What have the dinosaurs done to deserve that remark?
At least they became extinct
Here's praying
Dinosaurs, of course, did not become extinct and remain common. They’re just smaller and have wings.
While I accept that birds share a common ancestry with dinosaurs, I will never, ever accept birds as dinosaurs. I may be against current scientific thinking but I just don't care...
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Nonetheless while the case for banning abortion is weak, the case for people conducting their lives in such a way that there are a lot fewer is strong.
“A society's 'openness' in discussing sexual matters inversely correlates with abortion rates. Correlation between contraceptive use and abortion is also inverse but relates most closely to the efficacy of contraceptive methods used. 'Revolution' in the range of contraceptive methods used will have an equivalent impact on abortion rates. Secondary or emergency contraceptive methods have a considerable role to play in the reduction of abortion numbers. Good sex (and 'relationships') education programs may delay sexual debut, increase contraceptive usage and be associated with reduced abortion.”
An artillery shell fired during 250th anniversary celebration of the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton on Saturday detonated prematurely over Interstate 5, damaging a California Highway Patrol vehicle on JD Vance's security detail
The source of that claim provided and linked to as the source of the claim in that evidence is an opinion piece in the Independent, which itself cites it without providing any source.
Opinion pieces are not a legitimate source.
It may be a true piece of data, or it may be the person writing the opinion article misunderstood the data, especially since some abortion data includes miscarriages and dividing abortions by people would not be accurate. Either way though, if it is true, there should be a more rigorous source than an Op-Ed in the Independent.
This is basic abortion 101 knowledge, not some highly contested theory.
What have the dinosaurs done to deserve that remark?
At least they became extinct
Here's praying
Dinosaurs, of course, did not become extinct and remain common. They’re just smaller and have wings.
While I accept that birds share a common ancestry with dinosaurs, I will never, ever accept birds as dinosaurs. I may be against current scientific thinking but I just don't care...
Oh, so you're against accepting humans as apes, presumably?
Israeli police have just cancelled a Maccabi Tel-Aviv game due to fan violence, FWIW.
Correction - Tel Aviv derby between Maccabi and Hapoel.
Maccabi Tel Aviv is the full name of the team, as in Inverness Caledonian Thistle - or Caley Thistle.
You forget to mention Hapoel.
Hapoel is the Tel Aviv club associated with the left wing, and has a strong Israeli Arab supporter base. Maccabi is the one associated with the Israeli right.
The source of that claim provided and linked to as the source of the claim in that evidence is an opinion piece in the Independent, which itself cites it without providing any source.
Opinion pieces are not a legitimate source.
It may be a true piece of data, or it may be the person writing the opinion article misunderstood the data, especially since some abortion data includes miscarriages and dividing abortions by people would not be accurate. Either way though, if it is true, there should be a more rigorous source than an Op-Ed in the Independent.
This is basic abortion 101 knowledge, not some highly contested theory.
This is a guy who thinks getting hit at 20mph isn't any better than 30mph. I wouldn't waste more than a few posts.
I'm genuinely surprised by that though. I'd be interested to know over what time period the data was collected - perhaps something do with more people having casual sex before contraception became as effective as it is now? Otherwise, it might simply be because the subject is taboo and never talked about - I am aware of some abortions but it's always whispered about or rumoured - even period pains are not talked about explicitly except amongst very close friends. I guess I should know better that my perception of such a sensitive topic is highly likely to be incorrect.
What have the dinosaurs done to deserve that remark?
At least they became extinct
Here's praying
Dinosaurs, of course, did not become extinct and remain common. They’re just smaller and have wings.
While I accept that birds share a common ancestry with dinosaurs, I will never, ever accept birds as dinosaurs. I may be against current scientific thinking but I just don't care...
It’s called cladistics, the thing you are railing against. It’s how we do biology now, we group things by common descent. Birds are dinosaurs. There’s no such thing as a fish. Lots of crabs aren’t crabs and lots of moles aren’t moles.
The point is not that birds “share a common ancestry with dinosaurs”. It’s that birds evolved from dinosaurs. So any common ancestor of all dinosaurs is necessarily also the common ancestor of all birds.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Miscarriages are medically termed "spontaneous abortions", though that terminology is generally not used with patients due to the connotations of the word in lay usage. These are not included in the numbers. 87% are non surgical. 41% of those having abortions had had one or more previously.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
To really get a handle on the scale of the problem, we need to also include all the male emissions where the primary purpose is not procreation. Each one of those sperm could have gone onto to be a human. When men casually abort their sperm, it is little different in effect to physically murdering babies.
"Every sperm is sacred Every sperm is great If a sperm is wasted God gets quite irate"
What have the dinosaurs done to deserve that remark?
At least they became extinct
Here's praying
Dinosaurs, of course, did not become extinct and remain common. They’re just smaller and have wings.
While I accept that birds share a common ancestry with dinosaurs, I will never, ever accept birds as dinosaurs. I may be against current scientific thinking but I just don't care...
Oh, so you're against accepting humans as apes, presumably?
No happy to be an ape. I've been told that dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago all my life. Suddenly it's become 66 million years ago and now some of them made it... Enough.
The source of that claim provided and linked to as the source of the claim in that evidence is an opinion piece in the Independent, which itself cites it without providing any source.
Opinion pieces are not a legitimate source.
It may be a true piece of data, or it may be the person writing the opinion article misunderstood the data, especially since some abortion data includes miscarriages and dividing abortions by people would not be accurate. Either way though, if it is true, there should be a more rigorous source than an Op-Ed in the Independent.
This is basic abortion 101 knowledge, not some highly contested theory.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Miscarriages are medically termed "spontaneous abortions", though that terminology is generally not used with patients due to the connotations of the word in lay usage. These are not included in the numbers. 87% are non surgical. 41% of those having abortions had had one or more previously.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
What have the dinosaurs done to deserve that remark?
At least they became extinct
Here's praying
Dinosaurs, of course, did not become extinct and remain common. They’re just smaller and have wings.
While I accept that birds share a common ancestry with dinosaurs, I will never, ever accept birds as dinosaurs. I may be against current scientific thinking but I just don't care...
Surely you need to ask the birds how they identify?
Lucy Powell. Not giving the WASPI women a handout was a ‘mistake’
Politics is infested with useless morons with over inflated opinions,of their own abilities. This whole interview with her just reeks of it. This is just one segment.
Sigh. Remember folks, before they get rid of that useless prat Starmer they really need to be sure his replacement is not even worse. Powell is worse.
She is, and it’s not just her. Hopeless as she is. Across the political spectrum it is hard to see where there are real leaders. The Tories, no, the Lib Dem’s have a twat in a wetsuit and a load of bland backbencher types. Reform, not a chance. Farage is no leader, he’s a disruptor and where is the scrutiny of their politics. The Greens are all student politics.
It’s most disheartening.
Cleverly on that basis might be good. Warmer and more charismatic than Starmer, a former Home and Foreign Secretary and more serious than Davey and more heavyweight than Kemi, more centrist than Farage and Jenrick and not as populist and anti immigrant and not a hard left ranter like Polanski
I'll give you warmer and more charismatic than Starmer, but so is a Siberian public lavatory.
Success in politics is not pure a matter of political triangulation based on current voting patterns.
Firstly, there is the issue of momentum - current momentum in British politics is rightward (with a smaller move to the exteme left), and the current failing Government is a centrist one. There is absolutely zero point in jumping on to that sinking bit of jetsom with Labour, the Lib Dems, and the nationalist partes already clinging on. What was the market for a neoliberal party before 1979? None.
Secondly there's the issue of personal qualities.
Cleverly gave Starmer a lifeline with his stupid China speech as Foreign Sec. He was a useless, lazy, supine Foreign Secretary who let his civil servants run the department, which included him negotiating the Chagos Surrender Deal, which Cameron, to give him his dues, booted into the long grass. In his own leadership campaign he was so stupid that he tried to lend votes to knock out an opponent and ended up knocking himself out.
If you want a rightwing government which is hardline on immigration you will vote Reform anyway, even if Jenrick is Tory leader. If you want an extreme left government you will vote Green.
If the Tories want to survive at the next general election they primarily need to hold most of their current MPs and maybe pick up a few from Labour in London and a few middle class patches of the home countries and areas like Altrincham they held until last year as a result of Labour's unpopularity.
To do that, they largely need Labour and LD tactical votes in Conservative held seats where Reform are the likely challengers. Labour and LD voters won't tactically vote for a Jenrick led Tories, if Kemi goes ever more culture war they likely won't vote for her candidates either. They may however tactically vote for a Cleverly led Tories to beat Farage's candidate.
Cleverly of course also set tighter visa wage requirements which has started to reduce the Boriswave, so Farage can't hit him on that.
Kemi has 6 more months to see if her neoliberal on economics, culture wars on social issues starts to see the Conservatives rise in the polls. If not then I predict Tory MPs will remove her after losses in the May local elections and elect Cleverly to replace her
Altrincham is just the sort of seat I could see going LibDem if they could get a foot in the door. I think there will be a more nuanced vote from left and centre left voters next time. Reform are marmite and people will work out how to stop them in many seats, that’s assuming they don’t collapse in the next 3 years. Or merge with the Jenrick led Tories.
I live in the Altrincham constituency and it is and always has been a two way contest between Labour and the Tories, with third parties squeezed when the gap between the 2 main parties is small. The LDs are only strong in a couple of wards in Timperley, likewise the Greens in 3 other wards. The constituency is too middle class for Reform to gain much traction.
