The Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban was wrong on every level. Please stop trying to excuse it because you think it plays into some corner of the omnicause nicely."
The director-general said personal politics had no place in the Corporation’s news department amid repeated controversy over BBC impartiality.
“You leave it at the door and your religion is journalism at the BBC. And the problem I’ve got is that people react quite chemically to that,” Mr Davie told the Cheltenham Literature Festival.
“So you can’t come into the newsroom with a Black Lives Matter T-shirt.
“We stand absolutely firmly against racism in any form. I find some of the hatred in society at the moment utterly abhorrent, and personally really upsetting.
“But that is a campaign that has politicised objectives, therefore is not appropriate for a journalist who may be covering that issue to be campaigning in that way,” he told an audience at the festival.
“And for some people joining the BBC, that is a very difficult thing to accept.
“I feel very strongly that if you walk into the BBC newsroom you cannot be holding a Kamala Harris mug when you come to the [US] election. No way.”
This kind of position was absolutely normal, and not just at the BBC, HMRC, the local hospital, the national trust, constabularies, but even political bodies like your local council would in the delivery of their services not participate in areas that were political, outside a few radical councils in the eighties. There was an expectation that you don’t campaign on the rate payer.
I don’t know if it is the Equality Act that is to blame, or is an excuse, but we now have normalised radical political and social action from charitable, private and public institutions that wouldn’t have in the past touched such things with a barge pole.
Social media, innit?
Too many folk think they have an untrammelled right to express their opinions without a filter, whether that be "black lives matter" T-shirts or "burn them in their hotels".
Not sure that BLM t-shirts and ‘burn them in their hotels’ are exactly equal but opposite ends of the same problem.
BLM is dramatically worse, as it’s given cover and described as “mostly peaceful” when cities across the USA were been burned to the ground. Nobody died as a result of that tweet, close to fifty died from the blm riots, and billions of dollars of property burnt to the ground. You give cover to extreme violence, you get extreme violence, don’t pretend you aren’t part of the problem.
'give cover'
Next you'll be saying pensioners in Palestine Action t shirts are giving cover for whenever the next Islamist atrocity will inevitably occur.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
One thing I find odd is that the GOP is unable to pass a budget despite a very loyal majority in both houses. The rules on these things seem very complex compared to here.
As I understand it, this one requires a supermajority (60 votes for) in the Senate to proceed. There is a reconciliation process for budget bills where debate is limited to 24 hours and a simple majority is needed, but it can only be used once in the calendar year, and has already been used back in March.
And so you end up with stupidly complex bills based once a year that can't possibly be properly scrutinised in 24 hours. Or government by executive order.
I think it'd be better to simply revert to a simple majority being needed to pass bills. And make sure each law passed has property scrutiny, and no need for the opposition to vote for things they are against to stop the government shutting down.
Just to repeat from upthread, this is Trump's current White House budget director: ..“We have to have a speaker that goes into these funding fights with a love for the shutdowns,” Vought said during a November 2022 briefing call, “because they create an opportunity to save the country.”..
"Ring, Lloyds Bank and Snapchat knocked offline in huge internet blackout Amazon web hosting crash takes down dozens of apps and websites
Dozens of internet services, games and apps including the HMRC website and banks are offline after a crash involving hosting company Amazon Web Services.
Web users were also unable to access services including the Ring doorbell app, Snapchat and Fortnite on Monday morning.
The blackout affected the Government’s Gateway login service, which includes HMRC and many other public services. Users also reported problems with Lloyds Bank and Halifax’s apps."
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
The House passed a budget, but the Senate (where 60 votes are required) has voted it down 10 times so far.
The Democrats in the Senate are not going to vote for a MAGA budget, quite obviously.
But at least 7 Dems are going to have to support a budget that can pass.
That gives them some leverage to get some of what they want but ultimately, as they're in a minority, they will have to accept some things they don't want.
The alternative is governmental shutdown whereby the people lose out and become ever more disenchanted by federal politicians.
This pattern will repeat, in various forms, irrespective of who controls Congress.
If the GOP don't have the votes for their MAGA budget then it's the GOP that have to compromise to get broader support.
Democrats are not obliged to vote for eyewatering increases in health costs.
Everywhere else it is accepted that the status quo continues until there are the votes for change. Only in the US so we see a government shutdown as a tactic to coerce legislators.
So we've gone from "the GOP are in the senate minority so they have to compromise" last year to "the GOP don't have the votes so they have to compromise" this year.
Compromise has to come from both sides.
If not then its a government shutdown and both sides will deserve blame.
Continually shouting "our side good, their side bad" irrespective of which side is in the majority and which in the minority achieves nothing.
"Ring, Lloyds Bank and Snapchat knocked offline in huge internet blackout Amazon web hosting crash takes down dozens of apps and websites
Dozens of internet services, games and apps including the HMRC website and banks are offline after a crash involving hosting company Amazon Web Services.
Web users were also unable to access services including the Ring doorbell app, Snapchat and Fortnite on Monday morning.
The blackout affected the Government’s Gateway login service, which includes HMRC and many other public services. Users also reported problems with Lloyds Bank and Halifax’s apps."
The Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban was wrong on every level. Please stop trying to excuse it because you think it plays into some corner of the omnicause nicely."
It's neoliberal centrist dad guy again. The only thing vaguely centrist dad about him is that you can pretty much predict exactly what his view will be on any subject (and boy is he keen on letting you know what they are).
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
I think it's pretty usual for most countries to require a budget to be passed every year*. I think the difference is that there's an acknowledgement in every other country that if a party doesn't have the votes to change the status quo, then a stopgap budget will be passed continuing the status quo.
In the US the divisions are so great that a government shutdown has been used to try to force passage of a budget that doesn't otherwise have the votes necessary to pass, that radically changes the status quo.
* In Britain the failure to pass a budget would bring down the government and force an election. The need to pass a budget by the end of the year is what is forcing the pace of the political crisis in France right now.
In England the development of the system whereby the king didn't have complete personal control over public finances but still needed the find funds for wars and other stuff was the powerful engine leading in the end to our sort of democracy. Most obviously it lay behind the 17th century civil wars, but was a live issue in 14th and 15th century.
Yes. Exactly so. Control of the money is the fundamental way that the Legislature asserts its control over the Executive.
It's also why the early medieval English kings would head to Winchester first, before being crowned in London. For a long while the treasury was kept in Winchester.
It is said that Prince (then) Charles nearly sold Blair on getting rid of the Civil List, in return for the Crown Revenues. Some tax was involved. It was going quite well until someone pointed out to Blair that he would be making the Monarchy completely independent of Parliamentary control...
Osborne effectively did it anyway funding the monarchy from Crown Estate revenues. Though unlike pre 17th century monarchs the King is only head of state not head of government too, it is the PM who is head of government and needs to fund wars the UK is involved in and now public services too
The Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban was wrong on every level. Please stop trying to excuse it because you think it plays into some corner of the omnicause nicely."
