Here’s a question for PBers. I’ve been arguing it with my brother but it might interest the forum
Has the west. - as in, the entire west - ever been so badly governed? Everywhere you look there is total mediocrity at best, or asinine stupidity. Keir Starmer is a vain, thick, footling and treacherous wanker who thinks he’s smart. Trump is much worse. Metz lol. Macron at least is clever but his home life IS fucking disturbing and he’s barely achieved anything
Carney shows some spine and brains but it’s far too early to tell
And is democracy finished if this is what it produces?
As Churchill once said:
"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
It’s a great quote I’m just not sure it’s true any more. Technocracy might be better. Especially in an age when people are very quickly getting stupider, with IQs plunging around the world and technology likely to accelerate this process
Given the alternative is JD Vance, I'm a reluctant Trumper for the next couple of years!
Vance would be a lot better than Trump
For far right Christian ethno-nationalists who hate western society, sure.
Hysterical bedwetting
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
The medium sized news in East Ham and Barking continues to be fuel prices.
At my local Tesco's, E10 unleaded is now 149.9p per litre with diesel 179.9p per litre. That's a rise of 7p in the last 48 hours.
Call me a bluff old cynic but it seems curious the price has jumped just as we reach the Easter holiday for all oil prices continue to gyrate around like I used to at the student disco back in the late Triassic.
At a nearby Shell station, petrol was 155,9p per litre and diesel 182.9p but no queues and all pumps fully stocked.
That unleaded is cheaper than I can find here in Gloucestershire.
To add to the debate. One of the main arguments offered in favour of Israel is that it is “the only democracy in the region”
Which is true to an extent but that so-called democracy has now delivered 18 years - 18 years! - of the corrupt and contemptible Bibi Netanyahu as prime minister and that same democracy has now introduced an overtly race-based death penalty aimed at one minority, something even apartheid South Africa never quite managed
So what’s the fucking big deal about Israel being democratic if democracy produces this?
It's a point. Donald Trump is also duly elected and in a sense this only adds to the horror of him. Because it reflects on the people. They'd be more mitigation if he was there via military coup. But the upside is the people (we hope) can rectify their error and this at the end of the day is the biggest USP of democracy. It doesn't prevent power being abused but it provides the best mechanism to stop it happening too overtly for too long.
Given the alternative is JD Vance, I'm a reluctant Trumper for the next couple of years!
Vance would be a lot better than Trump
For far right Christian ethno-nationalists who hate western society, sure.
Hysterical bedwetting
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
He’s have gone much further than even Trump in pulling support from Ukraine, possibly to the extent of starting covert support for Russia. His ideology is not far off Tucker’s.
Given the alternative is JD Vance, I'm a reluctant Trumper for the next couple of years!
Vance would be a lot better than Trump
For far right Christian ethno-nationalists who hate western society, sure.
Hysterical bedwetting
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
I seem to remember a poster with a similar posting style to yours, perhaps a different name, making the same kind of post complaining about bedwetters warning that Trump would be a disaster. Whatever happened to them, I wonder if they have learnt the error of their ways.......bizarrely they also managed to back the Boris, Truss, Starmer combo! Hard to imagine worse judgment.
Here’s a question for PBers. I’ve been arguing it with my brother but it might interest the forum
Has the west. - as in, the entire west - ever been so badly governed? Everywhere you look there is total mediocrity at best, or asinine stupidity. Keir Starmer is a vain, thick, footling and treacherous wanker who thinks he’s smart. Trump is much worse. Metz lol. Macron at least is clever but his home life IS fucking disturbing and he’s barely achieved anything
Carney shows some spine and brains but it’s far too early to tell
And is democracy finished if this is what it produces?
Democracy doesn’t guarantee good leaders. We are living though in age which would test any leader, maybe that’s part of the problem .
Not sure crap leadership is just a sign of current times . There’s been plenty of useless leaders in the past.
Given the alternative is JD Vance, I'm a reluctant Trumper for the next couple of years!
Vance would be a lot better than Trump
For far right Christian ethno-nationalists who hate western society, sure.
Hysterical bedwetting
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
Vance is also proper Christian, a genuine Roman Catholic unlike evangelical only for show Trump
To add to the debate. One of the main arguments offered in favour of Israel is that it is “the only democracy in the region”
Which is true to an extent but that so-called democracy has now delivered 18 years - 18 years! - of the corrupt and contemptible Bibi Netanyahu as prime minister and that same democracy has now introduced an overtly race-based death penalty aimed at one minority, something even apartheid South Africa never quite managed
So what’s the fucking big deal about Israel being democratic if democracy produces this?
It's a point. Donald Trump is also duly elected and in a sense this only adds to the horror of him. Because it reflects on the people. They'd be more mitigation if he was there via military coup. But the upside is the people (we hope) can rectify their error and this at the end of the day is the biggest USP of democracy. It doesn't prevent power being abused but it provides the best mechanism to stop it happening too overtly for too long.
But voters are getting stupider and stupider. This is a real thing. IQs are speedily declining and smart phones and other tech are only accelerating this
At what point does the wisdom of crowds become the idiocy or madness of crowds? Or the bigotry of the majority, as in Israel?
The you have to add in the way democratic social media makes a political life deeply unappealing to all but the most inane, banal and/or power obsessed which is how Britain ended up with a serious of ridiculous losers culminating in Skyr Toolmakersson
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
The monthly variation in energy generation is so large that it has not entirely dissimilar disadvantages to wind/solar, requiring either massive storage or overcapacity - so it's about price.
Here’s a question for PBers. I’ve been arguing it with my brother but it might interest the forum
Has the west. - as in, the entire west - ever been so badly governed? Everywhere you look there is total mediocrity at best, or asinine stupidity. Keir Starmer is a vain, thick, footling and treacherous wanker who thinks he’s smart. Trump is much worse. Metz lol. Macron at least is clever but his home life IS fucking disturbing and he’s barely achieved anything
Carney shows some spine and brains but it’s far too early to tell
And is democracy finished if this is what it produces?
I don't know enough about earlier periods, particularly in other countries, to know whether the present-day is uniquely bad. There's always a danger of romanticising the past. But it does feel bad now. It also feels like our present politicians kinda aren't trying, like they're going through the motions, but they're imitating earlier politicians without understanding what the present moment requires.
I've heard it argued that social media is kryptonite for our present form of representative democracy. Perhaps democracy can only survive if it changes to work with social media, and/or brings social media under some sort of control so that it does not encourage our more extreme impulses. There have been ideas such as much greater use of referendums, or the jury system, devolving power to local communities as much as possible, etc.
I think we should also remember that democracy rests on two pillars - the rule of law, and the right to express dissent. Given these two things some form of democracy is inevitable, because people will want a day in how they're governed, they will complain when things go wrong, and they will want to force change when the status quo fails.
Any non-democratic system has to involve curtailing the rule of law and dissent. The form that democracy takes in terms of elections, parliaments and the like is less important. People will work out what does or does not work as long as they can dissent and rely on the law.
Certainly democracy needs to sort itself out, and it's in doubt as to whether it will do so in time to save itself from the authoritarians who would destroy it, but the politicians we currently have aren't the measure of whether it is worth trying to save democracy.
