Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
What parts of the US were not previously inhabited? OK, maybe bits of Alaska.
Yes, you are right some plots of land were willingly sold to settlers, although most deals were coercive or the tribes and settlers had very different ideas over what rights were being sold.
So, the US is mostly stolen land.
Also, the whole idea that you can simply rock up to a piece of uninhabited land and claim it as yours seems something of a cultural invention.
The whole concept of ownership is something of a cultural intervention.
If you can't own something nobody else owns, then what exactly can you own?
Well, there are many obvious things that nobody else owns that you can't own. The atmosphere, the sun, the stars, etc. That doesn't stop us owning other stuff.
"The sun" - well, there are defined property rights regarding not shading your neighbours. In many countries.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
What parts of the US were not previously inhabited? OK, maybe bits of Alaska.
Yes, you are right some plots of land were willingly sold to settlers, although most deals were coercive or the tribes and settlers had very different ideas over what rights were being sold.
So, the US is mostly stolen land.
Also, the whole idea that you can simply rock up to a piece of uninhabited land and claim it as yours seems something of a cultural invention.
The whole concept of ownership is something of a cultural intervention.
If you can't own something nobody else owns, then what exactly can you own?
Well, there are many obvious things that nobody else owns that you can't own. The atmosphere, the sun, the stars, etc. That doesn't stop us owning other stuff.
Who has "rocked up" at the sun or stars?
Nobody. But your question was, "If you can't own something nobody else owns, then what exactly can you own?"
Given that there are indeed things that nobody owns that you can't own, then the question of what you can own is a matter of opinion.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
What parts of the US were not previously inhabited? OK, maybe bits of Alaska.
Yes, you are right some plots of land were willingly sold to settlers, although most deals were coercive or the tribes and settlers had very different ideas over what rights were being sold.
So, the US is mostly stolen land.
Also, the whole idea that you can simply rock up to a piece of uninhabited land and claim it as yours seems something of a cultural invention.
The whole concept of ownership is something of a cultural intervention.
If you can't own something nobody else owns, then what exactly can you own?
Well, there are many obvious things that nobody else owns that you can't own. The atmosphere, the sun, the stars, etc. That doesn't stop us owning other stuff.
Who has "rocked up" at the sun or stars?
Still working on the contract for the New British Space Program.
First goal is the mass landing of the DfE on the Sun. Seconds goal is the mass landing of the House of Commons on Uranus.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
What parts of the US were not previously inhabited? OK, maybe bits of Alaska.
Yes, you are right some plots of land were willingly sold to settlers, although most deals were coercive or the tribes and settlers had very different ideas over what rights were being sold.
So, the US is mostly stolen land.
Also, the whole idea that you can simply rock up to a piece of uninhabited land and claim it as yours seems something of a cultural invention.
The whole concept of ownership is something of a cultural intervention.
If you can't own something nobody else owns, then what exactly can you own?
Well, there are many obvious things that nobody else owns that you can't own. The atmosphere, the sun, the stars, etc. That doesn't stop us owning other stuff.
Who has "rocked up" at the sun or stars?
Nobody. But your question was, "If you can't own something nobody else owns, then what exactly can you own?"
Given that there are indeed things that nobody owns that you can't own, then the question of what you can own is a matter of opinion.
Not really, since the context of the statement was about whether you can simply rock up to a piece of uninhabited land and claim it as yours.
Since nobody can or has rocked up at the sun or stars, those are moot to your chosen context.
Keir Starmer’s preferred candidate for US Ambassador was George Osborne. Morgan McSweeney convinced him to appoint Mandelson.
Presumably McSweeney's reasoning was that the word on the backbenches was that George was too tainted with austerity and would prove political awkward.
Simon Sebag Montefiore is one of the good guys. He just tweeted this. I make no apologies for its length. Everyone in the world should read it
The images emerging now from Iran of young people, older people, boys and girls, who were murdered in the last few weeks by the Iranian Islamic dictator, the Islamic Corps of Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and imported killers from Iraq, are heartbreaking but also enraging.
Some depict beautiful people at play, at the gym, dancing, on motorbikes; some makeshift morgues full of bodies; some streetscenes where killers shoot down unarmed protesters; and many show families opening bodybags to find their dead children shot in the head; others discover bodies of protesters wounded then executed in hospital beds and particularly women with uteruses removed or other horrors to conceal brutal rapes... Many are not young but it looks like the slaughter of the best and brightest of Iran Gen Z. Ive tried to repost these here.
I have been contacted by people in Iran (who weirdly read my books in pirated Farsi editions) who manage to come online in various ways and they beg me to keep posting these images and faces and keep talking about them. Embarrassingly they thank me just for doing this! That is why i am writing this now. We must keep going and keep doing so.
The numbers killed are astonishing: based on sources within the murderous dictatorship, it may be as many as 36000 were murdered just in the first days of the terror 8/9 January and more later - making it likely that 40,000 is a horribly plausible estimate.
This makes this event the most greatest massacre in modern Iranian history by far, the greatest single event slaughter in modern MIddle Eastern history since 1900 - along with the Assad's liquidation of an entire town, site of Islamist insurgents, Hama, in 1982 when around 30,000 were killed. Both of them not taking place in wars but in cold blood - and this Iranian atrocity being far more terrible since none of the protesters were armed.
We live in a time of egregious comparisons to the Holocaust when the Holocaust is repellently abused and minimized by cynical cretins - radiohosts, podders, politicians- to criticize anything from vaccination to ICE raids. But here is a comparison that stands in its scale and horror: in size and horror this does resemble the two days of Babi Yar near Kiev in Sept 1941 where 33,000 Jews were killed. It is also worth pointing out that an entire progressive movement arose against the autocracy of the Shah.
And his was an autocracy. But in his forty year one reign, only around 3000 people were killed, mainly in the last year before his downfall.
It is very striking that the UN has barely commented on thiis…
There's only one country with the power to intervene against the murderous Iranian regime, and it's currently sending Witkoff and Kushner to negotiate with them.
But Monteviore is essentially correct; it is not hyperbole to compare the Iranian regime with that of Stalin at Katyn for example. (The Holocaust comparison is problematic, since it was different in kind.)
He is and always has been an arch Zionist. If you support Netanyahu's work in Gaza he's your man
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
Could you not make that argument everywhere though? Is there anywhere that the native population has not been displaced? And what of man? Why does he have right of dominion over nature in lands where there was no man? (Out of Africa and all that?)
The Falkland Islands were uninhabited until the British got there. The Falkland Islanders are the true native (human) population of the islands!
All of the world has seen population movements and changes, sure, but generally you see a mix of continuity and change, so the native population might not be displaced, even while other populations are also moving in. North America saw a near total replacement of one population with another in the modern era, which is less common, although equally true of, say, Australia.
We are all Tanzanians. We all come from the Olduvai Gorge.
Actually that’s not quite as certain as it was. We may have multiple origins in Africa. We may even have multiple origins worldwide
Out of Africa has long been in opposition to a multiple origins theory, even back when I was first reading about Lucy and all. We will never know. At some point I suspect waves of our ancesters left Africa, then lived in isolation for millenia and diverged to some extent from other hominids and then these populations encountered each other again.
So great is the secrecy around the De Montford incident that I can only assume it involves mis-gendering by someone woke and police are worried that social media might implode.
What on earth are they coving up?
The great scandal of ceiling architecture....
There is a serious point about this. People will fill in the information black hole. What is so serious or troubling that it must be kept secret for over 16 hours (and counting)?
Such as X posts like this:
"What the HELL has happened in De Montford Uni, Leicester? Roads closed at 6-30 pm last night. Parents STILL cannot get comms with students!! WHAT ARE THE AUTHORITIES HIDING HERE???????????????"
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
All land has been stolen several times over. I think there's a difference between countries where there has been some sort of process of land justice/redistribution - as in Ireland - and countries where the theft of land has never been confronted - as in Britain.
The US is in some ways a bit anomalous, because some of the land stolen from Native Americans was then shared out relatively equitably between settlers, to create the Jeffersonian ideal of an American democracy supported by small landholders. Normally theft of land led to a concentration of land ownership, rather than a distribution.
Simon Sebag Montefiore is one of the good guys. He just tweeted this. I make no apologies for its length. Everyone in the world should read it
The images emerging now from Iran of young people, older people, boys and girls, who were murdered in the last few weeks by the Iranian Islamic dictator, the Islamic Corps of Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and imported killers from Iraq, are heartbreaking but also enraging.
Some depict beautiful people at play, at the gym, dancing, on motorbikes; some makeshift morgues full of bodies; some streetscenes where killers shoot down unarmed protesters; and many show families opening bodybags to find their dead children shot in the head; others discover bodies of protesters wounded then executed in hospital beds and particularly women with uteruses removed or other horrors to conceal brutal rapes... Many are not young but it looks like the slaughter of the best and brightest of Iran Gen Z. Ive tried to repost these here.
I have been contacted by people in Iran (who weirdly read my books in pirated Farsi editions) who manage to come online in various ways and they beg me to keep posting these images and faces and keep talking about them. Embarrassingly they thank me just for doing this! That is why i am writing this now. We must keep going and keep doing so.
The numbers killed are astonishing: based on sources within the murderous dictatorship, it may be as many as 36000 were murdered just in the first days of the terror 8/9 January and more later - making it likely that 40,000 is a horribly plausible estimate.
This makes this event the most greatest massacre in modern Iranian history by far, the greatest single event slaughter in modern MIddle Eastern history since 1900 - along with the Assad's liquidation of an entire town, site of Islamist insurgents, Hama, in 1982 when around 30,000 were killed. Both of them not taking place in wars but in cold blood - and this Iranian atrocity being far more terrible since none of the protesters were armed.
We live in a time of egregious comparisons to the Holocaust when the Holocaust is repellently abused and minimized by cynical cretins - radiohosts, podders, politicians- to criticize anything from vaccination to ICE raids. But here is a comparison that stands in its scale and horror: in size and horror this does resemble the two days of Babi Yar near Kiev in Sept 1941 where 33,000 Jews were killed. It is also worth pointing out that an entire progressive movement arose against the autocracy of the Shah.
And his was an autocracy. But in his forty year one reign, only around 3000 people were killed, mainly in the last year before his downfall.
It is very striking that the UN has barely commented on thiis…
There's only one country with the power to intervene against the murderous Iranian regime, and it's currently sending Witkoff and Kushner to negotiate with them.
But Monteviore is essentially correct; it is not hyperbole to compare the Iranian regime with that of Stalin at Katyn for example. (The Holocaust comparison is problematic, since it was different in kind.)
He is and always has been an arch Zionist. If you support Netanyahu's work in Gaza he's your man
So nothing about the young, dead, unarmed Iranians who have been brutally murdered by their own authoritarian dictatorship in cold blood?
Nothing about a dictatorship which is not fighting terrorists or an insurgency, merely slaughtering unarmed protestors?
Keir Starmer’s preferred candidate for US Ambassador was George Osborne. Morgan McSweeney convinced him to appoint Mandelson.
Presumably McSweeney's reasoning was that the word on the backbenches was that George was too tainted with austerity and would prove political awkward.
Whereas, Mandy....risks bringing the Starmer regime to an end.
Keir Starmer’s preferred candidate for US Ambassador was George Osborne. Morgan McSweeney convinced him to appoint Mandelson.
Presumably McSweeney's reasoning was that the word on the backbenches was that George was too tainted with austerity and would prove political awkward.
The first thing Ange needs to do as PM is make MacSweeney Ambassador to North Korea.
I was in Washington DC when Peter Mandelson was appointed as ambassador. There was serious dismay in the British embassy about it - not specifically because of his Epstein links, but because everyone knew he was trouble and it always ends in tears with him. Plus, Karen Pierce was a brilliant ambassador who had a great relationship with Trump’s team, and wanted to extend. It was just awful judgement by Keir Starmer and his No10 from the very get go.
It’s because Starmer thought Mandelson could sell the stupid Chagos deal. That was Mandy’s job
When the history of this bizarrely tragic government is written, a little tropic archipelago near nowhere will be oddly prominent
Why are you saying it was about Chagos in particular rather than the general perception (of SKS) that Mandelson's peculiar talents would suit working with a peculiar White House?