Donald Trump demanded that Ukraine submit to Vladimir Putin’s peace terms or face destruction in an angry meeting at the White House last week, it has emerged.
The US president, who spoke with his Russian counterpart shortly before hosting Volodymyr Zelensky, warned that Putin would “destroy” Ukraine unless a peace deal was in place.
Shouting and swearing, Mr Trump threw aside Ukrainian maps of the battlefield and pressured Mr Zelensky to surrender the Donetsk region to Russia.
Putin is demanding the withdrawal of Ukraine’s army from the crucial eastern territory as a precondition for peace.
However, the surrender of Donetsk is a red line for Ukraine, which has long refused to cede the territory, which Russia has failed to capture despite fighting since 2014.
Donald Trump demanded that Ukraine submit to Vladimir Putin’s peace terms or face destruction in an angry meeting at the White House last week, it has emerged.
The US president, who spoke with his Russian counterpart shortly before hosting Volodymyr Zelensky, warned that Putin would “destroy” Ukraine unless a peace deal was in place.
Shouting and swearing, Mr Trump threw aside Ukrainian maps of the battlefield and pressured Mr Zelensky to surrender the Donetsk region to Russia.
Putin is demanding the withdrawal of Ukraine’s army from the crucial eastern territory as a precondition for peace.
However, the surrender of Donetsk is a red line for Ukraine, which has long refused to cede the territory, which Russia has failed to capture despite fighting since 2014.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
The House passed a budget, but the Senate (where 60 votes are required) has voted it down 10 times so far.
The Democrats in the Senate are not going to vote for a MAGA budget, quite obviously.
But at least 7 Dems are going to have to support a budget that can pass.
That gives them some leverage to get some of what they want but ultimately, as they're in a minority, they will have to accept some things they don't want.
The alternative is governmental shutdown whereby the people lose out and become ever more disenchanted by federal politicians.
This pattern will repeat, in various forms, irrespective of who controls Congress.
If the GOP don't have the votes for their MAGA budget then it's the GOP that have to compromise to get broader support.
Democrats are not obliged to vote for eyewatering increases in health costs.
Everywhere else it is accepted that the status quo continues until there are the votes for change. Only in the US so we see a government shutdown as a tactic to coerce legislators.
So we've gone from "the GOP are in the senate minority so they have to compromise" last year to "the GOP don't have the votes so they have to compromise" this year.
And ?
The GOP write the budget, and they are not compromising.
Trump playbook time. Perhaps they can put together an AI clip of Nigel in a Spitfire shitting on the 'radicalised hard left mob' (though planes and Nige aren't a good combo).
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
One thing I find odd is that the GOP is unable to pass a budget despite a very loyal majority in both houses. The rules on these things seem very complex compared to here.
As I understand it, this one requires a supermajority (60 votes for) in the Senate to proceed. There is a reconciliation process for budget bills where debate is limited to 24 hours and a simple majority is needed, but it can only be used once in the calendar year, and has already been used back in March.
And so you end up with stupidly complex bills based once a year that can't possibly be properly scrutinised in 24 hours. Or government by executive order.
I think it'd be better to simply revert to a simple majority being needed to pass bills. And make sure each law passed has property scrutiny, and no need for the opposition to vote for things they are against to stop the government shutting down.
Just to repeat from upthread, this is Trump's current White House budget director: ..“We have to have a speaker that goes into these funding fights with a love for the shutdowns,” Vought said during a November 2022 briefing call, “because they create an opportunity to save the country.”..
Another quote from that article: ..“I don’t want President Trump having to lose a moment of time having fights in the Oval Office about whether something is legal or doable or moral.”..
Off topic, is this MoD being allowed to shoot down drones thing just a case of something must be done noise? Outside a live war situation can anyone see a scenario where live ordnance being fired into the skies of this sceptred isle will take place?
Plus most 'drones' are almost certainly not drones, but mistaken ID of lights in the sky. The UAP believers on here will tell you different, but don't believe them.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
The rules don't matter if they're not enforced. Trump has broken the Constitutional rules on budget spending already, but cancelling funding for Federal agencies mandated by Congress. And SCOTUS has said that it's fine.
So how much further will they take it?
This is really fundamental constitutional stuff. It's what Macron is struggling with in France. It's why the civil war was fought in England in the 17th century. Trump is gathering all the power of an absolute monarch.
If push were to come to shove, what does enforcement look like?
Is it something really bad? This century, it's usually something really bad.
At this stage, enforcing the rules on Trump would require Congress to impeach and convict Trump, ejecting him from office, and demonstrating to Vance, his successor, that he has to follow the Constitution, or they will do likewise.
Of course, the reaction to Trump being convicted would be pandemonium.
I suspect we are beyond that stage. We have only one branch of Government now. Congress is closed for business and SCOTUS are compliant. He is indeed the King.
Kings need successors. Time to fire Vance and install Don Jnr.
On early 2028 polls Republican primary voters prefer Vance to Trump Jr
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
One thing I find odd is that the GOP is unable to pass a budget despite a very loyal majority in both houses. The rules on these things seem very complex compared to here.
As I understand it, this one requires a supermajority (60 votes for) in the Senate to proceed. There is a reconciliation process for budget bills where debate is limited to 24 hours and a simple majority is needed, but it can only be used once in the calendar year, and has already been used back in March.
And so you end up with stupidly complex bills based once a year that can't possibly be properly scrutinised in 24 hours. Or government by executive order.
I think it'd be better to simply revert to a simple majority being needed to pass bills. And make sure each law passed has property scrutiny, and no need for the opposition to vote for things they are against to stop the government shutting down.
I believe the point is technically the cloture vote rather than the substantive one.
So you need 60 votes (was 67 until the mid-1970s) to bring down the guillotine on debate and move to a substantive vote. The reason for that is that a simple majority could otherwise effectively curtail all debate - i.e. bring a proposal, immediately bring down the guillotine, and vote without debate. So that would kill exactly the scrutiny you're after (and, let's face it, Trump and probably quite a few others would be perfectly happy with that).
You could do that in other ways, of course, but you do have the question of "how much debate/scrutiny is enough?" - Senate has historically answered that by saying it's enough when a supermajority of 60 says it's enough.
"Ring, Lloyds Bank and Snapchat knocked offline in huge internet blackout Amazon web hosting crash takes down dozens of apps and websites
Dozens of internet services, games and apps including the HMRC website and banks are offline after a crash involving hosting company Amazon Web Services.
Web users were also unable to access services including the Ring doorbell app, Snapchat and Fortnite on Monday morning.
The blackout affected the Government’s Gateway login service, which includes HMRC and many other public services. Users also reported problems with Lloyds Bank and Halifax’s apps."
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
The House passed a budget, but the Senate (where 60 votes are required) has voted it down 10 times so far.
The Democrats in the Senate are not going to vote for a MAGA budget, quite obviously.
But at least 7 Dems are going to have to support a budget that can pass.