There's a Gail's AND a Waitrose in Altringham. Come on. Must be a LD gain!
The source of that claim provided and linked to as the source of the claim in that evidence is an opinion piece in the Independent, which itself cites it without providing any source.
Opinion pieces are not a legitimate source.
It may be a true piece of data, or it may be the person writing the opinion article misunderstood the data, especially since some abortion data includes miscarriages and dividing abortions by people would not be accurate. Either way though, if it is true, there should be a more rigorous source than an Op-Ed in the Independent.
This is basic abortion 101 knowledge, not some highly contested theory.
This is a guy who thinks getting hit at 20mph isn't any better than 30mph. I wouldn't waste more than a few posts.
I'm genuinely surprised by that though. I'd be interested to know over what time period the data was collected - perhaps something do with more people having casual sex before contraception became as effective as it is now? Otherwise, it might simply be because the subject is taboo and never talked about - I am aware of some abortions but it's always whispered about or rumoured - even period pains are not talked about explicitly except amongst very close friends. I guess I should know better that my perception of such a sensitive topic is highly likely to be incorrect.
I have literally never said that getting hit at 20mph isn't any better than 30mph, don't lie.
What I have said is that vehicles at 30mph today are considerably safer than vehicles at 30mph were decades ago, which is why we have record low casualty rates and why we should be increasing speed limits not lowering them.
What have the dinosaurs done to deserve that remark?
At least they became extinct
Here's praying
Dinosaurs, of course, did not become extinct and remain common. They’re just smaller and have wings.
While I accept that birds share a common ancestry with dinosaurs, I will never, ever accept birds as dinosaurs. I may be against current scientific thinking but I just don't care...
It’s called cladistics, the thing you are railing against. It’s how we do biology now, we group things by common descent. Birds are dinosaurs. There’s no such thing as a fish. Lots of crabs aren’t crabs and lots of moles aren’t moles.
The point is not that birds “share a common ancestry with dinosaurs”. It’s that birds evolved from dinosaurs. So any common ancestor of all dinosaurs is necessarily also the common ancestor of all birds.
To be clear I'm saying that I am wrong. I just refuse to accept it. I'm not saying the science is wrong
The source of that claim provided and linked to as the source of the claim in that evidence is an opinion piece in the Independent, which itself cites it without providing any source.
Opinion pieces are not a legitimate source.
It may be a true piece of data, or it may be the person writing the opinion article misunderstood the data, especially since some abortion data includes miscarriages and dividing abortions by people would not be accurate. Either way though, if it is true, there should be a more rigorous source than an Op-Ed in the Independent.
This is basic abortion 101 knowledge, not some highly contested theory.
Believing something because 'everyone knows it' is how myths and fallacy happen and is an appeal to authority fallacy.
If the figure is accurate, there should be a legitimate source somewhere for it. Not just people parroting it.
Don’t do a HYUFD, Bart.
I'm not.
If there is a source for the claim, then great. An appeal to authority is what HYUFD does. If there is a source to it, then there should be a paper and a methodology showing how that figure was reached - come on, this is science 101 and you know that.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Miscarriages are medically termed "spontaneous abortions", though that terminology is generally not used with patients due to the connotations of the word in lay usage. These are not included in the numbers. 87% are non surgical. 41% of those having abortions had had one or more previously.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
Does not compute.
So it's 21 per 1000 women for all women aged 15-44. Therefore "total abortion rate" is something like 608 per 1000 women. If you take into account some women having more than one, it probably computes?
I'm not really sure they calculate the age-adjusted abortion rate though.
Interesting, if Reform shift to a pro life restrict abortion line that would be clear blue water from the other 3 main parties in the UK and I am sure welcome to the likes of socially conservative evangelical Kruger and conservative Roman Catholic Widdecombe who are now prominent figures in Reform.
Farage has said he regretted the passage of same sex marriage, rather than just keeping civil unions, although he has said he would not reverse it. Whereas Kemi at the Tory conference celebrated same sex marriage being passed by the Tory and LD coalition and of course Labour and the Greens are very pro same sex marriage, so more clear blue water from Reform on social issues beyond just deporting immigrants
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Miscarriages are medically termed "spontaneous abortions", though that terminology is generally not used with patients due to the connotations of the word in lay usage. These are not included in the numbers. 87% are non surgical. 41% of those having abortions had had one or more previously.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
Does not compute.
That's around 30 years of fertility at 2.1% per year. Even allowing that 40% of abortions are to women who have had them previously the numbers do sound in the ball park of 1 in 3 women at some point in their life.
What have the dinosaurs done to deserve that remark?
At least they became extinct
Here's praying
Dinosaurs, of course, did not become extinct and remain common. They’re just smaller and have wings.
While I accept that birds share a common ancestry with dinosaurs, I will never, ever accept birds as dinosaurs. I may be against current scientific thinking but I just don't care...
Oh, so you're against accepting humans as apes, presumably?
No happy to be an ape. I've been told that dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago all my life. Suddenly it's become 66 million years ago and now some of them made it... Enough.
Kubrick's portrayal of the chap asked if he thinks birds are dinosaurs.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
That figure sounds high. It used to be that abortion statistics included miscarriages but I think that is no longer the case. I suspect it is 1 in 3 pregnancies ends in abortion which is not quite the same as 1 in 3 women, since some women will have more than one.
I know of what I speak. (My dad co-wrote the 1967 Abortion Act.)
"James Orr is understood to be close to JD Vance and influential in Donald Trump’s administration"
yep.
Labour, if there is any life left in them, need to hammer this message over and over: Farage is Trump 2.0's representative on these islands and if elected he will attempt to copy and enact pretty much every one of the insane and dangerous policies of that administration.
Vote Farage get Trump.
Forget tax bombshell posters: this is the message.
Labour should, but it's more urgent for the Conservatives. As things stand, Reform are Labour's opponent, but they are the Conservatives' enemy. Besides, Reform-curious voters and commentators mostly stopped listening to Labour ages ago.
Is Team Kemi ready to draw a line and say it won't cross it? Is Team Bob? Is Team Katie? The signs aren't promising.
What have the dinosaurs done to deserve that remark?
At least they became extinct
Here's praying
Dinosaurs, of course, did not become extinct and remain common. They’re just smaller and have wings.
While I accept that birds share a common ancestry with dinosaurs, I will never, ever accept birds as dinosaurs. I may be against current scientific thinking but I just don't care...
It’s called cladistics, the thing you are railing against. It’s how we do biology now, we group things by common descent. Birds are dinosaurs. There’s no such thing as a fish. Lots of crabs aren’t crabs and lots of moles aren’t moles.
The point is not that birds “share a common ancestry with dinosaurs”. It’s that birds evolved from dinosaurs. So any common ancestor of all dinosaurs is necessarily also the common ancestor of all birds.
TBF there's ongoing argument about whether dinosaurs are a monophyletic group rather than a grade. But birds pretty definitely are theropod dinosaurs anyway.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Miscarriages are medically termed "spontaneous abortions", though that terminology is generally not used with patients due to the connotations of the word in lay usage. These are not included in the numbers. 87% are non surgical. 41% of those having abortions had had one or more previously.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
Does not compute.
So it's 21 per 1000 women for all women aged 15-44. Therefore "total abortion rate" is something like 608 per 1000 women. And then you have some women having more than one abortion. If you take into account some women having more than one, it probably computes?
I'm not really sure they calculate the age-adjusted abortion rate though.
No, 21 is the highest ever recorded, so you can't claim that for prior years. It has averaged about 16 for most previous years, so that would be a total rate of 464 per 1000, but given a high proportion of women having one have had a previous one, and some will have had more than 2, no it does not compute.
Either way, if the claim is legitimate, there should be a scientific source showing methodology for how the figure is collated.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Miscarriages are medically termed "spontaneous abortions", though that terminology is generally not used with patients due to the connotations of the word in lay usage. These are not included in the numbers. 87% are non surgical. 41% of those having abortions had had one or more previously.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
Does not compute.
So it's 21 per 1000 women for all women aged 15-44. Therefore "total abortion rate" is something like 608 per 1000 women. And then you have some women having more than one abortion. If you take into account some women having more than one, it probably computes?
I'm not really sure they calculate the age-adjusted abortion rate though.
No, 21 is the highest ever recorded, so you can't claim that for prior years. It has averaged about 16 for most previous years, so that would be a total rate of 464 per 1000, but given a high proportion of women having one have had a previous one, and some will have had more than 2, no it does not compute.
I think the 21 has to reference prior years, otherwise it's a forecast? This the same issue we run into with the TFR.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
That figure sounds high. It used to be that abortion statistics included miscarriages but I think that is no longer the case. I suspect it is 1 in 3 pregnancies ends in abortion which is not quite the same as 1 in 3 women, since some women will have more than one.
I know of what I speak. (My dad co-wrote the 1967 Abortion Act.)
"James Orr is understood to be close to JD Vance and influential in Donald Trump’s administration"
yep.
Labour, if there is any life left in them, need to hammer this message over and over: Farage is Trump 2.0's representative on these islands and if elected he will attempt to copy and enact pretty much every one of the insane and dangerous policies of that administration.
Vote Farage get Trump.
Forget tax bombshell posters: this is the message.
Labour should, but it's more urgent for the Conservatives. As things stand, Reform are Labour's opponent, but they are the Conservatives' enemy. Besides, Reform-curious voters and commentators mostly stopped listening to Labour ages ago.