“Did you know: all five of the US flags planted by the Apollo missions have been bleached white by the UV rays which means now the moon technically belongs to France”
The medium sized news in East Ham and Barking continues to be fuel prices.
At my local Tesco's, E10 unleaded is now 149.9p per litre with diesel 179.9p per litre. That's a rise of 7p in the last 48 hours.
Call me a bluff old cynic but it seems curious the price has jumped just as we reach the Easter holiday for all oil prices continue to gyrate around like I used to at the student disco back in the late Triassic.
At a nearby Shell station, petrol was 155,9p per litre and diesel 182.9p but no queues and all pumps fully stocked.
I don't care what the apologists say. They put prices up at any and every opportunity.
Here’s a question for PBers. I’ve been arguing it with my brother but it might interest the forum
Has the west. - as in, the entire west - ever been so badly governed? Everywhere you look there is total mediocrity at best, or asinine stupidity. Keir Starmer is a vain, thick, footling and treacherous wanker who thinks he’s smart. Trump is much worse. Metz lol. Macron at least is clever but his home life IS fucking disturbing and he’s barely achieved anything
Carney shows some spine and brains but it’s far too early to tell
And is democracy finished if this is what it produces?
We're in the Caligula era of democracy. We boomers have enjoyed, and now trashed, the best of it.
To add to the debate. One of the main arguments offered in favour of Israel is that it is “the only democracy in the region”
Which is true to an extent but that so-called democracy has now delivered 18 years - 18 years! - of the corrupt and contemptible Bibi Netanyahu as prime minister and that same democracy has now introduced an overtly race-based death penalty aimed at one minority, something even apartheid South Africa never quite managed
So what’s the fucking big deal about Israel being democratic if democracy produces this?
It's a point. Donald Trump is also duly elected and in a sense this only adds to the horror of him. Because it reflects on the people. They'd be more mitigation if he was there via military coup. But the upside is the people (we hope) can rectify their error and this at the end of the day is the biggest USP of democracy. It doesn't prevent power being abused but it provides the best mechanism to stop it happening too overtly for too long.
But voters are getting stupider and stupider. This is a real thing. IQs are speedily declining and smart phones and other tech are only accelerating this
At what point does the wisdom of crowds become the idiocy or madness of crowds? Or the bigotry of the majority, as in Israel?
The you have to add in the way democratic social media makes a political life deeply unappealing to all but the most inane, banal and/or power obsessed which is how Britain ended up with a serious of ridiculous losers culminating in Skyr Toolmakersson
One of the good things about a constitutional monarchy is that we can reinvent the system without ripping everything down.
We could revert to having the PM appointed by the king, similar to the way the England football manager is appointed. Maybe even shop abroad to find a political Sven-Göran Eriksson to run the government.
Given the alternative is JD Vance, I'm a reluctant Trumper for the next couple of years!
Vance would be a lot better than Trump
For far right Christian ethno-nationalists who hate western society, sure.
Hysterical bedwetting
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
Vance is also proper Christian, a genuine Roman Catholic unlike evangelical only for show Trump
Here’s a question for PBers. I’ve been arguing it with my brother but it might interest the forum
Has the west. - as in, the entire west - ever been so badly governed? Everywhere you look there is total mediocrity at best, or asinine stupidity. Keir Starmer is a vain, thick, footling and treacherous wanker who thinks he’s smart. Trump is much worse. Metz lol. Macron at least is clever but his home life IS fucking disturbing and he’s barely achieved anything
Carney shows some spine and brains but it’s far too early to tell
And is democracy finished if this is what it produces?
We're in the Caligula era of democracy. We boomers have enjoyed, and now trashed, the best of it.
Like the economy, budget, housing and everything else.
Gosh. A rare instance of me agreeing with Leon. I'd take Vance over Trump. If that happened tomorrow I'd feel better than I do today. Donald Trump should be nowhere near political power of any description let alone be the US president. It's not a debate afaic.
Given the alternative is JD Vance, I'm a reluctant Trumper for the next couple of years!
Vance would be a lot better than Trump
For far right Christian ethno-nationalists who hate western society, sure.
Hysterical bedwetting
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
Vance is also proper Christian, a genuine Roman Catholic unlike evangelical only for show Trump
What's a proper Christian
Someone who hates gays, abortion and most importantly does NOT believe in turning the other cheek, helping the poor or any of that other hippy dippy lefty liberal crap.
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
The monthly variation in energy generation is so large that it has not entirely dissimilar disadvantages to wind/solar, requiring either massive storage or overcapacity - so it's about price.
Er no.
The variation can be designed into your tidal pond system, so that the rated power for the system is based on the lightest tides.
This costs very little extra in the system - in most places the range of values for high tide don’t vary by *that* much.
In addition because the tide is offset as you move round the coast, a series of tidal ponds, carefully sited, can provide 24/7 coverage to a national grid.
Given the alternative is JD Vance, I'm a reluctant Trumper for the next couple of years!
Vance would be a lot better than Trump
For far right Christian ethno-nationalists who hate western society, sure.
Hysterical bedwetting
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
Vance is also proper Christian, a genuine Roman Catholic unlike evangelical only for show Trump
I am returned from my constitutional with a burning question for the PB brain trust.
I passed a house that one of those hand carved name plates at the gate, but as well as the house name it had a ///what.three.words location inscribed on it.
The question this poses is, what are the circumstances where you find yourself outside this property but
- don't know where you are? - don't know how you got there?
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
I am not sure why predictable is advantageous?
On demand, like gas, is advantageous. Lagoons can be used for storage but not in volume and not competitive to batteries realistically.
But predictability? How does that help? If I can predict that output is troughing just as demand peaks then what can we usefully do with that information that we would not do with unpredictable troughs in output?
Given the alternative is JD Vance, I'm a reluctant Trumper for the next couple of years!
Vance would be a lot better than Trump
For far right Christian ethno-nationalists who hate western society, sure.
Hysterical bedwetting
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
Vance is also proper Christian, a genuine Roman Catholic unlike evangelical only for show Trump
What's a proper Christian
Someone who hates gays, abortion and most importantly does NOT believe in turning the other cheek, helping the poor or any of that other hippy dippy lefty liberal crap.
I don't think that is really true either, Vance himself came from a pretty poor family in small town Ohio. Here he is visiting a foodbank
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi: “There's one striking difference between the present and the Stone Age: there was no oil or gas being pumped in the Middle East back then.
“Are POTUS and Americans who put him in office sure that they want to turn back the clock?”
Araghchi: “Striking civilian structures, including unfinished bridges, will not compel Iranians to surrender.
“It only conveys the defeat and moral collapse of an enemy in disarray. Every bridge and building will be built back stronger. What will never recover: damage to America's standing."
I am returned from my constitutional with a burning question for the PB brain trust.
I passed a house that one of those hand carved name plates at the gate, but as well as the house name it had a ///what.three.words location inscribed on it.
The question this poses is, what are the circumstances where you find yourself outside this property but
- don't know where you are? - don't know how you got there?
???
It probably is for the benefit of delivery drivers.
I am only on episode 21 of (currently) 188 but is does offer a fascinating insight into the history of the English language and Western civilisation more generally. A great listen on car journeys if music is not your thing and the news has become too depressing.
