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Whoops Apocalypse!

Whoops Apocalypse was a six part 1982 TV sitcom that aired in the UK during a particularly dark part of the cold war. It purported to document the last few weeks leading up to the nuclear apocalypse, and starred such luminaries as John Cleese and Barry Morse: it's available on DVD here. It features a chaotic and increasingly unstable global political situation in which nuclear alerts are accidentally triggered by malfunctioning Space Invaders machines; the naive and highly unpopular Republican U.S. President Johnny Cyclops is advised by an insane right-wing fundamentalist security advisor, called The Deacon, who claims to have a direct hotline to God. And the Shah of Iran is locked in the toilet of a cross-channel ferry. (Bits cribbed from Wikipedia because my memory is weak after all these years.)

Anyway, here are my notes towards a Brexit specific re-make of Whoops Apocalypse.

  1. Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister. Johnson is arguably the most unsuitable PM since 1832, if not before: here's another journalist's take on his wholly evitable rise. (The problem is, the next PM is the leader of the Conservative Party, and will be voted on by roughly 130,000 elderly Conservative party members: average age 72, by some estimates.)

  2. A prorogued parliament or a minority government ensues as saner ministers resign in protest—but there are not enough votes to sustain a motion of no confidence, because even the anti-Brexit Tory back benches vote in lockstep to avoid a snap general election: they fear losing their jobs in a massive backlash/protest vote more than they fear the consequences of clinging to power at all costs.

  3. The British economy continues its slide into recession as BoJo assumes he can cut Ireland out of the EU flock and bully Varadkar into submission: this works about as well as you might expect. The fact that Irish and other EU politicians read and speak English and are familiar with English cultural touchstones seems to have eluded the Brexiteers: but it means that they can't say one thing to their followers and another to the guys across the negiating table without being seen as transparently mendacious. Also, when an Eton-educated idiot evokes the wartime spirit in front of an Irishman, they're more likely to think of the Easter Rising and the Irish War of Independence (centenary ahoy!) than of the second world war. So: adoption of bullying rhetoric by a politically tone-deaf PM and dirigiste English nationalist negotiating team will be followed by Ireland doing a very effective imitation of a pissed-off mule, meanwhile holding the UK economy to ransom.

  4. President Macron of France sees Brexit as a problem to be solved as fast as possible, and issues an ultimatum over half-hearted requests to extend the October 31st deadline: "shit or get off the pot." Boris hears him and shits his pants (a deadline extension so close to his arrival in 10 Downing Street will fatally undermine his authortiy with the hardliners). There is then a run on the pound, which hits dollar parity, as the UK slides towards an uncontrollable Brexit with no transitional agreement in place and without any preparations and emergency plans (which were geared up for a March Brexit, then put on ice, at great expense).

Importing chemical supplies vital for ensuring that drinking water is safe is only assigned to the fifth priority level in the no deal emergency import ladder. Food? Forget about it ... until the shelves in Tesco and ASDA run bare due to panic stockpiling and are no longer re-filled, and hunger marches and demonstrations begin. Which rapidly escalate because the Home Office response is based on contingency plans for containing a re-run of the 2011 England riots, which presuppose 50% higher policing budgets and a much smaller hard-core of rioters. Back then it was blamed on economic decline and austerity, the effects of which were unevenly distributed: this time, it's fear of starvation, which affects everyone.

  1. Wild Card #1: War with Iran breaks out. The blame can be laid squarely on the shoulders of John Bolton, Trump's national security advisor, and on Trump's deteriorating mental condition: perhaps Trump decides it's time to wag the dog in the run-up to his re-election campaign.

In the UK, BoJo has awarded loyal, dimwitted, no-deal Brexiteer Ian Duncan Smith with the post of Defense Secretary in the Clown Car Cabinet. To say he's no Paddy Ashdown, or even an Anthony Eden, would be redundant. IDS is a former Guards cavalry officer, with no feel for Naval affairs: he decides to send the Royal Navy's shiny new (and underequipped) aircraft carrier) to the Gulf, along with a couple of Astute-class hunter-killers (because obviously bigger is better, and why would operating in shallow, restricted straits be a problem for the biggest and best blue-water nuclear submarines?).

HMS Queen Elizabeth hits a mine (or is nailed by a midget sub) and badly damaged. Alternatively, an Astute-class SSN is forced to surface and evacuate before sinking: surviving crew are captured by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Despite tabloid hysteria, there are no subsequent islamist terror attacks in the UK. However, British miltary advisors and diplomats throughout the Middle East come under attack by shi'ite irregulars who interpret the UK's bumbling in the Straits of Hormuz as proof that the UK is overtly allying itself with Saudi Arabia. One or more embassies is blown up, one or more tourists or diplomats is kidnapped and held hostage. (Probably in Iraq, Yemen, or Lebanon.)

  1. Wild Card #2: "London Bridge is down"—or is it just blocked? In the middle of this superposition of crises constitutional, military, economic, and civic, HM the Queen has a massive stroke and ends up in hospital on life support, in much the same state as Ariel Sharon. She's 92 years old, and despite being in relatively good health the stress of the past three years has taken its toll. The decision is eventually taken to switch off her life support once arrangements for two weeks of national mourning in the run-up to a state funeral have been put in place, in the middle of food riots and other emergencies.

Prince Charles, desperate to avoid being crowned King (he prefers to stay in his greenhouse communing with his vegetable patch) contemplates certain legal immunities available to him in his capacity as Duke of Cornwall, which will be lost the instant his mother officially dies. Will he, won't he, will he, order a nuclear strike on the UK, just to put an end to the misery ...?

Tune in for next week's thrilling conclusion to "Whoops Apocalypse: Brexit Edition"!

I could keep spinning this out—there are plausible timelines from here leading to the breakup of the UK before April 1st, 2020, mostly via a snap general election followed by election of a Brexit Party led ultra-right-wing coalition—but I'd rather not go there. Wisely, the original "Whoops Apocalypse" ended with the nuclear bomb dropping: it didn't continue and turn into Threads.

But the UK as a whole (not just Scotland!) is now entering a political singularity where our circumstances even three months hence are utterly unpredictable. And satire is no longer up to the job of shining a light into the darkness ahead ...

1275 Comments

1:

At least if the planet keeps warming, even with the pound sinking you should be able to afford staying warm this coming winter.

The next is a different story.

2:

This is rather worrying in as much as your predictions usually tend to be on the conservative side... It seems to me that brexit and the related kerfuffle is the articulation of striving to an ineffable goal and knowing how well those usually turn out, I am somewhat disquieted that Boris has gone explicitly religious with his appeal to faith in the goal as a sensible means of achieving the goal. Is it time for a shiny New Management, I wonder. Will the legions of Granbretan storm through the Channel tunnel to lay waste the Continent, their success assured by the invocation of the Gods Chirshil though perhaps not Aral Vilsn (who I once saw buying a bottle of gin in Victoria Street).

3:

For those who haven't seen the miniseries or film, it includes one of the more grounded responses to economic problems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBHHFnUqo5o

4:

Whoops Apcalypse was a favourite of my teenage years. So much good writing. I particularly fondly remember the scene with the new Labour government re-reading their first cabinet minutes from the back of a cigarette packet (nationalize everything and massively expand social spending, to be paid for by cancelling Trident, scrapping the Civil List and closing down the Daily Telegraph) and then wondering “how did the other governments make it last so long?”

But while it was wholly inferior to the TV series, I think the film adaptation a few years later is more apposite to our times; it starred Peter Cook as an insane Tory PM handing out Union Jack umbrellas that would protect people from nuclear blast and fallout if they just believed in Britain strongly enough. Which seems to be pretty much the Brexiteers’ whole plan for coping with the economic consequences from crashing out of the EU.

5:

Johnson is arguably the most unsuitable PM since 1832, if not before...

For a moment I thought you were being very rude to Earl Grey. (Great Reform Act, Abolition of Slavery, had a blend of tea named after him).

6:

I'm sure many other readers will have seen the recent Russell T Davies drama Years and Years, which was rather dark in tone, and explored a near future that got incrementally worse.

It's actually quite an achievement that considering the current situation, it managed to portray a future that was actually worse without a full-on apocalypse.

7:

The Threads continuation:

  • no-deal Brexit on Haloween leads to the Haloween Crisis and food riots by mid-November. The EU, with no desire to see Britain on fire, offers Boris a retroactive extension and a variant of May's deal complete with Northern Irish backstop, and he gratefully accepts it, pitching it to the nation as "plucky British blitz spirit saves the day".

  • Food riots are replaced by English Nationalist riots because of the PM's "stab in England's back". Farage's Brexit party lights its afterburners and begins active campaigning for the impending general election.

  • The government collapses in a vote of no confidence by early November: an election is called for late February 2020.

  • Support for independence from the UK in Scotland—45% in 2014, rising to 49% post-Brexit referendum—rose to 53% under PM Johnson. With the food riots, it's now risen to a consistent 55-60%. Replacing food riots with English far right riots has not helped the situation: a narrow Scottish majority for independence seems to be the post-Brexit new normal.

  • The general election results in a massive upset. The largest single party is the Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage, followed by the Liberal Democrats (pro-EU), followed by the Conservatives and Labour. New power blocs align, and Prime Minister Farage is granted his audience with the monarch and asked to form a new government in coalition with those Conservatives who are willing to hold their nose and follow the out-of-the-closet fascist.

  • Farage gloats and announces that he intends to roll back devolution. (This is one of the Brexit party's not-very-well-publicised policies.) He announces a forthcoming Sovereignty Restoration Bill to include restoration of direct rule in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland as part of his government's first session. (Note: there are zero Conservative or BXP MPs in Scotland or Northern Ireland, and only one Tory MP in Wales.)

  • It takes time to put a new law through the mechanisms of parliament. The day after Farage's "taking back sovereignty" speech, the Scottish First Minister calls a snap election, on a manifesto of "if re-elected, we will hold a referendum on independence". Very quietly, they also apply to the Scottish Supreme Court to find that Boris Johnson's "raise national insurance payments throughout the UK and use them to cut tax on high earners in England" gambit has violated the Act of Union (1707) guarantee that taxation will be uniform between the kingdoms, and that the AoU is thereby terminated. The SNP also put in place provisions for consultative referenda using Henry VIII powers back in mid-2019, and authorize the printing of ballots and preparations for the referendum even before Holyrood is dissolved.

  • Dueling deadlines: the Brexit party in Westminster tries to rush the Sovereignty bill, but discovers that 20 years of divergent legislation means there is a lot of detail work to unwind before they can grab control over Scottish legislation. The general election in Scotland meanwhile rumbles on for 12 weeks before delivering a landslide SNP majority government (Labour and Conservative support plummets because of Brexit; the LibDems hold stable in their strongholds). The new SNP government green-lights the referendum at very short notice, pointing out that it's been debated interminably since 2012.

  • In a snap referendum in late April 2020, Scotland votes to leave the UK by a 58/42 majority. The very next week the Brexit Party government declares that Scotland doesn't have a parliament any more. Holyrood disagrees, and petitions Brussels for emergency readmission to the EU, and diplomatic recognition.

  • Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, from mid-November onwards the New IRA have been taking over border checkpoints, driving out the Police Sotland and Border Agency staff, and waving traffic through unimpeded. This makes them popular, for a while, until the UVF and UFF begin to reform and start kneecapping republicans, and things begin to spiral.

  • Farage demands that the Army should Do Something. The army doesn't have the personnel. So he orders the army to open their armouries to the UVF, and ships a bunch of Britain First irregulars over.

  • At the same time, Scottish Defense League (SDL) rioters start showing up in Glasgow and Edinburgh (note: the SDL is basically the EDL, complete with Flag of St George, raising trouble north of the border—this is a real thing here). This time they're breaking heads and shouting "Britain First! Scotland is British!".

  • The conflagration spreads, and by July the first waves of refugees are on the move ...

  • 8:

    I did not see it, but can add the following:

    Davis (as Chancellor) drops tariffs on imports, as promised, and reduces the top rate of income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax and fuel duty to please his and Bozo's core supporters. He does not make more cuts, relying on the Brexit boost and the expected boom to solve the problem; when that fails, and the internal promissory notes bounce like flubber, he takes the temporary expedient of printing money. You know where it goes from there ....

    9:

    Whoops Apocalypse was one of my favourites as a teenager too. Along with Blackadder, which reminds me: Satire can always shine a light on the past... though really the past is like SF, somewhere sufficiently distant to play our the moral dramas of the day without getting arrested, or sued or both.

    10:

    Davis announces subsidies to UK farmers (well, the big ones) to compensate for their loss of sales due to tariff-free imports; the WTO point out that such subsidies are not allowed under their rules; the UK and US leave the WTO and form the America First free trade zone.

    11:
  • China's already-announced ban on combustion-powered private vehicles is for 2025; there's an announcement that due to the new battery technology just now publicly displayed, the ban is moving up to 2023. The Carbon Bubble pops rather more abruptly than planned. (You damn betcha all the money-manager-minions of those with their wealth in tax havens planned.)
  • Various Saudi princes and Russian oligarchs and even less pleasant persons find out that gold is useless (it's full of tungsten); the USD is useless (the Trump administration has responded to the crisis by declaring the US gold-backed at 20 USD/troy ounce, as God and the Founders intended); and the graph of the pound's value resembles the outline of the bag containing six weasels on powerful stimulants. Europe's money laundering laws may or may not be effective but they sure are making transactions slow.

    Dirt, though, dirt is inherently valuable. We can get our money back in dirt. Nice, safe, English countryside agricultural dirt with inherent value from its productivity. PM Farage, who is generally entirely fine with the less pleasant persons, doesn't have time to pivot away from strong anti-foreign-ownership rhetoric meant for the EU; especially among the younger, active members of his party, they sincerely believe it. The attempts to take possession of tracts of land dissolve into complete chaos, as no one is sure who will shoot, can shoot, or is shooting at who over what. No one is real sure what the Britain First sorts got out of the armouries. (Someone in the Army may have a good idea of what is missing.) The Army appeals to Prince William for an Order in Council so it can start recruiting. You can only have so many constitutional crises at once; that one gets told to wait in line.

    Various Scottish Peers get together. Everyone looks at the Duke of Atholl.

    12:

    There is then a run on the pound, which hits dollar parity, Oh do come on ... down to 25 US cents is much more likely.

    Charlie @ 7 NOT GOING TO HAPPEN There will be a general election before 31st October this year, because BoJo is going to lose a vote of confidence - because at least FOUR tory MP's will have defected to the Lem0crats Bets as to largets party? Could be Liebout if fuckwit Corbyn gets off hois pot & backs remain ( Ecxept I suspect he won't because he's a wanker ) Lem0crats? Certainky not Brexit-party

    13:

    Minor nitpick - IDS was Scots Guards, they haven’t had tanks (ie. Cavalry) since WW2. So, “Guards”.

    Second, do the SAS get a tiger again? (Rik Mayall leading his doorkickers has been an often-used clip within the Army).

    But “opening the Armouries” is thankfully less likely. The Army is more centrist than caricature has it; and more likely to start listening to Buck House rather than Downing Street in the case of political extremism. I think you’d find a Very British Coup more likely than Whoops, Apocalypse.

    Jus so long as we can keep Admirals away from stage hypnotists, that is...;)

    14:

    No one is real sure what the Britain First sorts got out of the armouries.

    Note: Britain First are real extremists—they're to the right of the English Defense League—but they're not outright illegal. For that I refer you to National Action, membership of which is illegal—it's a proscribed organization under the Terrorism Act, being identarian white supremacist terrorists associated with the guy who assassinated Jo Cox MP.

    Problem is, when you drive them underground they're hard to track down: my money is on NA cells being embedded in BF, and using BF for recruiting.

    If Farage is dumb enough to try to use Britain First as freikorps headbangers, he'll end up arming National Action terror cells by default. Assuming he doesn't see NA as the cadre to base his own version of the SS on …

    See also NA sock-puppets Scottish Dawn and NS131 (National Socialist Anti-Capitalist Action) — both also proscribed.

    15:

    Dearie me, you mean that you actually think that the people whom the top-levels of income tax are paying that tax?

    It is actually quite nice to be reminded that non-cynics do still exist.

    However, I rather think that if the stupidly-high tax rates are abolished, then a similar effect to that seen in Thatcher's time in power will be seen. Once it isn't worth dodging a tax any more, people stop dodging the lower rate tax and the total take goes up. Partly because of that, and partly because if one is contracting an accountant to dodge one tax, one also gets the accountant to dodge as many other taxes as possible.

    16:

    NOT GOING TO HAPPEN

    My scenario assumes that a no-deal Brexit under BoJo happens because the no confidence vote in August is botched, because MPs don't want to lose their seats, and everyone is standing around hoping that the horse learns to sing in time to save them.

    I hope I'm wrong and you're right, but I don't think so.

    17:

    if the stupidly-high tax rates

    What stupidly-high tax rate?!?

    The upper rate of income tax is 40% in the UK, same as in the US: there's a 45% marginal band over about US $200,000/year, but in practice if you can earn that much you can employ decent accounts/wealth management consultants to avoid it (legally).

    When you add in compulsory non-governmental revenue extraction, like US health insurance costs, we in the UK pay out less money than you in the US; slightly higher tax, but no need for health insurance.

    The real problem is enforcement.

    HMRC has lost about 30-50% of their staff over the past decade, and revenue enforcement is disporportionately aimed at benefit claimants (via the DSS) rather than at corporate tax avoidance (which accounts for 2-3 orders of magnitude greater revenue losses). HMRC istruggles to deal even with illegal evasion these days, as witness the craptastic rise and too-long-deferred fall of carousel VAT fraud.

    18:

    Yes. Reducing the 40% or increasing the threshhold would reduce revenue by taxing people like me (who just gets there) less - and my sort of income band pays a lot of the indirect tax in the UK. While I could go in for, er, aggressive tax avoidance, I can't be arsed - and I wouldn't suffer if I were taxed a bit more. The rates in the 1960s were stupidly high, at over 90% (and, in one extreme case, over 100%), but aren't today. Capital gains tax should go back to the top rate of income tax, as HMRC said it should, pronto, of course - but the real issues are where you say.

    19: 7 - That ignores the multiple other times that the Palace of Oathbreakers have violated the Treaty of Union Between Scotland and England, going back to 1708CE.
    20:

    The other possibility is that Bozo gets No Deal simply by obfuscation, prevarication and evasion - after all, even if Parliament passes a bill requiring him to cancel article 50, he could say "I hear what you say", say he will do it on October 31st, but simply not do it. Similarly, even Parliament realised he was playing that game on, say, October 25th, and passed a vote of No Confidence promptly, how would they force him to tender his resignation in time? It would require HM to dismiss him and appoint a PM who would, or cancel Brexit herself.

    21:

    I'm pretty sure Farage wants the tax status he thinks royalty ought to have. Pretty sure whoever thinks Farage is working for them is wrong, and medium-sure he's way over on the "evil" end of "stupid or evil?"

    Things are obviously going to go right to hell. One way to deal with the realisation is "la la la", mainstream Tories; another is to push strong collective action. (Even the Chinese Communist Party isn't really at strong yet.) But if you're a greedhead? Never mind this community nonsense; I want to be king. Kings don't go hungry.

    I remain amazed that this is an effective political stance, but it is doing fine just about anywhere in the anglosphere.

    Can't think of anybody trying it who looks competent enough to pull it off; that doesn't rule out dumb luck during the increase of chaos.

    22:

    The no confidence vote #2 is an interesting one.

    I think there are a batch of Tories who have held their nerve under May that she'll (somehow) see it through and see off the ERG and the nutters. If BoJo lurches the Conservative Government to be basically a Brexiteer paradise, they'll look at the opinion polls, they'll look at their long term future and jump from the Tory party. LibDems are a nice pro-Remain party that is anti-Corbyn, anti-ERG, centrist where they might feel somewhat at home.

    They will then comfortably vote down the Tory government - the idea being that they cling to power under a new umbrella. For some, of course, this will be fantasy, but for some it will work. Opinion polls are pretty divided, just like the country still, but there are more and more seats around the country that are shifting to Remain as demographics works its way through. Standing as a Remain candidate in a clearly Remain party. Being able to say you campaigned Remain in the referendum too will be a vote winner in a lot of constituencies I imagine. Just as it will be a vote loser in another set of them, regardless of their normal political colour.

    I imagine we'll see a four- or five-way mess of a next parliament, with the SNP + Labour + Lib-Dems as the biggest block and forming a coalition that may or may not be stable but will be pro-remain. (The SNP might be the fourth or fifth biggest party but will be enough of a bloc to give anyone a majority and it won't be the Brexit party or the Tories.)

    To be honest, although I don't see it happening, I think my preferred outcome would be a Green + SNP coalition in charge... Everyone just says "fuck you all" and votes Green or SNP and screws them all over.

    23:

    with the SNP + Labour + Lib-Dems as the biggest block and forming a coalition that may or may not be stable but will be pro-remain.

    Such a coalition is out of the question.

    Labour see the SNP as their natural enemy in Scotland (and to some extent vice versa). Also both LibDem and Labour are unionist parties.

    They might go for a Confidence and Supply arrangement to keep the BXP/Tories out, but not a formal coalition.

    This also depends on whether Labour's leadership flips to oppose Brexit. Right now the rank and file are pro-remain, but Corbyn still equivocates. I suspect it's a combination of indecisiveness and unwillingness to interrupt his enemy while they're making a mistake (ahem, the Tory party while they're chewing their own guts out), but sooner or later it'll become clear that he's got to pick a side—and I'm not sure he'll make the right choice.

    Green/SNP coalition (or rather, confidence and supply arrangement) is what currently runs Scotland. It seems to work okay; I have complaints, but compared to my complaints about Westminster governments under the Conservatives or Blairite Labour, they're nothing.

    24:

    There is a precedent for arranging the time of death of the monarch to suit the news cycle:

    As he lay comatose on his deathbed in 1936, King George V was injected with fatal doses of morphine and cocaine to assure him a painless death in time, according to his physician's notes, for the announcement to be carried ''in the morning papers rather than the less appropriate evening journals.''

    https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/28/world/1936-secret-is-out-doctor-sped-george-v-s-death.html

    25:

    I agree with Eloise@22 that the most likely scenario is a new election, and it is going to be interesting. The Tories have spent the last decade burnishing their reputation as the Nasty Party (something that they had previously started to shed), while Labour have spent it recovering their old reputation as the Irresponsible Party.

    This ought to be the moment for the Lib Dems to come back from the electoral wilderness into which they were cast as punishment for going into a coalition and abandoning a major campaign promise. Unfortunately the two people standing for the Lib Dem leadership have absolutely no name recognition, and most people probably didn't even know they were having a leadership contest.

    26:

    they fear losing their jobs in a massive backlash/protest vote more than they fear the consequences of clinging to power at all costs.

    Welcome to the USA. R's are totally in on this just now. But D's practice it with a passion most of the time.

    27:

    While some kind of military engagement in the Gulf is very possible, I don't see the UK military engaging in the kind of brain-dead strategy you envisage in Wildcard#2. Boris may be an idiot, but the Chiefs of Defence Staff and the rest of the MOD are not. If the UK does get involved in military action then Iran will lose it. The problem will be what happens next; Iran is constitutionally incapable of making peace with us (c/f the Americans and the Clan in their little nuclear exchange), so the most likely outcome is that the Straits of Hormuz are closed to shipping while a nasty little war develops between Saudi Arabia and Iran. See this interesting article for an explanation of why Saudi Arabia is likely to do badly despite having so much more money to throw at the problem.

    In the long run this might actually be a good thing. If Saudi oil fields are closed the West will be forced to confront its addiction to oil, which will hopefully hasten the move towards greener alternatives. Of course in the short run its going to be a second .

    28:

    Graydon @ 21 Royalty's ACTUAL tax rate is about 75-80% ... Though I see what you mena about Farrago.

    Eloise @ 22 I imagine we'll see a four- or five-way mess of a next parliament, with the SNP + Labour + Lib-Dems as the biggest block and forming a coalition that may or may not be stable but will be pro-remain. PROVIDED utter fuckwit Corby doesn't screw the pooch AGAIN, of course ... then I agree that is a very likely scenario.

    Charlie: and I'm not sure he'll make the right choice. Being Corbyn, what do YOU think?

    29:

    I call Poe's Law. Charlie, I predict that whatever happens in the U.K. in the next few years will be even stupider than your description/prediction in the top post.*

    • I should note that as I an American, I could write a description/prediction similar to yours. The next ten years in the U.S. will also be very stupid. (Nancy Pelosi is the Neville Chamberlain of our times.) I'm completely flabbergasted by how many people are being completely idiotic, all at the same time. It's like they put something in the water...
    30:

    I fear you are correct.

    NB: Neville Chamberlain was actually good at his job; he was just out of his depth when it turned into a total war shootingfest. (The "peace in our time" photo-op? Was followed by him returning to Downing Street and quietly throwing the switch to ramp up emergency re-armament. Hitler hadn't fooled him: he just didn't want to cause a national panic, because the then prevalent vision of the Next War involved strategic bombing of cities using chemical weapons, millions dead in the first days, etc.)

    31:

    "...quietly throwing the switch to ramp up emergency re-armament."

    There is not the slightest sign that Nancy P. is doing anything of the kind. She's far more concerned about challenges to Control Of The Party from her left to actually do anything about Trump.

    32:

    The evitability of Boris Johnson's continued career doing anything is the puzzling part for me. Here's a man who:-

    • Repeatedly wrote fictional "news" articles, so egregiously that he was fired multiple times for it.
    • Even more repeatedly wrote fictional "news" articles about Europe for which he was not fired, because he was employed by the Telegraph.
    • Colluded with Darius Guppy in an attempt to have another journalist beaten up.
    • As an MP, has a very low attendance rate for votes.
    • Has had repeated affairs - I don't intend to judge this morally, but from the national security standpoint of having a PM vulnerable to blackmail.
    • As mayor of London, displayed total incompetence on the Garden Bridge project, costing tens of millions and being rounded criticised for this incompetence in its public review.
    • As mayor of London, stayed on holiday during major rioting.
    • As Foreign Secretary, his statement ensured that Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe stayed locked up.
    • As Foreign Secretary, repeatedly dropped racist comments during state visits.
    • Has already bailed on the job once when it looked like he'd have some real competition and scrutiny.

    So, failed journalist, failed husband and father, failed backbench MP, failed mayor, failed Foreign Secretary - and now the Tories want to make him PM. And amazingly the papers are not full of the ways he's managed to fuck up every job he's ever had, and has then been given his next job because of who his family are.

    As far as I can see, the one positive in this clusterfuck is that Labour may finally have an opponent they all hate more than they hate each other.

    33:

    Periodically I wake up and start the day thinking:

    "DT Really? Maybe it was a dream"

    Sort of like Doc Brown when he was told that Ronald would be president in 1985.

    34:

    Yes. I suspect that he also felt it might confuse the enemy about the UK's intentions, slightly, though I doubt it made much difference. I agree with Troutwaxer, too - #8 was about the stupidest thing I could think of, but I am sure that Bozo and his pals will think of something stupider - they have the experience and attitude, after all. Though I suppose starting an all-out war with Iran would count.

    35:

    She's far more concerned about challenges to Control Of The Party from her left to actually do anything about Trump.

    That's just the appearance. She actually is concerned about loosing the House again in 2020. The left of her "fight every battle to the death" doesn't understand national politics at all.

    36:

    How Stephen King Predicted Trump's Rise Decades Ago | Opinions | NowThis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXfklsKGwBU

    37:

    Has had repeated affairs - I don't intend to judge this morally, but from the national security standpoint of having a PM vulnerable to blackmail.

    How do you trust someone to tell the truth when they can pull of the lies needed to have an affair with a partner/spouse who has even a bit of a brain?

    38:

    "She actually is concerned about loosing the House again in 2020."

    If that's the case, she's completely chickenshit. She has Donald Trump, and his record, to run against, plus all the criminality on the part of Trump's minions... imagine how the right would have run against Obama in similar circumstances and you've got the kind of total war Pelosi could wage if she had a mind to do so.

    39:

    It seems very likely in the event of a no deal brexit that there will, within weeks, be rioting and looting. Later the cannibalism starts. Leaving aside minor matters like keeping the lights and heating on as winter approaches, and the UK's lack of food security, there is also:-

    The last UK cigarette factory closed in 2017 and manufacturing moved to Germany and Poland.

    About 20 percent of UK beer is imported.

    Almost all the wine is imported.

    And those shortages will certainly get some people in a bad mood.

    As to whether civil disorder leads to martial law and camps or to a volte face and rejoining the EU under any terms offered, we'll have to wait and see.

    40:

    One thing that's keeping Agent Orange afloat is that "The Economy is Doing Great!" (tm). This is partially true, in that good economic numbers favor the incumbent, and his are certainly good. Considering that he's tacked on a trillion or two to the national debt to inflate the fortunes of the billionaires, thereby (on average) raising the prosperity of everyone else, the average economic numbers do look great. Heck, some of it's even trickled down, so that all these idiotic building projects are in process around me, legalities be damned, but people are employed if they want to be.

    Anyway, I keep hoping that the Great Halloween Disaster of a har dBrexit will pop the whole damn bubble and trigger a global recession. If it does, well, sucks for everybody, but it particularly sucks for Trump, because presidents who get blamed for recessions too.

    Unfortunately, yes, Trump, along with Pompano and the War Walrus, might indeed trigger a war with Iran to take everybody's eyes off the polls and economy. It would be sad if the navigable portion of the Straits of Hormuz got blocked by sunken oil tankers and possibly the odd warship, but that doesn't matter to the US--we've already got batteries set up on the other side of the Strait, ready to lob the ultimate in highly explosive consumer goods at the Iranians, most of whom probably don't want to deal with any of this shit. But that's all the US Military Industrial Complex is now good for: destroying things, not winning wars.

    The only thing that could make it worse might be that the killer heat indices flare up in the Gulf again, as they have the past two years.

    Stock up on the beans, rice, flour, vitamins, meds, and water purifiers while things are good, I think.

    41:

    "It seems very likely in the event of a no deal brexit that there will, within weeks, be rioting and looting. Later the cannibalism starts."

    The answer, unfortunately, is that everyone in the UK has to riot like they've been starving for a week before Brexit happens!

    And everyone please note that I'm not advocating violence, just pointing out the Very Serious Problems involved with a poorly scheduled attempt to get the attention of your government. If you're in the U.K. and you haven't at least written a forceful letter, you're doing it wrong.

    P.S. Yes, I have been writing to my Congress-person here in the U.S.

    42:

    I probably don't have to point out that the idea that we have an unstoppable military is, in itself, highly racist.

    Consider the Iranians, for example. They really only have one military problem to solve: they don't have to worry about being invaded by the Afghanistan, Pakistan or the Iraqis. Turkey and Turkmenistan don't want their territory (I'm sure they keep plans on file, just in case) and I suspect the Russians are too smart to think taking on Persia is a good idea...

    The sole military problem Iran has to solve is the U.S. (possibly acting as a proxy for the Saudis or Israelis.) Forget the Russian anti-shipping missles for a moment. If the Iranians don't have defense in depth, involving every possible layer of places the U.S. might capture while heading for Tehran, right down to some very careful planning for a guerrilla war against an occupation, including a ton of pre-cached equipment... does anyone doubt that their military has gamed this out on a millimeter scale?

    The problem for the U.S. is that idiots like Bolton don't understand that taking Tehran is the easy part. (And it might not be that easy.)

    43:

    I think we agree that using Iran to "Wag the Dog" is a really bad idea, and I suspect that (as with Operation Downfall in WWII), the Iranian and US plans for the invasion are mirror images of each other. Probably the US MIC doesn't particularly want to go there, but they do have to follow orders if orders are given.

    I'd disagree about Iran having only one military threat. They do have to deal with the problems of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and whatever is going on along the Afghan border as well. But as you point out, these are chronic problems, not acute ones.

    44:

    How do you trust someone to tell the truth when they can pull of the lies needed to have an affair with a partner/spouse who has even a bit of a brain?

    I'm quite prepared to disconnect personal and professional. If he's competent at his job, his personal life can stay personal. So let's be generous and judge him on his professional track record.

    We shouldn't have to trust someone to tell the truth when they get to high office. There should be ample evidence from their previous actions for how they're going to behave, and we can't expect them to change if they take office. The problem for Boris Johnson, like Donald Trump, is that his professional track record over his entire adult life consists of telling lies and being found incompetent by his superiors.

    My beef with this whole situation is that it comes down to a failure of journalism. Over the last few years, journalism has mistaken "lack of backbone" for "seeing both sides". When it comes to outright lies, the only two sides are right or wrong, and failure to choose is indistinguishable from consciously choosing "wrong". And the irony is that the biggest snowflakes in this regard are the conservatives, who can't stand scrutiny. It simply isn't "biased" to say "this man has a 30 year record of lying and being fired for lying and incompetence", because the evidence is there.

    45:

    Troutwaxer From this distance ... Pelosi appears to be doin the sensible thing: Teying to PREVENT an impeachment of DT - which will fail & help him win in 2020 ... it needs to be dragged out with as much dirt as possible dug. Unless, of course, I've missed something?

    46:

    The sole military problem Iran has to solve is the U.S.

    Wrong: Iran's pressing military problem is Saudi Arabia, which they've been locked in a regional Cold War with since 1980 and the Saudi religious revolution. It's a bitter, ugly, sunni on shia death-feud going back to the 7th century, and the US has been coopted into being the Saudi's dumb but useful thuggish henchman. (Ditto Israel, who have—under Netenyahu—shared military interests with the Saudi regime.)

    The USA is not the centre of the geopolitical universe, whatever the policy wonks inside the beltway might like to think.

    47:

    I'd have to agree that the Saudis and Iranians are fighting an ongoing series of ugly proxy wars.* But the Saudis have nothing resembling the capability to actually take war to the Iranians. (or vice-versa) Are they going to build a bunch of landing craft and cross the Persian Gulf? How about going overland through Iraq? Simply put, it isn't going to happen from either side. But the U.S. does have the ability to put troops ashore in Iran if we're willing to take the casualties.

    What I was mainly talking about, however, was the idiotic-but-still-politically-acceptable US/British ideal of gunboat diplomacy, which unfortunately dies a very messy death about the time your opponents become able to build their own gunboats! (Which is why my first sentence involved the question of racism.) The essential problem is that politicians still believe we can dock a battleship someplace and send the Marines in for a quick regime change. How completely fucking stupid do you have to be to imagine that's going to happen in the modern world?

    • If I were a very cynical politician I'd encourage these proxy wars.
    48:

    The essential problem is that politicians still believe we can dock a battleship someplace and send the Marines in for a quick regime change. How completely fucking stupid do you have to be to imagine that's going to happen in the modern world?

    Nah.

    There's some of that lingering about, but the thing Bolton, et. al want is fear; they're not safe until everyone is paralytic terrified to do anything other than exactly what they're told to do. What they want is not so much a war with Iran as a complete destruction of Iran; their war plan very likely includes doing their dead level best to lose a CVN early, because that way it's the national honour and (they expect) any response will be permitted.

    Iran is sort of stuck in their brains over the Shah, a weird "how dare" combination of cowardice and white supremacy. It's not just about Iran and it's only peripherally about oil.

    It's absolutely one hundred percent pure quill organic mad; it conforms to material reality in no way at all. But nothing in the way of setbacks or reality has done anything to the viewpoint the last forty-some years. I don't expect it to start changing now.

    49:

    The rates in the 1960s were stupidly high, at over 90%
    Down from 99% in the war.

    Of course this is meaningless, it applies only to the part of income over some limit (around GBP 200,000 at current values) and it's trivially easy to avoid earning more (while still getting the value in other ways).

    50:

    No, that's not the whole (or even main) reason for Iran's behaviour. Both the USA and Saudi Arabia are determined to destroy Iran as an independent country, utterly and completely - though in different ways. Iran is not being given an opportunity to do anything but to surrender to that, or resist to the death. Both the government and people know that.

    51:

    Actually, Graydon also has a horribly good point about fear, which is what drives the right-wing vote, to the point where I'd love to see the death penalty for the crime of making people more afraid than they should be.

    52:

    A murderous fascist psychopath story, I'm not often invited to these. I'll opt for the fairy tale second referendum ending.

    Taser Implementation Squad gunmen kill a Spanish electrician for wearing a Fly Emirates shirt, shooting him fifty-two times in the head. They cover up for their careers' sake by causing an electrical fault fire at a large poorly maintained building full of people who have contributed nothing to society for two years. Jeremy Corbyn survives because he is on a school trip to Auschwitz to prove he isn't a Holocaust denier. Boris Johnson has been on a PR stunt pretending to live as a homeless person, because his girlfriend threw him out of No.11 for spilling champagne on a duvet.

    Corbyn attempts to meet with the Queen to ensure the survival of Parliament's traditions and customs, however Johnson corners him in Legoland Windsor. He is saved at the last second by Greta Thunberg, who knifes Johnson in the Haunted House Monster Party and all the Conservatives explode.

    Corbyn won't support Thunberg because of his principled commitment to seventies NUM values. He agrees to a police plan to restore order and they attack the rebels in the Battle of Trafalgar. The tasers suffer a mysterious electrical failure and they are forced to resort to beating the schoolkids to death with illegal truncheons. At the last second a flight of drones appear and smash the police lines with fuel-air explosives. [anyone else have the recurring napalm dream with the dead and dying riot gear constables? no?]

    Meanwhile Anne Widdecombe and the Unsullied Party led by Grey Worm plead for a Britain free from fishmongers and slavery. Groupon exploit civil war in Britain with a fish curry offer, only if you order in High Valyrian. The massive worldwide response leads to the collapse of the electronic economy.

    J. Gordron Brown then offers his services as a financial wizard to save humanity. His plan is to keep house prices stable by condemning British children to lifelong slavery. This only enhances the appeal of the Unsullied Party and they decide they can risk a second and decisive referendum, this time without the murder of an MP or an attack on Parliament.

    53:

    Stock up on the beans, rice, flour, vitamins, meds, and water purifiers while things are good, I think.

    Toothbrushes, etc. 20L containers, because the cheap per-litre water purification tablets work per 20 litres. (that is, per NATO jerrycan.)

    Clothing repair tools; laundry soap. Other soap. A cubic metre of sanitary tissue. Buckets. Socks. LED lights, and the means to charge them.

    54:

    Wasn't talking about Iran's behaviour at all.

    They're generally being quite rational.

    55:

    I'm not totally up to speed on the topic, but wouldn't rice, lentils, various beans, vitamin pills and dried and canned fruit enable you to survive fairly well for quite a while?

    56:

    Only if you've got heat and water (ideally electricity and potable drinking water).

    57:

    I can arrange to have both; I already have litres of meths for my camping stove, rechargeable batteries galore etc, paraffin lamp, etc. I should be fine, it's the poor people and elderly who will die en masse. So helping stock up your local food bank a few weeks before would be a good idea. Plus encouraging MP's to do almost anything to avoid no deal brexit.

    58:

    Going beyond Charlie's "if the power stays on"; if that's not your accustomed diet and not your accustomed means of cooking, likely not. There's no fat on that list. The abstract human needs about 30% (20% to 35% ranges are given; varies by age and activity) fat in their diet. Rice and legumes are notably low in fat. Horrifying 16th century accounts of fat deficiency diseases have been found accurate as people get convinced fat is evil. Low fat diets and being cold'll kill you. "Food's short and the heat's out" in November's much worse than May or June.

    "How to cook" is not assumed knowledge; it takes remarkably little "oops" to feed yourself a bacterial culture even if the power is on. If the power is off -- and thus refrigeration isn't -- it gets much easier to do yourself an injury. (Recreational campers, every year.) Most people today simply don't have the option of cooking over a fire, and improvised cooking fires don't end well, especially not with a dense population. (If faced with this problem, start a collective. Full-time cooks and big pots are more efficient of fuel and you're not a skilled cook can find fuel, plant potatoes, stop drafts, etc.)

    Sanitation, urgh. Even when you have sewers, iffy water, no hot water, and intermittent sewers or inadequate sewage processing means an increased death rate. (Don't brush your teeth with non-potable water, but you must brush your teeth.) Throw in iffy food and intermittent food supply and a lot of people die. Get as strict about hand washing as an early 20th century nurse and it'll help. (Hence the soap on my list!)

    This stuff is fragile if the central distribution networks for water, power, or gas go down. The way a no-deal Brexit sets up a regulatory blockade, all the distribution networks get doubtful quick. And none of the people making decisions have cooked for themselves in their entire lives; it's a sort of shameful knowledge kept by lower orders.

    59:

    Thanks, that's a good point about fat. I was going to keep some butter and margarine in the fridge to use for baking anyway, the question is what other sorts of fat can I store.

    60:

    Although I'm not part of the Rainbow Family, I've been learning a lot about disaster prep by reading up how they do it. Seriously, finding a remote place in the woods and hosting 20,000 people there for a week or month on about $1000 cash donated and the rest donated and salvaged goods and services. Then they put the site back the way it was before they leave. All done purely by volunteers who self-organize.

    Some of the Rainbow kitchens have taken on a second life as volunteer disaster relief. They did a really good job in New Orleans after Katrina, for example.

    There's a lot of Rainbow stuff on the web, so if you're looking for mass disaster prep, you can do worse than to go there. This isn't to rain on donating food to the local food bank, but there are other (perhaps better) possibilities for when things break down.

    61:

    Bull. Shit.

    Note that the US just did that... and tax revenues keep falling.

    62:

    I'm getting a vague memory that Dan H is our resident hit and run neoliberal/ libertarian; reality is not his strong point.

    Heteromeles #60 - good pointer, I'll look them up. The issue with our own prepping for brexit is just how much you can survive with and without other people in society and how much we can preserve. I like to be organised to meet potential problems, but there is only so much I can do myself as you know.

    63:

    Olives are a pretty good choice.

    Nuts often have shelf-life issues; pasteurised nut butters in sealed glass if you're going for shelf life. The right kinds of cheese. Many sorts of dry sausage. Pickled herring. Most of the vegetable oils have shelf-life issues but the fancier organic single-pressing sorts into glass or stainless can be good for a year at room temperature as long as they stay sealed.

    64:

    "Neville Chamberlain was actually good at his job; he was just out of his depth when it turned into a total war shootingfest. (The "peace in our time" photo-op? Was followed by him returning to Downing Street and quietly throwing the switch to ramp up emergency re-armament. Hitler hadn't fooled him: he just didn't want to cause a national panic, because the then prevalent vision of the Next War involved strategic bombing of cities using chemical weapons, millions dead in the first days, etc.)"

    Charlie,

    I've been looking through the order books of the old LNER Railway Company. They received large sums from the government in 1937/1938. I think what was actually happening was that CIGS had asked for another year for rearmament, postponing the war for a year to 1939.

    Funding was used to modernise the workshops -- and not just the railway companies, but Vauxhall were asked to design a new truck/coach chassis in 1937. So what we're looking at is dual-use funding. If there's war, then the factories can quickly be re-purposed; if not then we get new trucks, trains, buses and so on.

    Finally in 1938 the LNER built a wagon ("Gun Set A") for transporting 14" and 16" naval guns. Also 55 ton ARM wagons for transporting Armour Plate. Admittedly this is more of a consequence of the failure of the 1936 London Naval Agreement, and the need to build the new KGV Warships.

    We may get an answer from PRO Kew in 2039/2040 if either of us is still around.

    65:

    I really hope you're wrong about this (and I'm still kicking myself for not pulling the rest of my money out of the UK at the start of the year, when it was at least 1.31 to the pound).

    By any chance is this view inspired by the following report over the weekend?

    "Whitehall sources say the presumptive prime minister was left "visible shaken" after being briefed by civil servants to expect civil unrest if he goes through with his threat"

    "A senior government source revealed that importing fresh food though Dover would only be the third highest priority in the event of no-deal, with clean water only fifth. Top of the list are life-saving drugs, followed by medical devices and fresh food. Nuclear power plant parts are then given priority over the import of chemicals to purify drinking water...."

    66:

    You could be right - it might not be a formal coalition although I think it will be more than a confidence and supply arrangement. There will be something to make sure they ally to stomp all over Brexit too. I don't know what that becomes in terms of the language a "Progressive pro-Remain alliance" or something? A semi-devolved coalition?

    I was musing over dinner as the news was talking about all the Tory ministers resigning and BoJo's first putative cabinet and how he'll be a force to reunite the Tory party and then the country. Apart from spraying my dinner in a very undignified fashion at the thought of BoJo reuniting the country in anything except rioting, I let their thoughts on a cabinet percolate. They're talking him having to include a number of former Remainers in high positions to try and unite the party. Makes some kind of sense. As a true scion of Brexit, he can afford to be magnanimous in victory, in a way May couldn't. But if he goes too far, he pisses off the headbangers in the ERG. Do they then rebel (again) making the political calculation that they could have a hard nub Tory Right + Brexit coalition in charge? Personally I think they're mad if they go for it, but they stand up and tell us how easy Brexit is going to be and how the EU will let them change the backstop and so forth and seem to believe the insanity they spout there... It's easy for me to see them believing they could have a coalition of the nutters to get a hard right pro-Brexit coalition in charge.

    Could be a really fun balancing act. Too far right and there are defections and no confidence. Too far to the centre and the nutters risk deposing him for a "True Brexit."

    67:

    Cheese basically keeps forever. You want a hard, pasteurised cheese if you're looking to store it, but basically any of the traditional English/Irish cheeses will do pretty much fine, even if you buy them in the supermarket. You want to avoid the runny French cheeses and things like ricotta, mozzarella and cottage cheese.

    If you live near a farm, learn how to make ricotta - it's pretty easy if you have a source of milk and citrus and either heat or cold. And although it doesn't keep long, it keeps longer than fresh milk. As someone that doesn't use milk in drinks, I make it when we have visitors and I have to get milk in, it's quick and easy enough to do routinely and uses up the excess milk in a form I like.

    68:

    She's a neoliberal idiot. I have to email her office again, to point out that I can see how trying to impeach the President is such a bad idea, and led to two terms of Gerald Ford, and those two marvelous full terms of President Al Gore....

    Oh, that's right, they didn't. She's turning away all the independents who would vote if she showed the balls that the freshmen Congresscritters do.

    69:

    Isn't it amazing... if the President is a Democrat, and the economy is good, or the economy is bad, and the President is a Reptilian, then we're all continually reminded that the President doesn't have a lot of control over the economy, while with the economy in the opposite situation, the Presdent's responsible for it....

    70:

    Like pretty much all the political survivors of the opposition to Reagan Revolution, she's completely convinced that a shooting civil war is a real risk and must be avoided.

    It's suggested that the reason the tax rates stayed high after the New Deal was that there was an entire generation of oligarchs convinced that communist revolution and being stood in front of a wall and shot was a real, pressing, present risk. Something about the Reagan Revolution convinced the status quo democrats of that period that they were facing the same sort of risk.

    I'd be inclined to point out that the mass ethnic cleansing has started and the machinery of government is not in a condition of obedience, so the risk... is absent, considered as risk.

    But then again I am not at all a politician.

    71:

    Like pretty much all the political survivors of the opposition to Reagan Revolution, she's completely convinced that a shooting civil war is a real risk and must be avoided.

    One of the reasons I am cautiously optimistic about the long-term breakup of the UK not descending into civil war: the population is overwhelmingly urban, the rabid nationalist brexiters trend old, and there aren't enough guns (and those that are circulating are almost all single/double shotguns and bolt action rifles—very few handguns, vanishingly few semi/full automatics). Also, we're on an island so it'd take time and effort to change that—you can't simply load up a truck with AK-74s (let alone a BUK-M TELAR) and drive over the border from the Russian Federation or the Ukraine.

    But then … consider Rwanda, and the level of violence that happened using nothing more sophisticated than machetes.

    72:

    Trump certainly has committed impeachable offences.
    Even more than Nixon. However, the politics are different.

    An impeachment in the House that fails in the Senate is not helpful. See Clinton, William.

    OTOH Pelosi publicly stomping on the Squad is bad politics.

    On the gripping hand there is this perverse thing in US politics. Passing legislation means you lose support.

    73:

    From what I've read, Rwanda was carefully planned and propagandised. When the Mail and Sun start telling their readers to act violently against their neighbours and various state arms start stockpiling machetes and stuff, then you should get worried. But on the other hand I'd find it quite funny for a few seconds having to fend off several 60 year olds armed with machetes but no real idea how to use them because they've been inside shouting at the telly instead of walking the hills with me.

    74:

    Mair's gun was widely reported to be home-made, however the reality is more mysterious.

    Who supplied the gun?

    https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2017/june/who-supplied-the-gun

    75:

    I am a keen supporter of a tax cut in the U.S.─to wit, the 'Kennedy' Tax Cut of 1964 which brought the top marginal rate down (in the original case) to 70%

    76:

    Well, the last time we had a civil war it made a lot of use of slightly fancier versions of machetes, plus guns which weren't much more than pieces of steel pipe of the kind that is common as muck these days and which ran on explosives made by digging up piles of shit. (Electrolysing salt is a lot less unpleasant, even if you do have to use a car alternator connected to a bicycle.)

    Though I think I'd rather be shot than hacked with an axe. It probably hurts less, and when you fall over you're further away from the guy with the weapon so he has less incentive to hit you a second time to make sure you're properly dead. Also at least with modern guns there's less chance of your leg coming off completely, and there's less chance of the wound getting infected.

    Which brings up at least two more things to make sure you've got. Salt, not actually for making chlorates, but for eating, because it gets really valuable without modern supply chains (and even more so in a warmer climate). And some kind of closed iron pot to cook wood or coal in, so you can make carbolic bandages out of the gunk.

    77:

    Agreed. Cheese is great. One of the best things you can get for a concentrated source of protein and fat, so concentrated that nasty microbes can't eat it, and the one or two that do, you can eat them. And you can melt it over all sorts of dull things to make them more palatable.

    Only thing is that nobody knows how to keep it because it's pretty much the reverse of how you keep anything else. It does not need to be in the fridge. It definitely should not be kept in those horrible plastic bags it comes in from the supermarket: it sweats oil and goes all manky, and the retained moisture allows some of the more dubious microbes to get a hold. It basically needs to be left out and just covered with cloth or something to keep the flies off. True, it does go all hard like that, and may well develop a coating of mould, but it's still perfectly edible, mould and all - and I like it like that anyway :)

    78:

    Get as strict about hand washing as an early 20th century nurse and it'll help.

    When I hear people start running too far with the Sanitation Hypothesis, I think 'These are people who don't understand just how clean you have to get before it starts getting counter-productive.'. Simply understanding how thoroughly bits of horse dung spread over everything makes the anti-germ fanaticism of our grandparents' (and in my case, parents'─I was a child of older parents and am skimming old age myself) generation make sense.

    79:

    Thank-you.

    …though I'm sure that particular zombie economic hypothesis will keep shambling on, it's just too pleasant a notion for those with the money to promote it.

    Meanwhile, perfectly, the current Administration have given the Medal of Freedom to Arthur Laffer.

    80:

    Vegetables jugged with the inclusion of vinegar, e.g. giardiniera, should be safer longer.

    81:

    jrootham @ 72 An impeachment in the House that fails in the Senate is not helpful. This. Impeaching DT will be a mistake - he HAS to be allowed to go down in fkames in 2020, with a Dem suoermajority in all fields ....

    82:

    I've used lemon juice for mozzarella and ricotta, but citric acid would keep essentially forever. have you ever used it?

    83:

    (Apologies for double-replying.)

    If you've an heat source (or a good enough solar oven), and preferable some salt, you can bake ricotta into something that will last. Then, of course, if you do it right ricotta salata looks to be the easiest hard cheese to make....

    84:

    The problem for the U.S. is that idiots like Bolton don't understand that taking Tehran is the easy part. (And it might not be that easy.) True.[1] But it's not just Bolton; the US has been ramping up its economic war against Iran, and the US and Iran don't fully agree on the differences/lines between economic warfare and hot warfare. Since economic warfare has high costs including human costs (e.g. the economic war against Saddam Hussein/Iraq in the 1990s, with excess death estimates in the hundreds of thousands IIRC), and those costs are being born by Iranians now, non-military people like Sigal Mandelker[0] play an important role as well. If the war goes hot, it will in part be her fault.

    [0] The Woman at the Center of Trump’s Iran Policy - John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are the public faces of the “maximum pressure” campaign. But the Treasury official Sigal Mandelker is the one actually running its most important component. (Kathy Gilsinan, 2019/07/20) Note her background; "child of Holocaust survivors".

    [1] Also, same author, Iran’s Human Geography: The Wicked Problem of People, Places, and Things that Complicates US Strategy (Adam Silverman, August 1, 2018). There are others but these are short and readable.

    Fingers passed POST. Whoot!

    85:

    But if enough people agree that you aren't trying hard enough to stop trump now, by e.g. impeaching him, they won't vote for you in 2020. Allowing him to commit an impeachable offence every day, which he seems to be doing now, in the hope that people vote for you next year is pretty silly. Having it fail in the Senate just proves that the evil republicans are happy to see evil done, and can help rile up your base and others to vote for you.

    86:

    I'm convinced that even people who know that impeachment alone keeps Trump in viscerally believe that it would be worth something.

    I think they fail to see how little it would mean to anyone who doesn't already dislike a Trump Presidency, as it would be classed as 'purely political'─you know, just like the investigation that was unable to clear the President of charges of obstruction of justice or the reporting of his manifest shady business practices.

    I think they fail to remember how certain the opposition party can usually be of increasing their seating in the House six years into a Presidency and how impeachment one month before the 1998 election seems to have changed that into Democratic gains.

    (I hope this sample of intra-party Democratic sniping in this forum can cheer-up our British co-readers just a little when they need it…as its wider version depresses me no end.)(My biases: I have come to appreciate parties that work as parties─I think being able to effectively manage your own party acts as a test of effectively managing the nation for some voters in the middle.)

    87:

    On the gripping hand there is this perverse thing in US politics. Passing legislation means you lose support. On the fourth hand, Nancy Pelosi's political role is "Herder of Cats", so what she says and does should be parsed carefully. Same applies to her immediate underlings. (I don't know what she believes, looks like an old progressive with some neoliberal beliefs, but she has called herself a political weaver.) We shall see - this week is a bit of a test for her and I'm still mentally parsing the new budget deal but it looks a bit weak.

    88:

    The description of "Whoops Apocalypse" makes me sorry that I haven't seen the series; I avoided the film when it arrived at a local video store because the title and box description made me believe that it was similar to a "Carry On" movie….

    I must admit to having bailed-out after four or so episodes of "Brain Dead" (in which we at least have alien insects to blame). If you've seen more, how would you rate it?; if you've seen the "W.A!" series, how do they compare?

    89:

    grr, didn't click link in preview: new budget deal. Schedules a fight for the newly elected POTUS late summer 2021.

    90:

    Maybe Prince Charles doesn't want to be King of a UK riven by civil war and violence - afraid he would end up like the first King Charles.

    91:

    .Most of the vegetable oils have shelf-life issues but the fancier organic single-pressing sorts into glass or stainless can be good for a year at room temperature as long as they stay sealed. I'm pretty sure I've cooked with oil 4+ years old. https://www.canitgobad.net/can-vegetable-oil-go-bad/ is interesting. They say 2 years for unopened containers is typical.

    92:

    I got this idea from seeing German Chancellor Angela Merkal described as the new "leader of the free world" and watching an episode of "Man in the High Castle" on Amazon Prime.

    Scenario: A future refight of WW2 with Germany and Japan (as the last true liberal democracies - they are now the Good Guys) fighting America, Britain, France and Russia (led by the likes of Trump, Boris, LePen and Putin are right wing authoritarian nations - led by the UK they are also surveillance states - and are now the Bad Guys).

    Instead of anschluss and Munich, Germany protects Austria and the Czech republic from an aggressive right wing Poland (which has banned press freedoms) when NATO falls apart like the League of Nations after America's withdrawal from the alliance.

    Meanwhile, instead of a "China Incident", Japan acts to give humanitarian aid to a China that has collapsed due to ecological disaster and rising oceans, and helps South Korea reunify the peninsula after North Korea finally falls apart.

    An incident with Poland leads to a general war in Europe with German high tech versus superior Allied numbers. The result is Blitzkrieg 2.0. Shortly afterward, America and Japan clash over islands in the South China Sea and the Philippines and a high tech Japanese cyber-warfare "Pearl Harbor" takes out America's fleet and most of its strategic assets.