That gives them some leverage to get some of what they want but ultimately, as they're in a minority, they will have to accept some things they don't want.
The alternative is governmental shutdown whereby the people lose out and become ever more disenchanted by federal politicians.
This pattern will repeat, in various forms, irrespective of who controls Congress.
That's why we see continuing resolutions (which keep the show on the road) while the two sides negotiate.
The GOP have chosen not to go with another continuing resolution, and have shut the government down, rather than compromise. Their best offer is "vote for the budget, and trust us to negotiate"; it doesn't work that way round, not least with a party which has demonstrated to everyone that its wod means nothing at all.
September 2024 continuing resolution December 2024 continuing resolution March 2025 continuing resolution
They've had time to negotiate, at some point decisions have to be made.
So the Dems have three choices - accept the budget, compromise to get some of what they want, government shutdown.
If they wanted more control over that decision then they needed to get more people elected last year.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
The rules don't matter if they're not enforced. Trump has broken the Constitutional rules on budget spending already, but cancelling funding for Federal agencies mandated by Congress. And SCOTUS has said that it's fine.
So how much further will they take it?
This is really fundamental constitutional stuff. It's what Macron is struggling with in France. It's why the civil war was fought in England in the 17th century. Trump is gathering all the power of an absolute monarch.
If push were to come to shove, what does enforcement look like?
Is it something really bad? This century, it's usually something really bad.
At this stage, enforcing the rules on Trump would require Congress to impeach and convict Trump, ejecting him from office, and demonstrating to Vance, his successor, that he has to follow the Constitution, or they will do likewise.
Of course, the reaction to Trump being convicted would be pandemonium.
I suspect we are beyond that stage. We have only one branch of Government now. Congress is closed for business and SCOTUS are compliant. He is indeed the King.
Kings need successors. Time to fire Vance and install Don Jnr.
On early 2028 polls Republican primary voters prefer Vance to Trump Jr
Vance leads the polls, but does that mean he's the preferred candidate of Republicans or the presumed preferred candidate of the Orange Emperor?
It seems quite likely a lot of that would melt away if King Donald I suddenly announced Vance was banished from the court. Unless and until he actually is President, Vance is very heavily reliant on Trump's continuing patronage.
"Ring, Lloyds Bank and Snapchat knocked offline in huge internet blackout Amazon web hosting crash takes down dozens of apps and websites
Dozens of internet services, games and apps including the HMRC website and banks are offline after a crash involving hosting company Amazon Web Services.
Web users were also unable to access services including the Ring doorbell app, Snapchat and Fortnite on Monday morning.
The blackout affected the Government’s Gateway login service, which includes HMRC and many other public services. Users also reported problems with Lloyds Bank and Halifax’s apps."
Thoughts and prayers for those who have to report notifiable everts to the regulators.
I have a friend who does these kinds of updates. No idea how he sleeps at night - and he's not on as much money as you might think.
After the RBS screw up in 2012 and the TSB screw up in 2018 I get stressed when the IT director emails and tells us there’s an update scheduled for later on the week.
Donald Trump demanded that Ukraine submit to Vladimir Putin’s peace terms or face destruction in an angry meeting at the White House last week, it has emerged.
The US president, who spoke with his Russian counterpart shortly before hosting Volodymyr Zelensky, warned that Putin would “destroy” Ukraine unless a peace deal was in place.
Shouting and swearing, Mr Trump threw aside Ukrainian maps of the battlefield and pressured Mr Zelensky to surrender the Donetsk region to Russia.
Putin is demanding the withdrawal of Ukraine’s army from the crucial eastern territory as a precondition for peace.
However, the surrender of Donetsk is a red line for Ukraine, which has long refused to cede the territory, which Russia has failed to capture despite fighting since 2014.
Just have a ceasefire on current lines, which gibes the Russians part but not all of Donetsk
While I have little time for @Dura_Ace’s sympathies in this conflict, I suspect that he is right, that a ceasefire on current lines, with the rest of Ukraine firmly aligned with the West, would be seen as a defeat in Russia.
The best comparison I can think of would be the USA occupying 20% of Iraq, after years of fighting, and a million casualties.
Seems to me to take down pretty much the entire (Western) internet is easier than you might think. Only a few companies need to be targetted I think - AWS and Cloudflare. Probably another big beast in the background too. Take them out and Xi or Putin's your uncle.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
The House passed a budget, but the Senate (where 60 votes are required) has voted it down 10 times so far.
The Democrats in the Senate are not going to vote for a MAGA budget, quite obviously.
But at least 7 Dems are going to have to support a budget that can pass.
That gives them some leverage to get some of what they want but ultimately, as they're in a minority, they will have to accept some things they don't want.
The alternative is governmental shutdown whereby the people lose out and become ever more disenchanted by federal politicians.
This pattern will repeat, in various forms, irrespective of who controls Congress.
If the GOP don't have the votes for their MAGA budget then it's the GOP that have to compromise to get broader support.
Democrats are not obliged to vote for eyewatering increases in health costs.
Everywhere else it is accepted that the status quo continues until there are the votes for change. Only in the US so we see a government shutdown as a tactic to coerce legislators.
So we've gone from "the GOP are in the senate minority so they have to compromise" last year to "the GOP don't have the votes so they have to compromise" this year.
Compromise has to come from both sides.
If not then its a government shutdown and both sides will deserve blame.
Continually shouting "our side good, their side bad" irrespective of which side is in the majority and which in the minority achieves nothing.
It's only the GOP that use a government shutdown as a tactic to force change from the status quo that they don't have the votes for.
"Ring, Lloyds Bank and Snapchat knocked offline in huge internet blackout Amazon web hosting crash takes down dozens of apps and websites
Dozens of internet services, games and apps including the HMRC website and banks are offline after a crash involving hosting company Amazon Web Services.
Web users were also unable to access services including the Ring doorbell app, Snapchat and Fortnite on Monday morning.
The blackout affected the Government’s Gateway login service, which includes HMRC and many other public services. Users also reported problems with Lloyds Bank and Halifax’s apps."
Thoughts and prayers for those who have to report notifiable everts to the regulators.
I have a friend who does these kinds of updates. No idea how he sleeps at night - and he's not on as much money as you might think.
After the RBS screw up in 2012 and the TSB screw up in 2018 I get stressed when the IT director emails and tells us there’s an update scheduled for later on the week.
Latest Windows 11 / Server 2025 update from last week is a real mess.
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
"Ring, Lloyds Bank and Snapchat knocked offline in huge internet blackout Amazon web hosting crash takes down dozens of apps and websites
Dozens of internet services, games and apps including the HMRC website and banks are offline after a crash involving hosting company Amazon Web Services.
Web users were also unable to access services including the Ring doorbell app, Snapchat and Fortnite on Monday morning.
The blackout affected the Government’s Gateway login service, which includes HMRC and many other public services. Users also reported problems with Lloyds Bank and Halifax’s apps."
Thoughts and prayers for those who have to report notifiable everts to the regulators.
