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  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 71,009
    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    A good BBC write up on the Iran war: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo

    “Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn't working”

    The first few paragraphs talk about plans, planning etc.

    The BBC are sanewashing again. Trump didn't have a plan. It was just 'bomb because we can' and assume the Iranians would surrender and install Trump as the new Supreme leader. It really didn't go further than that.

    The US continue NOT to have a plan. Are they going to launch a ground invasion? If so, where? What's the aim, what's the objective?
    Well without a ground invasion it is unlikely to be able to remove the Iranian regime
    How do you envisage a ground invasion removing the Iranian regime?
    Well US and Israeli troops enter Tehran and literally remove the regime and Revolutionary Guard
    What level of forces are required for that, and how many are in theatre?
    Insanity and WW3

    Taking Kharg Island or the Strait is more likely but also very difficult
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 87,634
    The 1950s called, and wants its Farage back.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 24,814
    HYUFD said:

    Apologies if I am late to the party with this, but Sky has done some analysis of the fight for the right:

    "Reform is ahead in 316 seats across Britain, compared to just 93 constituencies where the Conservatives are the leading right-wing party.

    A further 223 seats are considered too close to call, meaning a divided right-wing vote currently looks likely."

    The full article is worth a read.

    So if the Conservatives were able to come ahead of Reform in those 223 seats plus the 93 they are already ahead in they could match the 316 seats Reform lead in and offer the best chance of at least matching them on seats too
    Big if there.

    Even half of the seats that the Tories currently hold are in the too close to call bracket.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 135,090
    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    A good BBC write up on the Iran war: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo

    “Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn't working”

    The first few paragraphs talk about plans, planning etc.

    The BBC are sanewashing again. Trump didn't have a plan. It was just 'bomb because we can' and assume the Iranians would surrender and install Trump as the new Supreme leader. It really didn't go further than that.

    The US continue NOT to have a plan. Are they going to launch a ground invasion? If so, where? What's the aim, what's the objective?
    Well without a ground invasion it is unlikely to be able to remove the Iranian regime
    How do you envisage a ground invasion removing the Iranian regime?
    Well US and Israeli troops enter Tehran and literally remove the regime and Revolutionary Guard
    What level of forces are required for that, and how many are in theatre?
    10,000 US troops and marines are now in the region with more on the way. Israel would also send troops

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/us-iran-ground-operations-marines-middle-east-escalation-trump-b1276873.html
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 55,809
    Great article on how the European arms industry hasn't kept up with changes in warfare:

    https://bsky.app/profile/theatlantic.com/post/3mi5xvm2vuw2i

  • Brixian59Brixian59 Posts: 1,756

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    So it's OK for Netanyahu to eradicate any Iranian representatives that US talk to ang gloat about it.

    It's fine to take out Osama Bin Laden and gloat about it.

    Thats fine they are dispensible.

    People in glass houses.

    An eye for an eye and all that.

    The world would be inherently safer without Bibi.



    You have no means of knowing that Israel wihout Netanyahu would be any different

    Is Iran any different without the Ayatollah ?
    The vast majority of Israelis given a free choice will remove him.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 43,063
    Pictures have emerged of the AWACS that the US said was "slightly damaged"

    https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mi63wi6ip22e
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 135,090
    edited 8:40AM
    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    So it's OK for Netanyahu to eradicate any Iranian representatives that US talk to ang gloat about it.

    It's fine to take out Osama Bin Laden and gloat about it.

    Thats fine they are dispensible.

    People in glass houses.

    An eye for an eye and all that.

    The world would be inherently safer without Bibi.



    You have no means of knowing that Israel wihout Netanyahu would be any different

    Is Iran any different without the Ayatollah ?
    The vast majority of Israelis given a free choice will remove him.
    Israelis have re elected him multiple times. The Iran conflict is also still very popular in Israeli polls even if less so in US polls
  • MelonBMelonB Posts: 16,973
    This is a rare moment I’m with Farage. So long as smoking is regulated so as not to harm others, as is pretty much the case already, then let it be. It’s a useful taxpayer. I say that as a non smoker.

    Once smoking’s gone they’ll come after alcohol. That’s the fear. I say that as an enthusiastic drinker.
  • isamisam Posts: 43,905

    FF43 said:

    Almost for the the first time ever I agree Farage about the generational smoking ban. Not because it's Cromwellian but because it's a nonsense. You either ban tobacco for all age groups - vaping is your safer alternative for a nicotine addiction - or you allow people of all ages to carry on killing themselves.

    "Grandfather rights" is a fairly common concept. Surely it recognises that smoking is addictive, and those who started when it was legal may not be in a position to stop immediately. They are offered help to stop and others are not allowed to start.

    Why anyone ever thought that inhaling smoke was ever likely to be healthy is beyond me.
    I think the phased ban suggested by Sunak is a great way of dealing with the problem; let those who smoke continue, but prevent kids from ever starting. I used to smoke twenty a day from about 15 yrs old until I was 25, then gave up pretty easily. It seems absurd to have ever begun, I just hope I got away with it in terms of long term health
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 43,063
    @vcdgf555.bsky.social‬

    Yes, as a matter of fact, we are preparing to do the stupidest fucking thing we could do in the Middle East.

    https://bsky.app/profile/vcdgf555.bsky.social/post/3mi5xc446dc22
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 19,670
    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Roger said:



    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    The point you miss is that Netanyahu wants to ferment anti semitism around the diaspora because it encourages Jews to move to Israel which turns his greater Israel project into a reality. They were offering large discounts to Jews who would move into the illegally occupied territories with guarantees if the land was ever taken back and given to the rightful owners they would be fully compensated.
    Well there’s the talk of leasing the Greek islands close to Turkey and occupying land in Lebanon south of the Litani river.

    Greater Israel and war without end is on.
    I had not previously heard of the plan to lease Greek islands. Wow.
    Currently a suggestion

    https://x.com/europa/status/2036569682430374069?s=61
    Bonkers. Thank you for this.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 63,723
    Scott_xP said:

    Pictures have emerged of the AWACS that the US said was "slightly damaged"

    https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mi63wi6ip22e

    Hmm.

    If Trump wanted to properly win a war it would've cost less to just fling hardware at Ukraine to use on Russia.

    *sighs*

    You might think I;m jumping the gun, but I fear that the glorious president might not win a Nobel Peace Prize after all.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 61,962

    FF43 said:

    Almost for the the first time ever I agree Farage about the generational smoking ban. Not because it's Cromwellian but because it's a nonsense. You either ban tobacco for all age groups - vaping is your safer alternative for a nicotine addiction - or you allow people of all ages to carry on killing themselves.

    "Grandfather rights" is a fairly common concept. Surely it recognises that smoking is addictive, and those who started when it was legal may not be in a position to stop immediately. They are offered help to stop and others are not allowed to start.

    Why anyone ever thought that inhaling smoke was ever likely to be healthy is beyond me.
    An old favourite in the oil business is pointing out that petrol is inflatable, explosive, carcinogenic, mutagenic & teratogenic. Letting amateurs not even in hazmat suits anywhere near it… it would be criminal except for customary usage.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 135,090

    HYUFD said:

    Apologies if I am late to the party with this, but Sky has done some analysis of the fight for the right:

    "Reform is ahead in 316 seats across Britain, compared to just 93 constituencies where the Conservatives are the leading right-wing party.

    A further 223 seats are considered too close to call, meaning a divided right-wing vote currently looks likely."

    The full article is worth a read.

    So if the Conservatives were able to come ahead of Reform in those 223 seats plus the 93 they are already ahead in they could match the 316 seats Reform lead in and offer the best chance of at least matching them on seats too
    Big if there.

    Even half of the seats that the Tories currently hold are in the too close to call bracket.
    There will be more anti Reform than anti Tory tactical voting though
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 43,063
    Apparently Israel bombed a university in Iran overnight, prompting the Iranians to target other universities in the region as a result
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 71,009
    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    So it's OK for Netanyahu to eradicate any Iranian representatives that US talk to ang gloat about it.

    It's fine to take out Osama Bin Laden and gloat about it.

    Thats fine they are dispensible.