Is Team Kemi ready to draw a line and say it won't cross it? Is Team Bob? Is Team Katie? The signs aren't promising.
I've no idea if the figures are accurate or even representative. What struck me is the cluster of France, USA & China, and the higher 2-node cluster of Britain and Italy.
It's a load of bollocks.
In the various debunkings I've seen online, the most interesting was that the UK median worker pays less in tax than a US median earner. A bit of a mindfuck given the narrative around tax at the moment:
The UK in recent years has shifted to taxing the rich more and middle income earners less.
Yes. We have a remarkably progressive system of taxation of income, though coupled with a regressive tax on housing (council tax).
Progressive makes it sound like a good thing.
I don't see anything that resembles progress in pricing people out of work or the UK jobs market, even if it's politically convenient in the £30k to £80k range (if you're not a student).
The Broadway shoulders should beat a greater share of the burden, because those lower down the income scale simply can't afford to.
There are some parts of the system that we should smooth out, and I'd like to see those lower down the income scale have their living costs reduced (on housing for example) so that they could afford to pay a bit more tax.
But, yes, those more able to pay should pay more. If we all had equal income then we could pay equal tax.
But at the same time, there's a limit to how far you can push it. You can't ask an ever smaller group of people to pay more tax. And so I think it's worth noting that Britain has a much more progressive income tax than most countries, and it can't be pushed much further.
So basically, translating from Kremlin-speak into human language:
Putin wants to be given what he has failed to conquer in 11 years (including nearly 4 years of full-scale war) -- and in return, he’ll promise not to conquer what he’s already written into his constitution as part of Russia, but has also failed to capture after almost 4 years of all-out war.
And this, apparently, is only the condition for a “ceasefire.”
After that, to reach a “peace treaty” and an “ultimate resolution of the Ukrainian question,” Ukraine would need to satisfy his “root causes of the crisis” demands: disarmament and dismantling of its defense forces, no NATO membership, replacing the legitimate Ukrainian government in Kyiv with a pro-Russian puppet one, banning all military aid, and abandoning further reforms, national revival, and alignment with the West... https://x.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1979873368523370734
That would be a suicide note.
And yet. It is less than he was asking for at Alaska. He is responding to the pressure of the attacks on the oil refineries.
If we can at least get Trump to keep the existing sanctions in place, then there's potential for Putin to be forced into a genuine negotiation.
It’s taking time but Putin is slowly moving his long list of demands, as almost every day another Russian oil refinery or storage facility goes up in smoke. At some point he’ll need to negotiate in good faith, although there’s little sign of it so far.
Meanwhile, the Russian autumn offensive has gone nowhere at the cost of many men and materiel, and the reality of war is now obvious to ordinary Russians in the form of queuing and rationing of petrol, which has gone up by 50% in recent weeks. The protest earlier in the week in St. Petersberg was also good to see.
If we take what was happening under Biden and draw a curve (as it were).
Putin will be threatening, non stop, escalations. The on going and increasing cyber attacks, and the drone stuff are probably part of this.
Back when the big Ukrainian offensive had the Russians on the run, for a bit, the rumour was that Putin was threatening to stop it with tactical nuclear weapons. Some say that Xi told him to knock that off.
So we can assume the same threats are being made now.
Oh I’m sure that Putin is threatening WWIII against the US if Ukraine gets Tomahawks, as they’ve been threatening escalation for the past three years.
I suspect that he’s told Trump to put a stop to Ukraine bombing Russia, but that is been done with Ukranian weapons not Western supply.
The cyber attacks and drones around Europe are going to continue anyway, irrespective of the war in Ukraine.
Xi must be laughing at Putin behind the scenes, watching as the world’s biggest army has been almost totallly dismantled in only three years. Xi will be eyeing up what he can take from Russia once the war is over. They don’t even have any tanks left, as they can only make a couple of dozen per month and they last five minutes on the front lines before getting the turret blown off by a drone. The famous tank storage yards now have nothing left in them but scrap metal.
Chinese weapons are very largely based off Soviet technology and doctrine. They are beginning to diverge now and do their own thing, but the bulk of their forces use kit that is often clones of Russian equipment.
The ability of a small nation, allied with the West, to humiliate a larger opponent armed with such weapons, may not be entirely what they are looking for.
In the stuff that counts - electronics, radar; missiles; aircraft; drones; progress towards duplicating SpaceX launch capabilities .. and particularly in manufacturing capacity - China is way ahead of Russia.
Much of the Russian legacy stuff (tanks; armour etc) is of declining importance in the battlefield.
I don't think you can usefully draw direct lessons from one to the other.
(Note that many, if not most of the components for the millions of drones used so far by both sides in Ukraine are of Chinese origin.)
Most of Xi’s giant army is armed with the older copies/derived versions of Soviet equipment. It mirrors the old division class system in the Soviet Army - Class A divisions had the best troops and equipment. Class B was the bulk. Class C was reservists in ancient crap.
Remember when the Ukraine war started, China was still buying Russian kit at a furious rate. Then cancelled big orders for things like KA-52.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Miscarriages are medically termed "spontaneous abortions", though that terminology is generally not used with patients due to the connotations of the word in lay usage. These are not included in the numbers. 87% are non surgical. 41% of those having abortions had had one or more previously.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
Does not compute.
So it's 21 per 1000 women for all women aged 15-44. Therefore "total abortion rate" is something like 608 per 1000 women. And then you have some women having more than one abortion. If you take into account some women having more than one, it probably computes?
I'm not really sure they calculate the age-adjusted abortion rate though.
No, 21 is the highest ever recorded, so you can't claim that for prior years. It has averaged about 16 for most previous years, so that would be a total rate of 464 per 1000, but given a high proportion of women having one have had a previous one, and some will have had more than 2, no it does not compute.
The 21 has to reference prior years, otherwise it's a forecast.
21 was for the year reported and was a record, there is a chart showing previous years, it has bounced around 16-18 for most of the past 30 years, spiking after Covid.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Miscarriages are medically termed "spontaneous abortions", though that terminology is generally not used with patients due to the connotations of the word in lay usage. These are not included in the numbers. 87% are non surgical. 41% of those having abortions had had one or more previously.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
Does not compute.
So it's 21 per 1000 women for all women aged 15-44. Therefore "total abortion rate" is something like 608 per 1000 women. And then you have some women having more than one abortion. If you take into account some women having more than one, it probably computes?
I'm not really sure they calculate the age-adjusted abortion rate though.
No, 21 is the highest ever recorded, so you can't claim that for prior years. It has averaged about 16 for most previous years, so that would be a total rate of 464 per 1000, but given a high proportion of women having one have had a previous one, and some will have had more than 2, no it does not compute.
Either way, if the claim is legitimate, there should be a scientific source showing methodology for how the figure is collated.
See figure 6 in my link. The age standardised rate has been over 1.5% per year for the last 30 years.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Miscarriages are medically termed "spontaneous abortions", though that terminology is generally not used with patients due to the connotations of the word in lay usage. These are not included in the numbers. 87% are non surgical. 41% of those having abortions had had one or more previously.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
Does not compute.
So it's 21 per 1000 women for all women aged 15-44. Therefore "total abortion rate" is something like 608 per 1000 women. And then you have some women having more than one abortion. If you take into account some women having more than one, it probably computes?
I'm not really sure they calculate the age-adjusted abortion rate though.
No, 21 is the highest ever recorded, so you can't claim that for prior years. It has averaged about 16 for most previous years, so that would be a total rate of 464 per 1000, but given a high proportion of women having one have had a previous one, and some will have had more than 2, no it does not compute.
The 21 has to reference prior years, otherwise it's a forecast.
21 was for the year reported and was a record, there is a chart showing previous years, it has bounced around 16 for most of the past 30 years, spiking after Covid.
There's a bit of a flaw in the age-adjusted rates that means you are constantly revising them because the cohort you measure changes behaviour by year - part of the reason the fertility rate recorded never reflects the TFR calculated.
Anyway, I'm pretty comfortable that 464/1000 abortions per woman will roughly reflect a 1/3 of women having an abortion in their lifetime. 464/1.4 = 331/1000.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Miscarriages are medically termed "spontaneous abortions", though that terminology is generally not used with patients due to the connotations of the word in lay usage. These are not included in the numbers. 87% are non surgical. 41% of those having abortions had had one or more previously.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
Does not compute.
So it's 21 per 1000 women for all women aged 15-44. Therefore "total abortion rate" is something like 608 per 1000 women. And then you have some women having more than one abortion. If you take into account some women having more than one, it probably computes?
I'm not really sure they calculate the age-adjusted abortion rate though.
No, 21 is the highest ever recorded, so you can't claim that for prior years. It has averaged about 16 for most previous years, so that would be a total rate of 464 per 1000, but given a high proportion of women having one have had a previous one, and some will have had more than 2, no it does not compute.
Either way, if the claim is legitimate, there should be a scientific source showing methodology for how the figure is collated.
See figure 6 in my link. The age standardised rate has been over 1.5% per year for the last 30 years.
Exactly!
I just said it was 16 for most of the past 30 years.
16 would compute to a raw figure of about 464 per 1000 but given how many women have more than 1, let alone more than 2, I find the idea it is definitely over 1 in 3 hard to reconcile with that.
I would like to see a scientific paper reconciling the data.
Interesting, if Reform shift to a pro life restrict abortion line that would be clear blue water from the other 3 main parties in the UK and I am sure welcome to the likes of socially conservative evangelical Kruger and conservative Roman Catholic Widdecombe who are now prominent figures in Reform.