My only criticism is that there is a little too much repetition at times in making key points. But that's only a minor issue.
Given the alternative is JD Vance, I'm a reluctant Trumper for the next couple of years!
Vance would be a lot better than Trump
For far right Christian ethno-nationalists who hate western society, sure.
Hysterical bedwetting
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
Vance is also proper Christian, a genuine Roman Catholic unlike evangelical only for show Trump
What's a proper Christian
Someone who hates gays, abortion and most importantly does NOT believe in turning the other cheek, helping the poor or any of that other hippy dippy lefty liberal crap.
I don't think that is really true either, Vance himself came from a pretty poor family in rural Ohio
Urban Ohio. His father worked in a steelworks, his mother a nurse, so middle class.
Jordan's parliament speaker calls for a post-war joint defense and economic treaty encompassing the Arab world to defend against Iran, who he says is considering reviving the Persian Empire and wants to incite Shiites across the Arab world
I am returned from my constitutional with a burning question for the PB brain trust.
I passed a house that one of those hand carved name plates at the gate, but as well as the house name it had a ///what.three.words location inscribed on it.
The question this poses is, what are the circumstances where you find yourself outside this property but
- don't know where you are? - don't know how you got there?
???
It probably is for the benefit of delivery drivers.
I am only on episode 21 of (currently) 188 but is does offer a fascinating insight into the history of the English language and Western civilisation more generally. A great listen on car journeys if music is not your thing and the news has become too depressing.
My only criticism is that there is a little too much repetition at times in making key points. But that's only a minor issue.
Gotta have some repetition to fill 188 episodes. The language will have significantly evolved by the time you finish them.
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
I am not sure why predictable is advantageous?
On demand, like gas, is advantageous. Lagoons can be used for storage but not in volume and not competitive to batteries realistically.
But predictability? How does that help? If I can predict that output is troughing just as demand peaks then what can we usefully do with that information that we would not do with unpredictable troughs in output?
An array of tidal schemes around Britain would provide a constant and consistent baseline capacity.
I am returned from my constitutional with a burning question for the PB brain trust.
I passed a house that one of those hand carved name plates at the gate, but as well as the house name it had a ///what.three.words location inscribed on it.
The question this poses is, what are the circumstances where you find yourself outside this property but
- don't know where you are? - don't know how you got there?
???
It probably is for the benefit of delivery drivers.
I am returned from my constitutional with a burning question for the PB brain trust.
I passed a house that one of those hand carved name plates at the gate, but as well as the house name it had a ///what.three.words location inscribed on it.
The question this poses is, what are the circumstances where you find yourself outside this property but
- don't know where you are? - don't know how you got there?
???
It probably is for the benefit of delivery drivers.
How are they going to find it to read it?
If only there was some sort of system to navigate it would revolutionise the world.
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
I am not sure why predictable is advantageous?
On demand, like gas, is advantageous. Lagoons can be used for storage but not in volume and not competitive to batteries realistically.
But predictability? How does that help? If I can predict that output is troughing just as demand peaks then what can we usefully do with that information that we would not do with unpredictable troughs in output?
An array of tidal schemes around Britain would provide a constant and consistent baseline capacity.
Other than lack of government ambition and imagination, and the reluctance of the civil service to do anything that doesn't directly benefit London - is there a reason tidal is so overlooked?
Given the alternative is JD Vance, I'm a reluctant Trumper for the next couple of years!
Vance would be a lot better than Trump
For far right Christian ethno-nationalists who hate western society, sure.
Hysterical bedwetting
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
Vance is also proper Christian, a genuine Roman Catholic unlike evangelical only for show Trump
What's a proper Christian
Someone who hates gays, abortion and most importantly does NOT believe in turning the other cheek, helping the poor or any of that other hippy dippy lefty liberal crap.
I don't think that is really true either, Vance himself came from a pretty poor family in rural Ohio
Urban Ohio. His father worked in a steelworks, his mother a nurse, so middle class.
His father was certainly white working class, his mother struggled with drug addiction and after their divorce he was mainly raised by his grandparents
Advisors close to Trump considered the idea of moving US Attorney General Pam Bondi to another senior role in the admin, including director of national intelligence. But Trump has said he wants Tulsi Gabbard to stay in that position, sources told me. @CBSNews
Given the alternative is JD Vance, I'm a reluctant Trumper for the next couple of years!
Vance would be a lot better than Trump
For far right Christian ethno-nationalists who hate western society, sure.
Hysterical bedwetting
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
Vance is also proper Christian, a genuine Roman Catholic unlike evangelical only for show Trump
What's a proper Christian
Someone who hates gays, abortion and most importantly does NOT believe in turning the other cheek, helping the poor or any of that other hippy dippy lefty liberal crap.
I don't think that is really true either, Vance himself came from a pretty poor family in rural Ohio
Urban Ohio. His father worked in a steelworks, his mother a nurse, so middle class.
Gosh. A rare instance of me agreeing with Leon. I'd take Vance over Trump. If that happened tomorrow I'd feel better than I do today. Donald Trump should be nowhere near political power of any description let alone be the US president. It's not a debate afaic.
In the spirit of goodwill I will do the same for you. You more accurately judged Trump than me
I have long seen him as a buffoon and a menace. Remember I compared him to the polar bear on a slowly melting ice floe. You shoot the polar bear first then deal with the melting ice. I saw the threat
So I was right in that BUT you were more accurate in your analysis of Trump’s madness. He’s worse than a buffoon. His character flaws make him actively malignant whatever happens
I am only on episode 21 of (currently) 188 but is does offer a fascinating insight into the history of the English language and Western civilisation more generally. A great listen on car journeys if music is not your thing and the news has become too depressing.
My only criticism is that there is a little too much repetition at times in making key points. But that's only a minor issue.
Gotta have some repetition to fill 188 episodes. The language will have significantly evolved by the time you finish them.
Maybe. It is certainly long and detailed. The early episodes are 30-45 mins each but the most recent is over 90 mins.
Episode 188 has reached 1620 so there will surely be well over 250 episodes by the time we get to the current era. I have only reached the emergence of proto-Germanic around 500BC. It is weirdly interesting and well presented though.
Advisors close to Trump considered the idea of moving US Attorney General Pam Bondi to another senior role in the admin, including director of national intelligence. But Trump has said he wants Tulsi Gabbard to stay in that position, sources told me. @CBSNews
Because Putin told him under no circumstances to move key asset Gabbard...
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
The monthly variation in energy generation is so large that it has not entirely dissimilar disadvantages to wind/solar, requiring either massive storage or overcapacity - so it's about price.
Er no.
The variation can be designed into your tidal pond system, so that the rated power for the system is based on the lightest tides.
This costs very little extra in the system - in most places the range of values for high tide don’t vary by *that* much.
In addition because the tide is offset as you move round the coast, a series of tidal ponds, carefully sited, can provide 24/7 coverage to a national grid.
One thing we need is a truly national grid, able to move a lot more energy from one end of the country to the other (and then beyond).
On the questions raised by @Leon, I think the end of ideology has a lot to do with it.