    People in glass houses.

    An eye for an eye and all that.

    The world would be inherently safer without Bibi.



    You have no means of knowing that Israel wihout Netanyahu would be any different

    Is Iran any different without the Ayatollah ?
    The vast majority of Israelis given a free choice will remove him.
    Wishcasting from you

    There is no evidence that removing Netanyahu will change anything
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 55,809
    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    A good BBC write up on the Iran war: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo

    “Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn't working”

    The first few paragraphs talk about plans, planning etc.

    The BBC are sanewashing again. Trump didn't have a plan. It was just 'bomb because we can' and assume the Iranians would surrender and install Trump as the new Supreme leader. It really didn't go further than that.

    The US continue NOT to have a plan. Are they going to launch a ground invasion? If so, where? What's the aim, what's the objective?
    Well without a ground invasion it is unlikely to be able to remove the Iranian regime
    How do you envisage a ground invasion removing the Iranian regime?
    Well US and Israeli troops enter Tehran and literally remove the regime and Revolutionary Guard
    What level of forces are required for that, and how many are in theatre?
    10,000 US troops and marines are now in the region with more on the way. Israel would also send troops

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/us-iran-ground-operations-marines-middle-east-escalation-trump-b1276873.html
    How many troops were needed to invade Iraq? What staging areas are to be used? How do the Israeli forces get there (the ones not in Gaza or Lebanon)?

  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 38,394

    A good BBC write up on the Iran war: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo

    “Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn't working”

    Bowen is a pro-Palestinian anti-Trump lefty. What is Chris Mason's unbiased take?
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 19,670

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    So it's OK for Netanyahu to eradicate any Iranian representatives that US talk to ang gloat about it.

    It's fine to take out Osama Bin Laden and gloat about it.

    Thats fine they are dispensible.

    People in glass houses.

    An eye for an eye and all that.

    The world would be inherently safer without Bibi.



    You have no means of knowing that Israel wihout Netanyahu would be any different

    Is Iran any different without the Ayatollah ?
    Israel has had different PMs in the past and we can see that they generally sought less war and achieved more peace.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 61,962
    Scott_xP said:

    @vcdgf555.bsky.social‬

    Yes, as a matter of fact, we are preparing to do the stupidest fucking thing we could do in the Middle East.

    https://bsky.app/profile/vcdgf555.bsky.social/post/3mi5xc446dc22

    It’s the Middle East.

    For all of Trump’s efforts at trying to do the stupidest fucking things, he has barely as scratched the surface.

    And the linked thing isn’t the stupidest possible either.

    There’s a whole Challenger Deep of stupid below him, waiting to be explored. Donny is just paddling around at the moment.

    Let that sink in.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 71,009
    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    A good BBC write up on the Iran war: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo

    “Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn't working”

    The first few paragraphs talk about plans, planning etc.

    The BBC are sanewashing again. Trump didn't have a plan. It was just 'bomb because we can' and assume the Iranians would surrender and install Trump as the new Supreme leader. It really didn't go further than that.

    The US continue NOT to have a plan. Are they going to launch a ground invasion? If so, where? What's the aim, what's the objective?
    Well without a ground invasion it is unlikely to be able to remove the Iranian regime
    How do you envisage a ground invasion removing the Iranian regime?
    Well US and Israeli troops enter Tehran and literally remove the regime and Revolutionary Guard
    What level of forces are required for that, and how many are in theatre?
    10,000 US troops and marines are now in the region with more on the way. Israel would also send troops

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/us-iran-ground-operations-marines-middle-east-escalation-trump-b1276873.html
    2.7 million US military served in Vietnam between 1955 - 1975 and 58,279 died
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 17,001
    edited 8:45AM

    HYUFD said:

    Apologies if I am late to the party with this, but Sky has done some analysis of the fight for the right:

    "Reform is ahead in 316 seats across Britain, compared to just 93 constituencies where the Conservatives are the leading right-wing party.

    A further 223 seats are considered too close to call, meaning a divided right-wing vote currently looks likely."

    The full article is worth a read.

    So if the Conservatives were able to come ahead of Reform in those 223 seats plus the 93 they are already ahead in they could match the 316 seats Reform lead in and offer the best chance of at least matching them on seats too
    Big if there.

    Even half of the seats that the Tories currently hold are in the too close to call bracket.
    But Reform only have a clear lead in 4 Tory held seats.
    Its a map that suggests a seat return not a million miles from the current with some loss to Reform but Lab held pick ups.
    Pretty much 'free for all' across most of East Anglia..... that can soon be tested at the ballot box

  • AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 5,058

    Brixian59 said:

    On Topic

    Personally i find VAPING far more intrusive and offensive than smoking traditional cigarettes and apparently equally dangerous to health of the smoker and passively.

    Sitting behind a car full of vape smoke and kids at traffic lights particulary dangerous.

    From a political perspection of current trends continue along the Tory toxification to the Right of Reform, we'll no doubt see Kemi as "Fagash Lil" tweeting with a roll up, B+H and Tory Blueberry Blue Vape some time later today.

    Vaping is not as dangerous as smoking.
    Not to the user, no. To the bystander, we'll need to wait & see.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 22,975

    What's weird about polls like this is that if you ask about being lax on cannabis (also smoking) you can get answers precisely the other way.

    The sickly sweet smell of cannabis seems to penetrate a wider radius (tens of metres, if not larger - and it's more insidious as it can dominate parks) whereas smoking even though it's more disgusting and invasive you need to be within a few metres.

    Yes, I noticed that inconsistency too.

    Though there are people who argue quite sincerely that tobacco and alcohol are the more dangerous drugs, compared with cannabis and ecstasy, so there would be a certain logic to swapping the legal treatment of those.

    The most striking thing is the consistency of support across the political spectrum for a ban. Britons really do like to ban things that other Britons do.

    It suggests that Green policy on liberalising drug laws is probably their weakest point.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 38,394

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    asecand desist

    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    It isn't a post I would have made or even agree with, but incitement? Cease and desist.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 135,090

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    A good BBC write up on the Iran war: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo

    “Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn't working”

    The first few paragraphs talk about plans, planning etc.

    The BBC are sanewashing again. Trump didn't have a plan. It was just 'bomb because we can' and assume the Iranians would surrender and install Trump as the new Supreme leader. It really didn't go further than that.

    The US continue NOT to have a plan. Are they going to launch a ground invasion? If so, where? What's the aim, what's the objective?
    Well without a ground invasion it is unlikely to be able to remove the Iranian regime
    How do you envisage a ground invasion removing the Iranian regime?
    Well US and Israeli troops enter Tehran and literally remove the regime and Revolutionary Guard
    What level of forces are required for that, and how many are in theatre?
    10,000 US troops and marines are now in the region with more on the way. Israel would also send troops

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/us-iran-ground-operations-marines-middle-east-escalation-trump-b1276873.html
    2.7 million US military served in Vietnam between 1955 - 1975 and 58,279 died
    They kept South Vietnam free of the Communists. The mistake was withdrawing them
  • Brixian59Brixian59 Posts: 1,756

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    So it's OK for Netanyahu to eradicate any Iranian representatives that US talk to ang gloat about it.

    It's fine to take out Osama Bin Laden and gloat about it.

    Thats fine they are dispensible.

    People in glass houses.

    An eye for an eye and all that.

    The world would be inherently safer without Bibi.



    You have no means of knowing that Israel wihout Netanyahu would be any different

    Is Iran any different without the Ayatollah ?
    Israel has had different PMs in the past and we can see that they generally sought less war and achieved more peace.
    Indeed

    The vast majority of Israeli governments of the past were peaceful law abiding and very decent people
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 24,814
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Apologies if I am late to the party with this, but Sky has done some analysis of the fight for the right:

    "Reform is ahead in 316 seats across Britain, compared to just 93 constituencies where the Conservatives are the leading right-wing party.

    A further 223 seats are considered too close to call, meaning a divided right-wing vote currently looks likely."

    The full article is worth a read.

    So if the Conservatives were able to come ahead of Reform in those 223 seats plus the 93 they are already ahead in they could match the 316 seats Reform lead in and offer the best chance of at least matching them on seats too
    Big if there.