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
Could you not make that argument everywhere though? Is there anywhere that the native population has not been displaced? And what of man? Why does he have right of dominion over nature in lands where there was no man? (Out of Africa and all that?)
The Falkland Islands were uninhabited until the British got there. The Falkland Islanders are the true native (human) population of the islands!
All of the world has seen population movements and changes, sure, but generally you see a mix of continuity and change, so the native population might not be displaced, even while other populations are also moving in. North America saw a near total replacement of one population with another in the modern era, which is less common, although equally true of, say, Australia.
We are all Tanzanians. We all come from the Olduvai Gorge.
Actually that’s not quite as certain as it was. We may have multiple origins in Africa. We may even have multiple origins worldwide
Out of Africa has long been in opposition to a multiple origins theory, even back when I was first reading about Lucy and all. We will never know. At some point I suspect waves of our ancesters left Africa, then lived in isolation for millenia and diverged to some extent from other hominids and then these populations encountered each other again.
Why will we never know?! Quite an odd remark
Aren't you a scientist?
Yes there are things that are maybe beyond our ken. The true nature of the multiverse, whatever
But I am sure we are capable of determining our own ancestry
It's like finger nails on the blackboard for me, but myself and yourself are fighting a losing battle on this one I'm afraid.
It's been going on for decades sadly. Doesn't always leak into private life though.
One which does, and drives me mad, is "i'm based in..." and "Where are you based?".
Oh, and chefs adding "off" to everything. "Bake it off" "Fry them off" et al.
There is a new horror creeping in here and elsewhere; “hard agree”. I’m guessing this abomination is an Americanism but it’s becoming the grey squirrel of comments driving out our native “I totally agree”. Needs culling.
Keir Starmer’s preferred candidate for US Ambassador was George Osborne. Morgan McSweeney convinced him to appoint Mandelson.
Presumably McSweeney's reasoning was that the word on the backbenches was that George was too tainted with austerity and would prove political awkward.
The first thing Ange needs to do as PM is make MacSweeney Ambassador to North Korea.
Making that Master of Disaster ambassador to a nuclear power isn't a great idea.
If McSweeney were as successful in Pyongyang as he has been in Downing Street, they'd probably start a war with the South that would end with them nuking London.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
Could you not make that argument everywhere though? Is there anywhere that the native population has not been displaced? And what of man? Why does he have right of dominion over nature in lands where there was no man? (Out of Africa and all that?)
The Falkland Islands were uninhabited until the British got there. The Falkland Islanders are the true native (human) population of the islands!
All of the world has seen population movements and changes, sure, but generally you see a mix of continuity and change, so the native population might not be displaced, even while other populations are also moving in. North America saw a near total replacement of one population with another in the modern era, which is less common, although equally true of, say, Australia.
We are all Tanzanians. We all come from the Olduvai Gorge.
Actually that’s not quite as certain as it was. We may have multiple origins in Africa. We may even have multiple origins worldwide
Out of Africa has long been in opposition to a multiple origins theory, even back when I was first reading about Lucy and all. We will never know. At some point I suspect waves of our ancesters left Africa, then lived in isolation for millenia and diverged to some extent from other hominids and then these populations encountered each other again.
Why will we never know?! Quite an odd remark
Aren't you a scientist?
Yes there are things that are maybe beyond our ken. The true nature of the multiverse, whatever
But I am sure we are capable of determining our own ancestry
I think the information just doesn't exist. Think how many humans and then hominids have lived over the last few millions of years. And then how many became fossils that we can study. Think how many artefacts would have been created and how few would be found. We can do a lot with DNA analysis and looking at things such as mitochondrial DNA, but ultimately I think there will not be enough information.
Doesn't mean we should stop looking and asking the questions.
He wasn’t on the Snooker Loopy hit song but he did have a Big break.
Given his birthday was the 4th March he was not a Virgo either. A Pisces. Odd
Sad news. He was commentating just a couple of weeks ago. I like snooker and I really liked him.
It is sad news . He had a good sense of humour and a great life story . Snooker with perhaps athletics are the only sports with relaxed nice commentators and pundits still.
I am sure John would not mind me saying therefore.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
Could you not make that argument everywhere though? Is there anywhere that the native population has not been displaced? And what of man? Why does he have right of dominion over nature in lands where there was no man? (Out of Africa and all that?)
The Falkland Islands were uninhabited until the British got there. The Falkland Islanders are the true native (human) population of the islands!
All of the world has seen population movements and changes, sure, but generally you see a mix of continuity and change, so the native population might not be displaced, even while other populations are also moving in. North America saw a near total replacement of one population with another in the modern era, which is less common, although equally true of, say, Australia.
We are all Tanzanians. We all come from the Olduvai Gorge.
Actually that’s not quite as certain as it was. We may have multiple origins in Africa. We may even have multiple origins worldwide
Out of Africa has long been in opposition to a multiple origins theory, even back when I was first reading about Lucy and all. We will never know. At some point I suspect waves of our ancesters left Africa, then lived in isolation for millenia and diverged to some extent from other hominids and then these populations encountered each other again.
Why will we never know?! Quite an odd remark
Aren't you a scientist?
Yes there are things that are maybe beyond our ken. The true nature of the multiverse, whatever
But I am sure we are capable of determining our own ancestry
I think there information just doesn't exist. Think how many humans and then hominids have lived over the last few millions of years. And then how many became fossils that we can study. Think how many artefacts would have been created and how few would be found. We can do a lot with DNA analysis and looking at things such as mitochondrial DNA, but ultimately I think there will not be enough information.
Doesn't mean we should stop looking and asking the questions.
Bit puzzled by this, Trump is largely delivering what he promised (Either implicitly or explicity) so not sure why people aren't liking it all of a sudden
He's delivered on monetising the presidency, side-lining Congress, subverting the justice system, persecuting domestic dissent - all of that good stuff - but he has not, thus far, managed to reduce the price of eggs.
How does that equate to 16 hours of road closures? And as for the local MP urging people not to speculate! Put out some more information then...
Does it not strike you as sinister that DMU did not feature in our pb prediction competition? #Cover-up (also my advice to Peter Mandelson). My guess is the police are trying to negotiate the release of sausages.
I was in Washington DC when Peter Mandelson was appointed as ambassador. There was serious dismay in the British embassy about it - not specifically because of his Epstein links, but because everyone knew he was trouble and it always ends in tears with him. Plus, Karen Pierce was a brilliant ambassador who had a great relationship with Trump’s team, and wanted to extend. It was just awful judgement by Keir Starmer and his No10 from the very get go.
It’s because Starmer thought Mandelson could sell the stupid Chagos deal. That was Mandy’s job
When the history of this bizarrely tragic government is written, a little tropic archipelago near nowhere will be oddly prominent
Why are you saying it was about Chagos in particular rather than the general perception (of SKS) that Mandelson's peculiar talents would suit working with a peculiar White House?
Simon Sebag Montefiore is one of the good guys. He just tweeted this. I make no apologies for its length. Everyone in the world should read it
The images emerging now from Iran of young people, older people, boys and girls, who were murdered in the last few weeks by the Iranian Islamic dictator, the Islamic Corps of Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and imported killers from Iraq, are heartbreaking but also enraging.
Some depict beautiful people at play, at the gym, dancing, on motorbikes; some makeshift morgues full of bodies; some streetscenes where killers shoot down unarmed protesters; and many show families opening bodybags to find their dead children shot in the head; others discover bodies of protesters wounded then executed in hospital beds and particularly women with uteruses removed or other horrors to conceal brutal rapes... Many are not young but it looks like the slaughter of the best and brightest of Iran Gen Z. Ive tried to repost these here.
I have been contacted by people in Iran (who weirdly read my books in pirated Farsi editions) who manage to come online in various ways and they beg me to keep posting these images and faces and keep talking about them. Embarrassingly they thank me just for doing this! That is why i am writing this now. We must keep going and keep doing so.
The numbers killed are astonishing: based on sources within the murderous dictatorship, it may be as many as 36000 were murdered just in the first days of the terror 8/9 January and more later - making it likely that 40,000 is a horribly plausible estimate.
This makes this event the most greatest massacre in modern Iranian history by far, the greatest single event slaughter in modern MIddle Eastern history since 1900 - along with the Assad's liquidation of an entire town, site of Islamist insurgents, Hama, in 1982 when around 30,000 were killed. Both of them not taking place in wars but in cold blood - and this Iranian atrocity being far more terrible since none of the protesters were armed.
We live in a time of egregious comparisons to the Holocaust when the Holocaust is repellently abused and minimized by cynical cretins - radiohosts, podders, politicians- to criticize anything from vaccination to ICE raids. But here is a comparison that stands in its scale and horror: in size and horror this does resemble the two days of Babi Yar near Kiev in Sept 1941 where 33,000 Jews were killed. It is also worth pointing out that an entire progressive movement arose against the autocracy of the Shah.
And his was an autocracy. But in his forty year one reign, only around 3000 people were killed, mainly in the last year before his downfall.
It is very striking that the UN has barely commented on thiis…
There's only one country with the power to intervene against the murderous Iranian regime, and it's currently sending Witkoff and Kushner to negotiate with them.
But Monteviore is essentially correct; it is not hyperbole to compare the Iranian regime with that of Stalin at Katyn for example. (The Holocaust comparison is problematic, since it was different in kind.)
He is and always has been an arch Zionist. If you support Netanyahu's work in Gaza he's your man
That's perhaps what Leon meant by "one of the good guys"?
This is such woke nonsense and why we need the BBC.
ITV to screen in-game ad breaks for first time during rugby’s Six Nations
Twenty-second adverts to fill right half of screens
Broadcaster mulling over repeating move for World Cup
ITV will screen in-game commercials for the first time during Thursday’s Six Nations Championship opener between France and Ireland at Stade de France. The broadcaster’s new rights deal includes the option to air two split-screen adverts before a scrum is set in each half of every match of the Six Nations, the Guardian has learned.
ITV is understood to have agreed in-game advertising deals with two major brands, with the screen to be divided in two so viewers do not miss any commentary or live action. The commercials will fill the right half of the screen and last around 20 seconds, with live pictures continuing on the left.
Split-screen in-game advertising has been used by TV networks in the United States for several years and is being trialled by RTE in the Irish national broadcaster’s racing coverage in Ireland.
If the Six Nations experiment is a success , there is a possibility ITV could sell in-game commericals for its coverage of this summer’s World Cup, when there all matches will feature a three-minute water break in the middle of each half to help players cope with the extreme heat.
This is such woke nonsense and why we need the BBC.
ITV to screen in-game ad breaks for first time during rugby’s Six Nations
Twenty-second adverts to fill right half of screens
Broadcaster mulling over repeating move for World Cup
ITV will screen in-game commercials for the first time during Thursday’s Six Nations Championship opener between France and Ireland at Stade de France. The broadcaster’s new rights deal includes the option to air two split-screen adverts before a scrum is set in each half of every match of the Six Nations, the Guardian has learned.
ITV is understood to have agreed in-game advertising deals with two major brands, with the screen to be divided in two so viewers do not miss any commentary or live action. The commercials will fill the right half of the screen and last around 20 seconds, with live pictures continuing on the left.
Split-screen in-game advertising has been used by TV networks in the United States for several years and is being trialled by RTE in the Irish national broadcaster’s racing coverage in Ireland.
If the Six Nations experiment is a success , there is a possibility ITV could sell in-game commericals for its coverage of this summer’s World Cup, when there all matches will feature a three-minute water break in the middle of each half to help players cope with the extreme heat.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
Which bits of America were uninhabited?
You have to be careful about the accounts from earlier settlers. They had an interest in claiming that the natives weren't cultivating the land, because that was the legal basis on which they were allowed to claim it.
I'm not sure that the land sales were necessarily willing. More a matter of accepting the inevitable.
We have a new? Contributor called Brixian? 59 who tried to claim last night that if Mandy goes down that Labour could claim a huge moral victory. Its good have a jolly good belly laugh every now and again.. Reminds me of the sort of crap Tim, late of this parish, used to write.
You are right. In reality a lot of people across the Labour movement are very happy today and cheering Mandelson’s downfall. Brixian may be McSweeny themself.