    The Germans and Japanese have a high tech advantage over the Allies due to America preferring to teach Creationism instead of science. As they advance, most of the populations greet them as liberators. Everywhere they liberate, the Germans and Japanese uncover detention camps for Gays, Muslims and Hispanics

    Those responsible being brought to justice after the war.

    93:

    Well, impeaching the current US president is impossible. It has to be done by the senate, and they've pretty much indicated that Agent Orange could commit sexual mutilations on the corpse of a dead scout and post the video, and they'd stand by him so long as they thought his base had his back.

    What the Republicans don't want to realize is that the ones who "secretly don't like it" could simply jump parties, give the democrats the majority, and the whole nightmare would be over for them. That obviously takes courage and character, and that's not where they are. It's the union solidarity problem all over again. Enough of them jump, and they can make life a living hell of continuous investigations for everyone currently holding them hostage to political funding. But they won't do it.

    The democrats disappoint in many ways, but the thing is, they're still trying to do their entire job, unlike the Republicans.

    94:

    Enforcement is way down here in the US too, to the point that the Mueller investigation more than paid for itself with the evaded taxes the stumbled over while looking for other things.

    Cutting tax rates on the rich is much more visible than cutting funding on enforcement.

    95:

    The status quo cannot possibly survive.

    The post-war status quo, especially in the US, is driven by making housing and automobiles and all that attends on these things major sectors of the economy. This takes a lot of laws; things are very much set up to penalise lack of car ownership or home ownership. It takes unity among a group of people (real estate developers and agents; car dealership owners) who are intensely selected for a specific set of social skills, limited principle, and innumeracy.

    That's the base of the "conservative" political position. As the degree to which the status quo is doomed gets more and more obvious, the ability to find someone vaguely numerate or vaguely plausibly not a murderous authoritarian to represent it gets more and more difficult. No one wants to get up and advocate for the doomed.

    They're absolutely determined not to change, though; that risks all their relative social standing, and in general humans can't do that. This part applies to everybody in the legislature anywhere, or it's supposed to. What went wrong (from the status quo POV) in the US in 2018 is that there are now a few folks in the lower house who are NOT committed to the status quo, and who would derive increased relative status from replacing it.

    The US loose-dynamic-coalition party model can't cope with that. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

    96:

    I suspect you are unduly optimistic about Americans. The simplest story is that Trump is a symptom of pure racism.

    Continual investigation is probably better than an impeachment that goes nowhere. The goal is to disgust Trump voters while encouraging Democrats to not skip the polls.

    Notice that the orange maggot's numbers went up after his last series of tweets?

    Also, sadly, I'll wager that any female candidate will do worse among Democrats than any male candidate. (There is a strain of misogyny among USians that is, if anything, stronger amongst the minority fraction of the party coalition.) Ever listened to fellow Democrats hating on Clinton while giving Biden a pass??? Ever listened to a fellow female minority Democrat who likes Trump because lies, occasional infidelity, and mild abuse remind her of her father? 'My dad was a good man - i mean - except for raping the maids - the beatings were just to maintain family order. Besides, my mom was a terrible wife. And sure, he was a bit of a crook, but still a good guy.'. 'Oh wait, Korea is part of China????@#$&-$#@@@!!!!!!'

    Lastly, while a progressive candidate would be nice - there is a sizable Democratic contingent that is antiprogressive economically but votes purely on social issues. I suspect Kamela, Warren, or Biden with Castro as a VP pick are best case choices. And, honestly, I'd guess only Biden wins in spite of his fairly obvious failings. He'll bore Trump's base. (Because he is a boring white male)

    I'd guess the highest no-deal risk is simply getting to October 31st with no progress because there is no acceptable outcome, followed by the EU eventually declaring 'gosh, you are out' on the very viable theory that a few weeks of rioting will bolster their negotiating position. Maybe around December to give an extra kick to UK retailers. I mean, I don't see Parliament passing anything but extension requests. And, well, no-deal may work out better for Brussels than May's deal. In so far as there are negotiations, after no deal, they become pretty one-sided. Better yet, if the UK breaks up, England gets the honor of being a warning. And, after London stops being a financial center, the EU gets a fair bit of extra business.

    97:

    I suspect you are unduly optimistic about Americans. The simplest story is that Trump is a symptom of pure racism.

    In Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, the authors tells of being a Google Scholar and correlating Google keyword searches with election votes, broken down into counties.

    The higher the percentage of voters in a county who actually voted for Trump (based on election results, not polling data) the more searches for "n**er jokes". (The terminal "er" included because Stephens-Davidowitz makes a point of distinguishing that terms from "nga".) It was, according to Stephens-Davidowitz, the most significant correlation between voting patterns and search terms.

    So there is at least some data that indicates a significant positive correlation between Trump voters and a fondness for racist jokes.

    Tentative hypothesis: Trump voters support him because he says what they want to say, and makes it more acceptable for them to hold the opinions they hold but previously felt constrained from expressing.

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28512671-everybody-lies

    98:

    "I fear you are correct.

    NB: Neville Chamberlain was actually good at his job; he was just out of his depth when it turned into a total war shootingfest."

    This is the situation with Nancy, IMHO, except it's clear now that she's not going back home to prepare frantically for a war, but ...............

    I think that it comes down to the Dem leadership being a bunch of old f*cks who either can't accept that the GOP IS SERIOUS THIS TIME, or assume that they, personally, will be OK (see Biden).

    99:

    "...given an opportunity to do anything but to surrender to that, or resist to the death. Both the government and people know that."

    And after the Iraq slaughter, everybody in Iran knows what liberation would look like.

    100:

    "I think they fail to remember how certain the opposition party can usually be of increasing their seating in the House six years into a Presidency and how impeachment one month before the 1998 election seems to have changed that into Democratic gains."

    And as has been pointed out, did not noticeably help the Democratic Party in '00.

    101:

    Consider Farage welcoming the riots, and knowing damn well that the Thin Blue Line of the Police won't hold, and that the Joint Chiefs won't play ball with his blustering demands to 'get tough'.

    Exactly as he expected.

    He doesn't arm the knuckledraggers of the EDL - theyy are doing sterling work with coshes, their fists, and racially-directed arson, but he doesn't actually like them and they're too disorganised and undisciplined to be an arm of government rather than a politically-useful terror - no, he takes up his friends' offer of help.

    His friends in America, nice Mr Bannon and the hard, hard right; and the help comes in the form of Blackwater/Xe and KBR military advisors, who will be immune to prosecution for any actions against people and property.

    I can see Boris doing this, too, if or when he loses control.

    All the Westminster politicians have to do is keep the Army in their barracks for long enough to make it a fait accompli; our 'advisors' will get paid in land and bullion in the absence of hard currency - or subsidised by Washington, for trade concessions that are indistinguishable from economic warfare and kleptocracy - and they will not only restore order, they will ensure that free and fair elections are held every four years.

    For special values of 'free and fair'.

    Also: 'restore order' is a phrase best left unexamined, citizen.

    102:

    Bill Arnold @ 91 Keep it in the dark, or at least dim & at a stable temperature, preferably below 20 °C - & it will keep for a long enough time. After all, I keep fairly finely divided organic material ( Dried herbs ) in sealed glass jars in my pantry for a year - I've just filled my Thyme jar up, for instance ... next up - the "coarse" Oregano ... & I'll be cutting the sweet Oregano in the next week.

    103:

    The law was changed some years back to allow precisely that, though I can't remember under which PM.

    104: 64 - Well, that all squares with what I've heard including a sequence of events that was sort of "NC arrives Croydon and does 'Peace in our time'; Next Cabinet he says 'Well, gentlemen, I think I've bought us a year. I want your plans for re-arming at Cabinet next Tuesday'." 66 - Eloise, if you want an example of London's fear of the SNP, just look at the Scottish Con(servatives) leaflet for the European Parliament election just gone. 2 sides of A4 which tl;dr as "Don't vote for Nicola Sturgeon because you'll be in referenda for evermore if you do". 76 - Furthest North sea salt extraction that I know of: Saltcoats, Ayrshire, Scotland at 55.63N / 4.79W. It's fairly likely that there was also sea salt extraction in the Aberdeenshire and Moray fishing communities.
    105:

    There needs to be an action movie version of this where Charlie boy gets an attack of the Rambos and takes over for our own good. Of course since he has no real idea of economic realities for non-billionaires it doesn't end well...

    Re bombs - while he might get away with using nuclear weapons, I don't think anyone has been quite stupid enough to give him an easy route to putting his finger on the button. Though that might change if he was supreme ruler or whatever.

    106:

    I'm replying to both bits. I've never made ricotta sallata, the amounts of ricotta I make are small enough it's not worth it to me - I eat the ricotta fast enough. If you've got any kind of reliable heat source it should be good though.

    I have used citric acid, I prefer the taste with lemon juice, but I happen to live in a world where it's often easier to get pure citric acid than lemon juice. My partner works in a lab and diagnostic quality citric acid is easy to find. You need about a 0.35M solution to get the pH right.

    107:

    For Another take on BOZO becoming PM ... try this little piece from Diamond Geezer ...

    108:

    I will be getting all my information from newsthump until this crisis passes.

    109:

    Semi-apocalyptic scenario #321: In 2024 America elects new president, a scandal ensues and the government collapses. But several years later after further economic and institutional collapse nobody can reliably tell who the president was, or who the candidates were, or what biography they've had, because of the amount of controversy spread in media and also targeted misinformation. As it turns out, everybody quite literally live in parallel mutually exclusive universes and backup documentation is wiped clean or encrypted.

    All that, and also because of huge "extraterrestrial alien invasion" hoax happening at the same time, when people from security, intelligence and defense agencies all over the world are virtually doing insane trying to figure out who is bullshitting who and what part of it is connected to reality. I mean, of course, if this new "Area 51" meme will at some point run out of control...

    I actually thinking about including this as a plot point in my literary works, if I ever manage to finish at least one in my lifetime.

    110:

    Much sympathy to you all.

    Any chance of a recall vote, or something of that sort?

    111:

    Considering how much of an attention whore "Herr Drumph!" is, the ascension of the orange misfortune may inspire enough interesting "Hold my beer!" moments to rival Norman Spinrad's "World War Last". I hope we all live long enough to laugh about it.

    112:

    Well, it is possible to hold a vote of no confidence, but even if that were successful it just gets him fired rather than actually doing anything useful about the clusterburach.

    113:

    "Whoops Apocalypse . . . starred such luminaries as John Cleese and Barry Morse"

    Must see! Monty Python meets Space:1999! Hmm, Netflix or Amazon?

    114:

    Any actual fix requires stopping the flow of money into politics.

    Which Parliament could do, had it the mind and will to do so.

    It's easy to joke about Her Britannic Majesty deciding to go all "we are not amused" but all the really interesting bits of relatively recent -- post Orange William -- British history involve Parliament getting behind someone not much burdened by doubt. For the pro-Brexit money faction, this is one of the risks of a prolonged Brexit process and one reason the official Brexit line comes down to "right now, right away".

    It isn't any sort of likely just right now, but it gets much more likely given a collapse of civic order in a no-deal scenario.

    115:

    The trouble with your scenario is that the US government can't collapse—there's no constitutional mechanism for it!

    Individual officials can be impeached, imprisoned, or die and not be replaced (although the office of POTUS has continuity-of-governance defined so tightly that after you wipe out about a dozen of them it devolves onto some unelected civil servant) … but the election cycle runs on autopilot on a four year rhythm. Right now about half the cabinet posts in the US government are vacant—that's just how incompetent Trump is, he can't even find placeholders for offices of state—and yet the departments under them keep ticking over.

    In every other respect your scenario sounds frighteningly plausible ...

    116:

    I dunno, are the 0.1% an "ethnic"? If not, there's a group that could use cleansing....

    "You! Outta the gene pool, NOW!"

    117:

    Right. And as I noted about, the result of that failed impeachment led to those two great terms President Al Gore.

    IT DOESN'T BLOODY MATTER: he has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, it's her JOB to impeach.

    And while we're at it, I need to write a bill to give to my Congresscritter and Senators, that reads, A Nation of Laws, Not Men.

    In furtherance of the settled principle of "no one is above the law', if a prosecutor finds sufficient evidence to indict and prosecute any appointed or elected official, including the President or Vice President, they are required by their Oath of Office to lay such charges before the court.

    118:

    Not so funny.

    On the one hand, they can also go after you with vehicles.

    On the other hand, they have to get a lot closer with edged weaponry than with a firearm.

    And on the other, other hand... have I mentioned I used to fight heavy in the SCA, and yes, I do know how to use my (real) sword, and a mace, could use my 3lb hammer as a war hammer/mace....

    But I'd rather just set up a guillotine on the Mall, once that two-year backorder on tumbrels comes through.

    119:

    YES!!!

    Oh, and by '72, 16.33% of the federal revenue stream was from income taxes, and 25% from corporate taxes.

    For reference, it's now 44% from income taxes, and 10% from corporate taxes.

    120:

    I can't wait until the first BoJo-Trump summit (damn, I just threw up in my mouth a little).

    121:

    We don't have a constitutional mechanism for no monarch, either, but have achieved it a few times. And, yes, while departments CAN keep things going, there comes a point when they collapse, too.

    It could collapse in the sense that it cannot agree on anything, nobody is taking any notice of the POTUS and the other rabble, the departments have no money, and there is no actual governing.

    I can also imagine another dodgy election, with the Supremes failing to make a decision, or the majority wanting to overturn it and being ignored by the chief justice and the executive, and two people claim to be POTUS.

    Oh, yes, in theory, neither can happen - but ....

    122:

    On the one hand, the US gov't simply won't collapse like that. Well over 200 years of bureaucracy will keep it going, and we have, in the Constitution, a clear line of succession (for example, if one of those asteroids I keep calling on finally hits Mar-a-Lago with the Malignant Carcinoma and Pence both there, we have President Pelosi, no ifs, ands, or buts. (Besides, the meteor was clearly not just an Act of God (tm), but the deity's opinion).

    On the other... I don't think everybody, but large groups with mutually-incompatible realities, and the Area 51/fake Alien Invasion... or, in some mix of those realities, was it a real invasion?

    Please do, I want to read it.

    I have to admit that one of my favorite stories is Butterfly Kid, by Anderson, from the late sixties. Non-violent aliens (resembling 6' blue lobsters) are busy conquering the universe: they come to an inhabited planet, figure out a way to destabilize civilization, arrive to restore order... and by the time the planet realizes it's been invaded, it's too late.

    UNFORTUNATELY, they hit us, and they decide that a little blue pill that gets you high, and also produces material hallucinations that last as long as you're high, that have effects in the physical world.

    And they're testing it by having a human drone selling them, or giving them away... in Greenwich Village in the late '60s.

    123:

    whitroth But a Trunpeachment will almost guarantee his re-election. Pelosi can see this & so can I - can you not? MUCH better to wipe him out in 2020 & send him to jail ... permanently

    EC @ 121 And, yes, while departments CAN keep things going, there comes a point when they collapse, too. NornIron for example ... it's a very bitter farce

    124:

    No, the departments in Norn Iron have not collapsed, and they are kept going (after a fashion) by direct funding - if that were pulled, THEN it would be the scenario I describe. It's happened elsewhere and elsewhen, often enough.

    125:

    All that, and also because of huge "extraterrestrial alien invasion" hoax happening at the same time, when people from security, intelligence and defense agencies all over the world are virtually doing insane trying to figure out who is bullshitting who and what part of it is connected to reality. The larger joke is that the hoaxes are deliberately seeded by aliens and made to look like hoaxes (for reasons!), and there are many aliens (from a HSS point of view), but they're not precisely invaders. One or a few are genuinely local and have been around for a long time, say approximately 4.5 billion years, waiting for a tech civilization to spontaneously develop with not much to do except tinker occasionally with biology in a deniable way. Motives, old and not clear. Another contingent is relative newbies that appeared shortly after the first large brained megafauna appeared, and the dominant ones are in late-stage slaveholder phase as a local population of a particular species with acceptably large brains spikes up and local tech improves to the point of being an emerging threat to them. Another contingent evolved and transcended elsewhere in the multiverse and they are benevolent ethical busybodies bouncing around similar points in parallel timelines looking for emerging tech civilizations and the associated crunch time. etc. (This is just one thread of variations. There are grimdarker threads.)

    because of the amount of controversy spread in media and also targeted misinformation. As it turns out, everybody quite literally live in parallel mutually exclusive universes and backup documentation is wiped clean or encrypted. Not gonna happen, too many backups. (The large-scale Russian efforts in this area are not helping. (This goes back decades.) Others are at fault as well but Russia is a very big and skilled player. The positive side is that people and orgs around the world are developing skills at identifying and spiking influence operations (including misinformation) real-time.)

    126:

    to Charlie Stross The trouble with your scenario is that the US government can't collapse—there's no constitutional mechanism for it! TBH, that I would not understand good enough to implement in practice, because at the time I was thinking of large-empire-type collapse, not entirely different from Rome or USSR, except USSR wasn't really a federation and rather a confederation of smaller more autonomous republics. I imagine the same wouldn't work for more solid federation of US for whatever reason - but OTOH this plot point was a minor one and could be skimmed over somewhat. The novel I was thinking about, actually takes place almost 15 years after that in entirely different part of the world.

    to whitroth @122 I did write some sort of "test" work for myself about 2 years ago, but there were some problems with resolving the plot and I got bored and didn't finish it at practically 2/3 complete (20 000 words). I needed to clean up a plotline a bit to avoid unnecessary information dumps and therefore resolve the story climax part, but I guess I just got too distracted and delved into half-dozen other more interesting scenarios. And it's not the first time it happens to me when I have something to write down.

    Other problem of course is that it was fairly easy to me to write it in my native language, and direct translation to English would be marginally possible with some idioms replaced - but my initial target audience isn't well-represented in my country, I guess. So, I got stalled eventually, and after that I came up with more structured narrative for something entirely different... But anyway, thanks for the encouragement, I think I need to try and review my text once again.

    I don't think everybody, but large groups with mutually-incompatible realities, and the Area 51/fake Alien Invasion... or, in some mix of those realities, was it a real invasion? That is, actually, a pretty ironical - a part that I was concerned with later on. (Did I mention I get distracted easily?) It is about a view on aliens not as actual little green men but rather creatures of pure information or something similar. So nope, everybody are pretty sure it wasn't really aliens that caused the collapse of the world as we know it and then rebuilding of it, and they aren't nowhere near the Earth at the time. However in the same plotline, eventually, almost 50 years later there's a huge spoiler, akin to the that interesting part at the end of Neuromancer trilogy, where main characters decide to visit aliens by themselves.

    127:

    And I say NO IT WON'T. The Reptilians tried to impeach Clinton, and failed. Did you miss where we had two fucking terms of the Shrub in the US? GOP all the way?

    Even if it fails, it will piss off everyone not in his base that the GOP refused to punish his criminality, and they'll turn out for the Dems.

    128: 33 (?) A faction of fanatical Remainers discover that due to an error in the marriage agreement of Charles and Camilla, the children of the Duchess of Cornwell from her prior marriage have been entered into the succession. They declare mildy charming food writer and TV personality Tom Parker-Bowles King Thomas, and have him cancel Brexit. Ultra-Leavers suddenly acquire a great affection for Cromwell and the declare Rees-Mogg Lord Protector.
    129:

    Graydon @ 21: I'm pretty sure Farage wants the tax status he thinks royalty ought to have. Pretty sure whoever thinks Farage is working for them is wrong, and medium-sure he's way over on the "evil" end of "stupid or evil?"

    Stupid or Evil is not really an either/or proposition. Our own DIS-illustrious That Very Bad, Unpleasant Man® narcissistic-sociopath ASSHOLE "president" has proven repeatedly it's quite possible to be BOTH extremely stupid AND extremely evil at the same time.

    130:

    Before I let myself get too worried about Charlie's prognostications I try to remember that in the past he's had to scrap an entire novel into which a lot of hard work had passed because the Real World made it look safe and cozy while he was writing it.

    I'd like to take the attitude that the plucky Brits will find their own way out of the mess but events over on this side of the pond make me wonder whether Buckinghamshire might actually be safer than Indiana, at least in the medium term. I've managed to halfway convince myself that the Orange Gibbon truely is a Russian agent following a plan to dismember the country through racism-inspired civil war, with the UK as a precursor to try out technique and practice disinformation, confusion and disorientation (I suspect Alfred Bester might recognize things.)

    Is there any event or combination of events which would cause British royalty to at least offer an opinion? If not, do they own overseas properties to which they could decamp and offer at least a smidgen of warning?

    131:

    Well, it is possible to hold a vote of no confidence

    Right, that’s the term I couldn’t think of this morning(too early), and is mentioned in the OP, as well as several comments.

    132:

    Paul @ 27: While some kind of military engagement in the Gulf is very possible, I don't see the UK military engaging in the kind of brain-dead strategy you envisage in Wildcard#2. Boris may be an idiot, but the Chiefs of Defence Staff and the rest of the MOD are not. If the UK does get involved in military action then Iran will lose it. The problem will be what happens next; Iran is constitutionally incapable of making peace with us (c/f the Americans and the Clan in their little nuclear exchange), so the most likely outcome is that the Straits of Hormuz are closed to shipping while a nasty little war develops between Saudi Arabia and Iran. See this interesting article for an explanation of why Saudi Arabia is likely to do badly despite having so much more money to throw at the problem.

    In the long run this might actually be a good thing. If Saudi oil fields are closed the West will be forced to confront its addiction to oil, which will hopefully hasten the move towards greener alternatives. Of course in the short run its going to be a second.

    I think the next logical step is for the UK & other cooperating navies to organize escorted convoys through the straits of Hormuz. I don't know if the Royal Navy and/or other cooperating navies (which COULD include the U.S.) have enough small warships to handle the job. My understanding of the problem this past weekend was the Royal Navy ship HMS Montrose was too far away to take any effective action. It looks like it's going to require escorts in close proximity & that suggests convoying them.

    Hopefully, having escorts close by would act as a deterrent to further Iranian piracy, but if it doesn't, I don't see anything wrong with the Royal Navy sinking Iranian pirates or shooting down their assaulting helicopters.

    133:

    David L @ 35: She's far more concerned about challenges to Control Of The Party from her left to actually do anything about Trump.

    That's just the appearance. She actually is concerned about loosing the House again in 2020. The left of her "fight every battle to the death" doesn't understand national politics at all.

    Still, doing nothing is just as much a loser as doing too much. Which is worse? Losing the House in 2020 because they stood up to Trump's bullying or losing the house in 2020 because they caved in to it?

    Sometimes, you got to say, "NO MORE! This is where I stand. Win or lose, this is principle we have to fight for!"

    134:

    A useful precedent? HM asks BOZO to form a viable government BEFORE becoming PM - as was previously done in 1964 - so, yes there is precedent!

    135:

    "Defense"?

    Charlie, how could you?

    136:

    Is there any event or combination of events which would cause British royalty to at least offer an opinion?

    I really really hope not!

    The British constitutional framework is rickety and fragile enough without succumbing to reflexive worship of royalty. It has horrible failure modes—just look at Thailand for a worked example.

    I note that it seems to be mostly Americans who want the Queen to dive in and save us from ourselves. I ascribe this to the weird, anachronistic role of the US president, who is basically a late 18th century British monarch with added term limits (because that's the office the constitutional framers modeled the role on).

    Really, the only useful intervention the monarch could make would be to advise a PM who has dug himself into a hole to do the right thing for the country and call an election. And they're bloody unlikely to do that unless it's glaringly obvious that the PM is frozen in the headlights of a crisis and needs a gentle push to do the right thing.

    137:

    Hopefully, having escorts close by would act as a deterrent to further Iranian piracy, but if it doesn't, I don't see anything wrong with the Royal Navy sinking Iranian pirates or shooting down their assaulting helicopters.

    The Strait of Hormuz, at its narrowest point, is about 21 nautical miles wide.

    Iran operates the P-270 Moskit, which can be fired from TELARs hundreds of kilometers away and flies fast enough to cross the entire width of the strait in roughly 20 seconds.

    If the Iranians get really angry, rather than mildly irritated and sending their equivalent of the Coast Guard to take a ship into port for inspection, the technical term for a destroyer/frigate in the Strait of Hormuz is a "target".

    138:

    Also, I will bet a dollar to a dime that most of Europe is unimpressed by, er, Prunt's request because they quite rightly feel that the UK started the piracy, and it's a purely UK/Iran row. Let's see whether Bozo resolves the situation or makes it worse - few commentators are prepared even to guess which.

    139:

    Isn't our system (as currently implemented) much like a late 18th century British monarch, subject to not pissing off his own party enough for them to vote themselves out of office, and conditional term limits (i.e. the limit applies only if the voters then choose some other party or parties?)

    Frankly, it's a choice among rotten apples.

    140:

    IT DOESN'T BLOODY MATTER: he has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, it's her JOB to impeach.

    Well, let's look at the consequences: either Agent Orange is impeached, at which point Tuppence becomes President (and he doesn't seem to have understood The Book he yammers on about following), and Agent Orange is free to run for President again.

    And if the impeachment fails (which is guaranteed at this point), Trump's base is energized and his opponents are demoralized.

    --or--

    Someone does a thorough congressional investigation of the executive branch that distracts the hell out of the White House, much as they're trying to distract the hell out of the democrats at the moment. This mucks up the Orange campaign, while disgusting his supporters.

    Then Agent Orange loses the election.

    One minute after his successor is inaugurated, the Southern District of New York AG serves a warrant on the entire Orange family aside from Barron, confiscates their passports as they are very definitely flight risks, and serves up charges on every crime they committed while Agent Orange was in office, if not before. Then there's a long, very thorough trial, with Agent Orange held in solitary confinement for his own protection and to keep him from running (he's a billionaire; he's got esoteric ways of doing a runner). Presuming he's convicted, he serves his term (I can pray at Rikers, but we'll see) in solitary, also for his own protection. Ditto for The Vile Offspring and Their Spouses. Meanwhile, lawsuits claw into whatever fortune and assets he has, to make people whole again.

    Now, do you really want them spending our energy on an impeachment?

    141:

    If the Iranians get really angry...

    As in, the Royal Navy violates the UNCLOS provisions for transit of territorial waters by a warship? The Iranians waited for the Royal Navy to violate the transit provisions for commerce off Gibraltar before they did the same thing in Hormuz. I note that HMS Montrose wasn't "too late", they were just too late to do anything without entering Iranian waters under conditions that would have been a pretty clear violation of the treaty terms. Someone in the chain of command -- wisely, IMO -- chose not to start another round of escalation.

    142:

    Not opening the impeachment proceedings is dereliction of duty and renders them complicit.

    It's not at all likely they're going to win the presidency in 2020 because the US does not have fair elections and the state GOP parties will do anything to keep the ethnic cleansing going.

    The point, the policy, the whatever you want to call it is to abolish amendments 13 through 17 and 19. I'm sure they'd prefer de jure but de facto will do. The idea that they're playing the same game or accepting the same rules is pretty nonsensical.

    Almost all the time, politics is the art of the possible. Sometimes -- and this is absolutely one of those times; climate change would make it so if the current US government were saints and marvels -- politics is about necessity.

    Some things it is necessary to oppose.

    143:

    I find myself conflicted. I look forward to OGH's next post on Brexit and related topics, right until he puts them up. Then I'm horribly depressed for days.

    144:

    The way it collapses is another “shutdown” where Congress can’t agree on a funding bill that the President will sign, or that enough of them will support to override a veto. Keep it up long enough and bureaucrats start to quit because they need to eat. Eventually not enough people are left who know how things work to restore the system even if the funding comes back.

    Having that actually happen requires a combination of stubbornness and stupidity no worse than what the U.K. Parliament has demonstrated while failing to deal with Brexit.

    145:

    It would be cool if the vote of no confidence was the very first motion after BJ takes office. Maybe they could set a record for shortest PM term, measured in minutes.

    146:

    * Has had repeated affairs - I don't intend to judge this morally, but from the national security standpoint of having a PM vulnerable to blackmail.

    How do you blackmail someone over something everyone knows he does and assumes he's done more of than is already known, and many admire him for doing? It's like blackmailing Trump over having sex with prostitutes, or Duterte for murder... what are you going to reveal, exactly?

    147:

    So you're saying you don't just want justice, for you it has to be a particular procedure, even though you already know going in that said procedure will not render justice due to the way the court is stacked?

    Come on, this is America. Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion, not for all the other stuff he did. If Trump spends the rest of his life in jail for raping girls alongside Epstein, he spends the rest of his life in jail, regardless if it's that or breaking the emoluments clause.

    The principle I'd like to see formed, since Obama never bothered, was that presidents are always liable for their acts, once they leave office. He let a bunch of war criminals walk free, and it set a very bad precedent.

    148:

    jrootham @ 72: Trump certainly has committed impeachable offences.
    Even more than Nixon. However, the politics are different.

    An impeachment in the House that fails in the Senate is not helpful. See Clinton, William.

    That's no excuse for failing to perform due diligence in the House's oversight role. They should be moving ahead with public hearings and accumulating the evidence. Do that and eventually the weight that evidence may overwhelm even the most Neanderthal GOPer (rhymes with groper).

    149:

    Gerald Fnord @ 79: Thank-you.

    …though I'm sure that particular zombie economic hypothesis will keep shambling on, it's just too pleasant a notion for those with the money to promote it.

    Meanwhile, perfectly, the current Administration have given the Medal of Freedom to Arthur Laffer.

    Maybe what we need instead of the "Medal of Freedom" is a "Medal of FREE LUNCH" just as a reminder there ain't no such thing.

    150:

    Heteromeles @ 93: Well, impeaching the current US president is impossible. It has to be done by the senate, and they've pretty much indicated that Agent Orange could commit sexual mutilations on the corpse of a dead scout and post the video, and they'd stand by him so long as they thought his base had his back.

    That's not how it works. Impeachment is strictly a power held by the House of Representatives. But after a President is impeached, he is tried in the Senate where it takes 2/3 majority [67 votes currently] to convict & remove from office.

    The GOPers (rhymes with gropers) DID impeach Clinton. What they were unable to do was CONVICT him in the Senate and remove him from office. It seems unlikely that the Senate as currently constructed would convict Trump, but that doesn't mean he can't be Impeached, or that just because Mad Mitch won't convict him that he shouldn't be Impeached. There's something to be said for standing on principle.

    It's been said that if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything ... and I believe that's true.

    151:

    Greg Tingey @ 107: For Another take on BOZO becoming PM ... try this little piece from Diamond Geezer ...

    Do you think he (whoever he happens to be) could try just a little bit harder to make his text completely unreadable?

    152:

    I absolutely don't want justice; I can't define it. (it's about like trying to be good.)

    I want the ethnic cleansing to stop prior to a general collapse into genocide, which is where it's going, very much on the Rwandan model rather than the Nazi one.

    Absent something approximating a mass popular movement, Trump will certainly be reelected if they live that long. The US does not have free or fair elections and the number of states that can not return for Trump is not sufficiently great for any other outcome. (Same thing as Bush fils, only this time the actors poised to exploit the complete lack of audit anywhere in the election process are much more capable and overt.) Absent at least one of sustained public opposition by the Democratic Congress to Trump -- an unrelenting advocacy of the rule of law, which is about the only plausible angle upon which anybody can support the notional status quo -- or a comprehensive collapse of governmental legitimacy followed by a sustained demand for change on the order of continuous general strikes (what Puerto Rico is trying to do), no such mass public movement will appear on sufficient scale.

    In less words, the only alternative to the civil war you almost already have -- there's ongoing organised efforts to prevent the function of entire government agencies -- is for the plausibly legitimate extant machinery of government to solve the problem. Since there's a great deal of sincere disagreement about the nature of the problem, that's not anything like a sure thing but it's plausible. (Demonstrating leadership when people are scared goes a long way.) The pretence of business as usual and throwing everything on a certainly corrupt election does not suffice the circumstances.

    Only Pelosi is old and affluent and can't bring themself to do something that will certainly destroy the status quo, because the status quo is something they believe in. (The Squad will subject the status quo to breaking on the wheel if that's what it takes, and this explains nigh-all of Pelosi's hostility toward them.)

    153:

    Charlie Stross @ 115: The trouble with your scenario is that the US government can't collapse—there's no constitutional mechanism for it!

    "Constitutional" is what the Supreme Court says is Constitutional ... Bush v. Gore; Citizens United v. FEC; Shelby County v. Holder ... Dred Scott v. Sanford... need I go on?

    154:

    Heteromeles @ 140:

    "IT DOESN'T BLOODY MATTER: he has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, it's her JOB to impeach."

    Well, let's look at the consequences: either Agent Orange is impeached, at which point Tuppence becomes President (and he doesn't seem to have understood The Book he yammers on about following), and Agent Orange is free to run for President again.

    And if the impeachment fails (which is guaranteed at this point), Trump's base is energized and his opponents are demoralized.

    You're still confusing Impeachment in the House of Representatives with trial, conviction & removal from office in the Senate. Pence doesn't become President UNLESS Trump is CONVICTED & removed from office by the Senate.

    At that point Trump would be FOREVER barred from holding ANY "office of trust under the United States Constitution". That's just the way it works ... is supposed to work. Anyway, that's what the Constitution says is supposed to happen.

    Given the current makeup of the United States Senate, Conviction & removal are highly unlikely, but it's not a foregone conclusion.

    When the Watergate hearings started in Congress, no one would have been willing to say that Nixon could be impeached - he'd won reelection by the greatest one-sided electoral majority in American history up to that point - much less convicted & removed from office.

    But the evidence that came out of the Watergate hearings convinced Goldwater and other Republican leadership that not only COULD Nixon be impeached, it was highly likely that he WOULD be impeached ... impeached, tried AND CONVICTED & removed from office. They didn't want to go there, but they were convinced the political landscape had changed sufficiently that it was no longer in their favor to resist impeachment. Opposing impeachment would cost them far more than standing firm with Nixon. That's what the current GOPer (rhymes with groper) leadership in the Senate has to be convinced of.

    The problem with Pelosi is not that she won't go ahead with impeachment, she won't even go ahead with the necessary oversight hearings that could produce the evidence to justify impeachment. Or they might produce evidence that does NOT justify impeachment.

    We just don't know, because Pelosi won't conduct the oversight hearings that could tell us.

    And sometimes, win or lose, you have to stand on principle. I think that's where we're headed, but does she have the backbone to draw a line in the sand; to say "NO MORE SURRENDER"?

    --or--

    Someone does a thorough congressional investigation of the executive branch that distracts the hell out of the White House, much as they're trying to distract the hell out of the democrats at the moment. This mucks up the Orange campaign, while disgusting his supporters.

    Then Agent Orange loses the election.

    One minute after his successor is inaugurated, the Southern District of New York AG serves a warrant on the entire Orange family aside from Barron, confiscates their passports as they are very definitely flight risks, and serves up charges on every crime they committed while Agent Orange was in office, if not before. Then there's a long, very thorough trial, with Agent Orange held in solitary confinement for his own protection and to keep him from running (he's a billionaire; he's got esoteric ways of doing a runner). Presuming he's convicted, he serves his term (I can pray at Rikers, but we'll see) in solitary, also for his own protection. Ditto for The Vile Offspring and Their Spouses. Meanwhile, lawsuits claw into whatever fortune and assets he has, to make people whole again.

    Now, do you really want them spending our energy on an impeachment?

    The problem with Pelosi right now is she is NOT going forward with the Congressional investigations. She's not standing up for Congress as a CO-EQUAL branch of government ... or the House as EQUAL to the Senate.

    Another problem you're ignoring is What happens when DT loses the election in 2020, but declares it was a rigged election? NULL & VOID; Fake News! Stolen by Hispanics and other ILLEGAL NON-White immigrants!

    What happens when Mad Mitch; the Wicked Witch of the East and the GOPers (rhymes with gropers) in the Senate back his play? How does it play out in the Supreme Court?

    Does Pelosi have the fortitude needed to lead that fight? That's where I think the comparison to Chamberlain holds true. He didn't have the fortitude to lead the fight when it came.

    155:

    Heteromeles @ 147: So you're saying you don't just want justice, for you it has to be ...

    Bullshit STRAWMAN argument.

    156:

    Oh, come on. For a U.S. President, being a war criminal is part of the job definition. Yes, some are worse than others -- crimes, and presidents -- but surely nobody since Machiavelli can entertain fantasies of the virtuous ruler. Looking at English history, it wasn't till Walpole in the 1700s that a minister could lose power without facing execution, prison, or exile, and it's pretty generally since been seen as an improvement. Though I do admit that Trump is giving that proposition a torture test, so to speak.

    157:

    Some comments on the discussion. As a disclaimer I would like to point out that I am not from USA or UK.

    I would be quite surprised if even hard Brexit would cause serious problems with food or medical supplies. That is assuming that there is real intent to avoid them. Just declare that UK will not perform any border control for some time (in order to sort out an efficient system during that time). Importing stuff should not be difficult to solve.

    Having the problems on purpose is another issue entirely.

    The overall economic craziness of a hard Brexit is a completely another issue.

    On USA and Trump... As a part of my job I have been participated some analysis of US politics. It seems to me that Democrats and other people who dislike Trump and his policy tend not to recognize that Trump is giving his base what he promised.

    Trump promised to turn US law more conservative and more political. Done (look at the appointment of judges all around).

    Trump promised to make government smaller. Done (by not appointing people to many positions and rolling back regulations).

    Trump promised to do something on immigration. Done.

    Etc...

    Although Trump regime appears chaotic and dysfunctional, he has been quite active on several real issues. His regime seems to be a very ideological one. Heartland's voters will get what they wanted (ultra-conservative, evangelical interpretation of law, less government, political tools like gerrymandering in order to keep non-white people in check, etc).

    If getting those ideological ideas fulfilled means worse healthcare for the people living in Heartland and zero taxes for the rich, well, you know that sacrifices have to be made in order to get something you really want.

    158:
    Just declare that UK will not perform any border control for some time

    ... No. I honestly cannot articulate what a horrible idea that would be -- even worse than no deal.

    159:

    Yes, having practically no border control for imports has apparently been a real disaster for e.g. Luxembourg.

    But you are right, bad phrasing from my part. Being lax on import control is not the same as having no border controls at all.

    160:

    Briefly on the subject of U.S. impeachment:

    The House can open an Impeachment Inquiry without having to impeach. This dials their oversight powers up to 11, and some of the crap Trump is currently pulling stops being legal.

    The House can decide not to impeach even after opening an Impeachment Inquiry. This is the basis on which any arguments over impeachment must occur. Consider what happens if Trump is constitutionally unable to, for example, claim executive privilege, but Pelosi doesn't have to have a vote - the relative advantages shift dramatically.

    Also, the time for an impeachment inquiry to begin is probably after the Orange Shitgibbeon signs the current budget.

    Further, if the House finds a lot of really, really bad stuff, and the Senate refuses to find Trump guilty, (probably on a party-line vote) then the Senate looks bad, so there's this issue to consider as well. Essentially, the current arguments on the subject are not terribly well-informed on either side.

    Sorry for the brevity and any poor communication - I really don't have much time for composition tonight.

    161:
    The House can decide not to impeach even after opening an Impeachment Inquiry

    5-4 odds that SCOTUS would rule that the 5th amendment applies to impeachment Republican Presidents, and thus attempting to impeach him once means they could not do so again for the same acts.

    162:

    Diamond Geezer does it again A must-read for black humour, I'm afraid .... AND ... JBS @ 151 If you object that much - try CTRL+C & copy to another window!

    & @ 153 I knew about Dred Scott & Citizens United - I had to look up "Shelby/Holder" - yuck. I assume that IF the "D's" win in 2020, the latter two need over-writing by Act of Congress - immediately?

    Graydon @ 142 Even if you are correct about "Amendments 13 - 19" - & you may be ... That's not the point. Even with the rigging & gerrymandering, at presnet the R's are going to lose everything in 2020 - UNLESS there are impeachment proceedings going on - at which point you will get another 4 years of the shitgibbon. Trump WANTS an impeachment process, so he can energise his base & if very "lucky" get a state of Emergency declared ..... Don't go there - heteromeles is correct!

    ... @ 152 REALLY - is it really that bad - you don't think the "D's" can win in 2020 AT ALL? I thought that the rigging could be swamped if enough people came out - with pitchforks, if necessary. there's ongoing organised efforts to prevent the function of entire government agencies Yes, we've noticed that - why? What's the point - what's the "profit" in it for them in doing so - please explain.

    RvdH @ 145 VERY unlikey The best time for a "No Confidence" vote is early September - call General Election & BEG "Brussels" for an extension - which I think they would give at that point - they know how many peole here think Brexit is a disaster, after all ...

    Troutwaxer @ 160 POINT Open enquiries - into the Shitgibbon's Impeachment ... & just keep the enquiries going until the election ... nice one, like it!

    163:

    I'm not even sure I like the Aster 30's chances that much. It's not clear how many Moskit launchers Iran has, but the UK can put at most 144 A-30s ready to launch in theatre, at which point we get a potential for a "Weber scenario" under which the T-45s can be fired dry and in the Gulf...

    164:

    I suspect that if you were to attempt to import something from outside the EU into Luxembourg airport you would not find lax border controls. Which is not to say that if you had the right paperwork filed it wouldn't be a quick and simple process, but that's not the same thing as lax.

    Inside the EU is a different matter. No border controls when there are bloc-wide systems for tracking goods and services with regulations for quality and safety.

    165:

    Iran will have very few Moskit missiles and launchers. They're very big and very expensive, intended to mission-kill CVNs if not sink them outright. Silkworm, Exocet and missiles in that class are another matter and they will deal with destroyers and frigates quite well. Saying that the Type 45 destroyers (which mass more than most WWII light cruisers) are 21st century fighting ships with a low radar profile and modern electronic countermeasures whereas Silkworm and other 20th century anti-shipping missiles are quite dumb comparatively speaking.

    Aster 30 is really intended for airborne threats rather than missiles and no-one really thinks the Iranians have much of a fixed-wing attack capability. Helicopters are a possible airborne threat.

    It's notable that a lot of the Royal Navy's minesweeping capability is currently in or around the Gulf area which indicates what sort of threat is taken most seriously by tactical planners.

    166:

    Nojay They only have to blow ONE right out of the water, to, erm, "dissuade" anybody from beiong stupid enough to try again, though, don't they?

    167:

    How do you blackmail someone over something everyone knows he does and assumes he's done more of than is already known, and many admire him for doing?

    Boris is known/suspected of having fathered children with women he's had affairs with; the underreported (except in Private Eye) thing about his shouting match with current gf. Carrie Symonds is allegedly something to do with Boris having decided to trade Carrie (age 31, Public Relations manager) in for a younger model (in both senses of the word).

    In point of fact, when Paddy Ashdown (now deceased, former Lib Dem leader) was revealed to have had a long-standing affair in the early noughties his polling figures rose.

    Cheating on your spouse is basically as unexceptional among British politicians these days as it used to be among the French (remember Francois Mitterand's state funeral, when his wife, mistress, and their children all attended together?).

    What would it take to be blackmailable in the UK, given that even fucking a dead pig's face didn't destabilize Cameron? I'm guessing supplying Class A drugs (not just consuming them but actual dealing, on a large scale), having an extramarital arrangement involving underage prostitutes, substantiated claims of rape, and actually going through with a threat to have a journalist's legs broken (Boris merely bloviated and threatened it).

    NB: these guidelines apply to Eton/Oxford/Union/Tory MP overlord caste members only. To the rest of us, they're a lot less forgiving.

    168:

    The principle I'd like to see formed, since Obama never bothered, was that presidents are always liable for their acts, once they leave office. He let a bunch of war criminals walk free, and it set a very bad precedent.

    I hate to bring this up, but Obama committed war crimes, too. He gets a pass for the extrajudicial execution of Osama bin Laden only because ObL was a quintessential Emmanuel Goldstein figure, easily depicted as a monster: I'd be a lot happier if he'd been captured alive and dumped on the doorstep of the ICC in Brussels to face trial for crimes against humanity. But that's not how Empire rolls, and the US executive branch exercises imperial power with global reach.

    Every US president since Truman has, outside of a declared war or a UN authorized engagement, authorized the perpetration of crimes against humanity. Initially the Cold War was used as a justification, but since 1991 they haven't even bothered with that excuse.

    (I am not going to get into the similar but smaller-scale crimes authorized by British Prime Ministers, although they usually got some sort of judicial approval or legal opinion first—but Tony Blair should definitely be up in front of the ICC over his involvement in Iraq.)

    169:

    Point taken, but: Silkworm can still kill a Type-45 if it isn't intercepted, so if a Silkworm pops up on radar it will be engaged. Rinse, spin, repeat until the Type-45 is low on ammo, then shoot a Moskit at it.

    This is the scary scenario the RN planners have to have a solution in mind for before they can send a Type-45 destroyer in, because we don't have very many of them and they're very expensive (and also prone to crapping out if the water temperature gets too hot for their heat exchangers).

    The problem with the Strait of Hormuz is that in a UK/Iran confrontation there's no way for Iran to defeat the UK but no way for the UK to "win" a war with Iran. (We're going to throw a couple of hundred Tomahawks at them, then send our entire 80,000 strong army to occupy … the Persian Empire?) And it could easily break the RN—not for a few years, but in perpetuity (depending how reckless BoJo is about throwing good ships after sunk ones).

    170:

    It worries me that people seem to think that Trump will definitely be defeated in 2020. People like Seymour Hersh think that the chances of him winning re-election under the current system are very good indeed. Even Doonesbury is raising the spectre of a Trump re-election, albeit for comic effect: "Always bet on the cornered rat" indeed.

    The 2020 election will be even more corrupt than usual. If one side (mostly) plays fair, and the other goes all-in on voter suppression, vote tampering and electoral fraud, I can easily see Trump hanging around until January 20th, 2025. Unless a heart attack / stroke / whatever gets him, which is possible since he doesn't take care of himself. Of course, DJT's father lived on into his 90s, so health crisis-removal isn't something to count on.

    171:

    Yep. And it’s treating ObL and AK as a warring actor on the world stage that got us where we are today. It legitimized the AK organization as having parity with a nation state. Which is exactly what ObL wanted. Better that they’d been charged and treated as criminals, and the whole issue treated as a policing exercise. Pizdets.

    172:

    Speaking as an armchair dilettante rather than someone who's seen the invoices and the CIA reports of what the Iranians have on hand, any Moskits they have would be kept back for the real targets, an American CVBG which would have to be flooded with multiple missiles to get one Moskit through the defence screen. Frankly I don't really see the US putting a CVN at risk in tight water close to a hostile shore like the Straits of Hormuz. A CVN's job is to stand way off in blue water and deliver air power inland using the range of its embarked planes to stay out of trouble as much as possible.

    There are several problems on the Iranian side of things -- missiles degrade in storage, the batteries die, the rocket motor material ages (it's stable but it's still made from very active chemicals with lots of bonds that will break given time, heat, cosmic rays etc.) They need a lot of TLC and I'm not sure any Moskits they might have are actually flight-ready or reliable. The other thing is that Moskit has a great reputation on paper and they've been fired in tests but whether they are actually the "carrier-killer" they claim to be has never actually been proven.

    Silkworm and Exocet are simpler dumber missiles, within the capabilities of the Iranians to maintain and upgrade or even copy and roll their own versions. Moskit with its sea-skimming Mach 3 flight profile is something else.

    173:

    Frankly I don't really see the US putting a CVN at risk in tight water close to a hostile shore like the Straits of Hormuz.

    They don't need to: the Strait is only about 90nm long, which is well within the flight range of an unrefueled F/A-18. The CVN is more likely to stooge around in the waters outside, providing air cover for the B-52s and B-2s that do the real work of taking out Iranian coastal defenses before they throw the USMC into the meat grinder—

    No, wait, you're going to invade the Persian Empire? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

    The Walrus' wet dreams aside, invading and occupying Iran simply isn't an option. Breaking a lot of shit and making an example of Iran is another matter … but that's best done with strategic bombers. The CVN is only needed to stooge around, look menacing, and provide cover for crushing the air defenses. Gone are the days when the B-52 stream would simply nuke their path into hostile territory using SRAM/AGM-69 against every SAM site or air base that got in their way en route to the target for the really big nukes, although here's a happy fun primer on DEAD (the predecessor to today's no-nuclear air defense suppression techniques).

    174:

    Private Eye has a very interesting report on Agent of Chaos by Norman spinrad - starring a bumbling Boris Johnson!

    175:

    The change that really made me puke was that ministers were forced to resign only because of such sexual shenanagins (later extended to financial misdemeanours). I remember when, at least sometimes, they resigned because they had ballsed up their job. Yes, I know what to blame (the who is a bit less clear).

    176:

    Charlie Cheating on your spouse is basically as unexceptional among British politicians these days as it used to be among the French COUGH Lord Palmerston was rumoured to have fathered a child, when he was over 70 ... Disreali, in oppostion insisted that it be hushed up "Otherwise they'll all vote for him!"

    EC @ 174 Said issue of the "Eye" also has a superb cover-picture

    177:

    [putting a USN CVN at risk in a conflict with Iran] They don't need to

    But a certain faction really, really wants to do it. Lose a CVN, and it's the national honour; Iran can be threatened with nuking unless it bends the knee completely, unconditional surrender. (Various eminent clergy get sent to Riyadh to be tried for heresy and beheaded, unconditional.) Congress will authorise anything, including massive spending on directed energy weapons, as many CVNs as Bolton thinks there should be, and whatever other imperialist pet projects are queued up at the money spigot.

    Fail to lose the CVN and the Iranian's long expensive effort to be a credible threat dies the death and the USN's myth of invincibility is greatly enhanced.

    The imperialist faction sees this is as a win-win scenario, but likely sees the loss scenario as the larger win.

    178:

    I wish that wasn't plausible.

    179:

    The imperialist faction sees this is as a win-win scenario, but likely sees the loss scenario as the larger win.

    The faction in question hasn't thought it through that far. Indeed, they're not second-order thinkers, much less third- or fourth-order thinkers, at all. Bolton and Pompeo are neocons and have the same naive assumptions they and their cohorts did about Iraq: that the U.S. will be greeted by the locals as liberators. They are nowhere near as clever or as self-aware as you think they are. It really is hubris and wishful thinking all the way down.

    In stark contrast, the professional military community--uniformed and civilian--is fully aware of how a war with Iran would go and what the consequences would be. The plans exist, the scenarios have been wargamed multiple times over, the full costs have been calculated and projected, and it's all been briefed to the political leadership.

    The problem is that the political leadership will do what they want regardless of what the professional community tells them. The leadership operates on confirmation bias and only listens for what they want to hear.

    180:

    "It worries me that people seem to think that Trump will definitely be defeated in 2020."

    My bet in our unofficial workplace betting pool is that Trump will have a clear victory. He has been delivering what he has been promising. And we (as a company) will be quite likely to lose a significant amount of money if Trump is re-elected. Therefore I do not appreciate that possibility, it is very likely that I will personally lose money if he wins (no bonuses etc).

    I would really like to see that the next US president will be somebody from the improvement-oriented side of the Democratic contenders. That is, however, quite unlikely according to our estimates. The Democrats are likely to select somebody like Biden, who will be decimated by Trump.

    Therefore we are betting on the second season of The Trump Regime.

    Some of my cynical colleagues have even tried to set up a betting pool for a third season, but fortunately that is unlikely.

    181:

    The military may be aware of the direct military consequences, but they can't be of the political ones and longer term military ones, because NOBODY knows what would happen if Trump area-bombed Tehran or even used nukes. Even if Iran has plans for that, and the USA knows them, neither side can be sure of how other countries would react and where that would lead. At best, they can make wild guesses and advise against opening that wormcan.

    182:

    Every US president since Truman has, outside of a declared war or a UN authorized engagement, authorized the perpetration of crimes against humanity. Initially the Cold War was used as a justification, but since 1991 they haven't even bothered with that excuse.

    Agreed, with the possible exception of Carter (that's just me not remembering what happened in the late 1970s).

    This is where I have to point out that so far, Trump on the international scale has been less destructive than the previous two Bushes, which goes to show how going about the norms of the office allows you to get away with so much more.

    Ignoring the illegal wars for a moment, there's still the argument that the President is not above domestic US law for domestic US actions, and that's where it gets more interesting. As with the Capone example, prosecuting the Bush administration for lying to Congress to get us into a war would be useful for halting that particular gambit again.

    There are a couple of problems that it would be nice to solve, and both of these get at presidential responsibility.

    1) Should there be a threshold of wealth above which the law no longer applies to you?

    2) Should the possession of nuclear weapons render you above the law?

    American policy, both implicitly and explicitly, has formulated Presidential power around the second point, ever since the USSR demonstrated its nukes. It's the US version of the Dead Hand, that the President can use nukes to unilaterally end civilization if he sees the need. No President after Truman*, who's ever thought about it very hard, has ever decided that a first strike was something they'd ever do. Unfortunately, the US never got around to amending the Constitution to deal with the reality of nukes, and so we're getting increasingly hypocritical about how it all works.

    That's where capturing a billionaire who's a crappy President and subjecting him to the rigors of the US legal system becomes so important. It won't deal with Reagan or Bush I's war crimes, but it's a start.

    183:

    I wish that wasn't plausible.

    Please stop freaking out, sir. You're upsetting the horses.

    It's not plausible. Check the second reference from Bill Arnold at #84: https://mwi.usma.edu/irans-human-geography-wicked-problem-people-places-things-complicates-us-strategy/

    Problem 1: losing a CVN is stoopid. Yeah, it gets us into war with Iran, and quite possibly loses us Taiwan. And China's not podunk. And it gives us fewer resources to fight with Iran, assuming we're that stupid. And we're not that stupid.

    If you want a ship to get blown up to justify a war, that's what Destroyers are for. See the Gulf of Tonkin mess. You don't throw away a capital ship on an opening gambit, any more than you sacrifice the queen to take a pawn.

    The CVN involved is sitting well out of missile range, while the US Army puts artillery and rockets in friendly countries on the south side of the Gulf. This has already happened, so why bother losing a CVN? There are plenty of destroyers already in place if a ship needs to be sacrificed.

    Problem 2: The US military is over-stretched, its equipment (including ships) are not getting proper maintenance, readiness numbers are below standards, and the military is having trouble meeting recruitment goals for specialties like, oh, flying planes. That's what Bill's article pointed to. AND THIS ANALYSIS WAS PUBLISHED BY WEST POINT. It's no secret, and the problems have been in the media for years. We're in a horrible position to start a war with a medium-sized country, and if we did, as noted, we'd likely lose Taiwan and possibly South Korea to the Chinese.

    Now I'm sure you (and especially Graydon) are all-fired up to prove me wrong, but I'll add a final point: You've been suckered by Trump. Remember, this is the gaslight special? The man whose only strategy is bullshit, bully, and settle? He's in the middle of the bullshit and bully phase with Iran. Iran's following the by-now standard play book of standing up to the bullying. Unless Trump totally loses control of the situation, the next phase will be the settlement.

    Anyway, if you're wallowing in fear over US actions, there's a high likelihood that you're the victim of Republican psyops. Rational investigation's the best cure for that stuff, and its not worth wallowing in anything so psychologically toxic.

    Now please get back to figuring out countermeasures against BoJo the Clone of Orange.

    184:

    I disagree with your analysis.

    If he's impeached, and not convicted, a good part of the US already hates and despises McConnell, and the GOP will be blamed.... Um, you did notice the turnout last year, right? The shocking huge turnout, including younger voters?

    185:

    You have a misperception: Trump is only saying he's giving them what he promised... or is complaining that the courts, or the Dems, are preventing it.

    Other than hollowing out the federal gov't, and the tax cuts for the rich, he's actually gotten very little done.

    Hell, earlier this year, I read an article in mainstream media, with someone in a farm state, who'd been a strong Trump supporter, and now is saying that they feel like a fool, and no way.

    Meanwhile, the Dems are passing a lot of laws for their base, that McConnell and the GOP won't even consider in the Senate.

    Oh... and McConnell's new challenger, in KY, is already at par with her warchest (money).

    No, folks on this side are going to be lining up to pile on, and vote. I also guarantee that there will be tons of court challenges, same day, for folks illegally tossed off the voter rolls.

    186:

    About that low radar profile, etc... in the Straights, dumb point and shoot would work... and it's not like a warship can maneuver faster than a rocket or jet from the shore can get there.

    Actually, if I were Iran, I'd have hidden launchers right by the shore, stationed about 5km apart, and just hit the "open the pod bar, er, garage doors" and fire.

    187:

    Bullshitters fall into three categories, though most are a mixture:

    1) Those that ignore their own bullshit.

    2) Those that sucker themselves by their bullshit.