When you had ideology, you had belief, a conviction (so to speak) good Government would do right by the people of the country and whether as provider or enabler, the State, in whatever form, could deliver safety, security and prosperity and, above all, the future so our children would not have to sacrifice what we had to in order to enjoy a better life.
All ideologies have failed - Communism and Fascism were discredited in the 20th century and now even liberalism, conservatism, socialism and social democracy have all failed or are perceived to have failed. Thus do we have Government with a more limited purpose.
Demographic, social and technological change and challenges have further undermined traditional ideologies. Notions of "left" and "right" are meaningless except as perjoratives and indeed all we have very often is politics by insult, by allegation or by rumour.
We are in a prolonged technocratic era - in truth, the political party of a Government is largely irrelevant. They are forced to govern in thesame way with minor tweaks. You can either be led by John Jackson or Jack Johnson yet seemingly the closer the parties are, the more vitriolic the nature of the debate -possibly due to social media. Imagine if X had existed in 1920s Germany or here during Munich or Suez.
In the face of rapid change and absent a prevailing ideological alternative, politicians look lost. Will we see new ideologies emerge? Probably - I'd be thinking about a post-work world or a more environmentally challenged world or an increasingly infertile world as bases for new political thought. All I do know is we can't solve 21st century problems with 20th century solutions.
At the core of all this is the failure of the basic contract between Government and governed - we expect Government to ensure the world is a better place for our children. We want our children to be richer, happier, healthier, safer etc. That is breaking down - part of the response is for people not to want to bring children into what is perceived as a dystopia. Part is hostility or cynicism to all forms of authority and governance - "they're all the same". Part is to withdraw from the political process.
I am returned from my constitutional with a burning question for the PB brain trust.
I passed a house that one of those hand carved name plates at the gate, but as well as the house name it had a ///what.three.words location inscribed on it.
The question this poses is, what are the circumstances where you find yourself outside this property but
- don't know where you are? - don't know how you got there?
???
It probably is for the benefit of delivery drivers.
Surely the flintknapper gazette pays enough that leon doesn't need to have a side-gig?
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
I am not sure why predictable is advantageous?
On demand, like gas, is advantageous. Lagoons can be used for storage but not in volume and not competitive to batteries realistically.
But predictability? How does that help? If I can predict that output is troughing just as demand peaks then what can we usefully do with that information that we would not do with unpredictable troughs in output?
An array of tidal schemes around Britain would provide a constant and consistent baseline capacity.
Like a lot of stuff, probably overtaken by events. Chemicals in batteries are just a better energy store, and the cost has come down far more than most people expected even relatively recently. Same goes for solar.
Moulton: I know active duty Marines who now refer to Pete Hegseth’s department as the department of war crimes. That's because they do things like this, destroy civilian infrastructure, which, just to be clear, is a war crime. It's meant to hurt civilians.
This is the same stuff that we criticize Vladimir Putin for doing in Ukraine.
I am returned from my constitutional with a burning question for the PB brain trust.
I passed a house that one of those hand carved name plates at the gate, but as well as the house name it had a ///what.three.words location inscribed on it.
The question this poses is, what are the circumstances where you find yourself outside this property but
- don't know where you are? - don't know how you got there?
???
It probably is for the benefit of delivery drivers.
How are they going to find it to read it?
If only there was some sort of system to navigate it would revolutionise the world.
We have had some trouble getting deliveries to our newly built house a since we moved in. Bizarrely (to me at least) the two companies who struggled most were Amazon and DPD.
Amazon apparently have their own map which their drivers use and in their wisdom had put our house on the wrong side of the village - enough to flummox their time constrained drivers. This was only resolved when we cancelled our Amazon prime, prompting a real person to call us. I gave them our actual Lat and Long from Google maps and problem solved.
I was told that DPD haven't updated their delivery address database since spring 2024, which seems utterly crazy... for a delivery company.
Neither were at all interested when I offered them our what.three.words address.
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
I am not sure why predictable is advantageous?
On demand, like gas, is advantageous. Lagoons can be used for storage but not in volume and not competitive to batteries realistically.
But predictability? How does that help? If I can predict that output is troughing just as demand peaks then what can we usefully do with that information that we would not do with unpredictable troughs in output?
Predictable does bring with it certain advantages: a battery operator will be more likely to 'empty' their cells at a time of high demand, if it knows that [x]GW of cheap tidal is coming on stream in four hours time. If it doesn't know when it will be able to next 'fill up', it might well leave some electrons undisturbed.
(With that said, wind and solar -on shortish time horizons- are pretty predictable these days. Network operators know when clouds -or even a single cloud- is about to cross over a solar farm, and what impact that will have on production, for instance.)
Given the alternative is JD Vance, I'm a reluctant Trumper for the next couple of years!
Vance would be a lot better than Trump
For far right Christian ethno-nationalists who hate western society, sure.
Hysterical bedwetting
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
But he is very much in the pocket of the Project 2025 financiers. They will find him easier to do their bidding than Trump. America could be very much changed by the end of his term under their control.
Moulton: I know active duty Marines who now refer to Pete Hegseth’s department as the department of war crimes. That's because they do things like this, destroy civilian infrastructure, which, just to be clear, is a war crime. It's meant to hurt civilians.
This is the same stuff that we criticize Vladimir Putin for doing in Ukraine.
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
I am not sure why predictable is advantageous?
On demand, like gas, is advantageous. Lagoons can be used for storage but not in volume and not competitive to batteries realistically.
But predictability? How does that help? If I can predict that output is troughing just as demand peaks then what can we usefully do with that information that we would not do with unpredictable troughs in output?
Tidewater predictably offset as you move round the coast of the U.K.
If you site your lagoons correctly, the peaks are at different times. The individual lagoons spread the peak power, at each location. This adds up to continuous power delivered to the grid 24/7.
The medium sized news in East Ham and Barking continues to be fuel prices.
At my local Tesco's, E10 unleaded is now 149.9p per litre with diesel 179.9p per litre. That's a rise of 7p in the last 48 hours.
Call me a bluff old cynic but it seems curious the price has jumped just as we reach the Easter holiday for all oil prices continue to gyrate around like I used to at the student disco back in the late Triassic.
At a nearby Shell station, petrol was 155,9p per litre and diesel 182.9p but no queues and all pumps fully stocked.
I don't care what the apologists say. They put prices up at any and every opportunity.
If they were 142.9 in London a couple of days ago, they were in the cheapest 5-10% of local petrol stations. Even today at 149,9 they will be well under London average. So clearly they are not just putting prices up at every opportunity or they would be high 150s by now.
I was once told the East London petrol stations were among some of the cheapest because of their proximity to Coryton Refinery but I don't know if that's true.
Sainsbury's at Beckton was also 149.9p per litre for petrol but Shell in Barking was 155.9pper litre which makes me wonder whether the supermarkets are absorbing some of the petrol costs.
There’s a station right next to the Ellesmere Port refinery which is significantly cheaper than anywhere else in the area. Probably plumbed directly into the refinery so there’s no shipping costs!
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
I am not sure why predictable is advantageous?
On demand, like gas, is advantageous. Lagoons can be used for storage but not in volume and not competitive to batteries realistically.