    Even half of the seats that the Tories currently hold are in the too close to call bracket.
    There will be more anti Reform than anti Tory tactical voting though
    You're pinning your hopes on left of centre voters holding their noses and voting Conservative.

    I just don't see it. Two cheeks of the same arse. Vote Blue, Get Turquoise. Whichever wins the seat, Farage is PM.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 61,962

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    So it's OK for Netanyahu to eradicate any Iranian representatives that US talk to ang gloat about it.

    It's fine to take out Osama Bin Laden and gloat about it.

    Thats fine they are dispensible.

    People in glass houses.

    An eye for an eye and all that.

    The world would be inherently safer without Bibi.



    You have no means of knowing that Israel wihout Netanyahu would be any different

    Is Iran any different without the Ayatollah ?
    Israel has had different PMs in the past and we can see that they generally sought less war and achieved more peace.
    The opposition block of parties is leading (just) in the polls.

    The response to an assassination would probable enable the more extreme parties. That’s the historic response to such things, in various countries.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 19,670
    AnneJGP said:

    Brixian59 said:

    On Topic

    Personally i find VAPING far more intrusive and offensive than smoking traditional cigarettes and apparently equally dangerous to health of the smoker and passively.

    Sitting behind a car full of vape smoke and kids at traffic lights particulary dangerous.

    From a political perspection of current trends continue along the Tory toxification to the Right of Reform, we'll no doubt see Kemi as "Fagash Lil" tweeting with a roll up, B+H and Tory Blueberry Blue Vape some time later today.

    Vaping is not as dangerous as smoking.
    Not to the user, no. To the bystander, we'll need to wait & see.
    It’s the same smoke/fumes being inhaled by the user and the bystander. If it’s not as dangerous for the user, it’s also not as dangerous for the bystander.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 38,394
    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    So it's OK for Netanyahu to eradicate any Iranian representatives that US talk to ang gloat about it.

    It's fine to take out Osama Bin Laden and gloat about it.

    Thats fine they are dispensible.

    People in glass houses.

    An eye for an eye and all that.

    The world would be inherently safer without Bibi.



    You've advocated for someone to assassinate an elected leader (and possibly his cabinet "cabal" too) on a public forum.

    I hold no candle for the guy, and don't want him in power either, but that's incitement to violence.
    In the same way others have in cited to smash

    Hamas
    Hezbollah
    Mullahs

    They are no worse.

    If its incitement I'm sure it will be taken down.
    We haven't had an edge lord of the left for a while.

    I reckon your quite sensible World view would be more effectively proposed if you wound in some of the less appropriate rhetoric.
  • Brixian59Brixian59 Posts: 1,756
    Sean_F said:

    Netanyahu is scum, but comparing him to Hitler is the mark of an unhinged mind.

    Or a lateral thinker

    You can't classify evil

    Evil is evil

    Genocide is genocide

    Netanyahu right now is as great a threat to the world as Hitler ever was.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 71,009
    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    So it's OK for Netanyahu to eradicate any Iranian representatives that US talk to ang gloat about it.

    It's fine to take out Osama Bin Laden and gloat about it.

    Thats fine they are dispensible.

    People in glass houses.

    An eye for an eye and all that.

    The world would be inherently safer without Bibi.



    You have no means of knowing that Israel wihout Netanyahu would be any different

    Is Iran any different without the Ayatollah ?
    Israel has had different PMs in the past and we can see that they generally sought less war and achieved more peace.
    Indeed

    The vast majority of Israeli governments of the past were peaceful law abiding and very decent people
    Taking this conflict back to its origin it was Hamas slaughter of innocent Israelis that lit the touchpaper that has set the middle east on fire
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 22,975

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    I am not advocating for assassination - far from it - but sadly it has worked to change politics in the past, with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Perhaps it can only ever change politics in the direction of more violence, which makes it all the more jarring to see it being advocated for by those claiming to be on the side of peace and justice.
  • Brixian59Brixian59 Posts: 1,756

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    So it's OK for Netanyahu to eradicate any Iranian representatives that US talk to ang gloat about it.

    It's fine to take out Osama Bin Laden and gloat about it.

    Thats fine they are dispensible.

    People in glass houses.

    An eye for an eye and all that.

    The world would be inherently safer without Bibi.



    You have no means of knowing that Israel wihout Netanyahu would be any different

    Is Iran any different without the Ayatollah ?
    The vast majority of Israelis given a free choice will remove him.
    Wishcasting from you

    There is no evidence that removing Netanyahu will change anything
    There is 80 years of history that suggests Netanyahu is the single most extreme aggressive Leader Israel has ever had.

    Don't make silly statements that you cannot justify.

    Name an Israelieader more aggressive and dangerous than Netanyahu
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 71,009
    Brixian59 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Netanyahu is scum, but comparing him to Hitler is the mark of an unhinged mind.

    Or a lateral thinker

    You can't classify evil

    Evil is evil

    Genocide is genocide

    Netanyahu right now is as great a threat to the world as Hitler ever was.
    That is clearly nonsense and a one sided view
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 24,814
    How can it be nearly ten o'clock already? It feels so much earlier.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 22,975
    Scott_xP said:

    Pictures have emerged of the AWACS that the US said was "slightly damaged"

    https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mi63wi6ip22e

    When was the last time the US fought a war against an adversary able to conduct such successful strikes against rear areas?
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 19,261
    edited 8:58AM

    FF43 said:

    Almost for the the first time ever I agree Farage about the generational smoking ban. Not because it's Cromwellian but because it's a nonsense. You either ban tobacco for all age groups - vaping is your safer alternative for a nicotine addiction - or you allow people of all ages to carry on killing themselves.

    "Grandfather rights" is a fairly common concept. Surely it recognises that smoking is addictive, and those who started when it was legal may not be in a position to stop immediately. They are offered help to stop and others are not allowed to start.

    Why anyone ever thought that inhaling smoke was ever likely to be healthy is beyond me.
    You imply smokers are unable to move to safer ways to feed their nicotine addiction. Smoking bans should be a kindness. They help people change their lifestyle to avoid life shortening and extremely unpleasant diseases. Why wouldn't we extend that kindness to everyone?

    I would FWIW be in favour of a licensing system short of an outright ban, possibly for an interim period. The purpose is to help people in the most effective way.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 22,032

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    So it's OK for Netanyahu to eradicate any Iranian representatives that US talk to ang gloat about it.

    It's fine to take out Osama Bin Laden and gloat about it.

    Thats fine they are dispensible.

    People in glass houses.

    An eye for an eye and all that.

    The world would be inherently safer without Bibi.



    You have no means of knowing that Israel wihout Netanyahu would be any different

    Is Iran any different without the Ayatollah ?
    The vast majority of Israelis given a free choice will remove him.
    Wishcasting from you

    There is no evidence that removing Netanyahu will change anything
    It gets rid of one big factor- the "Bibi needs a war to distract from his personal issues" thing. Which can't do any harm.

    But yes, it leaves a lot unresolved.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 16,931
    SFAICS the plans for English law on smoking do not ban smoking for those over some age or other and rising but ban the purchase of tobacco for all those born after a certain date (2009?).

    Use and purchase are completely different. As long as those born before 2009 can legally buy tobacco there is a group who can legally buy it until at least the 2070s, which I should think is well after the world has ended not with a bang but a whimper. As long as money can be made out of tobacco there will be shop on the corner selling it.

    This has similarities with alcohol, much, though not all, consumption of which is lawful for under 18s but not purchase.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 87,634
    HYUFD said:

    Roger said:

    Quite an apocalyptic vsion from the excellent Jeremy Bowen this morning on radio 4. Well worth listening to. He's already mentioning Suez. This is not a done deal. Quite chilling.

    His comparison with China does not hold though as China has no real interest in the Middle East as the US did in overtaking the UK and French influence there
    Considering how much of their oil and gas comes from the region, that's a very odd claim.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 38,394
    Taz said:

    Roger said:



    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    The point you miss is that Netanyahu wants to ferment anti semitism around the diaspora because it encourages Jews to move to Israel which turns his greater Israel project into a reality. They were offering large discounts to Jews who would move into the illegally occupied territories with guarantees if the land was ever taken back and given to the rightful owners they would be fully compensated.
    Well there’s the talk of leasing the Greek islands close to Turkey and occupying land in Lebanon south of the Litani river.