    3) Those that attempt to turn their bullshit into reality to avoid losing face.

    The first group is unpredictable, but the latter two are seriously dangerous. The question is what is Trump's mixture.

    188:

    Our side will be all over their asses. I assure you, voter registration will be running like mad.

    Already is, actually.

    Plus, a few states lost the GOP total domination, like Michigan and N.C.

    189:

    Again, I'm afraid your view from your country misapprehends what's happening. Biden... I've seen a headline that his best day was the day he announced. He's been steadily sinking. Bernie's up there, as is Harris.

    On the other hand, Warren keeps climbing, and I've seen at least one mainstream article that folks who originally said "never Warren" are coming to see her as a moderate choice.

    I suspect (ok, hope), it will be her, and perhaps one of the challengers for VP. Hmmm, picking someone like Castro or Buttiegieg for VP would do what the GOP's done for decades, a VP that makes you not want to assassinate the President.

    190:

    "You have a misperception: Trump is only saying he's giving them what he promised... or is complaining that the courts, or the Dems, are preventing it."

    Unfortunately I have to disagree with you. The Trump Regime has been very effective in changing the courts. Look at the new judges all around. That is likely to have very long lasting impact on how the law is interpreted in USA.

    There are several other issues also. Like having lead and asbestos fine again. And so on. A Happy New World, but less regulation from the evil government.

    The number of people who believe that government is, by definition, evil is surprisingly high. When you add the religious aspect to that, then The Second Season of The Trump Regime does not look that impossible.

    I will be very happy to be proven wrong, but our estimate is that the next season of The Trump Regime is the most likely outcome.

    191:

    "On the other hand, Warren keeps climbing, and I've seen at least one mainstream article that folks who originally said "never Warren" are coming to see her as a moderate choice. "

    I have to agree that from my point of view Warren looks like somebody I would vote for. She has a real policy, well-thought proposals etc.

    In addition, I agree that with a proper campaign Warren (or somebody like her) would have a real possibility of defeating Trump. Not a good one, but a real one. That assuming that the possible/will-be Democrat voters really will go through the pain of being able to vote.

    I do, however, suspect that the Democrats will go for a moderate male and lose the election. And then I will be able to cash my bet on the second season of The Trump Regime.

    192:

    Oh, and being the Cheerful Charlie* that I am, my bet's on < 2 weeks before the (first) call for a vote of no confidence for BoJo.

    • No relation to OGH, it's from the old Pogo comic strip.
    193:

    I've got it: BoJo makes his first state visit to the US as PM, and says the wrong thing to the Orange, and Orange tries to throw him under the bus.

    The Tories, of course, stand up, affronted for him. T, shocked, starts tweeting that the Queen should fire him.

    Ending one: she has staff tweet back, "We Are Not Amused.", and a naval incident is set up with the US. Seeing this, Macron makes nice. All the right in the US goes up in arms over Being Friends With The French, and the US civil war starts, GOP on GOP.

    Ending two: she has staff tweet "we agree", fires him, and asks the LibDems to form a government.

    194:

    No, wait, you're going to invade the Persian Empire? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

    Or you could just invade the parts that have oil and set a puppet state there, destroy the infrastructure of all the other part, and install automatic machine guns on the perimeter to mow down anything that approaches.

    195:

    JReynolds @ 170: It worries me that people seem to think that Trump will definitely be defeated in 2020. People like Seymour Hersh think that the chances of him winning re-election under the current system are very good indeed. Even Doonesbury is raising the spectre of a Trump re-election, albeit for comic effect: "Always bet on the cornered rat" indeed.

    More than that, I worry that it doesn't matter whether Trump is re-elected or not. He'll claim that he won the REAL vote, dismiss everyone who didn't vote for him as "fake news" and refuse to leave office. If he gets away with it, and there's a good chance he will, it then becomes a question of what he does in 2024? Does he comply with the 22nd Amendment, or does he declare that null & void as well? Will there even be an election in 2024?

    196:

    Apropos of nothing, I was just realized we should congratulate OGH on his prescience in not giving the King in Orange Yellow a bigger role in the Laundryverse, especially in dealing with the governance of the US or UK. Had he chosen that worthy, I suspect he'd be rather annoyed with current events...

    197:

    Agreed, with the possible exception of Carter (that's just me not remembering what happened in the late 1970s).

    Nope! Supported the murderous dictatorship of the Shah of Iran so effectively that when it blew up in the Shah's face the USA was blamed for a lot of domestic woes. Then sent troops in to try to rescue the embassy hostages (the Desert One fiasco)—okay, they shouldn't have been hostages in the first place, but military action on foreign soil with anticipated civilian deaths is still illegal.

    Oh, and then there's the way Zbignew Brzezinski's push to destabilize Afghanistan (as an attack on the USSR's muslim underbelly) and the CIA's Operation Cyclone, which laid the kindling for the Afghan conflagration of the 1980s and 1990s and 2000s and …

    And then we've got to ask how much of Operation Condor can be blamed on Carter, and the murder trials arising from that are still on-going to this day.

    BTW, destroyers are no longer disposable! The Royal Navy's Type 45 destroyers are of roughly 10,000 tons displacement, same as a WW2 heavy cruiser; the USS Zumwalt, admittedly a bit of a weirdo, is much, much larger to the point where if class inflation wasn't a thing it'd be called a battlecruiser. These are billion dollar weapons platforms able to hit targets hundreds of nautical miles away with precision missile strikes; the Type 45 "air defense" destroyer is merely supposed to provide SAM coverage for a carrier group out to a radius of about 200 miles, with radar coverage out to 500 miles.

    The only respects in which these things resemble an old-school destroyer (pre-WW1: "torpedo boat destroyer", displacement 250-500 tons; WW1-WW2 era: 1500-3000 tons) is in crew size—they're tiny by capital ship standards due to automation—and hull design (light on armour and internal compartmentalization).

    In fact, if you want to lose an asset to justify a war, your best bet is probably a tanker. Big, showy, lots of flames, a crew so small you can fit them in a single lifeboat/rescue chopper, and much cheaper to replace.

    198:

    Charlie Stross @ 173: The Walrus' wet dreams aside, invading and occupying Iran simply isn't an option. Breaking a lot of shit and making an example of Iran is another matter … but that's best done with strategic bombers. The CVN is only needed to stooge around, look menacing, and provide cover for crushing the air defenses. Gone are the days when the B-52 stream would simply nuke their path into hostile territory using SRAM/AGM-69 against every SAM site or air base that got in their way en route to the target for the really big nukes, although here's a happy fun primer on DEAD (the predecessor to today's no-nuclear air defense suppression techniques).

    Actually, if it comes to war with Iran, a better comparison might be how the USAF suppressed (and/or failed to suppress) North Vietnam's air defenses to protect the B-52s during Operation Rolling Thunder (2 March 1965 until 2 November 1968), Operation Linebacker (9 May to 23 October 1972) and Operation Linebacker II (18 to 29 December 1972) WITHOUT resorting to nuclear weapons.

    199:

    Jar @ 180: My bet in our unofficial workplace betting pool is that Trump will have a clear victory. He has been delivering what he has been promising. And we (as a company) will be quite likely to lose a significant amount of money if Trump is re-elected. Therefore I do not appreciate that possibility, it is very likely that I will personally lose money if he wins (no bonuses etc).

    He may in fact win reelection legitimately, although I don't think we can ever be sure he's not cheating, but HAS he delivered on his promises? Drained that swamp?, Built that wall?, Repealed Obamacare and replaced it with something better?, Reduced taxes on working families while forcing the 1% to pay more of their fair share?, Forced China to buy more U.S. goods & export fewer goods to the U.S.? ... Made America Great Again?*

    As far as I can tell, the only promise he's "kept" is the one where he said he didn't want to start any new wars, and that one looks to be on mighty shaky ground.

    *What does the asshole mean by AGAIN, America was already great before slimed his way down the escalator.

    200:

    whitroth @ 184: I disagree with your analysis.

    If he's impeached, and not convicted, a good part of the US already hates and despises McConnell, and the GOP will be blamed.... Um, you did notice the turnout last year, right? The shocking huge turnout, including younger voters?

    A lot would depend on how overwhelming the evidence for him having committed "High Crimes and Misdemeanors".

    With Nixon and Watergate, the evidence was so overwhelming that Nixon resigned before he could be impeached. With Clinton and "Whitewater", the evidence was so weak they couldn't get a simple majority, much less the required 2/3 vote to convict ... they couldn't even get all of the Republicans to vote to convict.

    201:

    Other than hollowing out the federal gov't, and the tax cuts for the rich, he's actually gotten very little done.

    He's got the ethnic cleansing rolling. Non-white voting's getting really challenging, and trending more challenging. The "any white man can kill any non-white for any reason, anywhere" isn't there-there, not yet, but it's closer. (Pretty much there for the police de facto.)

    That's the really important stuff for the big chunk of the white electorate who view the possibility of the US losing its white majority status with "Ok, let's kill all the non-whites. Problem solved." responses. This is the main thing Trump has delivered and looks likely to keep delivering.

    202:

    Charlie Stross @ 197: BTW, destroyers are no longer disposable! The Royal Navy's Type 45 destroyers are of roughly 10,000 tons displacement, same as a WW2 heavy cruiser; the USS Zumwalt, admittedly a bit of a weirdo, is much, much larger to the point where if class inflation wasn't a thing it'd be called a battlecruiser. These are billion dollar weapons platforms able to hit targets hundreds of nautical miles away with precision missile strikes; the Type 45 "air defense" destroyer is merely supposed to provide SAM coverage for a carrier group out to a radius of about 200 miles, with radar coverage out to 500 miles.

    That's part of the reason why I hedged with "I don't know if the Royal Navy and/or other cooperating navies (which COULD include the U.S.) have enough small warships ..." I was thinking "frigates" or "littoral combat ships" that have been in the news fairly recently, mostly problems getting them into production/service.

    203:

    Remember also, the consequences of impeaching Agent Orange before 2020:

    --He's removed from office --Tuppence becomes President --Agent Orange can still run for re-election, and now that he's not president, he has more time, plus a dedicated base out for vengeance or something.

    Now, let's play the "maximize democratic victories" version of this: --Do a thorough investigation of Agent Orange before 2020, while selectively leaking all the problems he has to fire up the democratic base. --Aim to retake the Presidency and Senate --This is actually the more important goal: if the democrats control the house and senate, even if Agent Orange wins in 2020, he WILL get impeached if there's good cause found by the investigation leading up to the election.

    If The Orange is no longer President, then he no longer has immunity and Tuppence is no longer an unexploded bomb. At that point, ALL prosecutions can go forward.

    204:

    I'd also point out, since I missed adding it, that having majorities in the house and senate also mean that judges (particularly the BreaKa the Bro) can also be impeached. That's also important, for obvious reasons.

    205:

    It was pointed out elseweb that you don't have to start impeachment with trump, you can start with his fellow swamp monsters, working your way up. The negative publicity and information coming out of such hearings would be too juicy for a lot of the media to ignore, so would help counteract the right wing bias in american media.

    206:

    Yeah, about that.... A majority of America is really not ok with that. Even all the security guards and cops pulling the profiling, and random idiot racists, get majorly made fun of, and wind up losing jobs, etc.

    Don't believe that the majority is as divided and racist as Faux News and the GOP want you to believe.

    207:

    Actually (snark) that might be all some of the littoral combat vessels are good for: drawing overwhelming fire and sinking dramatically and with maximum consequence. (/snark)

    208:

    I'm somewhat alarmed by the number of people who think that the UK can resolve brexit-related import problems by just adopting really lax customs habits.

    There's a massive hole in that view, because every lorry that enters the UK needs to leave it again, and there's no way that the EU will adopt lax customs habits just because we have. So every lorry that arrives in Calais, Rotterdam, etc, will need to be checked. If most of those lorries are empty, then the checks can be fairly quick (with a random sample pulled aside for thorough examination to make sure they're not, eg, smuggling heroin under the floorboards of the trailer).

    But even a quick check on every lorry will cause a massive increase in the time it takes to turn around a ferry, relative to just driving straight off with no customs activity as at present. So even those very simple checks mean that you get fewer lorries through each port. (It also means the end of pretty much all UK exports to the EU, of course.)

    Also, if you want those very simple checks, the lorries need to be empty. Which means that whoever bought the goods transported to the UK needs to cover the logistics company's costs for travel in both directions, rather than, as now, just one. (Sure, some lorries cross the channel empty, but mostly firms try to arrange to have cargo loaded as much of the time as possible. Drivers are expensive, and have legally limited hours.)

    So you have a substantially reduced quantity of goods coming in, and much higher costs for transporting them. And that's the best-case scenario. If the UK government really annoyed the EU - say by deliberately wasting time in negotiations, repeatedly announcing to UK papers that they're cunningly lying to EU authorities, and then appointing a probably-narcisistic fascist as PM[1] - there's no reason they couldn't insist on full checks of every vehicle on the grounds that we'd repeatedly demonstrated bad faith and couldn't be trusted.

    [1] purely a hypothetical scenario; I'm sure the Tories wouldn't do anything of the kind.

    Given the reduced flow of imports, avoiding shortages would require very careful state enforcement of priorities, and substantial economic redistribution to ensure that the burden didn't fall entirely on poor and/or disabled people who are already struggling. I can't imagine the Tories (especially under Johnson) doing either of those things.

    209:

    "And if the impeachment fails (which is guaranteed at this point), Trump's base is energized and his opponents are demoralized. "

    As has been pointed out repeatedly, the GOP brought impeachment against Clinton, and did well from it.

    210:

    "Also, the time for an impeachment inquiry to begin is probably after the Orange Shitgibbeon signs the current budget."

    Before. Right now, Trump et al. are conducting a 100% opposition against the House, refusing to respond to all subpoenas. That means that the House has go to court for everything, taking months if not years.

    Their one big gun was the budget. Pelosi has destroyed that weapons - worse, she's set it up so that the next president, who might be a Dem, will have to deal with it in his/her first budget.

    211:

    "5-4 odds that SCOTUS would rule that the 5th amendment applies to impeachment Republican Presidents, and thus attempting to impeach him once means they could not do so again for the same acts."

    From my understanding, SCOTUS has been very careful about impeachment. It's likely the equivalent of the Queen overruling Parliament.

    Also, the House can choose from hundreds of charges.

    212:

    You did notice the response to the Mueller Report when it came out?

    The biggest group in the electorate at this point are those who don't vote, and these people tend to break democrat. The single biggest strategy of the Republicans at this point is trying to make sure as many people as possible don't vote democratic. Their tactics include gerrymandering, closing polls, purging voter roles, and especially making democratic voters so disgusted that they stay home, thinking it's a waste of time.

    Anyway, we'll see whether we get to impeachment or not. The last resolution to impeach went down in flames six days ago, regardless of how us blue dogs feel about it.

    213:

    If you want to do some light reading, Dominic cummings, infamous law breaker, has a blog full of his crazed ideas: https://dominiccummings.com/
    Charlie pointed out I think on twitter that he's a singularitarian. On his blog you can see how he worships scientism and loves to take things out of context to support his barmy ideas.

    214:

    "Do a thorough investigation of Agent Orange before 2020, while selectively leaking all the problems he has to fire up the democratic base."

    So far, they aren't doing that. Trump is playing a slow waltz with them, and they are going along with it.

    "This is actually the more important goal: if the democrats control the house and senate, even if Agent Orange wins in 2020, he WILL get impeached if there's good cause found by the investigation leading up to the election."

    The same thing that you've cited is still the case - there's no way that the Senate would convict.

    "Agent Orange can still run for re-election, and now that he's not president, he has more time, plus a dedicated base out for vengeance or something."

    If he was convicted, he could not. If he agreed to a deal, he could not. Also, he'd be a loser, and this time he'd be a known quantity, rather than the guy who could promise everything.

    As for the base being primed, they are already.

    215:

    You're mostly right, but, to quote article 2: "Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States; but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."

    So if the deal he reaches is removal from office...

    The other part is even more important, that he doesn't go from the White House to prison. Impeachment is simply removal from office and (hopefully) disqualification from holding federal office again.

    216:

    I'd argue there is a significant proximity gradient. Most, though not all, USains are okay with citizens of any stripe living in the same state.

    Still, nearly half would prefer that fewer brown people enter this country.

    And about 80% would riot if my personal edict was passed. (Any county with median rental prices > 50% of the median income is immediately zoned for high density housing. Environmental impact reports, et cetera, are no longer required.). Why? Because we already use zoning as highly effective de facto segregation and are willing to spend 4+ hours a day commuting to keep the other away.

    My mildly uneducated guess is that an early impeachment is just a boost to Trump's election chances. My other mildly uneducated guess is that typical progressive and minority voters will hold their noses and vote for anyone, even Biden. It'll be hard to whip Trump voters into a froth over Biden.

    Would Warren be better and Harris more competent? Sure. I'd guess, though, that the energy, eg, Warren might get from a progressive base will be more than balanced out by the hate she'd get from socially conservative (read misogynistic Democrats). My wife laughed when Obama beat Clinton. (Relative status of women and minorities) Then, add in the activation of a Republican base that likes women even less...

    I could be wrong or unduly pessimistic. Based on Trump, I'm an optimist.

    217:

    https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29111/divisions-with-u-s-emerge-as-u-k-proposes-european-force-to-protect-tankers-from-iran

    After his opening summary of the situation, which he called a "hostile act," Hunt then formally announced that the U.K. Department for Transport had advised all British-flagged ships to avoid Iranian waters and the Strait of Hormuz, something that had been previously reported. He also asked that any British-flagged ships that insisted on making the transit alert U.K. authorities of their decision "to enable us to offer the best protection we can."
    Lastly and most importantly, Hunt said that the United Kingdom was working to create a European maritime protection mission to further protect shipping in the region and that HMS Duncan would eventually join that multi-national force. It is not clear if the U.K. government's plan is for this to be a European Union-led mission, given that the United Kingdom is separately working to extricate itself from that political and economic bloc as part of a process commonly known as Brexit.
    "We will now seek to put together a European-led maritime protection mission to support safe passage of both crew and cargo in this vital region," Hunt said. "The new force will be focused on free navigation, bearing in mind that one-fifth of the world’s oil, a quarter of its liquefied natural gas, and trade worth half a trillion dollars pass through the Strait of Hormuz every year."

    That certainly makes sense.

    218:

    Barry @ 209:

    "And if the impeachment fails (which is guaranteed at this point), Trump's base is energized and his opponents are demoralized. "

    As has been pointed out repeatedly, the GOP brought impeachment against Clinton, and did well from it.

    Slightly different circumstances. The GOP impeached Clinton during a sour grapes 105th Congress Lame Duck session between the time they lost House seats in the 1998 election and when the 106th Congress convened in January 1999 (most notably that jackass House Speaker Newt Gingrinch lost his reelection bid & got sent back to Georgia).

    219:

    I do get that a majority of the US is absolutely not OK with that.

    This is nigh-completely irrelevant; the machinery of government is absolutely one hundred percent pure quill delighted; that's what ICE exists to do, and the people who built it built it competently.

    One of the things people don't pay enough attention to is that you need nothing like a majority for a revolution; a committed 10% seems to be sufficient. The great white supremacist evangelist mammonite movement is about 20% of the US population; that's plenty.

    What you do with that 20% of the population who do not recognise the legitimacy of the mechanisms of civil government is a hard problem; it's reminiscent of the whole Protestant problem in Europe, for exactly the same sorts of reasons.

    220:

    The great white supremacist evangelist mammonite movement is about 20% of the US population; that's plenty. Ah, now I see where you're coming from. However, that movement is not a monolith (many sects hate the others), and has exploitable fault lines (e.g. the scriptural support for Republican partisan politics is ... weak[0]) and many of the worst of their leaders are extremely corrupt and can be taken down or significantly weakened by exposing that corruption. So there is a fight to be fought in the US, if we can rapidly find the will and skill to fight it. Also, Trump is polling really badly and he's continuing to unravel mentally and the US media are much more awake than they were in 2015/2016 and Fox News is showing occasional cracks. (I think the boycotts have spooked them a bit.) I don't see any similar shift in the UK media but maybe am missing it?

    Mind you, I can argue the other side of the argument too, but you're already doing that well.

    [0] this made me laugh: Ecclesiastes 10:16 - Woe to thee, O land, when thy king [is] a child

    221:

    EC @ 187 And Drumpf appears to be a mixture of # 2&3 ... very dangerous. What category is BOZO the clown?

    Jar @ 190 Like having lead and asbestos fine again. WHAT? - I must have been asleep when that went past - when did this happen & how was it allowed? Cannot the "House" put a stop to it? I do, however, suspect that the Democrats will go for a moderate male and lose the election. If you substittute "reactionary & past it" for "Moderate" - you are dangerously close to correct. Come on, even AOC is to the right of & considerably saner than Corbyn, not that that's difficult - [ NOTE, below ]

    JBS @ 195 PART of that is almost certain. I think DY will go down to serious defeat in 2020 - & will refuse to accept it .... Which departments & sections of the US Aremd/Police/Security forces will follw "the consitution" & which will follow their "Leader" ??? Messy

    Chris J @ 208 Precisely - unfortunately - see my "NOTE" below .....

    @ 218 & 219 20% back the great leader ( Or shall we say "guide"? ) - right ... In the critical 1933 election Adolf, even then did not have a majority - about 34% of the vote in fact, on a PR system BUT - two other things ... he outmanovered them & seized power from within, once he had office ( As Trump is doing, by not filling posts, except fascist judges )... And active support - meaning party membership: 120k in 1929, 200k in 1930 & 800k in 1931 But even that would not have been enough without the economic collapse & internal divisions in the rest of the "ruling class" - source for all of this is my copy of the Brit Naval Intelligence history of Germany, published during WWII.

    [NOTE: W T F with Corbyn & Liebour? They are more concerned with internal faction-fights & ideological purity than in STOPPING BREXIT We have a semicriminal clown, employing known actual criminals sitting in No 10 & what are Liebour doing about it? FUCK ALL.

    222:

    I can assure you that as a democractic socialist party, labour has been very busy discussing brexit and it's various issues. But the party also exists to get into power to do good things, certainly better nicer things than the tories. There's an entire manifesto with soft left policies for you to read, if you want to. However for some reason the media keep attacking the party because of anti-semitism. Labour policies are not discussed and it is assumed they don't have any. Couple this with continued attempts by right wingers inside the party to take over and oust Corbyn, and things look like you think they do. But meanwhile there is plenty of desire to take office and reverse the evils of the Tory government.

    Finally, can you tell me what labour can actually do about johnson and his band of crooks? If you go and read Hansard, you'll find that Corbyn et al have been highlighting the evils of the tories every day they can, but you don't hear much about that in the media and all the centrist commentators are basically fascist enablers these days. What exactly can labour do? Go on Greg, tell us. HOw can they get the current government out of office, when may survived a number of votes of no confidence because sufficient tories and brexiters lined up behind her?

    223:

    Presuming he's convicted, he serves his term (I can pray at Rikers, but we'll see) in solitary, also for his own protection.

    A footnote, admittedly after the conversation has moved on: The Rikers Island complex holds nearly 100,000 occupants but is primarily a holding facility for people awaiting trial (because it's in the Bronx and conveniently located to pretty much every courtroom in New York City); relatively few serve their sentences there, mostly convicts given relatively short sentences.

    I'll suggest that The Donald is a high profile prisoner and may require maximum security for his own protection. The most famous such facility in New York state is Sing Sing about 30 miles north of NYC but it's not the largest and it's close to Manhattan. I propose that he be housed in upstate New York, far from the city, in the biggest maximum security facility they've got. That's in the town of Dannemora but its name is the Clinton Correctional Facility.

    I could tolerate Donald Trump being locked up there for the rest of his life. Couldn't you?

    224: 180 - A Third Term would require a retified Amendment. 186 - "Stand by for action. Anything can happen in the next half minute..." ;-) 193 - That's just silly; there are no buses in the Yousay! ;-)
    225:

    1 is a number. Specifically it's the number of votes of no confidence Mayhem faced, and ConDUP was all that took; no requirement for votes from other Wrecksiteers.

    226:

    The reasons for the media attacks on Labour using anti-semitism as a claim are well-known. In increasing order of importance: 1) There is a considerable amount of genuine anti-semitism in both the Conservative and Labour parties. 2) The Kingdom of Israel Revanchists are trying to complete the take over of UK politics. 3) The New-Monetarist oligarchs and other external forces are trying to destroy the last chance of seeing any socialism return in our lifetimes, and complete the transition to the New Order.

    227:

    Mainly (1) - isn't it obvious? God alone knows what he is going to do, because I am sure that he doesn't.

    228:

    Technically, there is no difficulty, and many people have been saying for some decades that the UK navy needs a sizeable fleet of small vessels. Think WWII MGBs and corvettes, with 1/3 the crews, and modern technology but with comparable armament. Bugger foreign adventurism - their job would be dealing with wayward commercial vessels around the UK (transport, fishing, pollution and other), 'having words' with foreign warships in international waters, searching for submarines, and so on. Obviously, they would have the capability of world-wide travel (few seas get rougher than some of ours do) with refueling, but that's not what we need them for.

    If Bozo and his bigots had any sense, they would announce such a plan, commission competent designs, FUND IT, and give contracts to the obvious places in the northern wastes of the UK.

    Obviously, when it comes to actual WAR, they wouldn't stand a chance - but they would be fine for playing chicken with the Iran Revolutionary Guard, discouraging pirates in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere etc. And a DAMN site cheaper. And British, rah, rah rah.

    229:

    Yep, it's pretty obvious that "anti-semitism" is the only piece of mud that seems to have stuck to the wider party, so the mainstream media is using it for all they can.

    By contrast there is so much mud hitting the tories that it gets knocked off by the next bit and buried in the trail of debris.

    I mean, both sides have anti-semites, and both I'm sure have problems with all other religions as well, because so it seems does 10-20% of Britain. The tories though have sex offenders, public hate speech, cronyism, corruption, a fundamental lack of competence, staggering wastes of public money, and through tory controlled councils manslaughter through gross negligence not far short of murder. But Anti-semitism. Wooo. Better keep them Reds outta power lest the country be in real trouble, right?

    230:

    Charlie pointed out I think on twitter that he's a singularitarian. On his blog you can see how he worships scientism and loves to take things out of context to support his barmy ideas.

    And this is probably the time for a reminded: singularitarianism (which Cummings appears to be an adherent of, along with the rest of the LessWrong shitball) is basically a secularized Jesus-free reimplementation of Christianity. Fits the same design pattern for an appealing salvationist doctrine with Apollonian aesthetics. Roko's Basilisk as Satan.

    231:

    what are Liebour doing about it?

    Two things.

    a) Per Napoleon, "never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake". The Tory party is ripping itself to shreds over Brexit. Remember, if they don't deliver the hardest of hard no deal Brexits, half their base will desert to the neo-Nazi Faragist party; and if they do deliver it, they trash the economy (and they're traditionally the party of business: when the Chambers of Commerce and the Confederation of British Industry are howling angrily at them, something has gone very wrong indeed). So Corbyn's plausible plan is to sit on his hands, not sacrifice Labour voters unnecessarily (the Labour loyalists who want Brexit because there's always a good 20% of any population group who are totally divorced from reality), while the Tories explode.

    (BoJo's election could be the beginning of the end game for them, although how long it takes is unclear right now. Could be days—to a snap election and a loss of power—could be years, in the worst case scenario.)

    b) Corbyn is old. No offense, Greg—I know he's younger than you—but most British political careers are coasting on fumes by his age: if he becomes PM now he'll be the oldest first-term PM since 1832 or earlier. He's had 30-40 years of being a conscientious objector: it's very hard to change the habits of a lifetime, and the threat (or promise) of becoming PM has put him totally outside his comfort zone. He's slow to respond to sudden pressures (witness the "labour antisemitism" fiasco amplified by the right wing press—I'd say it's more of a British antisemitism problem, shared by the Tories, but with enough fools inside Labour to provide plausible kindling for an orchestrated media firestorm of abuse). So I suspect he's just dithering, hoping that something will come up to save him tomorrow if he doesn't commit to anything today.

    I can't tell which of (a) or (b) is the dominant factor right now.

    232:

    What I am concerned about is that Labour's opponents may destroy Corbyn and socialism before the Conservatives auto-destruct, possibly by fragmenting Labour enough to fail to win the next election. We will then get another (puke) Blairite revolution and the country will complete its transition to a 17th century social system and banana republic economy. My estimate is that we are one good lurch from those becoming irrevokable.

    No, that's not because I love Labour's policies or am the sort of socialist they would recognise as such, but because we need SOME kind of halt to that drift before it is too late.

    233:

    Finally, can you tell me what labour can actually do about johnson and his band of crooks?

    No, but American humorist Andy Borowitz reacted to BoJo by announcing British lose right to claim that Americans are dumber. I assume some news organs in the UK are desperately trying to not notice how he is seen outside the UK, or for that matter outside their offices.

    234:

    It's probably unfair to blame Vinge for it, though he can't escape SOME blame, but popularising the very notion of the plausibility and imminence of "The Singularity" was harmful, as a very few of us observed at the time. It was mathematical and engineering nonsense (i.e. fantasy) dressed up as hard science fiction, and has led a huge number of otherwise intelligent people (no, not Cummings) into sloppy thinking. Yes, it started out restricted to science fiction but, as you note, it has now got into mainstream politics. I don't know if anyone predicted that - I certainly didn't, even though I realised some of the harm that would arise.

    As I have said before, similar remarks apply to the whole bullshit surrounding NP, especially the fantasies about P=NP, but that did not escape into the outside world before it got subsumed by The Singularity. It did immense harm to computer science but, frankly, merely joins thousands of other such scientific myths in that. And, again, much the same can be said about quantum computing.

    And yet most people can't believe that we potentially face a genuine near-singularity (i.e. step change to a different state) from climate change :-(

    235:

    Guthrie @ 222 ALL I can see at present is that my Labour MP - one of the very best of any party in the entire House is under constant threat of deselection by Corbyn's wankers usually called momentum. How to throw away a 20 000 majority (!) with both hands. Labour is STILL trying to face both ways at once on Brexit ( Because Corbyn wants OUT - just like BOZO ) - which thay simply cannot do - they have got to come down on one side or the other .... I've heard/seen Charlie on "Not interrupting your enemy making a mistake", but for fuck's sake this is the future of the entore set of countries for the next hunderd years at stake eher, & they STILL don't get it!

    COUNTRY, Constituency, party should be the priorities - & both tories & Liebour have got it exactly backwards.

    CHarlie FUCK the "Boney" maxim - see what I wrote above about COuntry first? Anyway ... when the Chambers of Commerce and the Confederation of British Industry are howling angrily at them, something has gone very wrong indeed Even madder & worse than that, the CBI & the TUC issues a JOINT STAEMENT screaming .. "STOP Brexit!" - attentiion paid was zero ....

    Though I'm older than Corbyn, I am still capable of changing my mind & opinions, in the light of "new" or previously unknown-to-me facts. Corbyn either can't or won't, which is why he is unfit to be trusted with any public office - so not old - STUPID, actually. Meanwhile BOZO, as you have pointed out in the past is actually very intelligent, but such an egomaniac that anything is possible - he's dangerous & he's got to go ....

    EC You don't get it do you? A reversion even to Blairite policies would be a welcome relief from the current pushed-drift towards racism & not-so-crypto-fascism ... but no, let's be ideologically pure & fuck it up. THIS is the EXACT idiot mindset that's trying to unseat Stella!

    236:

    You don't get it do you?

    Blair's reign was NOT a halt of the slide, let alone a reversal, but suspended some of the more obvious aspects. HOWEVER, it made no attempt to tackle the slide and, in other, more subtle ways, made changes that would assist it in the future. PPPs? Emasculation of the press? Laws that enable the government to classify opponents as terrorists? More subservience to the USA military-industrial complex? Tick, tick, tick, tick. And that's just what I can think of offhand.

    I am not convinced that Creasy is the angel you claim she is, though not convinced that she is a bloody Blairite, either. And, given that the attempted unseating of Corbyn started as soon as he was elected, it's a moot point who is attempting to suppress whom. I agree that Momentum are idiotic fanatics, BUT SO ARE BLAIRITES - just less obviously :-(

    237:

    OKay, so, you've got nothing, no plan for Corybn, but want him to magically do exactly as you tell him. He knows a no deal brexit is bad, which is why he's against it, as is the labour party. He and part of the party are okay wiht a labour brokered brexit, but the question is how to get one, and on that he/ the executive would like an election and a labour government in power, but can't quite persuade enough people to vote for them. But they've also committed now to a further check referendum on brexit options, which yes, is trying to appeal to all sides; a lot of people on both sides need to stop acting like children and demanding that their parents do whatever it is they want them to do or else they'll cry, and realise that there is a lot of politics going on here and there needs to be some give or take. Hence another referendum isn't a great option, but it isn't the worst.

    Corybyn has changed his mind on a number of points, although I can't recall exactly what. Also, the labour party, despite blair and brown, isn't actually a dictatorship...

    A reversion to blairite policies isn't what this country needs, given the deep poverty and destruction of society that the tories have done. Lots of people see this, but it's very hard to persuade people that more than that is needed, especially with centrist media wankers and the 90% right wing press ignoring everything.

    Have you read the labour manifesto yet?

    238: 228 - True this; I even know ex-RN people who like the idea of patrol boats armed with something like an Oerlikon 40mm, a pair of Browning 50cal, and some semi-automatic rifles.

    For examples of the sort of stuff a ship like this can do, look for the Australian drama "Sea Patrol" and ignore the arc plots.

    235 - When I moved here in 1995, I was moving to a "safe Labour seat". Since then, the seat has returned SNP MPs and constituency MSPs.

    Elderly Cynic's #236 seems particularly relevant in this context.

    237 I have no idea what the "right wing press" are ignoring, because I'm ignoring print press, and broadcast beside radio bulletins.
    239:

    guthrie @ 237 Look the ONLY "deal" brexit we are going to get is the one produiced by the Maybot, right? No-one at all wants that, which reduces the choices to "No Deal" or cancel At 50 ... also correct? So, are Liebour going to campaign for reamining in the EU or not? As I keep on saying that is the ONLY thing that matters. The Liebour manifesto is totally fucking irrelevant & you can't/won't see that either! Brexit - nothing else matters - STOP IT ... ( Brexit, that is )

    240:
    My other mildly uneducated guess is that typical progressive and minority voters will hold their noses and vote for anyone

    Maybe (I suspect not, but anyway); are the votes of misogynistic Democrats who might vote for Trump instead of a woman more valuable than voters who aren't motivated to go the polls for the Same Old Crap? Because there's a lot more of the latter.

    Obama sold "Hope" and had turnout ~10% higher than 2016. Warren sells "Competence". I don't know Harris' selling point, but I suspect it would have a wider appeal than your own definition of Biden's - "Republicans only hate me because of the '(D)' after my name".

    241:

    "Competence" has never been a good selling point to the usual voters in USA.

    Ask Al Gore.

    Heck: Ask all the republican candidates from last time around.

    Warrens chances depend a lot on older women not making the same stupid assumption of "signed sealed and delivered" as last time.

    But her chances stand and fall with a massive turnout of previously non-voting younger women, because US men, no matter what age, as a rule do not vote for women if they can avoid it.

    242:

    I can see one other Brexit "deal" happening, if BoJo has the balls (and the smarts) to do it.

    Bear in mind he's the Tory who said "fuck business". So I assume nothing is off the table, right?

    It's this:

    • Get a snap general election and win big—that is, big enough to not have to rely on a confidence and supply agreement with anyone, much less the DUP.

    (Note that this is only even possible if he figures out how to claw back votes from Farage's Brexit party. Which this current cabinet of head-banging lunatics looks like an attempt at.)

    • UNILATERALLY expel Northern Ireland from the UK: declare it to be an independent kingdom, goodbye and thanks for all the fish.

    • While the fallout cloud is still drifting and everyone is in shock, ram through May's deal minus the Irish Border Backstop, which is no longer needed. Result!

    For good measure, jettison Scotland at the same time (on the most onerous terms he can get away with). In other words, give Nicola Sturgeon what she's asking for and give it to her good and hard, in the expectation that Scotland will be begging for readmission to the UK in about ten years' time if the Americanization of the rump UK economy goes to plan. (Clue: it won't, it can't, it's stupid, but whatever.)

    Note that this plan has the classic Boris hallmarks: it's big, it's bold, it relies on showmanship, shock, and awe, and who cares about details and consequences? It cuts the Gordian knot of the backstop, and furthermore if he can contrive to lose Scotland he gains a baked-in 10% tilt towards the Tories for a generation. May and her predecessors were unionists—but does anyone really believe Boris gives a shit about the U in UK?

    243:
    Note that this plan has the classic Boris hallmarks: it's big, it's bold,

    ...it's illegal.
    Unilaterally evicting Northern Ireland is against the GFA; though, as it is a Boris plan, that's unlikely to prevent him trying.

    244:

    Depends on how much investment the Money has in Scotland. My guess would be that they're OK with EU law covering that if they get the greatly desired "no taxes on the rich" outcome in England.

    245:

    The problem is the Electoral College. (Yes, it sucks and needs to go. Yes, it structurally warps the system in favor of the right wing. No, that's not going to change before November 2020.)

    An "energize the base" strategy makes sense for the national popular vote. I have no doubt the 2020 Democratic candidate will win it. But, it's electorally meaningless. The leftie non-voters the progressives seek to activate don't live in the necessary places in sufficient numbers to win the Electoral College. Juicing Democratic turnout in California, New York, and other already blue states doesn't achieve anything. A further complication is that the progressive faction's marquee agenda items--reparations for slavery, open door immigration, etc.--are alienating to suburban moderates (i.e. white women) who swung to the Democrats in 2018. So, a base strategy runs the risk of being a wash or even a net negative.*

    Winning the Electoral College in 2020 means 1) holding every state Hillary carried in 2016 and 2) flipping Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin back to the Blue column. That means building off the Democratic House victory in 2018, running to the middle, and focusing on kitchen table issues like health care and education to carry suburban moderates in those three states. Biden, as meh a candidate as he is, gets this. His Democratic competitors need to figure it out post-haste.

    Zooming out, the larger issue is that, in democratic societies, longer life-spans have the effect of prolonging the political power of older, conservative voters thus slowing the pace of social reform.

    *Unless the U.S. economy tanks between now and next November.

    246:

    Obama sold "Hope" and had turnout ~10% higher than 2016. Warren sells "Competence". I don't know Harris' selling point, but I suspect it would have a wider appeal than your own definition of Biden's - "Republicans only hate me because of the '(D)' after my name".

    Things need to change. We're in a time when politics is the art of the necessary, rather than the possible.

    Everybody over fifty says "things do not need to change". They're wrong.

    Everybody under fifty is finding out that nothing is quite so important to high-status primates as keeping their status.

    The great genius of Brexit is that it casts the preferred change of the oligarchy as the necessary change of "maybe the lower orders will survive". It makes it almost impossible for their to be non-kabuki politics about Brexit, because you can't take Brexit on without taking on "things need to change" and you could maybe do one or the other but you can't do both. (The Queen could do both, if willing to risk the monarchy. The Queen is not willing to risk the monarchy.)

    247:

    You almost have it right. It needs to be "STOP BREXIT and then implement __." Where ___ is stuff like "Cool leftist idea for protecting people against predatory banks" or "protect our tax base against money laundering" or whatever the UK needs.

    248:

    Jesus. I wish this didn't seem like a real scenario in the current climate!

    That aside, I popped by to post this interesting bit of weirdness:

    How did Trump end up in front of a presidential seal doctored to include a Russian symbol?

    Inadvertent cock-up? Epic trolling? Something more sinister?

    249:

    Violating the GFA isn't the UK's problem if the UK withdraws from the GFA … and from Northern Ireland. At that point (makes hand-washing gestures) NI is Someone Else's Problem.

    That's why I think this might appeal to Boris. It's simple, ignores all the details, and if only it wasn't for those pesky Northern Irish MPs it might be possible. And who knows? After the next general election ...

    250:

    Yep. The legalities seem unlikely to disturb Johnson too much.

    And given how this shit-show is circling the drain, I'm not sure how the population here would react. In the short term this might cause worse problems than Brexit, but if it lead to a fast-track re-unification (which the Irish Government seems to be starting to take actual, if tiny, steps towards prepping for) would the pain ultimately be less than that of being shackled to an ever more socio-politically bonkers Britain?

    An interesting question, for values of "interesting" defined by that ancient curse...

    251:

    To be clear (for Americans), this would be like Trump and McConnell dealing with the vexed problem of statehood for Puerto Rico by telling PR, "fuck off, you're on your own" and cutting them loose at a month's notice.

    It's not a good idea. But it's the sort of idea that might appeal to the lunatics now running the asylum.

    252:

    "Per Napoleon, "never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake". The Tory party is ripping itself to shreds over Brexit. Remember, if they don't deliver the hardest of hard no deal Brexits, half their base will desert to the neo-Nazi Faragist party; and if they do deliver it, they trash the economy (and they're traditionally the party of business: when the Chambers of Commerce and the Confederation of British Industry are howling angrily at them, something has gone very wrong indeed). So Corbyn's plausible plan is to sit on his hands, not sacrifice Labour voters unnecessarily (the Labour loyalists who want Brexit because there's always a good 20% of any population group who are totally divorced from reality), while the Tories explode."

    IMHO, this is related to the US posts on this blog - there's an assumption, rooted in the Long Long Ago Time, that if the Opposition shoots itself in the foot, then the other party will benefit. As has been seen in both the UK and US, that's far less of the case. I think that there's an underlying assumption, that the Opposition is not the Enemy. It's clear in both countries that the right-wing parties feel that any opposition is The Enemy, while carrying on policies almost deliberately designed to weaken their countries.

    From the outside, I've noticed that the Tory rhetoric is to blame every problem that they themselves created on 'betrayers'; they are already at the spot where their current rhetoric has prepped their followers to blame all problems on them.

    253:

    If the Labour Party (or more accurately its current leader) was truly existing to get into power then they wouldn't be doing what they are doing.

    The media keep attacking Labour about anti-semitism because Labour leadership keeps refusing to deal with the issue - if they had dealt with the issue years ago then the media would have to try and find something else.

    But the biggest problem is that Labour leadership is totally ignoring the fact the UK politics has changed in the last 4 years, and that to a large extent manifestos don't matter - what matters is your Brexit position. But because leadership also wants Brexit, just a Labour version, they are unable to connect with the voters disgusted with the Conservatives / UKIP / Brexit Party and thus have allowed the other parties to gain momentum as the "true" alternative to the Conservatives.

    The problem now is that as the electorate has wised up regarding Labour leadership, said leadership no longer have any credibility on the Brexit issue and even a decision to change to remain to appeal to the (now apparently) majority of the public is unlikely to work as the general public no longer trust them.

    254:

    "b) Corbyn is old. No offense, Greg—I know he's younger than you—but most British political careers are coasting on fumes by his age: if he becomes PM now he'll be the oldest first-term PM since 1832 or earlier. He's had 30-40 years of being a conscientious objector: it's very hard to change the habits of a lifetime, and the threat (or promise) of becoming PM has put him totally outside his comfort zone. He's slow to respond to sudden pressures (witness the "labour antisemitism" fiasco amplified by the right wing press—I'd say it's more of a British antisemitism problem, shared by the Tories, but with enough fools inside Labour to provide plausible kindling for an orchestrated media firestorm of abuse). So I suspect he's just dithering, hoping that something will come up to save him tomorrow if he doesn't commit to anything today."

    Note that what you are saying is that the Labor Party's leadership has extremely inflexible and unlearning leadership in the most rapidly changing times for the UK since the summer of 1945. That's an amazing flaw for the party, and likely a fatal one.

    255:

    "...reparations for slavery, open door immigration, etc.--are alienating to suburban moderates (i.e. white women) who swung to the Democrats in 2018.

    But these are not standard Democratic ideas. These are ideas that come from "the loony left" rather than mainstream Democratic thinking. "Reparations for slavery" is a non-starter as soon as one starts to think about the actual ideals of justice: if I kill someone can the seventh generation of their descendants sue my great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren? You might be able to argue that there are living Blacks who were damaged by Jim Crow or redlining, or more modern forms of racism such as the weaponization of drug laws, but even then the youngest survivors of Jim Crow would be something like sixty years old... so on both practical grounds and according to the issues of justice, how would such a plan work? And how would you avoid creating conditions that were ripe for exploitation by something like an asset-forfeiture scheme aimed at Black people? If someone has considered these issues I'm opening to hearing their plan, but this is very much a matter of throwing red meat to the far-left.

    Open Immigration is a little more interesting, particularly if the process went both ways. For example, under some kind of Open Immigration scheme, if I see a cool economic opportunity in Mexico, can I freely move down there? Also, can you guarantee that Open Immigration (with it's probably influx of poor immigrants) won't damage the economic prospects of U.S. Citizens? "Immigrants are trying to steal my jobs" sounds very racist. But "Immigrants will lower the demand for labor and thus create lower wages" sounds fairly rational. I suspect that the conditions created by Open Immigration, if it went both ways, would be very good in a hundred years, but the first twenty years could get a little painful.

    Your average Democrat has no interest in either of these. Pro-Union? Yes. Pro-Equal Rights? Certainly. Pro-Retraining for people hurt by economic circumstances? Sure. Pro less-expensive-health-care? Definitely. But the two ideas you brought up are so fanciful that applying them to the majority of Democrats isn't even wrong.

    256:

    I'm fascinated. Would Boris campaign on the plan to expel Northern Ireland?

    257:

    There'd be immediate violent rebellion with Ulster Volunteers magnitude popular support.

    NHS workers at the prospect of being 'managed' by the HSE, I mean.

    258:

    I would guess no, for the simple reason that you don't know what the reaction of the general public would be.

    The Brexit ultras likely wouldn't like it because it wouldn't get them their "pure" Brexit as it would make the acceptance of the current deal possible. So they would vote Brexit Party.

    But I would guess the bigger danger would be moving the election from Brexit to UK nationalism, with those wanting the maintaining of the current union abandoning the Conservatives.

    259:

    "...a lot of people on both sides need to stop acting like children and demanding that their parents do whatever it is they want them to do or else they'll cry, and realise that there is a lot of politics going on here and there needs to be some give or take. "

    It's all been take, take, take by the Brexiteers. The only reason that they haven't succeeded yet is that there are enough Tory MP's who realized that they have a choice between a hated deal (the best that they can get) and crashing the country.

    260:

    " It makes it almost impossible for their to be non-kabuki politics about Brexit, because you can't take Brexit on without taking on "things need to change" and you could maybe do one or the other but you can't do both."

    I disagree. Brexit is a major piece of fraud - they promised that the UK people would have all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages that there were no disadvantages, and that anybody contradicting them was fearmongering.

    261:

    I would like to say that is quite impossible - unfortunately, I can't in all honesty do so :-( A slightly more moderate form of that, which could be finessed to conform to the GFA (by the mandarins, natch, as you are correct that Bozo doesn't care) is:

    Bozo wins big, and signs up to the withdrawal agreement together with backstop, with an arrangement that Northern Ireland (and Gibraltar) remain part of the EU customs union. He can rely on Sinn Fein sabotaging any attempt to challenge that in the courts and, as there is no prospect of Stormont reassembling, organises semi-permanent direct rule in consultation with Dublin. And, yes, he also starts to restrict immigration from there, together with Eire and the rest of the EU.

    This does not change anonemouse's prediction much.

    262:

    Yep. All this, and what anonemouse said too.

    The question that is uppermost in my mind on this is: If the DUP are no longer in the loop what is the actual incentive (in the current Westminster/rUK political climate) to keep NI?

    If the only thing you want to do is deliver Brexit (and don't need the DUP top do so) and damn the consequences (which on the surface seems to be Johnson's preference), ditching NI seems like a no-brainer. It may actually gain him further popular support in the rUK amongst Brexiters of all stripes for reasons that should be fairly obvious.

    263:

    You know what ?

    That would work.

    Yes, some idiots will shoot other idiots, but they will kill a lot less people than the present heat-wave, and crucially for Boris it will be Somebody Elses Problem.

    I can even see Boris calling the snap election on that plan, because with the help of the Mega-Murphy-Phones he can easily sell to the little englanders, that the only problem is that the racism was not taken to eleven right from the start.

    I'm sure it will be documented that NI costs England a lot of money, "and gives us nothing but grief in return", and Scotland will be blamed for "meddling" and "holding England back" etc.

    I can even see history teachers explain 25 years from now, that it was only thing and thus the right thing to do in the first place.

    Somebody send him a link and let's get it over with...

    264:

    Right. I don't talk politics with that sort of person much, nowadays, because it is bad for my blood pressure. But, as someone brought up in that environment (and being from the same class and of the same age as the people who voted Bozo in), you understand them perfectly. I doubt that those of other classes and ages are any better.

    265:

    It was mathematical and engineering nonsense (i.e. fantasy) dressed up as hard science fiction, and has led a huge number of otherwise intelligent people (no, not Cummings) into sloppy thinking. In my school days I was a big fan of our old USSR sci-fi authors A/B Strugatsky. They are less than famous in the west but they were pretty mainstream at the time, especially in area of serious sci-fi talk inside the country. Therefore I've read almost 100% of their bibliography and I clearly remember that they've come to similar conclusions at some point at about mid-80s. Practically you can say that early ideas of transhumanism were floating in the air, everywhere. As for brothers, they've implemented term "vertical progress", which could be somewhat compared to "singularity", although it wasn't exactly technological in their novel written at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Wanderers Although compared to today's standards, it was described a bit different to what most people imagined at the time. They've focused on individual progress of selected number of human beings, rather than evolution of society as whole - and the evolution of consciousness and expanding human potential. And the conflict that appears out of the fact that only some percentage can achieve such evolution, while the rest are forever bound to more classic ways. I realize now, compared to new "cyberpunk" stuff that was gaining popularity at the time, it seemed to be almost archaic. Unfortunately, later on most of "singularists" were more fascinated with purely technological "ascension" that pretty much discarded the humans as disposable anachronisms who outlived their use.

    Yes, it started out restricted to science fiction but, as you note, it has now got into mainstream politics. I don't know if anyone predicted that - I certainly didn't, even though I realized some of the harm that would arise. Well this is one of the unfortunate things that nobody could have predicted. Not in the sense that wouldn't arise, but in the scope how far it will go (see "interplanetary rockets", "tube trains" and "bricks out of dirt"), while not going far enough really. It is such a shame our real world can't be built out of rendered models.

    Meanwhile: About 3 weeks ago I bought "Electric state" hard cover book that magically appeared in bookstore nearest to me (translated, ofc). It isn't a masterpiece of storytelling, being an illustrated book with pieces of narration scattered around, but certainly a great experience to have it in hands. I still have some bits of nostalgia for paper. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sRKEgyZgW8

    266:

    Are we talking "litoral" vessels? I see that the word, itself, means "coast" or "coastline". So, we position them, and sink them, and then they defend the coastline from the vicious attacks by Poseidon, and make a nice artificial reef.

    267:

    You wrote:

    And about 80% would riot if my personal edict was passed. (Any county with median rental prices > 50% of the median income is immediately zoned for high density housing. Environmental impact reports, et cetera, are no longer required.).

    I LOVE IT! That would kill the friggin' house-flippers (buy a place, redo the kitchen, slap on a coat of paint, sell, one year later, for 150% of the purchase price (like the one I saw, in '11, bought in 2010 for $275k, real estate did that, will in spring '11 for $390k).

    Btw, I say that as a homeowner in what I keep reading is a county that has one of the highest median incomes in the US.... (I'm not in one of the #insert noseinair.h good areas).

    268:

    I agree the brexiters have been all take, but there have been quite a few remainers, of lower status, fame, voice, etc, who have spent the last 2 or 3 years telling labour to become a fully remain party or else, in complete ignorance of the actual state of electoral politics in the country and despite the complex polling which indicates that this is a very messy issue. Because they aren't the ones in power and have had little direct effect, I haven't exactly said much about them or slagged them off or whatever, but they do need to get a better idea of the actual politics in the house of commons and elsewhere. My ire is 99.9% reserved for the evil tories and their supporters.

    269:

    They did institute new and better systems for dealing with accusations etc a year or more ago, it's just the media doesn't cover them, preferring to go for the silly personal stuff which is also tangled up with the anti-semitism.
    You seem unaware that there are and should be differences between the tories and labour. If people can switch from tory to labour on the basis of their brexit position then lots of labour voters won't vote labour because labour will be too right wing; Corbyn et al picked up a lot of votes because they went for a proper left of centre manifesto and suchlike, and have been banging on about being actually left of centre and here to sort out the tory mess for ages. The labour party has been trying for several years now not to let brexit swamp everything else, but some people, media especially, don't want to know.

    270:

    But I would guess the bigger danger would be moving the election from Brexit to UK nationalism, with those wanting the maintaining of the current union abandoning the Conservatives.

    The thing is, Brexit isn't about the EU at all, when you get down to it: it's about English identity politics.

    Dragging the union kicking and screaming into the focus of attention would probably be a good thing because that's part of the package: England has not only lost its empire but can no longer sublimate its own sense of identity in "British" identity.

    However, really nasty undercurrents might also surface if we go there.

    271:

    That's an interesting question itself, and not my area of expertise, but the money people I know of are all internationally mobile and have properties in Scotland and England, and often elsewhere in Europe, and their money is salted away all over the place. Some of those big sell offs of the footsie etc in the last 18 months have I suspect been done by their money managers, in preparation for everything going to shit.

    See too the German manufacturing going into recession just now.

    272:

    I've loved the idea of sending da bum up da river to Sing Sing... but I could live with him spending life in Clinton.

    273:

    Yup. What I've thought of it for a long time.

    On the other hand, the idea of Marxian communism, with the state withering away, also sounds like secular millenarianism.

    sigh

    Why I'm a socialist, not a communist.

    274:

    Um, Labour switching to a remain position doesn't turn them into a right wing party, not the least of which because the majority of Labour supporters are at this point for remain.

    But the bigger point is that to a large extent, like I said, the manifesto and its goals are irrelevant. The last election to a point, and the next election will be fought on Brexit and Brexit only.

    So regardless of the manifesto, if Labour remains a pro-Brexit party (which is what people have come to realise despite is public indecision) then they are fighting Conservatives for the Brexit vote while the remain vote goes Liberal Democrat / Green / etc.

    Labour picked up votes in the last UK election for 2 main reasons - first that May was a terrible leader in an election, and secondly because they managed to convince younger voters they were remain, and the older Brexit voters that they were for Brexit.

    That won't work again, as the younger voters have had their eyes opened that Corbyn played them for fools. This is reflected not only in recent polls and elections, but in the disappearance of the public support for Corbyn and his resultant absence from Glastonbury.

    But the biggest problem is that this fencing sitting, trying to have things both ways, is now coming across as a leader who cannot make a decision - and that isn't good as leaders are expected to make decisions.

    275:

    Note, btw, that both Wisconsin and Michigan now have Dem governors, who have been undoing what the previous scumitarians did to rig the vote.

    276:

    You wrote: Everybody over fifty says "things do not need to change". They're wrong.

    I object. I'm well over 50, as is my SO, and my ex, and a lot of other folks I know, and we all disagree, we all think there needs to be a Change.

    Wish I could find the PO for that order of tumbrels....

    277:

    Right. I am over 70, and I agree.

    278:

    Everybody over fifty says "things do not need to change". They're wrong.

    I'm over 50, and working for change. Less convinced it will happen than I was when I was younger. Also politically further left than I was when I was younger.

    279:

    Well okay, you say the next election will be fought mostly to all on brexit. Some of us disagree, or see that as only part of the issue; the question is how much can parties and individuals swing the outcome, and who decides it will be fought only on brexit anyway? The media?

    280:

    I see a headline from CNN, that BoJo "promises a quick exit from Europe." So, Charlie, I think you weren't thinking big enough; I assume this means he's planning on moving the Royal Navy into the Channel, and pushing Britain across the Atlantic.

    Just make sure he doesn't stop over where Atlantis used to be....

    281:

    And about 80% would riot if my personal edict was passed. (Any county with median rental prices > 50% of the median income is immediately zoned for high density housing. Environmental impact reports, et cetera, are no longer required.). Why? Because we already use zoning as highly effective de facto segregation and are willing to spend 4+ hours a day commuting to keep the other away.

    Boy, the slum lords would love you: What you're proposing is a free license to build tenements and shanties, never mind the lack of sewer hookups, potable water, or fire hazards.