I was in Washington DC when Peter Mandelson was appointed as ambassador. There was serious dismay in the British embassy about it - not specifically because of his Epstein links, but because everyone knew he was trouble and it always ends in tears with him. Plus, Karen Pierce was a brilliant ambassador who had a great relationship with Trump’s team, and wanted to extend. It was just awful judgement by Keir Starmer and his No10 from the very get go.
It’s because Starmer thought Mandelson could sell the stupid Chagos deal. That was Mandy’s job
When the history of this bizarrely tragic government is written, a little tropic archipelago near nowhere will be oddly prominent
Why are you saying it was about Chagos in particular rather than the general perception (of SKS) that Mandelson's peculiar talents would suit working with a peculiar White House?
Because that's what DC insiders are saying
A more mundane (and likely) suggestion is Tony Blair put in a word for his old mucker.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
All land has been stolen several times over. I think there's a difference between countries where there has been some sort of process of land justice/redistribution - as in Ireland - and countries where the theft of land has never been confronted - as in Britain.
The US is in some ways a bit anomalous, because some of the land stolen from Native Americans was then shared out relatively equitably between settlers, to create the Jeffersonian ideal of an American democracy supported by small landholders. Normally theft of land led to a concentration of land ownership, rather than a distribution.
Was listening to a presentation on Irish Penal Laws 1500-1920. Basic idea is to apply the Process State.
* Group A can buy land but Group B can't * Group A can vote but Group B can't * You can worship your god here, but not there. * If you own certain means of gathering wealth (in the example it was a horse) then it can't be over more than £x value * If you break the rules, then will be a fine or prison etc
So over a period of time, there was a transference of wealth and power from one group to another simply by rule setting a.k.a we are a nation of laws. in time land ownership by the native Irish went from 80% to 20%. It's a playbook you see elsewhere where laws rather than force is the methodology. Summed up by Desmond Tutu
When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
Simon Sebag Montefiore is one of the good guys. He just tweeted this. I make no apologies for its length. Everyone in the world should read it
The images emerging now from Iran of young people, older people, boys and girls, who were murdered in the last few weeks by the Iranian Islamic dictator, the Islamic Corps of Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and imported killers from Iraq, are heartbreaking but also enraging.
Some depict beautiful people at play, at the gym, dancing, on motorbikes; some makeshift morgues full of bodies; some streetscenes where killers shoot down unarmed protesters; and many show families opening bodybags to find their dead children shot in the head; others discover bodies of protesters wounded then executed in hospital beds and particularly women with uteruses removed or other horrors to conceal brutal rapes... Many are not young but it looks like the slaughter of the best and brightest of Iran Gen Z. Ive tried to repost these here.
I have been contacted by people in Iran (who weirdly read my books in pirated Farsi editions) who manage to come online in various ways and they beg me to keep posting these images and faces and keep talking about them. Embarrassingly they thank me just for doing this! That is why i am writing this now. We must keep going and keep doing so.
The numbers killed are astonishing: based on sources within the murderous dictatorship, it may be as many as 36000 were murdered just in the first days of the terror 8/9 January and more later - making it likely that 40,000 is a horribly plausible estimate.
This makes this event the most greatest massacre in modern Iranian history by far, the greatest single event slaughter in modern MIddle Eastern history since 1900 - along with the Assad's liquidation of an entire town, site of Islamist insurgents, Hama, in 1982 when around 30,000 were killed. Both of them not taking place in wars but in cold blood - and this Iranian atrocity being far more terrible since none of the protesters were armed.
We live in a time of egregious comparisons to the Holocaust when the Holocaust is repellently abused and minimized by cynical cretins - radiohosts, podders, politicians- to criticize anything from vaccination to ICE raids. But here is a comparison that stands in its scale and horror: in size and horror this does resemble the two days of Babi Yar near Kiev in Sept 1941 where 33,000 Jews were killed. It is also worth pointing out that an entire progressive movement arose against the autocracy of the Shah.
And his was an autocracy. But in his forty year one reign, only around 3000 people were killed, mainly in the last year before his downfall.
It is very striking that the UN has barely commented on thiis…
There's only one country with the power to intervene against the murderous Iranian regime, and it's currently sending Witkoff and Kushner to negotiate with them.
But Monteviore is essentially correct; it is not hyperbole to compare the Iranian regime with that of Stalin at Katyn for example. (The Holocaust comparison is problematic, since it was different in kind.)
He is and always has been an arch Zionist. If you support Netanyahu's work in Gaza he's your man
That's perhaps what Leon meant by "one of the good guys"?
SSMontefiore is really not an arch-Zionist. Roger is, however, some weird creepy self hating Jew that loathes Israel, and therefore supports Iran, or at least doesn't care what Iran does to its own people, because Iran is anti-Israel so Iran must be good
Even James O' Brexit is demanding Starmer's resignation.
I agree, this Mandelson business should be terminal.
Shouldn't that be James nO'Brexit?
I'm reasonably conflicted. I don't care too much about Mandy's friendships with Epstein-the hypocrisy around is sickening-but I do hate the idea that our PM should be so craven towards a sleazeball like Trump that he thinks he'll score points by appointing someone who might appeal to him. I just long for a PM who can be his own person.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
Which bits of America were uninhabited?
You have to be careful about the accounts from earlier settlers. They had an interest in claiming that the natives weren't cultivating the land, because that was the legal basis on which they were allowed to claim it.
I'm not sure that the land sales were necessarily willing. More a matter of accepting the inevitable.
Large areas had no people. Archeology has failed to find any evidence of people there.
In other parts, diseases bought by settlers spread through the locals far ahead of any exploration parties of locals. So by the time the settlers turned up, everyone was dead or moved on.
This is not to diminish what happened. But “popular culture” is wrong - in both directions.
Ultimately the CEO of any organisation faced with this extraordinary level of opprobrium would resign
Why is it different for Starmer ?
You don’t understand this politics malarkey do you?
CEO's who resign typically head off to become CEO's elsewhere... PM's who resign have nowhere good to go.
This is where the politican job market is really dysfunctional. If you do a good job running a small country you should then try running a larger country, and nobody should be running a large country unless they have at least minimal experience running a smaller country.
The closest we have to a sane career path for top jobs is
Deputy Minister of Finance in Canada Governor of the Bank of Canada Governor of the Bank of England Prime minister of Canada
How does that equate to 16 hours of road closures? And as for the local MP urging people not to speculate! Put out some more information then...
It says counselling for students who "witnessed the incident". Also that the focus is on the "Innovation centre". Very idle speculation, given the extended time period: a dangerous substance is involved.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
Which bits of America were uninhabited?
You have to be careful about the accounts from earlier settlers. They had an interest in claiming that the natives weren't cultivating the land, because that was the legal basis on which they were allowed to claim it.
I'm not sure that the land sales were necessarily willing. More a matter of accepting the inevitable.
The only conclusion Is the settlers were very very racist people, egged on and supported by laws that were very very racist.
On this discussion of Indian Land, has anyone else seen The Lowdown? It’s very good. It taps into how race is such a big player in the USA these days than in UK and Europe, how many white Americans now feel the law is far too much in favour of indigenous people and anti white.
Even James O' Brexit is demanding Starmer's resignation.
I agree, this Mandelson business should be terminal.
Shouldn't that be James nO'Brexit?
I'm reasonably conflicted. I don't care too much about Mandy's friendships with Epstein-the hypocrisy around is sickening-but I do hate the idea that our PM should be so craven towards a sleazeball like Trump that he thinks he'll score points by appointing someone who might appeal to him. I just long for a PM who can be his own person.
Problem for McSweeney is mud don't stick to Teflon Trump
Pure comedy gold though from Badenoch and Hollinrake this morning calling for everything to be published, nothing kept back on grounds of national security. Especially concerning Trumps vanity.
Erm remind us Kemi and Kevin the humble address about Boris and Russian Lords
Simon Sebag Montefiore is one of the good guys. He just tweeted this. I make no apologies for its length. Everyone in the world should read it
The images emerging now from Iran of young people, older people, boys and girls, who were murdered in the last few weeks by the Iranian Islamic dictator, the Islamic Corps of Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and imported killers from Iraq, are heartbreaking but also enraging.
Some depict beautiful people at play, at the gym, dancing, on motorbikes; some makeshift morgues full of bodies; some streetscenes where killers shoot down unarmed protesters; and many show families opening bodybags to find their dead children shot in the head; others discover bodies of protesters wounded then executed in hospital beds and particularly women with uteruses removed or other horrors to conceal brutal rapes... Many are not young but it looks like the slaughter of the best and brightest of Iran Gen Z. Ive tried to repost these here.
I have been contacted by people in Iran (who weirdly read my books in pirated Farsi editions) who manage to come online in various ways and they beg me to keep posting these images and faces and keep talking about them. Embarrassingly they thank me just for doing this! That is why i am writing this now. We must keep going and keep doing so.
The numbers killed are astonishing: based on sources within the murderous dictatorship, it may be as many as 36000 were murdered just in the first days of the terror 8/9 January and more later - making it likely that 40,000 is a horribly plausible estimate.
This makes this event the most greatest massacre in modern Iranian history by far, the greatest single event slaughter in modern MIddle Eastern history since 1900 - along with the Assad's liquidation of an entire town, site of Islamist insurgents, Hama, in 1982 when around 30,000 were killed. Both of them not taking place in wars but in cold blood - and this Iranian atrocity being far more terrible since none of the protesters were armed.
We live in a time of egregious comparisons to the Holocaust when the Holocaust is repellently abused and minimized by cynical cretins - radiohosts, podders, politicians- to criticize anything from vaccination to ICE raids. But here is a comparison that stands in its scale and horror: in size and horror this does resemble the two days of Babi Yar near Kiev in Sept 1941 where 33,000 Jews were killed. It is also worth pointing out that an entire progressive movement arose against the autocracy of the Shah.
And his was an autocracy. But in his forty year one reign, only around 3000 people were killed, mainly in the last year before his downfall.
It is very striking that the UN has barely commented on thiis…
There's only one country with the power to intervene against the murderous Iranian regime, and it's currently sending Witkoff and Kushner to negotiate with them.
But Monteviore is essentially correct; it is not hyperbole to compare the Iranian regime with that of Stalin at Katyn for example. (The Holocaust comparison is problematic, since it was different in kind.)
He is and always has been an arch Zionist. If you support Netanyahu's work in Gaza he's your man
That's perhaps what Leon meant by "one of the good guys"?
SSMontefiore is really not an arch-Zionist. Roger is, however, some weird creepy self hating Jew that loathes Israel, and therefore supports Iran, or at least doesn't care what Iran does to its own people, because Iran is anti-Israel so Iran must be good
Quite perverse
I assume that was flagged for anti-Semitism, seems fair
How does that equate to 16 hours of road closures? And as for the local MP urging people not to speculate! Put out some more information then...
It says counselling for students who "witnessed the incident". Also that the focus is on the "Innovation centre". Very idle speculation, given the extended time period: a dangerous substance is involved.
I was in Washington DC when Peter Mandelson was appointed as ambassador. There was serious dismay in the British embassy about it - not specifically because of his Epstein links, but because everyone knew he was trouble and it always ends in tears with him. Plus, Karen Pierce was a brilliant ambassador who had a great relationship with Trump’s team, and wanted to extend. It was just awful judgement by Keir Starmer and his No10 from the very get go.
It’s because Starmer thought Mandelson could sell the stupid Chagos deal. That was Mandy’s job
When the history of this bizarrely tragic government is written, a little tropic archipelago near nowhere will be oddly prominent
Why are you saying it was about Chagos in particular rather than the general perception (of SKS) that Mandelson's peculiar talents would suit working with a peculiar White House?
Because that's what DC insiders are saying
A more mundane (and likely) suggestion is Tony Blair put in a word for his old mucker.
Blair will be keeping his head down for a while...
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
Which bits of America were uninhabited?
You have to be careful about the accounts from earlier settlers. They had an interest in claiming that the natives weren't cultivating the land, because that was the legal basis on which they were allowed to claim it.
I'm not sure that the land sales were necessarily willing. More a matter of accepting the inevitable.
Large areas had no people. Archeology has failed to find any evidence of people there.
In other parts, diseases bought by settlers spread through the locals far ahead of any exploration parties of locals. So by the time the settlers turned up, everyone was dead or moved on.