I have a friend who does these kinds of updates. No idea how he sleeps at night - and he's not on as much money as you might think.
After the RBS screw up in 2012 and the TSB screw up in 2018 I get stressed when the IT director emails and tells us there’s an update scheduled for later on the week.
Latest Windows 11 / Server 2025 update from last week is a real mess.
FTFY.
Annoyed that MS have depreciated Windows 10 which was perfectly functional and sold only a few years ago and still has working machines within their lifetime.
Especially since Windows 10 was sold as a 'final' version of Windows and that there is nothing positive I can see from "upgrading" from 10 to 11.
Unless and until he actually is President, Vance is very heavily reliant on Trump's continuing patronage.
In his speech to the Marines yesterday Vance said he became VP "To serve Trump". Not the American people
And that's why he got the job, and why he keeps it... Trump was very clear he didn't want another Pence (whose views are a long, long way from mine but did ultimately do his duty to the Constitution).
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
The Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban was wrong on every level. Please stop trying to excuse it because you think it plays into some corner of the omnicause nicely."
Off topic, is this MoD being allowed to shoot down drones thing just a case of something must be done noise? Outside a live war situation can anyone see a scenario where live ordnance being fired into the skies of this sceptred isle will take place?
Plus most 'drones' are almost certainly not drones, but mistaken ID of lights in the sky. The UAP believers on here will tell you different, but don't believe them.
Other way round. A lot of mysterious lights in the sky are due to rehearsals of drone light shows (the new fireworks for corporate events).
The Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban was wrong on every level. Please stop trying to excuse it because you think it plays into some corner of the omnicause nicely."
It's neoliberal centrist dad guy again. The only thing vaguely centrist dad about him is that you can pretty much predict exactly what his view will be on any subject (and boy is he keen on letting you know what they are).
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
Don't tell me - a bunch of people still using AWS East Coast as the only instance? After the last fucking time? Really?
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
No, I think it was me. I tried to cancel my Amazon Prime subscription this morning and pressed the back button 😟
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
The article mentions Nottingham as well. Clearly, something is wrong with maternity care at a wider level than one trust or one nurse.
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
It's always DNS is something of a meme on tech sites.
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
Don't tell me - a bunch of people still using AWS East Coast as the only instance? After the last fucking time? Really?
Sadly it appears Amazon us AWS East Coast as the only instance for several of their management systems. From Reddit
Several management services are hosted in us-east-1
Seems to me to take down pretty much the entire (Western) internet is easier than you might think. Only a few companies need to be targetted I think - AWS and Cloudflare. Probably another big beast in the background too. Take them out and Xi or Putin's your uncle.
I can now see the point of Birmingham City council banning the Maccabi football supporters.
Yes and no. Plenty of other teams in UEFA have troublesome hooligans, yet the game in Birmingham is the only time I can recall where away fans have been banned.
No-one suggests that they are the good guys. But the issue is anti-semitism.
"Ring, Lloyds Bank and Snapchat knocked offline in huge internet blackout Amazon web hosting crash takes down dozens of apps and websites
Dozens of internet services, games and apps including the HMRC website and banks are offline after a crash involving hosting company Amazon Web Services.
Web users were also unable to access services including the Ring doorbell app, Snapchat and Fortnite on Monday morning.
The blackout affected the Government’s Gateway login service, which includes HMRC and many other public services. Users also reported problems with Lloyds Bank and Halifax’s apps."
Thoughts and prayers for those who have to report notifiable everts to the regulators.
I have a friend who does these kinds of updates. No idea how he sleeps at night - and he's not on as much money as you might think.
After the RBS screw up in 2012 and the TSB screw up in 2018 I get stressed when the IT director emails and tells us there’s an update scheduled for later on the week.
Seems to me to take down pretty much the entire (Western) internet is easier than you might think. Only a few companies need to be targetted I think - AWS and Cloudflare. Probably another big beast in the background too. Take them out and Xi or Putin's your uncle.
"Ring, Lloyds Bank and Snapchat knocked offline in huge internet blackout Amazon web hosting crash takes down dozens of apps and websites
Dozens of internet services, games and apps including the HMRC website and banks are offline after a crash involving hosting company Amazon Web Services.
Web users were also unable to access services including the Ring doorbell app, Snapchat and Fortnite on Monday morning.
The blackout affected the Government’s Gateway login service, which includes HMRC and many other public services. Users also reported problems with Lloyds Bank and Halifax’s apps."
Thoughts and prayers for those who have to report notifiable everts to the regulators.
I have a friend who does these kinds of updates. No idea how he sleeps at night - and he's not on as much money as you might think.
After the RBS screw up in 2012 and the TSB screw up in 2018 I get stressed when the IT director emails and tells us there’s an update scheduled for later on the week.
Seems to me to take down pretty much the entire (Western) internet is easier than you might think. Only a few companies need to be targetted I think - AWS and Cloudflare. Probably another big beast in the background too. Take them out and Xi or Putin's your uncle.
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
Of the bit I have put in bold only 'of', 'the' and 'in' mean anything to me at all. Is it just me?
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
No, I think it was me. I tried to cancel my Amazon Prime subscription this morning and pressed the back button 😟
Still, I hope you enjoyed saying 'Fuck you Bezos'.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
Off topic, is this MoD being allowed to shoot down drones thing just a case of something must be done noise? Outside a live war situation can anyone see a scenario where live ordnance being fired into the skies of this sceptred isle will take place?
Plus most 'drones' are almost certainly not drones, but mistaken ID of lights in the sky. The UAP believers on here will tell you different, but don't believe them.
Other way round. A lot of mysterious lights in the sky are due to rehearsals of drone light shows (the new fireworks for corporate events).
Have seen this near Frome and it was impressive. I was more thinking about the ones near airports and military bases.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
The House passed a budget, but the Senate (where 60 votes are required) has voted it down 10 times so far.
The Democrats in the Senate are not going to vote for a MAGA budget, quite obviously.
But at least 7 Dems are going to have to support a budget that can pass.
That gives them some leverage to get some of what they want but ultimately, as they're in a minority, they will have to accept some things they don't want.
The alternative is governmental shutdown whereby the people lose out and become ever more disenchanted by federal politicians.
This pattern will repeat, in various forms, irrespective of who controls Congress.
If the GOP don't have the votes for their MAGA budget then it's the GOP that have to compromise to get broader support.
Democrats are not obliged to vote for eyewatering increases in health costs.
Everywhere else it is accepted that the status quo continues until there are the votes for change. Only in the US so we see a government shutdown as a tactic to coerce legislators.
So we've gone from "the GOP are in the senate minority so they have to compromise" last year to "the GOP don't have the votes so they have to compromise" this year.
Compromise has to come from both sides.
If not then its a government shutdown and both sides will deserve blame.
Continually shouting "our side good, their side bad" irrespective of which side is in the majority and which in the minority achieves nothing.