Farage has said he regretted the passage of same sex marriage, rather than just keeping civil unions, although he has said he would not reverse it. Whereas Kemi at the Tory conference celebrated same sex marriage being passed by the Tory and LD coalition and of course Labour and the Greens are very pro same sex marriage, so more clear blue water from Reform on social issues beyond just deporting immigrants
I can see the pro-life argument from Reform being taken up as a way to argue for higher birthrate from "the english".
An artillery shell fired during 250th anniversary celebration of the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton on Saturday detonated prematurely over Interstate 5, damaging a California Highway Patrol vehicle on JD Vance's security detail
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Miscarriages are medically termed "spontaneous abortions", though that terminology is generally not used with patients due to the connotations of the word in lay usage. These are not included in the numbers. 87% are non surgical. 41% of those having abortions had had one or more previously.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
Does not compute.
So it's 21 per 1000 women for all women aged 15-44. Therefore "total abortion rate" is something like 608 per 1000 women. And then you have some women having more than one abortion. If you take into account some women having more than one, it probably computes?
I'm not really sure they calculate the age-adjusted abortion rate though.
No, 21 is the highest ever recorded, so you can't claim that for prior years. It has averaged about 16 for most previous years, so that would be a total rate of 464 per 1000, but given a high proportion of women having one have had a previous one, and some will have had more than 2, no it does not compute.
The 21 has to reference prior years, otherwise it's a forecast.
21 was for the year reported and was a record, there is a chart showing previous years, it has bounced around 16 for most of the past 30 years, spiking after Covid.
There's a bit of a flaw in the age-adjusted rates that means you are constantly revising them because the cohort you measure changes behaviour by year - part of the reason the fertility rate recorded never reflects the TFR calculated.
Anyway, I'm pretty comfortable that 464/1000 abortions per woman will roughly reflect a 1/3 of women having an abortion in their lifetime. 464/1.4 = 331/1000.
Yeah, 464/1.4 seems to be where the data has come from, but if so it is surely a bodge.
40% of women having an abortion have had a previous abortion != 40% of abortions are by women who have had a previous abortion. Unless you reckon no woman ever has 3 or more abortions.
Seems to me the claim is dodgy maths and rounding to a nice round fraction of 1 in 3. No legitimate source.
Have I missed it, or does it look like the European support for Ukraine is weakening?
I've seen Tusk has been reported insisting that Ukraine shouldn't be pressured into ceding territory, but there doesn't seem to have been the same chorus of support for that position from other European leaders as previously.
Political violence against Persian rule. Surely meets the statutory definition of terrorism which makes no judgment about whether it is justified or not.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Miscarriages are medically termed "spontaneous abortions", though that terminology is generally not used with patients due to the connotations of the word in lay usage. These are not included in the numbers. 87% are non surgical. 41% of those having abortions had had one or more previously.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
Does not compute.
So it's 21 per 1000 women for all women aged 15-44. Therefore "total abortion rate" is something like 608 per 1000 women. And then you have some women having more than one abortion. If you take into account some women having more than one, it probably computes?
I'm not really sure they calculate the age-adjusted abortion rate though.
No, 21 is the highest ever recorded, so you can't claim that for prior years. It has averaged about 16 for most previous years, so that would be a total rate of 464 per 1000, but given a high proportion of women having one have had a previous one, and some will have had more than 2, no it does not compute.
The 21 has to reference prior years, otherwise it's a forecast.
21 was for the year reported and was a record, there is a chart showing previous years, it has bounced around 16 for most of the past 30 years, spiking after Covid.
There's a bit of a flaw in the age-adjusted rates that means you are constantly revising them because the cohort you measure changes behaviour by year - part of the reason the fertility rate recorded never reflects the TFR calculated.
Anyway, I'm pretty comfortable that 464/1000 abortions per woman will roughly reflect a 1/3 of women having an abortion in their lifetime. 464/1.4 = 331/1000.
Yeah, 464/1.4 seems to be where the data has come from, but if so it is surely a bodge.
40% of women having an abortion have had a previous abortion != 40% of abortions are by women who have had a previous abortion. Unless you reckon no woman ever has 3 or more abortions.
Seems to me the claim is dodgy maths and rounding to a nice round fraction of 1 in 3. No legitimate source.
So the data which you claimed disproved the figure... is likely to be the data from which the figure was drawn? Lol.
I guess that's another analytical success for you. Congrats.
I've no idea if the figures are accurate or even representative. What struck me is the cluster of France, USA & China, and the higher 2-node cluster of Britain and Italy.
It's a load of bollocks.
In the various debunkings I've seen online, the most interesting was that the UK median worker pays less in tax than a US median earner. A bit of a mindfuck given the narrative around tax at the moment:
The UK in recent years has shifted to taxing the rich more and middle income earners less.
Yes. We have a remarkably progressive system of taxation of income, though coupled with a regressive tax on housing (council tax).
Progressive makes it sound like a good thing.
I don't see anything that resembles progress in pricing people out of work or the UK jobs market, even if it's politically convenient in the £30k to £80k range (if you're not a student).
The Broadway shoulders should beat a greater share of the burden...
An artillery shell fired during 250th anniversary celebration of the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton on Saturday detonated prematurely over Interstate 5, damaging a California Highway Patrol vehicle on JD Vance's security detail
On James Orr, for anybody interested Amol Rajan did an excellent, long interview with him on his 'Radical' series (on BBC Sounds), back in July - Orr's support for Reform isn't new. In the same series, as a fascinating contrast, Rajan interviews Ash Sarkar. Rajan is superb at giving the impression that he agrees with them both.
Orr comes across as a terribly reasonable, articulate, intellectual. Personally, however, I found his views pretty scary and, as with much of Reform's thinking, he seems to want to turn the clock back to a nostalgic vision of Britain that never, in truth, existed.
1 in 3 women in the UK have an abortion during their life. Who here wants to send 1 in 3 women to jail?
Unless that's an exceptionally wide definition of abortion, including things like the morning after pill, I find that figure hard to believe.
Might be true, but it just doesn't feel right.
There are about 600 000 births and 250 000 abortions each year in the UK.
Which says sod all about the proportion of women having them, since some women may have more than one, let alone issues of data conflating miscarriages with abortions.
Miscarriages are medically termed "spontaneous abortions", though that terminology is generally not used with patients due to the connotations of the word in lay usage. These are not included in the numbers. 87% are non surgical. 41% of those having abortions had had one or more previously.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
Does not compute.
So it's 21 per 1000 women for all women aged 15-44. Therefore "total abortion rate" is something like 608 per 1000 women. And then you have some women having more than one abortion. If you take into account some women having more than one, it probably computes?
I'm not really sure they calculate the age-adjusted abortion rate though.
No, 21 is the highest ever recorded, so you can't claim that for prior years. It has averaged about 16 for most previous years, so that would be a total rate of 464 per 1000, but given a high proportion of women having one have had a previous one, and some will have had more than 2, no it does not compute.
The 21 has to reference prior years, otherwise it's a forecast.
21 was for the year reported and was a record, there is a chart showing previous years, it has bounced around 16 for most of the past 30 years, spiking after Covid.
There's a bit of a flaw in the age-adjusted rates that means you are constantly revising them because the cohort you measure changes behaviour by year - part of the reason the fertility rate recorded never reflects the TFR calculated.
Anyway, I'm pretty comfortable that 464/1000 abortions per woman will roughly reflect a 1/3 of women having an abortion in their lifetime. 464/1.4 = 331/1000.
Yeah, 464/1.4 seems to be where the data has come from, but if so it is surely a bodge.
40% of women having an abortion have had a previous abortion != 40% of abortions are by women who have had a previous abortion. Unless you reckon no woman ever has 3 or more abortions.
Seems to me the claim is dodgy maths and rounding to a nice round fraction of 1 in 3. No legitimate source.
So the data which you claimed disproved the figure... is likely to be the data from which the figure was drawn? Lol.
I guess that's another analytical success for you. Congrats.
Except that I literally pointed out that including the fact that some women have more than 2 means the data can't be reconciled.
Accepted fact 1: 40% of women having an abortion have had a previous abortion.
However 40% of women having an abortion have had a previous abortion != 40% of pregnancies aborted are to a woman who has had a previous abortion, unless you think that no woman ever has 3 or more.
People misusing legitimate data is how myths happen all the time.
So basically, translating from Kremlin-speak into human language:
Putin wants to be given what he has failed to conquer in 11 years (including nearly 4 years of full-scale war) -- and in return, he’ll promise not to conquer what he’s already written into his constitution as part of Russia, but has also failed to capture after almost 4 years of all-out war.
And this, apparently, is only the condition for a “ceasefire.”
After that, to reach a “peace treaty” and an “ultimate resolution of the Ukrainian question,” Ukraine would need to satisfy his “root causes of the crisis” demands: disarmament and dismantling of its defense forces, no NATO membership, replacing the legitimate Ukrainian government in Kyiv with a pro-Russian puppet one, banning all military aid, and abandoning further reforms, national revival, and alignment with the West... https://x.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1979873368523370734
That would be a suicide note.
And yet. It is less than he was asking for at Alaska. He is responding to the pressure of the attacks on the oil refineries.
If we can at least get Trump to keep the existing sanctions in place, then there's potential for Putin to be forced into a genuine negotiation.