This is not to diminish what happened. But “popular culture” is wrong - in both directions.
I enjoyed this work on Pre-Columbian and Post-Columbian America:
I was in Washington DC when Peter Mandelson was appointed as ambassador. There was serious dismay in the British embassy about it - not specifically because of his Epstein links, but because everyone knew he was trouble and it always ends in tears with him. Plus, Karen Pierce was a brilliant ambassador who had a great relationship with Trump’s team, and wanted to extend. It was just awful judgement by Keir Starmer and his No10 from the very get go.
It’s because Starmer thought Mandelson could sell the stupid Chagos deal. That was Mandy’s job
When the history of this bizarrely tragic government is written, a little tropic archipelago near nowhere will be oddly prominent
Why are you saying it was about Chagos in particular rather than the general perception (of SKS) that Mandelson's peculiar talents would suit working with a peculiar White House?
Seeing as both Trump and Mandelson had relationships with Epstein it may even have been that Mandy's moving in these kinds of circles was what convinced the government to make him ambassador. Trump's world is one where rich and powerful men (and they are all men) carve up the world to their benefit. Treating women and girls Ike commodities is a feature not a bug, as to these people everything is a commodity, to be bought and sold for their benefit. To my mind this is the reality that the Epstein files lay open for all to see, although really it was all there anyway for those who want to see it.
Problem for McSweeney is mud don't stick to Teflon Trump
Pure comedy gold though from Badenoch and Hollinrake this morning calling for everything to be published, nothing kept back on grounds of national security. Especially concerning Trumps vanity.
Erm remind us Kemi and Kevin the humble address about Boris and Russian Lords
2 pages published 20 odd fully redacted...
Glass houses and all thst
You are so desperate, and no amount of whataboutery is going to cut the mustard on this
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
What parts of the US were not previously inhabited? OK, maybe bits of Alaska.
Yes, you are right some plots of land were willingly sold to settlers, although most deals were coercive or the tribes and settlers had very different ideas over what rights were being sold.
So, the US is mostly stolen land.
Also, the whole idea that you can simply rock up to a piece of uninhabited land and claim it as yours seems something of a cultural invention.
The whole concept of ownership is something of a cultural intervention.
If you can't own something nobody else owns, then what exactly can you own?
Land stands out as something a bit different because, in principle, anything* else can be produced in sufficient quantity that everyone can own a copy. But land ownership is strictly a zero-sum deal.
* You might counter that not everyone can own a painting by Van Gogh, but this is an interesting example because everyone can own a high-quality print of a Van Gogh - which has pretty much the visual impact of the original - but we've elevated the value of the original so that people can feel good about owning something others cannot.
Bit puzzled by this, Trump is largely delivering what he promised (Either implicitly or explicity) so not sure why people aren't liking it all of a sudden
He's delivered on monetising the presidency, side-lining Congress, subverting the justice system, persecuting domestic dissent - all of that good stuff - but he has not, thus far, managed to reduce the price of eggs.
Off topic. If you have iPlayer, have a look at the film Bones and all. A simple romance between two young people struggling with coming-of-age and cannibalism. With Timothee Chalamet who seems to be everywhere now. Best performance by a mile was Mark Rylance who has a small part at the end but is genius in portraying the essence of the film - creepy loaners with dark secrets who travel a lot.
I was in Washington DC when Peter Mandelson was appointed as ambassador. There was serious dismay in the British embassy about it - not specifically because of his Epstein links, but because everyone knew he was trouble and it always ends in tears with him. Plus, Karen Pierce was a brilliant ambassador who had a great relationship with Trump’s team, and wanted to extend. It was just awful judgement by Keir Starmer and his No10 from the very get go.
It’s because Starmer thought Mandelson could sell the stupid Chagos deal. That was Mandy’s job
When the history of this bizarrely tragic government is written, a little tropic archipelago near nowhere will be oddly prominent
Why are you saying it was about Chagos in particular rather than the general perception (of SKS) that Mandelson's peculiar talents would suit working with a peculiar White House?
Because that's what DC insiders are saying
I'd have thought the people with the best scoop on *why* he was appointed would be Starmer insiders.
My opinion? The Trump White House was thought more susceptible to the oily/polished charms and highly developed Machiavellian instincts of the dark lord than to more traditional diplomacy. Chagos would have been one of the things he was asked to focus on.
For me this is an example (from SKS) of being 'too clever by half' and as a consequence making a bad call. He got swept up in claustrophobic bubble thinking and missed the bigger (ethical) picture. As so often, being ultra cynical is actually being naive. Horseshoe applies.
Ultimately the CEO of any organisation faced with this extraordinary level of opprobrium would resign
Why is it different for Starmer ?
You don’t understand this politics malarkey do you?
CEO's who resign typically head off to become CEO's elsewhere... PM's who resign have nowhere good to go.
The PMs who resign are reduced to becoming millionaires through “consultancy”, non-executive roles and giving speeches.
Former Prime Minister
Years in Office
Estimated Cost per Speech
Tony Blair
1997–2007
£150,000 – £200,000+
Boris Johnson
2019–2022
£100,000 – £250,000+
Theresa May
2016–2019
£80,000 – £120,000
Gordon Brown
2007–2010
£50,000 – £75,000
John Major
1990–1997
£30,000 – £60,000
It’s a hard, hard life.
No doubt they get to make plenty of money but for some, there must be a sense of loss. You go from being the leader of a great Nation to someone who gets lots of money to talk about stuff. Not bad, but no longer the top of your game.
This won’t see off Starmer (at least not yet) unless something mortifyingly embarrassing comes out of the vetting disclosures (eg a “this is a really high risk appointment you need to think super-carefully about making because Mandy is dodgy as ****”) AND that this email or briefing note crossed his infamous desk.
Starmer protects himself with process.
It is much more likely to see off McSweeney.
The other factor here is timing. For opponents of SKS and Reeves it would be much more preferable for him to take the hit for the May elections than see a new broom immediately tarnished. If and when a challenge comes, I expect this whole episode to be raised as an example of SKS’s bad judgement, but not immediately.
Simon Sebag Montefiore is one of the good guys. He just tweeted this. I make no apologies for its length. Everyone in the world should read it
The images emerging now from Iran of young people, older people, boys and girls, who were murdered in the last few weeks by the Iranian Islamic dictator, the Islamic Corps of Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and imported killers from Iraq, are heartbreaking but also enraging.
Some depict beautiful people at play, at the gym, dancing, on motorbikes; some makeshift morgues full of bodies; some streetscenes where killers shoot down unarmed protesters; and many show families opening bodybags to find their dead children shot in the head; others discover bodies of protesters wounded then executed in hospital beds and particularly women with uteruses removed or other horrors to conceal brutal rapes... Many are not young but it looks like the slaughter of the best and brightest of Iran Gen Z. Ive tried to repost these here.
I have been contacted by people in Iran (who weirdly read my books in pirated Farsi editions) who manage to come online in various ways and they beg me to keep posting these images and faces and keep talking about them. Embarrassingly they thank me just for doing this! That is why i am writing this now. We must keep going and keep doing so.
The numbers killed are astonishing: based on sources within the murderous dictatorship, it may be as many as 36000 were murdered just in the first days of the terror 8/9 January and more later - making it likely that 40,000 is a horribly plausible estimate.
This makes this event the most greatest massacre in modern Iranian history by far, the greatest single event slaughter in modern MIddle Eastern history since 1900 - along with the Assad's liquidation of an entire town, site of Islamist insurgents, Hama, in 1982 when around 30,000 were killed. Both of them not taking place in wars but in cold blood - and this Iranian atrocity being far more terrible since none of the protesters were armed.
We live in a time of egregious comparisons to the Holocaust when the Holocaust is repellently abused and minimized by cynical cretins - radiohosts, podders, politicians- to criticize anything from vaccination to ICE raids. But here is a comparison that stands in its scale and horror: in size and horror this does resemble the two days of Babi Yar near Kiev in Sept 1941 where 33,000 Jews were killed. It is also worth pointing out that an entire progressive movement arose against the autocracy of the Shah.
And his was an autocracy. But in his forty year one reign, only around 3000 people were killed, mainly in the last year before his downfall.
It is very striking that the UN has barely commented on thiis…
There's only one country with the power to intervene against the murderous Iranian regime, and it's currently sending Witkoff and Kushner to negotiate with them.
But Monteviore is essentially correct; it is not hyperbole to compare the Iranian regime with that of Stalin at Katyn for example. (The Holocaust comparison is problematic, since it was different in kind.)
A sane and decent reaction. You restore my faith in PB
I don’t think this particular Holocaust comparison is problematic. I don’t believe sebag is comparing it in terms of ideology and context or anything like that - he js simply comparing it in terms of numbing scale and speed
Killing 35,000 people in a few days is not easy. It takes Nazi like levels of dedication and organisation - and utterly dehumanised killers
I’ve been to babyn yar. I went there last year when I travelled around ukraine. It’s a terrible place - I believe someone once wrote a famous novel about its terror
There is a tremendous piece of art at the site. These steel pillars which point at the uncaring sky and whisper klezmer songs and Yiddish jokes, on and on and on. Babbling the memories of the dead
And when you get close you realise the steel pillars are all pierced with gun shots, that’s where the music emerges
The scale of the murders and the extreme sadism employed, means that if the regime is overthrown the consequences for those responsible will likely be grisly in the extreme. The fact that it is supposedly done in the name of religion will only more enrage the opposition.
So, for the regime, any challenge is a literally existential threat, They will be killed if they lose control. There is no possibility of a negotiated settlement, or compromise approach. And the regime is more than a handful at the top. There are thousands of mullahs all across the country whose hands are dipped in blood. To remove them will take a massive convulsion.
Not a happy outlook, to say the least. And this a sophisticated civilisation totalling 90m people of diverse cultures and races.
And in the background, you have the USA. The Lincoln carrier battle group on the one hand. And Witkoff and Kushner on the other. And a moron like Trump "overseeing" it all. Words truly fail.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
What parts of the US were not previously inhabited? OK, maybe bits of Alaska.
Yes, you are right some plots of land were willingly sold to settlers, although most deals were coercive or the tribes and settlers had very different ideas over what rights were being sold.
So, the US is mostly stolen land.
Also, the whole idea that you can simply rock up to a piece of uninhabited land and claim it as yours seems something of a cultural invention.
The whole concept of ownership is something of a cultural intervention.
If you can't own something nobody else owns, then what exactly can you own?
Land stands out as something a bit different because, in principle, anything* else can be produced in sufficient quantity that everyone can own a copy. But land ownership is strictly a zero-sum deal.
* You might counter that not everyone can own a painting by Van Gogh, but this is an interesting example because everyone can own a high-quality print of a Van Gogh - which has pretty much the visual impact of the original - but we've elevated the value of the original so that people can feel good about owning something others cannot.
It’s perfectly possible to make land. Ask the Dutch.
Also see the process of embarking rivers - such as the Thames. Which serves two purposes - protect existing land from seasonal flooding and creating huge swathes of river front property.
Simon Sebag Montefiore is one of the good guys. He just tweeted this. I make no apologies for its length. Everyone in the world should read it
The images emerging now from Iran of young people, older people, boys and girls, who were murdered in the last few weeks by the Iranian Islamic dictator, the Islamic Corps of Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and imported killers from Iraq, are heartbreaking but also enraging.
Some depict beautiful people at play, at the gym, dancing, on motorbikes; some makeshift morgues full of bodies; some streetscenes where killers shoot down unarmed protesters; and many show families opening bodybags to find their dead children shot in the head; others discover bodies of protesters wounded then executed in hospital beds and particularly women with uteruses removed or other horrors to conceal brutal rapes... Many are not young but it looks like the slaughter of the best and brightest of Iran Gen Z. Ive tried to repost these here.
I have been contacted by people in Iran (who weirdly read my books in pirated Farsi editions) who manage to come online in various ways and they beg me to keep posting these images and faces and keep talking about them. Embarrassingly they thank me just for doing this! That is why i am writing this now. We must keep going and keep doing so.
The numbers killed are astonishing: based on sources within the murderous dictatorship, it may be as many as 36000 were murdered just in the first days of the terror 8/9 January and more later - making it likely that 40,000 is a horribly plausible estimate.