But predictability? How does that help? If I can predict that output is troughing just as demand peaks then what can we usefully do with that information that we would not do with unpredictable troughs in output?
Predictable does bring with it certain advantages: a battery operator will be more likely to 'empty' their cells at a time of high demand, if it knows that [x]GW of cheap tidal is coming on stream in four hours time. If it doesn't know when it will be able to next 'fill up', it might well leave some electrons undisturbed.
(With that said, wind and solar -on shortish time horizons- are pretty predictable these days. Network operators know when clouds -or even a single cloud- is about to cross over a solar farm, and what impact that will have on production, for instance.)
You could also run various industrial processes to coincide with power from a tidal system.
I am returned from my constitutional with a burning question for the PB brain trust.
I passed a house that one of those hand carved name plates at the gate, but as well as the house name it had a ///what.three.words location inscribed on it.
The question this poses is, what are the circumstances where you find yourself outside this property but
- don't know where you are? - don't know how you got there?
???
It probably is for the benefit of delivery drivers.
How are they going to find it to read it?
If only there was some sort of system to navigate it would revolutionise the world.
We have had some trouble getting deliveries to our newly built house a since we moved in. Bizarrely (to me at least) the two companies who struggled most were Amazon and DPD.
Amazon apparently have their own map which their drivers use and in their wisdom had put our house on the wrong side of the village - enough to flummox their time constrained drivers. This was only resolved when we cancelled our Amazon prime, prompting a real person to call us. I gave them our actual Lat and Long from Google maps and problem solved.
I was told that DPD haven't updated their delivery address database since spring 2024, which seems utterly crazy... for a delivery company.
Neither were at all interested when I offered them our what.three.words address.
(File under First World Problems)
IIRC what.three.words charges for commercial use so large delivery companies probably won’t let their drivers use them.
Given the alternative is JD Vance, I'm a reluctant Trumper for the next couple of years!
Vance would be a lot better than Trump
For far right Christian ethno-nationalists who hate western society, sure.
Hysterical bedwetting
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
But he is very much in the pocket of the Project 2025 financiers. They will find him easier to do their bidding than Trump. America could be very much changed by the end of his term under their control.
Trump is manipulated, as far as that is possible; Vance is owned.
In any event, the GOP nominee almost certainly won't win, unless it's fixed.
I am returned from my constitutional with a burning question for the PB brain trust.
I passed a house that one of those hand carved name plates at the gate, but as well as the house name it had a ///what.three.words location inscribed on it.
The question this poses is, what are the circumstances where you find yourself outside this property but
- don't know where you are? - don't know how you got there?
???
It probably is for the benefit of delivery drivers.
How are they going to find it to read it?
If only there was some sort of system to navigate it would revolutionise the world.
We have had some trouble getting deliveries to our newly built house a since we moved in. Bizarrely (to me at least) the two companies who struggled most were Amazon and DPD.
Amazon apparently have their own map which their drivers use and in their wisdom had put our house on the wrong side of the village - enough to flummox their time constrained drivers. This was only resolved when we cancelled our Amazon prime, prompting a real person to call us. I gave them our actual Lat and Long from Google maps and problem solved.
I was told that DPD haven't updated their delivery address database since spring 2024, which seems utterly crazy... for a delivery company.
Neither were at all interested when I offered them our what.three.words address.
(File under First World Problems)
IIRC what.three.words charges for commercial use so large delivery companies probably won’t let their drivers use them.
Moulton: I know active duty Marines who now refer to Pete Hegseth’s department as the department of war crimes. That's because they do things like this, destroy civilian infrastructure, which, just to be clear, is a war crime. It's meant to hurt civilians.
This is the same stuff that we criticize Vladimir Putin for doing in Ukraine.
I am returned from my constitutional with a burning question for the PB brain trust.
I passed a house that one of those hand carved name plates at the gate, but as well as the house name it had a ///what.three.words location inscribed on it.
The question this poses is, what are the circumstances where you find yourself outside this property but
- don't know where you are? - don't know how you got there?
???
It probably is for the benefit of delivery drivers.
How are they going to find it to read it?
If only there was some sort of system to navigate it would revolutionise the world.
We have had some trouble getting deliveries to our newly built house a since we moved in. Bizarrely (to me at least) the two companies who struggled most were Amazon and DPD.
Amazon apparently have their own map which their drivers use and in their wisdom had put our house on the wrong side of the village - enough to flummox their time constrained drivers. This was only resolved when we cancelled our Amazon prime, prompting a real person to call us. I gave them our actual Lat and Long from Google maps and problem solved.
I was told that DPD haven't updated their delivery address database since spring 2024, which seems utterly crazy... for a delivery company.
Neither were at all interested when I offered them our what.three.words address.
(File under First World Problems)
My car's GPS was very upset last weekend when i was using the Silvertown tunnel which it claimed did not exist.
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
I am not sure why predictable is advantageous?
On demand, like gas, is advantageous. Lagoons can be used for storage but not in volume and not competitive to batteries realistically.
But predictability? How does that help? If I can predict that output is troughing just as demand peaks then what can we usefully do with that information that we would not do with unpredictable troughs in output?
Tidewater predictably offset as you move round the coast of the U.K.
If you site your lagoons correctly, the peaks are at different times. The individual lagoons spread the peak power, at each location. This adds up to continuous power delivered to the grid 24/7.
While that's true... not all parts of the UK are equally suitable for large tidal barrages. So, you probably couldn't replicate a large baseload plant that easily.
That said: the promoters say it's pretty inexpensive, so let's try it.
“Did you know: all five of the US flags planted by the Apollo missions have been bleached white by the UV rays which means now the moon technically belongs to France”
I've had this conversation with like 20 people at this point but people who know the ex-USSR are the only people who understand what's happening in America.
A significant portion of the American elite has lost interest in the American project and is stripping the walls of copper wiring, and the American people are letting them do it because they're in denial and obsessed with the equivalents of Limonov and Kashpirovsky. https://x.com/ThatchEffendi/status/2039766157247263194
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
I am not sure why predictable is advantageous?
On demand, like gas, is advantageous. Lagoons can be used for storage but not in volume and not competitive to batteries realistically.
But predictability? How does that help? If I can predict that output is troughing just as demand peaks then what can we usefully do with that information that we would not do with unpredictable troughs in output?
An array of tidal schemes around Britain would provide a constant and consistent baseline capacity.
Like a lot of stuff, probably overtaken by events. Chemicals in batteries are just a better energy store, and the cost has come down far more than most people expected even relatively recently. Same goes for solar.
It’s a very cool idea - but it doesn’t solve the spring/neap cycle, and so the baseline power would be a couple of GW at an absolute maximum (guessing), and you’d have to build them all around the UK.
Severn neap is 1GW, spring 8GW - that’s a range similar to wind. The pond required to sustain 1GW in a neap would be enormous, something like 8 Diwornigs, filled during a spring, at 5m depth that’s what 1/10th of the size of Wales?
We should do it just because working out the maths is so fun.
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
I am not sure why predictable is advantageous?
On demand, like gas, is advantageous. Lagoons can be used for storage but not in volume and not competitive to batteries realistically.
But predictability? How does that help? If I can predict that output is troughing just as demand peaks then what can we usefully do with that information that we would not do with unpredictable troughs in output?