It's only the GOP that use a government shutdown as a tactic to force change from the status quo that they don't have the votes for.
The whining and self-righteousness from any side is tedious.
The reality needs to be dealt with and for the Senate Dems that is:
Accept the budget or negotiate for some changes or government shutdown.
They can make their own decisions as to the socioeconomic effects and political consequences of the options.
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
Of the bit I have put in bold only 'of', 'the' and 'in' mean anything to me at all. Is it just me?
DNS resolution is basically like what an address means, on the internet.
Supposed to be simple, yet seems to get buggered up a lot.
Seems to me to take down pretty much the entire (Western) internet is easier than you might think. Only a few companies need to be targetted I think - AWS and Cloudflare. Probably another big beast in the background too. Take them out and Xi or Putin's your uncle.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
I've just listened to the abridged version of Alastair Campbell's diaries' The Blair Years' and it's unputdownable.
It's an absolute page turner. From '97-'07 when he (Campbell) resigned. Just six hours long. I read the book when it came out and it was excellent but this cut down version long after the dust has settled is better.
It answers so many of todays conundrums like 'why is Starmer so crap at being PM?'
They're all there and they're all so obvious.
Most important is that unlike Blair he has no moral compass. Infact he has no compass at all.
He's also short of an Alastair Campbell to make sure the well oiled machine stays well oiled and with the ruthlessness to ditch it if it falters.
Seems to me to take down pretty much the entire (Western) internet is easier than you might think. Only a few companies need to be targetted I think - AWS and Cloudflare. Probably another big beast in the background too. Take them out and Xi or Putin's your uncle.
It's really quite shocking to find the government is reliant on Amazon services.
Between them, AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud completely dominate the market for cloud services. I'd think you'd be hard pressed to find any major web service or app that didn't depend on one of them.
I can now see the point of Birmingham City council banning the Maccabi football supporters.
Yes and no. Plenty of other teams in UEFA have troublesome hooligans, yet the game in Birmingham is the only time I can recall where away fans have been banned.
No-one suggests that they are the good guys. But the issue is anti-semitism.
There have been numerous examples of teams having to play behind closed doors due to the behaviour of their fans.
At breakfast I was having an interesting little dig into Mrs James Orr aka Rev Helen Orr, who is a Church of England vicar, and daughter of Simon Barrington-Ward, who was a REALLY interesting Bishop of Coventry about 3 decades ago, and also head of the Church Missionary Society for a decade, and interested in contemplative spirituality. She herself is interested in societal questions such as how girls can grow into women in our current cultural environment. But the trail stopped when I needed to follow it to substack.
Fascinating situational dynamics for someone who is SWMBO to one of JD Vance's key mentors.
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
Of the bit I have put in bold only 'of', 'the' and 'in' mean anything to me at all. Is it just me?
DNS is what converts names that humans can understand like https://vf.politicalbetting.com into IP addresses that computers understand like 162.159.128.79
Responsibility for maintaining this absolutely crucial fundamental building block of the entire World economy is distributed, or shared, among millions of different organizations, some of which are less competent than others.
Also, given the fundamental nature of DNS, and how essential it is, it has appallingly bad security
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
It is far from unprecedented, in many past miscarriages of justice, for that not to happen for a plethora of reasons. The defence are under no obligation to do so, and the quality of the defence is not always what it should be.
Now that is not proof that there was a miscarriage here, but there are so many well documented question marks over this case, that a thorough review of it is due and could be happening at some point. Our justice system is notoriously slow though, which means both that those who are guilty wait far too long to face conviction, those who are wronged wait far too long to see their attackers brought to justice, but also that those who have been wrongly convicted wait far too long to see it overturned.
Anyone who claims any certainty over this case is a fool. There is a reason why we have an appeals process and it has not yet played out. Hopefully the truth, one way or another, will see the light of day one day.
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
Of the bit I have put in bold only 'of', 'the' and 'in' mean anything to me at all. Is it just me?
DNS resolution is basically like what an address means, on the internet.
Supposed to be simple, yet seems to get buggered up a lot.
Think of it as the internet’s electronic phone book.
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
US East seems to fall over a lot. AP-Northeast-1 basically never goes down, you can throw an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident at it and it dgaf.
There's an AWS outage this morning impacting lots of services; it started around 07.30 UK time. People who use services like Alexa as their alarm clocks have just had a helpful reminder that using a device reliant on connectivity to carry out a task that doesn't need connectivity is not a good idea.
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
Of the bit I have put in bold only 'of', 'the' and 'in' mean anything to me at all. Is it just me?
DNS stands for something like, "Domain Name Service". It's a service that translates a domain name - like politicalbetting.com - into an IP address, which the computer can use to find the other computer it is looking for.
If it's misconfigured in some way then that's a hard stop on internet traffic as the computers simply don't know where to look.
The "DynamoDB API endpoint" is the name of a service running on one of the AWS computers, which is part of a whole system of computers called "US-East-1", from the name of which we can identify that this datacentre is number one of Amazon's datacentres in the east of the US. They'll likely have others with names such as "US-West-2", or "EU-West-1" (which is probably in Dublin).
"DNS resolution" is the process of using DNS to convert a domain name to an IP address.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
Indeed. Far from unprecedented, sadly, in miscarriages of justice.
I've just listened to the abridged version of Alastair Campbell's diaries' The Blair Years' and it's unputdownable.
It's an absolute page turner. From '97-'07 when he (Campbell) resigned. Just six hours long. I read the book when it came out and it was excellent but this cut down version long after the dust has settled is better.
It answers so many of todays conundrums like 'why is Starmer so crap at being PM?'
They're all there and they're all so obvious.
Most important is that unlike Blair he has no moral compass. Infact he has no compass at all.
He's also short of an Alastair Campbell to make sure the well oiled machine stays well oiled and with the ruthlessness to ditch it if it falters.
Alastair Campbell writes a book saying how important Alistair Campbell was? I'm shocked. Shocked.
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
Of the bit I have put in bold only 'of', 'the' and 'in' mean anything to me at all. Is it just me?
As I understand it...
Lots of services can no longer find the data they need because the address book that tells them where it is is unavailable.
Some of those services are used by Amazon themselves to manage their network, so it has all gone pear shaped.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
The House passed a budget, but the Senate (where 60 votes are required) has voted it down 10 times so far.
The Democrats in the Senate are not going to vote for a MAGA budget, quite obviously.
But at least 7 Dems are going to have to support a budget that can pass.
That gives them some leverage to get some of what they want but ultimately, as they're in a minority, they will have to accept some things they don't want.
The alternative is governmental shutdown whereby the people lose out and become ever more disenchanted by federal politicians.
This pattern will repeat, in various forms, irrespective of who controls Congress.
That's why we see continuing resolutions (which keep the show on the road) while the two sides negotiate.
The GOP have chosen not to go with another continuing resolution, and have shut the government down, rather than compromise. Their best offer is "vote for the budget, and trust us to negotiate"; it doesn't work that way round, not least with a party which has demonstrated to everyone that its wod means nothing at all.