    Greater Israel and war without end is on.
    Ireland would have made a fantastic Jewish homeland. Two troublesome political narratives resolved in one hit.
  • Brixian59Brixian59 Posts: 1,756

    Brixian59 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Netanyahu is scum, but comparing him to Hitler is the mark of an unhinged mind.

    Or a lateral thinker

    You can't classify evil

    Evil is evil

    Genocide is genocide

    Netanyahu right now is as great a threat to the world as Hitler ever was.
    That is clearly nonsense and a one sided view
    Have you ever posted anything but a one sided view.

    Bullies don't like it up em.

    Bigots don't like being challenged.

    The right never can answer intellectually like the left.

    Arrogance is not knowledge.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 61,962
    AnneJGP said:

    Brixian59 said:

    On Topic

    Personally i find VAPING far more intrusive and offensive than smoking traditional cigarettes and apparently equally dangerous to health of the smoker and passively.

    Sitting behind a car full of vape smoke and kids at traffic lights particulary dangerous.

    From a political perspection of current trends continue along the Tory toxification to the Right of Reform, we'll no doubt see Kemi as "Fagash Lil" tweeting with a roll up, B+H and Tory Blueberry Blue Vape some time later today.

    Vaping is not as dangerous as smoking.
    Not to the user, no. To the bystander, we'll need to wait & see.
    https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/ready-to-quit-smoking/vaping-to-quit-smoking/vaping-myths-and-the-facts/

    Which including some interesting gaps.

    One problem is that while we have lots of regulation of vaps, there is little enforcement.

    Readers will be shocked to learn that vaps sold in kiosks and pop-up shops have been discovered to be full of whatever chemicals some random character had to hand.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 55,809
    Scott_xP said:

    Pictures have emerged of the AWACS that the US said was "slightly damaged"

    https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mi63wi6ip22e

    Bit of duct tape will sort it...
  • Brixian59Brixian59 Posts: 1,756
    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Netanyahu is scum, but comparing him to Hitler is the mark of an unhinged mind.

    Or a lateral thinker

    You can't classify evil

    Evil is evil

    Genocide is genocide

    Netanyahu right now is as great a threat to the world as Hitler ever was.
    That is clearly nonsense and a one sided view
    Have you ever posted anything but a one sided view.

    Bullies don't like it up em.

    Bigots don't like being challenged.

    The right never can answer intellectually like the left.

    Arrogance is not knowledge.
    Go and answer the last question.

    Name us a Israeli leader more dangerous than Netanyahu and back it up with some fact
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 71,009
    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    So it's OK for Netanyahu to eradicate any Iranian representatives that US talk to ang gloat about it.

    It's fine to take out Osama Bin Laden and gloat about it.

    Thats fine they are dispensible.

    People in glass houses.

    An eye for an eye and all that.

    The world would be inherently safer without Bibi.



    You have no means of knowing that Israel wihout Netanyahu would be any different

    Is Iran any different without the Ayatollah ?
    The vast majority of Israelis given a free choice will remove him.
    Wishcasting from you

    There is no evidence that removing Netanyahu will change anything
    There is 80 years of history that suggests Netanyahu is the single most extreme aggressive Leader Israel has ever had.

    Don't make silly statements that you cannot justify.

    Name an Israelieader more aggressive and dangerous than Netanyahu
    Your solution to assassinate Netanyahu will bring peace is just not the answer to the problem and will entrench the Israelis as it has done in Iran

    Indeed I am uncomfortable with you suggesting assassination is the way forward
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 16,931

    What's weird about polls like this is that if you ask about being lax on cannabis (also smoking) you can get answers precisely the other way.

    The sickly sweet smell of cannabis seems to penetrate a wider radius (tens of metres, if not larger - and it's more insidious as it can dominate parks) whereas smoking even though it's more disgusting and invasive you need to be within a few metres.

    Yes, I noticed that inconsistency too.

    Though there are people who argue quite sincerely that tobacco and alcohol are the more dangerous drugs, compared with cannabis and ecstasy, so there would be a certain logic to swapping the legal treatment of those.

    The most striking thing is the consistency of support across the political spectrum for a ban. Britons really do like to ban things that other Britons do.

    It suggests that Green policy on liberalising drug laws is probably their weakest point.
    It's about the only Green policy I am completely in favour of.

    (Our current drugs law gets nothing right at all. Criminalising what should be a therapeutic issue; and, supposing for a moment the lunatic 'war of drugs' was sane, sending suppliers to prison for 20 years and more while giving purchasers and users, without which there would be no suppliers, a slap on the wrist. Bonkers. But of course it suits the smart coke set and the Daily Mail, so it will stay.)
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 22,975

    How can it be nearly ten o'clock already? It feels so much earlier.

    Some idiots thought it was a good idea to change the clocks so that we're on Prague time.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 19,261
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    A good BBC write up on the Iran war: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo

    “Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn't working”

    The first few paragraphs talk about plans, planning etc.

    The BBC are sanewashing again. Trump didn't have a plan. It was just 'bomb because we can' and assume the Iranians would surrender and install Trump as the new Supreme leader. It really didn't go further than that.

    The US continue NOT to have a plan. Are they going to launch a ground invasion? If so, where? What's the aim, what's the objective?
    Well without a ground invasion it is unlikely to be able to remove the Iranian regime
    How do you envisage a ground invasion removing the Iranian regime?
    Well US and Israeli troops enter Tehran and literally remove the regime and Revolutionary Guard
    What level of forces are required for that, and how many are in theatre?
    10,000 US troops and marines are now in the region with more on the way. Israel would also send troops

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/us-iran-ground-operations-marines-middle-east-escalation-trump-b1276873.html
    2.7 million US military served in Vietnam between 1955 - 1975 and 58,279 died
    They kept South Vietnam free of the Communists. The mistake was withdrawing them
    I'm never convinced by arguments that something was the right thing to do, except for what actually happened.

    Brexit is another example.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 71,009
    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Netanyahu is scum, but comparing him to Hitler is the mark of an unhinged mind.

    Or a lateral thinker

    You can't classify evil

    Evil is evil

    Genocide is genocide

    Netanyahu right now is as great a threat to the world as Hitler ever was.
    That is clearly nonsense and a one sided view
    Have you ever posted anything but a one sided view.

    Bullies don't like it up em.

    Bigots don't like being challenged.

    The right never can answer intellectually like the left.

    Arrogance is not knowledge.
    Read my posts and you will see I condemn all sides in this war

    Every one of them has blood on their hands
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 87,634

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    So it's OK for Netanyahu to eradicate any Iranian representatives that US talk to ang gloat about it.

    It's fine to take out Osama Bin Laden and gloat about it.

    Thats fine they are dispensible.

    People in glass houses.

    An eye for an eye and all that.

    The world would be inherently safer without Bibi.

    You have no means of knowing that Israel wihout Netanyahu would be any different

    Is Iran any different without the Ayatollah ?
    You're right to pose that question, as recent reporting from there suggests a significant part of the electorate are adopting the eliminationist views of the Smotriches the government.

    And an assassination would only exacerbate that trend.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 47,252

    How can it be nearly ten o'clock already? It feels so much earlier.

    Some idiots thought it was a good idea to change the clocks so that we're on Prague time.
    Ah, Budvar for breakfast!
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 27,067
    On the smoking purchase ban by birth age I'm a bit ambivalent. No strong view but would point out that about 25% of UK cigarette consumption is already from illegal untaxed sources. Sounds like it will continue to be trivial to source cigarettes for youngsters who want to regardless of the law.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 22,427
    Foxy said:

    The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there. It is hard now to conceive how we tolerated smoking in the past, even in hospital staff break rooms when I qualified.

    I expect that the smoking ban did damage pubs when it came in, but that doesn't mean that those customers will come back if it is rescinded.

