back on that a little, to its benefit, and made the film IMO better than the book. And it's unusual for me to say that.
Swyer syndrome is when a person has XY (male) chromosomes and functional female genitalia (vulva). While XY chromosomes usually result in the development of a penis and scrotum, people with Swyer syndrome develop a vagina, uterus and fallopian tubes.
People with Swyer syndrome don’t have sex glands (ovaries or testicles). Instead, they have functionless scar tissue (called streak gonads). This means they won’t go through puberty unless they have hormone replacement therapy. They also won’t become pregnant naturally but can conceive through egg donation.
Swyer syndrome is a rare condition that affects about 1 in 80,000 births."
Male or female?
And if they use female toilets from birth, but only have the disorder diagnosed later (often when puberty doesn't hit normally) are you really going to banish them from the ladies? When they are pregnant?
This, for me, is the clincher DSD that says we have to have flexibility in the approach and look at each set of cases, rather than trying for absolutely rigid definitials.
It is why those hoping for the total collapse of the Russian war machine, followed by the likely fragmentation of the Russian state, are broadly seen by western policy makers as so dangerous. At some point the only way to ensure history does not record you as the leader who caused the total disintegration of Mother Russia, is to make sure there is no one around to write or read a history book.
NY Times
Two guilds were fighting over their respective positions in the order of precedence (the skinners and the merchant Taylors)
I heard an interview with Haise about his book, and IIRC he said that there is a time to panic, and that he had panicked in the past. But panic should never be the first, or second, response, and especially if you had been trained in the environment you were in. If you were in an unfamiliar environment, and had calmly tried all you know, panic away.
It's why the book was titled "Never Panic Early", and not "Never Panic"
It was a really good interview. it might have been the Space Show.
The deterrence that might work would be in demonstrating that the West had the resolve and capability to defeat such a war of conquest. The obsession across the West with not escalating, of being deterred by Russia from fully supporting Ukraine, of negotiating with ourselves the extent of the concessions we will make to Russia, of our failure to stop buying Russian oil and gas, our failure to ramp up ammunition and weapons production - all this will demonstrate to China that we lack the will and means to prevent a Chinese conquest of Taiwan.
The effects of our failure are bad enough for Ukraine and other Eastern European democracies, but the consequences are that much more severe and wide-ranging.
If China attempts an invasion of Taiwan we are completely fucked.
This a bit of extreme news to keep Starmer and his problems off the news tomorrow
Not sure how Labour will receive Blair's part in this if it actually happens
Just bizarre
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2zx1nrmmro
'Google, play Pipes of Peace by Paul McCartney'.
Don't knock that aspect of this.
But the plan seems to be predicated on Hamas laying down arms.
LOL
NY Times
Too sensible.
I just buy a ticket to where im going and back though. Its not a difficult transaction
Mr Trump will oversee the transitional governance of Gaza as the head of a new body called the Board of Peace, which Sir Tony will also sit on, the White House announced.
“Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza,” the plan reads.
Telegraph blog