This makes this event the most greatest massacre in modern Iranian history by far, the greatest single event slaughter in modern MIddle Eastern history since 1900 - along with the Assad's liquidation of an entire town, site of Islamist insurgents, Hama, in 1982 when around 30,000 were killed. Both of them not taking place in wars but in cold blood - and this Iranian atrocity being far more terrible since none of the protesters were armed.
We live in a time of egregious comparisons to the Holocaust when the Holocaust is repellently abused and minimized by cynical cretins - radiohosts, podders, politicians- to criticize anything from vaccination to ICE raids. But here is a comparison that stands in its scale and horror: in size and horror this does resemble the two days of Babi Yar near Kiev in Sept 1941 where 33,000 Jews were killed. It is also worth pointing out that an entire progressive movement arose against the autocracy of the Shah.
And his was an autocracy. But in his forty year one reign, only around 3000 people were killed, mainly in the last year before his downfall.
It is very striking that the UN has barely commented on thiis…
There's only one country with the power to intervene against the murderous Iranian regime, and it's currently sending Witkoff and Kushner to negotiate with them.
But Monteviore is essentially correct; it is not hyperbole to compare the Iranian regime with that of Stalin at Katyn for example. (The Holocaust comparison is problematic, since it was different in kind.)
He is and always has been an arch Zionist. If you support Netanyahu's work in Gaza he's your man
So nothing about the young, dead, unarmed Iranians who have been brutally murdered by their own authoritarian dictatorship in cold blood?
Nothing about a dictatorship which is not fighting terrorists or an insurgency, merely slaughtering unarmed protestors?
Instead its all about the Zionists.
Never change Roger, never change.
You are the person who said that 'Israel should kill as many Gazans as they could' so l know where you're coming from. I think you might also be the poster who said the Israelis were doing the Gazan women a favour by killing their kids because it was making them martyrs.
My only hesitation is that might have been Blanche. You two are pretty interchangeable when it comes to slaughtering people about whom you know nothing
Simon Sebag Montefiore is one of the good guys. He just tweeted this. I make no apologies for its length. Everyone in the world should read it
The images emerging now from Iran of young people, older people, boys and girls, who were murdered in the last few weeks by the Iranian Islamic dictator, the Islamic Corps of Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and imported killers from Iraq, are heartbreaking but also enraging.
Some depict beautiful people at play, at the gym, dancing, on motorbikes; some makeshift morgues full of bodies; some streetscenes where killers shoot down unarmed protesters; and many show families opening bodybags to find their dead children shot in the head; others discover bodies of protesters wounded then executed in hospital beds and particularly women with uteruses removed or other horrors to conceal brutal rapes... Many are not young but it looks like the slaughter of the best and brightest of Iran Gen Z. Ive tried to repost these here.
I have been contacted by people in Iran (who weirdly read my books in pirated Farsi editions) who manage to come online in various ways and they beg me to keep posting these images and faces and keep talking about them. Embarrassingly they thank me just for doing this! That is why i am writing this now. We must keep going and keep doing so.
The numbers killed are astonishing: based on sources within the murderous dictatorship, it may be as many as 36000 were murdered just in the first days of the terror 8/9 January and more later - making it likely that 40,000 is a horribly plausible estimate.
This makes this event the most greatest massacre in modern Iranian history by far, the greatest single event slaughter in modern MIddle Eastern history since 1900 - along with the Assad's liquidation of an entire town, site of Islamist insurgents, Hama, in 1982 when around 30,000 were killed. Both of them not taking place in wars but in cold blood - and this Iranian atrocity being far more terrible since none of the protesters were armed.
We live in a time of egregious comparisons to the Holocaust when the Holocaust is repellently abused and minimized by cynical cretins - radiohosts, podders, politicians- to criticize anything from vaccination to ICE raids. But here is a comparison that stands in its scale and horror: in size and horror this does resemble the two days of Babi Yar near Kiev in Sept 1941 where 33,000 Jews were killed. It is also worth pointing out that an entire progressive movement arose against the autocracy of the Shah.
And his was an autocracy. But in his forty year one reign, only around 3000 people were killed, mainly in the last year before his downfall.
It is very striking that the UN has barely commented on thiis…
There's only one country with the power to intervene against the murderous Iranian regime, and it's currently sending Witkoff and Kushner to negotiate with them.
But Monteviore is essentially correct; it is not hyperbole to compare the Iranian regime with that of Stalin at Katyn for example. (The Holocaust comparison is problematic, since it was different in kind.)
He is and always has been an arch Zionist. If you support Netanyahu's work in Gaza he's your man
That's perhaps what Leon meant by "one of the good guys"?
SSMontefiore is really not an arch-Zionist. Roger is, however, some weird creepy self hating Jew that loathes Israel, and therefore supports Iran, or at least doesn't care what Iran does to its own people, because Iran is anti-Israel so Iran must be good
Quite perverse
You are beginning sound a lot like how they march with Israel flags in Northern Ireland, but anti Israel in Republic of Ireland!
Surely it’s fair to not like what Netanyahu’s regime have done and not like what Iranian regime have done, without making us a supporter of the other side? We really don’t have to pick one side or the other on this, just because are usual antagonists have piled in on the other side. That’s soooo immature.
Sudan conflict is a very different thing - it’s geopolitical land and power grab rather than localism fighting for land and freedom. Foreign fighters signed up as mercenaries killing and displacing locals on behalf of regimes far away. A bit like the thirty years war in Europe.
Keir Starmer’s preferred candidate for US Ambassador was George Osborne. Morgan McSweeney convinced him to appoint Mandelson.
Presumably McSweeney's reasoning was that the word on the backbenches was that George was too tainted with austerity and would prove political awkward.
The first thing Ange needs to do as PM is make MacSweeney Ambassador to North Korea.
Ultimately the CEO of any organisation faced with this extraordinary level of opprobrium would resign
Why is it different for Starmer ?
You don’t understand this politics malarkey do you?
CEO's who resign typically head off to become CEO's elsewhere... PM's who resign have nowhere good to go.
The PMs who resign are reduced to becoming millionaires through “consultancy”, non-executive roles and giving speeches.
Former Prime Minister
Years in Office
Estimated Cost per Speech
Tony Blair
1997–2007
£150,000 – £200,000+
Boris Johnson
2019–2022
£100,000 – £250,000+
Theresa May
2016–2019
£80,000 – £120,000
Gordon Brown
2007–2010
£50,000 – £75,000
John Major
1990–1997
£30,000 – £60,000
It’s a hard, hard life.
No doubt they get to make plenty of money but for some, there must be a sense of loss. You go from being the leader of a great Nation to someone who gets lots of money to talk about stuff. Not bad, but no longer the top of your game.
Oh, true. See Truss and her descent.
In the book by Dr David Owen on the mental health of leaders, he suggested that John Major was the only one truly healthy during and after, in recent U.K. history.
Because Major hadn’t enjoyed the job and was perfectly ok with not being PM.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
Could you not make that argument everywhere though? Is there anywhere that the native population has not been displaced? And what of man? Why does he have right of dominion over nature in lands where there was no man? (Out of Africa and all that?)
The Falkland Islands were uninhabited until the British got there. The Falkland Islanders are the true native (human) population of the islands!
All of the world has seen population movements and changes, sure, but generally you see a mix of continuity and change, so the native population might not be displaced, even while other populations are also moving in. North America saw a near total replacement of one population with another in the modern era, which is less common, although equally true of, say, Australia.
We are all Tanzanians. We all come from the Olduvai Gorge.
Actually that’s not quite as certain as it was. We may have multiple origins in Africa. We may even have multiple origins worldwide
Out of Africa has long been in opposition to a multiple origins theory, even back when I was first reading about Lucy and all. We will never know. At some point I suspect waves of our ancesters left Africa, then lived in isolation for millenia and diverged to some extent from other hominids and then these populations encountered each other again.
Why will we never know?! Quite an odd remark
Aren't you a scientist?
Yes there are things that are maybe beyond our ken. The true nature of the multiverse, whatever
But I am sure we are capable of determining our own ancestry
I think the information just doesn't exist. Think how many humans and then hominids have lived over the last few millions of years. And then how many became fossils that we can study. Think how many artefacts would have been created and how few would be found. We can do a lot with DNA analysis and looking at things such as mitochondrial DNA, but ultimately I think there will not be enough information.
Doesn't mean we should stop looking and asking the questions.
I think there's enough DNA evidence that we have a pretty good idea that we came out of Africa, twice, with the second time mixing to a limited degree with the populations that had left the first time, which had undergone their own evolutions in isolation.
My understanding is that new evidence will modify this at the margins - a few extra per cent one way or the other, timing, etc - but the overall picture seems to be too firmly grounded now to overturn completely.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
What parts of the US were not previously inhabited? OK, maybe bits of Alaska.
Yes, you are right some plots of land were willingly sold to settlers, although most deals were coercive or the tribes and settlers had very different ideas over what rights were being sold.
So, the US is mostly stolen land.
Also, the whole idea that you can simply rock up to a piece of uninhabited land and claim it as yours seems something of a cultural invention.
The whole concept of ownership is something of a cultural intervention.
If you can't own something nobody else owns, then what exactly can you own?
Land stands out as something a bit different because, in principle, anything* else can be produced in sufficient quantity that everyone can own a copy. But land ownership is strictly a zero-sum deal.
* You might counter that not everyone can own a painting by Van Gogh, but this is an interesting example because everyone can own a high-quality print of a Van Gogh - which has pretty much the visual impact of the original - but we've elevated the value of the original so that people can feel good about owning something others cannot.
I'm still waiting for the upsurge in the AI created art market which I was assuming (like Liz Truss) was going to surprise on the upside.
A guid poyum on ownership.
A Man In Assynt (extract)
Norman MacCaig
Glaciers, grinding West, gouged out these valleys, rasping the brown sandstone, and left, on the hard rock below – the ruffled foreland – this frieze of mountains, filed on the blue air – Stac Polly, Cul Beag, Cul Mor, Suilven, Canisp – a frieze and a litany.
Who owns this landscape? Has owning anything to do with love? For it and I have a love-affair, so nearly human we even have quarrels. – When I intrude too confidently it rebuffs me with a wind like a hand or puts in my way a quaking bog or loch where no loch should be. Or I turn stonily away, refusing to notice the rouged rocks, the mascara under a dripping ledge, even the tossed, the stony limbs waiting.
I can’t pretend it gets sick for me in my absence, though I get sick for it. Yet I love it with special gratitude,since it sends me no letters, is never jealous and, expecting nothing from me, gets nothing but cigarette packets and footprints.
Who owns this landscape? – The millionaire who bought it or the poacher staggering downhill in the early morning with a deer on his back?
Who possesses this landscape? – The man who bought it or I who am possessed by it?
False questions, for this landscape is masterless and intractable in any terms that are human. It is docile only to the weather and its indefatigable lieutenants – wind, water and frost. The wind whets the high ridges and stunts silver birches and alders. Rain falling down meets springs gushing up – they gather and carry down to the Minch tons of sour soil, making bald the bony scalp of Cul Mor. And frost thrusts his hand in cracks and, clenching his fist, bursts open the sandstone plates, the armour of Suilven; he bleeds stories down chutes and screes, smelling of gun powder.
Bit puzzled by this, Trump is largely delivering what he promised (Either implicitly or explicity) so not sure why people aren't liking it all of a sudden
He's delivered on monetising the presidency, side-lining Congress, subverting the justice system, persecuting domestic dissent - all of that good stuff - but he has not, thus far, managed to reduce the price of eggs.
Nonesense.
He’s reduced the price of eggs from 20c to 30c
Same for the chocolate ration
To be fair the price of eggs is down 31% from Trump's inauguration last January.
Ultimately the CEO of any organisation faced with this extraordinary level of opprobrium would resign
Why is it different for Starmer ?
You don’t understand this politics malarkey do you?
CEO's who resign typically head off to become CEO's elsewhere... PM's who resign have nowhere good to go.
The PMs who resign are reduced to becoming millionaires through “consultancy”, non-executive roles and giving speeches.