    Thing is, the problem IS NOT the environmental impact reports (EIRs). I'm working on commenting on four of those suckers at the moment and I know parts of CEQA really, really well.

    CEQA, for those who don't know, is a law that at it's heart asks what any good parent tries to teach their children: before you do something, figure out what problems it's going to cause, make sure you try avoid those problems as much as possible, try to fix the ones you can't avoid, and if you're going to cause damage, try to make sure that the benefits from what you're doing outweigh the damage caused.

    The problem with CEQA is not the cost. I've had a businessman tell me that CEQA is decimal dust in the cost of building a project, and if the developer can't afford the CEQA costs, they have no business building the project, because their profit margin is too low.

    There are problems with slow CEQA document processing (often under Republican mayors/supervisors who shrink the size of the development services department, then complain that it can't handle the capacity as an excuse to get rid of it), and there are problems with labor unions filing frivolous CEQA suits as a way to try to get labor contracts with developers.

    But the major problem is that many developers prefer to pay for steaming hunks of male bovine excrement masquerading as EIRs, then to bribe donate generously to re-election funds to get the projects approved regardless of complaints, so that the only brake is litigation.

    Then there's us, the environmental community. We sue over things like, oh, projects on lands that's supposed to be parks, for good reason, because there are major wildlife corridors (one area's burned 17 times since 1910, most recently in 2007). Want to build over 1,000 high end homes there with one road in and out? Why yes, the Republican majority supervisors voted to do just that. Three times so far on four separate projects. These are all crappy places to build homes, and we can pretty much guarantee that the people who might move there would have no clue how dangerous they are, simply because those who did have a clue wouldn't buy the homes.

    Anyway, said supervisors have a general plan that obligates them to build affordable housing, and they're dragging their heels on it. Meanwhile they're voting for General Plan amendments to build these high end fire traps, while whining that the environmentalists are stopping them from building affordable housing. We aren't, but it's a convenient lie.

    Taking the EIRs away won't solve this problem. At best it will let unscrupulous landlords build tenements and charge high rents for them, at worst it will allow developers to build high end homes, claim*(without proof) that they're affordable, and donate to electeds' re-election campaigns so that they vote for the lies.

    The solution is hard work: --testify at hearings, and comment on this problem. Right now it's the environmentalist community who's doing a lot of advocating for affordable housing, even though it's not our specialty, because the affordable housing advocates aren't showing up where they can make a difference. --Get involved in making affordable a budgeting issue for the electeds by showing up and testifying when they're doing budgets. --Get involved in electing people who will work on this, and defeating those who want to be sock puppets for old-school sprawl developers. --Donate to the campaigns of politicians who favor affordable housing (they're always democratic these days, often people of color) --Make sure that the affordable housing you advocate for isn't a shanty town or a slum. Those are easier to make then you think, especially when you take away regulation on what's built where.

    282:

    Elderly Cynic @ 228: Technically, there is no difficulty, and many people have been saying for some decades that the UK navy needs a sizeable fleet of small vessels. ...

    If Bozo and his bigots had any sense, they would announce such a plan, commission competent designs, FUND IT, and give contracts to the obvious places in the northern wastes of the UK.

    I notice that Jeremy Hunt got fired, so I guess the idea of any kind of cooperative effort with Europe to deal with the problem is RIGHT OUT.

    283:

    "The thing is, Brexit isn't about the EU at all, when you get down to it: it's about English identity politics. "

    Yes, that has been obvious to practically anyone outside UK.

    Personally I did estimate the probability of Brexit to be something like 40% (before the vote), but I was looking at the economic aspect and thought Brexit to be utter madness. My colleague who is a political scientist with a large part of sociology thrown in, estimated the Brexit probability to be over 75%. She was right, I was wrong.

    But then a point on USA. I think that most of the liberal/progressive/leftist commenters do not understand the appeal of Trump. Trump promised to turn USA to the "values that made America great". Make America Great Again.

    Many progressive-oriented people think that economy has something to do with that. They are wrong.

    The Trump Base thinks that "Make America Great Again" means that the liberal nonsense will be thrown out. It is an ideological, not economic statement. Trump has been delivering that ideological change. Just look at the number of blatantly Republican and/or ultra-conservative judges appointed during The Trump Regime.

    The law in USA will be mainly political issue for a long time. The Republicans have achieved a revolution by changing what the law means. Brilliant achievement.

    The most competent of the Democratic contenders is, in my opinion, Warren. But I agree that a great deal of Democratic voters will either stay at home or vote for Trump. Warren is a woman, which is a sin in some people's eyes. In addition, she is like the teacher who taught you to read and write and who seemed to know all the right answers.

    Therefore I am betting on the Second Season of The Trump Regime.

    284:

    Inadvertent cock-up? Epic trolling? Something more sinister? Here's another. I admire this effort, a lot, if there was intent involved. :-) Trump's doctored presidential seal leads to firing (25 July 2019)

    Instead of holding 13 arrows - a reference to the 13 original states - the eagle in the doctored seal clutches a set of golf clubs in its left talon.

    285:

    General question: have there been any successful (or even semi-successful) efforts in the UK to boycott products advertised in Murdoch media properties? My quick searches came up empty.

    286:

    Charlie @ 242 SLIGHT problem That progamme of BOZO's that you mentioned is defined as Treason - it is directly contray to EIR's coronation Oath & her constitutional duty. This could be a slight problem but does anyone really believe Boris gives a shit about the U in UK? No, I don't & neither do the rabid brexiteers ... but a huge number of the rest of us do .... again, sight problem.

    anonemeouse @ 243 So, it's illegal? BOZO has already employed a criminal, held in contempt of Parliament as an advisor ...

    Graydon @ 246 Everybody over fifty says "things do not need to change". They're wrong. Utter bollocks - I'm 73 & I'm screaming for change, especially in the Liebour party & you haven't even noticed? SEE ALSO 276 - 278

    Troutwaxer @ 247 Whatever ... Let's remeber that Churchill offered De Valera & "Eire" NI on a plate - & they turned it down, because NOTHING ELSE MATTERED but defeating the Nazis ... And WC, having enocountered NI protestant-nutters at Curragh & arms-shipments in 1913-14 had zero sympathy with tose aresholes... My opinon od "Dev" went down another notch, when OI forst learnt of that fiasco, many years ago, now.

    mdlve @ 253 If the Labour Party (or more accurately its current leader) was truly existing to get into power then they wouldn't be doing what they are doing. YOU NOTICED - Graydon & EC have not, yet ... which is the problem. UK politics has changed in the last 4 years, and that to a large extent manifestos don't matter - what matters is your Brexit position - which echoes my stance, I notice ... & @ 274 - now tell guthrie, please?

    Barry @ 254 YES ... ditto @ 259

    guthrie @ 269 Excuse me & everybody (house rules) FUCKING GROW UP - PLEASE? What part of "Nothing else matters" don't you understand? A Corbyn goernment ( Which is a joke) is acceptable IF we remain in the EU - & you know how much I despise his stubborn stupidity - yes? & @ 279 Like I said - join the real world ....

    287:

    Greg Tingey @ 235: I've heard/seen Charlie on "Not interrupting your enemy making a mistake", but for fuck's sake this is the future of the entore set of countries for the next hunderd years at stake eher, & they STILL don't get it!

    That idea should be contingent on what kind of mistake your enemy is making and what the consequences are for the rest of us.

    If you saw your "enemy" in a pub "drunk as a lord" and then getting behind the wheel of a bus full of passengers prepratory to driving it off the White Cliffs of Dover (just to see if it will fly), wouldn't you intervene to try and take the keys away?

    288:

    I'm over fifty.

    Statistically, we don't exist. The risk is too big and the change is too large.

    (Keep in mind that the minimum ante is now something on the order of "abolish capitalism, great personal wealth, and fossil carbon extraction; at the lowest possible economic cost, but do it." There are a lot of quite left-leaning people who would by no means go that far.)

    289:

    “Some idiots will shoot other idiots, but they will kill a lot less people than the present heat-wave”

    The trouble is that one can’t rely on the idiots to shoot only others of their ilk. A large number of people end up being shot for wearing the wrong coloured jumper* that day, or “looking at me funny”. Then of course there are things like car bombs, which are less discerning again.

    • Sure most normal people will trash any green or orange clothing immediately, but then it will be that people think you’re unionist if you wear blue and republican if you wear red, and then it’s fractal all the way down. Schismers gonna schism and all that.
    290:

    The thing is, Brexit isn't about the EU at all, when you get down to it: it's about English identity politics.

    I'm not sure I agree.

    I think the English identity politics are a tool being used in an attempt to create an untaxable class. (A desire to be untaxable was a perennial problem with European aristocracies, and if what we're seeing in the Post-Reagan regulatory era is an aristocratic resurgence, well. Why not get the habitual problems back, too?)

    I think Sunzi had a solid point about the need to know both your enemy and yourself; I think that inverts, so that you can know someone by observing their selection of enemies as they understand them, and is sure looks like the core of Brexit is driven, not by "anyone who constrains the free will of the English is my enemy", but "anyone who thinks they have a claim on my money is my enemy".

    This is not to say I don't think the core Brexiters aren't dreadful white supremacists in their own views and practices; it's clear that they are. What's not clear is whether they've noticed there's disapproval of that in certain quarters.

    So I don't think the plan is "win a general election"; the bits about "have to neutralise the Brexit party" in that ring false. It seems unlikely Farage and BoJo aren't part of the same plan. I'd suppose the point includes winning a general election, but on the way to formalising membership in the untaxable aristocracy.

    291:

    Elderly Cynic @ 236: More subservience to the USA military-industrial complex?

    I would just like to take a moment to point out that a substantial portion of that "USA military-industrial complex" are owned by British banks & corporations.

    Splinter, beam, etc.

    292:

    paws4thot @ 238: #237 I have no idea what the "right wing press" are ignoring, because I'm ignoring print press, and broadcast beside radio bulletins.

    Doesn't really work. You have to be at least periphally aware of what they've got on their minds so you're ready to dodge the knife in the back.

    293:

    Poul-Henning Kamp @ 241: ... because US men, no matter what age, as a rule do not vote for women if they can avoid it.

    I guess I'm the exception that "proves the rule", because I've voted for women lots of times; NEVER a GOPer [rhymes with groper] woman, but numerous women nonetheless (local, county, state & national).

    294:

    And among younger Americans, that's no longer the case. Meanwhile, us Boomers are getting up there....

    295:

    anonemouse @ 240: Obama sold "Hope" and had turnout ~10% higher than 2016.

    My problem with Obama is that after he sold "Hope", he sold out. He tried too hard to be bi-partisan, failing to recognize that the GOPers [rhymes with gropers] would never compromise even if he offered them everything they wanted.

    FUBAR007 @ 245: A further complication is that the progressive faction's marquee agenda items--reparations for slavery, open door immigration, etc.--are alienating to suburban moderates (i.e. white women) who swung to the Democrats in 2018.

    Reparations for slavery. I'm not against them, I think it's needful. I just can't figure out how to do it justly. You can't correct one wrong by creating another wrong, and I've seen no scheme yet that threads that needle.

    296:

    Dave_the_Proc @ 248: Jesus. I wish this didn't seem like a real scenario in the current climate!

    That aside, I popped by to post this interesting bit of weirdness:

    How did Trump end up in front of a presidential seal doctored to include a Russian symbol?

    Inadvertent cock-up? Epic trolling? Something more sinister?

    A spokesperson for Turning Point USA stated, "One of our video team members did a Google Image search for a high-res png (file) presidential seal," adding that the individual "did the search and with the pressure of the event, didn't notice that it is a doctored seal."

    It was apparently an innocent mistake. They fired him anyway.

    297:

    It always was, for reasons I pointed out in #138. What you may have missed is that Prunt is no less arrogant and ignorant than Bozo, just more plausible.

    298:

    So? I am not denying that it ceased to be purely USA-dominated and became 'multinational' some time ago.

    I Like Ike.

    299:

    No, I have noticed. But I have a LOT more time for a person or party who has ANY half-decent principles (even if I don't completely agree with them) than who is purely and simply interested in power. You clearly don't mind.

    300:

    A mental exercise: list the various parties in the Gulf and ask which war each of them wants.

    The Kingdom wants someone else to prosecute a war if annihilation against Iran, with just enough of a role for the some - but not all of the Saudi armies to be plausible victors.

    Everyone who lives next to the Kingdom wants... What?

    And which wars, to what end, are wars that Iran doesn't want, but would fight very hard indeed if the alternative was the House of Saud triumphant over the whole of the Middle East?

    What war does Turkey want, and what opportunities for gain are on offer to their generals?

    301:

    ...because US men, no matter what age, as a rule do not vote for women if they can avoid it.

    Things are changing. Using share of state legislative seats, by state, as a rough proxy, Nevada currently has 52% of seats held by women. This map color-codes states with 30% or more of the state legislative seats held by women in pink, the others in baby blue. The match is not perfect, but there's a strong correlation with the red/blue partisan maps from 2016.

    302:

    Troutwaxer @ 255:

    "...reparations for slavery, open door immigration, etc.--are alienating to suburban moderates (i.e. white women) who swung to the Democrats in 2018."

    But these are not standard Democratic ideas. These are ideas that come from "the loony left" rather than mainstream Democratic thinking.

    Not the "loony left", which is not so loony as you might think. These are ideas attributed to Democrats by the same mainstream media that hounded Clinton about her "emails" and completely ignored Trump's history of criminality (money laundering, wage theft, MLM & ponzi schemes ... sexual assault) and blatant racism. If you believe their bullshit, you know fuck all about what Democrats really want.

    Redlining and Jim Crow have real effects that are still evident today. Democrats favor ameliorating those effects. Trump and his "base" want to bring back segregation and Jim Crow, as well as giving force of law to religious discrimination.

    Open immigration and asylum are NOT the same thing. Democrats favor Due Process (and humane treatment) for asylum seekers. And they want to find some path to citizenship for "DREAMERS" - undocumented persons who were brought to the U.S. as minor children; those who are here "illegally" through no fault of their own. They seek the same for victims of sex trafficing, who were also brought to the U.S. against their own volition.

    LEGAL immigrants don't lower wages. CORPORATIONS exploiting undocumented immigrants lower wages, because they know the immigrants will find it difficult to go to court seeking redress. Corporations hire undocumented workers because they know the can cheat them on their wages.

    ... and you forgot equality of access to opportunity that doesn't discriminate on the basis of race, creed, nationality, gender or sexual orientation. You can't guarantee equality of outcomes, but you can guarantee everyone has an equal opportunity to compete for those outcomes; that no one is denied the chance to get ahead because their skin is the wrong color, or they don't believe in the right god, or because they love the wrong people.

    303:

    The problem is, perhaps as a part of human nature, we all tend to want to point to 1 thing that explains Trump as if changing that one thing fixes everything.

    What Trump has done, in his rambling way, is put together a coalition of groups that all apply their own issue to MAGA.

    Yes, for many the issue is the courts and the "liberal nonsense" - this shouldn't come as a surprise given that Bush2 used the threat of gay marriage to get voters out.

    But there also other groups under the Trump umbrella - those who are racist and want the US to return to a nice white country - and those where the economy is the issue like coal country or pretty much anywhere outside of a city that is getting left behind in the economy of the future.

    The closest you can come is to say that they all want to return the US to say the 1950s, where everyone had a good job and everyone went to church and the none-whites were either non-existent or "knew their place".

    Either way, you get all those groups together and that is what gave Trump the Whitehouse.

    304:

    whitroth @ 294: And among younger Americans, that's no longer the case. Meanwhile, us Boomers are getting up there....

    WHAT is no longer the case among younger Americans? WHERE or WHAT is it "us Boomers" are getting up to?

    When y'all are replying to something I wrote, I wish you would supply enough context (@ NNN or quote something) so I can figure out what you're replying to.

    305:

    Elderly Cynic @ 297: It always was, for reasons I pointed out in #138.

    WHAT always was? Context?

    306:

    The problem is that the incentives are completely misaligned between people, eg, commuting to work and people living in an area. For people living in an area - housing scarcity is a good and they will, and do, use any lever available to sabotage any new project.

    When someone waits 2-3 years into a project and then files an appeal (halting construction - the environmental impact review cost is not negligible.) ...and thereby ended construction on a local Whole Foods pretty much solely because some local grocers didn't want competition. It had been in planning for 5+ years... We also lost out on construction of a national laboratory in place of a largely abandoned racetrack.*zzZ

    The whole 'work hard' thing may work occasionally, in much the same way that upward mobility in the US does. However, on average, it fails.

    I'd be perfectly fine with a high density unit going into an area with insufficient sewage and the local government being forced to upgrade.

    That human cost is much lower than that of a janitor commuting for 4 hours daily to clean houses in a wealthy neighborhood because the people there simply don't want poor people living anywhere nearby.

    I mean maybe just letting people vote by working address would help.

    307:
    Let's remeber that Churchill offered De Valera & "Eire" NI on a plate - & they turned it down, because NOTHING ELSE MATTERED but defeating the Nazis ... And WC, having enocountered NI protestant-nutters at Curragh & arms-shipments in 1913-14 had zero sympathy with tose aresholes... My opinon od "Dev" went down another notch, when OI forst learnt of that fiasco, many years ago, now.

    No, he didn't: he offered to ask the Government of Northern Ireland to assent to being rejoined to Éire, and a year later - after midnight, after learning Pearl Harbour had been attacked - sent a telegram quoting the IPP's anthem and offering to meet. Given the Ulster Volunteers armed themselves at the suggestion of Home Rule, there's quite a distance between "I'll ask" and serving it up on a plate....
    (Dev was a bollocks, but that's unrelated to this matter.)

    308:

    Yes, there are a lot of people who take the Singularity as a religion, and have unrealistic ideas about what is possible. But this doesn't mean it's not (currently) happening. It's unfolding a lot more slowly than the proponents expected, but it's happening. The current electoral politics is a clear part of it. Jobs that people have expected to be there and pay well are being automated away. And you can't predict what's going to happen next.

    Now seriously people have always felt this about there current state, but there are times when it's happening more rapidly...and this is one of them, and has been, and increasingly so, since the early 1900's. An argument can be made that it dates back to the industrial revolution, and is part of what set off the US Civil War, with massive centralization of power.

    My guess is that the current rate of change will hit an inflection about 2035, as AI becomes more capable. What that's going to mean is an open question, and anyone who tells you "This is what it means!" is either deluded or lying (or an author...i.e. they're saying that in a context where you are supposed to recognize that it's fiction). But exponential trends can't continue forever without something breaking. Singularity means that this is a point where things are undifferentiable. I usually say unpredictable, but that's not quite right, it's just that the old models all stop working. In this case I can't tell whether it's more like taking the square of x or the square root of x as x moves from 1 towards -1.

    309:

    Please don’t give him any ideas!

    310:

    Yeah. I get all that. And I get more than all that.

    I'm just saying that both things are slogans at best, comparable to right wingers saying "Execute people who have abortions" or "Put Gays in camps." Nobody making serious policy believes them.

    People making serious policy believe something kinda-sorta like "reparations for slavery" or kinda-sorta like "open immigration." But the don't come close to either of those ideas as you phrased them in your original post.

    311:

    JBS @ 287 Precisely ... BOZO is preparing to drive the whole nation - all 3.5 nations, actually, over the cliff & Corbyn certainly appears to be doing nothing about it...

    EC @ 299 And which arsehole did you pull that uuterly not-even-wrong conclusion from? The IMPORTANT thing is to stop Brexit - yet both Corbyn & BOZO are putting party before country - a principle I "do not approve of" shall we say?

    Troutwaxer @ 310 comparable to right wingers saying "Execute people who have abortions" or "Put Gays in camps." Nobody making serious policy believes them. WRONG People who have abortions are being sentenced to life in Jail - right now ... in good old Romam Catholic christian central america .... & you can bet the ultras in the US would love to import the custom ...

    312:

    The context was purely and simply the posting of yours I was responding to - if you have just referred back, all would have been clear. But, to assist you, you said:

    "I notice that Jeremy Hunt got fired, so I guess the idea of any kind of cooperative effort with Europe to deal with the problem is RIGHT OUT."

    313:

    A certain Greg Tingey's.

    Firstly, your claim that Brexit is the critical thing is not everybody's opinion - I am one of those who regard halting the slide towards 17th century society and a banana state economy as far more important.

    But, even more importantly, you started foaming at the mouth and gibbering hysterically against Corbyn when he was elected, NOT just on Brexit grounds, and have several times said that a Conservative government is preferable to one of his. And, if you think that they have any principles other than greed, you are deluded.

    Corbyn's (public) Brexit position has always been consistent with those of his MPs, party and voters - none of which have consensus except that No Deal is unacceptable.

    314:

    It depends on what you mean by "it". Yes, there is change along those lines, but it is almost certain not to become exponential let alone become a true singularity. You may as well say that we had a singularity during the electronics revolution (say, 1947-1987).

    315: 246 - Another over 50 who wants change. 266 - In context, a "littoral vessel" tends to mean low draft and tonnage, designed primarily for patrolling coasts and archipelagos; British "fisheries protection vessels" and US "Coastguard cutters" for example. As discussed up thread, British Motor Gun (and Torpedo) Boats, and German Schnellboots from WW2 would also be examples. 268 - I can't think how to do it effectively, but I'd like to see a poll that establishes which party people actually support, and associate that with their position on Brexit.
    316:

    EC STOP IT You automatically put the very worst interpretation possible onto things I haven't said - I used to have an unpleasanr Aunt who did that ... As for: Firstly, your claim that Brexit is the critical thing is not everybody's opinion - I am one of those who regard halting the slide towards 17th century society and a banana state economy as far more important. BUT - Brexit will accelerate the trend to Rees-Smaug's vision of Britain - or can't you see that? Brexit has to be stopped, FIRST, as a prerequiste for the second, actually.

    Corbyn's public position on Brexit has been to face both ways at once, actually.

    317:

    “automatically put the very worst interpretation possible”

    That’s what cynicism is. See my objections cross thread.

    318:

    “Nobody making serious policy believes them.”

    It might not be serious policy but don’t doubt there’s legislation for that happening in a state near you. It’ll be not even half thought through and accompanied by unintended consequences galore, but when did that ever bother them?

    319:

    A mental exercise: list the various parties in the Gulf and ask which war each of them wants.

    What westerners think they want: oil revenue, luxury goods, bombs and tanks.

    What they actually want: water security, food security, energy security, an end to external powers meddling in their affairs, death upon the unbelievers (starting with the folks down the road they've had a doctrinal dispute with since 602AD).

    (Note: this is "they" at the macro/political level. At the individual/family level they mostly want what everybody else wants—water, shelter, food, clothing, a stable environment with a working justice/arbitration system, improved prospects for their children. But it's only since the late 19th century that western rulers have bothered paying even lip service to these things; in the middle east it's still the exception rather than the rule, although the Arab Spring and the Iranian Green Uprising concentrated minds wonderfully.)

    At the sharp and pointy end of climate change, the sunni/shi'a doctrinal feud can be distilled down and merged with water security, genocidally: as in, kill the infidels and take their aquifers. This makes about as much sense as John Bolton and the other neocon idiots in the USA thinking the answer to everything that ails the US is another short victorious war—but power elites ain't necessarily smart folks, they're born to power, they don't need to be cunning and wise.

    320:

    I maintain that we've been through a couple of singularities already.

    The first one was the development of language. Without language, we didn't have oral transmissible culture: we were just smart tool-using apes. With it, the rapid spread of ideas between individuals and groups became possible.

    The second was the development of writing. I shouldn't need to explain this one's significance, should I?

    The third, contingent on the first two, was the development of practical artificial intelligences in the 17th-19th centuries, in the shape of the corporation: a structure for intelligently pursuing objectives without being dependent on impetus arising from a single person. (We might, if we squint, view the modern republic and its civil service as a related version of this system.) Earlier versions going back to the development of writing and agriculture (or before) tended to happen because of a head man, or a committee of head men (the elected governments of the early Greek democracies; the Roman senate).

    All our modern AI/computing stuff has done, for the most part, is to automate category 3 and render it less dependent on human bodies.

    321:

    I mostly agree with your three singularities, but the third has a little twist.

    It is not just any corporation, but the corporation with such a diversified and dilluted ownership, that it becomes autonomous.

    I think the first real exemplar of this was AT&T, who with their 5% dividends to millions of individual stockholders could treat the annual meeting as a PR-show, rather than as an exercise of power.

    Today the majority of big companies operate on a double-arms-length principle: Their shares are held by other corporations, mostly investment funds, and most of their shares are held via indirect means (pension funds) where the actual owner is actively discouraged from not only deciding what to invest in, but also from attempting any kind of influence.

    322:

    "But then a point on USA. I think that most of the liberal/progressive/leftist commenters do not understand the appeal of Trump. Trump promised to turn USA to the "values that made America great". Make America Great Again.

    Many progressive-oriented people think that economy has something to do with that. They are wrong. "

    I disagree - I think that most progressives felt that it was racism and general right-wing scheisskopfenism.

    The 'liberal' elite MSM, such as the New York Times, pushed the 'economic anxiety' theory because they are extremely corrupt referees, who deliberately don't call fouls on the right whenever possible.

    323:

    "If you saw your "enemy" in a pub "drunk as a lord" and then getting behind the wheel of a bus full of passengers prepratory to driving it off the White Cliffs of Dover (just to see if it will fly), wouldn't you intervene to try and take the keys away?"

    In addition (as I've said before), this assumes that the consequences of the mistake will largely fall on the Tories. That's naive politics in normal times; in these times it's extreme incompetence.

    324:

    And further, the Labour leadership has smeared their message. They aren't the Remain Party but rather the 'Brexit, me too!' Party. This means that it'll be easy for the right in England to play 'both sides did it', along with the accusations of backstabbing.

    325:

    In context, a "littoral vessel" tends to mean low draft and tonnage, designed primarily for patrolling coasts and archipelagos...

    The Canadian Kingston class coastal defense vessels may be larger than you had in mind but Canada has a lot of coast. I had the pleasure of visiting the HMCS Whitehorse years ago and it struck me as a very appropriate amount of naval vessel for keeping troublemakers away from Canada. This was so long ago it still had a WWII vintage 40mm Bofors gun on the deck, which I read has been declared obsolete again but did fulfill the purpose of establishing the ship as too much naval force to ignore entirely.

    Scotland might not need the mine sweeping capacity or the 5000 mile range, but different tools for different jobs.

    326:

    While I agree with the importance of the transitions, my objection is to the abuse of the term "singularity" and the delusions it leads to. In particular, despite the importance of those, there was neither a sudden transition nor a replacement of one state of being by another. I could give more details, but I hope it's not needed.

    It's a minor form of the delusion, but consider the Brexiteers' claims that the Northern Ireland border problem can be solved "by technology". Similarly, the claims that AI will solve classes of problem we cannot solve today, rather than just automating existing solutions.

    The point is that exactly the same kind of delusion as the popularisation of "The Singularity" has led people into - as you youself said in #230 - and at least the latter is actually a result of it. That was predictable from the start; what wasn't obvious was whether it would spread to outside science fiction / fantasy, or even take over within that.

    327:

    The Canadian Kingston class coastal defense vessels may be larger than you had in mind

    970 tons?!?

    That's a large WW1 destroyer! (Except far too slow to hunt down and kill torpedo boats … although I suspect the 15 knots is for the specified 5000 nm range, and it can probably sprint a wee bit faster for a few hours.)

    328:

    I maintain that we've been through a couple of singularities already.

    The first one was the development of language. Without language, we didn't have oral transmissible culture: we were just smart tool-using apes. With it, the rapid spread of ideas between individuals and groups became possible.

    This is a thing I've gone on about elsewhere, so this pump is already primed. The point:

    Not only are you right about this but the first example seems to be the only real world example of a capital-S Singularity as the lesswrong crowd imagines them: a total phase change in human existence that can't be understood from outside or from before the event.

    Others? There are plenty; these are the lowercase-s singularities that will indeed change society, like industrialization or the invention of the telegraph. Written language is a wonderful invention - but it's easy enough to explain to those who don't have it. ("Man, those Egyptians! Their artists are so good they can draw the words out of a person's mouth!") It can even be duplicated, as Sequoyah demonstrated (not the tree, a Cherokee who saw that white men had an advantage with their literacy trick - so he invented a written language and taught his people to read). I expect humanity will have more of them, only a few of which we can see coming from here.

    329:

    According to the Wikipedia entry, it's 9 kts for that range, 15 for continuous high speed. On the other hand, 9 kts sounds fine for a mine sweeper.

    330:

    Your Kingstons are a fair bit bigger than I had in mind. I was thinking more like an Australian Armadale class, which never had a minesweeping capability, displacement 300 tons (standard load), range 3_000 miles at 12 kt. It's not like the Aussies don't have a fair amount of coast too.

    331:

    I'm aware Greg. But in the U.S. these things are far enough outside the mainstream that I think they mainly function as recognition signals; nobody in the U.S. is ever going to execute a woman for having an abortion - maybe after another fifty years of propaganda, but certainly not now.

    332:

    death upon the unbelievers (starting with the folks down the road they've had a doctrinal dispute with since 602AD).

    I’m nearly convinced that Mohammad bone Sawman, would very much like for the US to go to war with Iran, so that he doesn’t have to. And the Walrus would be happy to oblige, he’s been itching for it since the Reagan years. That supposed Revolutionary Guard boat removing a mine? Just try proving who it was. Those tankers were intentionally not sunk, the holes were well above the water line—though, on the other hand I’m sure Iran doesn’t want an oil spill on it coasts.

    333:

    I maintain that we've been through a couple of singularities already. The first one was the development of language. Without language, we didn't have oral transmissible culture: we were just smart tool-using apes. With it, the rapid spread of ideas between individuals and groups became possible.

    Well, you are a writer, so you would think that...

    Here's the thing: humans are not unique in language. If the researchers are right about what sperm whales (especially among cetaceans) do with sound, human language isn't even the most complex form of acoustic communication evolved by mammals. Among other things, sperm whales appear to precisely duplicate sounds. So not only are they seeing their deep ocean environment with their "words," not only are they precisely communicating what they see by duplicating what they hear, they also communicate in ways that are really hard to decode (apparently the acoustic spectra look something like what you'd get off a fax machine), and can snort (what else do you call a click made with your nasal apparatus?) so loudly they can kill squid with a click stream and cause damage to human divers whom they accidentally click at too loudly. (Apparently baby sperm whales are more dangerous in this regard, as some divers have been partially paralyzed by being too close to a baby's click stream when the calf swims up to investigate them. The adults are more careful around humans swimming near them, which should tell you a lot about the complexity of their thinking). And we say that sticks and stones may break our bones, but words can never hurt us? We're not at the complex apex of the verbal ability scale.

    A lot of things use various forms of complex, coded verbal communication. Language is a gradation, not a phase change. I'm quite sure primates had coded screams for "Hawk!" "Snake!" and "Large Mammalian Predator!" a very long time before we evolved things like recursive sentences.

    No, the first phase change, as noted in previous blogs, was learning to start fires. I don't think it was a singular event, but rather an accumulation of observations and development of technique. At first it allowed us to effectively "digest" cellulose without having the guts for it, thereby getting the energy out to process other foods externally. Then we learned all the ways we could use heat to process and detoxify food, as well as keeping us warm. Then we learned that we could use our "external rumens"* to process the landscape by using fires in a variety of ways. Then we learned that if we cooked special rocks, they changed too (starting with chert, which makes better tool material if heat treated under a camp fire). Then we learned that if we cooked just the right rocks (like gold) hot enough, they melted. Then we learned to make kilns, learned to cook different rocks together in recipes to make alloys, and the race was on to see how much we could do with really hot fires.

    Now we're at the logical end-point of that, where modern civilization is burning so much stuff that the waste gases are changing our climate. Whether or not we go extinct, we will likely cause an extinction event, produce a large transient spike in our climate (transient on the order 100,000-200,000 years unless we get off our blogs and do something about it), and will have mixed species across continents in a way that will affect evolution for a billion years.

    That's what I call a phase change, and the part where we started playing with alloys only happened around 5,000 years ago, give or take. Think about what artificial intelligence will have to do to top that.

    *I first saw the term "external rumen" used to describe how earthworms process the soil. They eat, poop, eat their poop, poop, eat the poop that contained the poop, etc. until it's worm castings all the way down. Most of the stuff they're digesting is outside their bodies, hence the idea of a shared external rumen in your local worm bin. A campfire that warms your body and helps process your food into edibility is doing much the same thing as the earthworms' shared external rumen by breaking down the lignin, cellulose, and other materials in wood, not just outside your body, but in ways that can be shared.

    334:

    There is some ugly legislation out there, but nobody is campaigning on the idea that anyone should be executed for having an abortion. Maybe jailed for life, or fined, or making it a felony or a misdemeanor, but not executed.

    I'm talking about "recognition signals" rather than policy. Is this not obvious?

    335:

    970 tons?!? That's a large WW1 destroyer!

    It's a fair cop; Canada is really big and their solutions may not apply to reasonably sized nations. grin

    336:

    I disagree - I think that most progressives felt that it was racism and general right-wing scheisskopfenism.

    Agreed, but I don't think the NYT was 100 percent wrong. The economic anxiety is directly related to such things as "fear of immigrants stealing their jobs" or on the other side, the things police/teachers with racial animus can do to a Black person do have economic consequences. Politics on the Liberal side is about "dividing up the pie fairly." On the conservative side it's "making sure my slice of pie is bigger."

    337:

    Charlie ... ( @ 319) Minor typo... The Battle of Karbala was in 680 by christian reckoniong ..... & @ 320 FIRE / Language / Writing / PRINTING / Industrial revolution, particulalry ELECTRICTY ...

    Barry @ 324 YES - this is what I'm saying also & "EC" either cannot or will not see it, which is a pity, actually.

    EC @ 326 Agree (!) Singularities can take many years to happen, but once past them, there is no going back - which is ( I think ) the important principle.

    338:

    "There is some ugly legislation out there, but nobody is campaigning on the idea that anyone should be executed for having an abortion. Maybe jailed for life, or fined, or making it a felony or a misdemeanor, but not executed."

    They are campaigning and successfully passing laws so that abortion would be murder, the same as any other murder (except definitely pre-meditated).

    They say that of course it goes without saying that women wouldn't be face the penalties for murder, but they writing so that that would be the case.

    339:

    More to the point, it is almost impossible to medically distinguish between an abortion and a natural miscarriage after the fact. Especially a chemically-induced abortion. Unless a blood sample is taken within hours of the morning-after pill, there's just no way to know.

    Consequently in countries like El Salvador women who have been unfortunate enough to miscarry are being prosecuted for murder and jailed for life. Most recently, an underage rape victim who miscarried received a 30 year jail sentence.

    This is the logical destination of the Republican War on Women of Reproductive Age in the USA. Even if you don't like abortion, this isn't about opposing abortion: it's about locking down womens' social options and punishing them for not being baby incubators first and people second.

    340:

    Troutwaxer @255: But the two ideas you brought up are so fanciful that applying them to the majority of Democrats isn't even wrong.

    But, because hyperbole + excess = ratings, mass media makes it seem that way to the muggles.

    Unfortunately, in politics, perception matters more than reality.

    JBS @295: Reparations for slavery. I'm not against them, I think it's needful. I just can't figure out how to do it justly. You can't correct one wrong by creating another wrong, and I've seen no scheme yet that threads that needle.

    To be fair, the Democratic candidates and party apparatchiks who’ve pushed the concept mainly view it as a rhetorical flourish a) to sustain awareness of racism and African-American poverty as public issues and b) to strengthen existing policies such as affirmative action, welfare benefits, etc.

    The true believers, on the other hand, seems to have in mind something like a “whiteness tax” or a government-mandated transfer of a percentage of wealth/property from white Americans to African-Americans. (Note: regardless of the degree of their morality, neither of these would survive the inevitable challenges in court.)

    Meanwhile, the pundits who advocate for the idea—most notably Ta-Nehisi Coates, who revived the idea with an article he wrote several years ago—seem more interested in reparations as a forcing function for a truth and reconciliation process. The financial aspect is important but secondary. The African-American political/activist class views the U.S. as a super-sized analog to apartheid-era South Africa and, accordingly, views Nelson Mandela, his followers, and their reforms as a model.

    341:

    Note that this plan has the classic Boris hallmarks: it's big, it's bold, it relies on showmanship, shock, and awe, and who cares about details and consequences?

    Are we sure that BJ and DT are not related?

    342:

    Elderly Cynic @181: The military may be aware of the direct military consequences, but they can't be of the political ones and longer term military ones, because NOBODY knows what would happen if Trump area-bombed Tehran or even used nukes. Even if Iran has plans for that, and the USA knows them, neither side can be sure of how other countries would react and where that would lead. At best, they can make wild guesses and advise against opening that wormcan.

    The guesses aren’t wild; they’re educated. Operational plans, particularly the post-conflict phases, are developed, wargamed, and evaluated in consultation with subject matter experts drawn from the intelligence, diplomatic, and area studies academic communities. Understanding the local, regional, and global contexts is an integral part of the process. No, they can’t know with absolute certainty what will happen, but they do try to think through the consequences up to and including the worst case.

    As for advising against opening the wormcan, they do that. But, like I’ve been saying, the political leadership does what it wants regardless.

    Nile @300: The Kingdom wants someone else to prosecute a war if annihilation against Iran, with just enough of a role for the some - but not all of the Saudi armies to be plausible victors.

    Yep.

    What war does Turkey want, and what opportunities for gain are on offer to their generals?

    To exterminate the Kurds and reacquire territorial control of a chunk of Syria.

    Ataturk’s Turkey is long gone. Contemporary Turkey is a resurgent Ottoman Empire under a different name.

    Charlie Stross @319: What they actually want: water security, food security, energy security, an end to external powers meddling in their affairs, death upon the unbelievers (starting with the folks down the road they've had a doctrinal dispute with since 602AD).

    FWIW, the high-level analog used in the U.S. foreign policy community is that, in geopolitical terms, the Middle East is stuck in its version of the Thirty Years War.

    Personally, I think the Middle East is geopolitically insoluble. Particularly by any power located outside the region. The borders don’t reflect facts on the ground. The regimes are mostly imposed constructs with little or no relationship to the needs and wishes of their publics. Outside intervention, by the U.S. or anyone else, just makes things worse.

    I’d love to see the U.S. unilaterally withdraw all forces from the region and let the locals sort it out for themselves. Restrict our involvement to humanitarian aid funneled through the UN and NGOs. Oil prices would skyrocket, but that might just have the side benefit of incentivizing accelerated de-carbonization of the U.S. economy. Realistically though, Russia and/or China would just move in to fill the void, and the ensuing refugee crisis would dwarf what we saw in Syria a couple of years ago.

    343:

    "This is the logical destination of the Republican War on Women of Reproductive Age in the USA. Even if you don't like abortion, this isn't about opposing abortion: it's about locking down womens' social options and punishing them for not being baby incubators first and people second."

    I think that you are having the wrong point of view. You think about this in a more or less rational way. You just need to let your rational thinking to go for a vacation in order to understand the GOP opinion.

    I have some sympathy for the GOP point of view, even when I think that point point of view to be utter madness. I am, actually, a church going Christian of the protestant variety. That is the reason I think that I can understand the GOP point of view. I really do not agree with the GOP point of view, but I am still uneasy about the whole issue.

    In its most basic form the idea is that the new life is given by the God. Therefore it is an act against the God to prevent the birth. It may be that the rapist will be given death penalty, but the victim is supposed to give the birth. Remember, life is a gift from the God.

    At the same time the thinking includes, in its purest form, very strong penalties for rapists and pedophiles. Death is the default solution.

    In the purest form of this thinking the rapists will be killed, but the victim is required to give birth. The God has been served.

    344:

    Erwin @ 306: The whole 'work hard' thing may work occasionally, in much the same way that upward mobility in the US does. However, on average, it fails.

    Seems like there's a lot less "upward mobility" in the US in the 21st Century than there was in the 20th. As in almost none.

    345:

    A straw in the wind ... For complicated reasons I won't go into, I have a copy of last week's issue of "Country Life" magazine - big glossy & you would think county-tory through & through, yes? Two opinion articles des[airing of both main pol-parties trending & grovelling to their repective extremes, with no regard for the welfare of the whole country..... And One-&-a-Half articles, representiung the despair & anxiety of Farmers, facing a no-deal-brexit.

    The tory party was supposed to be the party of business & of the farmers, right? Yet the CBI & the IoD & now the Farmers are desperately begging for a course-change, only to be told by the BOZO to fuck off ... Same as Ireland has just been told that "we don't give a fuck" about the internal border or its regulation. I mean, seriously w.t.f? Or have they actually swallowed their own lies whole & complete, & really be;lieve all the lying bullshit, or what?

    346:

    Elderly Cynic @ 312: The context was purely and simply the posting of yours I was responding to - if you have just referred back, all would have been clear. But, to assist you, you said:

    ""I notice that Jeremy Hunt got fired, so I guess the idea of any kind of cooperative effort with Europe to deal with the problem is RIGHT OUT.""

    Ok, now I know which of the half-dozen or more posts I made on Thursday you were responding to.

    347:

    It is hard for me to express just how FUCKING PISSED OFF AT THE NEOFASCIST PHRASE, "the looney left", and I define anything described by it as being a restatement of what Rupert Murdoch says.

    Now, about some ideas... may I ask folks to ignore 'Nam, and look at all the other things LBJ pushed, and passed (Civil Rights, Medicare...) and tell me if that's the "looney left" also... or whether I am NOT exaggerating in calling the GOP, and all the right neoConfederates and neoFascists.

    348:

    a) It is no longer the case that most census-question-definition "white males" will never vote for a woman, vide the 2018 elections. b) Us Boomers are getting up there in age, and starting to die off. Is that clear enough? Too many folks I know are gone, and it would be interesting if I'm around for 20 more years....

    And, yes, I was eligible in the sixties for a free trip to the other side of the world, and instead, I was in the streets, including Chicago in '68.

    349:

    Charlie Stross @ 320: I maintain that we've been through a couple of singularities already.

    The third, contingent on the first two, was the development of practical artificial intelligences in the 17th-19th centuries, in the shape of the corporation: a structure for intelligently pursuing objectives without being dependent on impetus arising from a single person. (We might, if we squint, view the modern republic and its civil service as a related version of this system.) Earlier versions going back to the development of writing and agriculture (or before) tended to happen because of a head man, or a committee of head men (the elected governments of the early Greek democracies; the Roman senate).

    All our modern AI/computing stuff has done, for the most part, is to automate category 3 and render it less dependent on human bodies.

    Poul-Henning Kamp @ 321: Today the majority of big companies operate on a double-arms-length principle: Their shares are held by other corporations, mostly investment funds, and most of their shares are held via indirect means (pension funds) where the actual owner is actively discouraged from not only deciding what to invest in, but also from attempting any kind of influence.

    And that's what is killing democracy ... UNACCOUNTABLE corporations. Unaccountable because management can do anything it wants, break any law and cannot be called to account because the "corporation" is the person who commits those crimes. Corporations have become organized criminal enterprises; a cloak under which people, REAL people, ACTUAL REAL PEOPLE can get away with murder.

    I believe the U.S. needs a Constitutional Amendment declaring only natural people are "persons", that corporations are NOT persons. For legal purposes, any act of a corporation needs to be defined as an act of the CEO and other active managers of the corporation. The only limit that "limited liability" should provide is that individual shareholders are not FINANCIALLY responsible for more than their investment, unless they are ACTIVE managers and/or board members.

    350:

    I have never agreed with Jefferson once
    We have fought on like seventy-five diff’rent fronts
    But when all is said and all is done
    Jefferson has beliefs. Burr has none
    "The Election of 1800", by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

    351:

    Yes, we did. It didn't impact society as widely, but it was a technological singularity. The problem with the current one is that it's happening in a whole bunch of areas at once, from technology to jobs to environment to politics to military to... well, just about everywhere.

    These things don't last, but they can be extremely disruptive while they're going on. And the current one is strong enough that I put the odds of humanity (not civilization...that's separate) outliving the century at around 50%...and consider that a wild guess. (IF true General AI happens, civilization could outlast humanity. If a major, but not extreme, war happens humanity could outlast civilization. But if we fall, don't expect to be able to recover along the same path.)

    352:

    I'd count this form of Artificial Intelligence with originating (IIUC) with the Byzantine Empire and their bureaucracy. Corporations "merely" separated it from government.

    353:

    I see very little evidence that they (the US right wing) want to punish rapists, or even acknowledge the possibility that it could have happened. The justice system is set up to make even claiming that a rape has happened not only difficult and humiliating, but usually without result.

    I acknowledge that because of the nature of the crime it's usually difficult to be certain that the accusation is correct. That doesn't explain why it's made so humiliating.

    354:

    An interesting point is that under law as written, if not as interpreted, any corporation that "conspires to break the law" should be prosecutable under the RICO statues, with ALL it's wealth confiscated BEFORE it gets around to trying to defend itself.

    Another one is that while the corporation itself may not be able to be sent to jail, the same cannot be said of the executive levels, and even of the "working stiffs" who acted as the agents of the corporation. But that prosecution is also almost never done.

    355:

    Scott Sanford @ 325:

    In context, a "littoral vessel" tends to mean low draft and tonnage, designed primarily for patrolling coasts and archipelagos..."

    The Canadian Kingston class coastal defense vessels may be larger than you had in mind but Canada has a lot of coast. I had the pleasure of visiting the HMCS Whitehorse years ago and it struck me as a very appropriate amount of naval vessel for keeping troublemakers away from Canada. This was so long ago it still had a WWII vintage 40mm Bofors gun on the deck, which I read has been declared obsolete again but did fulfill the purpose of establishing the ship as too much naval force to ignore entirely.

    Scotland might not need the mine sweeping capacity or the 5000 mile range, but different tools for different jobs.

    Some notes from Wikipedia on the classes of ships I had in mind when I suggested the UK might want to institute escorted convoys through the Straits of Hormuz.

    The littoral combat ship (LCS) is a set of two classes of relatively small surface vessels designed for operations near shore by the United States Navy. It was "envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeating anti-access and asymmetric threats in the littorals." Littoral combat ships are comparable to the corvettes found in other navies.

    Modern navies began a trend in the late 20th and early 21st centuries towards smaller, more manoeuvrable surface capability. Corvettes have a displacement between 540 and 3,000 long tons (550 and 3,050 t) and measure 180–420 ft (55–128 m) in length. They are usually armed with medium- and small-caliber guns, surface-to-surface missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and antisubmarine weapons. Many can accommodate a small or medium antisubmarine warfare helicopter.

    The introduction of the surface-to-air missile after World War II made relatively small ships effective for anti-aircraft warfare: the "guided missile frigate". In the USN, these vessels were called "ocean escorts" and designated "DE" or "DEG" until 1975 – a holdover from the World War II destroyer escort or "DE". The Royal Canadian Navy and British Royal Navy maintained the use of the term "frigate"; likewise, the French Navy refers to missile-equipped ship, up to cruiser-sized ships (Suffren, Tourville, and Horizon classes), by the name of "frégate", while smaller units are named aviso. The Soviet Navy used the term "guard-ship" (сторожевой корабль).

    Ocean escort was a type of United States Navy warship. They were an evolution of the World War II destroyer escort types. The ocean escorts were intended as convoy escorts and were designed for mobilization production in wartime or low-cost mass production in peacetime. They were commissioned from 1954 through 1974, serving in the Cold War and the Vietnam War.[1][2]

    The Royal Navy & the USN managed to produce escort vessles during WWII to counter the U-Boat scourge. I don't see how that mission has changed all that much just because Iran doesn't use U-Boats in that way * ... other than you can see a pirate speed-boat or helicopter coming. Yeah, I understand about Iran's coastal missile launchers, but those could legitimately be pounded into dust by the USN's carrier based bombers if they were used to fire upon ships in the international corridor through Hormuz.

    * Yes, I know Iran has submarines. They don't appear to be using them the way the Germans used U-Boats during WWII

    356:

    Troutwaxer @ 331: I'm aware Greg. But in the U.S. these things are far enough outside the mainstream that I think they mainly function as recognition signals; nobody in the U.S. is ever going to execute a woman for having an abortion - maybe after another fifty years of propaganda, but certainly not now.

    Nobody is an awfully broad generalization.

    No State CURRENTLY makes having an abortion a capital crime, just as no State currently makes it a capital crime to provide legal abortion services.

    357:

    "I see very little evidence that they (the US right wing) want to punish rapists, or even acknowledge the possibility that it could have happened."

    Ah, I see. Unfortunately I have to agree.

    It is possible that my own ideological/religious context makes me blind to that type of things. In my own context rape is one the most hateful crimes. That is because in my thinking a new life, a child, is a gift from the God to the parents who want the child.

    A rape is completely against my beliefs.

    358:

    Ah - Peter Cook was perfect in the film.

    359:

    Anyone remembering the dissolution of the Yugoslavia will say you're wildly optimistic. It's going to be a lot worse.

    360:

    Troutwaxer @ 336:

    "I disagree - I think that most progressives felt that it was racism and general right-wing scheisskopfenism."

    Agreed, but I don't think the NYT was 100 percent wrong. The economic anxiety is directly related to such things as "fear of immigrants stealing their jobs" or on the other side, the things police/teachers with racial animus can do to a Black person do have economic consequences. Politics on the Liberal side is about "dividing up the pie fairly." On the conservative side it's "making sure my slice of pie is bigger."

    Point of fact: You are correct that the NYT was not 100% wrong; merely "99 and 44/100th percent" wrong.

    OTOH, you don't appear to understand "Liberal politics" in the U.S. at all. You keep citing the New York Times description of "Liberal politics" as if it were factual.

    It's NOT about "dividing up the pie fairly", it's about ensuring no one is denied the chance to get a slice (of whatever size) because of race, creed, gender, etc.

    The Preamble to the United States Constitution IS the Liberal manifesto:

    "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."[1]

    Liberals believe that should apply to EVERYONE in the U.S.; that no one is excluded from the general welfare and that no one is denied the Blessings of Liberty just because of where they came from or what color their skin is or what religion they believe or who they love.

    So called "Conservatives" are perfectly happy to have a smaller slice of the pie as long as they can be sure that Blacks, Hispanics, Poor People ... won't get any part of the pie at all.

    ------------------

    [1] It's a statement of purpose. The founders had feet of clay, and they failed when it came to the question of slavery.

    The actual Constitution failed to deliver on Jefferson's promise "that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness".

    But the founders knew they were not perfect and that writing the Constitution they couldn't foresee every problem. That's why they included the ability to Amend the Constitution to correct any problems that might arise. We're still working to be worthy of Jefferson's high flown rhetoric.

    361:

    David L @ 341:

    "Note that this plan has the classic Boris hallmarks: it's big, it's bold, it relies on showmanship, shock, and awe, and who cares about details and consequences?"

    Are we sure that BJ and DT are not related?

    Craniopagus Conjoined Twins? Each got half of a brain when they were separated.

    362:

    I dunno. We apparently had language for at least 70k years... but human life radically changed what, 17k years ago? 12k? Possibly with agriculture, when we could settle in larger groups than hunter/gatherers (or even nomads). A few hundred thousand years or the latter, and then *poof, ceramics, and new stone age, then metal....

    A second massive and sudden change could be ascribed to either the Industrial Revolution... or maybe the printing press, which spread knowledge, which allowed the Industrial Revolution.

    So much of the We're Heading For The Singularity!!! seems to be more of what's been going on since at least the seventies, except more so... and then it's "sorry, most jobs are done by automation", and the conversation that I've been trying to get started for 25-30 years, and only in the last year have I seen people starting to talk about it: what happens in what I refer to as the post-Adamic society, when you no longer need to earn your living by the sweat of your brow, or rather, when you don't have a job to earn food or shelter? What do you do with you life, and I don't mean the folks here, I mean the billions who ain't here.

    • Actually, we were pushed to develop agriculture once the cats domesticated us.
    363:

    FUBAR007 @ 342: Personally, I think the Middle East is geopolitically insoluble. Particularly by any power located outside the region. The borders don’t reflect facts on the ground. The regimes are mostly imposed constructs with little or no relationship to the needs and wishes of their publics. Outside intervention, by the U.S. or anyone else, just makes things worse.

    I’d love to see the U.S. unilaterally withdraw all forces from the region and let the locals sort it out for themselves. Restrict our involvement to humanitarian aid funneled through the UN and NGOs. Oil prices would skyrocket, but that might just have the side benefit of incentivizing accelerated de-carbonization of the U.S. economy. Realistically though, Russia and/or China would just move in to fill the void, and the ensuing refugee crisis would dwarf what we saw in Syria a couple of years ago.

    At the very least, I think we'd need some kind of maritime patrol of the mouths of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to keep them from exporting their bullshit. Not stopping all traffic; just monitoring & triage to quarantine the infection.

    364:

    The question no one asks: which jobs are they going to steal?

    I mean, most Americans don't want stoop labor, and most of that's been automated.

    Now if I were running, I'd be screaming to the skies about how many jobs any of these millionaires in Congress have personally created... in this country.

    365:

    “Now we're at the logical end-point of that, where modern civilization is burning so much stuff that the waste gases are changing our climate.”

    I’d like to expound on that. We’ve been terra forming the planet to suit our needs for the better part of 10,000 years starting with the agricultural revolution. Farming settlements starting out as small villages, then becoming towns and cities as populations grew. Technological advances also ramped up over this period, constructing canals, dams, roads, metallurgy, ship building, etc. All this created by a species that consumed more and more natural resources, forests, land, and water. The entire Mediterranean region became deforested starting about 3,500 years ago, and much of Europe about 2,000 years ago.

    Then our species started a period of circumnavigation of the planet a little over 500 years ago. It was during this period that populations grew exponentially along with consumption. With in 300 years North America became deforested east of the Mississippi River because of the agricultural needs of expanding populations. 200 years ago gave rise to the Industrial Revolution and the discovery of fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas (prehistoric flora and fauna) extracted from the under the earth to burn for energy. Hence, rising CO2 levels.

    Today we have a society based on consumption, that is the belief that the more that is consumed the better off everyone is. We even came up with financial institutions and mechanisms to help perpetuate this system of more consumption called banks extending loans/credit and governments extending deficit spending. Bottom line, we are a very greedy species.

    366:

    That's one thing - the concept of a corporation as an "artificial person" came through court cases in the 1860's-1870's in the US. There is no Constitutional basis. Why an Amendment, when all you need to do is write a law?

    And the law, of course, should make it clear that all misdeeds by the corporation are, by definition, the guilt of the execs.

    367:

    whitroth @ 348: And, yes, I was eligible in the sixties for a free trip to the other side of the world, and instead, I was in the streets, including Chicago in '68.

    Almost won the booby prize jackpot myself. Got the notice for the pre-induction physical in October 1970 (mine wasn't quite as much fun as Arlo's). Was told to watch my mailbox, the letter would arrive in a couple of weeks. If I had any travel plans I should keep my local Draft Board informed of where I could be reached by mail.

    Politics ensued and for some reason the letter didn't come. Didn't come in November. Didn't come in December ... didn't come in January 1971. Never came. And after January I more or less forgot about it (the draft notice, not the war).

    I enlisted in the National Guard in 1975. Retired in 2007.

    368:

    whitroth @ 366: That's one thing - the concept of a corporation as an "artificial person" came through court cases in the 1860's-1870's in the US. There is *no* Constitutional basis. Why an Amendment, when all you need to do is write a law?

    And the law, of course, should make it clear that all misdeeds by the corporation are, by definition, the guilt of the execs.

    Because the Supreme Court couldn't rule that a Constitutional Amendment is "UN-Constitutional".

    369:

    Perhaps you didn't know: rape is not about sex, but about power, "power over".

    Which is why you read about frats, etc, fucking another guy, but not thinking they're gay.

    370:

    You've probably heard this, but if not I think you'll like it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGYMYrEbvak

    (Oysterband: My Country Too)

    371:

    I have my own personal version of the Alice's Restaurant massacre, runs 10-12 minutes, with two-part harmony an' feelin'. The high point is where they sargant where I went for my physical looks at me, looks at my papers, looks at me, motions me away from his desk, which I assume was bugged, looks at my papers, and looks at me, and say, and this is a direct quote, not a paraphrase, "Is there anything that will get you out?"

    372:

    Sorry, but as I said, there is nothing in the Constitution that supports the concept of an artificial person.

    And I'd also say that, before you (or they) answer, consider carefully that it they say an artificial person is a person, with all the rights and duties thereof, I'll walk out, buy cloud time, set up about 10,000 AIs, incorporate all of them, and register them all to vote.