    Having worked in pubs pre smoking ban I can attest to how horrible it was. I did split shifts and needed fresh clothes for the evening shift, so bad was the smell of cigarettes on the ones from the lunch shift.

    Vaping is likely not 100% safe but it will be ordered of magtude better than consuming combustion products direct to the lungs. You wouldn’t lean over a bonfire and inhale. Our project on vaping synthetic cannabinoids starts later this year. I’ll keep you posted.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 27,067

    Taz said:

    Roger said:



    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    The point you miss is that Netanyahu wants to ferment anti semitism around the diaspora because it encourages Jews to move to Israel which turns his greater Israel project into a reality. They were offering large discounts to Jews who would move into the illegally occupied territories with guarantees if the land was ever taken back and given to the rightful owners they would be fully compensated.
    Well there’s the talk of leasing the Greek islands close to Turkey and occupying land in Lebanon south of the Litani river.

    Greater Israel and war without end is on.
    Ireland would have made a fantastic Jewish homeland. Two troublesome political narratives resolved in one hit.
    Fine for the Jewish Catholics but where would you base the Jewish Protestants?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 87,634
    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    A good BBC write up on the Iran war: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo

    “Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn't working”

    The first few paragraphs talk about plans, planning etc.

    The BBC are sanewashing again. Trump didn't have a plan. It was just 'bomb because we can' and assume the Iranians would surrender and install Trump as the new Supreme leader. It really didn't go further than that.

    The US continue NOT to have a plan. Are they going to launch a ground invasion? If so, where? What's the aim, what's the objective?
    Well without a ground invasion it is unlikely to be able to remove the Iranian regime
    How do you envisage a ground invasion removing the Iranian regime?
    Well US and Israeli troops enter Tehran and literally remove the regime and Revolutionary Guard
    What level of forces are required for that, and how many are in theatre?
    10,000 US troops and marines are now in the region with more on the way. Israel would also send troops

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/us-iran-ground-operations-marines-middle-east-escalation-trump-b1276873.html
    You'd need at least half a million to take Tehran, in all likelihood.
    Israel's participation would increase any resistance.
  • Brixian59Brixian59 Posts: 1,756
    Nigelb said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    A good BBC write up on the Iran war: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo

    “Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn't working”

    The first few paragraphs talk about plans, planning etc.

    The BBC are sanewashing again. Trump didn't have a plan. It was just 'bomb because we can' and assume the Iranians would surrender and install Trump as the new Supreme leader. It really didn't go further than that.

    The US continue NOT to have a plan. Are they going to launch a ground invasion? If so, where? What's the aim, what's the objective?
    Well without a ground invasion it is unlikely to be able to remove the Iranian regime
    How do you envisage a ground invasion removing the Iranian regime?
    Well US and Israeli troops enter Tehran and literally remove the regime and Revolutionary Guard
    What level of forces are required for that, and how many are in theatre?
    10,000 US troops and marines are now in the region with more on the way. Israel would also send troops

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/us-iran-ground-operations-marines-middle-east-escalation-trump-b1276873.html
    You'd need at least half a million to take Tehran, in all likelihood.
    Israel's participation would increase any resistance.
    God knows how many millions dug in around the Mountains.

    Afghanistan all over again
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 22,975
    Ukraine attacked Russia's oil export terminal near St Petersburg *again* last night. The capability to conduct repeated attacks against strategic targets is an important milestone. If they can keep it up they can make it impossible to repair, destroying 40% of Russia's oil export capacity.

    Ukraine could have used this capability against another target if its European allies had the courage to close the Baltic to Russia's shadow fleet of oil tankers. But here we are.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 87,634
    edited 9:09AM
    Scott_xP said:

    Pictures have emerged of the AWACS that the US said was "slightly damaged"

    https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mi63wi6ip22e

    The US* have learned nothing from Ukraine's numerous successful attacks on Russian airbases.

    They appear to have lost or suffered significant damage to a number of Stratotankers, too.

    All just parked in straight lines out in the open.

    *I doubt most of NATO is any better prepared.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 61,962
    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Pictures have emerged of the AWACS that the US said was "slightly damaged"

    https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mi63wi6ip22e

    Bit of duct tape will sort it...
    Nonsense.

    You want filler for that.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 22,975
    Nigelb said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    A good BBC write up on the Iran war: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo

    “Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn't working”

    The first few paragraphs talk about plans, planning etc.

    The BBC are sanewashing again. Trump didn't have a plan. It was just 'bomb because we can' and assume the Iranians would surrender and install Trump as the new Supreme leader. It really didn't go further than that.

    The US continue NOT to have a plan. Are they going to launch a ground invasion? If so, where? What's the aim, what's the objective?
    Well without a ground invasion it is unlikely to be able to remove the Iranian regime
    How do you envisage a ground invasion removing the Iranian regime?
    Well US and Israeli troops enter Tehran and literally remove the regime and Revolutionary Guard
    What level of forces are required for that, and how many are in theatre?
    10,000 US troops and marines are now in the region with more on the way. Israel would also send troops

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/us-iran-ground-operations-marines-middle-east-escalation-trump-b1276873.html
    You'd need at least half a million to take Tehran, in all likelihood.
    Israel's participation would increase any resistance.
    Israel is busy expanding its borders. It isn't going to want to send any troops to Iran.
  • Brixian59Brixian59 Posts: 1,756

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I find your talk of "eradication" particularly troubling.

    Netanyahu needs removing by the voters of Israel. It is they who put him there.They should vote to take him down. The incoming regime must decide how he should be punished. The asassins bullet will merely embed his approach for those who follow - and certainly rob justice of issuing its verdict.
    The post is actually incitement and therefore probably illegal.
    So it's OK for Netanyahu to eradicate any Iranian representatives that US talk to ang gloat about it.

    It's fine to take out Osama Bin Laden and gloat about it.

    Thats fine they are dispensible.

    People in glass houses.

    An eye for an eye and all that.

    The world would be inherently safer without Bibi.



    You have no means of knowing that Israel wihout Netanyahu would be any different

    Is Iran any different without the Ayatollah ?
    The vast majority of Israelis given a free choice will remove him.
    Wishcasting from you

    There is no evidence that removing Netanyahu will change anything
    There is 80 years of history that suggests Netanyahu is the single most extreme aggressive Leader Israel has ever had.

    Don't make silly statements that you cannot justify.

    Name an Israelieader more aggressive and dangerous than Netanyahu
    Your solution to assassinate Netanyahu will bring peace is just not the answer to the problem and will entrench the Israelis as it has done in Iran

    Indeed I am uncomfortable with you suggesting assassination is the way forward
    I am merely pointing out the crass and gross hypocracy of those who gloat when some are murdered in cold blood but then whinge when it is suggested others should be.

    My opinion is that Netanyahu is as evil as anyone in history and right now a far greater threat globally than many of the rest.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 87,634
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    A good BBC write up on the Iran war: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo

    “Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn't working”

    The first few paragraphs talk about plans, planning etc.

    The BBC are sanewashing again. Trump didn't have a plan. It was just 'bomb because we can' and assume the Iranians would surrender and install Trump as the new Supreme leader. It really didn't go further than that.

    The US continue NOT to have a plan. Are they going to launch a ground invasion? If so, where? What's the aim, what's the objective?
    Well without a ground invasion it is unlikely to be able to remove the Iranian regime
    How do you envisage a ground invasion removing the Iranian regime?
    Well US and Israeli troops enter Tehran and literally remove the regime and Revolutionary Guard
    What level of forces are required for that, and how many are in theatre?
    10,000 US troops and marines are now in the region with more on the way. Israel would also send troops

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/us-iran-ground-operations-marines-middle-east-escalation-trump-b1276873.html
    2.7 million US military served in Vietnam between 1955 - 1975 and 58,279 died
    They kept South Vietnam free of the Communists. The mistake was withdrawing them
    You are a fool and/or deeply ignorant of the history.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 28,331
    Brixian59 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Netanyahu is scum, but comparing him to Hitler is the mark of an unhinged mind.

    Or a lateral thinker

    You can't classify evil

    Evil is evil

    Genocide is genocide

    Netanyahu right now is as great a threat to the world as Hitler ever was.
    You absolutely can classify evil.