Former Prime Minister
Years in Office
Estimated Cost per Speech
Tony Blair
1997–2007
£150,000 – £200,000+
Boris Johnson
2019–2022
£100,000 – £250,000+
Theresa May
2016–2019
£80,000 – £120,000
Gordon Brown
2007–2010
£50,000 – £75,000
John Major
1990–1997
£30,000 – £60,000
It’s a hard, hard life.
No doubt they get to make plenty of money but for some, there must be a sense of loss. You go from being the leader of a great Nation to someone who gets lots of money to talk about stuff. Not bad, but no longer the top of your game.
Oh, true. See Truss and her descent.
In the book by Dr David Owen on the mental health of leaders, he suggested that John Major was the only one truly healthy during and after, in recent U.K. history.
Because Major hadn’t enjoyed the job and was perfectly ok with not being PM.
I was in Washington DC when Peter Mandelson was appointed as ambassador. There was serious dismay in the British embassy about it - not specifically because of his Epstein links, but because everyone knew he was trouble and it always ends in tears with him. Plus, Karen Pierce was a brilliant ambassador who had a great relationship with Trump’s team, and wanted to extend. It was just awful judgement by Keir Starmer and his No10 from the very get go.
It’s because Starmer thought Mandelson could sell the stupid Chagos deal. That was Mandy’s job
When the history of this bizarrely tragic government is written, a little tropic archipelago near nowhere will be oddly prominent
Why are you saying it was about Chagos in particular rather than the general perception (of SKS) that Mandelson's peculiar talents would suit working with a peculiar White House?
Seeing as both Trump and Mandelson had relationships with Epstein it may even have been that Mandy's moving in these kinds of circles was what convinced the government to make him ambassador. Trump's world is one where rich and powerful men (and they are all men) carve up the world to their benefit. Treating women and girls Ike commodities is a feature not a bug, as to these people everything is a commodity, to be bought and sold for their benefit. To my mind this is the reality that the Epstein files lay open for all to see, although really it was all there anyway for those who want to see it.
Yes, I'm afraid 'takes a sleaze to manage a sleaze' might well have been a part of it. And now look. Nothing Mandelson could have achieved in Washington is worth even a fraction of this fallout. Such a bad call.
This is such woke nonsense and why we need the BBC.
ITV to screen in-game ad breaks for first time during rugby’s Six Nations
Twenty-second adverts to fill right half of screens
Broadcaster mulling over repeating move for World Cup
ITV will screen in-game commercials for the first time during Thursday’s Six Nations Championship opener between France and Ireland at Stade de France. The broadcaster’s new rights deal includes the option to air two split-screen adverts before a scrum is set in each half of every match of the Six Nations, the Guardian has learned.
ITV is understood to have agreed in-game advertising deals with two major brands, with the screen to be divided in two so viewers do not miss any commentary or live action. The commercials will fill the right half of the screen and last around 20 seconds, with live pictures continuing on the left.
Split-screen in-game advertising has been used by TV networks in the United States for several years and is being trialled by RTE in the Irish national broadcaster’s racing coverage in Ireland.
If the Six Nations experiment is a success , there is a possibility ITV could sell in-game commericals for its coverage of this summer’s World Cup, when there all matches will feature a three-minute water break in the middle of each half to help players cope with the extreme heat.
If Mandelson was able to confess all, including stuff about Trump, then the media might switch attention to him and we might all forget about Peter.
If there’s one thing these revelations show, it’s that Mandy loves hobnobbing with the rich and powerful. Those types don’t tend to like folks who do tell-all’s. I don’t expect him to change the habit of a lifetime.
Ultimately the CEO of any organisation faced with this extraordinary level of opprobrium would resign
Why is it different for Starmer ?
You don’t understand this politics malarkey do you?
CEO's who resign typically head off to become CEO's elsewhere... PM's who resign have nowhere good to go.
This is where the politican job market is really dysfunctional. If you do a good job running a small country you should then try running a larger country, and nobody should be running a large country unless they have at least minimal experience running a smaller country.
The closest we have to a sane career path for top jobs is
Deputy Minister of Finance in Canada Governor of the Bank of Canada Governor of the Bank of England Prime minister of Canada
I was in Washington DC when Peter Mandelson was appointed as ambassador. There was serious dismay in the British embassy about it - not specifically because of his Epstein links, but because everyone knew he was trouble and it always ends in tears with him. Plus, Karen Pierce was a brilliant ambassador who had a great relationship with Trump’s team, and wanted to extend. It was just awful judgement by Keir Starmer and his No10 from the very get go.
It’s because Starmer thought Mandelson could sell the stupid Chagos deal. That was Mandy’s job
When the history of this bizarrely tragic government is written, a little tropic archipelago near nowhere will be oddly prominent
Why are you saying it was about Chagos in particular rather than the general perception (of SKS) that Mandelson's peculiar talents would suit working with a peculiar White House?
Seeing as both Trump and Mandelson had relationships with Epstein it may even have been that Mandy's moving in these kinds of circles was what convinced the government to make him ambassador. Trump's world is one where rich and powerful men (and they are all men) carve up the world to their benefit. Treating women and girls Ike commodities is a feature not a bug, as to these people everything is a commodity, to be bought and sold for their benefit. To my mind this is the reality that the Epstein files lay open for all to see, although really it was all there anyway for those who want to see it.
Of course that is why Starmer chose Mandelson. Whilst publicly indefensible it was a reasonable decision even acknowledging Mandelson to be corrupt, duplicitous and amoral - those are the qualities that work in the Trumpian world rather than adherence to the law and the moral code of the western liberal democracy which are openly derided as weakness to be attacked.
We have a new? Contributor called Brixian? 59 who tried to claim last night that if Mandy goes down that Labour could claim a huge moral victory. Its good have a jolly good belly laugh every now and again.. Reminds me of the sort of crap Tim, late of this parish, used to write.
You are right. In reality a lot of people across the Labour movement are very happy today and cheering Mandelson’s downfall. Brixian may be McSweeny themself.
I have picked up a like from Big G for that, but where are the likes from the rest of you - the reality here is like when Bobby went to Reform Kemi grinned “he’s not our problem now”, for all those in Labour movement who really didn’t like Mandy from the start 40 years ago, or who really came to not like him along the way, this is their “liberation day”. It’s a day for so many in Labour to have their “he’s not our problem now” happy moment. It’s almost like the rest of us are intruding in that.
This is such woke nonsense and why we need the BBC.
ITV to screen in-game ad breaks for first time during rugby’s Six Nations
Twenty-second adverts to fill right half of screens
Broadcaster mulling over repeating move for World Cup
ITV will screen in-game commercials for the first time during Thursday’s Six Nations Championship opener between France and Ireland at Stade de France. The broadcaster’s new rights deal includes the option to air two split-screen adverts before a scrum is set in each half of every match of the Six Nations, the Guardian has learned.
ITV is understood to have agreed in-game advertising deals with two major brands, with the screen to be divided in two so viewers do not miss any commentary or live action. The commercials will fill the right half of the screen and last around 20 seconds, with live pictures continuing on the left.
Split-screen in-game advertising has been used by TV networks in the United States for several years and is being trialled by RTE in the Irish national broadcaster’s racing coverage in Ireland.
If the Six Nations experiment is a success , there is a possibility ITV could sell in-game commericals for its coverage of this summer’s World Cup, when there all matches will feature a three-minute water break in the middle of each half to help players cope with the extreme heat.
If Mandelson was able to confess all, including stuff about Trump, then the media might switch attention to him and we might all forget about Peter.
It's a nice thought, Icarus, but on the evidence of the scandals I have followed in my lifetime I should say it is remarkable how few of the participants break cover and turn King's Evidence.
Ultimately the CEO of any organisation faced with this extraordinary level of opprobrium would resign
Why is it different for Starmer ?
You don’t understand this politics malarkey do you?
CEO's who resign typically head off to become CEO's elsewhere... PM's who resign have nowhere good to go.
The PMs who resign are reduced to becoming millionaires through “consultancy”, non-executive roles and giving speeches.
Former Prime Minister
Years in Office
Estimated Cost per Speech
Tony Blair
1997–2007
£150,000 – £200,000+
Boris Johnson
2019–2022
£100,000 – £250,000+
Theresa May
2016–2019
£80,000 – £120,000
Gordon Brown
2007–2010
£50,000 – £75,000
John Major
1990–1997
£30,000 – £60,000
It’s a hard, hard life.
Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times today draws a stark contrast between Brown and Blair/Mandelson. He says Brown donates the proceeds of his speeches to his charitable foundation and doesn't draw his Prime Ministerial pension, while he blames Blair for the end of Western civilization.
One imagines Ed Balls has had a few words in his ear.
I think the vetting angle is going to prove to be a dead end. I’m told it was communicated to those involved Starmer had decided on Mandelson, and red flags would not be welcomed. So concerns were “watered down”.
Simon Sebag Montefiore is one of the good guys. He just tweeted this. I make no apologies for its length. Everyone in the world should read it
The images emerging now from Iran of young people, older people, boys and girls, who were murdered in the last few weeks by the Iranian Islamic dictator, the Islamic Corps of Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and imported killers from Iraq, are heartbreaking but also enraging.
Some depict beautiful people at play, at the gym, dancing, on motorbikes; some makeshift morgues full of bodies; some streetscenes where killers shoot down unarmed protesters; and many show families opening bodybags to find their dead children shot in the head; others discover bodies of protesters wounded then executed in hospital beds and particularly women with uteruses removed or other horrors to conceal brutal rapes... Many are not young but it looks like the slaughter of the best and brightest of Iran Gen Z. Ive tried to repost these here.
I have been contacted by people in Iran (who weirdly read my books in pirated Farsi editions) who manage to come online in various ways and they beg me to keep posting these images and faces and keep talking about them. Embarrassingly they thank me just for doing this! That is why i am writing this now. We must keep going and keep doing so.
The numbers killed are astonishing: based on sources within the murderous dictatorship, it may be as many as 36000 were murdered just in the first days of the terror 8/9 January and more later - making it likely that 40,000 is a horribly plausible estimate.
This makes this event the most greatest massacre in modern Iranian history by far, the greatest single event slaughter in modern MIddle Eastern history since 1900 - along with the Assad's liquidation of an entire town, site of Islamist insurgents, Hama, in 1982 when around 30,000 were killed. Both of them not taking place in wars but in cold blood - and this Iranian atrocity being far more terrible since none of the protesters were armed.
We live in a time of egregious comparisons to the Holocaust when the Holocaust is repellently abused and minimized by cynical cretins - radiohosts, podders, politicians- to criticize anything from vaccination to ICE raids. But here is a comparison that stands in its scale and horror: in size and horror this does resemble the two days of Babi Yar near Kiev in Sept 1941 where 33,000 Jews were killed. It is also worth pointing out that an entire progressive movement arose against the autocracy of the Shah.
And his was an autocracy. But in his forty year one reign, only around 3000 people were killed, mainly in the last year before his downfall.
It is very striking that the UN has barely commented on thiis…
Simon Sebag Montefiore is one of the good guys. He just tweeted this. I make no apologies for its length. Everyone in the world should read it
The images emerging now from Iran of young people, older people, boys and girls, who were murdered in the last few weeks by the Iranian Islamic dictator, the Islamic Corps of Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and imported killers from Iraq, are heartbreaking but also enraging.
Some depict beautiful people at play, at the gym, dancing, on motorbikes; some makeshift morgues full of bodies; some streetscenes where killers shoot down unarmed protesters; and many show families opening bodybags to find their dead children shot in the head; others discover bodies of protesters wounded then executed in hospital beds and particularly women with uteruses removed or other horrors to conceal brutal rapes... Many are not young but it looks like the slaughter of the best and brightest of Iran Gen Z. Ive tried to repost these here.
I have been contacted by people in Iran (who weirdly read my books in pirated Farsi editions) who manage to come online in various ways and they beg me to keep posting these images and faces and keep talking about them. Embarrassingly they thank me just for doing this! That is why i am writing this now. We must keep going and keep doing so.
The numbers killed are astonishing: based on sources within the murderous dictatorship, it may be as many as 36000 were murdered just in the first days of the terror 8/9 January and more later - making it likely that 40,000 is a horribly plausible estimate.