An array of tidal schemes around Britain would provide a constant and consistent baseline capacity.
Like a lot of stuff, probably overtaken by events. Chemicals in batteries are just a better energy store, and the cost has come down far more than most people expected even relatively recently. Same goes for solar.
It’s a very cool idea - but it doesn’t solve the spring/neap cycle, and so the baseline power would be a couple of GW at an absolute maximum (guessing), and you’d have to build them all around the UK.
Severn neap is 1GW, spring 8GW - that’s a range similar to wind. The pond required to sustain 1GW in a neap would be enormous, something like 8 Diwornigs, filled during a spring, at 5m depth that’s what 1/10th of the size of Wales?
We should do it just because working out the maths is so fun.
To be fair, that's how most progress happens in physics.
Moulton: I know active duty Marines who now refer to Pete Hegseth’s department as the department of war crimes. That's because they do things like this, destroy civilian infrastructure, which, just to be clear, is a war crime. It's meant to hurt civilians.
The USMC are the most reliably anti-MAGA of all the armed services because Trump disrespected Jim Mattis who is the tutelary deity of the warrior cult.
Attempting to send ICE to the boot camp graduation ceremony at Parris Island to check the immigration status of the families didn't endear him to the Corps either. I can't imagine what would happen if ICE had put hands on some Devil Dog's mother.
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
I am not sure why predictable is advantageous?
On demand, like gas, is advantageous. Lagoons can be used for storage but not in volume and not competitive to batteries realistically.
But predictability? How does that help? If I can predict that output is troughing just as demand peaks then what can we usefully do with that information that we would not do with unpredictable troughs in output?
Tidewater predictably offset as you move round the coast of the U.K.
If you site your lagoons correctly, the peaks are at different times. The individual lagoons spread the peak power, at each location. This adds up to continuous power delivered to the grid 24/7.
While that's true... not all parts of the UK are equally suitable for large tidal barrages. So, you probably couldn't replicate a large baseload plant that easily.
That said: the promoters say it's pretty inexpensive, so let's try it.
The lagoons would allow you to avoid having to perfectly synchronise on tides.
The problem is that they would never get built. The opposition to them would be too fierce.
Solar and batteries is much harder to stop. Because they scale from a large garden upward. Rather than starting at gigawatts.
One year ago today, President Donald Trump stood at a lectern in the Rose Garden, held up a booklet of trade barriers as thick as the Bible and told a crowd of people in suits and hard hats that with his planned tariffs, “jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country and you see it happening already.”
Those jobs and factories haven’t materialized, at least on the grand scale the president and his top advisers have promised.
Manufacturing payrolls actually declined slightly over the past year, with 98,000 fewer jobs year-over-year based on the most recent data from the Labor Department. There are 29,900 fewer auto manufacturing jobs and 18,000 fewer wood manufacturing jobs — both sectors the president has tried to protect with trade barriers. New, higher tariffs on steel and aluminum, moreover, have hindered the construction of factories. The industry’s hiring rate — often a reflection of confidence in the economic outlook — is lower now than it was at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Moulton: I know active duty Marines who now refer to Pete Hegseth’s department as the department of war crimes. That's because they do things like this, destroy civilian infrastructure, which, just to be clear, is a war crime. It's meant to hurt civilians.
The USMC are the most reliably anti-MAGA of all the armed services because Trump disrespected Jim Mattis who is the tutelary deity of the warrior cult.
Attempting to send ICE to the boot camp graduation ceremony at Parris Island to check the immigration status of the families didn't endear him to the Corps either. I can't imagine what would happen if ICE had put hands on some Devil Dog's mother.
All right, sweethearts, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed? It's another glorious day in the Corps. A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm: Every meal's a banquet. Every paycheck's a fortune! Every formation's a parade! I love the Corps!
Guys, is it good when you fire the head of the army in the middle of a war ahead of a possible controversial ground invasion? It's a thing you do if you're winning, right?
To add to the debate. One of the main arguments offered in favour of Israel is that it is “the only democracy in the region”
Which is true to an extent but that so-called democracy has now delivered 18 years - 18 years! - of the corrupt and contemptible Bibi Netanyahu as prime minister and that same democracy has now introduced an overtly race-based death penalty aimed at one minority, something even apartheid South Africa never quite managed
So what’s the fucking big deal about Israel being democratic if democracy produces this?
It's a point. Donald Trump is also duly elected and in a sense this only adds to the horror of him. Because it reflects on the people. They'd be more mitigation if he was there via military coup. But the upside is the people (we hope) can rectify their error and this at the end of the day is the biggest USP of democracy. It doesn't prevent power being abused but it provides the best mechanism to stop it happening too overtly for too long.
But voters are getting stupider and stupider. This is a real thing. IQs are speedily declining and smart phones and other tech are only accelerating this
At what point does the wisdom of crowds become the idiocy or madness of crowds? Or the bigotry of the majority, as in Israel?
The you have to add in the way democratic social media makes a political life deeply unappealing to all but the most inane, banal and/or power obsessed which is how Britain ended up with a serious of ridiculous losers culminating in Skyr Toolmakersson
One of the good things about a constitutional monarchy is that we can reinvent the system without ripping everything down.
We could revert to having the PM appointed by the king, similar to the way the England football manager is appointed. Maybe even shop abroad to find a political Sven-Göran Eriksson to run the government.
Just occasionally William, your trolling on here transforms into sparkling satire.
...a political Sven-Goran Eriksson... is true gold. Chapeau.
Moulton: I know active duty Marines who now refer to Pete Hegseth’s department as the department of war crimes. That's because they do things like this, destroy civilian infrastructure, which, just to be clear, is a war crime. It's meant to hurt civilians.
The USMC are the most reliably anti-MAGA of all the armed services because Trump disrespected Jim Mattis who is the tutelary deity of the warrior cult.
Attempting to send ICE to the boot camp graduation ceremony at Parris Island to check the immigration status of the families didn't endear him to the Corps either. I can't imagine what would happen if ICE had put hands on some Devil Dog's mother.
All right, sweethearts, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed? It's another glorious day in the Corps. A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm: Every meal's a banquet. Every paycheck's a fortune! Every formation's a parade! I love the Corps!
"The Marines don't have any race problems. They treat everybody like they're black." -- Gen Daniel James, USAF
Pam Bondi was fired largely because Donald Trump grew dissatisfied with her inability to deliver on prosecuting his perceived enemies, sources tell me. Her allies find that reasoning frustrating, because they say she was hampered by the legal system, not by any unwillingness on her part. Critics say that whole project was corrupt, and that she “took a sledgehammer to the Justice Department and its workforce,” in the words of one former official. https://x.com/KDilanianMSNOW/status/2039756785574199780
"The law got in the way of her malicious prosecutions". How frustrating indeed.
Guys, is it good when you fire the head of the army in the middle of a war ahead of a possible controversial ground invasion? It's a thing you do if you're winning, right?
I cannot find the post, but @Eabhal made a point earlier that he agreed with me about solar farms harvesting constraint subsidies by positioning themselves in areas of poor grid connectivity, and that I should 'focus my attack on renewables' there (or words to that effect).