It’s taking time but Putin is slowly moving his long list of demands, as almost every day another Russian oil refinery or storage facility goes up in smoke. At some point he’ll need to negotiate in good faith, although there’s little sign of it so far.
Meanwhile, the Russian autumn offensive has gone nowhere at the cost of many men and materiel, and the reality of war is now obvious to ordinary Russians in the form of queuing and rationing of petrol, which has gone up by 50% in recent weeks. The protest earlier in the week in St. Petersberg was also good to see.
If we take what was happening under Biden and draw a curve (as it were).
Putin will be threatening, non stop, escalations. The on going and increasing cyber attacks, and the drone stuff are probably part of this.
Back when the big Ukrainian offensive had the Russians on the run, for a bit, the rumour was that Putin was threatening to stop it with tactical nuclear weapons. Some say that Xi told him to knock that off.
So we can assume the same threats are being made now.
Oh I’m sure that Putin is threatening WWIII against the US if Ukraine gets Tomahawks, as they’ve been threatening escalation for the past three years.
I suspect that he’s told Trump to put a stop to Ukraine bombing Russia, but that is been done with Ukranian weapons not Western supply.
The cyber attacks and drones around Europe are going to continue anyway, irrespective of the war in Ukraine.
Xi must be laughing at Putin behind the scenes, watching as the world’s biggest army has been almost totallly dismantled in only three years. Xi will be eyeing up what he can take from Russia once the war is over. They don’t even have any tanks left, as they can only make a couple of dozen per month and they last five minutes on the front lines before getting the turret blown off by a drone. The famous tank storage yards now have nothing left in them but scrap metal.
Chinese weapons are very largely based off Soviet technology and doctrine. They are beginning to diverge now and do their own thing, but the bulk of their forces use kit that is often clones of Russian equipment.
The ability of a small nation, allied with the West, to humiliate a larger opponent armed with such weapons, may not be entirely what they are looking for.
In the stuff that counts - electronics, radar; missiles; aircraft; drones; progress towards duplicating SpaceX launch capabilities .. and particularly in manufacturing capacity - China is way ahead of Russia.
Much of the Russian legacy stuff (tanks; armour etc) is of declining importance in the battlefield.
I don't think you can usefully draw direct lessons from one to the other.
(Note that many, if not most of the components for the millions of drones used so far by both sides in Ukraine are of Chinese origin.)
Most of Xi’s giant army is armed with the older copies/derived versions of Soviet equipment. It mirrors the old division class system in the Soviet Army - Class A divisions had the best troops and equipment. Class B was the bulk. Class C was reservists in ancient crap.
Remember when the Ukraine war started, China was still buying Russian kit at a furious rate. Then cancelled big orders for things like KA-52.
Does that particularly matter, though ?
The precise details of armour don't seem hugely to matter, at least compared with the modem kit around them. And for that reason, Ukraine got significantly better results from its old Soviet kit than did the Russians themselves.
Most kills are effected now by drones; the quality (and quantity) of aircraft, radar and missiles determines who controls the skies sufficiently inflict major damage on opponents' front lines.
Have I missed it, or does it look like the European support for Ukraine is weakening?
I've seen Tusk has been reported insisting that Ukraine shouldn't be pressured into ceding territory, but there doesn't seem to have been the same chorus of support for that position from other European leaders as previously.
I haven't seen any change from Macron, Starmer, Merz or Carney and in NATO terms beyond Trump they are the only real ones who count
Rather different figure to 1 in 3, albeit there is a risk of under-reporting in surveys.
I can't find any data beyond that 41% of women undergoing an abortion have had a previous one which goes into how many previous ones they may have had. Logic suggests this won't be merely the second yet absolutely final one for all of them.
Political violence against Persian rule. Surely meets the statutory definition of terrorism which makes no judgment about whether it is justified or not.
"Terrorism" is a modern concept. I'm not sure it's useful in this context.
And the religious freedom they were fighting fur didn't include anyone else's religion...
I have to be honest that my knowledge of this bit of history is pretty limited. The way in which the story if the Maccabees is now incorporated into modern Jewish and Christian religions seems quite interesting.
On those lines, it also furnished the frame for a Handel oratorio, which gave us the tune for the hymn "Thine be the Glory".
On James Orr, for anybody interested Amol Rajan did an excellent, long interview with him on his 'Radical' series (on BBC Sounds), back in July - Orr's support for Reform isn't new. In the same series, as a fascinating contrast, Rajan interviews Ash Sarkar. Rajan is superb at giving the impression that he agrees with them both.
Orr comes across as a terribly reasonable, articulate, intellectual. Personally, however, I found his views pretty scary and, as with much of Reform's thinking, he seems to want to turn the clock back to a nostalgic vision of Britain that never, in truth, existed.
It is quite striking that the "protecy our girls" mob seem to think this should consist of forcing them to give birth when they dont want to continue the pregnancy.
Have I missed it, or does it look like the European support for Ukraine is weakening?
I've seen Tusk has been reported insisting that Ukraine shouldn't be pressured into ceding territory, but there doesn't seem to have been the same chorus of support for that position from other European leaders as previously.
I haven't seen any change from Macron, Starmer, Merz or Carney and in NATO terms beyond Trump they are the only real ones who count
The Scandis and Baltics are also fairly significant, and if anything are more committed, not less.
Political violence against Persian rule. Surely meets the statutory definition of terrorism which makes no judgment about whether it is justified or not.
"Terrorism" is a modern concept. I'm not sure it's useful in this context.
And the religious freedom they were fighting fur didn't include anyone else's religion...
I have to be honest that my knowledge of this bit of history is pretty limited. The way in which the story if the Maccabees is now incorporated into modern Jewish and Christian religions seems quite interesting.
On those lines, it also furnished the frame for a Handel oratorio, which gave us the tune for the hymn "Thine be the Glory".
I had a quite interesting chat with a few LLMs on this broad subject. From the references to Hassan-i-Sabbah to the late bronze-age collapse, the rise of monotheism, and so forth.
I really hated to imagine how many wikipedia tabs I would have opened trying to get similar information otherwise.
So basically, translating from Kremlin-speak into human language:
Putin wants to be given what he has failed to conquer in 11 years (including nearly 4 years of full-scale war) -- and in return, he’ll promise not to conquer what he’s already written into his constitution as part of Russia, but has also failed to capture after almost 4 years of all-out war.
And this, apparently, is only the condition for a “ceasefire.”
After that, to reach a “peace treaty” and an “ultimate resolution of the Ukrainian question,” Ukraine would need to satisfy his “root causes of the crisis” demands: disarmament and dismantling of its defense forces, no NATO membership, replacing the legitimate Ukrainian government in Kyiv with a pro-Russian puppet one, banning all military aid, and abandoning further reforms, national revival, and alignment with the West... https://x.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1979873368523370734
That would be a suicide note.
And yet. It is less than he was asking for at Alaska. He is responding to the pressure of the attacks on the oil refineries.
If we can at least get Trump to keep the existing sanctions in place, then there's potential for Putin to be forced into a genuine negotiation.
It’s taking time but Putin is slowly moving his long list of demands, as almost every day another Russian oil refinery or storage facility goes up in smoke. At some point he’ll need to negotiate in good faith, although there’s little sign of it so far.
Meanwhile, the Russian autumn offensive has gone nowhere at the cost of many men and materiel, and the reality of war is now obvious to ordinary Russians in the form of queuing and rationing of petrol, which has gone up by 50% in recent weeks. The protest earlier in the week in St. Petersberg was also good to see.
If we take what was happening under Biden and draw a curve (as it were).
Putin will be threatening, non stop, escalations. The on going and increasing cyber attacks, and the drone stuff are probably part of this.
Back when the big Ukrainian offensive had the Russians on the run, for a bit, the rumour was that Putin was threatening to stop it with tactical nuclear weapons. Some say that Xi told him to knock that off.
So we can assume the same threats are being made now.
Oh I’m sure that Putin is threatening WWIII against the US if Ukraine gets Tomahawks, as they’ve been threatening escalation for the past three years.
I suspect that he’s told Trump to put a stop to Ukraine bombing Russia, but that is been done with Ukranian weapons not Western supply.
The cyber attacks and drones around Europe are going to continue anyway, irrespective of the war in Ukraine.
Xi must be laughing at Putin behind the scenes, watching as the world’s biggest army has been almost totallly dismantled in only three years. Xi will be eyeing up what he can take from Russia once the war is over. They don’t even have any tanks left, as they can only make a couple of dozen per month and they last five minutes on the front lines before getting the turret blown off by a drone. The famous tank storage yards now have nothing left in them but scrap metal.
Chinese weapons are very largely based off Soviet technology and doctrine. They are beginning to diverge now and do their own thing, but the bulk of their forces use kit that is often clones of Russian equipment.
The ability of a small nation, allied with the West, to humiliate a larger opponent armed with such weapons, may not be entirely what they are looking for.
In the stuff that counts - electronics, radar; missiles; aircraft; drones; progress towards duplicating SpaceX launch capabilities .. and particularly in manufacturing capacity - China is way ahead of Russia.
Much of the Russian legacy stuff (tanks; armour etc) is of declining importance in the battlefield.
I don't think you can usefully draw direct lessons from one to the other.
(Note that many, if not most of the components for the millions of drones used so far by both sides in Ukraine are of Chinese origin.)
Most of Xi’s giant army is armed with the older copies/derived versions of Soviet equipment. It mirrors the old division class system in the Soviet Army - Class A divisions had the best troops and equipment. Class B was the bulk. Class C was reservists in ancient crap.