This makes this event the most greatest massacre in modern Iranian history by far, the greatest single event slaughter in modern MIddle Eastern history since 1900 - along with the Assad's liquidation of an entire town, site of Islamist insurgents, Hama, in 1982 when around 30,000 were killed. Both of them not taking place in wars but in cold blood - and this Iranian atrocity being far more terrible since none of the protesters were armed.
We live in a time of egregious comparisons to the Holocaust when the Holocaust is repellently abused and minimized by cynical cretins - radiohosts, podders, politicians- to criticize anything from vaccination to ICE raids. But here is a comparison that stands in its scale and horror: in size and horror this does resemble the two days of Babi Yar near Kiev in Sept 1941 where 33,000 Jews were killed. It is also worth pointing out that an entire progressive movement arose against the autocracy of the Shah.
And his was an autocracy. But in his forty year one reign, only around 3000 people were killed, mainly in the last year before his downfall.
It is very striking that the UN has barely commented on thiis…
There's only one country with the power to intervene against the murderous Iranian regime, and it's currently sending Witkoff and Kushner to negotiate with them.
But Monteviore is essentially correct; it is not hyperbole to compare the Iranian regime with that of Stalin at Katyn for example. (The Holocaust comparison is problematic, since it was different in kind.)
He is and always has been an arch Zionist. If you support Netanyahu's work in Gaza he's your man
That's perhaps what Leon meant by "one of the good guys"?
SSMontefiore is really not an arch-Zionist. Roger is, however, some weird creepy self hating Jew that loathes Israel, and therefore supports Iran, or at least doesn't care what Iran does to its own people, because Iran is anti-Israel so Iran must be good
Quite perverse
You are beginning sound a lot like how they march with Israel flags in Northern Ireland, but anti Israel in Republic of Ireland!
Surely it’s fair to not like what Netanyahu’s regime have done and not like what Iranian regime have done, without making us a supporter of the other side? We really don’t have to pick one side or the other on this, just because are usual antagonists have piled in on the other side. That’s soooo immature.
Sudan conflict is a very different thing - it’s geopolitical land and power grab rather than localism fighting for land and freedom. Foreign fighters signed up as mercenaries killing and displacing locals on behalf of regimes far away. A bit like the thirty years war in Europe.
There was an excellent programme with Mark Kermode on ' New Iranian Cinema' yesterday. It gave a much better insight into Iran than youl'll ever get reading the partial accounts of Sebag Montefiore or Leon.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
What parts of the US were not previously inhabited? OK, maybe bits of Alaska.
Yes, you are right some plots of land were willingly sold to settlers, although most deals were coercive or the tribes and settlers had very different ideas over what rights were being sold.
So, the US is mostly stolen land.
Also, the whole idea that you can simply rock up to a piece of uninhabited land and claim it as yours seems something of a cultural invention.
The whole concept of ownership is something of a cultural intervention.
If you can't own something nobody else owns, then what exactly can you own?
Land stands out as something a bit different because, in principle, anything* else can be produced in sufficient quantity that everyone can own a copy. But land ownership is strictly a zero-sum deal.
* You might counter that not everyone can own a painting by Van Gogh, but this is an interesting example because everyone can own a high-quality print of a Van Gogh - which has pretty much the visual impact of the original - but we've elevated the value of the original so that people can feel good about owning something others cannot.
It’s perfectly possible to make land. Ask the Dutch.
Also see the process of embarking rivers - such as the Thames. Which serves two purposes - protect existing land from seasonal flooding and creating huge swathes of river front property.
You can only make land in very limited quantities at high cost. I think land still stands out as very different to any other thing that can be owned.
"Peter Mandelson faces criminal investigation over Epstein emails
Former cabinet minister, who is ‘retiring’ from Lords, will be questioned by police about allegations he leaked sensitive information to paedophile financier" (£)
As funny as this all is… what we have seen is supposed emails from Mandy. I’m a bit old fashioned and we don’t know if they were from him (probable) but could also be manipulated by Epstein or others to use.
I am very uncomfortable with the current torch and pitchfork situation removing his peerage etc (I really don’t like him) because I believe in innocent until proven guilty and he has as much protection under the law as anyone and so shouldn’t be penalised until proven to have been a legally bad ‘un.
I would bet one of my kidneys he was bad but please let’s allow justice and procedure to win not mob justice.
I think there is more than enough evidence that Mandleson has always been about money and greed, not probity, for us to light torches and hold pitchforks this evening.
If it wasn’t Epstein - who Mandy continued close to even after Epstein was convicted of child abuse - it was dodgy Russian Mafia .
Same thing, surely ?
Some Same trafficked girls…
And that’s the sad bottom line reality to it. If Epstein and all his perverted criminal friends never existed, the type of crimes he committed would still have happened, and yes are still happening. 😢
So, PMQs. A critical one for Badenoch, I’d say. The goal is a mile wide. If she brings her A game (which she can do) it should be a complete walkover and helps her momentum. If she brings her C game (which she is very capable of doing) she’ll shoot 6 balls a mile wide and it’ll lower her stock.
I imagine some might claim the Normans stole England from its rightful owners in 1066.
Not at all. The Normans stole England from the Saxons. Who had stolen England from the Romano-British. Who had stolen... etc.
SFIACS we don't really know who the Celts stole the Brittanic islands off so we idealise them. Once you start wondering who the Philistines stole Gaza off over 3000 years ago (Hittites? Egyptians?) it all gets a bit complicated. It's fashionable to be the aboriginal story, but there really isn't one.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
What parts of the US were not previously inhabited? OK, maybe bits of Alaska.
Yes, you are right some plots of land were willingly sold to settlers, although most deals were coercive or the tribes and settlers had very different ideas over what rights were being sold.
So, the US is mostly stolen land.
Also, the whole idea that you can simply rock up to a piece of uninhabited land and claim it as yours seems something of a cultural invention.
The whole concept of ownership is something of a cultural intervention.
If you can't own something nobody else owns, then what exactly can you own?
Land stands out as something a bit different because, in principle, anything* else can be produced in sufficient quantity that everyone can own a copy. But land ownership is strictly a zero-sum deal.
* You might counter that not everyone can own a painting by Van Gogh, but this is an interesting example because everyone can own a high-quality print of a Van Gogh - which has pretty much the visual impact of the original - but we've elevated the value of the original so that people can feel good about owning something others cannot.
I'm still waiting for the upsurge in the AI created art market which I was assuming (like Liz Truss) was going to surprise on the upside.
A guid poyum on ownership.
A Man In Assynt (extract)
Norman MacCaig
Glaciers, grinding West, gouged out these valleys, rasping the brown sandstone, and left, on the hard rock below – the ruffled foreland – this frieze of mountains, filed on the blue air – Stac Polly, Cul Beag, Cul Mor, Suilven, Canisp – a frieze and a litany.
Who owns this landscape? Has owning anything to do with love? For it and I have a love-affair, so nearly human we even have quarrels. – When I intrude too confidently it rebuffs me with a wind like a hand or puts in my way a quaking bog or loch where no loch should be. Or I turn stonily away, refusing to notice the rouged rocks, the mascara under a dripping ledge, even the tossed, the stony limbs waiting.
I can’t pretend it gets sick for me in my absence, though I get sick for it. Yet I love it with special gratitude,since it sends me no letters, is never jealous and, expecting nothing from me, gets nothing but cigarette packets and footprints.
Who owns this landscape? – The millionaire who bought it or the poacher staggering downhill in the early morning with a deer on his back?
Who possesses this landscape? – The man who bought it or I who am possessed by it?
False questions, for this landscape is masterless and intractable in any terms that are human. It is docile only to the weather and its indefatigable lieutenants – wind, water and frost. The wind whets the high ridges and stunts silver birches and alders. Rain falling down meets springs gushing up – they gather and carry down to the Minch tons of sour soil, making bald the bony scalp of Cul Mor. And frost thrusts his hand in cracks and, clenching his fist, bursts open the sandstone plates, the armour of Suilven; he bleeds stories down chutes and screes, smelling of gun powder.
All very well, until someone covers it in wind turbines.
Ultimately the CEO of any organisation faced with this extraordinary level of opprobrium would resign
Why is it different for Starmer ?
You don’t understand this politics malarkey do you?
CEO's who resign typically head off to become CEO's elsewhere... PM's who resign have nowhere good to go.
The PMs who resign are reduced to becoming millionaires through “consultancy”, non-executive roles and giving speeches.
Former Prime Minister
Years in Office
Estimated Cost per Speech
Tony Blair
1997–2007
£150,000 – £200,000+
Boris Johnson
2019–2022
£100,000 – £250,000+
Theresa May
2016–2019
£80,000 – £120,000
Gordon Brown
2007–2010
£50,000 – £75,000
John Major
1990–1997
£30,000 – £60,000
It’s a hard, hard life.
No doubt they get to make plenty of money but for some, there must be a sense of loss. You go from being the leader of a great Nation to someone who gets lots of money to talk about stuff. Not bad, but no longer the top of your game.
Oh, true. See Truss and her descent.
In the book by Dr David Owen on the mental health of leaders, he suggested that John Major was the only one truly healthy during and after, in recent U.K. history.
Because Major hadn’t enjoyed the job and was perfectly ok with not being PM.
Since then, I'd add May to the list, and (more tentatively) Sunak and the incumbent.
And that's the problem. To tweak the old joke, you probably do have to be crazy to actively want the job of PM, and to survive in the role. But that ought to rule you out from the job.
Is it Speakers who are mock-reluctantly dragged into the role? Maybe we should do the same for PMs, except for real.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: "I have no idea of the history of this land."
Warner Bros. Discovery exec Bruce Campbell: "Nor do I."
Cruz: "That speaks volumes...that neither of you are willing to say 'hell, no.'"
While I think Billie Eilish is great, I doubt her comments are going to have much electoral impact.
But she's right. The US is all stolen land.
No it is absolutely not all stolen land.
Much of the land was not previously inhabited, so who was it stolen from?
And many Native American tribes willingly sold land to settlers. How is purchased land stolen?
Some was stolen. All is just nonsense.
What parts of the US were not previously inhabited? OK, maybe bits of Alaska.
Yes, you are right some plots of land were willingly sold to settlers, although most deals were coercive or the tribes and settlers had very different ideas over what rights were being sold.
So, the US is mostly stolen land.
Also, the whole idea that you can simply rock up to a piece of uninhabited land and claim it as yours seems something of a cultural invention.
The whole concept of ownership is something of a cultural intervention.
If you can't own something nobody else owns, then what exactly can you own?
Land stands out as something a bit different because, in principle, anything* else can be produced in sufficient quantity that everyone can own a copy. But land ownership is strictly a zero-sum deal.
* You might counter that not everyone can own a painting by Van Gogh, but this is an interesting example because everyone can own a high-quality print of a Van Gogh - which has pretty much the visual impact of the original - but we've elevated the value of the original so that people can feel good about owning something others cannot.
I'm still waiting for the upsurge in the AI created art market which I was assuming (like Liz Truss) was going to surprise on the upside.
A guid poyum on ownership.
A Man In Assynt (extract)
Norman MacCaig
Glaciers, grinding West, gouged out these valleys, rasping the brown sandstone, and left, on the hard rock below – the ruffled foreland – this frieze of mountains, filed on the blue air – Stac Polly, Cul Beag, Cul Mor, Suilven, Canisp – a frieze and a litany.
Who owns this landscape? Has owning anything to do with love? For it and I have a love-affair, so nearly human we even have quarrels. – When I intrude too confidently it rebuffs me with a wind like a hand or puts in my way a quaking bog or loch where no loch should be. Or I turn stonily away, refusing to notice the rouged rocks, the mascara under a dripping ledge, even the tossed, the stony limbs waiting.
I can’t pretend it gets sick for me in my absence, though I get sick for it. Yet I love it with special gratitude,since it sends me no letters, is never jealous and, expecting nothing from me, gets nothing but cigarette packets and footprints.
Who owns this landscape? – The millionaire who bought it or the poacher staggering downhill in the early morning with a deer on his back?
Who possesses this landscape? – The man who bought it or I who am possessed by it?
False questions, for this landscape is masterless and intractable in any terms that are human. It is docile only to the weather and its indefatigable lieutenants – wind, water and frost. The wind whets the high ridges and stunts silver birches and alders. Rain falling down meets springs gushing up – they gather and carry down to the Minch tons of sour soil, making bald the bony scalp of Cul Mor. And frost thrusts his hand in cracks and, clenching his fist, bursts open the sandstone plates, the armour of Suilven; he bleeds stories down chutes and screes, smelling of gun powder.