I think it's important to clarify that I am not against renewable energy in principle - that would be absurd. If we can use modern technology to harness nature and provide abundant cheap energy, how could anyone object to that?
My argument is against the UK's specific journey to Net Zero, and the green industrial complex that has grown up around it. We have imposed arbitrary green targets, companies (mostly overseas ones) know this, lobbyists get their noses into the trough, the entire push is sold to the public as a moral mission, and the chosen instruments for the transition are by their nature the most wasteful and inefficient, because on the other side of waste, there is someone making a shit tonne of money. That is the nature of waste.
I support tidal - very old idea, very reliable tech, would last centuries with little repair - hence no vast profits to be made, so little to no interest from corporations, or policy-makers.
It's a corrupt system, and it is quite deliberately pushing up the price of energy, with global investment funds the main beneficiaries, and the poor the main victims, all wrapped in hypocritical cant about saving the planet.
I don't think they do it maliciously. Just that the government shouldn't allow them to be built on CfD contracts unless there is sufficient local demand, sufficient transmission, or sufficient approved transmission. That rules out much of the Highlands, unless you set up nodal pricing so you get massive steelworks in Fort William or something.
I don't think any firm should be expected to the "right thing". It's up to government to regulate, tax, to ensure we get a good outcome. That goes for fossil fuels and renewables equally. If that's not happening now then we are right to complain.
(On tidal, I've never really understood what the benefits are. Intermittent, and none of the schemes contain sufficient storage in design to mitigate that. If it's cheaper than the alternatives then fair enough.)
Intermittent but very predictable unlike solar and wind. Useful in the mix, surely?
I am not sure why predictable is advantageous?
On demand, like gas, is advantageous. Lagoons can be used for storage but not in volume and not competitive to batteries realistically.
But predictability? How does that help? If I can predict that output is troughing just as demand peaks then what can we usefully do with that information that we would not do with unpredictable troughs in output?
Predictable does bring with it certain advantages: a battery operator will be more likely to 'empty' their cells at a time of high demand, if it knows that [x]GW of cheap tidal is coming on stream in four hours time. If it doesn't know when it will be able to next 'fill up', it might well leave some electrons undisturbed.
(With that said, wind and solar -on shortish time horizons- are pretty predictable these days. Network operators know when clouds -or even a single cloud- is about to cross over a solar farm, and what impact that will have on production, for instance.)
They also know when the sun will set and how many more hours before the sun will rise again. Especially in winter that is more than 12 hours away. There will be a full tide generating power on the incoming and outgoing in that intervening period.
Guys, is it good when you fire the head of the army in the middle of a war ahead of a possible controversial ground invasion? It's a thing you do if you're winning, right?
Moulton: I know active duty Marines who now refer to Pete Hegseth’s department as the department of war crimes. That's because they do things like this, destroy civilian infrastructure, which, just to be clear, is a war crime. It's meant to hurt civilians.
This is the same stuff that we criticize Vladimir Putin for doing in Ukraine.
Guys, is it good when you fire the head of the army in the middle of a war ahead of a possible controversial ground invasion? It's a thing you do if you're winning, right?
Comments
Vance is not a far right Christian ethno nationalist. His wife is bloody Indian!
He’s bent in the wind to accommodate the hurricane that is Trump but I suspect he’d be quite a capable president. He’s clever and he thinks ahead. He would not have done Iran. Certainly not in the way Trump has done it
He wouldn’t be to your taste, he is firmly right wing. But he’s not mad and he’s not compromised by Epstein
When offered a binary choice the public prefer a Starmer led Labour government to Farage led Reform one by 40-32.
Of course getting the public to vote in that way is a different question
https://x.com/keiranpedley/status/2039761768411509099?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
This is my favourite so far - System Glow / Cities. Sounds like it really could be from the late 1980s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qRpOD5Ipl8
Not sure crap leadership is just a sign of current times . There’s been plenty of useless leaders in the past.
At what point does the wisdom of crowds become the idiocy or madness of crowds? Or the bigotry of the majority, as in Israel?
The you have to add in the way democratic social media makes a political life deeply unappealing to all but the most inane, banal and/or power obsessed which is how Britain ended up with a serious of ridiculous losers culminating in Skyr Toolmakersson
I've heard it argued that social media is kryptonite for our present form of representative democracy. Perhaps democracy can only survive if it changes to work with social media, and/or brings social media under some sort of control so that it does not encourage our more extreme impulses. There have been ideas such as much greater use of referendums, or the jury system, devolving power to local communities as much as possible, etc.
I think we should also remember that democracy rests on two pillars - the rule of law, and the right to express dissent. Given these two things some form of democracy is inevitable, because people will want a day in how they're governed, they will complain when things go wrong, and they will want to force change when the status quo fails.
Any non-democratic system has to involve curtailing the rule of law and dissent. The form that democracy takes in terms of elections, parliaments and the like is less important. People will work out what does or does not work as long as they can dissent and rely on the law.
Certainly democracy needs to sort itself out, and it's in doubt as to whether it will do so in time to save itself from the authoritarians who would destroy it, but the politicians we currently have aren't the measure of whether it is worth trying to save democracy.
I asked how she was, and he said "very smart, very ambitious, and very strange."
He'd certainly be different.
We could revert to having the PM appointed by the king, similar to the way the England football manager is appointed. Maybe even shop abroad to find a political Sven-Göran Eriksson to run the government.
The variation can be designed into your tidal pond system, so that the rated power for the system is based on the lightest tides.
This costs very little extra in the system - in most places the range of values for high tide don’t vary by *that* much.
In addition because the tide is offset as you move round the coast, a series of tidal ponds, carefully sited, can provide 24/7 coverage to a national grid.
https://modernleft.substack.com/p/exclusive-labour-facing-historic
I am returned from my constitutional with a burning question for the PB brain trust.
I passed a house that one of those hand carved name plates at the gate, but as well as the house name it had a ///what.three.words location inscribed on it.
The question this poses is, what are the circumstances where you find yourself outside this property but
- don't know where you are?
- don't know how you got there?
???
On demand, like gas, is advantageous. Lagoons can be used for storage but not in volume and not competitive to batteries realistically.
But predictability? How does that help? If I can predict that output is troughing just as demand peaks then what can we usefully do with that information that we would not do with unpredictable troughs in output?
Vance himself came from a pretty
poor family in small town Ohio. Here he is visiting a foodbank
https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/sen-vance-visits-greater-cleveland-food-bank-as-discussions-continue-over-raising-u-s-debt-ceiling
@chadbourn.bsky.social
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi: “There's one striking difference between the present and the Stone Age: there was no oil or gas being pumped in the Middle East back then.
“Are POTUS and Americans who put him in office sure that they want to turn back the clock?”
Araghchi: “Striking civilian structures, including unfinished bridges, will not compel Iranians to surrender.
“It only conveys the defeat and moral collapse of an enemy in disarray. Every bridge and building will be built back stronger. What will never recover: damage to America's standing."
https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/episodes/
I am only on episode 21 of (currently) 188 but is does offer a fascinating insight into the history of the English language and Western civilisation more generally. A great listen on car journeys if music is not your thing and the news has become too depressing.