Remember when the Ukraine war started, China was still buying Russian kit at a furious rate. Then cancelled big orders for things like KA-52.
Does that particularly matter, though ?
The precise details of armour don't seem hugely to matter, at least compared with the modem kit around them. And for that reason, Ukraine got significantly better results from its old Soviet kit than did the Russians themselves.
Most kills are effected now by drones; the quality (and quantity) of aircraft, radar and missiles determines who controls the skies sufficiently inflict major damage on opponents' front lines.
It means that Xi has an army of tanks that will throw its turrets hundreds of feet into the air when they try for Taiwan. Etc.
So basically, translating from Kremlin-speak into human language:
Putin wants to be given what he has failed to conquer in 11 years (including nearly 4 years of full-scale war) -- and in return, he’ll promise not to conquer what he’s already written into his constitution as part of Russia, but has also failed to capture after almost 4 years of all-out war.
And this, apparently, is only the condition for a “ceasefire.”
After that, to reach a “peace treaty” and an “ultimate resolution of the Ukrainian question,” Ukraine would need to satisfy his “root causes of the crisis” demands: disarmament and dismantling of its defense forces, no NATO membership, replacing the legitimate Ukrainian government in Kyiv with a pro-Russian puppet one, banning all military aid, and abandoning further reforms, national revival, and alignment with the West... https://x.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1979873368523370734
That would be a suicide note.
And yet. It is less than he was asking for at Alaska. He is responding to the pressure of the attacks on the oil refineries.
If we can at least get Trump to keep the existing sanctions in place, then there's potential for Putin to be forced into a genuine negotiation.
It’s taking time but Putin is slowly moving his long list of demands, as almost every day another Russian oil refinery or storage facility goes up in smoke. At some point he’ll need to negotiate in good faith, although there’s little sign of it so far.
Meanwhile, the Russian autumn offensive has gone nowhere at the cost of many men and materiel, and the reality of war is now obvious to ordinary Russians in the form of queuing and rationing of petrol, which has gone up by 50% in recent weeks. The protest earlier in the week in St. Petersberg was also good to see.
If we take what was happening under Biden and draw a curve (as it were).
Putin will be threatening, non stop, escalations. The on going and increasing cyber attacks, and the drone stuff are probably part of this.
Back when the big Ukrainian offensive had the Russians on the run, for a bit, the rumour was that Putin was threatening to stop it with tactical nuclear weapons. Some say that Xi told him to knock that off.
So we can assume the same threats are being made now.
Oh I’m sure that Putin is threatening WWIII against the US if Ukraine gets Tomahawks, as they’ve been threatening escalation for the past three years.
I suspect that he’s told Trump to put a stop to Ukraine bombing Russia, but that is been done with Ukranian weapons not Western supply.
The cyber attacks and drones around Europe are going to continue anyway, irrespective of the war in Ukraine.
Xi must be laughing at Putin behind the scenes, watching as the world’s biggest army has been almost totallly dismantled in only three years. Xi will be eyeing up what he can take from Russia once the war is over. They don’t even have any tanks left, as they can only make a couple of dozen per month and they last five minutes on the front lines before getting the turret blown off by a drone. The famous tank storage yards now have nothing left in them but scrap metal.
Chinese weapons are very largely based off Soviet technology and doctrine. They are beginning to diverge now and do their own thing, but the bulk of their forces use kit that is often clones of Russian equipment.
The ability of a small nation, allied with the West, to humiliate a larger opponent armed with such weapons, may not be entirely what they are looking for.
In the stuff that counts - electronics, radar; missiles; aircraft; drones; progress towards duplicating SpaceX launch capabilities .. and particularly in manufacturing capacity - China is way ahead of Russia.
Much of the Russian legacy stuff (tanks; armour etc) is of declining importance in the battlefield.
I don't think you can usefully draw direct lessons from one to the other.
(Note that many, if not most of the components for the millions of drones used so far by both sides in Ukraine are of Chinese origin.)
Most of Xi’s giant army is armed with the older copies/derived versions of Soviet equipment. It mirrors the old division class system in the Soviet Army - Class A divisions had the best troops and equipment. Class B was the bulk. Class C was reservists in ancient crap.
Remember when the Ukraine war started, China was still buying Russian kit at a furious rate. Then cancelled big orders for things like KA-52.
Does that particularly matter, though ?
The precise details of armour don't seem hugely to matter, at least compared with the modem kit around them. And for that reason, Ukraine got significantly better results from its old Soviet kit than did the Russians themselves.
Most kills are effected now by drones; the quality (and quantity) of aircraft, radar and missiles determines who controls the skies sufficiently inflict major damage on opponents' front lines.
It means that Xi has an army of tanks that will throw its turrets hundreds of feet into the air when they try for Taiwan. Etc.
It will take time to change from that.
How many tanks from either side do you see on the front line these days ?
Were China actually to invade Taiwan, using them would probably be as much hindrance in terms of logistics as it would help in any fighting.
Have I missed it, or does it look like the European support for Ukraine is weakening?
I've seen Tusk has been reported insisting that Ukraine shouldn't be pressured into ceding territory, but there doesn't seem to have been the same chorus of support for that position from other European leaders as previously.
I haven't seen any change from Macron, Starmer, Merz or Carney and in NATO terms beyond Trump they are the only real ones who count
The Scandis and Baltics are also fairly significant, and if anything are more committed, not less.
They are but in military terms nowhere near as big as the UK and France or even Germany and Canada and Poland
Have I missed it, or does it look like the European support for Ukraine is weakening?
I've seen Tusk has been reported insisting that Ukraine shouldn't be pressured into ceding territory, but there doesn't seem to have been the same chorus of support for that position from other European leaders as previously.
I haven't seen any change from Macron, Starmer, Merz or Carney and in NATO terms beyond Trump they are the only real ones who count
The Scandis and Baltics are also fairly significant, and if anything are more committed, not less.
Not sure the Baltics really matter as they have a combined population about half the London metro area and they are all scared stiff of Russia, have large Russian minorities (not Lithuania) and catastrophically aging demographics. The Nordics matter much more. Also the Dutch will oppose Putin because of MH17.
Macron can be counted on because he's incredibly vain, and his Presidency has been a complete failure domestically and is currently descending into a chaotic farce, so opposing to Putin is all he has, which is why he turned from being pretty neutral to supporting Ukraine after his disastrous elections last year. Also he sees it as a way to extend French influence in his beloved EU now that the US has opted out. But his calculations might change back if the RN makes inroads on this issue.
Merz has been alright so far, but I'm not sure how long he will keep the German conservatives who want to go back to burning Russian gas at bay. Starmer has also done not too badly, in his uninspiring, technocratic way, but he's no Boris Johnson on this and only a fool would trust Jeremy Corbyn's former best friend if British opinion turned against the war.
So basically I think the instinctive good sense of the British public and its ancient tradition of standing up to continental tyrants is the strongest and most stalwart ally Ukraine has in Europe, and maybe the world, at the moment. We've made many mistakes, but we've been very good on this.
An artillery shell fired during 250th anniversary celebration of the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton on Saturday detonated prematurely over Interstate 5, damaging a California Highway Patrol vehicle on JD Vance's security detail
"Russian hackers have stolen hundreds of sensitive military documents containing details of eight RAF and Royal Navy bases as well as Ministry of Defence staff names and emails – and posted them on the dark web, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
In what has been described as a 'catastrophic' security breach, cybercriminals accessed the cache of files by hacking a maintenance and construction contractor used by the MoD."
"Russian hackers have stolen hundreds of sensitive military documents containing details of eight RAF and Royal Navy bases as well as Ministry of Defence staff names and emails – and posted them on the dark web, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
In what has been described as a 'catastrophic' security breach, cybercriminals accessed the cache of files by hacking a maintenance and construction contractor used by the MoD."
God. Now they'll know that our military is as poorly managed as our industry and public services. Something must be done! Ideally at great expense and badly!
It's funny, my Jewish friends in LA - and pretty much all my friends in LA are Jewish - are much more nuanced on the issue of Palestine than most PBers.
An artillery shell fired during 250th anniversary celebration of the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton on Saturday detonated prematurely over Interstate 5, damaging a California Highway Patrol vehicle on JD Vance's security detail
America celebrating 250 years seems really weird to me as one of my best friends as a kid had an American dad who had up in their house memorabilia celebrating America's Bicentennial, which he'd got from just a few years before my friend or I were born.
Makes me feel old to think they're now at the point of celebrating 250 years rather than 200.
On my second day back at work on Thursday I got a pain in my ribs, but not on the side that I broke them three months ago. I managed the pain with ibuprofen and paracetamol, and managed to get through all four days ending yesterday. I imagined the pain was just a bad side strain
This morning the pain was ten times worse. My painkillers made no difference and breathing more than the shortest shallowest breath was agony. I called my Dad who drove me straight to Great Western Hospital in Swindon. The ECG, X-ray and CT scan seemed to indicate that the pain was just a bad strain, not heart or lung problems, and they were set to give me loads of morphine and send me home to take a week off
Then the blood test results came in. Apparently some inflammation measure and my white blood cell count were both worryingly high. So they’ve insisted I stay overnight so they can pump me full of antibiotics, because it might be sepsis
Unfortunately fourteen hours into my visit they still haven’t found a bed for me
So basically, translating from Kremlin-speak into human language:
Putin wants to be given what he has failed to conquer in 11 years (including nearly 4 years of full-scale war) -- and in return, he’ll promise not to conquer what he’s already written into his constitution as part of Russia, but has also failed to capture after almost 4 years of all-out war.