    Genocide is genocide, yes. Fighting in war is not genocide, sending people into gas chambers is genocide.

    Netanyahu is nothing like Hitler.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 22,427

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Pictures have emerged of the AWACS that the US said was "slightly damaged"

    https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mi63wi6ip22e

    Bit of duct tape will sort it...
    Nonsense.

    You want filler for that.
    Years ago I knew a guy whose fix for everything was duct tape. My favourite was a PC that needed four screws to reattach the case fixed instead with tape. Took a minute to do correctly.
    After he left he went to work at Sellafield…
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 17,001
    edited 9:15AM
    Doing a bit of a further look at the Sky news RefCon battle, Reform clearly ahead in the places youd expect the Tories to do badly - South Yorks industrial, Merseyside, central belt Scotland, inner London, Valleys, the NE. Its not that surprising given the polls. I think the Tories would 'bank' this as a launchpad for the longer term as it were.

    Just for fun - Jenrick and Kruger gone, Braverman and Rosindell toss ups.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 61,962
    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Pictures have emerged of the AWACS that the US said was "slightly damaged"

    https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mi63wi6ip22e

    The US* have learned nothing from Ukraine's numerous successful attacks on Russian airbases.

    They appear to have lost or suffered significant damage to a number of Stratotankers, too.

    All just parked in straight lines out in the open.

    *I doubt most of NATO is any better prepared.
    The inability of militaries to learn from what has actually happened is a long and fascinating part of history.

    See the career of Lance-Corp. Percy Hobart (Home Guard).
  • MattWMattW Posts: 32,784
    Nigelb said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    A good BBC write up on the Iran war: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y969pnxgvo

    “Trump is waging war based on instinct and it isn't working”

    The first few paragraphs talk about plans, planning etc.

    The BBC are sanewashing again. Trump didn't have a plan. It was just 'bomb because we can' and assume the Iranians would surrender and install Trump as the new Supreme leader. It really didn't go further than that.

    The US continue NOT to have a plan. Are they going to launch a ground invasion? If so, where? What's the aim, what's the objective?
    Well without a ground invasion it is unlikely to be able to remove the Iranian regime
    How do you envisage a ground invasion removing the Iranian regime?
    Well US and Israeli troops enter Tehran and literally remove the regime and Revolutionary Guard
    What level of forces are required for that, and how many are in theatre?
    10,000 US troops and marines are now in the region with more on the way. Israel would also send troops

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/us-iran-ground-operations-marines-middle-east-escalation-trump-b1276873.html
    You'd need at least half a million to take Tehran, in all likelihood.
    Israel's participation would increase any resistance.
    This is Numpty Trumpty witlessly digging his own political grave, in addition to the wrecking of the USA and elsewhere, and the deaths he will cause.

    In the conflict he does not hold many cards, nor does he have exit criteria defined or an off-ramp identified.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 43,063

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Pictures have emerged of the AWACS that the US said was "slightly damaged"

    https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mi63wi6ip22e

    Bit of duct tape will sort it...
    Nonsense.

    You want filler for that.
    Years ago I knew a guy whose fix for everything was duct tape. My favourite was a PC that needed four screws to reattach the case fixed instead with tape. Took a minute to do correctly.
    After he left he went to work at Sellafield…
    Apparently in the early days of Google, they built their own servers. They used velcro instead of screws so they could swap the parts out much faster when they failed
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 22,427

    Brixian59 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Netanyahu is scum, but comparing him to Hitler is the mark of an unhinged mind.

    Or a lateral thinker

    You can't classify evil

    Evil is evil

    Genocide is genocide

    Netanyahu right now is as great a threat to the world as Hitler ever was.
    You absolutely can classify evil.

    Genocide is genocide, yes. Fighting in war is not genocide, sending people into gas chambers is genocide.

    Netanyahu is nothing like Hitler.
    After 7th October, where over a thousand innocent people were murdered and others raped, kidnapped etc. Israel responded with war on Hamas, with collateral casualties running into tens of thousands. Whilst most of us think it’s gone too far, I’m not sure what alternatives people had in mind for an Israeli response.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 22,032

    Doing a bit of a further look at the Sky news RefCon battle, Reform clearly ahead in the places youd expect the Tories to do badly - South Yorks industrial, Merseyside, central belt Scotland, inner London, Valleys, the NE. Its not that surprising given the polls. I think the Tories would 'bank' this as a launchpad for the longer term as it were.

    Just for fun - Jenrick and Kruger gone, Braverman and Rosindell toss ups.

    Odd autocorrect that turns ers into ups.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 16,369
    Morning all :)

    It's good in a world seemingly on the verge of anarchy to have some certainties on which one can rely - feeling crap after losing an hour's sleep and a PB debate on personal freedoms.

    We've had many iterations of the latter down the years whether it be on drugs, alcohol, gambling or whatever addictive subject (such as PB itself I'd argue) is the mot du jour.

    As a liberal (well, many on here say they are liberal except @HYUFD and one or two others but everyone's definition of liberalism is so varied it's lost the meaning just as the terms "left" and "right" no longer mean anything significant), the notion "I don't like your view but I'll defend to the death your right to express it" carries a lot of weight.

    However, as with many other addictions, smoking carries collateral impacts via the passive ingestion of second hand smoke. The solution, it seems, would be to ban cigarettes and cigars and go back to chewing tobacco with a spitoon in every pub and train.

    Prohibition can and often does go too far - what an individual does in the privacy of their home is their business. It's also fair to say the consequences of addiction (whether it be for smoking, gambling, drug abuse (of all kind including painkillers) and PB) are often used as an argument for prohibition while the vast majority of those who smoke, gamble, take pain killers and contribute to PB do so in a controlled and moderate way.

    As I see round my part of the world, however, the consequences of uncontrolled addiction can be severe - the bulk of the petty crime (shop lifting and car break ins) is carried out (I'm told) by a small group of addicts who are often rough sleepers. We can and must do more to help those who are unable to control their cravings - I suspect the resources available are nowhere near the demand - while recognising the rights of those who wish to enjoy a smoke, a drink, a wager and a few minutes on PB.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 54,620
    Freedman (senior) 's conslusion on Trump and Iran:

    Trump has not changed his tune. When asked about the situation on arrival in Florida, he stated: ‘They are being decimated. We are talking now, they want to make a deal.’ He adds: ‘Very simply our military is the greatest in the world by far.’

    Success in war, though, is judged not by damage caused but by political objectives realised. Here the objective was regime change, or at least the emergence of a new compliant leader, which is what he appeared to be expecting, on the Venezuelan model. Trump’s problem is that whatever the claims he might make about the damage to Iran’s nuclear and military capacity, which is substantial, the regime survives, the international economy has been severely disrupted and the bills keep on coming in.

    However he plays this the US has been defied - so far successfully. He can take an off ramp but if stops at this point the result of this operation will be to leave the US less respected and trusted than before and allies grappling with a problem not of their making. As things stand, this counts as a defeat.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 40,849

    Doing a bit of a further look at the Sky news RefCon battle, Reform clearly ahead in the places youd expect the Tories to do badly - South Yorks industrial, Merseyside, central belt Scotland, inner London, Valleys, the NE. Its not that surprising given the polls. I think the Tories would 'bank' this as a launchpad for the longer term as it were.

    Just for fun - Jenrick and Kruger gone, Braverman and Rosindell toss ups.

    The Conservatives’ cratering in Red Walll/working class seats, but holding firm in posher/rural seats might be what saves them.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 61,962

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Pictures have emerged of the AWACS that the US said was "slightly damaged"

    https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mi63wi6ip22e

    Bit of duct tape will sort it...
    Nonsense.

    You want filler for that.
    Years ago I knew a guy whose fix for everything was duct tape. My favourite was a PC that needed four screws to reattach the case fixed instead with tape. Took a minute to do correctly.
    After he left he went to work at Sellafield…
    Duct tape is like the Force.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 43,063
    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Pictures have emerged of the AWACS that the US said was "slightly damaged"

    https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mi63wi6ip22e

    The US* have learned nothing from Ukraine's numerous successful attacks on Russian airbases.