September 2024 continuing resolution December 2024 continuing resolution March 2025 continuing resolution
They've had time to negotiate, at some point decisions have to be made.
So the Dems have three choices - accept the budget, compromise to get some of what they want, government shutdown.
If they wanted more control over that decision then they needed to get more people elected last year.
Ditto the GOP. Who are the party with control of Congress, and are refusing compromise.
The Democrats are not going to vote to gut healthcare.
I can now see the point of Birmingham City council banning the Maccabi football supporters.
Yes and no. Plenty of other teams in UEFA have troublesome hooligans, yet the game in Birmingham is the only time I can recall where away fans have been banned.
No-one suggests that they are the good guys. But the issue is anti-semitism.
No, it really isn't. At least, it probably isn't. The issue is the rioting at their last game in Amsterdam where Israeli fans attacked local Muslims and then it all kicked off bigly as local thugs, many antisemitic no doubt, are up for a ruck. Transferring this scenario to Birmingham is what the police are worried about.
And as I posted earlier, I can remember in the dim and distant past, West Ham fans being banned from European games, so this is not new. Liverpool fans were also famously banned after Heysel. And all this is without betting on Israeli police banning Israeli fans unless you think Tel Aviv's Chief Constable is an Iranian mole.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
One thing I find odd is that the GOP is unable to pass a budget despite a very loyal majority in both houses. The rules on these things seem very complex compared to here.
As I understand it, this one requires a supermajority (60 votes for) in the Senate to proceed. There is a reconciliation process for budget bills where debate is limited to 24 hours and a simple majority is needed, but it can only be used once in the calendar year, and has already been used back in March.
And so you end up with stupidly complex bills based once a year that can't possibly be properly scrutinised in 24 hours. Or government by executive order.
I think it'd be better to simply revert to a simple majority being needed to pass bills. And make sure each law passed has property scrutiny, and no need for the opposition to vote for things they are against to stop the government shutting down.
I believe the point is technically the cloture vote rather than the substantive one.
So you need 60 votes (was 67 until the mid-1970s) to bring down the guillotine on debate and move to a substantive vote. The reason for that is that a simple majority could otherwise effectively curtail all debate - i.e. bring a proposal, immediately bring down the guillotine, and vote without debate. So that would kill exactly the scrutiny you're after (and, let's face it, Trump and probably quite a few others would be perfectly happy with that).
You could do that in other ways, of course, but you do have the question of "how much debate/scrutiny is enough?" - Senate has historically answered that by saying it's enough when a supermajority of 60 says it's enough.
The “Senate Filibuster” has been a subject of debate for decades. No-one dares to remove it when they have a majority, because of the precident it would set and allow the other lot to do the same a couple of years later.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
The House passed a budget, but the Senate (where 60 votes are required) has voted it down 10 times so far.
The Democrats in the Senate are not going to vote for a MAGA budget, quite obviously.
But at least 7 Dems are going to have to support a budget that can pass.
That gives them some leverage to get some of what they want but ultimately, as they're in a minority, they will have to accept some things they don't want.
The alternative is governmental shutdown whereby the people lose out and become ever more disenchanted by federal politicians.
This pattern will repeat, in various forms, irrespective of who controls Congress.
If the GOP don't have the votes for their MAGA budget then it's the GOP that have to compromise to get broader support.
Democrats are not obliged to vote for eyewatering increases in health costs.
Everywhere else it is accepted that the status quo continues until there are the votes for change. Only in the US so we see a government shutdown as a tactic to coerce legislators.
So we've gone from "the GOP are in the senate minority so they have to compromise" last year to "the GOP don't have the votes so they have to compromise" this year.
Compromise has to come from both sides.
If not then its a government shutdown and both sides will deserve blame.
Continually shouting "our side good, their side bad" irrespective of which side is in the majority and which in the minority achieves nothing.
It's only the GOP that use a government shutdown as a tactic to force change from the status quo that they don't have the votes for.
The whining and self-righteousness from any side is tedious.
The reality needs to be dealt with and for the Senate Dems that is:
Accept the budget or negotiate for some changes or government shutdown.
They can make their own decisions as to the socioeconomic effects and political consequences of the options.
The point is that the Democrats experience has been that the reaction to negotiating and being reasonable is for the GOP to escalate their unreasonableness. And that's been more effective for the GOP than the Democrats.
Ultimately this is a political issue, and it will only be resolved when the public stop approving of the GOP tactics. The Democrats have been very poor in not winning that political argument decisively.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
The answer to your last question was revealed in the a recent Private Eye article on the topic.
Trials like these always pre-trial hearings where the expert evidence is discussed & the points the prosecution & defence intend to make in court are agreed with the judge (forgive me if I don’t get the exact details correct - I’m not a trial lawyer). During these discussions it was agreed amongst the experts that insulin overdose was the most likely explanation for the collapse of two of the babies, based on the available evidence.
The problem for Letby is that once you think one baby has been murdered, it becomes likely that the others were & she is the most likely culprit for many of them: Serial killers don’t usually stop at two. With their experts having agreed at the pre-trial hearing that insulin overdose was the most likely explanation for the deaths of those two babies, the argument that no babies were killed in Cheshire was bound to fail in court.
None of the experts present had particular expertise in neonatal biochemistry & the defence didn’t have a pathologist. Nor was a statistician present who might have critiqued the statistics being used.
Post-trial, a variety of people with relevant expertise have raised serious questions about the quality of the insulin evidence, but this has never been put before a court - the way appeals are structured in this country makes that impossible.
Donald Trump demanded that Ukraine submit to Vladimir Putin’s peace terms or face destruction in an angry meeting at the White House last week, it has emerged.
The US president, who spoke with his Russian counterpart shortly before hosting Volodymyr Zelensky, warned that Putin would “destroy” Ukraine unless a peace deal was in place.
Shouting and swearing, Mr Trump threw aside Ukrainian maps of the battlefield and pressured Mr Zelensky to surrender the Donetsk region to Russia.
Putin is demanding the withdrawal of Ukraine’s army from the crucial eastern territory as a precondition for peace.
However, the surrender of Donetsk is a red line for Ukraine, which has long refused to cede the territory, which Russia has failed to capture despite fighting since 2014.
Just have a ceasefire on current lines, which gibes the Russians part but not all of Donetsk
While I have little time for @Dura_Ace’s sympathies in this conflict, I suspect that he is right, that a ceasefire on current lines, with the rest of Ukraine firmly aligned with the West, would be seen as a defeat in Russia.
The best comparison I can think of would be the USA occupying 20% of Iraq, after years of fighting, and a million casualties.
Ukraine have already said they will accept a ceasefire without further preconditions. Putin is the only one setting conditions.
Seems to me to take down pretty much the entire (Western) internet is easier than you might think. Only a few companies need to be targetted I think - AWS and Cloudflare. Probably another big beast in the background too. Take them out and Xi or Putin's your uncle.