And this, apparently, is only the condition for a “ceasefire.”
After that, to reach a “peace treaty” and an “ultimate resolution of the Ukrainian question,” Ukraine would need to satisfy his “root causes of the crisis” demands: disarmament and dismantling of its defense forces, no NATO membership, replacing the legitimate Ukrainian government in Kyiv with a pro-Russian puppet one, banning all military aid, and abandoning further reforms, national revival, and alignment with the West... https://x.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1979873368523370734
That would be a suicide note.
And yet. It is less than he was asking for at Alaska. He is responding to the pressure of the attacks on the oil refineries.
If we can at least get Trump to keep the existing sanctions in place, then there's potential for Putin to be forced into a genuine negotiation.
It’s taking time but Putin is slowly moving his long list of demands, as almost every day another Russian oil refinery or storage facility goes up in smoke. At some point he’ll need to negotiate in good faith, although there’s little sign of it so far.
Meanwhile, the Russian autumn offensive has gone nowhere at the cost of many men and materiel, and the reality of war is now obvious to ordinary Russians in the form of queuing and rationing of petrol, which has gone up by 50% in recent weeks. The protest earlier in the week in St. Petersberg was also good to see.
If we take what was happening under Biden and draw a curve (as it were).
Putin will be threatening, non stop, escalations. The on going and increasing cyber attacks, and the drone stuff are probably part of this.
Back when the big Ukrainian offensive had the Russians on the run, for a bit, the rumour was that Putin was threatening to stop it with tactical nuclear weapons. Some say that Xi told him to knock that off.
So we can assume the same threats are being made now.
Oh I’m sure that Putin is threatening WWIII against the US if Ukraine gets Tomahawks, as they’ve been threatening escalation for the past three years.
I suspect that he’s told Trump to put a stop to Ukraine bombing Russia, but that is been done with Ukranian weapons not Western supply.
The cyber attacks and drones around Europe are going to continue anyway, irrespective of the war in Ukraine.
Xi must be laughing at Putin behind the scenes, watching as the world’s biggest army has been almost totallly dismantled in only three years. Xi will be eyeing up what he can take from Russia once the war is over. They don’t even have any tanks left, as they can only make a couple of dozen per month and they last five minutes on the front lines before getting the turret blown off by a drone. The famous tank storage yards now have nothing left in them but scrap metal.
Chinese weapons are very largely based off Soviet technology and doctrine. They are beginning to diverge now and do their own thing, but the bulk of their forces use kit that is often clones of Russian equipment.
The ability of a small nation, allied with the West, to humiliate a larger opponent armed with such weapons, may not be entirely what they are looking for.
In the stuff that counts - electronics, radar; missiles; aircraft; drones; progress towards duplicating SpaceX launch capabilities .. and particularly in manufacturing capacity - China is way ahead of Russia.
Much of the Russian legacy stuff (tanks; armour etc) is of declining importance in the battlefield.
I don't think you can usefully draw direct lessons from one to the other.
(Note that many, if not most of the components for the millions of drones used so far by both sides in Ukraine are of Chinese origin.)
Most of Xi’s giant army is armed with the older copies/derived versions of Soviet equipment. It mirrors the old division class system in the Soviet Army - Class A divisions had the best troops and equipment. Class B was the bulk. Class C was reservists in ancient crap.
Remember when the Ukraine war started, China was still buying Russian kit at a furious rate. Then cancelled big orders for things like KA-52.
Does that particularly matter, though ?
The precise details of armour don't seem hugely to matter, at least compared with the modem kit around them. And for that reason, Ukraine got significantly better results from its old Soviet kit than did the Russians themselves.
Most kills are effected now by drones; the quality (and quantity) of aircraft, radar and missiles determines who controls the skies sufficiently inflict major damage on opponents' front lines.
It means that Xi has an army of tanks that will throw its turrets hundreds of feet into the air when they try for Taiwan. Etc.
It will take time to change from that.
How many tanks from either side do you see on the front line these days ?
Were China actually to invade Taiwan, using them would probably be as much hindrance in terms of logistics as it would help in any fighting.
The biggest reason for Xi to rethink the invasion of Taiwan is the massive advance in marine drones in the last 18-24 months. Ukrainian drone advances have taken their planner back to the drawing board.
He would completely wrong foot the world by offering Taiwan a fraternal friendship and trade deal.
On my second day back at work on Thursday I got a pain in my ribs, but not on the side that I broke them three months ago. I managed the pain with ibuprofen and paracetamol, and managed to get through all four days ending yesterday. I imagined the pain was just a bad side strain
This morning the pain was ten times worse. My painkillers made no difference and breathing more than the shortest shallowest breath was agony. I called my Dad who drove me straight to Great Western Hospital in Swindon. The ECG, X-ray and CT scan seemed to indicate that the pain was just a bad strain, not heart or lung problems, and they were set to give me loads of morphine and send me home to take a week off
Then the blood test results came in. Apparently some inflammation measure and my white blood cell count were both worryingly high. So they’ve insisted I stay overnight so they can pump me full of antibiotics, because it might be sepsis
Unfortunately fourteen hours into my visit they still haven’t found a bed for me
That sucks: I hope they find you a bed, and I hope they are able to sort out whatever is causing you problems.
It's funny, my Jewish friends in LA - and pretty much all my friends in LA are Jewish - are much more nuanced on the issue of Palestine than most PBers.
On my second day back at work on Thursday I got a pain in my ribs, but not on the side that I broke them three months ago. I managed the pain with ibuprofen and paracetamol, and managed to get through all four days ending yesterday. I imagined the pain was just a bad side strain
This morning the pain was ten times worse. My painkillers made no difference and breathing more than the shortest shallowest breath was agony. I called my Dad who drove me straight to Great Western Hospital in Swindon. The ECG, X-ray and CT scan seemed to indicate that the pain was just a bad strain, not heart or lung problems, and they were set to give me loads of morphine and send me home to take a week off
Then the blood test results came in. Apparently some inflammation measure and my white blood cell count were both worryingly high. So they’ve insisted I stay overnight so they can pump me full of antibiotics, because it might be sepsis
Unfortunately fourteen hours into my visit they still haven’t found a bed for me
Political violence against Persian rule. Surely meets the statutory definition of terrorism which makes no judgment about whether it is justified or not.
That is not a definition I would recognise or acept. Under such a definition all the resitance forces in Nazi occupied Europe were terrorists. Which is of course how the Germans referred to them.
Have I missed it, or does it look like the European support for Ukraine is weakening?
I've seen Tusk has been reported insisting that Ukraine shouldn't be pressured into ceding territory, but there doesn't seem to have been the same chorus of support for that position from other European leaders as previously.
I haven't seen any change from Macron, Starmer, Merz or Carney and in NATO terms beyond Trump they are the only real ones who count
The Scandis and Baltics are also fairly significant, and if anything are more committed, not less.
They are but in military terms nowhere near as big as the UK and France or even Germany and Canada and Poland
I dont think that true.
Finland's army mobilises to 280 000 with an additional reserve of 850 000 reservists. It also has more artillery than any other army in Western Europe.
It's funny, my Jewish friends in LA - and pretty much all my friends in LA are Jewish - are much more nuanced on the issue of Palestine than most PBers.
New vocational courses called V-levels will be rolled out for 16-year-olds under government plans to simplify a "confusing landscape" of qualifications in England.
"Russian hackers have stolen hundreds of sensitive military documents containing details of eight RAF and Royal Navy bases as well as Ministry of Defence staff names and emails – and posted them on the dark web, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
In what has been described as a 'catastrophic' security breach, cybercriminals accessed the cache of files by hacking a maintenance and construction contractor used by the MoD."
God. Now they'll know that our military is as poorly managed as our industry and public services. Something must be done! Ideally at great expense and badly!
I've yet to be convinced our NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ) does anything very useful, although admittedly I've not looked too hard.
Have I missed it, or does it look like the European support for Ukraine is weakening?
I've seen Tusk has been reported insisting that Ukraine shouldn't be pressured into ceding territory, but there doesn't seem to have been the same chorus of support for that position from other European leaders as previously.
I haven't seen any change from Macron, Starmer, Merz or Carney and in NATO terms beyond Trump they are the only real ones who count
The Scandis and Baltics are also fairly significant, and if anything are more committed, not less.
They are but in military terms nowhere near as big as the UK and France or even Germany and Canada and Poland
I dont think that true.
Finland's army mobilises to 280 000 with an additional reserve of 850 000 reservists. It also has more artillery than any other army in Western Europe.
You don't mess with Finland. They are prepared.
The Finn's big weakness is their air force, a few dozen old F-18s and a single EW aircraft is not much of a force against a capable opponent with modern aircraft and good training. Fortunately, Russia doesn't fall in to that category any more.
New vocational courses called V-levels will be rolled out for 16-year-olds under government plans to simplify a "confusing landscape" of qualifications in England.
It's funny, my Jewish friends in LA - and pretty much all my friends in LA are Jewish - are much more nuanced on the issue of Palestine than most PBers.
What do they call the street execution gangs?
I think they'd distinguish between Hamas and the Palestinian victims of Hamas; shouldn't you? Or is it Palestinazis killing Palestinazis?
Political violence against Persian rule. Surely meets the statutory definition of terrorism which makes no judgment about whether it is justified or not.