    They appear to have lost or suffered significant damage to a number of Stratotankers, too.

    All just parked in straight lines out in the open.

    *I doubt most of NATO is any better prepared.
    There are any number of second World War airfields around where you can still see the 'dispersal' stands so that planes could be parked separate from each other and away from important structures
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 43,063
    @samfr.bsky.social‬

    This point from @ldfreedman.bsky.social (who's been in Washington this week) is key.

    Out of malice and stupidity the Trump administration has destroyed its own decision-making capabilities.

    https://bsky.app/profile/samfr.bsky.social/post/3mi6rghqvt72y
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 17,001
    edited 9:21AM
    Sean_F said:

    Doing a bit of a further look at the Sky news RefCon battle, Reform clearly ahead in the places youd expect the Tories to do badly - South Yorks industrial, Merseyside, central belt Scotland, inner London, Valleys, the NE. Its not that surprising given the polls. I think the Tories would 'bank' this as a launchpad for the longer term as it were.

    Just for fun - Jenrick and Kruger gone, Braverman and Rosindell toss ups.

    The Conservatives’ cratering in Red Walll/working class seats, but holding firm in posher/rural seats might be what saves them.
    There is some evidence of that in the local by elections (cratering where they arent in any way in contention, resistance, if limited sometimes, where they are )
    May will give a much better picture
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 61,962
    Scott_xP said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Pictures have emerged of the AWACS that the US said was "slightly damaged"

    https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mi63wi6ip22e

    The US* have learned nothing from Ukraine's numerous successful attacks on Russian airbases.

    They appear to have lost or suffered significant damage to a number of Stratotankers, too.

    All just parked in straight lines out in the open.

    *I doubt most of NATO is any better prepared.
    There are any number of second World War airfields around where you can still see the 'dispersal' stands so that planes could be parked separate from each other and away from important structures
    After numerous instances of fighters "beating up" airfields. If you have a nice straight line of aircraft in front of you and an aircraft primarily armed with machine guns and cannons...

    IIRC in the first world war, they changed the rules about becoming an ace. You had to be fighting airborne targets. Because too many pilots were beating up an airbase and claiming more than 5 kills in one go.

    During the cold war, bunkers for aircraft were the fashion.

    Desert Storm changed that - PGMs meant that any such position was an expensive death trap.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 17,001
    edited 9:23AM

    Sean_F said:

    Doing a bit of a further look at the Sky news RefCon battle, Reform clearly ahead in the places youd expect the Tories to do badly - South Yorks industrial, Merseyside, central belt Scotland, inner London, Valleys, the NE. Its not that surprising given the polls. I think the Tories would 'bank' this as a launchpad for the longer term as it were.

    Just for fun - Jenrick and Kruger gone, Braverman and Rosindell toss ups.

    The Conservatives’ cratering in Red Walll/working class seats, but holding firm in posher/rural seats might be what saves them.
    There is some evidence of that in the local by elections (cratering where they arent in any way in contention, resistance, if limited sometimes, where they are )
    May will give a much better picture
    And of course cratering in vast areas might not sink them now but does make the road back to government a very very long and tough one
  • MattWMattW Posts: 32,784

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Pictures have emerged of the AWACS that the US said was "slightly damaged"

    https://bsky.app/profile/captainfubar.bsky.social/post/3mi63wi6ip22e

    Bit of duct tape will sort it...
    Nonsense.

    You want filler for that.
    Years ago I knew a guy whose fix for everything was duct tape. My favourite was a PC that needed four screws to reattach the case fixed instead with tape. Took a minute to do correctly.
    After he left he went to work at Sellafield…
    Is there something similar with the KC-135 tanker aircraft? Reports were along the lines of "1 destroyed and 3 or 4 damaged". Centcom has admitted that they had to reorganise their refuelling operation.

    Plus there is some question about the damage to the aircraft carrier. It was reported as a "laundry fire", but the number of personnel who have been bedding down on floors and tables is reported as 600, and it took 24 hours+ to put out. That is I think from Ward Carroll, who is fairly straight down the line from a USA point of view, but annoys me because he calls everything he touches "Deep Intel on ..". If he was eating a donut from McDonalds he would call it Deep Intel on the McDonalds Menu.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 87,634

    Brixian59 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Netanyahu is scum, but comparing him to Hitler is the mark of an unhinged mind.

    Or a lateral thinker

    You can't classify evil

    Evil is evil

    Genocide is genocide

    Netanyahu right now is as great a threat to the world as Hitler ever was.
    You absolutely can classify evil.

    Genocide is genocide, yes. Fighting in war is not genocide, sending people into gas chambers is genocide.

    Netanyahu is nothing like Hitler.
    After 7th October, where over a thousand innocent people were murdered and others raped, kidnapped etc. Israel responded with war on Hamas, with collateral casualties running into tens of thousands. Whilst most of us think it’s gone too far, I’m not sure what alternatives people had in mind for an Israeli response.
    Does that include those in the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon killed or dispossessed - the latter category including a fifth of Lebanon's population ?

    When do they declare this response concluded ?
  • Badenoch had I’m afraid a very bad interview on Trevor Phillips.

    She’s got the same thing Corbyn used to do, just shout.

    She needs to tone it down.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 32,784
    Scott_xP said:

    @samfr.bsky.social‬

    This point from @ldfreedman.bsky.social (who's been in Washington this week) is key.

    Out of malice and stupidity the Trump administration has destroyed its own decision-making capabilities.

    https://bsky.app/profile/samfr.bsky.social/post/3mi6rghqvt72y

    Well, yes - but has this not been blatantly obvious since before he even moved into the White House?
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 19,670
    Scott_xP said:

    @samfr.bsky.social‬

    This point from @ldfreedman.bsky.social (who's been in Washington this week) is key.

    Out of malice and stupidity the Trump administration has destroyed its own decision-making capabilities.

    https://bsky.app/profile/samfr.bsky.social/post/3mi6rghqvt72y

    And this hollowing out of the civil service, to be replaced by political appointees, is Reform’s policy for the UK.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 87,634
    stodge said:

    Morning all :)

    It's good in a world seemingly on the verge of anarchy to have some certainties on which one can rely - feeling crap after losing an hour's sleep and a PB debate on personal freedoms.

    We've had many iterations of the latter down the years whether it be on drugs, alcohol, gambling or whatever addictive subject (such as PB itself I'd argue) is the mot du jour.

    As a liberal (well, many on here say they are liberal except @HYUFD and one or two others but everyone's definition of liberalism is so varied it's lost the meaning just as the terms "left" and "right" no longer mean anything significant), the notion "I don't like your view but I'll defend to the death your right to express it" carries a lot of weight.

    However, as with many other addictions, smoking carries collateral impacts via the passive ingestion of second hand smoke. The solution, it seems, would be to ban cigarettes and cigars and go back to chewing tobacco with a spitoon in every pub and train.

    Prohibition can and often does go too far - what an individual does in the privacy of their home is their business. It's also fair to say the consequences of addiction (whether it be for smoking, gambling, drug abuse (of all kind including painkillers) and PB) are often used as an argument for prohibition while the vast majority of those who smoke, gamble, take pain killers and contribute to PB do so in a controlled and moderate way.

    As I see round my part of the world, however, the consequences of uncontrolled addiction can be severe - the bulk of the petty crime (shop lifting and car break ins) is carried out (I'm told) by a small group of addicts who are often rough sleepers. We can and must do more to help those who are unable to control their cravings - I suspect the resources available are nowhere near the demand - while recognising the rights of those who wish to enjoy a smoke, a drink, a wager and a few minutes on PB.

    RFK is on the heroin again.

    RFK JR: One time, Trump grabbed a placemat, turned it over, took a Sharpie, and drew a perfect map of the Middle East. Then he marked the troop strength of every country along each border on that map..
    https://x.com/Acyn/status/2038038880172359711
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 12,962
    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I disagree. If it hadn’t been for Netanyahu then the antisemites would have come up with another excuse.

    A lot of it is down to social media permitting this diatribe and to some in positions of leadership (eg Corbyn) tolerating it (if not worse).