It's really quite shocking to find the government is reliant on Amazon services.
Between them, AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud completely dominate the market for cloud services. I'd think you'd be hard pressed to find any major web service or app that didn't depend on one of them.
One of the rare exceptions is Lidl, who decided not to be reliant on outsiders and built their own system.
Ayoub Khan MP was far more honest than most regarding the Maccabi Tel Aviv ban. Look at his original statement below. The ban is because of ‘the political dynamics…’ In other words, the ban is not to protect us from them, but them from us…which remains utterly shameful."
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
The problem is second and third order dependencies. You go to a site which is safely on Azure (say) but it is funded by adverts which are served from Amazon so pages time out waiting for burger pictures to load, or one small function uses some commercial software that needs to check it is not pirated but its licence server is on AWS.
It's a bit like the banking crisis where the financial system froze because no-one could tell if Bank A was safe or was dependent on Bank B which had lent too much to Back C which needed Bank A to stay open.
We are aware of the incident affecting Amazon Web Services. We are in contact with the company who are working to restore services as quickly as possible.
Never make yourself reliant on one system. People seem to have fogotten that recently. Have lots of different ways of doing the same thing, independent of each other.
I can now see the point of Birmingham City council banning the Maccabi football supporters.
Yes and no. Plenty of other teams in UEFA have troublesome hooligans, yet the game in Birmingham is the only time I can recall where away fans have been banned.
No-one suggests that they are the good guys. But the issue is anti-semitism.
No, it really isn't. At least, it probably isn't. The issue is the rioting at their last game in Amsterdam where Israeli fans attacked local Muslims and then it all kicked off bigly as local thugs, many antisemitic no doubt, are up for a ruck. Transferring this scenario to Birmingham is what the police are worried about.
And as I posted earlier, I can remember in the dim and distant past, West Ham fans being banned from European games, so this is not new. Liverpool fans were also famously banned after Heysel. And all this is without betting on Israeli police banning Israeli fans unless you think Tel Aviv's Chief Constable is an Iranian mole.
I too recall the really bad times of the eighties and football violence. Its why I get so pissed off at Liverpool fan sentimentality around Hillsborough (an awful tragedy, to be clear) while one of the biggest reasons for Hillsborough was fan behaviour, such as that displayed by Liverpool fans at Heysel. Yes the police were shits and lied. Yes the stadium was unsafe. But fan behaviour (from all clubs) led to the need for cages at football.
I watch Premiership rugby all the time. There is no segregation. What the eff is wrong with football fans?
But on this specific case, unless we are shown the evidence, I, and many others, will believe it is the threat of antisemitic violence from the pro-Gaza lobby that is the biggest reason for the ban.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
One thing I find odd is that the GOP is unable to pass a budget despite a very loyal majority in both houses. The rules on these things seem very complex compared to here.
As I understand it, this one requires a supermajority (60 votes for) in the Senate to proceed. There is a reconciliation process for budget bills where debate is limited to 24 hours and a simple majority is needed, but it can only be used once in the calendar year, and has already been used back in March.
And so you end up with stupidly complex bills based once a year that can't possibly be properly scrutinised in 24 hours. Or government by executive order.
I think it'd be better to simply revert to a simple majority being needed to pass bills. And make sure each law passed has property scrutiny, and no need for the opposition to vote for things they are against to stop the government shutting down.
I believe the point is technically the cloture vote rather than the substantive one.
So you need 60 votes (was 67 until the mid-1970s) to bring down the guillotine on debate and move to a substantive vote. The reason for that is that a simple majority could otherwise effectively curtail all debate - i.e. bring a proposal, immediately bring down the guillotine, and vote without debate. So that would kill exactly the scrutiny you're after (and, let's face it, Trump and probably quite a few others would be perfectly happy with that).
You could do that in other ways, of course, but you do have the question of "how much debate/scrutiny is enough?" - Senate has historically answered that by saying it's enough when a supermajority of 60 says it's enough.
The “Senate Filibuster” has been a subject of debate for decades. No-one dares to remove it when they have a majority, because of the precident it would set and allow the other lot to do the same a couple of years later.
I don't think that's quite true.
It's been set aside on quite a few occasions; most recently when Trump wanted a number of judges confirmed without further scrutiny. And not a few Democrats are proposing that it be ditched completely, as a relic of more consensual times, which has outlived its usefulness.
Never make yourself reliant on one system. People seem to have fogotten that recently. Have lots of different ways of doing the same thing, independent of each other.
As noted upthread, you can't be sure that your "diverse" system are not themselves reliant on some common system upstream
Seems to me to take down pretty much the entire (Western) internet is easier than you might think. Only a few companies need to be targetted I think - AWS and Cloudflare. Probably another big beast in the background too. Take them out and Xi or Putin's your uncle.
It's really quite shocking to find the government is reliant on Amazon services.
Between them, AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud completely dominate the market for cloud services. I'd think you'd be hard pressed to find any major web service or app that didn't depend on one of them.
One of the rare exceptions is Lidl, who decided not to be reliant on outsiders and built their own system.
Also Bluesky, apparently they mostly run their own physical servers.
Comments
Next you'll be saying pensioners in Palestine Action t shirts are giving cover for whenever the next Islamist atrocity will inevitably occur.
..“We have to have a speaker that goes into these funding fights with a love for the shutdowns,” Vought said during a November 2022 briefing call, “because they create an opportunity to save the country.”..
Thoughts and prayers for those who have to report notifiable everts to the regulators.
Compromise has to come from both sides.
If not then its a government shutdown and both sides will deserve blame.
Continually shouting "our side good, their side bad" irrespective of which side is in the majority and which in the minority achieves nothing.
The only thing vaguely centrist dad about him is that you can pretty much predict exactly what his view will be on any subject (and boy is he keen on letting you know what they are).
https://bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gpxnk9n4po
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
@RupertLowe10
A police officer, in uniform, has been recorded on camera in public stating that I have 'racist convictions'.
I've been informed where/when this happened, and I will be pursuing it with the relevant police force.
It is simply unacceptable, and must not be tolerated."
https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/1979931275495448742
Maybe the most impactful victim of the AWS outage - Your Party's foundational documents.
https://x.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1980197062609392112
The GOP write the budget, and they are not compromising.
https://x.com/CapS45/status/1980023986655203553
..“I don’t want President Trump having to lose a moment of time having fights in the Oval Office about whether something is legal or doable or moral.”..
So you need 60 votes (was 67 until the mid-1970s) to bring down the guillotine on debate and move to a substantive vote. The reason for that is that a simple majority could otherwise effectively curtail all debate - i.e. bring a proposal, immediately bring down the guillotine, and vote without debate. So that would kill exactly the scrutiny you're after (and, let's face it, Trump and probably quite a few others would be perfectly happy with that).
You could do that in other ways, of course, but you do have the question of "how much debate/scrutiny is enough?" - Senate has historically answered that by saying it's enough when a supermajority of 60 says it's enough.