That is not a definition I would recognise or acept. Under such a definition all the resitance forces in Nazi occupied Europe were terrorists. Which is of course how the Germans referred to them.
Well, I would say they were terrorists, but that terrorism is sometimes justified.
I am sure that someone engaged in terrorism against the Russian government, which is clearly justified, would be regarded as illegal terrorism by our legislation.
Comments
“A society's 'openness' in discussing sexual matters inversely correlates with abortion rates. Correlation between contraceptive use and abortion is also inverse but relates most closely to the efficacy of contraceptive methods used. 'Revolution' in the range of contraceptive methods used will have an equivalent impact on abortion rates. Secondary or emergency contraceptive methods have a considerable role to play in the reduction of abortion numbers. Good sex (and 'relationships') education programs may delay sexual debut, increase contraceptive usage and be associated with reduced abortion.”
Oh...
@johnismay
An artillery shell fired during 250th anniversary celebration of the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton on Saturday detonated prematurely over Interstate 5, damaging a California Highway Patrol vehicle on JD Vance's security detail
https://x.com/johnismay/status/1980015445143966155
Believing something because 'everyone knows it' is how myths and fallacy happen and is an appeal to authority fallacy.
If the figure is accurate, there should be a legitimate source somewhere for it. Not just people parroting it.
I'm genuinely surprised by that though. I'd be interested to know over what time period the data was collected - perhaps something do with more people having casual sex before contraception became as effective as it is now? Otherwise, it might simply be because the subject is taboo and never talked about - I am aware of some abortions but it's always whispered about or rumoured - even period pains are not talked about explicitly except amongst very close friends. I guess I should know better that my perception of such a sensitive topic is highly likely to be incorrect.
The point is not that birds “share a common ancestry with dinosaurs”. It’s that birds evolved from dinosaurs. So any common ancestor of all dinosaurs is necessarily also the common ancestor of all birds.
The age-standardised abortion rate for residents is 21.1 per 1,000 women - the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
I am not sure how you reconcile an abortion rate of 21.1 per 1,000 women in a year being the highest since the Abortion Act was introduced, to a claim that 1 in 3 women have had an abortion by 45, considering that a significant number of women have more than 1 abortion.
Does not compute.
Enough.
What I have said is that vehicles at 30mph today are considerably safer than vehicles at 30mph were decades ago, which is why we have record low casualty rates and why we should be increasing speed limits not lowering them.
If there is a source for the claim, then great. An appeal to authority is what HYUFD does. If there is a source to it, then there should be a paper and a methodology showing how that figure was reached - come on, this is science 101 and you know that.
Tom Nichols
@RadioFreeTom
·
33m
Trump, once again, taking Russia's position
Michael McFaul
@McFaul
Not good.
https://x.com/McFaul/status/1980014858512023567
Narrator: Russia is losing the war and its economy is fucked.
I'm not really sure they calculate the age-adjusted abortion rate though.
Farage has said he regretted the passage of same sex marriage, rather than just keeping civil unions, although he has said he would not reverse it. Whereas Kemi at the Tory conference celebrated same sex marriage being passed by the Tory and LD coalition and of course Labour and the Greens are very pro same sex marriage, so more clear blue water from Reform on social issues beyond just deporting immigrants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avjdKTqiVvQ
Or religious freedom fighters ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabees
Is Team Kemi ready to draw a line and say it won't cross it? Is Team Bob? Is Team Katie? The signs aren't promising.
Either way, if the claim is legitimate, there should be a scientific source showing methodology for how the figure is collated.
There are some parts of the system that we should smooth out, and I'd like to see those lower down the income scale have their living costs reduced (on housing for example) so that they could afford to pay a bit more tax.
But, yes, those more able to pay should pay more. If we all had equal income then we could pay equal tax.
But at the same time, there's a limit to how far you can push it. You can't ask an ever smaller group of people to pay more tax. And so I think it's worth noting that Britain has a much more progressive income tax than most countries, and it can't be pushed much further.
Remember when the Ukraine war started, China was still buying Russian kit at a furious rate. Then cancelled big orders for things like KA-52.
Anyway, I'm pretty comfortable that 464/1000 abortions per woman will roughly reflect a 1/3 of women having an abortion in their lifetime. 464/1.4 = 331/1000.
I just said it was 16 for most of the past 30 years.
16 would compute to a raw figure of about 464 per 1000 but given how many women have more than 1, let alone more than 2, I find the idea it is definitely over 1 in 3 hard to reconcile with that.
I would like to see a scientific paper reconciling the data.
Other than an expression of presidential ego.
40% of women having an abortion have had a previous abortion != 40% of abortions are by women who have had a previous abortion. Unless you reckon no woman ever has 3 or more abortions.
Seems to me the claim is dodgy maths and rounding to a nice round fraction of 1 in 3. No legitimate source.
I've seen Tusk has been reported insisting that Ukraine shouldn't be pressured into ceding territory, but there doesn't seem to have been the same chorus of support for that position from other European leaders as previously.
George Mann
@sgfmann
Daily Star: THE ONLY WAY IS LETTUCE #TomorrowsPapersToday
https://x.com/sgfmann/status/1980021292842541123
I guess that's another analytical success for you. Congrats.
Orr comes across as a terribly reasonable, articulate, intellectual. Personally, however, I found his views pretty scary and, as with much of Reform's thinking, he seems to want to turn the clock back to a nostalgic vision of Britain that never, in truth, existed.
Accepted fact 1: 40% of women having an abortion have had a previous abortion.
However 40% of women having an abortion have had a previous abortion != 40% of pregnancies aborted are to a woman who has had a previous abortion, unless you think that no woman ever has 3 or more.
People misusing legitimate data is how myths happen all the time.
The precise details of armour don't seem hugely to matter, at least compared with the modem kit around them.
And for that reason, Ukraine got significantly better results from its old Soviet kit than did the Russians themselves.
Most kills are effected now by drones; the quality (and quantity) of aircraft, radar and missiles determines who controls the skies sufficiently inflict major damage on opponents' front lines.
Rather different figure to 1 in 3, albeit there is a risk of under-reporting in surveys.
I can't find any data beyond that 41% of women undergoing an abortion have had a previous one which goes into how many previous ones they may have had. Logic suggests this won't be merely the second yet absolutely final one for all of them.
And the religious freedom they were fighting fur didn't include anyone else's religion...
I have to be honest that my knowledge of this bit of history is pretty limited.
The way in which the story if the Maccabees is now incorporated into modern Jewish and Christian religions seems quite interesting.
On those lines, it also furnished the frame for a Handel oratorio, which gave us the tune for the hymn "Thine be the Glory".
I really hated to imagine how many wikipedia tabs I would have opened trying to get similar information otherwise.
It will take time to change from that.
Were China actually to invade Taiwan, using them would probably be as much hindrance in terms of logistics as it would help in any fighting.
https://www.channel4.com/news/israel-government-hosts-far-right-activist-tommy-robinson
Macron can be counted on because he's incredibly vain, and his Presidency has been a complete failure domestically and is currently descending into a chaotic farce, so opposing to Putin is all he has, which is why he turned from being pretty neutral to supporting Ukraine after his disastrous elections last year. Also he sees it as a way to extend French influence in his beloved EU now that the US has opted out. But his calculations might change back if the RN makes inroads on this issue.
Merz has been alright so far, but I'm not sure how long he will keep the German conservatives who want to go back to burning Russian gas at bay. Starmer has also done not too badly, in his uninspiring, technocratic way, but he's no Boris Johnson on this and only a fool would trust Jeremy Corbyn's former best friend if British opinion turned against the war.
So basically I think the instinctive good sense of the British public and its ancient tradition of standing up to continental tyrants is the strongest and most stalwart ally Ukraine has in Europe, and maybe the world, at the moment. We've made many mistakes, but we've been very good on this.
In what has been described as a 'catastrophic' security breach, cybercriminals accessed the cache of files by hacking a maintenance and construction contractor used by the MoD."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15205213/Russians-hack-files-EIGHT-MoD-bases-dark-web.html
Makes me feel old to think they're now at the point of celebrating 250 years rather than 200.
On my second day back at work on Thursday I got a pain in my ribs, but not on the side that I broke them three months ago. I managed the pain with ibuprofen and paracetamol, and managed to get through all four days ending yesterday. I imagined the pain was just a bad side strain
This morning the pain was ten times worse. My painkillers made no difference and breathing more than the shortest shallowest breath was agony. I called my Dad who drove me straight to Great Western Hospital in Swindon. The ECG, X-ray and CT scan seemed to indicate that the pain was just a bad strain, not heart or lung problems, and they were set to give me loads of morphine and send me home to take a week off
Then the blood test results came in. Apparently some inflammation measure and my white blood cell count were both worryingly high. So they’ve insisted I stay overnight so they can pump me full of antibiotics, because it might be sepsis
Unfortunately fourteen hours into my visit they still haven’t found a bed for me
He would completely wrong foot the world by offering Taiwan a fraternal friendship and trade deal.
Tel Aviv derby called off by police after 'violent riots'.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cgr4n07509wo
Finland's army mobilises to 280 000 with an additional reserve of 850 000 reservists. It also has more artillery than any other army in Western Europe.
You don't mess with Finland. They are prepared.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyzjp5n5kro
A-levels, T-levels, V-levels...
Through 2,9 mllion, 3 million soon.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730194
I am sure that someone engaged in terrorism against the Russian government, which is clearly justified, would be regarded as illegal terrorism by our legislation.