    The vile anti-Semites have been emboldened. Because they think that what they believe is common and acceptable
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 36,995

    Sean_F said:

    Doing a bit of a further look at the Sky news RefCon battle, Reform clearly ahead in the places youd expect the Tories to do badly - South Yorks industrial, Merseyside, central belt Scotland, inner London, Valleys, the NE. Its not that surprising given the polls. I think the Tories would 'bank' this as a launchpad for the longer term as it were.

    Just for fun - Jenrick and Kruger gone, Braverman and Rosindell toss ups.

    The Conservatives’ cratering in Red Walll/working class seats, but holding firm in posher/rural seats might be what saves them.
    There is some evidence of that in the local by elections (cratering where they arent in any way in contention, resistance, if limited sometimes, where they are )
    May will give a much better picture
    And of course cratering in vast areas might not sink them now but does make the road back to government a very very long and tough one
    Good morning one and all.

    One topic..... this one, anyway ...... the Conservative party has a strength in that a significant part of the national press will continue to support it, even after what appears to be coming; it';s electoral demise. Those who are old, like me, will recall the old News Chronicle, which continued to support the Liberal Party even after the disasters of 1950 & 1951.
    Yes, it folded, but not until 1960.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 19,670
    Vance says he’s ‘obsessed’ with UFO files, calls aliens ‘demons’

    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5806206-vance-obsessed-ufo-mystery/
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 87,634
    I guess this means Swalwell is the front runner for governor.

    FBI Director Kash Patel is pressing to release a decade-old investigative file involving Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California) and a suspected Chinese intelligence operative, according to people familiar with the effort.
    https://x.com/washingtonpost/status/2037930234301829486

    (Swalwell cooperated with the investigation back then and was entirely exonerated.)
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 24,814
    Sean_F said:

    Doing a bit of a further look at the Sky news RefCon battle, Reform clearly ahead in the places youd expect the Tories to do badly - South Yorks industrial, Merseyside, central belt Scotland, inner London, Valleys, the NE. Its not that surprising given the polls. I think the Tories would 'bank' this as a launchpad for the longer term as it were.

    Just for fun - Jenrick and Kruger gone, Braverman and Rosindell toss ups.

    The Conservatives’ cratering in Red Walll/working class seats, but holding firm in posher/rural seats might be what saves them.
    In the posh seats (the Waitrose wall) they are getting their arses kicked by the LibDems.

    They are being hit from both sides.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 22,709

    Brixian59 said:

    Brixian59 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Netanyahu is scum, but comparing him to Hitler is the mark of an unhinged mind.

    Or a lateral thinker

    You can't classify evil

    Evil is evil

    Genocide is genocide

    Netanyahu right now is as great a threat to the world as Hitler ever was.
    That is clearly nonsense and a one sided view
    Have you ever posted anything but a one sided view.

    Bullies don't like it up em.

    Bigots don't like being challenged.

    The right never can answer intellectually like the left.

    Arrogance is not knowledge.
    Read my posts and you will see I condemn all sides in this war

    Every one of them has blood on their hands
    Interestingly I never read anyone criticise the murder of the Ayatollah and his family not the killing of the nuclear scientists and their families though to me they were among the most egregious acts of the last two years.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 87,634

    Vance says he’s ‘obsessed’ with UFO files, calls aliens ‘demons’

    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5806206-vance-obsessed-ufo-mystery/

    Weird guy, leaning into the whole 'JD is weird' thing.
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,573

    Sean_F said:

    Doing a bit of a further look at the Sky news RefCon battle, Reform clearly ahead in the places youd expect the Tories to do badly - South Yorks industrial, Merseyside, central belt Scotland, inner London, Valleys, the NE. Its not that surprising given the polls. I think the Tories would 'bank' this as a launchpad for the longer term as it were.

    Just for fun - Jenrick and Kruger gone, Braverman and Rosindell toss ups.

    The Conservatives’ cratering in Red Walll/working class seats, but holding firm in posher/rural seats might be what saves them.
    In the posh seats (the Waitrose wall) they are getting their arses kicked by the LibDems.

    They are being hit from both sides.
    Waitrose Wall is very good!
  • eekeek Posts: 33,075
    edited 9:43AM

    Brixian59 said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    Fishing said:

    Foxy said:

    I see that the far-left takeover of the (no longer) Green Party means that they are now infested with antisemites.

    Since the pitiful 'Greens are anti NATO' tactic has proved entirely fruitless, obviously the media is now going full on Maoist bicycle on the road to Auschwitz. Possibly won't work as well as it did with Jezza because as far as I know the Greens don't have an active section of the party plotting to bring down Zack.
    The sense of entitlement from Labour is extreme.

    The exodus to the Greens is not being driven by anti-semitism, it is being driven by the Reform-adjacent policies of the Labour Party.
    As a committed pro-semite (I'm technically Jewish and I was brought up on accounts of the horrors of 30s Germany and the necessity of Israel), I've really had enough of Netanyahu and current Israeli policy, and that doesn't make me an anti-semite. Obviously burning Jewish ambulances is both wrong and stupid, but I don't think that being critical of Israeli policy qualifies at all.
    Netanyahu has done more for anti-semitism than anyone could have expected.
    "the necessity of Israel" - maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but I've never understood how a genocide on one continent, however appalling, legitimises subsequent ethnic cleansing of a group of people completely innocent of that crime in another. Nor how moving to a country surrounded by enemies who are committed to destroying you makes you much safer.

    It reminds me a little of the logic of a white South African family friend who told me in Cape Town a few years ago that he had fled from Britain in 1970 (then 1% black) to South Africa (80% black) to avoid the Rivers of Blood and the black man's whip hand that Enoch Powell had forecast. He could clearly only find the safety he craved with systematic oppression of the indigenous majority, and, anyway, it probably wouldn't work in the long run.
    Israel is majority Jewish though and the only Jewish majority nation on earth, so a homeland Jews will always defend as their only sure sanctuary.

    South Africa has never been majority white but there are plenty of majority white nations on earth still and in most of Eastern Europe it is still almost 100% white
    But Israel is clearly not a sure sanctuary, is it? It is surrounded by countries that hate it, and have nearly wiped it off the map three times in its short life. The only reason it survived was American goodwill, which it is now losing.

    And, day to day, rockets are fired into the country from its neighbours and paranoid security is a part of everyday life, that makes the whole country feel like a mixture of an armed camp, with three years' military service for men and two for women, and an airport since 9/11. Terrorists pointlessly murdered 1,200 just a couple of years ago. So in fact Jews are actually far safer in the European democracies they left after the Second World War.

    So even on its own terms, providing sanctuary for Jews, Israel has been a complete failure.

    And a morally appalling one given the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorism against the legitimate authorities which were its founding achievements.
    Natanyahu is out-performing Adolf Hitler in branding and putting a target on the back of every Jewish person on the Planet.

    He is turning Israel, and by it's definition Jewish people in to targets.

    Had anyone said this a few years ago they would have been certified, now the majority see it, feel it , sense it.

    When anyone (quite rightly) attacks ANTI SEMITISM - they need to attack the source. The source is NETANYAHU and his cabal in Tel Aviv.

    Eradicate him and his cabal, bring decency and honesty back in to Israeli politics DE-ESCALATE and sure as night follows day, anti semitism aroumd the Globe will reduce and de-escalate too!

    It needs a moderate Jew to take Netanyahu out, we can only hope someone steps up to the plate, in the same way a moderate Russian would with Putin.

    I disagree. If it hadn’t been for Netanyahu then the antisemites would have come up with another excuse.

    A lot of it is down to social media permitting this diatribe and to some in positions of leadership (eg Corbyn) tolerating it (if not worse).

    The vile anti-Semites have been emboldened. Because they think that what they believe is common and acceptable
    I'm sorry but the issue is that Gaza is a Genocide - so yes, while they may have been other reasons that would have changed the opinions of a few people, Gaza is making it far easier for antisemitics to spread their toxin.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 27,067

    Vance says he’s ‘obsessed’ with UFO files, calls aliens ‘demons’

    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5806206-vance-obsessed-ufo-mystery/

    Can't really blame him, in this administration why not spend your time focused on one of their saner departments.
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