    373:

    I dunno. We apparently had language for at least 70k years... but human life radically changed what, 17k years ago? 12k?

    The water rose up. (Last glacial maximum is 21k years BP.)

    It is extremely difficult to begin to tell what was down there on the continental shelves; there are scholarly articles about human caused features ("that was probably a canal") and the gene-examining end of botany is starting to think initial agricultural domestication in the tropics happened quite some time further back. But we can be reasonably sure that was the nice land, and where a goodly portion of the people were. You can make the argument -- though I have no idea how you'd falsify it -- that the post-melt environment was the first time humans got into sustained resource competition with each other.

    374:

    One of the problems you get into with the "no artificial people" clause is that contracts and lawsuits only happen between "people." Without this, you can't sue a company, you can only sue a person or people. Similarly, you cannot contract with a company, you can only contract with a person.

    So let's talk about, say, cell phones. Without corporations, you buy your phone from a person, and you contract to get your phone service either with that person or with another person. If your contractors leave the company, your contract for service is void until you make a contract with another person. Given the high turnover rates of salespeople, this could get troublesome.

    Anyway, it's ultimately kind of feudal. Those who would prosper in an anti-corporate society would be those who were loyal and trustworthy.

    That's the advantage of corporations. Thing is, they're not the biggest problem.

    As all the billionaires know, the point is control, not ownership. Only people can own things, and once you're a person who owns stuff, you can be taxed on that stuff. Relationships cannot be taxed. Since a Trust is a relationship (you trust someone to take care of your stuff), if you have a trust owning your stuff, technically, you do not own it. Furthermore, it cannot be taxed, because a person doesn't own it. However, within certain limits, you control the stuff that your trust owns. A classic example of a limit caused by a trust is what happens to properties in trust during a divorce. The divorcing partner may try to get half of what's in the trust, only to discover that their ex does not own the trust, and the trust will not allow them to take half the property out, because they do not own it. This is a standard dodge to allow the rich to not pay their debts. They may technically be paupers, owning almost nothing, but they control billions in property.

    This is the biggest problem. Currently the economy that's floating out there in offshore financial centers trust heaven is around $60 trillion, or three times the size of the US GDP. This is the tail that wags dogs all around the world.

    Now, we could get rid of trusts, which would cause various problems. More importantly, they'd make the world financial system look more like that of, say, Saudi Arabia or Latin America, both places where trusts aren't exactly welcome. Perhaps that would be an improvement?

    Anyway, those trillions of dollars sitting out there, untaxable, owned by people who do not want to pay their debts, that's what's causing the trouble. The corporations are just part of the mechanism of control. And when you hear that megacorps are more interested in control than in immediate profits? That's also what's going on.

    375:

    Could you explain what corporate personhood has to do with executives getting away with crimes?

    If you instruct a human being to commit a crime, and then that human being goes and does as you instruct, then YOU can go to jail for that. (For conspiracy, if nothing else.) So I don't see how any amount of corporations-being-like-humans protects the executives from going to jail.

    Am I missing something?

    (I am assuming you are talking about crimes that the executives somehow cause the corporation to commit. If the secretary is relaying coded messages for the mafia without the executives' knowledge, I assume you'd agree the executives are not responsible for that.)

    376:

    explain what corporate personhood has to do with executives getting away with crimes?

    At the very brutal end, the executives who authorised the safety shortcuts in Bhopal killed thousands of people. Allegedly I hear that not only is the company that employed them extremely willing to sue anyone who claims or even suggests liability might exist, but that this isn't the place to discuss the topic.

    Now, outside of a corporate context, if I was to release 45 tonnes of methyl isocyanate gas in the middle of a major city I kind of think the legal system would take a dim view of my actions. Even if I said "I didn't mean to do it, I was just storing it in this rusty tank in my backyard while I tried to work out how to get around the court order banning me from storing it here". Pretty sure that even in the US I would end up in jail.

    But as an employee of a corporation I would be completely outside that kind of criminal law enforcement action, and I'd at worst be told that I'd been naughty, the corporation would pay my fines and then pay me to retire. Contrary to the "just following orders" doctrine you may have heard about*, employees who follow orders, even implicit suggestions, are almost never liable for the consequences (e.g. US corporations that kill don't see their CEO executed). The "corporate person" is obviously completely outside of the normal legal sanctions system - you can't arrest one, deny it bail, then imprison it. Fines are never multiples of the assets except when ownership shenanigans take place, where for actual people fines frequently exceed their assets even for minor offences.

    • note that the US exempts itself and the people it orders from this doctrine.
    377:

    We have a looney left, probably about five-percent of the population. We also have a looney right, which seems to be more like twenty-percent of the population (thanks Faux news.) Seventy-five percent of America is within spitting distance of rationality, though most prefer not to go there.

    For myself, I'm fairly far to the left - my great-grandfather had a Communist Party Card with a three digit membership number - but I'm more a European-type socialist than anything else. (If I had to vote for President today, I'd probably go for Warren.)

    378:

    "It's NOT about "dividing up the pie fairly", it's about ensuring no one is denied the chance to get a slice (of whatever size) because of race, creed, gender, etc."

    Your description is much better. I realized I'd done a poor job of describing Liberalism almost as soon as I'd posted: I plead insufficient caffeine.

    379:

    The whole thing is not terribly rational.

    Rationally, you'll get a better job or a new job when the economy improves. You'll lose your job when the economy gets worse. Meanwhile, you should be playing defense where your own rights are concerned.

    380:

    They don't have to be related. That's what makes human language a singularity, at least in my terms - humans become Lamarckian, rather than Darwinian.
    (Frank and others will argue about my definitions of Darwinian, I'm sure. But the point remains - "fitness" is transmissible, for people. Along with other things.)

    381:

    Well. The presumption that immigration hurts no one seemed to be rooted in an approximation in which there was no friction and therefore citizens in, eg, stoop labor jobs immediately found something more skilled as they were displaced. While this might be somewhat true on a generational perspective, it probably isn't true on shorter timespans, as many people retrain by dying and having their children perform different tasks.

    The reality is that there are perfectly nice people who simply have very limited upwards potential.

    Eg - our occasional maid service is much cheaper than it would be otherwise. And yes, she is a citizen - and a nice lady - just with a few issues which prevent upwards mobility.

    Now, this doesn't change the probably fact that the models I have seen indicate that creeping automation is a bigger component in reducing the need for low skilled labor.

    (Regarding upwards mobility, it is still true that a sufficiently skilled, capable, and lucky individual can do very well in the US - probably better than elsewhere. That said, the system serves those below, um, the 75th percentile poorly. Another issue is that an awful lot of bright people end up in finance, which is largely unproductive. A bright side of Brexit could be the end of London as a financial center.)

    But this gets back to a singularity. The notion of a singularity from an individual viewpoint is probably BS. But...from a generational viewpoint - they are more common. By this I'd mean changes that occur faster than our societal fabric can cope. and by cope, it is probably an epheumism for giving the old people time to die. Maybe the spread of calculating machines. (Which naturally lead to horrible outcomes for many calculators). Or maybe to the development of self driving cars (which will be personally awesome as my wife is an interesting driver but which will probably not be great for the average trucker). The gradual development of generalizable AI will most likely gradually replace most occupations. (As most occupations, when you come down to it, are depressingly stupid.) (Seriously, try working in regulatory for an established product.)

    The next crisis is probably creeping joblessness coupled with out of date economics.

    In my darker moments, I console myself by opting for solar power and support of self driving cars because of the pain they inflict on Trump-supporting regions and note that immigration, long-term, will probably be higher under Trump-like policies than under Democratic ones. (Obama supported eVerify, which would probably discourage economic migration.)

    382:

    The presumption that immigration hurts no one seemed to be rooted in an approximation in which there was no friction and therefore citizens in, eg, stoop labor jobs immediately found something more skilled as they were displaced

    Not really. You’re assuming that all immigrants become unskilled labourers, and that’s plainly false. Instead you should expect pretty much the same mix of unskilled, professional, highly skilled, etc as the rest of the community (and a bias toward an appetite for education in the younger generation).

    The outcome is that the economy in the destination country grows with the population growth, which is the normal way for an economy to grow. That means as demand increases the demand for all sorts of labour increases to take up the extra jobseekers. That is actually how it works. Where it doesn’t work like this is where demand and the supply of labour are decoupled. And the business model for many producers may depend on “illegals” being a source of artificially cheap (in other words not very far from slave) labour. And in other words the present situation is engineered to the advantage of dishonest players in a way that an open system would not.

    383:

    "what happens in what I refer to as the post-Adamic society"

    Aha! Someone else who calls it that :)

    And as to what do people do... the answer is (in very many cases)... Nothing.

    And that is JUST FINE.

    If people want to spend all their days sitting on their arse watching TV then let them do it. Don't get on their case about it or complain that their talents are somehow being wasted. If they actually have any to avoid wasting they are at least now in a position to decide to do something with them instead of watching TV; the real waste of talent is with all the people who currently do not have the choice of doing something with them instead of doing something that could and should better be done by a machine or just not done at all.

    People will have the opportunity to do all kinds of things that currently are done badly because you can't get the time to do them unless you do them so as to make money. It will be an obvious godsend for "the arts". Think of Charlie being able to write what he wanted at the pace that best suited him, instead of having to write what publishers dictate will sell at a pace also dictated by the publishers. I'm bloody sure he would be not one whit less popular, and would have an audience at least as large and as appreciative, but probably quite a bit more diverse; what he wouldn't be writing would be blog posts about how the pressures he has to deal with in order to carry on doing something that he wants to are fucking him up.

    It also helps matters for sciences - mathematics being perhaps the most obvious - goodness only knows how many potentially brilliant mathematicians have been wasted down the centuries because nobody wanted to give someone money to do maths. Drug development will be assisted because there won't be any distractions to supersede the aim of making people not be ill, and no motivation to invent obscure ways to make them ill so you can then sell things to put them back to normal. "Green" chemistry will also gain the input of the currently untapped pool of amateur talent, who already have a head start in that field from the ingenuity necessary to do interesting chemistry at home without filling your house with 1000 different flavours of highly toxic shite. Greg will be absolutely in his element, breeding new vegetables to cope with new conditions. And so on.

    Which is not to say that we can't still have a space programme if we want to. As long as enough people want one to get together to do it. That shouldn't be too hard when competition between nations will be no longer limiting the potential supply of talent any more than the current vast waste at the individual level will be.

    The only people who really will be worse off are those who really can't know what to do with themselves if there isn't someone else acting as an external prosthetic imagination (as distinct from the considerably larger number of people who just think they can't because they're too used to not doing it). They can... eerrrerrrruuuhhh... oh, fuck it, join the army I suppose, we can always have a special one just for them to be in even if we don't need it for shooting.

    384:

    The archeology around the baltic hints that agriculture happened by necessity due to overpopulation.

    The long period previous is remarkable in the sense that absolutely nothing seems to happened. Hunter gatheres migrate to the forrest inland during winter and to the coast during summer for several thousand, possibly up to 25 thousand years. Almost no technological innovation seems to happen in this period.

    (Look up the "kitchen-middens" where they dumped their oyster-shells)

    But there is signs that the population keeps growing, slowly but growing, and at some point, food-stress seems to have forced them into a more laborious lifestyle which eventually turns into agriculture.

    385:

    One of the interesting aspects of "post-adamic" society is that it will be horribly exposed to fashions and fads.

    Imagine a television documentary about a small group of people who jump on their bikes in Denmark in August, and heads for the south to spend the winter some where with olives, then in march, jump on them again and head north for a nice beach vacation.

    They EU citizens, so of course they can do that, and why wouldn't they ?

    Next year, you have 200.000 people on bikes, trashing up and down through Europe like a plague of locust...

    386:

    I think the best bet at rolling back the unaccountability of the 1%'ers is to move taxation to transactions between separate entities.

    Basically a VAT with no refund.

    It used to be that taxes on wages was a good proxy for overal economic activity, but so-called "Intellectual Property" which does not require physical transport, automation and off-shoring has ruined that.

    Taxing all economic transactions means that even FaceBook & Google would pay tax on their turnover in Denmark for instance.

    The advantage of taxing this way is that while profits are fictions to be manipulated, the transaction which moves money from purchaser to seller is very much a fact.

    My back of the envelope calculation says that in Denmark we could replace the revenue from the current 25% VAT, the corporate tax and the income tax with a 5% transaction tax which multi- and trans-nationals could not escape.

    The easiest way to implement it would be to make banks and credit cards responsible for sifting the 5% of while the money moves.

    One particular nice aspect of this is that it all but eliminates economic paperwork when starting a company. (But of course not health-inspections etc.)

    Interestingly, OECD is currently moving towards a turn-over tax for transnationals.

    387:

    I dunno. We apparently had language for at least 70k years... but human life radically changed what, 17k years ago? 12k? Possibly with agriculture, when we could settle in larger groups than hunter/gatherers (or even nomads). A few hundred thousand years or the latter, and then *poof, ceramics, and new stone age, then metal...

    You're not wrong.

    That was definitely a singularity, and a very important one in the human story. I'm thinking you may have missed my point about there being two kinds of singularity.

    There are the lowercase-s singularities which change civilization, such as the development of agriculture, writing, or steam engines. We've had a bunch of those, some more important than others. Then there's the uppercase-S Singularity as futurist wankers imagine it, a nigh magical transition that cannot be understood from outside and makes the people within it fundamentally different from those without. I think humanity has only had the one.

    Other phase changes can be considered without taking part in them. There are people who have examined the benefits of life with agriculture or the internet or cats and decided to give it a miss.

    388:

    Whitroth @ 362 But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him. Of course the Man was wild too. He was dreadfully wild. He didn’t even begin to be tame till he met the Woman, and she told him that she did not like living in his wild ways. She picked out a nice dry Cave, instead of a heap of wet leaves, to lie down in; and she strewed clean sand on the floor; and she lit a nice fire of wood at the back of the Cave; and she hung a dried wild-horse skin, tail-down, across the opening of the Cave; and she said, ‘Wipe your feet, dear, when you come in, and now we’ll keep house.’ ....‘Ah,’ said the Cat, listening, ‘this is a clever Woman, but she is not so clever as I am.’ ....... Cat said, ‘I am not a friend, and I am not a servant. I am the Cat who walks by himself, and I wish to come into your cave. ...... I am being supervised by the UNSPEAKABLY CUTE Birman Tom-Kitton ( aged 11 ) right now. If I don't make enough fuss, he will start to polish himself on the top right corner of the second screen ... yeah - who'se in charge here ????????

    JBS @ 363 I think we'd need some kind of maritime patrol of the mouths of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to keep them from exporting their bullshit. FAR far too late fopr that, the dealdy brain-rot of islam is out across the planet, just like christianity, also from that benighted region, rotting brains & killing & enslaving .....

    Pigeon @ 383 Greg will be absolutely in his element, breeding new vegetables to cope with new conditions. Already started in a very small way ... saving & selecting seed from difficult-to-find varieties & selecting for ones that do best in my microclimate & also applying classic selection pressure to a very attractive plant that is also a potentialdrug supply ( Papaver somniferum ) by rooting out all the "Boring red ones" - I'm now getting all the dark-purple / double / parrot-headed / very deep red types instead as I apply that filter to the available gene pool! Keeps all the Bumble-bees v happy too.

    PHK @ 384 REQUIRED reading "Early Humans" ( in Britan ) No 134 from the amazing New Naturalist series

    389:

    Fines are never multiples of the assets except when ownership shenanigans take place, where for actual people fines frequently exceed their assets even for minor offences.

    This is not actually true. I can give you a hard, factual example.

    Back around 2011, the US DoJ went after Apple and the Big Five publishing conglomerates for price fixing, in response to a complaint by Amazon (which at that time haf 92% of the retail ebook market stitched up, and didn't want Apple and the publishers making an end run around the Kindle platform).

    It's a lot easier to prove collusion than it is to prosecute a monopoly, as the DoJ discovered previously (breaking its teeth on AT&T, IBM, and Microsoft). So the DoJ since about 1995 focusses disproportionately on price-fixing, and jointly sued Apple, HarperCollins, Hachette, Penguin Random House, and Macmillan. They demanded fines equal to a percentage of the annual revenue of the parties to the lawsuit.

    Apple didn't want to get into a pissing match with the DoJ (risk of a sore-ass DoJ adding anti-trust charges over the closed iOS platform: medium to high) so bowed out immediately.

    The DoJ then went after the remaining defendants … keeping the level of fines the same. One by one, the publishers caved, pleading guilty, because they're big but they're much, much smaller than Apple and the fines were onerous. Last one standing was Macmillan, a subsidiary of a privately-held company. Eventually they caved, too. As Joh Sergeant, CEO of Macmillan, explained to his authors: "we're not guilty, but the risk is too great—the level of fines we're facing as the last defendant exceed our market valuation and would instantly bankrupt us".

    It's all about the politics, and in this case, the politics of the DoJ declining to prosecute an obvious monopoly (Amazon had 92% of the US ebook market at the time Apple announced the iBooks store: they're still around 90% in the UK and 80% in the USA) in favour of going after the folks trying to break the monopolist's business model.

    390:

    Next year, you have 200.000 people on bikes, trashing up and down through Europe like a plague of locust…

    Politely: bullshit.

    The USA already kinda-sorta has this: snowbirds — mostly retirees with modest assets, who discover an RV (self-propelled mobile home built on a truck/coach chassis) is cheaper than a house, and so they up sticks and migrate, spending the winter in Florida and the summer somewhere cooler/more pleasant.

    Leaving aside that RVs are much worse for the environment than bicycles, I'm pretty sure there are rather more snowbirds already living this lifestyle in the US. So if you want an example of a fad lifestyle, you should probably try a bit harder ...

    391:

    Oh fucking SHIT Rees-Smaug has issued instructions to his staff, one of which is actually illegal ... and I quote: "Use imperial measurements."

    I mean WHAT THE FUCK? I started using what was than called the "mks" syatem, back when I turned 14 in 1960. The International System of Measurements is the NATIONAL STANDARD & is enforced by law - unless you are Rees-Smaug it seems. We use a couple of old "Imperial" meansurements by convention & for convenience - the Pint & the mile ... but even there, they are DEFINED as metric equivalents: 568 ml & 1.6 km, respectively ( to 3 sig figures, anyway )

    392:

    That is not the case in the UK. In many cases, the employee IS held criminally responsible - though the executive who gave them orders (with the threat of the sack for refusal) is not. I have been close to being in the former situation.

    393:

    No, it isn't necessarily illegal. The UK is a mess as far as units goes, and we have (deliberately) never completed the transition. Metric units are used for some purposes, Imperial for others and there is no constraint in yet others. Yes, I agree that our units are now defined in terms of metric: a mile is exactly 1,609,344 millimetres, incidentally.

    He did have two good rules: double space after full stops and no comma following 'and'. Both help with comprehensibility.

    394:

    A friend of mine resigned from a job a few years ago after being instructed to cut corners on a safety critical system. Took legal advice and decided the risk of a few weeks unemployment was worth it.

    He hasn't regretted it.

    I can see it being a harder decision if you don't have marketable skills though.

    395:

    The UK is not that different. As you may have noticed, I am probably best described as a heretical radical, with anarchist and socialist tendencies. There are more of us than is often admitted, which is not to say that any two agree on anything :-)

    http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/350.html

    396:

    double space after full stops and no comma following 'and'. Both help with comprehensibility.

    Wrong.

    Double-space after full stops is best handled by the document processor's text styling system, not by introducing spurious whitespace that will require a regexp to filter out when the document is processed by a non-human thing (e.g. a web scraper extracting content from official documents in order to help inform the public of MPs correspondence).

    And the comma exists for a reason: it separates subordinate clauses which, in the presence of a conjunction, denoted by and, disambiguates a proposition. (Apply JRM's law to the preceding sentence then try to make sense of it.) Here's where a missing comma cost a company $5 million. (A badly drafted law governing contracts omitted a comma; as law-making is precisely what the government is there to do, I find JRM's cavalier approach to punctuation … disturbing and, furthermore, pretentious.)

    398:

    You need a regexp, anyway, to handle the case of the full stop occurring at the end of the line. And a lot of text is read as it is created, in simple 'ASCII', not formatted by a fancy system. I remember when the rule "no double spacing" came in, and it was part of the "secretary modern" style including no spacing between paragraphs or paragraph indentation. Such text is damn near unreadable because, if you lift your eyes for a moment, you can't find where you were. But it WAS fractionally cheaper for the publisher, because it packed more on the page, so that's all right, then.

    I agree with you about subordinate clauses, but what I thought he was referring to was this regrettably common practice: "Grease-Smaug was a sanctimonious child and, he hasn't changed since." Therefore the instruction is wrong, because it is seriously ambiguous.

    399:

    I find JRM's cavalier approach to punctuation … disturbing and, furthermore, pretentious.

    The whole style thing is typical of him though. It's a callback to "old" standards, and is wrong.

    It also plays into his eccentric Victorian bullshit — which like the Boris persona detracts from what an evil little so-and-so he is.

    400:

    You will realise the consequences of the latter case, but others may not, because I realise I didn't explain in detail. Sorry. If the clause following the "and," is itself followed by a subordinate clause, the commas parse the sentence as if the clause following the "and," is subordinate, when it is not. I have seen that many times, and it's damn hard to parse - one example took me a minute of head-scratching.

    In a way, I am surprised at his rule, because using a comma after "and" in the way I described was common in the 17th century, and had more-or-less disappeared until it was resuscitated recently.

    401:

    EC Not so We are fully "metricated" - i.e. ALL offical measurements are made in & using the "International System of Units" ... & it hasn't been called "metric" for some time, now. The two outliers are defined as stated by my self, above. Besides which I'm certain no-one under the age of at least 50 has the faintest idea what "imperial" units are or were .... It's stupid, it's illegal & it causes confusion. Note: - I have zero intention of going back to "imperial" except for 568-ml of BEER per serving, thank you very much!

    On a side-note I see that Corbyn has finally admitted that a no-deal would seriously harm the NHS - took long enough ... now then, when is he going to back a "final say" - i.e. how long before he is dragged, kicking & screaming to face reality? OTOH, I see that the Lem0crats are proposing to "Not Stand" against known popular "remainers" in other parties where necessary, to avoid splitting the vote. ALL we need now is a for a Vote of No Confidence to succeed - which require at least some of the following conditions: Get the SNP to vote as "Not confident" - will they, or would they rather wreck Britain & the Union for their cheished, supposed even-more-bankrupt-than-England "independance"? Get at least 10 & preferably 20+ left-wing tories to vote "Not Confident" Bribe the NI loons to vote "not confident" since money & corruption is all they appear to understand ....

    402:

    Oops. For illegal immigration, there is a tendency to tend towards the lower end of the spectrum in wages. For legal immigration, the tendency is probably towards the higher end, but with a habit of significantly underpaying for an equivalent job. Last startup I worked at typically boosted pay by 10-15k after someone got a green card.

    So, for illegal immigration, there should be a change in the relative supply of unskilled labor. (Which is seen, as, eg, stoop labor would otherwise be rather more costly.)

    Another way to put is that, anytime someone claims that citizens won't do some type of work - it should rephrased to either - citizens won't do that type of work for the wages offered because we can hire cheaper labor or the business is noneconomic without lowering wage rates by importing labor.

    Now, yes, any generic increase in labor supply just grows the economy and more than that, with an aging native workforce, funds care for retired workers. But, the implemented immigration system in the US does disadvantage low skill citizen workers.

    Now, if you were interested in raising low skill wages, a mandatory e-verify program and some sort of immigrants right bill where you could sue for triple damages if underpaid relative to comparable labor, also with h1bs owned by the worker rather than the company, would actually help people impacted by immigration. Now, this would still be bad, eg, for me, because strawberries would be expensive and we probably couldn't afford maid service.

    One frustration is that the current administration is more interested in evil-signalling than actually doing anything substantive. I mean, something worse than policies I disagree with. From a national perspective, not even wrong. I mean, decent politically for racists, but not even productive.

    403:

    Bribe the NI loons to vote "not confident" since money & corruption is all they appear to understand ....

    The first rule of that sort of politics is that you have to stay bought. Anything else is bad for future business.

    I expect the DUP to stay on side for the duration of their current agreement for that reason alone.

    404:

    Road signpost distances are in miles, speed limits are in MPH, etc. And at least the latter (probably also the former) are used in the law of the land. For evidence:

    https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1983/1168/contents/made https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/24/contents/made

    A quick search finds that troy ounces (as well as pints) are still legal for trade, and yards and ounces are defined (for what purposes, I can't say). There may well still be others used for other purposes, and I certainly have seen acres used (recently) in sales material.

    405:

    Actually, I think that both of you are maligning them. For all their grievous faults, they are generally a party of principle (often loathesome principle, to be sure). The most likely reason for them to break off the arrangement is because they believe that Bozo has shafted them, or is about to.

    Their current potential demands (and they haven't made them yet) are because they made an arrangement with May, and they have said that it needs to be renegotiated with Bozo. I don't think any of us here know exactly what they and May agreed, which includes the term of the agreement.

    406:

    This is the DUP you're talking about, who were never going to vote down Theresa May on a confidence matter for fear of causing a Sinn Fein-supporting PM yet still wangled a billion quid for a confidence and supply arrangement. Let's not presume crowbarring another chunk out of the Tories is beyond their talents.

    407:

    Snowbirds are precisely USAnian pensioners, I don't think you can find a more bicycle-adverse demographic if you tried.

    In the post-adamic society in Europe we are talking about, it would be young people from bicycle-native nations like Denmark and Holland.

    Not really a relevant comparison if you ask me...

    My point is that if you have the majority of the population lounging around with enough resources to survive without any scheduled duties, you'd better have a good way to deal with flash-mobs...

    408:

    My understanding, by hearsay, is that 10-15k is about what it costs reach year for a company to help push through a green card and upkeep some other work visa. But the one time I saw salary info for an immigrant from China I think he was paid around 2/3 of what his peers were paid, which was more like 40k different.

    409:

    Greg, I'm fairly sure that under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act the motion of no confidence has to be submitted by either the Government or the official Opposition, so Corbyn. And he won't submit another unless he thinks he can win an election.
    Although the SNP is now the third largest party, so that means they get three days a month to debate their pet motions, so in theory perhaps Ian Blackford can submit a confidence motion via that route. Whether the Speaker accepts it is a different question.

    410:

    Get the SNP to vote as "Not confident" - will they, or would they rather wreck Britain & the Union for their cheished, supposed even-more-bankrupt-than-England "independance"?

    They'll vote no confidence in Boris. It's inevitable.

    a) Boris is extremely unpopular in Scotland—more than 70% regard him as untrustworthy and incompetent, and while his presence as PM raises support for Scottish Independence about 3-4%, not voting to get rid of him would play really badly throughout Scotland.

    b) There's a risk that if Boris is allowed to stay in Number 10 his headbanger cabinet will push him to roll back devolution. (Ruth Davidson won't do anything to stop that—she's on his shit-list.) So they want him out; Corbyn would be much easier to deal with (even though he leads a party that see the SNP as an existential threat to Scottish Labour).

    c) There are two outcomes to a confidence vote: the government falls, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, SNP are no worse off than they are now. If it falls, there are two outcomes: Boris is re-elected, or he's given the boot. Same argument applies.

    The only real risk for the SNP in voting no confidence in Boris is that he might win an election, with an expanded majority. But if he thinks he can do that he'll force an election anyway.

    Get at least 10 & preferably 20+ left-wing tories to vote "Not Confident"

    That's the hard part.

    The Tory party is the party of clinging onto power by any means possible.

    This is also true at an individual level, and expecting Tory MPs to vote no confidence in a Tory government right now, with BXP snapping at their heels, is like asking turkeys to vote for Mr Big Bad Wolf.

    411:

    "You’re assuming that all immigrants become unskilled labourers, and that’s plainly false."

    That's a good point. When my grandfather arrived in the U.S. he immediately got a job with the University of Minnesota as a translator in Russian and Yiddish.

    412:

    Another way to put is that, anytime someone claims that citizens won't do some type of work - it should rephrased to either - citizens won't do that type of work for the wages offered because we can hire cheaper labor or the business is noneconomic without lowering wage rates by importing labor.

    A few years ago when the neocons ruled Canada, food retailers in Fort MacMurray* had a hard time finding minimum-wage employees to serve coffee and donuts. Turns out when there's a lot of high-paying jobs around people prefer them. For a while they did what they could with student labour**, but then they realized that they would make more money with cheap labour who couldn't take a high-paying job elsewhere — so they petitioned for and were granted the ability to hire foreign workers (using a program that grants temporary work visas to foreign workers with critical skills no Canadian has). The visa is granted for a particular job, you see, so the worker can't simply quit and go to a high-paying job elsewhere.

    So rather than a rising tide lifting all boats, business owners discovered a government-sanctioned method of chaining the lowest-level workers to anchors. And pouring coffee for minimum wage became a critical skill.

    *City closest to the Tar Sands, who's economy is dependent on, and strongly distorted by, oil sector wages. Cost of living was high because of the number of people working in the oil sector (who made incredible wages).

    **One Tim Hortons franchise offered university scholarships to long-term employees, for example.

    413:

    With regard to low wage/immigrant workers, there's an interesting development going on. I'm not an economist and don't fully understand the implications, but FWIW,

    https://www.expressnews.com/business/local/article/The-worst-we-ve-ever-seen-San-Antonio-14117030.php

    ‘The worst we’ve ever seen’: San Antonio hotels are struggling to find workers by Madison Iszler July 23, 2019 Updated: July 24, 2019 4:27 p.m. [EXCERPTS]
    With San Antonio’s unemployment rate hitting historic lows, hoteliers in the city’s $15.2 billion tourism industry are struggling to find housekeepers, dishwashers and waiters. It’s never been easy recruiting for jobs that involve hard work and low pay, but the crunch is reaching new levels of pain. To attract the entry-level workers they need, companies are forced to raise wages and change hiring practices. [a hotel staffing company], for example, is bringing on more part-time workers and relying on temp agencies for help with staffing — a departure from years past. In a humming economy, hotel operators aren’t just competing with each other, said Ed McClure, CEO of Boerne-based Phoenix Hospitality Group, which recently opened the Bevy hotel in Boerne. They’re also up against construction firms, retail stores and health care organizations hungry for the same entry-level workers. A broken immigration system doesn’t help. The hospitality industry depends on many immigrant workers, including those with H-2B visas for seasonal work and undocumented employees.
    414:

    EC @ 404 SIGH YEs, but, very important but ... the BASE UNITS are all International System ... all the others are "derived" & are accepted by long convention. You will find however, that all legal defintions are in "International" - this is what the mis-named "metric martyrs" was all about - they refused to have their scales ( principally ) re-calibrated to IS standards, or to show both sets of measures.

    Charlie ... Re. BOZO .. more than 70% regard him as untrustworthy and incompetent THE SAME applies here, actually ...

    I think Hammond f'rinstance would vote Boris down - how many would follow him? I am of the opinion that we can survive a Coryn "government" IF we are in the EU ... But if we are out of the EU & especially if no deal ... then it doen't matter which so-called "government " we have it will be an utter disaster...

    Here's a list ( which may not be accurate ) of why BOZO is unsuitable

  • Sacked for making up a quote while working as a newspaper journalist. Three times.
  • Sacked for lying about an affair.
  • Discussed having a journalist beaten up.
  • Endangered a British citizen jailed in Iran, likely caused the doubling of their sentence form 5 to 10 years, and was forced in parliament to apologise.
  • Called black people 'picaninnies'.
  • Mocked Muslim women as 'letterboxes'.
  • Used racist terms to describe Barack Obama.
  • Propagated the £350m-a-week Brexit lie.
  • Doubled down on this by stating that pledge of £350m a week was “grossly underestimated”, and claimed that leaving the EU would free up £438m for the health service (Jan 2018).
  • Lied about Turkey joining the EU.
  • Repeatedly ignored conflict-of-interest rules. Three times in a single year.
  • Spent millions on the London Garden Bridge project (literally zero to show for this spending). This cost will be met by the taxpayer
  • . Spent £300,000 water cannon that cannot be used because they’re illegal.
  • Spent thousands ordering a new design of London bus that became a ‘sauna on wheels’, and which required a conductor when the remainder of the infrastructure (ticketing, etc) was set up for ‘no conductor’.
  • Called gay men 'tank-topped bum boys'.
  • Recited a colonial-era poem in Myanmar in front of several local government big-wigs. Literally had to be physically stopped by the British Ambassador.
  • . Wrote a dirty limerick about Turkey’s President and a goat. ( OK, that MIGHT be a good point! )
  • Insulted the entire city of Liverpool.
  • Said Africa needs its old Colonial powers to come back.
  • Claimed money spent of a child abuse investigation was 'spiffed up a wall'.
  • Called the French ‘turds’ who ‘shafted Britain’.
  • Compared the EU to Adolf Hitler.
  • Proclaimed ‘fuck business’ when asked about the effect of Brexit on the UK’s economy.
  • Said ‘fuck the families’ of the 7/7 bombings (allegedly).
  • Branded Hillary Clinton a ‘sadistic mental health nurse’.
  • Cosied up to a President he had previously stated was ‘unfit to rule’.
  • Refused to back the UK Ambassador to the US.
  • Deliberately flew out of the country to avoid a vote on Heathrow Airport, having previously stated that he would ‘lie down in front of the bulldozers’, if construction ever started.
  • Advocated leaving the EU but suggested building a bridge across the Channel in order to remain connected.
  • Also advocated building a bridge linking the UK to Ireland.
  • Literally started his career writing EU myths about straight banana regulations and similar.
  • Had to cut short a 2015 visit to Palestine due to his pro-Israel remarks (while he was Foreign Secretary).
  • Described the people of Papua New Guinea as ‘cannibals’. While he was Foreign Secretary.
  • Described Black American basketball players as having "arms hanging below their knees and tongues sticking out".
  • The day before he was due to appear as an advocate against FGM, he publicly mocked the “obsession” of women aid workers on ending FGM.
  • Cost taxpayers an estimated £323 million with a bungled Olympic Stadium conversion.
  • Told EU leaders to, "go whistle" over the ‘divorce bill’.
  • Told a fellow politician to “get stuffed” when they asked him about cuts to the London Fire Service that occurred while he was Mayor.
  • . Called for Scottish people to be blocked from becoming prime minister because "government by a Scot is just not conceivable."
  • Lied about voting in May 2019 local elections.
  • Spent an estimated £24million on his cable car vanity project. That goes from nowhere to nowhere, and which averages a few dozen passengers per day.
  • Can’t remember how many children he has.
  • Has dodged questions on whether he has ever used cocaine.
  • Took credit for the ‘Boris Bikes’ (actually planned and implemented by his predecessor Ken Livingstone).
  • Took credit for the Olympic planning (actually planned and 90% implemented by his predecessor Ken Livingstone).
  • Caused a diplomatic incident with Italy over his remarks (threats) about prosecco.
  • Also made up a story about how all Italian men have small penises.
  • Wrote two newspaper columns before the referendum - one for ‘leave’, and one for ‘remain’, and decided to publish the ‘leave’ one because it was better for his career.
  • Claimed that the Libyan city of Sirte (destroyed in the civil war with horrendous civilian casualties) would have a bright future as a luxury resort ‘once they cleared the dead bodies away’.
  • Cut-out-&-paste for your convenience ( Public or otherwise )

    415:

    The metrication of Imperial units happened a long time back, when we both in primary school - and, yes, the inch changed. That's not what almost anyone means. I gave you one current legal definition in Imperial - I am damn sure there are lots of others, but there are far too many laws to check.

    416:

    Don't bet on them being all young - there are a hell of a lot of us elderly cyclists, even in the UK, and a lot more many European countries. But, as OGH implied, it's a problem we could adapt to.

    417:

    From a national perspective, not even wrong. I mean, decent politically for racists, but not even productive.

    The right does not want a modern economy. A modern economy is the wrong kind of competition and severely disadvantages the "women, cattle, and slaves" social fabric the right requires to have any organisational or economic relevance. Do not expect the right-wing policy to be economic prosperity; the right wing policy is to reduce the capability of the economy to a level where their preferred social organisation makes sense.

    Yes, this does mean they're in favour of climate change, not merely in denial about oil revenue; the more food insecurity, the better, as far as they're concerned. They'll never go hungry. And it will get rid of that awful large-co-operating-group, educate-all sort of post-industrial social competition and go back to "who's your daddy?" the way god intended.

    418:

    Unfortunately, yes. But there IS a ray of light. If Bozo betrays Parliament and defaults us out of the EU, there might well be enough MPs to vote him out. Provided that the enemies of socialism have not destroyed the Labour party by then, the reaction to what will be a fairly impressive economic crash might well get Corbyn in with a sizeable majority. And he might address the issues.

    Yes, far too many "might"s, and all are very speculative, but that's the best plausible outcome I can see :-(

    419:

    IIUC, the archaeologists think that people first got into sustained resource competition around beds of shellfish. You could argue, I suppose, that they weren't people yet, but there's no reason to assume that kind of competition ever went away.

    FWIW, pack predators defend rich hunting grounds, so the odds are the habit goes back quite far in the hominid line...possibly to proconsul, or even further...but the further back you look, the sketchier the evidence is. Still, I think that "competition for easy access to resources" should be the default assumption, and that it would be the contrary argument that would need defending.

    420:

    I think you are grossly overoptimistic. A large number of people who are bored out of their minds will find something "interesting" to do, but it won't necessarily be socially beneficial. Some will be, but it's so much easier to be destructive than constructive, and people are lazy. (Not as lazy as lions or other long-time predators, but lazy.)

    421:

    The wild-card of course is Parkinssons Law :-)

    422:

    EC @ 415 Are you doing this deliberately? If so, PLEASE, please, STOP IT?

    Yes, there are derived "imperial" units in common use, but the legal & educational definitions are International System. Rees=Smaug is going back to a past none of us want, against ALL Science & Engineering (As one might expecty from a complete Arsehole like him ) simply so that he can wave his willy. I wouldn't be suprised to hear him use the "Vierte Reich" meme that the more extreme nutters have been using about the EU. It makes me so angry - it was the one guaranteed thing that would make my late father lose his temper, too ... And, I'm NOT INTERESTED in your attempting to accomodate Rees=Smaug in his ignorant smug arrognat posturing just to wind me up.

    @ 418 No Because Corbyn has a long history of fucking-up ... But we desperately need a Vote of No Confidence to succeed - which is a matter of TIMING, as much as anything else. And Corbyn "IN" after an economic crash AFTER we are ouit of the EU WILL BE TOO FUCKING LATE - there will be no recovery in my lifetime, nor that of our "children" either, so it's utterly pointless. STAYING IN the EU first ... then economic reform, because the other way around is simpply not possible.

    423:

    " STAYING IN the EU first ... then economic reform, because the other way around is simpply not possible."

    Unfortunately true.

    "And Corbyn "IN" after an economic crash AFTER we are ouit of the EU WILL BE TOO FUCKING LATE"

    Still vastly better than the alternative though - ie. for the country to go to shit while being ruled by a party of selfish wealth who just want to make sure that all the bits worth anything go to them.

    424:

    "The easiest way to implement it would be to make banks and credit cards responsible for sifting the 5% of while the money moves."

    NO NO NO NO NO... Terrible idea.

    Because of the terrible potential it has for augmenting the trend which already stands in severe need of reversal, of banks and the like becoming inserted into every fucking transaction no matter how trivial, down to the point where you can't even buy something as cheap and commonplace as a pint of milk or a loaf of bread without a fucking bank account. Which quickly leads to me not having to buy bread or milk at all, it being provided by the prison system as a result of me trying to maintain my food intake in the absence of means to pay for it.

    The thing to change is simply all the silly rules that let companies dodge taxes by pretending to be somewhere else. On which I am not even remotely knowledgeable, but I am nevertheless very strongly inclined to believe that they are in large part the aggregate outcome of innumerable previous measures designed on the same principle, ie. some "even-handed" blanket measure that is supposed to catch the principal targets in its folds while being comparatively much less of a burden to those who barely tent it - of which the inevitable result is that the main targets immediately find some escape route that isn't available to normal people, and the entire burden, plus all the unconsidered side effects that come with it, lands instead on those who were supposed to not be much affected - borne out of legislators being too nesh to tilt solidly and directly at the targets most in need of targeting.

    In the particular case in question an obvious failure mode is banks with a head office address that is some garden shed in Switzerland or a public toilet in Luxembourg, owned (in real terms as opposed to fairyland ones) by the same old Apples and Amazons, armed with an immunity to "foreign" auditors and several hundred gigabytes of arguments which are at the same time both legally unassailable and complete undiluted bullshit to "prove" that what looks like hundreds of billions of bucks of business nevertheless only attracts taxation to the sum of forty-seven dollars, twenty-two pence and a Hershebian half-dong.

    If the solution does have to be a scrupulously "even-handed" blanket measure, then one could do a lot worse than to change the various definitions of "legally unassailable" so as to make them definitely incompatible with "complete undiluted bullshit"...

    425:

    "Next year, you have 200.000 people on bikes, trashing up and down through Europe like a plague of locust..."

    They do that already, but they use planes.

    426:

    "something "interesting" to do, but it won't necessarily be socially beneficial."

    Sure. I said that right at the start. Most of them will sit on their arse watching TV, and there is nothing wrong with this. The distribution will be somewhat different, but the total number of those who do things that aren't beneficial won't change much.

    The number of people doing things that are maleficial will go down, because people won't have to do them in order to eat any more, nor will they be culturally brainwashed into misclassifying them; those who actually want to do them will no doubt exist, but in very small numbers (as with any perverse taste), and moreover will be unable to do them to any effect without the current framework to give them meaning.

    We already do have a large class of people, numbering some millions, who do have the time to spend all day watching TV but don't have the option to do something less vegetable instead - both because they simply don't have the money, and because it incurs a large risk of them losing what little money they do have. The existence of this class of people gives us several decades of experiential evidence that they do not in fact compensate for the boredom by constantly smashing shit up. Of course some of them do, but the great majority do not; and of course it is only the minority who do that anyone else notices.

    Another noteworthy point demonstrated by this class of people is that in less oppressive times, when the "large risk" constraint did not apply, they did use their freedom of time to do constructive things. An obvious example exists in all the well-known bands who began their careers doing gigs for the petrol money using the time resource they had available while on the dole. Less conspicuous are all the individuals who used the time to do volunteer work. Can't get away with doing either of those these days, but back when you could, people did it a lot. (And still do if they can manage to do it in a solidly deniable manner - not so easy, because of the obvious contradiction, but there nevertheless are a few people who manage it to their satisfaction.)

    The trouble is that this class of people has been and is universally classed purely as a problem, both in general policy terms and in terms of how those people who belong to it are made to think, and therefore something to be avoided, eliminated, and, in default of those, suppressed and ignored except when an opportunity arises for vilification - instead of being looked at as an example/model/source of evidence from across the entire spectrum as opposed to purely from the negative end. The term "tomorrow people" kind of suggests itself.

    [ This post includes a Fuck You Arse-Mug CommaTM. ]

    427:

    Do not expect the right-wing policy to be economic prosperity

    Well, not for everyone.

    The website of the Reserve Bank of Australia is probably not a place most people would visit for a laugh but, in the debate about unemployment, the pitiful rate of Newstart and a government defined by “have a go to get a go” theatrical self-starterism, oh, oh, oh, there are some sad, bleak chortles to be found there.

    It’s on that very website that the RBA quite blithely admits – with none of the jobs-and-growth sleight-of-hand to which politicians are disposed – that the very fabric of the Australian economy is one woven to ensure a perpetual pool of unemployed workers.

    https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/26/having-a-constant-pool-of-unemployed-workers-is-deliberate-policy

    For those with a more technical mind than the heat has left me, here's a link to the original bulletin:

    https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2017/jun/2.html

    428:

    "You need a regexp, anyway, to handle the case of the full stop occurring at the end of the line."

    Not to mention that you need a much much fancier regexp to deal with all the pretentious shite like quote characters other than 0x22/0x27 and minus/hyphen characters other than 0x2d. (Once a characteristic product of Microsoft software, then apparently Microsoft got the message that they kept breaking things all the time and changed some defaults - at least that's what it looked like from the decrease in frequency of their appearance, now bloody Apple software is blurging them all over the web.) I have a script to strip the horrible things out of web pages and replace them with 0x22/0x27/0x2d as appropriate; it runs to several lines of ".replace(thing).replace(other thing).replace(yet another thing)" etc. Wikipedia has a script to perform a similar transformation (only their replacement set is a set of specific encodings of wanky characters, instead of normal ones, because they are wankers); while mine just covers the variations I've encountered in web pages, theirs tries to cover everything, and "everything" is such a huge list of pointless variations that it is several pages long.

    "...this regrettably common practice: "Grease-Smaug was a sanctimonious child and, he hasn't changed since.""

    I call that the "Carrot pattern". I never noticed anyone doing it before Guards! Guards! came out; since then I have noticed it increasingly - and mostly by people who AFAIK are not fans of Pratchett (or not heavy ones, at least, where "heavy one" roughly equates to "one who understands the reference without having to look it up").

    "Therefore the instruction is wrong, because it is seriously ambiguous."

    Sufficiently so that when I first heard that piece of news, I couldn't figure out what it meant, and thought it was a garbled reference to what I call the "list error" because I don't know the specific term for it, or even if there is one. I mean the misuse of the construction "This is a list of a, b, and c" with a whole clause in the c-position instead of just another plain item (so a straight exchange of b and c, with no other alterations to accommodate it, doesn't make sense).

    Correct: "The USS Big Penis has 6 great big guns, 20 little guns, and 34 nuclear bananas. This quantity of nuclear bananas breaches the Atomic Fruit Limitation Treaty."

    Erroneous: "The USS Big Penis has 6 great big guns, 20 little guns, and breaches the Atomic Fruit Limitation Treaty by carrying 34 nuclear bananas."

    Reversal test:

    "The USS Big Penis has 6 great big guns, 34 nuclear bananas, and 20 little guns. This quantity of nuclear bananas breaches the Atomic Fruit Limitation Treaty."

    "The USS Big Penis has 6 great big guns, breaches the Atomic Fruit Limitation Treaty by carrying 34 nuclear bananas, and 20 little guns."

    (Most examples I see in the wild are rather more of a boulder on the path than that, but my sense of wrongness is preventing me making up a more realistic one.)

    429:
    Do not expect the right-wing policy to be economic prosperity Well, not for everyone.

    If it's not for everyone, it's not prosperity.

    The general pattern of the 20th century is a fight over whether there would be a labour shortage (convenient to labour) or a labour glut (convenient to capital). Capital has won that one.

    Any working system has to have constraints as well as feedback; the problem with capitalism is not so much that it insists that there are no legitimate constraints, is that it produces individuals who are not practically constrained. The general fix lies not in banking regulations but in keeping individually accessible resources sufficiently small. This is (from the historical examples) a route to prosperity, but it's difficult to maintain.

    The simplest, quickest, and most useful approach to the great offshore pool of money is a coordinated re-monetization combined with executing everybody -- favourite movie stars, monarchs, alleged philanthropists, everyone -- who has their money in tax havens or who works for a tax haven. Pity (nigh) no one in elected office doesn't have money offshore.

    Any of you inclined to spluck at me for murderousness might wish to consider that this is the group of people (and the specific social machinery they've built) that's in the way of a robust climate response, and consider the utilitarian analysis "half the human race plus half the extant species" vs "some thousands of greedheads".

    430:

    From doing it, the real pricing is about 25% of that number. Green cards are not expensive compared to a technical. (I mean - exactly how many days of form filling is it? 1 or 2) It really was simply that we didn't need to give raises to people who would have to restart the process if they left. Exploitation. On the other hand, they got status.

    We also couldn't afford competent citizens, so, um. Hiring someone with status would have been closer to 40k difference for the same work output. Sane, competent, status, cheap- try to hire for two. From experience, even for specialized PhD level jobs, the primary motivation for hiring immigrants was pay - it is 'possible' that we really did get and ignore qualified applications from citizens. (Illegal but hard to prove)

    The bright side - remember that English only proposition in CA? Now look at the Republican party there. I foresee something similar playing out over the next decade or two.

    @Graydon Eh. See, suppose you were a white supremacist. Then, maybe you'd want less immigration. That isn't what you're getting here. Just a bunch of posturing. Or, suppose you were just a corporation. The long term effect of the current policies will be pretty bad for conservatism. Looks like a bunch of third-raters futzing around. Not even wrong.

    @post-Adamic

    I'd guess that many people will opt for fairly dull service jobs - but without the constraint of actually needing the job. Seriously, my wife kind of loves that sort of thing. (Weirds me out - people are not exactly my thing.)

    431:

    If it's not for everyone, it's not prosperity.

    The current grass-roots Canadian neocon seems to have redefined "prosperity" to mean "having more than those others". Or had it redefined for them.

    432:

    Damn, hit submit instead of preview :-(

    It's not a new problem here, sadly. Bruce Cockburn described it in 1977 in "Free To Be":

    On the skid row of the spirit Hear the ranting of the Western Guard Why don't you cool out Can it be so hard to love yourself without thinking someone else holds a lower card

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6qQTDo1sbs

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68zccrskOqQ&frags=pl%2Cwn

    433:

    I suspect you have completely misunderstood my question.

    I'm not questioning whether corporate executives do, in fact, currently get away with crimes they commit using their corporations as instruments. I am persuaded that they often do.

    I'm questioning whether "corporations are legal people" is the REASON that they get away with those crimes.

    JBS and whitroth give me the impression that they believe that if we could only enact a law saying "corporations are definitely NOT people" that they would immediately stop getting away with stuff.

    I think that is implausible, in both practical and legal terms.

    If anything, your post seems to support my position, since you emphasize the ways that corporations are treated differently from humans rather than the ways they are treated similarly.

    434:

    Say $SocialNetwork engages in some serious AI-mediated suicide-encouragement against specific people, and as a result somebody kills themselves.

    Yes, if one of Google or FaceBook, as companies, truly tried to ruin your life, you would truly be screwed.

    What do we do about it ?

    How do we even legislate that they are in fact not allowed to do this in the first place ?

    It's not like it is not already happening that companies are killing people:

    https://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/2011/08/complete_coverage_of_marvin_sc.html

    (Note how the new legislation only applies to "government-run utilities" !)

    My best answer, and it is not a particular good one, is to reach for Asimovs robot laws, and replace "robot" with "non-person or hive intelligences".

    If you reread his books and keep an eye on it, he draws a very clear line between artificial intelligences which show their conclusions on screens or printout on which humans then act, and AIs which can act on their own (= "robots"). His laws apply only to the latter.

    I think that distinction has some merit.

    Of course the more fundamental problem, if we should keep reserving the all the Universal Rights for Homo Sapiens only, is the flip side of this coin.

    Freedom from cruelty certainly should be extended to any lifeform which is able to show adaptive empathy outside their species.

    And of course, to enact any of this, you have to get it through legislatures funded by the very AI's were trying to regulate, and though referenda in a populace who get all their information through these AI's filters.

    So yeah: The AI Singularity? Been there, Done That.

    435:

    And now ... Gove is openly admitting that they are quite prepared to drive the whole bus, including us, right over the cliff .... SO, we desperately need a succesful Motion of No Confidence, some time between now & 31st October [ I think the Eu would give us an extension under the circs... ] BUT - who is going to propose it & when is it most likely to succeed?

    436:

    Black Flag weather makes the serious-popular press .....

    437:

    I'm questioning whether "corporations are legal people" is the REASON that they get away with those crimes.

    Correct: it isn't (although there are other things wrong with it).

    The UK doesn't have corporate personhood, in the US sense. It also has a corporate manslaughter (homicide) law, brought in after the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, specifically for tackling corporations that kill people.

    Number of corporations successfully prosecuted for corporate manslaughter? Fewer than 25 in 11 years, almost all of them small businesses found guilty of fatal violations of health and safety regulations. Chances of a behemoth like Boeing or Airbus being found guilty of anything like that: approximately zero.

    The reason is simple: diffusion of responsibility. If a committee makes a decision and somebody dies, then who's guilty? Worse, if it's a combined vector sum of four different decisions made and approved by seven committees over six years, two of them at another firm before it was taken over four years prior, and one of them by people who have all left the business, who's guilty?

    In "common cause" cases at least the people prosecuted were usually in proximity to the deceased shortly before they became a corpse … and even so, a lot of common cause murder prosecutions are flagrantly unfair or inappropriate. In corporate homicide, the problem is vastly worse, with a mess of subcontractor arrangements and reciprocal obligations that may put the victim at many arms' reach distance from the originators of the act (it's hard to say "perpetrators").

    438:

    MODERN REALITY CHECK

    I notice some of you are railing about "if people don't have to work for a living millions will just sit and watch TV all day".

    I'd like to remind you that (a) I'm younger than most of you, and (b) I'm old enough to be a granddad.

    Kids these days barely watch TV as we knew it: they're all over YouTube and on the net playing Fortnite (or was that last year already? I'm so old and slow …). Their idle time activities bear no relationship to the stereotype couch potato sitting alone on the sofa absorbing Fox News; that's for the old farts like us, who are doing a 20-30 year fade-out.

    Please find a new metaphor for idleness. Like, eh, working a third side hustle to try and make this month's rent payment because minimum wage laws are unenforced and it's too low to live on anyway.

    (This has not been a moderation notice, but just an advance warning that I'm getting heartily sick of obsolete stereotypes being rolled out to implicitly diss the younger generations.)

    439:

    Kids these days barely watch TV as we knew it: they're all over YouTube and on the net playing Fortnite (or was that last year already? I'm so old and slow …). Their idle time activities bear no relationship to the stereotype couch potato sitting alone on the sofa...

    That's a good point.

    They don't even seem to be on MMORPGs any more, at least if my gamer friends and last visit to Second Life are any clue. I've got friends with spawn that age but going to Disneyland, volunteering at SF conventions, and making corsets for the SCA are probably not universally popular. (The fifteen year old girl I saw on ebay last night manufacturing bespoke switch covers for custom electronics must be an outlier for all demographics.) Ignoring adults while fondling their phone is universally popular in my experience but none of that produces anything that we adults see.

    440:

    I know a surprising number of young people who are into board games. I think they are atypical but what do I know?

    They were hopelessly unfashionable when I was growing up, usually taken as a sign of being the sort of scum who couldn't afford a computer...

    441:

    Limited sampling of the young indicates that watching other people play video games is a primary leisure activity, followed closely by playing them. Oddly, chess and board games also seem to be popular.

    I'm sort of looking forwards to the primary activity being watching other people talk about other people watching people play video games. This sounds like a joke, but is already a nonzero fraction of viewing time.

    442:

    Right. We lost that one in the 1970s, unfortunately - yes, it's THAT old! My current worst irritation is the erroneous idiom "I could care less", which I believe originated by the Puppies being unable to understand a double negative.

    443:

    I am afraid that you are pissing into the wind! Such behaviour is at least 3,000 years old, and I know that younger generations use equally incorrect stereotypes about us old fogies. You're right, of course, but when did that benefit anyone?

    444:

    You don't get much more legal than primary and secondary legislation, both of which I referred you to.

    Your wishful thinking is noted. I, too, wish that there were a chance of that, but I don't believe there is.

    445:

    Yes, a Let's Play Commentary of some interesting people playing a game I like the look of but will never actually play is as good as having the radio or the cricket or a cookery program on in the background while doing some repetitive task.

    Having spent some time un- and partially-employed I'll note that as well as a fair amount of TV watching I also did some admin work for a charity, looked after children for friends and family, and wrote a couple of books, which thanks to the Amazon and other distribution services has brought in beer and/or book money. Still, like everyone 400 comments down on a science fiction writer's blog, I'm something of an outlier.

    446:

    I'm about a decade younger than OGH, and I haven't watched that much "traditional" television in the last decade or so. I watch Youtube much more than even Netflix - though I occasionally watch series on Netflix. My children seem to watch game videos and other assorted stuff on Youtube and that Netflix - yesterday I bought the 'Stranger Things' branded D&D starter set because my older kid and their friends wanted to try that out.

    I do sometimes watch the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation Arena which has most of their programs on a webpage. It fits my habits nowadays much better.

    I'm pretty biased, but it seems that among my friends the kids play a lot on the computers, but also analog games from boardgames through tabletop roleplaying to live-action roleplaying. They also watch media, but mostly on-demand instead of television, and on other devices than the big rectangle in the living room. They also seem to be learning foreign languages, or at least English, better than I did at the time.

