blandy

Zackly. One person severely disturbed = X. 2000 (say) people more minorly disturbed= ? Where do you draw the line? Is it mathematical or is it not like that? Maths says at some point you push the person off and crack on. But that doesn't seem right, yet at some level it is the judgement, it's (in maths terms) not so different to "do you shoot the suicide bomber vest person to save the hostages". I am of course evil for even pondering such matters.

Again, philosophically...are they? I mean the person on the bridge and the " cry for help". Are they actually suicidal, are they attention seeking (at the other end of the extreme). It's kind of a thing where I feel " I want this human to be safe and well" and then I also think, "there's all these other humans some of whom are getting proper problems because that one is doing what they're doing up there" Like you say, deal with the immediate issue and sort the rest later...except no-one does. And so it repeats.

2 years later Ukraine has western missile defences. 2 years later they have the benefit of NATO intel. 2 years later Russia is desperate to announce gains. 2 years later Russia is no longer “yeah, we got this” super confident. 2 years later Russia is throwing lives and equipment and aircraft at trying to gain ground. So no, it’s not comparable to a sort of surprise attack intended to grab control of Ukraine in a few days. SitRep, this is 2+ years into an ill conceived invasion, not the opening days of a war.

Here’s a talking point. I was musing a few years ago, while sat in a huge stationary traffic jam on the motorway. The jam, it turned out was because someone was threatening to jump off a bridge. I was on my way to a Fall gig and had some leeway, but I wondered what’s the calculation? Motorway closed both directions. Thousands of people stuck. Is one of them gonna beat their wife/ plunge into depression/ insert terrible outcome here/ whatever? Because of the actions of a disturbed person? At what point is the greater good/ least harm caused by just either grabbing the “jumper” or they jump? It’s a philosophical question, not a point of view.

Wordle 991 4/6*

Please stick to the topic, not other potential signings.

Everyone likes a Kenny

That’s a different argument. I feel reasonably confident that the surveillance NATO forces have gives an accurate picture of where stuff is (to abbreviate). Who is on board which aircraft, or what fate befell them is a completely different story. Then layer in what is released to the media, who it serves and all that and who might benefit from deception or whatever - that’s beyond my comprehension.

It’s the horns of a dilemma question. Long term there are 2 very, very strong arguments around FFP/PSR and the state of it, to rebuild it. It’s knackered, cramped and outdated. A new, bigger, stand will significantly increase income it’ll help hugely long term with FFP. But… while it’s being rebuilt we’ll take an FFP hit on income in the shorter term. There’s no room to take that hit. We’re up against limits in the regs which say, essentially, do this and you’re **** for the next 2 years. You will have to weaken your sporting ability to do that rebuild and take 2 steps back. There are also questions about how much can you squeeze people to cough up for premium seats and boxes in 2 years time. It looks like the short term pressures have won out.

I do.

Wordle 990 5/6*

Retire the shirt.

Well obviously not. Why would you need 2 copies?

Wordle 989 4/6*

The thing with AWACS (at least our versions) are they give a huge tactical picture over a huge area. They act as a command and control centre, pulling together an integrated picture of everything, they call it C4ISTAR, which is command, control, communications, computing, Intelligence, Surveillance, Targetting and reconnaissance. So they can see (if they’re turned on), ground radars, friendly neutral and foe aircraft, and have a picture of and links to, friendly forces and a picture of the enemy’s forces. So that’s all a massive advantage. But…in terms of Russian fighter jets or ground attack jets being shot down they’re not a massive help. Once the missile is fired from the ground or air, there’s nothing that they can do. My suspicion is Ukraine is keeping their ground based air defence systems dark, and only switching them on to acquire and target Russian jets for a brief time, possibly via intelligence from NATO surveillance activities. That’s a guess on my part , made on the assumption that Ukraine’s own jets are largely not in the area, due to inferiority of their sensors. It’s one reason why they desperately want F16s, to flip that inferiority balance. I just wonder if Russia isn’t just accepting they’ll lose aircraft and are throwing the kitchen sink at their onslaughts while Ukraine is short of ammunition and resources.

Almost a 2, almost a wipout Wordle 988 6/6*

The absence of AWACS theory assumes they are being shot down by other aircraft. My suspicion is that it’s more likely Ukraine has moved some/many of the ground based air defence systems from protecting towns/cities to the front lines, because of desperation that their troops are being pounded from the air and losing ground, lives and territory, and that Russia is throwing aircraft at it like they throw troops at it, leading to heavy losses.

That Roger Manning has more hair than Nigel Blackwell, and is more Dylanesque, vocally. I’d never heard of him before. HMHB are not that well known, but those who know, know.

Has the west given Ukraine meteors? Not seen anything to say so. We also don’t know how far away from Ukraine’s defenders the Russian aircraft were. A guess and only a guess is that it’s unlikely they’ve put meteors on soviet era jets, based on an assumption that the radar on those aged jets wouldn’t be up to scratch for detecting and targeting at long range - a long range missile is less useful if you can’t see and identify what’s a long way away to start with. But in theory, given the missiles, launchers, plus ICD requirement data and so on, and if Ukraine can detect and identify Russian jets at long range, then mentors would be very effective.

None of it is legitimate. I can get my head round why a hungry person takes the food of another. I can understand why a greedy person takes the money of another. Doesn’t mean I approve or legitimise it. I can’t understand why a [x religion] person takes against a [y religion] person over some words in a compiled inaccurate book of stories from thousands of years ago. I have no issue with people believing or worshipping whoever they want or worshipping no one. S’all cool, but folk fighting over their sky fairy is another matter.

It’s not extreme. In all the other ones, the winner can point to “I got me some opium sales” or whatever the tangible thing is - land, water, cattle, spices, oil… what do Shia or Sunni “win”? For example?

You’re right…but some of these religious schisms kind of are or were the root of feuds, based not around water or riches or food or land, but around different and fervent views around which bits of god books are the true ones. It’s another reason to have a killing spree, on top of all the ones you alluded to

There are quite a lot of religionists and branches of religions who appear to believe their inconsistent books are the actual word of [insert name of deity] and need to be adhered to rigorously. Not all, but plenty. There are ancient and ongoing feuds around particular versions of books and war and horrors have resulted and millions of people have been impacted and affected by the fierce battles over interpretation. S’pose they couldn’t be bothered either?

I disagree with all of that apart from the point that the vast majority of people want a ceasefire in Gaza. That bit is obvious. But the rest, no. The Tories are effectively 2 parties. A noisy, populist (but unpopular) right wing mess and a meek, subdued, larger (though you’d never know it) bunch of shell shocked career interest more moderate people with no ideas. They’re “managed” by someone with no skills or ability to lead. A timid, but bright, man completely out of his depth. As a result the grabbers, grifters and gobshites are having a field day. In opposition is a party that went down a rabbit hole, that was previously led by an utterly unsuitable knobhead and which now has a leader who is concentrating to the exclusion of everything else on not upsetting the horses, who knows that if he just behaves ultra cautiously, he and they will get to have a go at being in charge. He’s doing politics by numbers, literally. Using maths and probability to steer a course to what he hopes is victory. Neither of those approaches is remotely appealing, it’s true. If you’re an optimist then you might hope the cautious one turns out to actually be a lot more transformative than he appears, if you’re more pessimistic then you fear he’ll be no different to the current pm, another bright but indecisive, muddle through type. The big problem for all of us is that we’re irrelevant. Irrelevant on the world stage, irrelevant as voters, irrelevant as a population in a game played out to see who gets to have a go at being government next. But I don’t think the idea that x% of the population currently feel this or that ought to be a dictator of much at all in the short term.