My only criticism is that there is a little too much repetition at times in making key points. But that's only a minor issue.
Jordan's parliament speaker calls for a post-war joint defense and economic treaty encompassing the Arab world to defend against Iran, who he says is considering reviving the Persian Empire and wants to incite Shiites across the Arab world
The language will have significantly evolved by the time you finish them.
Or have I covered all the main bases?
working class, his mother struggled with drug addiction and after their divorce he was mainly raised by his grandparents
Advisors close to Trump considered the idea of moving US Attorney General Pam Bondi to another senior role in the admin, including director of national intelligence.
But Trump has said he wants Tulsi Gabbard to stay in that position, sources told me.
@CBSNews
Looks like a hearts and minds campaign. Pretty please Palantir next.
I have long seen him as a buffoon and a menace. Remember I compared him to the polar bear on a slowly melting ice floe. You shoot the polar bear first then deal with the melting ice. I saw the threat
So I was right in that BUT you were more accurate in your analysis of Trump’s madness. He’s worse than a buffoon. His character flaws make him actively malignant whatever happens
Plus he’s probably captured by Kremlin kompromat
Episode 188 has reached 1620 so there will surely be well over 250 episodes by the time we get to the current era. I have only reached the emergence of proto-Germanic around 500BC. It is weirdly interesting and well presented though.
On the questions raised by @Leon, I think the end of ideology has a lot to do with it.
When you had ideology, you had belief, a conviction (so to speak) good Government would do right by the people of the country and whether as provider or enabler, the State, in whatever form, could deliver safety, security and prosperity and, above all, the future so our children would not have to sacrifice what we had to in order to enjoy a better life.
All ideologies have failed - Communism and Fascism were discredited in the 20th century and now even liberalism, conservatism, socialism and social democracy have all failed or are perceived to have failed. Thus do we have Government with a more limited purpose.
Demographic, social and technological change and challenges have further undermined traditional ideologies. Notions of "left" and "right" are meaningless except as perjoratives and indeed all we have very often is politics by insult, by allegation or by rumour.
We are in a prolonged technocratic era - in truth, the political party of a Government is largely irrelevant. They are forced to govern in thesame way with minor tweaks. You can either be led by John Jackson or Jack Johnson yet seemingly the closer the parties are, the more vitriolic the nature of the debate -possibly due to social media. Imagine if X had existed in 1920s Germany or here during Munich or Suez.
In the face of rapid change and absent a prevailing ideological alternative, politicians look lost. Will we see new ideologies emerge? Probably - I'd be thinking about a post-work world or a more environmentally challenged world or an increasingly infertile world as bases for new political thought. All I do know is we can't solve 21st century problems with 20th century solutions.
At the core of all this is the failure of the basic contract between Government and governed - we expect Government to ensure the world is a better place for our children. We want our children to be richer, happier, healthier, safer etc. That is breaking down - part of the response is for people not to want to bring children into what is perceived as a dystopia. Part is hostility or cynicism to all forms of authority and governance - "they're all the same". Part is to withdraw from the political process.
Here's a bit of green propganda for schools/the basis for quite a nice lesson from 2005 or so...
https://beep.ac.uk/content/718.0.html
And a reminder of the limits of battery technology in 1985...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5
This is the same stuff that we criticize Vladimir Putin for doing in Ukraine.
He doesn't know how to get out. So what is he doing? He's resorting to war crimes. It's an embarrassment.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/2039765959888756839
Amazon apparently have their own map which their drivers use and in their wisdom had put our house on the wrong side of the village - enough to flummox their time constrained drivers. This was only resolved when we cancelled our Amazon prime, prompting a real person to call us. I gave them our actual Lat and Long from Google maps and problem solved.
I was told that DPD haven't updated their delivery address database since spring 2024, which seems utterly crazy... for a delivery company.
Neither were at all interested when I offered them our what.three.words address.
(File under First World Problems)
(With that said, wind and solar -on shortish time horizons- are pretty predictable these days. Network operators know when clouds -or even a single cloud- is about to cross over a solar farm, and what impact that will have on production, for instance.)
If you site your lagoons correctly, the peaks are at different times. The individual lagoons spread the peak power, at each location. This adds up to continuous power delivered to the grid 24/7.
@KobeissiLetter
·
41m
BREAKING: Iran says the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed long-term for both the US and Israel.
US oil prices have officially marked their highest close since June 2022.
In any event, the GOP nominee almost certainly won't win, unless it's fixed.
Quite incredible footage.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George to
step down, sources say.
https://bsky.app/profile/cbsnews.com/post/3mijyzgh3hs2u
That said: the promoters say it's pretty inexpensive, so let's try it.
A significant portion of the American elite has lost interest in the American project and is stripping the walls of copper wiring, and the American people are letting them do it because they're in denial and obsessed with the equivalents of Limonov and Kashpirovsky.
https://x.com/ThatchEffendi/status/2039766157247263194
Severn neap is 1GW, spring 8GW - that’s a range similar to wind. The pond required to sustain 1GW in a neap would be enormous, something like 8 Diwornigs, filled during a spring, at 5m depth that’s what 1/10th of the size of Wales?
We should do it just because working out the maths is so fun.
In a surprise twist, the Epstein files released the attorney general.
Attempting to send ICE to the boot camp graduation ceremony at Parris Island to check the immigration status of the families didn't endear him to the Corps either. I can't imagine what would happen if ICE had put hands on some Devil Dog's mother.
The problem is that they would never get built. The opposition to them would be too fierce.
Solar and batteries is much harder to stop. Because they scale from a large garden upward. Rather than starting at gigawatts.
One year ago today, President Donald Trump stood at a lectern in the Rose Garden, held up a booklet of trade barriers as thick as the Bible and told a crowd of people in suits and hard hats that with his planned tariffs, “jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country and you see it happening already.”
Those jobs and factories haven’t materialized, at least on the grand scale the president and his top advisers have promised.
Manufacturing payrolls actually declined slightly over the past year, with 98,000 fewer jobs year-over-year based on the most recent data from the Labor Department. There are 29,900 fewer auto manufacturing jobs and 18,000 fewer wood manufacturing jobs — both sectors the president has tried to protect with trade barriers. New, higher tariffs on steel and aluminum, moreover, have hindered the construction of factories. The industry’s hiring rate — often a reflection of confidence in the economic outlook — is lower now than it was at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Guys, is it good when you fire the head of the army in the middle of a war ahead of a possible controversial ground invasion? It's a thing you do if you're winning, right?
https://bsky.app/profile/ariehkovler.com/post/3mijzmj57ns2v
Edward Luce
@EdwardGLuce
People say Trump’s presidency is dying in Iran but we’re less than a third of the way through. Chances of major power conflict before 2029?
https://x.com/EdwardGLuce/status/2039781319035494856
...a political Sven-Goran Eriksson... is true gold. Chapeau.
-- Gen Daniel James, USAF
https://x.com/KDilanianMSNOW/status/2039756785574199780
"The law got in the way of her malicious prosecutions". How frustrating indeed.
Time to drain the stinking swamp.
Hegseth has asked US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George to step down and take immediate retirement -CBS
https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/2039796575040422207
Well at least George didn’t end up tripping and falling out of a window .