All very well, until someone covers it in wind turbines.
Triple stabbing ought not necessitate nearly 18h of closed roads and a total media blackout.
Edit - Leicester police say it wasn't a triple stabbing.
The report I saw said a murder investigation as a result of someone being stabbed.
I presume it's a murder investigation because someone has been killed. I suppose we'll just have to wait but the lack of detail at this point is.... strange.
Comments
Given that there are indeed things that nobody owns that you can't own, then the question of what you can own is a matter of opinion.
Keir Starmer’s preferred candidate for US Ambassador was George Osborne. Morgan McSweeney convinced him to appoint Mandelson.
First goal is the mass landing of the DfE on the Sun.
Seconds goal is the mass landing of the House of Commons on Uranus.
Since nobody can or has rocked up at the sun or stars, those are moot to your chosen context.
I agree, this Mandelson business should be terminal.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-7-principles-of-public-life/the-7-principles-of-public-life--2
Such as X posts like this:
"What the HELL has happened in De Montford Uni, Leicester? Roads closed at 6-30 pm last night. Parents STILL cannot get comms with students!! WHAT ARE THE AUTHORITIES HIDING HERE???????????????"
The US is in some ways a bit anomalous, because some of the land stolen from Native Americans was then shared out relatively equitably between settlers, to create the Jeffersonian ideal of an American democracy supported by small landholders. Normally theft of land led to a concentration of land ownership, rather than a distribution.
When will Keir Starmer be replaced as Labour leader?
Ladbrokes give him a 62% chance of being replaced this year & 80% chance that he doesn't lead Labour into the next General Election
2026 - 8/13 (62%)
2027 - 9/2 (18%)
2028 - 7/1 (12%)
2029 or later - 5/1 (17%)
https://t.co/GOcObUKFCs
Why is it different for Starmer ?
Nothing about a dictatorship which is not fighting terrorists or an insurgency, merely slaughtering unarmed protestors?
Instead its all about the Zionists.
Never change Roger, never change.
Great choice.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c17zkj7nwzjt
How does that equate to 16 hours of road closures? And as for the local MP urging people not to speculate! Put out some more information then...
Aren't you a scientist?
Yes there are things that are maybe beyond our ken. The true nature of the multiverse, whatever
But I am sure we are capable of determining our own ancestry
If McSweeney were as successful in Pyongyang as he has been in Downing Street, they'd probably start a war with the South that would end with them nuking London.
Doesn't mean we should stop looking and asking the questions.
I am sure John would not mind me saying therefore.
Where’s the coffin going !!!
ITV to screen in-game ad breaks for first time during rugby’s Six Nations
Twenty-second adverts to fill right half of screens
Broadcaster mulling over repeating move for World Cup
ITV will screen in-game commercials for the first time during Thursday’s Six Nations Championship opener between France and Ireland at Stade de France. The broadcaster’s new rights deal includes the option to air two split-screen adverts before a scrum is set in each half of every match of the Six Nations, the Guardian has learned.
ITV is understood to have agreed in-game advertising deals with two major brands, with the screen to be divided in two so viewers do not miss any commentary or live action. The commercials will fill the right half of the screen and last around 20 seconds, with live pictures continuing on the left.
Split-screen in-game advertising has been used by TV networks in the United States for several years and is being trialled by RTE in the Irish national broadcaster’s racing coverage in Ireland.
If the Six Nations experiment is a success , there is a possibility ITV could sell in-game commericals for its coverage of this summer’s World Cup, when there all matches will feature a three-minute water break in the middle of each half to help players cope with the extreme heat.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/feb/04/itv-in-game-ad-breaks-first-time-rugby-six-nations-television?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
You have to be careful about the accounts from earlier settlers. They had an interest in claiming that the natives weren't cultivating the land, because that was the legal basis on which they were allowed to claim it.
I'm not sure that the land sales were necessarily willing. More a matter of accepting the inevitable.
* Group A can buy land but Group B can't
* Group A can vote but Group B can't
* You can worship your god here, but not there.
* If you own certain means of gathering wealth (in the example it was a horse) then it can't be over more than £x value
* If you break the rules, then will be a fine or prison etc
So over a period of time, there was a transference of wealth and power from one group to another simply by rule setting a.k.a we are a nation of laws. in time land ownership by the native Irish went from 80% to 20%. It's a playbook you see elsewhere where laws rather than force is the methodology. Summed up by Desmond Tutu
When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
Quite perverse
I'm reasonably conflicted. I don't care too much about Mandy's friendships with Epstein-the hypocrisy around is sickening-but I do hate the idea that our PM should be so craven towards a sleazeball like Trump that he thinks he'll score points by appointing someone who might appeal to him. I just long for a PM who can be his own person.
In other parts, diseases bought by settlers spread through the locals far ahead of any exploration parties of locals. So by the time the settlers turned up, everyone was dead or moved on.
This is not to diminish what happened. But “popular culture” is wrong - in both directions.
The closest we have to a sane career path for top jobs is
Deputy Minister of Finance in Canada
Governor of the Bank of Canada
Governor of the Bank of England
Prime minister of Canada
On this discussion of Indian Land, has anyone else seen The Lowdown? It’s very good. It taps into how race is such a big player in the USA these days than in UK and Europe, how many white Americans now feel the law is far too much in favour of indigenous people and anti white.
He had the dirt on Trump andcEpstein
That got the best Trade deal on the Planet.
Problem for McSweeney is mud don't stick to Teflon Trump
Pure comedy gold though from Badenoch and Hollinrake this morning calling for everything to be published, nothing kept back on grounds of national security. Especially concerning Trumps vanity.
Erm remind us Kemi and Kevin the humble address about Boris and Russian Lords
2 pages published 20 odd fully redacted...
Glass houses and all thst
https://amazon.co.uk/Voyage-Long-Strange-Rediscovering-World/dp/0805076034/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1KOTAG1HE2NH1&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ueRBrnJqm5pJ4lT41yvLcGLxU24u14cBSY1O9EQ1p4a8e4AwlQw16wtvnZxa8rK1FsrUhk8c10fZsE97WeQnl41PB-J_gK7zjF1U3QBoJptQ1aXNXzw-KHTOh-a7c5aov8KvyDa4ahVNxUvtQPgDVw.FTG3Z0n3IvOI8Q9qAS1ex9Mbq9JAC6f-3-5SYq2a8o8&dib_tag=se&keywords=a+journey+long+and+strange&qid=1770204014&sprefix=a+journy+long+and+strange%2Caps%2C124&sr=8-2
* You might counter that not everyone can own a painting by Van Gogh, but this is an interesting example because everyone can own a high-quality print of a Van Gogh - which has pretty much the visual impact of the original - but we've elevated the value of the original so that people can feel good about owning something others cannot.
He’s reduced the price of eggs from 20c to 30c
Same for the chocolate ration
My opinion? The Trump White House was thought more susceptible to the oily/polished charms and highly developed Machiavellian instincts of the dark lord than to more traditional diplomacy. Chagos would have been one of the things he was asked to focus on.
For me this is an example (from SKS) of being 'too clever by half' and as a consequence making a bad call. He got swept up in claustrophobic bubble thinking and missed the bigger (ethical) picture. As so often, being ultra cynical is actually being naive. Horseshoe applies.
Starmer protects himself with process.
It is much more likely to see off McSweeney.
The other factor here is timing. For opponents of SKS and Reeves it would be much more preferable for him to take the hit for the May elections than see a new broom immediately tarnished. If and when a challenge comes, I expect this whole episode to be raised as an example of SKS’s bad judgement, but not immediately.
So, for the regime, any challenge is a literally existential threat, They will be killed if they lose control. There is no possibility of a negotiated settlement, or compromise approach. And the regime is more than a handful at the top. There are thousands of mullahs all across the country whose hands are dipped in blood. To remove them will take a massive convulsion.
Not a happy outlook, to say the least. And this a sophisticated civilisation totalling 90m people of diverse cultures and races.
And in the background, you have the USA. The Lincoln carrier battle group on the one hand. And Witkoff and Kushner on the other. And a moron like Trump "overseeing" it all. Words truly fail.
Edit - Leicester police say it wasn't a triple stabbing.
Also see the process of embarking rivers - such as the Thames. Which serves two purposes - protect existing land from seasonal flooding and creating huge swathes of river front property.
My only hesitation is that might have been Blanche. You two are pretty interchangeable when it comes to slaughtering people about whom you know nothing
Surely it’s fair to not like what Netanyahu’s regime have done and not like what Iranian regime have done, without making us a supporter of the other side? We really don’t have to pick one side or the other on this, just because are usual antagonists have piled in on the other side. That’s soooo immature.
Sudan conflict is a very different thing - it’s geopolitical land and power grab rather than localism fighting for land and freedom. Foreign fighters signed up as mercenaries killing and displacing locals on behalf of regimes far away. A bit like the thirty years war in Europe.
In the book by Dr David Owen on the mental health of leaders, he suggested that John Major was the only one truly healthy during and after, in recent U.K. history.
Because Major hadn’t enjoyed the job and was perfectly ok with not being PM.
My understanding is that new evidence will modify this at the margins - a few extra per cent one way or the other, timing, etc - but the overall picture seems to be too firmly grounded now to overturn completely.
Police
Murder investigation in Leicester
18 year old arrested
Not a mass stabbing
A guid poyum on ownership.
A Man In Assynt (extract)
Norman MacCaig
Glaciers, grinding West, gouged out
these valleys, rasping the brown sandstone,
and left, on the hard rock below –
the ruffled foreland –
this frieze of mountains, filed
on the blue air –
Stac Polly,
Cul Beag, Cul Mor, Suilven,
Canisp –
a frieze and
a litany.
Who owns this landscape?
Has owning anything to do with love?
For it and I have a love-affair, so nearly human
we even have quarrels. –
When I intrude too confidently
it rebuffs me with a wind like a hand
or puts in my way
a quaking bog or loch
where no loch should be. Or I turn stonily
away, refusing to notice
the rouged rocks, the mascara
under a dripping ledge, even
the tossed, the stony limbs waiting.
I can’t pretend
it gets sick for me in my absence,
though I get
sick for it. Yet I love it
with special gratitude,since
it sends me no letters, is never
jealous and, expecting nothing
from me, gets nothing but
cigarette packets and footprints.
Who owns this landscape? –
The millionaire who bought it or
the poacher staggering downhill in the early morning
with a deer on his back?
Who possesses this landscape? –
The man who bought it or
I who am possessed by it?
False questions, for
this landscape is
masterless
and intractable in any terms
that are human.
It is docile only to the weather
and its indefatigable lieutenants –
wind, water and frost.
The wind whets the high ridges
and stunts silver birches and alders.
Rain falling down meets
springs gushing up –
they gather and carry down to the Minch
tons of sour soil, making bald
the bony scalp of Cul Mor. And frost
thrusts his hand in cracks and, clenching his fist,
bursts open the sandstone plates,
the armour of Suilven;
he bleeds stories down chutes and screes,
smelling of gun powder.
You could get a decent review of Peppa pig world for a lot less that that on Trip advisor than what he charges for a business leaders address
One imagines Ed Balls has had a few words in his ear.
I think the vetting angle is going to prove to be a dead end. I’m told it was communicated to those involved Starmer had decided on Mandelson, and red flags would not be welcomed. So concerns were “watered down”.
https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/2018998801302966607
And that’s the sad bottom line reality to it. If Epstein and all his perverted criminal friends never existed, the type of crimes he committed would still have happened, and yes are still happening. 😢
Her comments may not have any impact but the debate around them might.
Still most people here are experts on the US so I’m sure they will endlessly pontificate on it.
And that's the problem. To tweak the old joke, you probably do have to be crazy to actively want the job of PM, and to survive in the role. But that ought to rule you out from the job.
Is it Speakers who are mock-reluctantly dragged into the role? Maybe we should do the same for PMs, except for real.
I presume it's a murder investigation because someone has been killed. I suppose we'll just have to wait but the lack of detail at this point is.... strange.