    447:

    So, we should phrase it "Some folks will do some damn fool thing with their time that makes no sense to us."? I would like to add to that, we know next to nothing about how genetics effects intelligence, and less than that about what sorts of minds will be handy to have around in the future, we'd be well advised to conserve as much genetic diversity as possible, even if those carrying the genes have a taste in music others find distasteful ;) .

    448:

    I think the way to handle corporate crime is simple: Pass a law which states that the fine must always be more than the profits from the illegal activity. Corporate crime happens because corporate accounting treats the problem as simple subtraction.

    $PROFITS - $LEGALFEESANDFINES = $POSTIVENUMBER

    A positive number equals profit, and the legal fees and fines are a reasonable risk. So we need to change the equation, as follows, so it always reads like this:

    $PROFITS - $LEGALFEESANDFINES = $NEGATIVENUMBER

    Where a negative number equals a loss. You could even specify a number, where the fine must be 110 percent of the bad behavior. The other thing which would discourage corporate misbehavior would be if the full amount of the fine goes to the levying agency.

    449:

    Appears Fortnight is still something, given the news that a 15 year old British boy has just won $1.25 million in a tournament (that had $30 million in prizes).

    In other news, Corbyn demonstrates he still doesn't want to win as he yet again does his best to avoid making the necessary decision and still wants to both remain and leave "depending on the circumstances".

    450:

    "I could care less" is much older than the Puppies. In the U.S. it goes back at least to my teenaged years in the 1980s.

    451:

    "Kids these days barely watch TV as we knew it"

    Well... I am a couple of years younger than OGH, but I have not owned a working TV for over 15 years. I do watch streamed content, but for that I use a big monitor (55" 4K variety, intended to be a TV, but why bother to set it up because it just works as a monitor, I have not done anything else to it than configured it to use the HDMI ports and have a decent picture quality, of course with audio disabled because the TV audio is too bad).

    My 55" 4K monitor is not connected to the cable or the Wifi. Everything it does is to show the pretty pictures sent to it by my carefully stripped out Linux box. I think it just plain stupid to have a "smart" TV that is connected to internet.

    452:

    mdive @ 449 Amazingly depressing, isn't it?

    I THINK I know why this is so.

    Areshole Corbyn has correctly spotted that the tories will get an immense amount of stick following the crash & disaster of a no-deal Brexit, after which he will clean up & lead Britain forward into a glorious communistsocialist furure, with zero defence spending .... Except that the disaster will almost certainly be so bad that our economy will resemble Greece in 2009-11 or worse, at which point Liebour will also get a prolonged caning fromn the electorate, the fascist wing of the tories take power & we are even WORSE OFF, that we were on 1/11/2019 ...

    Remeber that Corbyn has "Learnt nothing & forgotten nothing" - & he is still of the 1970's communist opinion that the EU is a giant "Employer's Crooked Scheme"

    IF we get an election, I will vote Labour, IF our current MP is allowed to re-stand by the fuckwits - if she is deselected ... I will probably vote Lem0crat. ( Fake greenis is NOT an option )

    Jar @ 451 I have not owned a working TV for over 44 years.

    453:

    I never saw it in print until recently, and it was in the sort of books favoured by them; it has now spread :-( That may be because editors stopped correcting it and I didn't talk to the people who abused it. It makes no sense, of course, and the original (which is British and goes back to LONG before the 1980s) is "I couldn't care less."

    454:

    "I have not owned a working TV for over 44 years."

    Ah, you definitely show me how it is done. Respect.

    The turning point for me was the blatantly political content in TV programs, especially news. I actually appreciate clearly biased reporting/news if the bias is clearly stated. But when they do not admit the bias, then I have serious misgivings.

    I am completely happy with a clearly stated bias. I would happily watch conservative news and liberal news. (In my country that would be phrased as "right-wing" and "left-wing" news) Especially if I can watch them from the net after each other.

    I do not object to the bias. I do not like the lie of being objective (well, you cannot be completely objective, but in any case).

    455:

    OTOH Big Brother oops, Jeremy C has now hinted strongly that a motion of No Confidence wil be put - next question, as usual - who pushed him to do the sensible thing? Maybe he saw THIS I mean, Labour OUGHT to be at least 25 points ahead of the tories in the polls- & they are not - & we all know why, don't we?

    I also note that Ruth Davidson has told BOZO the clown to stuff it - good for her!

    456:

    "Labour OUGHT to be at least 25 points ahead of the tories in the polls- & they are not - & we all know why, don't we?"

    Well, actually I do not know.

    I am in most issues in the middle (or a bit right because the traditional left does not like religion), but I have, for a long time, failed to see why the "left" is not in the left on economical issues.

    The reign of the capitalist corporations and their power is something that is in the foundations of the traditional left. For some strange reason the far-right has been the one to speak about that issue. At least here in Continental Europe.

    I definitely do not know why the left has not taken the traditional leftist themes.

    457:

    Rather off topic, but this is a good reminder of how the modern Republican Party is no longer “the party of Lincoln” in any meaningful way.

    You know who was into Karl Marx? No, not AOC. Abraham Lincoln.

    458:

    "Rather off topic, but this is a good reminder of how the modern Republican Party is no longer “the party of Lincoln” in any meaningful way."

    Ah, yes. The same holds in our country. In our country the liberal right (like the right to start your own firm etc) has turned into a "pro-business" party. Not a "pro-market" party. There really is a huge difference.

    Our "liberal right" actually seems to hate real competition and try to turn things into the favour of large international corporations. You can, of course, have any political or sexual temptations as long as you do not question the right of the international corporations to make profit from you drinking water or similar issues. Well, my cynical part assumes that the reason is half corruption and half real ideological belief (free markets cannot err).

    459:

    I don't think there is a push as such, rather it is something he has wanted all along but he simply hasn't been able to get a majority to vote for an election. The suspicion is that with the new PM and his (at least current) policy of leaving with no deal will force the more sensible Conservatives to agree to forcing an election.

    This of course has been Corbyn's goal because he is just as delusional as Johnson in that he believes he can get a better deal from the EU.

    The danger of course, given how unpopular he is as leader given his policy on Brexit, is that Labour won't get elected and the remain vote won't sufficiently go to the Liberal Democrats and instead Johnson will be returned to power with a majority, either directly as Brexit party voters switch to him given his "pure" cabinet, or as a coalition between the Conservatives and Brexit Party.

    All of this is speculation, because unless one goes and polls every riding and works out how the cookie crumbles it is likely the closeness in national polls of Labour / Conservative / Brexit / LibDems means predicting a winner is a toss-up.

    460:

    I do, as far as the UK goes. Back in the 1960s, the Labour party degenerated into a party controlled by a few very large unions with an "I'm all right, Jack" mentality. That was one of the three causes of our economic decline and near-collapse - the others being a similar attitude in the large companies, and the protectionism (mainly of the large companies) by the Whitehall bureaucrats.

    Eventually, there was a reaction, and Thatcher got in, moving the Conservatives from being a paternalistic party, interested in governing for the benefit of society as a whole, into the monstrosity it is today. Labour reorganised, and the result was Blair and Blairism, which was little better than the Conservatives - or much different, for that matter.

    Corbyn is the first Labour leader with socialist principles since Callaghan, is not particularly charismatic, and is being absolutely hammered on all sides by enemies of socialism (let alone left-wing socialism). That includes the larger number of of the Labour party MPs who are Blairites, and loathe left-wing economics.

    461:

    Speculation on my part, but here is the why/how the left wing parties came to leave the left.

    As disastrous as we can now see the right wing policies of the 80s, primarily from Reagan and Thatcher, at the time they were reasonably popular.

    The unions (and this is more the UK / North American confrontational style union) had overplayed their hand and had become unpopular, and the right wing had come up with catch phrases that were simple and understandable even if either misleading or wrong. Add in a population that holds a double standard - waiting in line at a government office is intolerable, while waiting in line at a private company is just a fact of life - and many traditional left wing policies became poisonous during elections.

    With unions in decline they couldn't provide the support they used to, and so left wing parties (maybe more the Democrats in the US) increasingly turned to money from the rich as they moved to be more middle parties to remain viable.

    Thus the rich had rigged the system, essentially controlling in most countries the 2 different options that the electorate bounces between.

    My feeling is this is what has allowed the rise of the "populists" as voters have figured out that the system is rigged, so they look to outsiders to either fix the system, or to create chaos to "punish" the elites who have failed them for the last 40 or so years.

    There is a possibility for a return of the left wing parties, but it isn't easy. Either the people who are doing the whim of the elites fight the return to the left, or they go to the opposite extreme and choose an unelectable leader (because in part looking around the world the traditional parties are pretty much all sorely lacking in quality leadership material).

    As to why most of the populists are extreme right / fascists, there is speculation that it comes down to the money - they all seem to be out for personal enrichment and the money is from right wing billionaires who are willing to reward people who create governments that make them richer.

    462:

    "Blair and Blairism, which was little better than the Conservatives"

    Thank you. This helps me to clarify my mind.

    I have always thought that Blair is a brilliant example of a completely corrupt politician. Corrupt in the sense of rotten.

    Actually I wrote that to my analysis when Blair was getting the position as the leader of Labour. Well, sometimes it feels good that you have been right in your professional analysis.

    To be honest, I got a hefty bonus for being right in my evaluation of the British politics during the Blair-time. My employer made good money on Blair.

    463:

    Much of what you say about Labour sounds true, but I disagree with your view on Corbyn.

    I don't think most of his left wing policies are the issue, there definitely appears to be a desire on behalf of the public for at least a partial return to the "left wing" policies of the past - see the consistent support for the return of British Rail.

    His refusal to criticize Russia, and his support of various questionable people is an issue for some, but most appear willing to overlook those because they in general seem to support the new direction of Labour.

    His charisma, or lack off, wasn't even much of an issue in the last UK election when he and Labour were able to connect with young voters.

    The problem for Labour is that the voting public has finally figured out Corbyn was attempting to play both sides while avoiding making the necessary decision, because Corbyn put his own desires ahead of the Labour party (Labour as a party is solidly remain at this point, really the only ones against remain are Corbyn and his inner circle).

    So the young voters have abandoned Labour because they no longer trust Corbyn, remainers are abandoning Labour because Corbyn refuses to see reality (that the next election is about Brexit and being on the same side as Farage and Johnson isn't going to win), and thus you see the polls today that show Labour under Corbyn losing, and Labour without Corbyn winning.

    464:

    I suspect if Brexit happens under either the Conservatives or the Brexit Party, and the disaster unfolds as expected, it won't be the Labour party to get the benefit - I suspect most of those right wing voters will go LibDem given that they are closer to the traditional Conservative party policies than Labour, and they are the only main party to be clearly Remain and thus be untainted by the Brexit mess.

    It's just a shame that Corbyn can't see that, and that the Labour as a whole can't see that and boot him out before it's too late.

    465:

    EC @ 460 I AGREE With you 100% - for your first two paragraphs - & then we diverge.... Corbyn is to the left of, shall we say either Ernie Bevin, or Clement Attlee & ( as I keep on saying ) seems incapable of LEARNING, or changing his mind when the circumstances change .... Callaghan was someone I actually admired - he got a very bad hand, & was then screwed by his own supposed supporters, the "I'm all right, Jack" crowd you mentioned earlier.

    Even Blairites are better than BOZO & the people to the right of him, I'm afraid. If you are given a choice of two evils, pick the lesser one? Because sticking out for ideological purtiy gets you ... you guessed it!

    Mdive @ 461 BUT ... the "populists" are & always have been, as far as I can see fascists, wearing a thin disguise to gull the "Working classes" - like the fake word "socialist" in the NSDAP's name ( Yes, I know, Godwin, but we are in that territory, anyway. )

    466:

    "Much of what you say about Labour sounds true, but I disagree with your view on Corbyn."

    I am, actually, a marketing professional coming from the political science + sociology point of view.

    I think that Corbyn had a brilliant marketing niche when he was selected. For some unknown reason he and his team decided not to play that tune.

    As a traditional backbench-presentative (is this the right way to phrase this?) he could have utilized the traditional left-wing themes. But he did not.

    One of the scenarios I wrote was that Corbyn would use the Swedish Socialdemocratic themes and win the election. I still think that type of politics to be a winner in UK after all the disasters with the right.

    Well, that is assuming a proper campaign, which the Labour seems to be definitely lacking.

    467:

    "I could care less" is much older than the Puppies. In the U.S. it goes back at least to my teenaged years in the 1980s.

    Google Ngram Viewer indicates it took off in the early 1960s after a slow run-up that started during WW II.

    I wonder if it might not have originated with an ironic expression like "So I could care less?" or "Could I care less?". Random question: Is there a Yiddish version?

    468:

    Is there a Yiddish version?

    Not that I know of, and that's a very much non-definitive answer.

    469:

    I wonder if, with hindsight, in the future people will look at the referendum as not only destroying the Conservative Party but also Labour?

    It seems to me that much of what you say may have come to pass if that referendum hadn't come along and presented Corbyn with the opportunity to fulfill a life long desire to remove the UK from the EU. We now see that desire appears to be more powerful than winning an election.

    An argument, perhaps, to take a closer look at everything a prospective leader believes / wants before selecting the leader of a party in case circumstances change.

    470:

    if the full amount of the fine goes to the levying agency.

    That's a recipe for corruption. Don't think about some hippy socialist officials in Scandistralia, think about some state-level scum in the central USA who currently get much of their income from speeding fines and cash confiscations. Suddenly instead of dinging trucks for doing 60mph in the 20m of 40mph zone they've installed, they can ding them for 110% of the profit they made on that trip. Or think of the out-of-court settlement that smaller companies will choose to sign up to rather than see 110% of their profit for the year vanish into the pockets of the company doing fire safety inspections on behalf of the state government.

    471:

    I think you're dead wrong about fines to corporations stopping corporate crime.

    Corporations are not rational agents. They don't think, they don't feel, they don't care.

    From the outside it can be a convenient shorthand to treat them like they are: to say "RBS knows this, and RBS believes that, so RBS will do such-and-such". But that's a way of talking, not a truth: uust like it can be convenient to say "willow trees like to have their feet wet, and the trees knows the stream ran down there, so the roots will go that way"

    What's actually happening is that there are people in RBS who know this, and believe that, and are arguing with other people in RBS who know other things. Meanwhile there will be managers in RBS who will have an idea that probably something slightly dodgy is happening, but are trying hard not to look too closely so that it can't be their fault.

    None of these people give a toss if RBS gets a massive, massive fine eight years later. They'll be gone by then.

    You will only ever get responsible actions from corporations and groups if you hold people - actual people - responsible for criminal activity. Jail executives who do bad things. Nothing else is effective.

    472:

    I think you're probably right on that one.

    473:

    Random question: Is there a Yiddish version?

    I don’t know if there’s an actual saying, but I’d say your close, it’ll probably translate more as “Nu? I should care less?” meaning, of course, that I could not care less.

    474:

    Yeah, it just had the feel of Yiddish to me, and, googling around, the thought has occurred to others. Whether it's true or not, it probably should be.

    http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ico1.htm

    There’s a close link between the stress pattern of I could care less and the kind that appears in certain sarcastic or self-deprecatory phrases that are associated with the Yiddish heritage and (especially) New York Jewish speech. Perhaps the best known is I should be so lucky!, in which the real sense is often “I have no hope of being so lucky”, a closely similar stress pattern with the same sarcastic inversion of meaning. There’s no evidence to suggest that I could care less came directly from Yiddish, but the similarity is suggestive. There are other American expressions that have a similar sarcastic inversion of apparent sense, such as Tell me about it!, which usually means “Don’t tell me about it, because I know all about it already”. These may come from similar sources.

    475:

    I hadn’t come across this tool before, and find it fascinating for all sorts of reasons. I tried a few semi-random terms. I found that “hepatic encephalopathy” was unknown before the 50s, peaked in the 90s and has since waned dramatically and I wonder the reason for that. We might use a more specific term, a less specific one or the incidence has diminished. I could believe the last on a per-capital basis but not an overall basis.

    476:

    mdive @ 469 presented Corbyn with the opportunity to fulfill a life long desire to remove the UK from the EU. We now see that desire appears to be more powerful than winning an election. THIS Party & spite before country - the exact mirror-image of the tories stupidity ...

    477:

    Now, THAT makes a lot of sense! My knowledge of Yiddish is almost non-existent, but I have seen that sort of idiom used in fiction many times by writers with more knowledge of it.

    478:

    No. There is a simple solution:

    Pass a law making deliberate negligence when it comes to legally required duties and responsibility to third parties universally culpable, as it already is in many circumstances.

    Change the law so that the courts and regulators can and must cap the director's fees, dividends, share deals and bonuses, and make it an offence to evade that.

    Larger fines would not work anywhere near as well, and would be catastrophic for the companies that are being merely incompetent, because it removes the money they need to pay for the improvements. This is a very big problem when they are used in the public and semi-public sector.

    479: 355 - You (and possibly the USN) appear to have re-invented the "Missile Gun Boat" at the lighter end of LCS, and the heavier end is heading into Destroyer. 410 (b) "Scottish" Liebour recently complained that 'post devolution Scotland is turning into a 1-party (SNP) state.' I don't recall them making similar complaints in the 1970s and '80 when they were the 1-party. 476 - Well, I am saying "Anyone except the Con Party and Liebour" because I see both parties as putting party ahead on nation inf the present clusterburach.
    480:

    Actually, Corbyn is putting his beliefs first - though I agree that Labour is behind him only in the sense that half of them are trying to stab him in the back. You may not agree with those beliefs (I don't, actually), and we may think he is incompetent, but he IS a completely different kind of animal to any other leader we have seen in many decades.

    481:

    You (and possibly the USN) appear to have re-invented the "Missile Gun Boat" at the lighter end of LCS, and the heavier end is heading into Destroyer.

    The USN has no need to reinvent the river monitor either.

    Although if I had to worry about deterring bad guys off my coastline (or in the Persian Gulf) these days I'd be tempted to look at something small and fast that would get in quickly and make the opposition unhappy. Something like a torpedo carrying USCG RB-M (only 45ft long, 30kt cruise speed, bursts of 45kt) could be a real nuisance to big ocean-going ships while being easy to hide between attacks.

    Vulnerable to aircraft of course, but every hull on the surface is.

    482:

    Actually, Corbyn is putting his beliefs first - though I agree that Labour is behind him only in the sense that half of them are trying to stab him in the back.

    Are the other half in front trying to kick him in the nuts?

    483:

    Wrong: "I could care less" is standard American idiom, equivalent to "I couldn't care less" in the UK. Both of which just sound wrong to someone who grew up with the other version. Also the pronounciation of the name of the letter "Z" ("zee" is wrong, to a Brit—it's "zed"), or a host of other minor deviations in both directions.

    484:

    Also for us non-natives it's somehow what we learned first. To me, "I could care less" sounds oddly wrong, because if you could care less you still care for the thing in question.

    We were taught mostly British English (and RPish pronunciation) in school, though obviously most of the media we had at the time (and now) was from the US. I think my English language is quite a mongrel nowadays.

    485:

    Pass a law which states that the fine must always be more than the profits from the illegal activity.

    I have two words for you: "Hollywood accounting". More to the point, networks of corporate ownership diffuse ownership, and you can't really trace the money easily.

    Forget fines. Trace the responsible executives—following the British doctrine that where a company owns another company the chain of ownership is collapsed until you come to a human beneficiary—and sling 'em in prison. Better still: if the average lifetime economic productivity of a human being is, say, $10M, then if the financial damages exceed 2.5x a lifetime's production, execute them. Make sufficiently large economic crimes capital offenses.

    The deterrence argument against capital punishment usually fails (in murder, rape, etc) because very often these crimes are not premeditated. Crimes of greed? Premeditated as fuck, and as immensely damaging to the human fabric of society as a serial killer.

    486:

    I also note that Ruth Davidson has told BOZO the clown to stuff it - good for her!

    This was inevitable.

    Leaving aside the lack of personal affinity between the two, Boris is an extential threat to the Conservative Party in Scotland—he's threatening to repeat Thatcher's 1980s policy of sacrificing Scotland's interests to those of his English voters, which led to the implosion of Conservative support in Scotland and the installation of a 20 year Labour supremacy that was only overturned by the SNP. He fired the Scottish Secretary, David Mundell (a Davidson crony), parachuted in a Home Counties English MP as one of the Scottish Office replacements to make up numbers, and is accelerating Brexit policies that are deeply unpopular here. He also proposed raising National Insurance to pay for a cut in the top rate of Income Tax … NI is levied throughout the UK, but the top rate cut would only apply in England because Scotland has different Income Tax arrangements … so he'd be taxing Scots to pay top earners in England. This may have been a thoughtless oversight (Boris is famous for them) but the optics are horrible, with echoes of the Poll Tax ...

    The Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, formerly the Unionist Party until the 1960s, has actually been grumbling quietly about splitting from the England/Wales CaUP. In event of Scotland voting to leave the UK that'd happen in a split second; short of that it's the nuclear option, but it's just one fault line along which the Tory party is poised to fracture.

    487:
    Eh. See, suppose you were a white supremacist. Then, maybe you'd want less immigration

    Go look up Nazi forced labour practices, including mass kidnapping of Polish and Soviet citizens. Or, y'know, remember US forced labour history.

    "White supremacist" describes both aspiring ethnic cleansers and those with ambition to slaveowner status, after all. Though I'm sure they'd prefer "some group of armed The Right Of Person going and fetching The Wrong Kind Of Person" to immigration. The cruelty is the point, after all.

    488:

    If you look at why Third Way types abandoned socialism for being a lighter version of the New Right IME their own words don't go any deeper than it had to be done, it was a response to new times. They're remarkably devoid of detail.

    Taking them at their words suggests that they saw the economic problems of the early 80s and didn't know what to do other than copying the right, or that being scared of the success of the right they decided to copy them. The continuation of those beliefs I think is more the effect of 20+ years following them than pure greed. They don't seem massively greedy in person, or by record here in NZ.

    489:

    Another good candidate for defending coastal waters is the Norwegian Skjold-class, which has a pretty nice sprint ability for ambushing.

    490:

    If you parse it, it makes no sense. I can easily believe the Yiddish explanation that JamesPadraicR gave in #473, because "I could care less?" DOES make sense. Another, slightly contrived, explanation is that there is an implicit "As though" at the front.

    As I said, I never saw it until recently (say, books written over 20 years back), though I saw some books by USA authors with "I couldn't care less". Any references to the contrary would be appreciated. From comments in the Web (NOT all cispondian), it seems that it is a fairly recent American idiom, is used among some groups and not others, and is unclear where and when it originated.

    491:

    From today’s “I’m on Twitter because I don’t do reality” column:

    “I think we (UK) should simply invade Ireland (military wise), peacefully as there wouldn't be a resistance. Dissolve the Irish gvt partially, job done. Ireland leaves with the rest of the people that have been carrying it for centuries.”

    Words fail me, but some of the replies were brilliant.

    492: 481 - That's more the sort of thing I ws thinking of for littoral combat; without loads of Wiki links, we could also consider UK MTB, MGB, US PT boat, German S-Boat, the ex-Soviet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenka-class_patrol_boat ... 484 - Well this UK citizen and native English speaker aggrees with your logic. 489 - And yes the Norwegian Skjold class too.
    493:

    I should say that I don’t think that it comes Yiddish, just what it might be if there’s an equivalent in the language.

    Also, I don’t agree with Charlie that it’s the standard US idiom. I’ve only ever seen used unironically by people who don’t know any better, along with “Wrecking havoc”and various they’re/there/their usages. All of which seem more common since Twitter became a thing, though I’m sure they’ve been around much longer.

    I could (sarcastically) say it’s all Noah Webster’s fault for dividing us by a common language.

    494:

    Sorry - I didn't mean to imply that you did. It's just that passage though that culture and subsequent loss of the query could easily have made the change that we observe.

    495:

    There's also the thing that native speakers learn the language by listening to it, and many non-natives learn the language by reading. For example, that "wrecking havoc" is an easy mistake to make if you've only heard the phrase and not seen it written.

    It's not like you can wreak that many other things than havoc, so this is something you just have to know in order to spell it in the most common way.

    This also applies to many other homonyms, like there/their/they're which are maybe easier if you have learned them by reading instead of just hearing them.

    (Mind you, there are a lot of mistakes non-natives do - for us Finns typical errors are article errors and errors with the gendered third-person pronouns, because we don't have those things in our language. I've tried to use the singular 'they' for that and other reasons lately when the gendered ones are not needed.)

    496:

    While the corporations themselves aren't rational agents, for the most part the employees are. You generally don't see decisions made and implemented without at least 1 employee thinking them through.

    The inherent problem we have now, as you sort of explain, is that it is difficult from a criminal perspective to make the decision makers responsible.

    Combine that with the fact that we essentially don't punish companies, either with fines that are significant enough to effect the stock performance / bonuses or with the company going out of business, and you end up with a risk/reward calculation that always favours the reward.

    On the other hand if we do treat corporations as a "person" and levy the significant fines or put them out of business then this opens up an interesting additional avenue for punishment. Simply put, those who end up losing money - the shareholders - will now have the incentive to do 2 things.

    One, pay more attention to the behaviour of the companies they are investing in. Most shareholders are large institutional investors who invest long term, and those pension funds, etc won't like seeing part of their holdings wiped out. And even those smaller shareholders who might dump the stock before the problems surface will face more difficulty in selling as buyers become more wary in their purchases.

    Secondly, those large investors and others will then have motivation to pursue the guilty parties through the civil courts - and the burden of proof is typically much less in a civil trial than a criminal trial. Thus it won't matter if it happened eight years ago and the guilty are gone from the company, because the shareholders and other inured parties will be going after the guilty anyway.

    Having thus reduced the rewards of bad corporate behaviour, the risk/reward calculation will now have different outcomes.

    497:

    No problem, I didn’t think you were implying that, I just wanted to make clear that I wasn’t either. There’s enough bits of Yiddish in American English to easily think there might be a connection.

    498:

    "At the same time the thinking includes, in its purest form, very strong penalties for rapists and pedophiles. Death is the default solution. "

    IIRC, one of the states which recently pass a total ban on abortion (Alabama?) also pass laws putting penalties on women who accuse a man of rape, if he is not convicted.

    Personally, I've seen zero evidence that the religious right in the USA is anti-rape. They are anti 'them' raping 'my' women, but only as a property right.

    499:

    Agreed. My ‘people who don’t know better’ left out ...because they don’t read, to keep it short. That and it’s early here—GMT-7.

    500:

    If we're doing "fast attack boats", how about the Swedish "Stridsbåt 90"?

    At least one of the Norwegian ones have been fitted with a "Kongsberg Protector".

    501:

    Having thus reduced the rewards of bad corporate behaviour, the risk/reward calculation will now have different outcomes.

    The problem with punishing the corporation as an entity is that the rewards are typically cashed out before the punishment, so those making the decision aren't suffering the punishment even if the corporation goes belly up (which leaves workers and customers paying the penalty).

    It's a bit like a trade war, in that those suffering a retaliatory tariff often have no connection to those affected by the first tariff (except for being in the same country).

    To use a Canadian example I'm somewhat familiar with, the workers at Nortel had no influence over the management decisions that wrecked the company and cost them their pensions, while the managers who made those decisions were richly rewarded. I was chatting just last week to someone who lost their pension when Nortel went under. (Nortel had a non-opt-out pension plan for employees, which was inadequately funded (and looted); one of the perks of reaching management was being able to opt out of the pension plan and control your own retirement funds.)

    The Wikipedia article is a decent summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nortel

    502:

    That's why I said what I did in #478. It's not perfect, because it doesn't touch deliberate, legal fraud and embezzlement of the sort you describe, but hammering the shareholders and directors is a good way to ensure that at least ongoing companies learn their lesson.

    Yes, the penalties on directors could be made retrospective, but there are practicability problems with that, and clawing back dividends is just plain infeasible.

    503:

    @449: In other news, Corbyn demonstrates he still doesn't want to win as he yet again does his best to avoid making the necessary decision and still wants to both remain and leave "depending on the circumstances".

    • Does this make him Schroedinger's MP?

    @500: Actually, the U.S. Navy has just the thing for the Persian Gulf escort problem: the Cyclone-class patrol ship, but they need a lot more of them, and fewer of the problematic Littoral Combat Ships. The LCS has been plagued with reliability problems, and the "plug and play" mission inserts have proven, er, suboptimal. The Cyclones, derived from a successful Vosper Thornycraft design, have the speed, firepower, and sensors necessary to combat the Iranian speedboat threat.

    504:

    Does anybody here know any good numbers on just how split the Labour party is on Brexit? Either membership polling or MP counts.

    505:

    In Nortel's case, shareholders got something out of a lawsuit (although lawyers and accountants got billions more).

    Eventually all civil charges against management were dropped, so they got to keep the loot.

    506:

    You're clearly misunderstanding what I'm saying. A contract with an company is fine... but law needs to make it clear that is only for economic uses, and no other. Non-economic wrongdoing should be punishable all the way up in the chain of command, with the highest-ranking person who made the decision financially and criminally liable... see military law. As they said during the Nuremburg Trials, we're not punishing the soldiers, we're punishing the officers who gave the orders.

    oh, and here's one: if an indictment is brought against a company, the chain of command needs to be specified... and ALL BONUSES AND STOCK OPTIONS GO INTO AN ESCROW ACCOUNT, PENDING THE TRIAL.

    Ya like that one? Remember, esp. that in the huge companies, the CEO has so much in the was of stocks and stock options that they can swing corporate board votes the way they want.

    507:

    whitroth @ 369: Perhaps you didn't know: rape is *not* about sex, but about power, "power over".

    Which is why you read about frats, etc, fucking another guy, but not thinking they're gay.

    It's a twisted subset of "power", one that comes from a feeling of powerlessness. It requires the degradation of others because they feel powerless, so they "gain" power when they hurt others; make the victim's pain worse than the pain they feel themselves.

    508:

    whitroth @ 372: Sorry, but as I said, there is *nothing* in the Constitution that supports the concept of an artificial person.

    You're right there is nothing in the Constitution to support it. Nor is there anything in the Constitution to deny it. The US courts have, in the absence of Constitutional certainty, granted corporations the rights of "artificial persons".

    My Amendment would explicitly deny that "artificial persons" have rights. Humans have rights. "Artificial persons" should not be able to over-ride the rights of HUMANS.

    509:

    Some of you might enjoy this commentary on Prime Minister Boris Johnson from comedian John Oliver: https://youtu.be/dXyO_MC9g3k

    510:

    A contract with an company is fine... but law needs to make it clear that is only for economic uses, and no other.

    So for example, you think it is wrong for corporations that, say, lobby for sustainability to lobby for sustainability? Instead, you want them to pay individuals (let's call them lobbyists, to pick a random word) to do that for them? That sounds like the status quo, and the blurring of money between individuals and corporate entities (as well as trusts and foundations) is a well-known and huge problem in politics. Adding to that won't solve anything. We'd do far better to pay politicians more, fund elections, and fund several news channels, so that there's little use for pouring money into paying for elections and the money gets limited to straight up lobbying and bribery.

    Non-economic wrongdoing should be punishable all the way up in the chain of command, with the highest-ranking person who made the decision financially and criminally liable... see military law. As they said during the Nuremburg Trials, we're not punishing the soldiers, we're punishing the officers who gave the orders.

    Charlie pointed out the "diffusion of responsibility" problem back in #437, and that's a big one issue right there.

    There's also plausible deniability. For example, every single fire-trap development I know in San Diego County that's being litigated over had a uniformed fire chief at the hearing saying his men could keep those people safe. Indeed, he was there to say precisely that. Was he lying? We won't know until, like Paradise, they burn down (something similar happened in Paradise during planning hearings in 2006). Heck, Cal Fire even claims that Paradise proves the case, because only 85 people out of the tens of thousands evacuating were killed by the fire. Obviously that's good enough to say most people are safe. Right? Who do you sue in these situations, even when it really feels like things like money, influence, and lucrative post-retirement consulting jobs might conceivably have been discussed at various points? All that stuff's just paranoid fantasy until proved...

    Then we also get the quid pro quo: Pacific Gas and Electric quite reasonably pointed out that, yes, it was quite possible that their equipment caused a bunch of fires in which people died. Yes, in fact, they're also the monopoly electricity supplier for much of California. Tragically, if they were forced to pay to make everything right, they would simply have to declare bankruptcy and leave the market, causing a massive and permanent blackout. And it really sucks that California decided to bail them out, rather than killing far more people than died in the fires by using pursuing justice until it caused a lethal power failure. The variations on this are truly endless.

    oh, and here's one: if an indictment is brought against a company, the chain of command needs to be specified... and ALL BONUSES AND STOCK OPTIONS GO INTO AN ESCROW ACCOUNT, PENDING THE TRIAL. Maybe. Depending on the facts of the case, I suspect that anyone for whom this was a real concern could use those escrowed accounts as collateral to get money. After all, if they lost the case despite their best efforts, it would be up to their creditors to try to make good on the loss.

    The reason I'm being negative is that your solutions aren't on the scale of the problem. The guys (and it's mostly men) who are causing the problem control more money than do most countries in the world, and the people who serve them have spent decades making it as difficult as possible to chip away at their wealth and power. Reining them in with simple legal changes probably isn't going to work. The functional problem with these plutocrats is that they're just about as dumb as the rest of us, but because of their enormous power, the negative outcomes of their bright ideas tend to kill us ordinary folk in disproportionate numbers, even if a large number of them weren't erm, in interestingly neurodiverse in ways that some people might find troublesome.

    I don't think there's one solution. Messing with the industry that supports them (offshore finance) is a really good idea, for one thing. Getting active, organizing, and innovating on activism are really important, so that we have some power to work with (too many non-violent activists think that Gandhi and MLK are the best there is, but these guys were doing the non-violent equivalent of WW2 and Vietnam, and we're in the 21st century now. Russia and China are innovating in the non-violent conflict space, and we'd be stupid to not at least match them). One might conceivably hypothesize that hacking the specialized industries that only the super-wealthy use would cause some trouble, but that's just a science fictional suggestion, not a real one, and I have no idea how to do that in any case.

    511:

    "Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart." -Eric Hoffer

    512: 489 #492 Pity about the Skjold class: it is currently being planned to be axed because the F-35s will cost too damn much.

    (Of course, if the Norwegian Navy keeps losing frigates to tankers, they may have to rethink...)

    513:

    Antistone @ 375: Could you explain what corporate personhood has to do with executives getting away with crimes?

    If you instruct a human being to commit a crime, and then that human being goes and does as you instruct, then YOU can go to jail for that. (For conspiracy, if nothing else.) So I don't see how any amount of corporations-being-like-humans protects the executives from going to jail.

    Am I missing something?

    Yes, I think you are.

    You're missing how things actually work. When a corporate executive instructs an employee to do something against the law - IF the crime is discovered and IF the crime is prosecuted - only the employee (if anyone) is likely to be held accountable.

    Usually, the corporation signs a consent-decree promising not to break the law in the future (without admitting any illegal acts were committed). There may be a fine imposed as part of the consent decree, but that fine is paid by the corporation (i.e. the shareholders as a charge against profits).

    The corporate executive won't be held responsible & won't even lose his "bonus". The worst penalty the executive is likely to face is being ousted & having to exercise his Golden Parachute. Even then it is VERY difficult for the shareholders to claw back any of the executive's ill gotten gains. Easier to write the loss off against taxes.

    (I am assuming you are talking about crimes that the executives somehow cause the corporation to commit. If the secretary is relaying coded messages for the mafia without the executives' knowledge, I assume you'd agree the executives are not responsible for that.)

    Well, you know what happens when you ASSUME. More likely the executive is is the one sending coded messages and the secretary doesn't know what's in the messages. But that won't prevent management using the secretary as a "fall guy".

    514:

    The question you are answering is not the one I asked. See my previous clarification @433. (Or, alternately, go to the part where you quoted me and carefully re-read my first sentence.)

    515:

    Troutwaxer @ 377: We have a looney left, probably about five-percent of the population. We also have a looney right, which seems to be more like twenty-percent of the population (thanks Faux news.) Seventy-five percent of America is within spitting distance of rationality, though most prefer not to go there.

    For myself, I'm fairly far to the left - my great-grandfather had a Communist Party Card with a three digit membership number - but I'm more a European-type socialist than anything else. (If I had to vote for President today, I'd probably go for Warren.)

    I don't even know what a three digit membership number signifies other than he was one of the first thousand individuals to join the CPUSA. How many digits did the last person to join have in his/her membership number?

    I consider myself to be a Pro-Union New Deal Democrat, acknowledging FDR had to make a lot of Jim Crow compromises to get support for his programs from Southern Congress Critters. I think we made progress under Truman, Kennedy & Johnson towards rectifying some of the injustices FDR accepted to get on with the program, but ...

    Obviously not enough progress, or we wouldn't be having these debates today. I guess that would probably put me slightly to the right of European-type socialists, but I'm not that sure.

    I'm supporting Warren as well. So far ... It's still a long time until the convention & the 2020 election, so it's remotely possible a better choice might come forward, but I don't see any among the current crop.

    516:

    I’ve never coming across ‘wrecking havoc’, but it’s more in the same category as ‘intensive purposes’, a wild Spoonerism growing weed like. The could couldn’t thing has more happening. I also agree it sounds like it could have a Yiddish origin but probably doesn’t.

    The thing I think of is how subtly variable meaning can be in English phrases the contain subjunctive forms of verbs or forms that bring a non-indicative mood: could, would, should, might, were and friends. Mostly it seems to imply the presence of other words but sometimes it’s just a lot of embedded context that is hard to draw out in isolation.

    Here I suspect the usage is a reference to a specific other phrase, now lost. Or even a specific artefact - like a New Yorker cartoon. “No-one could care less than I,” as one of the examples in one of the sources linked above goes. “Darling, I could. I could care less.”

    517:

    Several other people have made insightful comments raising issues with this overall strategy, but I also want to point out there's a mistake in your equation for implementing that strategy.

    You're using

    Expected Value = Profit - Legal fees and costs

    But you should probably be using

    Expected Value = Profit - (Legal fees and costs * Probability of getting caught)

    Setting fees to 110% of profits means that cheating could still be profitable on average if you get caught less than 90.9% of the time.

    But I do think that the expected penalties for deliberate crimes should be higher than their expected profits. I don't think that's a sufficient measure to prevent all such crimes, but it's probably a necessary one.

    518:

    Erwin @ 381: Well. The presumption that immigration hurts no one seemed to be rooted in an approximation in which there was no friction and therefore citizens in, eg, stoop labor jobs immediately found something more skilled as they were displaced. While this might be somewhat true on a generational perspective, it probably isn't true on shorter timespans, as many people retrain by dying and having their children perform different tasks.

    The reality is that there are perfectly nice people who simply have very limited upwards potential.

    I don't believe "immigration hurts no one". But on balance, the harm it might do to some is minuscule compared to the general benefit to society. "Illegal" immigration IS a problem, but mostly because undocumented immigrants are more vulnerable to exploitation & victimization. It's not good when someone has to fear the police more than they fear the criminals preying upon them.

    (Regarding upwards mobility, it is still true that a sufficiently skilled, capable, and lucky individual can do very well in the US - probably better than elsewhere. That said, the system serves those below, um, the 75th percentile poorly. Another issue is that an awful lot of bright people end up in finance, which is largely unproductive. A bright side of Brexit could be the end of London as a financial center.)

    Not so much any more, I'd put the cut-off closer to the 90th percentile and rising. Every day those below get farther and farther behind and the impediments get greater and greater. Barriers are put in place to prevent the "have-nots" from acquiring the necessary skills & capabilities. More and more, the percentage of population who CAN [i.e. are permitted to] rise on their own merit is continuously shrinking. Opportunities are restricted to scions of the 90%+.

    519:

    Activities of the young: fortnight seems to still have legs for group play. V clever balance of free to play, no pay to win (so no need for cash strapped to boringly 'grind'), but plenty of opportunity for pay to look cool and thus money to keep game innovating. Got to watch youtube videos at the same time to fill in wait time of course.

    NI: couldn't they just treat no badly until support of reunification dips over 50% then gfa stipulates a referendum. Surely bozo couldn't accidentally win another one? Totally legal.

    Scotland: I'm genuinely interested in the thoughts on referendum outcome in event of hard brexit. Yes, it's incredibly unpopular in the rational north, but hard border with main trading partner and on main trade route to Europe? That seems like brexit squared. So why the confidence in a ref win?

    Automation: I didn't spend the day subsistence farming, neither, presumably, did any of you. I've done enough of that sort of work to know that scaled up to subsistence it's pretty rubbish, very hard work. Also they whole country didn't spend the day doing by hand what the server farm is currently doing to design the next chip, which would make said farming seem like a heavenly dream job if we had to do it. Automation takes shit jobs and makes better ones. How we allocate the savings is nothing to do with the automation.

    520:

    Adrian Howard @ 399: I find JRM's cavalier approach to punctuation … disturbing and, furthermore, pretentious.

    The whole style thing is typical of him though. It's a callback to "old" standards, and is wrong.

    It also plays into his eccentric Victorian bullshit — which like the Boris persona detracts from what an evil little so-and-so he is.

    I'm afraid I missed exactly who this JRM happens to be and how his cavalier approach to punctuation matters in the least.

    That said, I learned to TYPE on an old-fashion manual typewriter** and modern keyboarding styles still haven't quite penetrated the way certain rules were drilled into me; literally with a ruler - mistakes & UN-approved techniques (not in Strunk & White), such as looking at the page you were typing instead of the source material you were supposed to be working from were painfully corrected by a slap across the knuckles with that ruler. If she was in a particularly vicious mood she used the metal edge rather than the flat side to apply her correction.

    Because of that, it took me a long time to adjust to using only a single space after a period (.) and I still put two spaces after a colon (:). And commas (,) come after clauses until you get to the "AND" ...

    It's "clause" COMMA "clause" COMMA "clause" "and" "clause" PERIOD [no comma before or after "AND"]. I use the word "VERY" too much. "Very" should only be used for emphasis where the word "DAMNED" would be appropriate. I AM getting old (never expected THAT to happen) and I'm set in my ways, so there's not much hope I'm going to change now.

    ** Note: The typewriter I learned on had all blank keys, so I had to internalize the layout to know where the next letter was located. It's difficult to adapt to modern keyboards because some letters and/or functions are NOT where they're supposed to be or don't work the way I expect them to. OTOH, I love spell-check (although I don't allow auto-correct) and correcting a mistake is a breeze when you don't have to use a special eraser & technique for carbon copies.

    PS: I notice Google Image Search is fucked up again. It brings up nothing but advertised products and the layout sucks.

    521:

    Charlie Stross @ 438:

    MODERN REALITY CHECK

    I notice some of you are railing about "if people don't have to work for a living millions will just sit and watch TV all day".

    I'd like to remind you that (a) I'm younger than most of you, and (b) I'm old enough to be a granddad.

    Kids these days barely watch TV as we knew it: they're all over YouTube and on the net playing Fortnite (or was that last year already? I'm so old and slow …). Their idle time activities bear no relationship to the stereotype couch potato sitting alone on the sofa absorbing Fox News; that's for the old farts like us, who are doing a 20-30 year fade-out.

    Please find a new metaphor for idleness. Like, eh, working a third side hustle to try and make this month's rent payment because minimum wage laws are unenforced and it's too low to live on anyway.

    (This has not been a moderation notice, but just an advance warning that I'm getting heartily sick of obsolete stereotypes being rolled out to implicitly diss the younger generations.)

    If "people don't have to work for a living", why can't they do whatever they want to occupy their time? Even if it IS "just sit and watch TV all day" or Facebook or Reddit or play computer games on-line. If there's not enough REAL WORK to go around, there has to be some way for people to have an income sufficient to keep body & soul together ... unless you want to go back to Dickensian work houses & debtor's prisons.

    Young people shouldn't have to be working multiple side hustles just to afford not living under a bridge. It's a societal problem, not the kid's fault.

    Those kids are going to be in charge soon. I hope they find a better solution to giving everyone an opportunity to live a meaningful life (however they want to define that - my definition works for me, but they're going to have to find one that works for them) than my generation managed to find.

    I wish them luck with that.

    522:

    One English (or British?) Ex-pat's assessment of your new Prime Minister:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXyO_MC9g3k

    523:

    Scott Sanford @ 439: (The fifteen year old girl I saw on ebay last night manufacturing bespoke switch covers for custom electronics must be an outlier for all demographics.)

    Or that may just be her particular "side hustle".

    524:

    Troutwaxer @ 448: I think the way to handle corporate crime is simple: Pass a law which states that the fine must always be more than the profits from the illegal activity. Corporate crime happens because corporate accounting treats the problem as simple subtraction.

    $PROFITS - $LEGALFEESANDFINES = $POSTIVENUMBER

    A positive number equals profit, and the legal fees and fines are a reasonable risk. So we need to change the equation, as follows, so it always reads like this:

    $PROFITS - $LEGALFEESANDFINES = $NEGATIVENUMBER

    Where a negative number equals a loss. You could even specify a number, where the fine must be 110 percent of the bad behavior. The other thing which would discourage corporate misbehavior would be if the full amount of the fine goes to the levying agency.

    Why should a corporation be allowed to deduct the cost of legal fees for defending corporate crime? If I'm accused of committing a crime I don't get to deduct MY legal costs. Especially not if I'm convicted.

    525:

    Jar @ 451:

    "Kids these days barely watch TV as we knew it"

    Well... I am a couple of years younger than OGH, but I have not owned a working TV for over 15 years. I do watch streamed content, but for that I use a big monitor (55" 4K variety, intended to be a TV, but why bother to set it up because it just works as a monitor, I have not done anything else to it than configured it to use the HDMI ports and have a decent picture quality, of course with audio disabled because the TV audio is too bad).

    My 55" 4K monitor is not connected to the cable or the Wifi. Everything it does is to show the pretty pictures sent to it by my carefully stripped out Linux box. I think it just plain stupid to have a "smart" TV that is connected to internet.

    I keep forgetting that I do have a functional TV because I can't use it to watch television - not connected to cable and no over the air reception (I live in a valley without line of sight to any of the nearby stations, even a roof top antenna wouldn't get up high enough).

    I bought it seven or eight years ago when I needed a new monitor. The store I went to had a 27" 1080p monitor with a built in TV tuner OR (for the same price) a 32" 1080p HDTV with a monitor input. I opted for the larger TV, not realizing I wouldn't be able to receive over-the-air broadcasts because of geography AND not realizing I wouldn't be able to do a full color calibration (to use it with Photoshop).

    I do watch a small amount of Television programming on THIS computer (general purpose computer w/4k 32 inch MONITOR - a real monitor, not a TV masquerading as a monitor like I have on my Photoshop computer) - mostly TV show seasons on DVD - and a few programs I can download from UseNet.

    526:

    On one hand, I suspect that criminal corporate behavior is a rounding error by comparison to incompetent or poorly motivated corporate behavior. On the other hand, getting at white collar crime should be easy - just pass a whistleblower protection act with teeth. (A bonus for parts shipped. Wow, empty warehouse. How'd you sell so many? Sell??)

    Something like: 1. If you report real criminal behavior, collect 25% as a bounty (assuming you didn't propose it). 2. If a reasonable person would have suspected criminal behavior (using the same standard of proof used for policemen murdering someone), get protection essentially amounting to a job for life at the company, counting promotions. (Yes, they can fire you, but only after paying for 30 years labor.)

    The issue right now is that workers get a Benny for reporting a crime plus unemployment and, possibly, a promotion for keeping silent.

    527:

    I have lived my whole life in the US and I grew up with "couldn't care less". I have long assumed that "could care less" is simply people being too lazy or too ignorant to say all of the words, though it's possible that's unfair.

    I have similar feelings about "sooner than later" (in that it looks like a lazy shortening of "sooner rather than later").

    It's certainly plausible that I have a bias towards what I grew up with, but in both cases the shorter phrase seems to me to make noticeably less grammatical sense, and it's much easier to imagine a long phrase being shortened than vice versa.

    528:

    get protection essentially amounting to a job for life at the company

    Given that they will likely have trouble getting a job elsewhere…

    I may be unreasonably extrapolating from my time in the tech industry, but reporting problems anywhere but to your immediate manager quickly gets you blackballed. So a whistleblower is risking their career (ie. all future earnings).

    530:

    I didn't say they were allowed to deduct anything. You have misunderstood completely. The equation is not for taxes, but for calculating profit and/or loss from illegal activities.

    531:

    An interesting article on the whys and why nots of convoying oil tankers through the Straits of Hormuz.

    https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29097/heres-why-naval-convoys-are-an-ideal-solution-hated-by-everyone

    Pros: Convoys are an "off the shelf" solution that has worked well in the past and could be implemented today.

    Cons: The shipping companies HATE convoys because of the cost. The navies that would have to implement the convoy protection HATE convoys even more, mainly because they've neglected & frittered away the smaller surface combat ships (frigates, corvettes & smaller patrol class vessels) most suited for doing the job .

    532:

    I sincerely think OGH @483 does not have the right of it about 'I could care less' -- that it is not at all standard American idiom (though it's perilous to speak for all ages and subcultures). In my experience in the USA, it's always been a conscious illiteratism, a small act of oral vandalism against the language, like saying NUK-you-lehr. It's a linguistic signifier, a verbal wife-beater t-shirt.

    533:

    JBS @ 520 "JRM" is the unspeakable reactionary, arrogant bastard usually referred to a "Rees=Smaug" or "Grease=Smaug" Amazingly rich, priveliged, the "minister for the 18th Century" - though the 15th would be more accurate. Male catholic Dominator ...

    @ 522 NOT available in the UK ....

    And ... in GOOD NEWS (!) Randall Munroe / XKCD is coming to London - follow through the links for details.

    534:

    I'm impressed by the Drive editors single-minded insistence that the US and minions are pure and innocent victims of the terrorist Irani government, the dastardly Houthi rebels and the horrible Somali pirates. And it's simply out of the question that sanctions against Iran could be lifted, and thus war is inevitable. (The possibility that Iran might surrender is not mentioned in the article, but presumably it exists? Otherwise we simply have a war against Iran that started without reason and must continue forever ... until another enemy is found? The various reasons to destroy Somalia, Syria, Iraq and Yemen are likewise unmentioned but presumably exist)

    535:

    The problem with a lot of little ships is that they need crews, enough warm bodies to work the ship and enough extra to take losses in combat, repair battle damage and keep the ship fighting. Ten littoral ships with forty crew each which can only really be used for patrolling the coasts of the Empire or two modern multi-role cruiser-sized destroyers with two hundred crew each which can work in blue water and brown anywhere on the planet, it's really a no-brainer.

    Worked example -- a RN Sandown-class minehunter needs a crew of 34 and it can only hunt mines, its anti-air capability is a single 30mm gun. It masses 600 tonnes. A Type 45 Daring-class destroyer has a crew of 190, masses 8000 tonnes and can handle anti-air threats for several hundred kilometres around its area of operations. It can also work as an naval escort in areas of trouble and defend itself much better if push comes to shove.

    Time was there were people queued up around the block to join the military as an alternative to working in coal mines or not working at all. Nowadays recruitment just to meet the reduced manning levels of the current era of World Peace is a continuous nightmare.

    The other problem is losses -- outside an actual real existential war, having servicemen and women coming home in pine boxes because they were sent out in fragile small craft with inadequate defences to get blown up by the Bad Guys Du Jour is a vote-loser. A Type 45 can maybe stop an anti-shipping missile fired at it, a patrol boat doesn't have an earthly of surviving such an attack.

    536: 531 - ...and gun destroyers. The UK Type 45, for example, is primarily a platform for a radar, SAM launcher and helideck, with 1 4.5" gun and some point defence. 535 - OTOH your 2 cruisers can only be in 2 places at once (less if they're defending a small flat-top), where 10 small ships can be in 10 places at once.

    The cruisers only make sense in a "hot war", where we're considering primary requirements in fisheries and oil field protection, anti-smuggling and immigration..

    537:

    Something else I forgot about smaller littoral ships is basing -- if they are forward-deployed to, say, the Gulf then they need a port locally they can go to refuel and resupply regularly since they're short-legged with little fuel capacity, food stores etc. That port has to be friendly and protected which takes more resources, more manning and provides yet another place for the Bad Guys Du Jour to attack. Even then things can go wrong -- see the USS Cole incident for example.

    The Type 45s have a maximum range of 7000 nautical miles stand-alone which means they don't have to go into a nearby port every couple of weeks just to do their job, assuming that job means going in harm's way far from home waters.

    538:

    Precisely. And 'showing the flag', checking out suspicious activities, and trailing or laying submarine-or mine-hunting drones - all of which can be done as well by a 2nd Lieutenant in a modernised MGB with a handful of crew as by a Captain in a battleship with hundreds. Yes, they can do only one thing at once - but they would almost never be more than a few hour's from a resupply station. Let's accept the Russophobes' claims for a moment - just what can a destroyer do to argue the toss with a Russian carrier fleet that a MGB can't?

    539:

    I fully agree. The problem is that too many of the people and organisations that actually rule us actively WANT enemies, and will turn neutral countries into histile ones if that's what it takes.

    540:

    Yes :-) A couple of niggles, though.

    Colon should be followed by extra space when it is a separator (between semi-colon and period in weight), but debatably so when it introduces a list (I don't). However, the former use is nearly as rare as hen's teeth nowadays, and even semi-colons are rare.

    A comma after "and", as a clause conjunction but not a phrase one, is 18th century usage, and is pointless. However, one before such a use of "and" (as I used in the previous sentence) can often greatly improve clarity. The rule forbidding the latter was part of the Victorian dogmatisation of English, with which I will have no truck.

    541:

    Mostly agree.

    Largely the Victorians wanted English to follow deterministic rules and their ideal model was Latin, which meant a lot of coercion and some things that either don’t make sense or are just a bit unfortunate, especially since they have sort of infected how English grammar is taught and some of these things (like the rule against split infinitives) don’t seem to accurately reflect how English works. Some of these appear to have had some sort of worthy motivation, but that yearning for determinism is ultimately wrong-headed.

    The thing I have had most issue with over the years is the excessive use of the passive to avoid identifying the agent of the sentence, or to downplay agency. It seems to be second nature for people today to fear saying “somebody did something,” and to prefer to say “something happened, and maybe somebody was responsible.” You get some almost ridiculous forms of this - “it was said” for instance, then you get the statement and if you’re lucky the speaker is identified at the end. This is not to say that it isn’t appropriate to use this mechanism when the subject is not known, doesn’t matter or there is some other good reason to avoid it. But people feel showing agency is “too strong” and there’s a pressure people feel to wright “it was shown” rather than “we have shown.”

    The obvious mistake I make all the time is putting the punctuation outside the closing inverted comma or quotation mark. For some reason I internalised doing it this way early on and no-one ever corrected me... only relatively recently when I have needed to study style guides pretty carefully for various reasons did I see the light.

    542:

    The navies that would have to implement the convoy protection HATE convoys even more, mainly because they've neglected & frittered away the smaller surface combat ships (frigates, corvettes & smaller patrol class vessels) most suited for doing the job.

    Naval promotion ladders run through command of the biggest ships and then a group of ships. Time spent commanding a corvette or a small patrol boat is time not spent as executive officer on a guided missile destroyer or cruiser on the ladder to captain of such a ship. Let's not even think about carriers (commanded for the most part by fighter jocks).

    So there's institutional prejudice among the senior officer corps against messing around in [small] boats instead of driving around carrier battle groups, as is decent and proper and supports the natural order of things.

    You miss one point—class inflation. A modern frigate is the size of a WW2 light cruiser; a modern destroyer is a heavy cruiser (or even a battlecruiser, if we're talking about the Zumwalt class). A chunk of the convoy escort job in WW2 was carried out by small escort carriers; today's helicopter carriers are closest in size to these, but even so they're inflating out of the appropriate range, so they're too rare and expensive to assign to escort duty.

    Something like the Japanese Hyūga-class helicopter destroyers might work well for convoy escort in littoral waters against low-tech threats and diesel subs if that was a recurring problem, but Japan isn't allowed to loan them out for active use overseas. (Also: a "destroyer" that displaces 13-19,000 tons and can fly F-35s off its flat top? Hah.)

    543:

    "Something like the Japanese Hyūga-class helicopter destroyers"

    The Hyugas are being replaced by the Izumo class helicopter carriers. They're 22,000 tonnes and Panamax, about the same size and displacement as the IJN's wartime fleet carriers like the Kaga. They can operate a squadron of F-35Bs quite handily although at the moment they're just deploying OV-22 Ospreys as the largest on-board aircraft.