It is quite possible that the reason that it took a while to catch Letby was the poor state of care in the unit she worked in.
December 2024 continuing resolution
March 2025 continuing resolution
They've had time to negotiate, at some point decisions have to be made.
So the Dems have three choices - accept the budget, compromise to get some of what they want, government shutdown.
If they wanted more control over that decision then they needed to get more people elected last year.
It seems quite likely a lot of that would melt away if King Donald I suddenly announced Vance was banished from the court. Unless and until he actually is President, Vance is very heavily reliant on Trump's continuing patronage.
The best comparison I can think of would be the USA occupying 20% of Iraq, after years of fighting, and a million casualties.
AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
Annoyed that MS have depreciated Windows 10 which was perfectly functional and sold only a few years ago and still has working machines within their lifetime.
Especially since Windows 10 was sold as a 'final' version of Windows and that there is nothing positive I can see from "upgrading" from 10 to 11.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
Several management services are hosted in us-east-1
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
AWS Organizations
AWS Account Management
Route 53 Private DNS
Part of AWS Network Manager (control plane)
@grok
how do i fix the aws outage
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730194
No-one suggests that they are the good guys. But the issue is anti-semitism.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
The reality needs to be dealt with and for the Senate Dems that is:
Accept the budget or negotiate for some changes or government shutdown.
They can make their own decisions as to the socioeconomic effects and political consequences of the options.
Supposed to be simple, yet seems to get buggered up a lot.
Everything is dependent on something
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
It's an absolute page turner. From '97-'07 when he (Campbell) resigned. Just six hours long. I read the book when it came out and it was excellent but this cut down version long after the dust has settled is better.
It answers so many of todays conundrums like 'why is Starmer so crap at being PM?'
They're all there and they're all so obvious.
Most important is that unlike Blair he has no moral compass. Infact he has no compass at all.
He's also short of an Alastair Campbell to make sure the well oiled machine stays well oiled and with the ruthlessness to ditch it if it falters.
At breakfast I was having an interesting little dig into Mrs James Orr aka Rev Helen Orr, who is a Church of England vicar, and daughter of Simon Barrington-Ward, who was a REALLY interesting Bishop of Coventry about 3 decades ago, and also head of the Church Missionary Society for a decade, and interested in contemplative spirituality. She herself is interested in societal questions such as how girls can grow into women in our current cultural environment. But the trail stopped when I needed to follow it to substack.
Fascinating situational dynamics for someone who is SWMBO to one of JD Vance's key mentors.
Good morning everyone.
Responsibility for maintaining this absolutely crucial fundamental building block of the entire World economy is distributed, or shared, among millions of different organizations, some of which are less competent than others.
Also, given the fundamental nature of DNS, and how essential it is, it has appallingly bad security
Now that is not proof that there was a miscarriage here, but there are so many well documented question marks over this case, that a thorough review of it is due and could be happening at some point. Our justice system is notoriously slow though, which means both that those who are guilty wait far too long to face conviction, those who are wronged wait far too long to see their attackers brought to justice, but also that those who have been wrongly convicted wait far too long to see it overturned.
Anyone who claims any certainty over this case is a fool. There is a reason why we have an appeals process and it has not yet played out. Hopefully the truth, one way or another, will see the light of day one day.
It translates “amazon.com” into “213.218.32.56”
There's an AWS outage this morning impacting lots of services; it started around 07.30 UK time. People who use services like Alexa as their alarm clocks have just had a helpful reminder that using a device reliant on connectivity to carry out a task that doesn't need connectivity is not a good idea.
If it's misconfigured in some way then that's a hard stop on internet traffic as the computers simply don't know where to look.
The "DynamoDB API endpoint" is the name of a service running on one of the AWS computers, which is part of a whole system of computers called "US-East-1", from the name of which we can identify that this datacentre is number one of Amazon's datacentres in the east of the US. They'll likely have others with names such as "US-West-2", or "EU-West-1" (which is probably in Dublin).
"DNS resolution" is the process of using DNS to convert a domain name to an IP address.
Lots of services can no longer find the data they need because the address book that tells them where it is is unavailable.
Some of those services are used by Amazon themselves to manage their network, so it has all gone pear shaped.
Test your upgrades. Then test them again.
Who are the party with control of Congress, and are refusing compromise.
The Democrats are not going to vote to gut healthcare.
And as I posted earlier, I can remember in the dim and distant past, West Ham fans being banned from European games, so this is not new. Liverpool fans were also famously banned after Heysel. And all this is without betting on Israeli police banning Israeli fans unless you think Tel Aviv's Chief Constable is an Iranian mole.
https://petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com/?petition=730194
Ultimately this is a political issue, and it will only be resolved when the public stop approving of the GOP tactics. The Democrats have been very poor in not winning that political argument decisively.
Trials like these always pre-trial hearings where the expert evidence is discussed & the points the prosecution & defence intend to make in court are agreed with the judge (forgive me if I don’t get the exact details correct - I’m not a trial lawyer). During these discussions it was agreed amongst the experts that insulin overdose was the most likely explanation for the collapse of two of the babies, based on the available evidence.
The problem for Letby is that once you think one baby has been murdered, it becomes likely that the others were & she is the most likely culprit for many of them: Serial killers don’t usually stop at two. With their experts having agreed at the pre-trial hearing that insulin overdose was the most likely explanation for the deaths of those two babies, the argument that no babies were killed in Cheshire was bound to fail in court.
None of the experts present had particular expertise in neonatal biochemistry & the defence didn’t have a pathologist. Nor was a statistician present who might have critiqued the statistics being used.
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/lucy-letby-28.pdf
Post-trial, a variety of people with relevant expertise have raised serious questions about the quality of the insulin evidence, but this has never been put before a court - the way appeals are structured in this country makes that impossible.
Putin is the only one setting conditions.
@timfarron
Ayoub Khan MP was far more honest than most regarding the Maccabi Tel Aviv ban. Look at his original statement below. The ban is because of ‘the political dynamics…’ In other words, the ban is not to protect us from them, but them from us…which remains utterly shameful."
https://x.com/timfarron/status/1980180741091725668
It's a bit like the banking crisis where the financial system froze because no-one could tell if Bank A was safe or was dependent on Bank B which had lent too much to Back C which needed Bank A to stay open.
We are aware of the incident affecting Amazon Web Services. We are in contact with the company who are working to restore services as quickly as possible.
Although services seem to be coming back up now
I watch Premiership rugby all the time. There is no segregation. What the eff is wrong with football fans?
But on this specific case, unless we are shown the evidence, I, and many others, will believe it is the threat of antisemitic violence from the pro-Gaza lobby that is the biggest reason for the ban.
It's been set aside on quite a few occasions; most recently when Trump wanted a number of judges confirmed without further scrutiny.
And not a few Democrats are proposing that it be ditched completely, as a relic of more consensual times, which has outlived its usefulness.
It certainly isn't part of the constitution.