    Oh, and that mention of the WWII carrier, the Kaga? The second Izumo-class ship is called the Kaga too.

    544:

    The problem is that too many of the people and organisations that actually rule us actively WANT enemies, and will turn neutral countries into histile ones if that's what it takes.

    Got to justify the military budget somehow, haven't we?

    Mind you, it might be changing soon. Those (British and American) military officers I've met have without exception been thoughtful and intelligent people; and we know the Pentagon identifies global climate change as a vast strategic threat overshadowing and driving conflicts this century. In the absence of high intensity wars to fight, switching emphasis to disaster mitigation, peacekeeping, and providing aid to civil authorities is a no-brainer. Military organizations are of necessity experts in logistics repair in challenging conditions.

    And if the political leadership had a gram of sense they'd maybe realize that paying for climate defenses and rushing in to fix infrastructure in the wake of climate-induced weather disasters would reduce refugee pressure: with the right spin it could even be sold to the anti-immigrant knuckle-draggers ("we're going over there to fix things so they don't come over here instead").

    545:

    Crossing the threads of post-Adamic "People sitting around playing Fortnite/Overwatch/PUBG/CODBLOPS" and Time was there were people queued up around the block to join the military as an alternative to working in coal mines or not working at all, then maybe a side effect of people not having to work in order to afford a roof and food and utilities was also making it impossible to wage war*. What a terrible thought.

    Anyway, if we need say sewer workers, or at the very least technicians for sewer robots, and no one is getting off their backsides to do it then I guess someone would have to figure out how to incentivise it. Maybe early access to a sewer level? Backstage pass to an esports tournament? A SewerLord Achievement Badge? Or, assuming a market economy, more money?

    • Just kidding, that's the first thing that would/is being automated.
    546:

    And if the political leadership had a gram of sense they'd maybe realize that paying for climate defenses and rushing in to fix infrastructure in the wake of climate-induced weather disasters would reduce refugee pressure: with the right spin it could even be sold to the anti-immigrant knuckle-draggers ("we're going over there to fix things so they don't come over here instead").

    At least here, my impression is that the same people are both anti-immigrant, saying that we should prevent people from bettering their lives by coming here, and anti-aid, saying that we shouldn't help people other than those of our nationality.

    Of course, the same group of people seem to also be against any aid to the poor, and define that nationality more by skin color than what is printed on passports or how long people have lived here.

    Sometimes it feels that these people are just against everything except getting all the stuff for themselves. Even when it is counter-productive and helping somebody else would be better for them.

    547:

    You may think you're joking, but you know about Amazon trying to gamify warehouse work for their human drones to make it less soul-crushing, right?

    548:

    One can wish :-( That's one of the reasons that I wouldn't mind a (UK) military takeover of the UK - we almost certainly wouldn't suffer from the fascist or Mafioso ones that infest other parts of the world.

    I started despairing about that blindness w.r.t. refugees in the 1960s, when the policy of destabilising (then, mainly African) countries rather than taking them over took off. The consequences of that were obvious, but ....

    549:

    Mikko P @ 544 Sometimes it feels that these people are just against everything except getting all the stuff for themselves. Even when it is counter-productive and helping somebody else would be better for them. NOT "sometimes" - all the fucking time, actually. There's a huge chunk of the USA ( I would guess 20% + ) who will not accept UNiversal Healthcare, not only because it's "commonist" or because it might help brown people, but, principallybecause, I've got mine & screw you ... the open selfishness & utter lack of any societal feeling is scary.

    550:

    I dislike the practice of putting punctuation inside the quotation marks when it is syntactically and semantically part of the enclosing text, not the quotation. This sort of thing grates on me, so I don't do it:

    He said "I'm not afraid of Armageddon;" what we didn't realise was that he would lead us into it.

    551:

    Bad idea, really bad idea.

    You wouldn't mind a military takeover of the UK because the UK military is apolitical, right?

    Except military takeovers are exactly how you end up with a politicized kleptocratic military.

    Road to hell, good intentions, etc. (And the tendency of scum to bubble to the top.)

    552:

    AND The military would HATE it. I remember a great General, Brian Horrocks, on TV, back in the early 60's referring to "Action in defence of the Civil Power" & stating that it was the one thing the Army really, really did not like doing ....

    553:

    Well sure, anything satirical I come up with will have been at least considered seriously by someone in a corporation.

    Or possibly by the Soviet Union. Rise up the leaderboard to become a Stakhanovite! Earn the Hero of Socialist Labour medal!

    554:

    Oh, yes, it's a really bad idea - but continuing with the current incompetent kleptocracy is better just how?

    I am absolutely serious that I don't see any way out, short of a revolution, and I don't see one of those happening until the current lot(s) have completely wrecked the country. A military takeover might (just might) let itself be replaced by something that would be less certain to be catastrophic. My point is that, if you are facing certain disaster, ANY unpredictable action is better than just waiting for it.

    555:

    In the absence of high intensity wars to fight, switching emphasis to disaster mitigation, peacekeeping, and providing aid to civil authorities is a no-brainer.

    For the military, maybe. Not so much for the vast industrial complex that supports them.

    rushing in to fix infrastructure in the wake of climate-induced weather disasters would reduce refugee pressure: with the right spin it could even be sold to the anti-immigrant knuckle-draggers

    Years ago (1970s) I read a short story in an anthology which seemed to be a Vietnam-inspired combat story: high-tech platoon going on a raid against a small village. Twist at the end was they were installing a clean well and inoculating people (who wanted to be left alone) because it was cheaper to save people than fight them later. Protagonist hits a villager and gets washed out of the military for injuring someone (they are using non-lethal weapons which apparently subdue without causing injury). Can't remember the name of the story or anthology. (Might have been in Study War No More but can't locate the book to check.)

    556:

    Anyway, if we need say sewer workers, or at the very least technicians for sewer robots, and no one is getting off their backsides to do it then I guess someone would have to figure out how to incentivise it. … assuming a market economy, more money?

    Good joke!

    Remember the old saying: "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but if you rip their wings off they'll eat what they're given."

    557:

    Sometimes it feels that these people are just against everything except getting all the stuff for themselves. Even when it is counter-productive and helping somebody else would be better for them.

    They'd happily poke out one eye if everyone else ended up blind?

    558:

    Well "Study War No More" is an anthology edited by Joe Haldeman, if that's any help.

    559:

    RP @ 555 It's a Harry Harrison story, that I can remember ....

    @ 557 YES, they are that stupid & selfish

    560:

    Harry Harrison "Commando Raid"? (I happen to have the anthology's Wikipedia entry open)

    561:

    All correct. "Commando Raid" by Harry Harrison in the anthology "Study War No More" edited by Joe Haldeman. Starts on page 113 of the edition I have.

    562:

    @ 538 "Russian carrier fleet" - snrk! Are you talking about this piece of crap? I was still at USEUCOM the last time this pig meandered from Murmansk down to the eastern Med. It was accompanied by three surface combatants and an ocean-going tugboat in the likelihood it would break down during the voyage. She embarked no more than 12 fixed-wing aircraft, and managed to lose two to accidents during the deployment.

    Very few nations have attempted carrier power in the way the U.S. has: the UK (if they ever get the HMS Queen Elizabeth working properly), France, India, and an emerging capability in China. Carriers are hideously expensive to acquire and maintain, require a high level of expertise and experience to use, and are increasingly vulnerable to missile-based counterattacks (see DF-21D). The USN has long had the stated requirement to maintain twelve CVNs to meet deployment needs, but recently had to go down to eleven due to budget constraints. No other nation has or plans to have more than single digits of carrier capability.

    This also relates to our discussion of escorting merchant ships in the Persian Gulf. The USN is focused on being a "blue water" (open ocean) navy, and has long disdained littoral operations. Events in the Mideast over the past thirty years have marginally shifted this emphasis, but "brown water" operations are still not a stellar career path. Hence, there has been little U.S. emphasis on littoral ops. The LCS class is an attempt to address this requirement, but the class has had ongoing reliability and availability issues. In a NATO context, the U.S. has asked European allies to focus on littoral operations more than open ocean ops, hence the higher proportion of frigates and coastal vessels in most European navies. Overall, though, Western powers are under-resourced in coastal patrol and escort capabilities, and will have a hard time providing sufficient ships for this mission in the Gulf.

    Charlie @ 542: " Let's not even think about carriers (commanded for the most part by fighter jocks)." This is kind of true. A USN carrier battle group (CVBG) will be commanded by, typically, a Rear Admiral who is most likely, but not always, an aviator. The captain of the carrier itself is normally a Surface Warfare Officer Captain, and the carrier Air Wing will be a Naval Aviator Captain. It's a complicated setup.

    563:

    @552: Greg, also true in the U.S. Setting up U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) in 2002 was an exercise in learning by doing, and importantly, learning what not to do. The most important lesson, and the hardest for the military, is that in Defense Support to Civil Authorities, the military IS NOT IN CHARGE.

    When Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in August 2005, USNORTHCOM spent months providing relief to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and particularly New Orleans. One of the hardest questions to answer was "when do we stop"? We had to keep reminding leadership that we were in support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and not the other way around.

    564:

    The army one general said would mutiny under Corbyn? This army?

    565:

    No - I am talking about the mythical one that the Russophobes keep telling us that we need the latest and greatest warships to defend ourselves ourselves against :-)

    My point stands, in either case. Even if it were necessary to tag along with every Russian warship that goes through the English Channel, or wave the UK's willy at every one that approaches our territorial waters in the North Sea, a second Lieutenant in a MGB would be perfectly adequate for the task.

    567:

    @565: Optics and politics, but frankly, I'd be greatly amused if you all had used Boaty McBoatface to do the job.

    No Russian surface combatant deserves major concern from the U.S. and NATO. Their attack subs, ballistic missile subs, and intelligence gathering subs are of ongoing and increasing concern.

    568:

    "And if the political leadership had a gram of sense they'd maybe realize that paying for climate defenses and rushing in to fix infrastructure in the wake of climate-induced weather disasters would reduce refugee pressure:"

    Agreed completely and enthusastically. Back when I was attempting to write the Climate Change Novel this was a major feature of the plot. (The novel is still up on blocks in the back yard, and currently getting rusty...)

    But the idea was not only that there would be such a force, but that every citizen and would-be citizen would have to spend 30-days a year as members of that force, (I say this because I think it's an excellent model, not to toot my own horn.) The reason for this, historically, is that the American Armies in WWII were composed of draftees from all over; Country boys from Alabama serving with Jewish kids from New York, Catholics serving with Protestants, etc. and it did a great deal to unite the country. Once a Jewish kid has saved your life in battle, it's hard to maintain prejudice.

    I would like the authorities to run the same playbook: during your month, if you came from the North you'd serve with people from the South. If you were a white kid from Iowa you'd serve with Hispanics from California. Etc. And even if all you did was tear down some homes which were too close to the ocean, at least you'd have some exposure - which is something desperately needed in the U.S. right now.

    569:

    I tried to get someone to draw the following cartoon. Two views of hell with the usual demons, fires, smoke, and tortures. One view has the classic "Welcome to Hell, Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here" the other view of hell says "Welcome to Amazon. Lift With Your Legs, Not With Your Back."

    570:

    People are badly spoiled these days. Being that spoiled used to be only for really rich people or the nobility, but with modern technology being spoiled is not something that can happen to anyone with with an income over 100-150,000/year.

    571:

    Unfortunately, human beans don't work that way. There are a lot of folks who feel like nothing if they don't have a job,and define themselves by it.

    And after a lot of games, and screwing around, there will be some group of idiots who desperately have to show they're worth something by being "better" than someone else...which is where you get terrorist organizaitons like the KKK... and where you get militias and armies that take over.

    There's got to be another solution, I just haven't seen it yet. We can't go back to what we did 10,000 years ago, because we've conceived of so much more than telling stories, scratching our private parts, and chasing game.

    572:

    ARGH....

    Please. To argue with the gun nuts, over the US 2nd Amendment, I wound up finding, online, Johnson's Dictionary, which all of the Founding Fathers would have been familiar with, and in there, he uses commas NOT with a clause, but as you would pause, were you reading it aloud.

    Meaning, of course, that the "right" to bear arms is per "a well-regulated militia", not an unrelated clause. If that were the case, then the first part of the Amendment would be a sentence fragment.

    Yes, commas are used differently now, than in the late 18th century. Who'da thunk it?

    573:

    Thanks. Got to look for that book; now I'm hankering to reread it.

    574:

    Boosted pay... or not. For one, the company has to want to spend what, $10k? $15k? to get you a card.

    And after that... just a year or two ago, an Indian sued Oracle, where he'd been working, saying he was being paid a lot less than his peers with similar experience... and, IIRC, discovery found an email from one manager to another that they could pay him $10 or $15k less than an American.

    575:

    One of my grandfathers was a peddler, managed to run? own? a grocery store within five years. The other, well, I know that during the Depression, and maybe earlier, he worked a shoemaker.

    So, no, a lot don't get fancy jobs.

    576:

    I didn't say they did. I merely agreed that it was sloppy thinking to imagine that ALL immigrants start at the bottom. I suspect the jobs that immigrants get can be described by some kind of fairly normal distribution, possibly pushed downwards (economically) a little.

    577:

    Actually, the Russian submarine fleet is, like their surface fleet and Naval Aviation, in a precarious condition thanks to underinvestment, incompetence and (again!) staffing and manning levels. The Kursk accident was a hull loss but there are rumours of other less serious but mission-killing accidents and incidents due to ageing equipment and other factors.

    The Russians second-strike MAD capability is based around their SSBNs -- they reputedly still have a Delta III operational, launched in 1982. This is probably because the replacements, the Borei 955-class SSBNs are late into service. They only have 3 of those commissioned with more under construction but right now they have just enough capability to keep a single boat on patrol 24/7 assuming everything goes right. They might be able to deploy two subs at a time in the next decade or so as they roll out more Borei class boats.

    They have several Oscar-class cruise-missile subs which are nuclear-weapons capable, a poor-man's SSBN but they're range-limited and designed more to attack US CVBGs. The Oscars are old hulls, most over 30 years old and no successor class in prospect.

    Their Akula nuclear attack subs are older designs with a few more modern Yasen replacements late into service. The Kilo class conventionally-powered subs are ageing out too, the successor Lada class has had problems and are mostly going to be old-school diesel-electric propulsion rather than AIP.

    578:

    Agreed. The Red Navy really took it in the shorts after the collapse of the USSR. They are finally getting back to restoring their capability. Their new build vessels are definitely improvements in terms of silencing, and newer weapons are, in theory, impressive.

    You did forget the four Delta IV SSBNs.

    579:

    Oops! There are six still active as SSBNs and one as a "special purpose platform".

    580:

    There are six still active as SSBNs and one as a "special purpose platform".

    That serving as, probably inter alia, a mothership.

    https://news.usni.org/2019/07/02/14-sailors-die-on-secretive-russian-nuclear-submarine

    581:

    Regulations, and size. Actually, it needs both. SERIOUS regulation (with teeth, claws, and FULLY-FUNDED AUDITORS) and size controls, and no, Boeing/LockMart/Northrup, three companies nationally is not competition.

    Every individual or company with > $100M US in assets/income should be FULLY audites at least every 5 or 10 years.

    582:

    You're misreading.

    By saying "corporations are not people", I'm saying they have no reasonable expectation of free political speech, which would make lobbying and political advertising illegal.

    As I type that, I think an appropriate fine would be all that they've spent on one side of an issue, or candidate, be given to the other side or candidate.

    And we need to overturn the 1978 decision that "money == free speech". Or do I have to sue the Supreme Court for my $1G US, so my free speech is equal to the Koch bros?

    583:

    Thank you very much. Never saw that, friends will.

    And I'll make sure to throw it on blogs where right-wingers are....

    584:

    I see... the fifties in the US, after McCarthy ran the socialists out of the unions, they got into "co-managerialship", and screwed the workers....

    They need to come back to the first words of the Preamble to the IWW Constitution: The working class and the employer class have nothing in common.

    585:

    As I said, above, no free POLITICAL speech: no lobbying, no advertising, no trying to hard sell your employees to join the company PAC (Ameritech, in the mid-90's, did try that on me), no company PAC.

    I've heard people say that lobbying's the most effective way to spend corporate money....

    586:

    There is an obvious and simple answer to PG&E's liability: eminent domain, and the State of California now owns it, and employees get state regulated salaries, nobody making as much as the gov, or stock options, or....

    587:

    You missed one: HR departments. They're not the old Personnel depts of old: almost none of them understand the organizations they work for, and have no idea what the hiring managers need, and so they ask for absurd numbers of degrees and certs that are unnecessary.

    This is a special aggro of mine. My late wife, in '94, after almost 9 years of working at this one company as a lab tech, with excellent reviews (but no degrees), one Friday after lunch was told to clean out her desk... and that Sunday, we saw the ad in the paper for her job, and they wanted a chemist with a BS to do lab tech work. Paid more, too....

    588:

    Sorry, but no. I have seen articles where they HATE "Obamacare".. but keep your hands off my ACA.

    What pisses me off is everyone going on about "those who like their current insurance", since almost NO ONE does. Pre-approvals for procedures, more and more payroll deductions, and higher prices for the companies.

    Hell, about 15 years ago, I read something like 300? 500? companies, including the Big Three automakers, wrote a letter to Congress, begging for national healthcare.

    589:

    There's a problem and a solution with this. The problem is the 30 days/year thing, with shipping people all over the country. That's horribly polluting, and also doesn't deal with the seasonal (read fall) timing of some of the worst climate-related problems (fires and hurricanes. At least now). Serving a month per year only works if people are flying, and that's a really, really polluting way to move people.

    What I'd suggest, instead, is a national service draft, where everyone spends a year on national service (or they can do a hitch in the military, their choice). Tasks would vary by fitness and region, but it's a mix of fixing levies, clearing weeds, re-cleaning fire breaks, going through high fire neighborhoods and making sure everybody's gutters are free of pine needles, and so forth. Disaster time would suck, of course, but having a large body of young people to help with the grunt labor would make a difference.

    Thing is, I wouldn't fly them around, I'd put them on buses, trains, or boats. That's the other part of the year of service--movement time. I haven't seen an analysis, but I suspect that the ubiquity of air travel feeds into the viability of a professional military, as much as anything else.

    Once everyone's completed their service, they get pay if they do the equivalent of national guard reserve (and indeed, this is what the national guard used to do), rolling out to deal with natural disasters as necessary and training a weekend a month otherwise. But these are local experts, and not for shipping over seas or running drones, or all the other stuff the national guard has been pressed to do in the last 20 years.

    It does have all the normal problems of a draft, but then again, the US probably has trillions of unfunded repair backlog to take care of, from weed control to levee maintenance, community hardening (or moving), infrastructure repair, and so forth. A lot of this requires trained specialized labor, but much of it doesn't.

    Heck, you can even sell it to the Republicans by pointing out that drafting young Americans to do scut work decreases the market in scut work for immigrants (although no, this is not true).

    I don't think this has a prayer of going into effect for another few decades until we're desperate, but I can hope.

    590:

    Meanwhile ... Trump has appointed another fox in charge of the chicken coop The exact opposite of the National Refurbishment Service that Heteromeles is proposing.

    591:

    There is an obvious and simple answer to PG&E's liability: eminent domain, and the State of California now owns it, and employees get state regulated salaries, nobody making as much as the gov, or stock options, or...

    You mean the government Taking a firm with $68.01 billion in assets without compensating its owners? Yeah, that's so much cheaper than finding a way to cover their losses from fire. If California was daft enough to do that, we'd end up paying the shareholders AND the lawyers. And I for one would love to blow another $1,800 on taxes next year to cover California buying them out ($68 billion/39 million people in the state). Their potential fire liabilities, incidentally, are around $18 billion, and I think California pledged something like $5 billion to a fund to pay for fire damage, although I'm probably misremembering.

    592:

    Well I’m obliged to make my peace with the style guides, so I’m steered less by what I might like and more by what I must do. I agree about context and the sense of the punctuation, though. But I think these things are always a compromise. For some purposes you really do need one rule for everyone, because you cannot trust trust everyone’s discretion. And it doesn’t help to embed a complex conditional in the rule, because few will understand it. So putting the punctuation inside averts people doing things like ending a question with a question mark inside, then also adding a period outside.

    So some organisations put even more energy into their style guide committee than they do into their examination committee. Nothing to see here, move along.

    593:

    I have seen articles where they HATE "Obamacare".. but keep your hands off my ACA

    Is that really real? I heard of a single discussion thread where a commenter apparently didn’t understand they are the same thing and several people set him straight. There are actual real articles and not just satire, or random uninformed commenters?

    I suppose I wouldn’t be surprised if there were, it’s just that is a level beyond what I have happened across in my bubble.

    594:

    Yeah, see Agent Orange has got a little problem: once he's no longer president, he's likely going to prison for the stuff he did while becoming and being president. Hence we can expect the full-on Cat 5 Excretyphoon for the next year, as the Orange Regime tries to keep this from happening as long as possible.

    595:

    Healthcare, ... I've got mine & screw you

    There are some of those. More than a handful but...

    There are also those like me who are scared crapless that we'll get the DMV[1] version of healthcare.

    I assume we will have single payer at some point. But the system may have to fall apart for us to get there. But oy vey.

    [1] In the US in most states the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) is the butt of millions of jokes. If you say DMV most people immediately think of lines and sitting in chair waiting for your number to be called. They are set up by each state and typically take car of vehicle registrations, sales, and drivers licensing. And as it is almost universally treated as a cost sink by the states it tends to be always barely funded enough to get by. Sometimes less. I need to replace my drivers license with one that requires me to bring in some paperwork. I've been by about 4 times and each time the lines were over 1 hour long. So I've bailed and just keep the paperwork in my car.

    596:

    I have seen articles where they HATE "Obamacare".. but keep your hands off my ACA

    Is that really real?

    Yes. But it is complicated.

    In most people's mind OC is a forced march to government run single payer. And many champions of it want it to be so. (See my other comments about the DMV in the US a message or two up.)

    But people who have ACA healthcare plans are basically buying private insurance that meets the rules of OC. So to them it's not OC as portrayed by the R's as single payer government run healthcare.

    So yes people are afraid of OC but like their ACA plan. The R's in general want to scrap OC/ACA. The D's in general want to expand OC/ACA into full single payer (most likely government run) healthcare.

    In VERY BROAD terms.

    597:

    At a guess, there is probably 2 peak distribution. One peak would be illegal immigrants. While they (latest study) seem to be only making a bit less than citizens at comparable educational levels - that will tend to be noticeably lower. Then, legal immigrants - who should make more than average citizens, even accounting for the discount. This accords with my experience. Although, also don't underestimate the fact that it is better to hire someone you pay less who can't leave without delaying status.

    I can see hating Obamacare if you are youngish and healthy. It is essentially a tax on young poor people to help old poor people and people who already have health insurance - not an accident it was a Republican plan. Copying the UK system, or really anywhere in the EU, would be better.

    One interesting observation is that audits of high wealth individuals are much more than self-funding - the IRS would make a net profit with much more frequent audits. Sadly, our fairly wealthy reps mandate auditing mostly poor people. Sigh.

    598:

    She has Donald Trump, and his record, to run against, plus all the criminality on the part of Trump's minions... imagine how the right would have run against Obama in similar circumstances and you've got the kind of total war Pelosi could wage if she had a mind to do so.

    It is NOT a national election. For control of the House it is winning at a bare minimum 218 out of 435 elections. And while many of those will vote D no matter what many will also vote R no matter what. So she is trying to make sure the D's win most of that middle 1/3 of the elections. And that middle 1/3 is full of people who might think Trump is a total sleaze that belongs in jail, AOC scares them even more.

    AOC is preaching to the choir. Pelosi is trying to get the choir plus enough to walk the aisle to stay at 50%+1. And prefers to get to 55% or more. (Totally riffing on a southern US theme.)

    599:

    "There's a problem and a solution with this. The problem is the 30 days/year thing, with shipping people all over the country. That's horribly polluting, and also doesn't deal with the seasonal (read fall) timing of some of the worst climate-related problems (fires and hurricanes. At least now). Serving a month per year only works if people are flying, and that's a really, really polluting way to move people."

    In-imaginary-world pollution is not a problem. The most common vehicle on the road is an autonomous AI all-electric van that seats 10 very comfortably and single-person vehicles are a thing of the past. Generally six-weeks are allocated for the service, which applies to everyone except for certain government officials. Even veterans serve their 30 days. Getting to your service is "part of the "fun"" and it works like this: An autonomous vehicle pulls up at the house of the first person in the car, who is paid for an additional week of service. They are the "corporal of the car" and are in charge of everyone making the trip. Then the car stops and picks up a Black kid in Harlem, then a White farmwife from Upstate New York, then a Jewish professor from the University of Michigan, then a couple Muslim college-students from Detroit, etc.

    Major, really dangerous events like floods, wildfires, etc. are handled by people who've joined the Climate Army as a career.

    "What I'd suggest, instead, is a national service draft, where everyone spends a year on national service (or they can do a hitch in the military, their choice). Tasks would vary by fitness and region, but it's a mix of fixing levies, clearing weeds, re-cleaning fire breaks, going through high fire neighborhoods and making sure everybody's gutters are free of pine needles, and so forth. Disaster time would suck, of course, but having a large body of young people to help with the grunt labor would make a difference."

    Stuff like that. In-world, the Climate Army tasks were things like pulling down housing in places like Seal Beach which are too-close to the sea, planting trees on unused land to bring down the carbon-content of the air. In-world, I decided that certain types of geo-engineering were possible, so they also did stuff like dump ferrous-sulfate into the oceans, etc.

    Keep in mind that one of the problems of climate change goes like this: Seal Beach, for example, varies between 5-30 feet above sea level. Climate change will suck whole neighborhoods into the ocean. Every bit of drywall, every piece of plastic. Every chemical kept in a garage, etc. There's a ton of remediation to be done.

    "Thing is, I wouldn't fly them around, I'd put them on buses, trains, or boats. That's the other part of the year of service--movement time. I haven't seen an analysis, but I suspect that the ubiquity of air travel feeds into the viability of a professional military, as much as anything else."

    "Vans that can carry ten people comfortably." Once you have working AI you can safely make cars wider because an bunch of cooperative AI don't need five-feet between cars to keep everyone safe.

    "It does have all the normal problems of a draft, but then again, the US probably has trillions of unfunded repair backlog to take care of, from weed control to levee maintenance, community hardening (or moving), infrastructure repair, and so forth. A lot of this requires trained specialized labor, but much of it doesn't."

    I should think in terms of the high-school shop class making a comeback.

    "Heck, you can even sell it to the Republicans by pointing out that drafting young Americans to do scut work decreases the market in scut work for immigrants (although no, this is not true)."

    The idea of this particular book was to imagine how it would look if we got our response to Climate-Change right, starting immediately. So as part of the backstory, all the Republicans died in a fire. (It's the only way I could think of to even come close to getting Climate Change right.)

    "I don't think this has a prayer of going into effect for another few decades until we're desperate, but I can hope.

    Yeah. Agreed. The problem is, we need it right now. We're not looking at "we need to be able to trade carbon-credits." We're at "We need to army to drive up to your house right now and install solar whether you want it or not."

    600:

    Sorry. That should read, "We need the army to drive up to your house right now and install solar whether you want it or not."

    601:

    with the Supremes failing to make a decision, or the majority wanting to overturn it and being ignored by the chief justice

    Doesn't work quite that way. Most of the things the Chief Justics gets to do are procedural. Who writes an opinion type of things. He can gum up the works but the rest could lock him in his office and make rulings without him.

    602:

    Sorry. That should read, "We need the army to drive up to your house right now and install solar whether you want it or not."

    Not so bright. There are three classes of problems here.

    One is old houses (WWII-1950s vintage) whose roofs are too weak to hold the panels.

    Second are the modern houses and modern planned neighborhoods whose roofs are too complex and too randomly oriented to be good for solar. While you can put a few meters of suboptimal solar almost anywhere the roof will support it, If you want to power an electric car, you need on order 20 m2 on your roof, pointing equator-ward or west. If you look at modern house designs, they tend to be crap on both counts, all lipstick and a legally-mandated minimum amount of pig. I'm beginning to think this is deliberate, since the developers normally also exaggerate how much energy their (legally mandated minimum number of) solar panels can produce.

    Third problem is trees. Believe it or not, in California it's illegal to plant a tree on the south side of an existing solar panel, and has been since 1974. That's been news to all the developers and planners I've pointed it out to. I normally see a does not compute, will ignore the bugger reaction from all the urban forest advocates who want to cover cities with trees to sequester carbon. They're quite sure that covering parking lots simultaneously with solar panels and tall trees is not problematic.

    So yeah, uniformed grunts showing up to install solar regardless? I don't think that's going to work all that well. As I keep trying to tell people, we really are in trouble. If you want the grunts to install solar power, have them install solar on abandoned farmland.

    603:

    Drained that swamp

    He did. So he could get the sludge off the bottom and use it to staff the government.

    604:

    I didn't mean it literally, but more as a matter of expressing urgency. But yeah, unused farmland would be good too.

    On the other subject, the "home of the future" post from a couple months ago has been preying on me, and I think it would be possible to build a home which was good on all fronts, but it would take some careful work. (And maybe what we want is something more like solar louvres on a fence or something, all at an angle of 34 degrees.

    605:

    Yeah, it's amazing that various people, among them Germans, Kiwis, and Earthship builders, aren't having trouble building cost-effective sustainable housing, but it's just so gosh darn hard for developers to do the same thing...

    Given the way earthships use old tires and similar in the walls, I do wonder how much of our garbage problem we could solve by loosening up the planning departments. That said, I'm sure the NIMBY banshees would be all over anyone trying to build an earthship in their neighborhood, especially if it recycled trash into its walls.

    606:

    The problem with brown water operations, at least if the brown water is potentially hostile, is that it’s basically impossible not to get your cutters killed by enemy air or land based missile assets.

    The only thing a convoy in the Persian gulf would accomplish is to raise the stakes to both sides in the event the shooting starts. The convoy is pretty much dead meat in that case, including the escorts

    607:

    various people, among them Germans, Kiwis, and Earthship builders, aren't having trouble building cost-effective sustainable housing

    Ahem. Kiwis have many of the same problems as other expensive countries and a few of their own - self-regulation led to the leaky homes disaster, the new (rental) healthy homes law gave landlords only two years to bring their properties up to a minimal standard and many have not been able to do that. That situation will only get worse as the rules tighten over the next couple of years (unless, as is their habit, the government cave to their fellow landlords and change the rules like they did with the capital gains tax ... that's what happens when most MPs are landlords)

    Earthships are a whole different problem, a classic example of a good idea that works for a very small number of very specific people but is generally used inappropriately. The most obvious problem is that they are insanely expensive if you have to pay for labour, so most builds using the rammed earth tyre technology both use it very little and rely on free labour.

    The good, cheap systems I'm aware of mostly involve ancient technology (how do you know if a building technology will last? Look at old buildings). Sure, generally with modern tweaks but it's rare for something radically new to arrive without significant downsides (MgO/EPS SIPS, for example, are fragile, very hard to repair and we still can't recycle EPS). But if you build with mud and straw there are dozens of variations that have stood the test of time (and more that haven't).

    One huge issue is that once you separate ownership from occupation a lot of building technologies stop working. Anything that requires frequent maintenance or continuous monitoring requires either technology we don't have or an authoritarian system sufficient to either get residents to monitor and maintain their homes or live in homes that aren't maintained. We have half-millenia old thatch and mud houses in quite a few places around the world. But if the owner's agent just collects rent and turns a blind eye it quickly becomes a disaster. At which point the mud walls under it also become a problem.

    608:

    Yes, everything Moz said, plus having a median house price that's currently massively outpacing most median incomes (Last I looked, it was heading north of 6 times median annual income. Do not look to NZ if you want housing that's insulated, well heated or economic.

    609:

    NZ if you want housing that's insulated, well heated or economic.

    ... so I moved to Australia, which is like that but worse. I'm in the process of moving out of a double brick junkpile into a cardboard* junkpile, and while the brick pile is slightly less awful it's still awful. The brick one uses ventilation and thermal mass to stay a consistent 5-10 degrees cooler inside than outside (yes, in the winter as well) while the cardboard one just tracks the outside with a half hour delay.

    I tried really, really hard to rent a small house where I could back a trailer onto the rear of the property but the nearest to work that I could do that was ~25km. I also don't want to ride 25km each way every day (that is why I'm moving). That way I could build a "tiny house on wheels" and rent a truck/hire someone to move it when I need to move.

    Australia has the special problem that the state governments decided to tax property transfers rather than property ("no land tax"... except council rates) and are thus dependent on raising that tax during downturns in order to stay afloat. It would cost me about $50k in "stamp duty" to buy a different house on top of the real estate and legal fees, assuming I could sell my current house (which is unlikely, that slump thing). But anything I bought would also be a second hand pile of garbage, just in a more convenient location.

    • a mix of genuine 1960's asbestos board and new modern cement board.
    610:

    "Nope! (Carter) Supported the murderous dictatorship of the Shah of Iran so effectively that when it blew up in the Shah's face the USA was blamed for a lot of domestic woes."

    Belated, but I think this is a little unfair to Carter. The Shah had been supported for his entire tenure by the US ever since the UK snookered Dulles by crying about communism, so of course the USA was blamed. Carter considered the Shah an embarrassment and was pressing for him to reform affairs, threatening to withhold aid if he didn't get things into shape. Unfortunately, a liberalizing transition period is the most dangerous one... the Shah's government did actually lighten up a bit, released political prisoners, and reduced censorship. In an alternate world, maybe they tread the line well enough to build a real liberal semi-democracy, like South Korea or Spain did for other US allies that switched from psychotic dictatorships to genuine democracies. What actually happened was both the religious conservatives & the Iranian left hated the Shah, and he eased up on the repression keeping people scared, so whoops turns out nobody likes you OR fears you now. But I respect what Carter was going for: tell the Shah we want a kinder gentler dictatorship, and hope that he's competent enough to manage some smooth transition. (It wasn't entirely clear just how much the Shah's authority had already collapsed.)

    611:

    Hetreomeles @ 605 HERE, it is illegal-with-a-large-fine to dispose of old tyres or bury them. Worse the local authority recycling depots won't accept them, unless you pay £/$_Shedloads We've got half-a-dozen on the allotments (old wheelbarrow tyres) - we don't want them, we're not allowed to use them as planters & we can't dispose of them. Yeah, it's stupid ....

    612:

    But he also swears in the new president! I don't know what the Supremes would do if the election were found to be clearly rigged, but let's assume it excludes some states, orders a new one or simply fails to agree. Chaos ensues, the system would probably select one candidate, but the Chief Justice sides with the other and swears him in before that can happen.

    What so many people from the USA forget is that even the clearest written constitution is only as solid as the convention of honouring it. 'Forget'? Jackson, the Supreme Court and and the Cherokees.

    613:

    "Vans that can carry ten people comfortably." Once you have working AI you can safely make cars wider because an bunch of cooperative AI don't need five-feet between cars to keep everyone safe.

    Er, that WAS tongue-in-cheek, wasn't it? Are you considering forbidding pedestrians, cyclists and horse-riders?

    614:

    ... That is just about the platonic ideal of the worst possible way to do property taxes. It incentives staying put at all times, even if you are no longer even remotely the person willing to pay the highest rent for that location, and on top of that, captures none of this inevitable rent for the public coffers, and on top of that, as a special, cherry of Error, it is obviously counter cyclical.

    How has nobody beaten the australian political class about the head with rolled up printouts of the collected writings of Henry George yet?

    615:

    Our Valiant class boomers were commissioned 1993 to '99, and the first of their replacements entered construction in 2016.

    616:

    That is just about the platonic ideal of the worst possible way to do...

    Ah, you've gone straight to the core of Australian politics!

    We're different and special, and at the risk of offending people who are actually involuntarily disabled, retarted. In fact we're so thoroughly tarted that you could be forgiven for thinking that we've switched from criminal convictions to severe brain damage as prerequisites for citizenship. Or at least leadership. Right now in our federal parliament there's a very serious debate about whether the proposed parliamentary corruption watchdog that's being proposed should be allowed to publicly report anything it finds and whether it should be the watchdog or the existing police system that is allowed to lay charges against them. The current "parliamentary committee investigates and federal police lay charges" system has resulted in ... well, let's just say the the political class is happy with the results.

    That's characteristic of Australia. We do much nastier things than most countries and most countries regard us as great happy-go-lucky mates.

    617:

    Completely disagree. Blair was a bit of an arsehole, and the misadventures in the Middle East were awful, but domestically, decent shit got done. Welfare, Homestart, disabled provision, child poverty reduction (any many many more) were all huge improvements in the country, now sadly all pretty much reversed by Tory austerity. I hate the Conservatives with a passion.

    There is no pit in hell hot enough for the last few Tory governments.

    However, after the last 3 years of dicking about, I cannot and will not vote Labour, even though my MP is decent and honourable. After umming and aahing, I eventually signed up and joined the LibDems.

    618:

    The British V-class boats are wearing out rapidly -- unlike the ex-Soviet boomers they've spent their time in a tick-tock one-boat-on-station cycle for the past twenty-five years or so while most of the Russian SSBN fleet has spent a lot of time tied up at the jetty getting minimal maintenance, not operating in deep water and using up hull lifetime and suffering engineering wear and tear. Even so a number of them have gone through a recent tranche of dockyard time to be refettled.

    There's assorted reports in western public intelligence, I don't know how accurate, that claims the Russians were carrying out two or three deterrent patrols a year around the turn of the millenium compared to Cold War levels of a hundred patrols a year and more. Assuming the patrols were about two months or so in and out that means there were long periods during that time when there was not a single Russian boat-on-station. They seem to be trying to get back to a minimum of two boats-on-station at any given time but until the new 955 Borias are built and deployed they're relying on old worn-out hulls and obsolete engineering. You might notice the number of serious submarine accidents the Russians have had over the past thirty years or so. Those are only the ones they've let information out about or couldn't hide successfully. A number of them are down to equipment failures (the Kursk incident), others seem to be operational failures which is a bad sign in a submarine fleet where mistakes are magnified by the environment they operate in (the halon release incident, for example).

    619:

    All true; I was just saying that the British boats may achieve similar time "in service" by their decommissioning dates.

    620:

    No, not at all. That way led to the economies and even politics of the USSR, Maoist China, Old Labour and the current disasters. I read an article about people with psychological flaws which said, in part: "It is a mistake to think of all sociopaths are criminals; many are successful CEOs." It's true, and I could add politicians (including many union leaders), and THAT is the problem.

    Our commercial and political systems are set up to favour sociopaths getting to the top, which is precisely what we DON'T need. Robertson goes into (neurophysiological) depth about this in his book "The Winner Effect", which I strongly recommend.

    There are simple changes that might help, over time, such as passing a law that company directors have a duty to balance the interests of the shareholders, employees and wider society. Currently they have only the first. But they would merely tinker at the edges, and we need a different type of person at the top, as many people have pointed out for years; Robertson described how this has a physiological basis, and can be measured by MRI.

    We USED to have politicians who were more interested in improving things for society than personal power or tribal victory, and similar CEOs, even of quite large companies. But no longer. Germany still does, to some extent.

    621:

    What you may have missed is that, under the salesmanship, Blair did a lot of the preparatory work for the evils of the following Conservative governments, both as regard economics and as regards civil liberties and human rights. I will gloss over the other evil that he did. You do know that he was a Thatcherite?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-22073434/tony-blair-my-job-was-to-build-on-some-thatcher-policies

    622:

    I don't know if it's true, or whether people are confusing what really happened (which is actually worse).

    Prior to the ACA/Obamacare there are actual documented cases of older people, who collect either Veterans healthcare or Medicare, telling townhall meetings for the government to keep their hands of their medicare. These people were/are totally oblivious to the fact that the healthcare they were defending was government run.

    As for specifically ACA/Obamacare, there have been many polls done over the years that show a dramatic difference in support simply by changing the poll question to refer to one or the other, demonstrating large support for the ACA (hence the big protests that swung enough Republicans that Trump couldn't kill ACA), but as soon as you call it Obamacare those same people hate it.

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/get-your-goddamn-governme_b_252326?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIRm-_TGjiJOdxpBVibXQkWi_WXwVAQUDnnQ_4rC0yPC9rdAF7JJ0hjPO_TtJlLQFPoVrjidGJAxyo3ubWeow3BRtI4kZ4XFUPSIWMdcOihVjtTXrQWnzhhBsS9RU-INaNWPVXCxEZMFFbfNCN-JTaVBzFM83xjD7wt-9BKEGCts

    623:

    Well, the general principle here has certainly been demonstrated in the BBC show "Yes (Prime) Minister" (3 series with the characters in the "Ministry of Administrative Affairs", and a further two in which the politician character (party never named and doesn't matter) is promoted to Prime Minister of the UK (a similar, but again doesn't matter to the show, process to how BoJo the Clown became PM IRL).

    624:

    If you want to see how garbage service ought to run, go live in San Francisco. It was amazing. Expensive I'm sure, but wow. You could take anything (well anything a household would generate, i'm sure there were limits) down to the transfer station. Solvents, paint, half full propane canisters, garbage, yard waste, recycling, electronics, batteries, tires, whatever. One place. They would point you around their twisty facility with its various nooks for various materials, the hillsides were decorated with castoff holiday decorations and what-have-you. The nook would have an attendant who would tell you what to do or just grab the item out of your car if it was small. Now, when I said it was expensive, I meant the regular monthly bill was probably fairly high. The paint, the hazardous waste, the electronics, the batteries... all free to drop off, you know, so you would actually do it correctly. Oh and you could also get free paint there. Beige or I think some dark brownish grey color they made by mixing the latex paints people brought in that were still good (into a light and dark 50 gallon drum - get yourself a san francisco colored house).

    625:

    A lot of that's done all over California. I do it in San Diego, I've got a relative on the solid waste task force in LA...

    And it's a giant kludge that barely works (but thank the deities that it works as well as it does). Household hazardous waste recycling is not hard (I think most counties have multiple stations at which to do it, although in San Diego you've got to sign up for an appointment, simply because the station's not big enough). The bigger problems are mixed recyclables and greenwaste, because enough trash gets dumped into those that the cost of unsorting them and trying to do something with them rapidly outpaces the money you can get for it. Wastes are basically high entropy resource streams, and you've got to add energy to the system (sorting and cleaning) to make it useful enough to do something else with any of them.

    For example, LA has a three-bin system (trash, greenwaste, recycling). The next door neighbor of my relative on the solid waste task force routinely uses all three bins for whatever--trash, compost, recycling, all mixed. When the truck comes along to collect the recycling or greenwaste, some of their trash goes into it. This degrades the value of the stuff collected as feedstock for any other process, be it producing compost or recycling bottles. It doesn't take many people to do this before there's little value left in the waste stream.

    There are a few solutions, one being simple peer pressure, which works in places like Japan.

    Another is subsidizing the recycling, which (I'm sorry to break it to you) we're going to have to do regardless. One of the problems with consumerist society is the way we deal with waste on all levels, and to break down consumerism as a toxic ideology, you've got to confront waste, again on all levels from the personal to the political to the economic. When everyone has to take their turn on the sorting line at the materials recycling facility (perhaps as their two days per month service or under a national draft), people will change the way they dispose of their trash.

    A third solution is to simplify the waste stream, in terms of limiting the chemical constituents of what goes into it to make it simpler to deal with the output. This is where smart tags on everything turn out to be a really bad idea, unless you want all of the trash in a city to be processed as e-waste before it's turned into anything else.

    A fourth solution is to find alternate uses for waste, which is where the car tires in rammed earth walls, bottle walls, and similar come in. This is where the inventors inevitably hope to strike it rich, but the normal problem is that their neat scheme almost inevitably involves getting a sufficiently clean waste stream of their particular feedstock to allow them to make money by scaling up. And, unfortunately, the heterogeneous waste stream is the basal condition, not the exception.

    Personally, I'm holding out some faint hope for that someone will figure out how to take masses of waste plastics, run it through some monster of chemical engineering that resembles a petroleum cracker, and the stuff that comes out the other end will be enough like asphalt that it can be used on roads in place of stuff dug out of the earth. That would get rid of some waste plastics and hopefully (due to the high temperature and pressure cracking of the polymers on their way to being goo) be at least somewhat impervious to the problem of taking a contaminated plastic stream in. I don't think this will actually work because I don't know enough about polymer chemistry to even know what all the problems are with it. However, it might conceivably become economical if the amount of energy needed to turn masses of garbage plastic into asphalt-analog is less than the amount of energy needed to extract and refine real asphalt in the first place.

    626:

    "Owners"?

    Lessee, here I was under the impression that buying stock was risk-taking, and that you could lose it if the company went down.

    Now, I understand that they've bribed the government so that stockholders get paid first, and creditors and employees last... but in this case, when PG&E said thaty they'd have to declare bankruptcy if they were held liable... hold them liable, and pouf their assets are worth zip, and the state takes them, and no, stockholders took the risk, it says when you buy they're not insured, etc.

    627:

    Monday morning, I went down to my social security office to file a couple of forms to get ready to pick up Medicare Part B (covers office visits; Part A is hospital stays). Got there around 08:30 or 08:35, and there were 20-30 folks ahead of me in line. They opened at quarter of (office opens at 9, but...) Metal benches with backs. Nowhere near enough counters.

    I didn't get out taill about 10:15, and was at the counter < 5 min.

    This goes along with the IRS being underfunded by the GOP, because they might get audited if it wasn't underfunded.

    The right's intent is "government doesn't work, and we're going to make sure it doesn't".

    628:

    Nah, he drained it, and now all you can see is the vermin at the bottom... and, as the Baltimore Sun editorial put it last weekend, when he attacked Baltimore on twitter, "better to have some vermin than be one."

    629:

    Actually, unrelated to any of the above, and maybe was right for the previous thread, Charlie, how do you do the final draft of a piece of fiction?

    What I've started is to finish the final draft, then put it aside for some days, and then go back through the whole thing for the final polish.

    I seem to be getting the hang of being a working writer - I said the novelette had to be turned into a novella by the end of the month... and I finished the polish last night, going through the final 40 pages (of 85).

    And then, today, I went to tor.com... and discovered wherever I'd seen that they were going to be open for novellas from 7/31 to 8/15... must have been a prior year, that they're not open now (after all my work!), and maybe not this year.

    So, anyone got suggestions for where to submit a novella? I'd go for a good small press, prefer a magazine, but... it's currently about 26k words, and Clarkesworld says 22K is the limit, and I'm confused: Analog says short fiction (up to approximately 20,000 words), 6 cents per word for serials (40,000-80,000 words)... which, you'll note, says nothing about 20k-40k words.

    Anyone know anything about Interstellarflightpress?

    630:

    @589 "if they do the equivalent of national guard reserve (and indeed, this is what the national guard used to do)"

    The National Guard is still very much in the business of disaster relief; in some ways, it's their primary mission. From weather emergencies to civil unrest, the Guard is a state governor's "go to" force for emergencies.

    For you non-USAians, the U.S. National Guard is a militia organized in accordance with the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force as part of our reserve forces, but under the daily control of state governors. It is the direct descendant of the colonial militias of the Revolutionary War era. Mostly manned by people with full-time civilian jobs, they train on weekends, but are on call for emergencies. It is associated with, but separate from, the Reserve forces of the Department of Defense.

    631:

    Sorry, that's why I capitalized Taking. In the US, it's illegal for the government to take anyone's property without compensation, except in the controversial case of seizing suspected drug assets.

    The point is that if California seized PG&E without paying for the $68 billion in assets that the company owns, the owners (whose biggest owners, it's worth noting, are 401ks and retirement funds--e.g. us) would not only sue for the illegal taking, but win in court. That would force California to cough up $68 billion plus lawyer's fees.

    As it is, their options seem to have been: --Pay $68 billion or some fraction thereof to buy PG&E --Force them into bankruptcy, watch the lights go out (which will cause casualties of its own) --Come up with a liability fund. In this case, the liability fund is $10.5 billion (this time I checked), which is less than the $18 billion estimate for what PG&E is on the hook for, and also 1/7 of what they've have to pay to take over the system.

    Sucks, but it does look like they took the least bad option.

    The next part is where everybody who can afford to cuts their homes off the grid, and that reduces the danger still further.

    632:

    Bankruptcy is the legal mechanism by which we ensure that a company going under financially does not result in the lights going out.

    633:

    @606 "The problem with brown water operations, at least if the brown water is potentially hostile, is that it’s basically impossible not to get your cutters killed by enemy air or land based missile assets."

    Not as easy as it sounds - small vessels can be difficult to target, and some have decent defensive electronic warfare (EW) and counter-missile systems. Plus, in this context, the only result of the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force taking to the air would be a rapid and permanent reduction in their inventory.

    "The only thing a convoy in the Persian gulf would accomplish is to raise the stakes to both sides in the event the shooting starts. The convoy is pretty much dead meat in that case, including the escorts."

    The whole point of convoying shipping currently entering and leaving the Persian Gulf is to maintain the situation short of open conflict - of course it's not a survivable situation when the shooting starts.

    634:

    @625 This is one of those areas where the Europeans (at least, in my experience, the Germans) are far ahead of us. Every town in the part of Germany where I lived (near Stuttgart) had a recycling center, and a common Saturday activity was taking your recycling to be put in the very specific container for the material - they had three different plastic categories, and you could be in for some very serious finger wagging if you put the wrong thing in the wrong place. This was in addition to the separate greenwaste (biomuell) and general trash (restmuell) collected each week, plus weekend pickups of paper and cardboard waste.

    635:

    Thinking about it, it's not entirely stupid to propose a US "service draft" where everybody has to put in a year of national service before they turn 30 (this is pretty much what the South Koreans do, except there's is a military draft and now that I'm over 30, I'm proposing pretty much a universal draft. Better for them than me).

    What I'd do, in my fantasy post-consumerist society, is get every draftee to spend a year dealing with waste and working on infrastructure. They can spend a few weeks at materials recycling facilities hand-sorting the waste stream, pick up and haul trash, educate people about recycling, help people clean up after disasters, do the less hazardous jobs in sewage and so forth. They also get some time pulling weeds, planting trees, and working on sustainable housing and clean water supplies, but they need to do regular rotations of the shit work too.

    After the year of service, there are options to make a career out of it or go into the reserves, with the notion that, until age (whatever) people have to spend time every year dealing with everyone's trash, waste, and excrement, whatever their status in producer society is.

    Think of this as an explicit critique of consumerism. Instead of relegating waste disposal to the poor and defining wealth and power by how much of your waste you can force other people to deal with, it makes everybody deal with everybody's shit. It also makes everybody more aware of the infrastructure that keeps them alive and healthy day to day, and it also breaks the taboos around handling waste, and hopefully helps disincentivize conspicuous consumption as a display of power.

    And yes, since garbage hauling has a high rate of injury, I would give people who crewed the trucks hazard pay.

    Anyway, for the SFF types, imagine a Starship Troopers-style story written around this form of national service, where the work is hell but no one dies of enemy action. I can just see serviceman Rico signing up to run a garbage hauling service in East LA after the Big One...

    636:

    Right. Tell that to the miners who were working for Blackjewell, that just declared bankruptcy, and who's paychecks and benefits ALL BOUNCED THIS MONTH.

    Stockholders should be stuck with worthless pieces of papers, not the employees.

    637:

    Agreed, and I speak as one of the former.

    638:

    I very much did not write "Bankruptcy is the legal mechanism by which we ensure that a company going under financially does not result in the workers getting the short end of the stick".

    639:

    That’s a pretty good description of how it works here in Brisbane, minus the free paint (not sure what they do with the paint, but what with a neoliberal council I’d assume someone makes money out of it). It won’t be very different in most large cities in Oz, though I imagine it’s a lot more variable in rural and remote communities.

    Brisbane is unusual in being one, geographically large council area due to local government mergers in the 1920s and again more recently. Contrast Melbourne, with a double digit number of councils over a similar area, although many of those offer similar services. Council rates are based on land value and fixed services fees (consumption based services fees mostly being outsourced to quasi-privatised utilities). You get vouchers to use transfer stations with your rates notices annually but the more you recycle at the transfer station the less is actually charged for.

    640:

    Hteromeles it's illegal for the government to take anyone's property without compensation, In which case, how do you account for the giant theft/fraud of US Civil Forfeiture? Which AIUI, is being used by corrupt & the=iving police forces right across the USA?

    641:

    Hteromeles it's illegal for the government to take anyone's property without compensation, In which case, how do you account for the giant theft/fraud of US Civil Forfeiture? Which AIUI, is being used by corrupt & the=iving police forces right across the USA?

    To quote what I said in 631: "Sorry, that's why I capitalized Taking. In the US, it's illegal for the government to take anyone's property without compensation, except in the controversial case of seizing suspected drug assets. "

    642:

    An author of a letter in Nation Climate Change[1] wrote an accompanying phys.org piece. Basically, they tried to quantify the risk of cyclones disrupting power and thus air-conditioning during killing-level heatwaves, "grey swan" events. Heatwave: The human body is already close to thermal limits elsewhere (Tom Matthews, July 26, 2019) An emerging tropical cyclone–deadly heat compound hazard (22 July 2019, T. Matthews, R. L. Wilby & C. Murphy, paywalled except for abstract.) In such incidents, those rich (including resorts etc) with still-working with AC and backup generators, will find themselves in a position to decide who lives or dies, probably not for long though.

    [1] Some ethical person or group with sufficient money should make Nature Climate Change open access, also any related paywalled climate change journals.

    And for "fun". (For non-US people, Epstein is the nexus of a bunch of US news related to pedophilia among the rich and powerful.) Jeffrey Epstein Hoped to Seed Human Race With His DNA (James B. Stewart, Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, July 31, 2019) One adherent of transhumanism said that he and Mr. Epstein discussed the financier’s interest in cryonics, an unproven science in which people’s bodies are frozen to be brought back to life in the future. Mr. Epstein told this person that he wanted his head and penis to be frozen. (bold mine) Another quote: He told one scientist that he was bankrolling efforts to identify a mysterious particle that might trigger the feeling that someone is watching you. (Mr Epstein, watchon particles are a deeply silly notion. Just saying. :-) The whole article is deeply weird, and a lot of names are named.

    New moon!

    643:

    In such incidents, those rich (including resorts etc) with still-working with AC and backup generators, will find themselves in a position to decide who lives or dies, probably not for long though.

    Yeah, Nature Climate Change is annoying, we agree on that.

    As for who suffers and who air conditions, I suspect the first people to feel the cool or die problem are in India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and the southern coast of the Red Sea.

    Those who feel the impacts of survivors migrating away from the region? India, the Himalayan states, the 'Stans, China, and Russia.

    The US meanwhile has to deal with mundane problems like crop failures in Mesoamerica and elsewhere.

    The problem caused by migration isn't the individual migrants, it's when so many migrants show up in an area that the social contract between the government and those whose property it allegedly guarantees breaks down...and that local government can't do anything about the squatters, migrants, and homeless, because the scope of the problem far outweighs the resources the government can allocate (through whatever process) to try to deal. It's ALSO when the migrants organize in the face of determined opposition to keep them out, in response.

    So basically, all the anti-migrant bigots REALLY should be backing every effort to fight climate change. (Un)surprisingly, they are not.

    As a FacePalm meme noted today, about how someone as a child couldn't believe that the people of Krypton would deny their world was exploding, but how looking at the comment section of any article on climate change now, it all makes sense...

    644:

    Well, Trump's paymaster believes in Global Warming even if DT still insists it's a "Chinese Hoax"

    645:

    someone as a child couldn't believe that the people of Krypton would deny their world was exploding, but how looking at the comment section of any article on climate change now, it all makes sense...

    Not to mention the people who want to love Superman but hate immigrants and refugees.

    646:

    “Not to mention the people who want to love Superman but hate immigrants and refugees.”

    Bloody Kryptonians, coming over here, taking our jobs!

    647:

    That said, I'm sure the NIMBY banshees would be all over anyone trying to build an earthship in their neighborhood, especially if it recycled trash into its walls.

    Of course. In my neighborhood there was a food fight for about 18 months as some of the people tried to get a more restrictive zoning installed. They mostly failed but did declare victory as they did get a minimal lot size change.

    Basically they wanted all kinds of new restrictions way past the city zoning. What they wanted, and were saying so in public, was we want our houses to look like suburban housing typical of 1800-2400sf housing from the 60s. Anything else must not be allowed. Also very specific set backs, side of house parking, etc... We must all look only slightly different and of course the 1960s was when the perfect houses were built in the US.

    Thud. (My head landing on my desk.)

    648:

    What so many people from the USA forget is that even the clearest written constitution is only as solid as the convention of honouring it.

    Well so far Roberts seems to be doing his best to keep the courts honest. He IS a hard core conservative. But he keeps doing things that piss off the right wing by refusing to create chaos in rulings the right wants.

    If DT gets to replace him then watch out.

    649:

    Once you have working AI you can safely make cars wider because an bunch of cooperative AI don't need five-feet between cars to keep everyone safe.

    You need a LOT more than better AI. Better steering, brakes, sensors, and GPS. Plus computing behind it to vastly improve the response time.

    And ditto very very fast inter-car communications. In a mesh network that changes configuration millisecond by millisecond.

    650:

    Well so far Roberts seems to be doing his best to keep the courts honest. He IS a hard core conservative. But he keeps doing things that piss off the right wing by refusing to create chaos in rulings the right wants.

    These days it's too easy to forget that 'conservative' and even 'hard core conservative' isn't a synonym for 'fascist' or 'theological dingbat.' Even people within the various right-wing movements make that mistake.

    I expect people smarter than Donald Trump but just as entitled and greedy will have observed Roberts and resolved not to make that mistake again.

    651:

    Once you have working AI you can safely make cars wider because an bunch of cooperative AI don't need five-feet between cars to keep everyone safe.

    I suggest the contrary, rather than making vehicles wider than the current 2.5m/8 foot limit and rebuilding roads to allow it, we're likely to see smaller cars far more often. With any luck the AI will make things safer so we won't need to mandate 200-500kg of safety equipment on every vehicle, and the arms race to have bigger, heavier, taller single person vehicles will end. When a Smart car is just as safe for the occupants as a Unimog why pay the huge price premium for a 'mog? It's not as though the 'mog is faster, easier to park or has any other advantage inside a city.

    But once we can segregate large vehicles to major roads the option of having narrow transit lanes opens up. Even one 4m wide lane will take two Smart cars side by side, and to a first approximation that doubles the carrying capacity of the road (they're also shorter and stop faster, so use less longitudinal space).

    With a "car divided by passengers" based congestion tax "Lord Admiral Unimog Sir" is going to be paying rather lots while a couple of cheapskates in their Smart car will find that even before splitting the bill it's pretty cheap. Of course, nothing like the payments made to public transport users, pedestrians and cyclists (right now the latter groups pay tax on things that the motorists don't, effectively subsidising them... unless someone can show me how to claim transport costs against my tax when I ride my bike to work*).

    • again, a few sane countries apparently allow this but Australian politicians have reacted to the suggestion the way sane politicians react to the suggestion the state builds new coal-fired power stations
    652:

    If you want to see how garbage service ought to run, go live in San Francisco. It was amazing.

    We have similar here for the entire county. Of course not everyone follows the rules. But still.

    The main reason for it wasn't environmental, but money. We were running out of space to just pile it all up and shipping it by rail to another state was going to cost eye watering $$ amounts. Especially as other states would likely decide they didn't want our trash.

    653:

    There are a few solutions, one being simple peer pressure, which works in places like Japan.

    Japan has a trash system that requires a PHD in materials engineering to just get to where you put the right bits into the right bins on the right days. It's a big reason AirBnB is having trouble there. The foreign renters are failing badly at "putting out the trash".

    Personally, I'm holding out some faint hope for that someone will figure out how to take masses of waste plastics, run it through some monster of chemical engineering that resembles a petroleum cracker, and the stuff that comes out the other end will be enough like asphalt that it can be used on roads in place of stuff dug out of the earth. That would get rid of some waste plastics and hopefully (due to the high temperature and pressure cracking of the polymers on their way to being goo) be at least somewhat impervious to the problem of taking a contaminated plastic stream in. I don't think this will actually work because I don't know enough about polymer chemistry to even know what all the problems are with it.

    My limited understanding of the problem is that the various kinds of plastic we use in the consumer space all has different melting points. So things which react well to break down in a particular heated stew turns other plastic into plastic rocks. Which is why there are all these numbers next to the recycle triangle stamped/printed on such things. It is to allow the sorted on the trash side. But ....

    654:

    The right's intent is "government doesn't work, and we're going to make sure it doesn't".

    I've lived in states run by D's with the same issues. Staffing such offices is just not sexy for any politician of any stripe. So it doesn't get the money.

    655:

    controversial case of seizing suspected drug assets.

    You're mistaking the very public face of something with the only aspect of it. The process is defnitely not restricted to the drug trade. At all.

    And the Supremes last term ruled that it was illegal. But in somewhat general terms. So we'll now get 10 years of more lawsuits to better define it. But in general they told the states to stop it.

    656:

    What I'd do, in my fantasy post-consumerist society, is get every draftee to spend a year dealing with waste and working on infrastructure.

    And in the first draft of such legislation how many deferment classes will there be.

    Enrolled in college? Yep. Need a comfort animal? Yep. Medical condition? (Bone spurs anyone.) Yep.

    657: 625 - Well, new tyres can have 3 lives:-

    1) New tyre. 2) Retread. Of course we have to reverse the recent belief that retreads are "poor people tyres" to make the market for these back up. 3) Now we've used the carcass twice, we can have a 3rd life as fenders for smallish boats, or in ram earth walls, or if all else fails shred and burn.

    626 - I don't understand what you're talking about, and I'm both a banker's son and a stock owner. When you buy a shareholding in a company, you pay a price (the investment) based on the increase in your holding and the current stock market valuation of the shareholding. This investment valuation may go up or down, potentially making you a capital profit or loss, and can be lost if the valuation descends to 0. You may or may not also receive dividends if the company makes a profit. Once a dividend has been paid, that's that: the dividend payment is your money (subject to personal taxation), which is a lot like being paid as an employee of that company, isn't it. Variations in the value of the investment and dividends are the ordinary risks.

    You may be offered a chance to buy further shares at a discount on the stock market valuation, but don't have to accept it.

    Each share will have a piece of legal boilerplate that reads "This is a share of 1 penny in $company" or similar. The amount that you will owe in the event of a bankruptcy of $company is GB£0.01 * shareholding'numberheld. For example, if you owned 1000 shares, your personal liability in a bankruptcy is 0.01 * 1_000 or GB£10.00.

    658:

    And in the first draft of such legislation how many deferment classes will there be.

    Ahem.

    A friend of mine was drafted into the Italian army in the late 1990s for 12 months. He was in the middle of a postgraduate degree in Edinburgh when his deferments ran out, because when they had universal military service (for males) … they meant "universal"; you can defer it in 12 month increments from age 18 to age 24, but if you hit 24 and haven't served, then tough: you have to interrupt your PhD and go stomp on a parade ground for a while.

    I feel the US draft was somehow deficient in not having this proviso.

    (But then, I remember what my friend did to the Italian Army which resulted in him spending 4 out of his last 6 months on leave. Conscript armies are designed to process and assimilate average 18 year olds leaving home for the first time, not computer science PhD students who read the rule book and apply the regulations to maximum disruptive effect for shits and giggles … I think they finally discharged him early because they couldn't charge him with anything and he gave them a collective headache.)

    (NB: this is the bloke responsible for CLC-INTERCAL, which to the best of my knowledge is the only implementation of the INTERCAL programming language with a compiler written in INTERCAL (and self-modifying at runtime).)

    659:

    Yes, but this was about the order in which creditors are paid off, and which payments previous to a bankruptcy are clawed back. The shareholders are a bad example (in the UK, at least), but there are far too many other creditors before the employees. In the UK, there is also the situation that the protections for pensions that were put in place after the infamous Maxwell's death have partly been rolled back. But we are still probably better than the USA.

    660:

    My assumption is that nobody owns their own car anymore. So everyone is routed by some kind of alogrithm which will make sure you're in a crowded car that goes where you want it to (essentially addressing traffic congestion in the U.S.) So if you need to go from Upland to Downtown Los Angeles (a very typical commute) you'll be in a car with ten other people, and it will be routed in such a manner that it still takes less time than fighting the current congestion. (That is, the car will pick up ten people who are going to the same two buildings, or something like that.)

    And of course since nobody is driving, they're able to work or have leisure activities, or even sleep in the cars. Thus cars get bigger to accommodate ten commuters who are all trying to get ready for their morning meetings (or whatever.)

    661:

    And? Unless US corporate law is fundamentally different to UK, a shareholder in a company is not a creditor, except in the case where a dividend payment has been declared but not received, when they'd become an unsecured creditor like the employees are. In fact, as I already said, a shareholder is an asset of the company in the event of bankruptcy.

    662:

    (NB: this is the bloke responsible for CLC-INTERCAL, which to the best of my knowledge is the only implementation of the INTERCAL programming language with a compiler written in INTERCAL (and self-modifying at runtime).)

    Uh. I only wrote a BF interpreter using a filter module in Perl. Writing an INTERCAL compiler in INTERCAL is kind of brilliant and kind of WHYYY.

    663:

    My limited understanding of the problem is that the various kinds of plastic we use in the consumer space all has different melting points. So things which react well to break down in a particular heated stew turns other plastic into plastic rocks. Which is why there are all these numbers next to the recycle triangle stamped/printed on such things. It is to allow the sorted on the trash side. But ....

    Yes, that's the problem. However, with petroleum it's normal to get a mix of hydrocarbons out of the ground and to have to run them through a refinery to get different molecules concentrated and extracted from the cruft. Indeed, asphalt is the residue of the petroleum distillation process after the more useful things are extracted, and it's a mix of four classes of organic molecules (not four molecules, four classes of molecules, some of which look to my untrained eye like the monomers of which polymers are made).

    If, on the off-chance, you can melt mass quantities of dirty mixed plastics into sludge and refine some large fraction of that sludge into asphalt in a cost-effective manner, it does do something useful with plastic litter. Considering that the problem with plastics are shaped problems like microplastics and bags and straws, turning all those various structures into a bulk resin that binds roadway materials together and doesn't dump the carbon into the atmosphere might conceivably be an improvement.

    664:

    The comments implied that there were proposed (or extant?) changes that make USA law very different; I can't speak to those. While I agree (yes, AGREE) that the statement was nonsense as it stood, the target it was aiming at definitely exists. Not just earlier executives' and directors' pay, bonuses etc., but some of the less ethical uses of loans.

    And, while shareholders are not formally creditors, the receiver often arranges a sale where they get some proportion of their money back - which is not related to the, by then more-or-less non-existent, share price.

    665:

    I believe Germany and South Korea have similar universal drafts. In South Korean pop culture, it's fairly normal for K-Pop stars to disappear for two years while they're doing their mandatory service, and that's something that's regularly mentioned in the tabloids.

    One bigger point, though, is how much current US culture would have to change for a universal, involuntary CCC to be instituted. It's not as unlikely as it seems, as six states (including California and Texas ) have a CCC-style programs.

    The other big point is, well, what does post-consumerism look like? How and why does a society reject consumerism, and what replaces it? What I'm playing with is an unholy syngamy of cultural DNA from the CCC (a storied institution from the New Deal), the Green New Deal (notice the terminology), and how the Rainbow Family critiques "Babylon" by getting as many people as possible involved in sanitation, recycling, and providing drinking water at their gatherings. And since the Rainbow Family originally came about as a mix of Vietnam veterans and hippies getting together and sharing ideals and skills, I'd suggest it's possible that, when the US military-industrial complex finally winds down, there will be a lot of military personnel trying to do something positive with their skills (which some of them already doing). If the need is big enough, a service draft might be in order.

    666:

    With regard to Germany it's "had".

    Conscription ("Wehrpflicht") in Germany was suspended in 2011. However, de facto this suspension is more like an abolishment, because any attempt to reinstate it would be met by a lot of resistance. The majority of Germans are no longer so much in love with war (thankfully!). We have learned to resist the urge to conquer the rest of the world by force. I wish the same could be said for other nations as well.

    667:

    @666: And now you're so peaceable that you can't defend yourselves. Sigh.

    668:

    I am so outraged I cannot express myself. English does not contain enough vile and evil words to express my disgust at that man. Someone needs to rescind him!

    https://www.npr.org/2019/08/01/747144221/navy-rescinds-awards-to-prosecutors-in-case-of-seal-acquitted-of-murdering-capti

    669:

    mdlve @ 463: His refusal to criticize Russia, and his support of various questionable people is an issue for some, but most appear willing to overlook those because they in general seem to support the new direction of Labour.

    The problem with old leftists vis a vis Russia is they still view Russia as some kind of socialist worker's paradise. If it ever was, it's not one now. Under Putin it's a hard-line fascist state, ruled by NAZIs in everything but name. The communists are all gone, replaced by the Checka.

    670:

    paws4thot @ 479: #355 - You (and possibly the USN) appear to have re-invented the "Missile Gun Boat" at the lighter end of LCS, and the heavier end is heading into Destroyer.

    I didn't invent it or reinvent it. I just looked in Wikipedia to find the kind of ships that had been previously used to do a similar job.

    671:

    It has never been a workers' paradise, or even as close to it as the UK has been, and it is a fascist state. But I suggest that you remind yourself what the Nazis believed (and, above all, did) before making such ridiculous comparisons.

    672:

    universal military service

    I've been a proponent of universal service since my 20s. But our political system will not allow it.

    One big reason the US was so messed up both in the fight of and resistance to the Viet Nam War was the deferment system. Basically if you were smarter or richer than average you could get out of fighting. So the memes that developed were the rich smart people were cowards and the dumb ones did all the fighting and dying.

    673:

    Scott @ 481:

    "You (and possibly the USN) appear to have re-invented the "Missile Gun Boat" at the lighter end of LCS, and the heavier end is heading into Destroyer."

    The USN has no need to reinvent the river monitor either.

    Although if I had to worry about deterring bad guys off my coastline (or in the Persian Gulf) these days I'd be tempted to look at something small and fast that would get in quickly and make the opposition unhappy. Something like a torpedo carrying USCG RB-M (only 45ft long, 30kt cruise speed, bursts of 45kt) could be a real nuisance to big ocean-going ships while being easy to hide between attacks.

    Vulnerable to aircraft of course, but every hull on the surface is.

    Aircraft carriers out in the ocean somewhere over the horizon could provide a CAS-CAP*. Best I can see Iran's QOD force patrol boats are little more than jumped up Sport Fishing boats, with little if any militarization or armor; just a bunch of rowdy guys with AKs & RPGs.

    Dayum! I just realized Iran has rednecks too! I bet there's not a single intact, non-bullet riddled STOP sign within a thousand miles of Bandar Abbas.

    If Iran fired on the convoy ships using shore based missiles, they'd lose the launch sites fairly quickly, with NO INVASION REQUIRED. Every ROE I ever had to operate under allowed for self defense, and that included if one tank fired at you, you were allowed to take out the rest of the tanks in addition to the individual one that actually shot at you. The same would apply to shore based missile launchers.

    That Coast Guard boat is a bit under-gunned for taking on Iran's Revolutionary Guard boats, but that could be rectified. You should be able to mount at least one MK 15 Phalanx (or similar weapon).**

    *: Just had a flash of inspiration. Build additional A-10 Warthogs UPGRADED for CAT launch & arresting hooks for carrier landings.

    **: Three would be ideal, one on the bow and one each side of the cabin. That way, no matter which direction an attacker came from at least two of the guns could bear on the target.

    674:

    Yeah, and the evangelical self-proclaimed "Christians" who, around the end of the year, sing complaints about our favorite alien not showing up.

    No El, no El Where is the son of Laura and Jor-El?

    675:

    It gets more in Dem-controlled areas. Reptilians, on the other hand... I've called Congresscritters and Senators for a long time. I've yet to be asked, nor to they even sound like they're taking down the info, when I call a GOPer and offer my name and address. Dems, I always get asked.

    676:

    Mikko Parviainen @ 484:

    "I could care less" is a sarcastic revision of "I couldn't care less". "I couldn't care less" is a statement of fact. It means exactly what is said.

    "I could care less" is sarcastic inversion, meaning exactly the OPPOSITE of what is said.

    677:

    Read the rules, huh?

    I've mentioned here before, I think, that I got out of the draft because they didn't want me, and that was during the height of 'Nam. In fact, I have my own version of Alice's Restaurant, runs 10-12 minutes, with two part harmony an' feelin'.

    The high point is when I finally finished the physical (try #6 to get me down), and I shows some papers I hadn't handed in, and they sent me down the hall to the sargeant. He looks at my papers, looks at me, looks at my papers, looks at me, motions me away from his desk, which I assume was bugged, looks at me, and sayd, and I quote, not paraphrase, "Is there anything that will get you out?"

    For reference... the papers were my security questionnaire, the outside of which had the Attorney General's List (subversive orgs... including the Abraham Lincoln Brigade?!?! Oh, right, "pre-opposing" the fascists in Spain...), and the inside of which were six questions, all of which began "Are you now, or have you ever been a member of...."

    678:

    p>Charlie Stross @ 485: Forget fines. Trace the responsible executives—following the British doctrine that where a company owns another company the chain of ownership is collapsed until you come to a human beneficiary—and sling 'em in prison. Better still: if the average lifetime economic productivity of a human being is, say, $10M, then if the financial damages exceed 2.5x a lifetime's production, execute them. Make sufficiently large economic crimes capital offenses.

    The deterrence argument against capital punishment usually fails (in murder, rape, etc) because very often these crimes are not premeditated. Crimes of greed? Premeditated as fuck, and as immensely damaging to the human fabric of society as a serial killer.

    That's where I was going with my suggestion for a Constitutional Amendment (for the U.S.) depriving corporations of "person-hood". Put the onus back on the individual who is in charge of the company.

    679:

    paws4thot @ 492: #481 - That's more the sort of thing I ws thinking of for littoral combat; without loads of Wiki links, we could also consider UK MTB, MGB, US PT boat, German S-Boat, the ex-Soviet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenka-class_patrol_boat ...

    I've got an MGB in my basement. I don't think it would make a very good littoral combat ship. It'd sink like a stone as soon as you tried to put it in the water.

    680:

    I assume you mean this.

    1) Why is it in your basement? 2) No, they don't float well at all.

    681:

    Steinar Bang @ 500: If we're doing "fast attack boats", how about the Swedish "Stridsbåt 90"?

    At least one of the Norwegian ones have been fitted with a "Kongsberg Protector".

    For escorting convoys you'd need something with a bit more stamina & range than a "fast attack boat". You need something more like the ships the US & UK developed to escort Atlantic convoys in WWII

    ... although I guess you could use fast attack boats the way a shepherd uses border collies to herd sheep if you had something like the USN's Landing Ship Dock (USMC amphibious warfare support ship) to allow the fast boats to be taken aboard for rest & replenishment.

    682:

    Elderly Cynic @ 502: That's why I said what I did in #478. It's not perfect, because it doesn't touch deliberate, legal fraud and embezzlement of the sort you describe, but hammering the shareholders and directors is a good way to ensure that at least ongoing companies learn their lesson.

    How? Management seldom gives a fig what shareholders think. They could [not] care less! The only shareholder concern the CEO has is to keep the share price high & growing. And at that, it's not shareholders management is looking out for but the how big a windfall they can get from exercising their stock options. How do those few individual shareholders who aren't other financial holding companies keep management on the straight & narrow?

    Directors seldom have control either. When they're not the CEOs cronies, they're usually powerless do do anything other than approve the CEO's latest round of stock options & nonperformance bonus. And more often, the directors are both the CEOs cronies and an "oversight" committee whose only purpose is to approve whatever bonuses upper management decides to give itself.

    683:

    Here we go: if, in the execution of the contract, criminal actions are committed, the person who signed, and their manager, etc, are personally responsible, and liable to criminal penalties.

    Is that, he asks innocently, not "taking responsibility for your own actions"?

    684:

    Now, if I were a woman, my reaction would be, "hey, big boy, give a woman a ride in that fabulous car?"

    685:

    Troutwaxer @ 530:I didn't say they were allowed to deduct anything. You have misunderstood completely. The equation is not for taxes, but for calculating profit and/or loss from illegal activities.

    You're right. I don't understand what you're suggesting.

    Let's do it the simple way ... Corporation Crime, Inc. has gross revenues for this year of $1 billion USD. Of that billion dollars $25 million is [pre-tax] profit after operating costs ($975,000,000 if you're interested); of that $25 million USD profit, $10 million came from "illegal activities"(I don't know how much of that $975,000,000 costs went to doing those illegal activities, I just know the activities were illegal & the corporation Crime, Inc. got $10 million USD profit from doing them).

    So, Crime, Inc. has $10 million USD (40% of $25 million USD) profit from "illegal activities" (stealing candy from babies, swindling widows and orphans out of their ranches, tying Sweet Nell to the railroad tracks, ...) on $1 billion USD revenues.

    They get caught; they spend $5 million USD on legal fees & what not (half of the profit from "illegal activities" trying to beat the rap; they get convicted ... they get fined.

    How much is the fine?

    686:

    @684: In his basement?

    687:

    Shareholders vote for the directors, and can vote them out. The directors can do the same for the executives. As I said, it's not ideal, but it has at least SOME teeth, unlike the current approaches.

    688:

    A wonderful mistake on Outside Source: "The minister for No Planning, er, the minister for No Deal Planning, Michael Gove ...."

    689:

    I'd assume he has some way in and out of his basement. Y'know, like the side of the basement that opens up into a tunnel, and lets him drive out from behind some bushes onto a two-lane road....

    690:

    Actually, there was this guy who lived in my neighborhood when I had the house in Chicago. He had what I assume was a kit car, it looked a lot like this http://luxurycarphotos.tripod.com/35rollsphantomII.jpg but it was all white, with chrome everywhere, a black dude, and talk about a chick magnet. As I said, if I were a woman....

    691:

    SUMB! (Snickering Under My Breath)

    692:

    Well, if we ever get our two 1956 Studebaker Commanders out of storage, you could ride in the white one.

    693:

    Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a good way to upload images to the blog.

    694:

    Here's a representative picture.

    695:

    Oh, yep, all of us old leftists viewed the USSR as a workers' socialist paradise.

    And so did our Old Left fathers.

    You wanna prove that statement?

    696:

    Hah! Got you beat: my father had, for about a year (until it threw a rod through the bottom of the engine (back when my age was in single digits) a '51 Studebaker, yes, the one that looked like a wingless jet fighter. https://car-from-uk.com/ebay/carphotos/full/ebay148928808929738.jpg

    697:

    Greg Tingey @ 533: JBS @ 520
    "JRM" is the unspeakable reactionary, arrogant bastard usually referred to a "Rees=Smaug" or "Grease=Smaug"
    Amazingly rich, priveliged, the "minister for the 18th Century" - though the 15th would be more accurate.
    Male catholic Dominator ...

    Yeah, I've heard of him; just didn't make the connection. @ 522
    NOT available in the UK ....

    See if I can provide an intelligible synopsis:

    Several references to "mating foxes of Kent" ... Boris Johnson is an asshole (or arsehole I guess) ... everything about his appearance is ridiculous - consistently immaculately wrong. Paints wooden crates to look like buses full of happy people for a hobby ... so people will forget the bus with the lie about "NHS sending ₤350 million to the EU every year" promoting BREXIT. Boris Johnson == Britain Trump. "Ping-pong was invented in England & called it Wiff-waff." BoJo is willing to look ridiculous because it helps him survive when he fucks up; "a lovable mess weathering adversity with humor (humour) and good cheer" ... there's a great deal of calculation behind BoJo's persona. More mating foxes of Kent.

    "as a general tactic in life ... it is often useful to give the slight impression that you don't know what's going on because the reality is you don't know what's going on. People won't know the difference."
              Boris Johnson

    Short diversion to Diss Trump. BoJo can't be "Britain Trump" because Trump isn't that self aware.

    BoJo's hair is always fucked up because he deliberately fucks it up just before the camera starts rolling ... BoJo's eccentric dress ... photo of BoJo in Tails from Bullingdon Club at Oxford University with David Cameron ... photo a liability for Cameron, but not for BoJo because he's a cartoon Englishman who dresses like a raccoon who has just emerged from David Foster Wallace's trash.

    Makes you re-evaluate BoJo's charm ... https://gizmodo.com/did-boris-johnson-ramble-about-model-buses-to-manipulat-1835903361

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-30/johnson-aims-to-meet-brexit-bus-pledge-with-health-care-boost
    It's like looking at the FedEx logo and finally seeing the arrow.

    BoJo is an unrepentant LIAR,fired from his first job in journalism for making up quotes. Failed upwards to Daily Mail where he made up a series of falsehoods about the EU as their Brussels correspondent. Outright bigotry - "... piccaninnies ..." "... watermelon smiles ..." "... tank-topped bumboys ..." "they look like letterboxes" compared women who wear the full Hijab to "bank robbers".

    Less than 100 days to negotiate BREXIT deal ... as Foreign Secretary visiting Myanmar in 2017 reciting Rudyard Kipling's poem Mandalay. BBC clip "working with BoJo is like walking behind a horse shoveling its shit. The EU is extra-immune to BoJo's charms.

    BoJo has painted himself into a corner and the EU ain't having none of his shit. The deal May negotiated is the only deal BoJo is going to get, meaning it's going to be a Hard Brexit.

    I don't think Oliver likes BoJo all that much.

    698:

    _Moz_ @ 534: 'm impressed by the Drive editors single-minded insistence that the US and minions are pure and innocent victims of the terrorist Irani government, the dastardly Houthi rebels and the horrible Somali pirates. And it's simply out of the question that sanctions against Iran could be lifted, and thus war is inevitable. (The possibility that Iran might surrender is not mentioned in the article, but presumably it exists? Otherwise we simply have a war against Iran that started without reason and must continue forever ... until another enemy is found? The various reasons to destroy Somalia, Syria, Iraq and Yemen are likewise unmentioned but presumably exist)

    Well, I didn't get that from the article. I expect the reason they don't suggest Iran might surrender is because it's slightly less likely than our returning to the moon and discovering it really is made of green cheese. That doesn't mean war is inevitable. More sensible heads might prevail on either side, something I do think is slightly more likely than green cheese.

    699:

    Elderly Cynic @ 540: Yes :-) A couple of niggles, though.

    Colon should be followed by extra space when it is a separator (between semi-colon and period in weight), but debatably so when it introduces a list (I don't). However, the former use is nearly as rare as hen's teeth nowadays, and even semi-colons are rare.

    A comma after "and", as a clause conjunction but not a phrase one, is 18th century usage, and is pointless. However, one before such a use of "and" (as I used in the previous sentence) can often greatly improve clarity. The rule forbidding the latter was part of the Victorian dogmatisation of English, with which I will have no truck.

    Like I say, I learned to TYPE, so any eccentricities in my formatting are due to that fact. It was 20+ years later (minimum) before I was even allowed in the same room with a computer keyboard, much less started using one.

    700:

    Damian @ 541: The thing I have had most issue with over the years is the excessive use of the passive to avoid identifying the agent of the sentence, or to downplay agency. It seems to be second nature for people today to fear saying “somebody did something,” and to prefer to say “something happened, and maybe somebody was responsible.” You get some almost ridiculous forms of this - “it was said” for instance, then you get the statement and if you’re lucky the speaker is identified at the end. This is not to say that it isn’t appropriate to use this mechanism when the subject is not known, doesn’t matter or there is some other good reason to avoid it. But people feel showing agency is “too strong” and there’s a pressure people feel to wright “it was shown” rather than “we have shown.”

    I have to fight that all the time in my own writing.

    701:

    Charlie Stross @ 544: Mind you, it might be changing soon. Those (British and American) military officers I've met have without exception been thoughtful and intelligent people; and we know the Pentagon identifies global climate change as a vast strategic threat overshadowing and driving conflicts this century. In the absence of high intensity wars to fight, switching emphasis to disaster mitigation, peacekeeping, and providing aid to civil authorities is a no-brainer. Military organizations are of necessity experts in logistics repair in challenging conditions.

    IIRC, the largest military base in the U.S. is the Norfolk, Virginia Naval Base. I don't think there is anywhere on base where the elevation is 10 feet (or more) above mean sea-level. It IS a problem for the Pentagon, that for whatever reason some people (elected officials) in government don't seem to understand.

    And if the political leadership had a gram of sense they'd maybe realize that paying for climate defenses and rushing in to fix infrastructure in the wake of climate-induced weather disasters would reduce refugee pressure: with the right spin it could even be sold to the anti-immigrant knuckle-draggers ("we're going over there to fix things so they don't come over here instead").

    Except that for our current "political leadership", the pain and suffering of those potential immigrants is part of the appeal. They are supposed to suffer because ... Why do you want to mess around with "God's plan"?

    I've had evangelical "christians" tell me that to my face. Course, I'm going to hell anyway 'cause I don't believe in their god. ... and threatening them with bodily harm when they wouldn't get off my front porch.

    702:

    Neil W @ 545: Crossing the threads of post-Adamic "People sitting around playing Fortnite/Overwatch/PUBG/CODBLOPS" and Time was there were people queued up around the block to join the military as an alternative to working in coal mines or not working at all, then maybe a side effect of people not having to work in order to afford a roof and food and utilities was also making it impossible to wage war*. What a terrible thought.

    Anyway, if we need say sewer workers, or at the very least technicians for sewer robots, and no one is getting off their backsides to do it then I guess someone would have to figure out how to incentivise it. Maybe early access to a sewer level? Backstage pass to an esports tournament? A SewerLord Achievement Badge? Or, assuming a market economy, more money?

    * Just kidding, that's the first thing that would/is being automated.

    They replaced the water & sewer in my neighborhood last year. It was a major undertaking.

    The inspection they did before replacing all the pipes was done with a little robot that could crawl down the pipe with a TV camera. I went out and watched them do it & they let me see what it was showing on the "TV screen" (laptop). I expect the inspections were how they decided which neighborhood would be prioritized.

    When it came to actually replacing the pipes it was all small & mid-size excavators and workers diging out by hand. Looks like there's still plenty of work for ditch diggers.

    They had big (12'x12') thick (2-3 inches) plates they moved into place every night to cover where they had to leave the trench open. They worked from one of the street down to the other (3 city blocks) ten feet at a time - trenching & digging around existing pipes; laying in the new pipes & connecting the houses, then removing the old pipes. I couldn't park on the street for a couple of weeks, but I never had any problems getting in and out. For several days the half block above me was inaccessable during the day and then for several more days the half block below me was blocked off. I just drove out which ever way I needed to go to get past the work zone.

    They came to my door when they were ready to switch me over and told me not to flush the toilet for half an hour or so. I don't know how long it actually took them, because I took that as my cue to go have a meal out at the Chinese buffet. They were all done when I got back.

    PS: You forgot Arma 3.

    703:

    Charlie Stross @ 551: Bad idea, really bad idea.

    You wouldn't mind a military takeover of the UK because the UK military is apolitical, right

    Except military takeovers are exactly how you end up with a politicized kleptocratic military.

    Road to hell, good intentions, etc. (And the tendency of scum to bubble to the top.)

    I'm pretty sure that in the U.S. the greatest resistance to military takeover would come from within the military.

    704:

    Robert Prior @ 556: Remember the old saying: "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but if you rip their wings off they'll eat what they're given."

    Odd thing though. I occasionally need to trap flies (because I kept a banana in the kitchen too long) and vinegar seems to work better than honey ... although molasses & vinegar seems to work best.

    705:

    Dave P @ 563: When Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in August 2005, USNORTHCOM spent months providing relief to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and particularly New Orleans. One of the hardest questions to answer was "when do we stop"? We had to keep reminding leadership that we were in support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and not the other way around.

    For most natural disasters, the primary responding agency at the state level is the National Guard. The regular Army just ain't trained to handle those kinds of problems.

    A big part of the problem after Katrina was the majority of the Louisiana National Guard was deployed to Iraq at the time and no one at the Federal level had given any thought to who was going to take their place when the "fit hit the shan". Unfortunately, that would usually have been the Texas National Guard (with whom the Louisiana Guard had reciprocal arrangements), but they were deployed as well.

    During Katrina, USNORTHCOM was having to do "on the job training" without experienced trainers to guide them.

    706:

    whitroth @ 572: ARGH....

    Please. To argue with the gun nuts, over the US 2nd Amendment, I wound up finding, online, Johnson's Dictionary, which all of the Founding Fathers would have been familiar with, and in there, he uses commas NOT with a clause, but as you would pause, were you reading it aloud.

    Meaning, of course, that the "right" to bear arms is per "a well-regulated militia", not an unrelated clause. If that were the case, then the first part of the Amendment would be a sentence fragment.

    Yes, commas are used differently now, than in the late 18th century. Who'da thunk it?

    That's how I have always used commas. They are there in the place where you'd naturally take a breath in reading aloud. But the other thing that must be understood is the commas are not where the committee members who wrote the proposed amendment put them. They got moved around by the copyist who made the copies to be sent to the individual states for ratification and then were moved around again by the printer when the ratified amendments were published.

    But none of that matters, because the INTENT of of the Constitutional Convention and the First Congress (which proposed 12 amendments for the "Bill of Rights" - 10 ratified immediately, one ratified after 202 years, 7 months, and 10 days ) is clear. The bulk of American military forces should be made up of (part time) citizen soldiers, led by officers from their communities (appointed by the State Legislatures), ARMED, ORGANIZED, TRAINED and DISCIPLINED according to the direction of Congress. Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 15 & 16.

    The Militia in the United States was based in English common law inherited by the English Colonies in North America. and PREDATES the American Revolution, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the United States.

    There was none of this "unorganized militia" BULLSHIT. The militia was made up of those who mustered when called to train or to serve in time of need - Local, State & National (what is now called the Organized Militia, i.e. the National Guard). That was expected to include ALL able bodied white-males. The 2nd Amendment only means that "the people" cannot be denied their place in the Militia (and that the Federal Government cannot strip the states of their role).

    The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments expanded opportunities (and citizen's obligation) to be a part of the militia to "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof ...". The 19th Amendment clarified that "All persons..." includes women too.

    Anyone who claims the 2nd Amendment gives an individual right to have guns without a concurrent, CO-EQUAL obligation to serve & submit to military discipline is either
    A. Delusional or
    B. LYING and more than likely
    C. BOTH!

    The reason we have this current mess regarding the 2nd Amendment is because slack ass selfish sons-of-bitches think they're special and can have all the "rights" from citizenship without ever shouldering any of the RESPONSIBILITIES that citizenship implies. Every damn one of 'em ought to be lined up against a wall and shot for treason (except that in the U.S. we're not allowed to call it what it is ... or summarily execute the bastards).

    707:

    It's one of the many 'everyone knows' sayings that aren't true. I think it was New Scientist that did a test and found balsamic vinegar works best.

    708:

    We kept fusing at my mother in law because she left fresh veggies and fruit out for days at a time. Her response was always I've done this for 80s years and it does go bad. Then one day there were fruit flies all around the apartment. She asked how to get rid of them. We told her to put the fresh stuff in the fridge or a sealed bag. But how to get rid of the flies in the apr she asked. Just wait a couple of days and they will die off if you keep the food away from them so they can't breed more.

    She was a bit grumpy but the food stopped being left out uncovered.

    The 2 days of lies helped us drive the point home as her memory was starting to go especially short term.

    :)

    709:

    Re: immigrants being cheap labour; I am an immigrant twice over - UK to US and US to Canada. Both times it was by invitation because I filled a need that only a dozen or so people possibly could. I did not get paid less than any ‘native’, not by a long way. At least at the time I did the US green card dance it was a requirement that the job be advertised- with the salary being paid - in order to ‘let real merkins have a chance’. That made it very clear if anyone were trying to underpay and it appeared to be enforced that the pay got increased immediately.

    Re:Grease-Smaug; people keep writing that him and his ilk want to return to feudalism. This is ridiculous; they want pre-feudal society since the reciprocal relationships and responsibilities are utterly unacceptable to their greedy, narcissistic fantasies. But I have a solution - Soylent Gold. Eat the rich.

    710:

    A glimmer of hope ... Lem0crats win Brecon & Radnor - now will fucwit Corbyn finally get the message after this? ... Labour were pushed into fourth place by the Brexit Party, winning just 1,680 votes and a five per cent share, down 12 per cent on what they achieved in the constituency at the 2017 general election. Or will the tosser throw it away? His stubborn idiocy is almost the mirror-image of BOZO's bombast & lies in its incompetence ....

    711:

    They replaced the water & sewer in my neighborhood last year. It was a major undertaking.

    Oy. Don't get me started. This began on my street a few weeks before NasFIC, so mid-June, and I told myself that one nice part about driving to Utah for ten days was that it would all be over by the time I got back. How long did it finally take? I can't tell you; it's still going on!

    They've dug some holes, and filled them back in, and repaved some turn of the century sidewalks. Apparently those weren't the right holes because they're still at it. Maybe someone's being paid by the hole.

    712:

    The early computer terminals used essentially the same mechanisms as typewriters, as did paper tape punches, telegraph machines and so on. But that has nothing to do with conventions like two spaces after full stops.

    713:
    Writing an INTERCAL compiler in INTERCAL is kind of brilliant and kind of WHYYY.

    "It is a thing that can be done. It is a thing that should not be done. It is thus a thing that MUST be done."

    I, once, wrote a lisp interpreter in a large company's internal "this is how we configure jobs running in production" language (well, one of them, the other was essentially Python and named after a small flute, and thus no challenge to do it in). Because, it could be, shouldn't be, and there for had to be done.

    714:

    What message would you like Corbyn to receive?

    Labour policy is already to campaign for a referendum on any brexit deal and to campaign for remain in that referendum if the deal was negotiated by the Tories.

    If Labour gets to negotiate a deal there will still be a referendum but they haven't said which way they would campaign.

    That's fine by me and it is what the pro-EU campaigners were asking for until recently.

    Do you just want the same Labour policy but Labour agrees to campaign for remain against a deal they negotiate too?

    715: 673 - Or a new SLUF variant, since what we want is something capable of carrying 12 or 18 Paveway IV or Brimstone. Unlike the A-10, the A-7 already has cat and trap hardened undercart and folding wings designed in. 679. :-), even though "Motor Gun Boat" predates "Morris Garages MGB" by at least 20 years. 697 - Using Wikipedia (UK, English edition) "wiff waff" redirects to "ping pong" and hence to "table tennis". BoJo the Clown proves the "stopped clock theory".
    716:

    There are a ridiculous number of complex programs written in the most inappropriate scripting languages 'for real', and they are a real nightmare to use and (worse) attempt to fix. Many of the fancier build mechanisms and more disgusting Web interfaces are like that. Much like Bozo, when a joke becomes reality, it stops being funny :-(

    On the silly note, I once wrote Towers of Hanoi in Genstat 4 following an argument with a computer scientist that claimed it was not a proper programming language. I thought of doing noughts and crosses, but that would have been too much like hard work :-) I also used it as an example of a programming language based on wildly different principles. It was designed and written entirely by statisticians for statisticians, and was as innovative as SNOBOL in its way.

    717:

    The amount of critical business logic written in excel is horrifying. I generally approve of dataflow languages but there are limits...

    718:

    Yeah, I get that kind of ideas, that's why it was brilliant. ;)

    A friend of mine once wrote a Befunge compiler, that was also brilliant piece of work. Not very useful, mind you, but that wasn't the point.

    On the 'for real' stupid things, I once saw somebody spend a lot of time writing a parser for a control language in Perl. I wasn't involved in that, so it took a long time to realize that a better solution might have been to just write a module for handling the communication with the device and just use Perl to write the scripts. I was too young and inexperienced to know how to tell this gently, so I think the whole project was kind of buried and forgotten afterwards.

    I think one of the problems is the 'ooh, shiny' attitude of software developers. I'm not immune to it, and in a way I think it's important to learn new stuff while doing this work. It's hard to keep the balance correct there.

    719:

    A friend of mine once wrote a Befunge compiler, that was also brilliant piece of work. Not very useful, mind you, but that wasn't the point.

    I love Befunge! Not only is it a wonderfully creative demonstration that software doesn't all have to look alike, it's an esoteric programming language that is still completely functional and usable.

    It should also be interpreted, because a Bufunge compiler is fucking nuts.

    720:

    The deal May negotiated is the only deal BoJo is going to get, meaning it's going to be a Hard Brexit.

    Or a snap general election, with an extension from the EU so that the new PM can sort things out.

    a) Liberal Democrats take Brecon and Radnorshire seat in by-election — Tory majority (with DUP) reduced to one seat.

    b) Tory MP Philip Lee is threatening to defect to the LibDems — he's a remainer, feels very alienated from his party, may leave. This would reduce the government majority to zero.

    c) Other Conservatives are threatening to spike a no deal Brexit, from the former chancellor Hammond down. It doesn't take many of them rebelling to make a vote of no confidence work. The only thing stopping them is probably fear of the electoral bloodbath that will ensue.

    My take on this is that Boris and the brexiteers in the Tory cabinet are trying to outmaneuver Nigel Farage's Brexit party, to desperately hang on to their base. They began bombing Facebook with targeted ads the very day Boris was announced as PM: you don't do that if you're planning to sit tight until 2022 (the next scheduled general election). I suspect they're in the ramp-up of a massive media campaign to convince the brexit-voting public that they'll deliver a hard brexit—then they'll call a snap election and aim their guns at (a) the LibDems and Labour ("betrayers of brexit") and (b) BXP ("letting Labour in through the back door").

    I expect the vote of confidence to happen nearly as soon as parliament returns from recess, i.e. the start of September. An election campaign takes about 10 weeks, so either a hard brexit will happen right before the election … or the EU will allow a month's delay. If they want to play hardball? No delay—October 31st, hard brexit with no government in office because it's been dissolved, and a general election after 1-2 weeks of chaos. Trouble is, the outcome is utterly impossible to predict. A 1-2 month extension is much easier to plan for—it basically gives the UK a last chance to yank the brake cable, then the new PM has to decide whether to cancel A50 or drive over the cliff.

    721:

    Note: the EU is heartily sick of Brexit, and for good reason.

    The ideal outcome is for the UK to panic, cancel A50, and come crawling back—ideally with its economy more or less intact, because the UK is a trading partner. (Going through with a no deal brexit and then crawling back to rejoin the EU with the economy downsized by 10% is not an ideal outcome for anyone.)

    Failing that, a less ideal outcome would be for a sane PM to walk back some of May's red lines and agree to a customs union/free travel area agreement. It's kinda pointless, but it'd bypass the need for a NI backstop completely and keep trade and travel running more or less as they are: the UK would have to comply with EU regs it would no longer have a voice in, but hey, the turkeys voted for Christmas so here's some cranberry sauce.

    Tertiary outcome: the UK has a snap election, elects a Tory who decides to get into bed with BXP to gain a bare working majority, and we end up in Germany 1933 territory. At which point everything goes utterly nonlinear and bombs start going off.

    Whatever happens, the UK is in for some serious civil unrest because if we leave, more than half the population don't want that and will be pissed off, and if we don't leave, the nazis will riot (because nazis).

    722:

    I wonder if the Iranians are smart enough to recreate the torpedo boat? a dumbfire ww2 tech torpedo is unjammable, and utterly lethal. This gunboat diplomacy, its not too bright really. Hubris....

    723:

    Tertiary outcome: the UK has a snap election, elects a Tory who decides to get into bed with BXP to gain a bare working majority, and we end up in Germany 1933 territory. At which point everything goes utterly nonlinear and bombs start going off.

    I would rather the UK not play 1930s Italy to the US's 1930s Germany. That was bad enough the first time and now nobody has any excuse not to know better. Yet that seems to be the goal of far too many angry nationalists.

    724:

    Colin @ 714 Oops, I was behind the timnes ... I was only semi-aware that Liebour's policy was for a 2nd referendum ... But a lot of Labour MP's are trying to get Liebour to be "the Party of remain" - though that looks to be too late now. It's back to the conundrum that if (say) Kier Starmer were their leader, they would be 20 points ahead in the polls ....

    Charlie @ 720 I think we are going to get a general election before the end of October ....

    An election campaign takes about 10 weeks, Can be done-&-dusted in SIX ....

    After Brecon-&-Radnor, with Libeour coming FOURTH ... it is to be hoped that the "remain" groupings do what they did there & all combine to put up whichever candidate ( including currently-sitting MP's ) is most pro-Remain. E.G. Here, Len0crats stand down & tell everyone to vote for Stella ... etc ... AT that point I would expect a solid majority of MP's ( approx 25-50 ) backing Remain - yes/no?

    SS @ 723 Or my scenario, which I've been afraid of for some time. We are Österreich-Ungarn to DT's Zweite-Reich, ja/nein?

    725:

    At this point it isn't a question of whether Corbyn will get the message or not, but rather the Labour party as a whole gets the message and deals with their leadership problem before it's too late.

    726:

    You still have to:- 1) Hit the target. 2) Make the contact pistol explode to detonate the torpex.

    There are plenty of accounts which say these events both happened less than 1 time in 4.

    727:

    It's not a question of what the pro-EU camp wants, or even the question of the referendum.

    What some of us want the Labour Party to recognize (because it has become apparent the current mess suits the ultimate goals of Corbyn) is this fence sitting, trying to be both remain and leave at the same time, has become a total failure and is making Labour unelectable.

    For all intents and purposes the leave vote will go either Conservative or Brexit Party, so Labour pursuing those votes is a waste of time. If Labour wants to win then they need to take the opposite side.

    The next election is one way or another a referendum on Brexit, and pursuing the minority of the vote (Brexit support has consistently been on the losing side of polls for a while now) against 2 other strong parties is foolish when instead you could be the dominate party pursing the majority of the vote.

    But is all doesn't matter as long as Corbyn is leader because the public no longer trusts Corbyn on the issue.

    728:

    A-7F with contemporary avionics might be the thing, a stretched A-7 with an afterburner, but it's been gone long enough something new might be in order. Little or no stealth, a lot of hard points, an internal gun, an A-10 with a tail hook could work, but it might as well be considered new by the time that was done*. Now there's something to be said for stealth, the bomb no one sees coming, like vengeance from the Gods, but it might be useful to give a target time to know they're screwed. *Skyraider 2, Wartier warthog!

    729:

    "take masses of waste plastics, run it through some monster of chemical engineering" "asphalt"

    I think that is vaguely the production process for all that plastic-wood stuff used for many decks, park benches, etc these days.

    730:

    @696: Oh God. When I was a boy, we had that exact model in battleship gray. I once got heat stroke riding in the back on one of our miserable summer death march "vacations", heading from El Paso east to my dad's home town in Knoxville, TN. Fortunately, my grandfather was a kindly and generous man and bought us this, which had a very nice air conditioner.

    731:

    @697: Darn, I'd forgotten that Oliver's show is essentially banned in the UK because he makes fun of UK politicians. So much for free speech. That was a good synopsis, thanks. It's too bad; I think many of the UK citizens on this blog would enjoy his show.

    732:

    There is, somewhere, some development work for an afterburning SLUF. Beyond that, I think it can get smaller, lighter computers with no loss of functionality, late D and E had laser sights built on, and the undercarriage and wing fold are also solved problems. Lack of wing fold, and the impossibility of hangaring it on a carrier as a result are my main issues with the A-10 in these roles.

    733:

    @705: The National Guard is a full partner in USNORTHCOM; there have been good suggestions over the years that they should take over the full command. From the Wiki article on USNORTHCOM: "The National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 stipulates that at least one deputy commander of USNORTHCOM be a National Guard general officer unless the commander is already such an officer."

    I won't go into the minutiae of the National Response Framework, but when I was there, use of active duty military forces was basically the last resort to an incident. The preference is municipal>county>state>federal (FEMA)>National Guard>active duty DOD capabilities.

    734:

    @706: Heartily concur.

    735:

    @728: "a stretched A-7 with an afterburner" - why do you want to make an A-7 back into an F-8? There's no need for an afterburner in a CAS aircraft; the lack of speed, and associated increased loiter time, is one of the things that makes the A-10 superior to the F-16 and F-35 for CAS.

    There's no need to focus solely on carrier aviation for this mission; A-10s flying out of Al Udeid in Qatar could easily do the job.

    736:

    @732: Practicality aside, you'll never sell this idea to the USN. They gave away capability in pursuit of commonality when they retired the F-14 and A-6. The F/A-18 is inferior to both in range and, respectively, BVR air defense and all weather strike/EW. What they gained was maintenance commonality and flight cycle time commonality (rhythm is as important in carrier air ops as it is in sex).

    737:

    to JBS @669 The communists are all gone, replaced by the Checka. Oh well, it's like saying "Nazis are all gone, only SS remains", but what do I know?

    Very funny. Actually really funny sometimes to observe western peers to swim in their own superstitions, but I might note this one specifically - because, as they say, even broke clocks are right twice a day. There are no real communists anymore, probably because all real communists went were the USSR went back in the days - it's going to be another decade after that soon enough. And Russia is strictly Capitalist country by now - except it is never as simple as that anywhere (people tend to forget how big the country really is).

    See, modern communists/left in RF are not the same as communists in other capitalist countries - they are not a progressive party. While in US, UK, EU or other countries were progressive powers - in Russia they are conservative power that argues to return to life, ideals and standards of USSR. Probably to begin everything anew, hopefully. They are against liberalization, against free market and flow of investments, austerity and budget cuts. Unfortunately, that did them a big disservice later on. When in 1996 certain determined alcoholic was going for second term, there was real chance to lose the majority of votes to communists, so with generous help of US money, propaganda and effort of collaborating government, his ass was saved for the time being.

    What happened next is that the Communist party was forced to cooperate with whatever government is out there, and in fact they were on better terms with Putin because of his policies later on. It eroded the motives very badly, to the point that there are a dozen other left parties (including that one 4th party with 7 seats in Parliament) that are much more progressive. In effect, many modern, more radical communist blame CPRF for being too comfy in parliament, too passive to be reckoned with and sliding into a sham - in some cases I can't disagree with that.

    Under Putin it's a hard-line fascist state, ruled by NAZIs in everything but name. I'm not surprised in a slightest since I've already encountered here people who can't tell the difference between fascism and socialism. And it usually goes like this. The Parliament majority and President are both considered centrist-right, not extreme right or left as people like to suggest out of their utter ignorance.

    Now if you consider what they do in EU when nobody is looking, specifically in territories(I would insist to name them as such!) that were collaborating with aforementioned Nazis back in the days, this can become even more hillarious in hindsight.

    738:

    mdive @ 725 PRECISELY But - how? Like the tories, stuck with BOZO the lying clown, Liebour are saddled with "C", & as I keep repeating, someone stuck in 1973 who has neither learnt nor forgotten anything since then ....

    & @ 777 For all intents and purposes the leave vote will go either Conservative or Brexit Party, so Labour pursuing those votes is a waste of time. If Labour wants to win then they need to take the opposite side. But Corbyn HATES the EU, because he sides with the communists & nazis of 1975/6 who campaigned against the EU, back then .... But it all doesn't matter as long as Corbyn is leader because the public no longer trusts Corbyn on the issue.

    739:

    to whitroth @695 Oh, yep, all of us old leftists viewed the USSR as a workers' socialist paradise. To be honest, this notion has wider spread among larger population at least today. For comparison - it's only been several years since we achieved decent standards of living somewhat comparable with USSR, but within RSFSR(federation) borders. And I'm not even talking about our satellite countries, most of which are very dependable and fairly poor. For one, I flew a plane a couple of times in my life before - it was around 1993. The next time I flew a plane it was 2018 - full 25 years later, when, at last, it is affordable enough for average family to even consider such option. Before that, it would take full 2 days to travel the same distance by train - makes the difference for hard-working people. https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/genby/30544598/621373/621373_original.jpg

    Many media sh**streamers like to describe this as revanchism and react with fear and incoherent blaming (especially considering nationalistic streak sometimes). But don't worry - there are a lot of leftist people in country despite all possible efforts of large capital. They just don't want to destroy their country by accident (to great frustration of our "international partners").

    740:

    re: Wrong: "I could care less" is standard American idiom, equivalent to "I couldn't care less" in the UK. Both of which just sound wrong to someone who grew up with the other version.

    I disagree. To me "I couldn't care less." sounds more formal than "I could care less.", but doesn't sound wrong. And carries the same meaning, though I know that logically the meanings should be opposite. I started noticing it during the 1960's, but that was when I moved to college, and it may have been common before then.

    741:

    Nofolk, biggest? Um, that'd be a nope. Norfolk Naval Base, approx 3400 acres. Fort Hood, TX: 214,000 acres.

    Yes, really.

    742:

    Lisp... reminds me of the early nineties, on usenet, when someone (I forget what newsgroup, might have been rasff) announced that they'd gotten hold of the code from SDI (aka misnamed "Star Wars", correctly named (by me) Battlestar America), and that it was written in lisp. They didn't want to compromise national security, but did post the last five lines of the code, to wit: ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

    743:

    "...the UK would have to comply with EU regs it would no longer have a voice in, but hey, the turkeys voted for Christmas so here's some cranberry sauce."

    On the other hand, Parliament would no longer be able to "gold-plate" EU regulations. It might make the regulatory environment better for everyone. (Fat chance, I suspect, but that's the silver lining I see.)

    744:

    Like the "moderates" of the Democrats. They still think they can chase Dem votes that went to the Reptilians...40 years ago, and are blind to the fact that almost half the US is registered independent, because the D's have been chasing the Rs, rather than running in horror the other way.

    745:

    Gunboat diplomacy only works until your opponents can build gunboats of their own. The U.S. has managed to not-learn this.

    746:

    Bleah! Any left wing party that mentions the word "austerity", in this time, isn't on the left.

    Easy way to see if they're on the left: do they advocate taxing the shit out of the billionaires and multinationals, and cracking down on tax havens?

    747:

    Just in the last few years, it's finally back to equivalent to the USSR?

    Guy, I did what I could, but I've got neither "traction" nor power nor much visibility, but on behalf of at least some of us in the US, I want to apologize and decry the crime of overwhelming, total economic war the US conducted against the USSR, that resulted in the destruction of your country, and the decades of misery and shortages and depression.

    satire But, I mean, if you had succeeded, that would have been terrible, you know, because then what would billionaires say to the voters here? \satire

    748:

    The Democratic "moderates" aren't really Democrats. They're Country-Club Republicans with a "D" in front of their names.

    750:

    I actually miss the old Soviet USSR. American politicians would sometimes do good things just to convince the masses that we were better than those damn commies. My message for sleepingroutine is that we'd love to see the USSR go commie again; maybe the U.S. would stop attacking itself in a bizarre frenzy!

    751:

    By the bye, you notice how the ultrawealthy keep choosing deeply disturbed people who can manage charisma (at least part of the time) to run the government while they try to set it up to run their way forever?

    And after too many of the 99% lose much or everything, and get it back into working order, then a few years later, they try again, and don't seem to learn anything from the last go-round?

    We're looking at the old line, that psychosis is doing the same thing, over and over, the same way, and expecting a different result from the one they got the previous time?

    752:

    I do, as well. I mean, the collapse made the world so much safer... NOT. And without them, the US didn't have any checks on what they do. Sorry, but China's not there yet, and their game is different, anyway (they are concerned about the Middle Kingdom, after all, and the rest of us are those over there.

    Whereas Russians and Americans did have some commonality in understanding. My late ex noted that, when she was working with Russians at the Cape.

    Really did want a Soviet/American conquest of the Moon.Apollo-Soyuz should have just been the beginning. Thanks so much, right-wing racist Raygun.

    753:

    Let me go a bit further:

    On the one hand, the Cold War (and the threat of nuclear war) traumatized a couple of generations of western Europeans and, to a lesser extent, Americans in the larger cities: I suspect also eastern Europeans and Soviet residents in the larger cities too, for exactly the same reason.

    But on the other hand, the existence of the USSR kept the west's oligarchs under control because the prospect of communist revolution scared the ever-living shit out of them and provided a viable alternative model for how things might be run. From the early 60s onwards the USSR fell behind the West in terms of improvements in standard of living … but it got some things very right indeed, and the ultrawealthy didn't really dare go full-tilt to steal everything that wasn't nailed down for fear that the general public would say "fuck you" and switch track to the alternative model.

    Hence the pervasive anti-communist, anti-socialist propaganda in the USA and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the west. (Which is really intensely propagandized; except the propaganda isn't top down, it's bottom up. As Noam Chomsky pointed out, if your state ideology fetishizes free speech then propaganda has to be disguised as free speech, and thus a more subtle than the propaganda of one-party states.)

    And now we've got the worst of both worlds: a de facto one party system where the party is the party of billionaires and they're so out of touch with reality that they don't care if the planet is on fire. Less risk of nuclear war, more risk of us all dying of ecosystem collapse. Yay.

    754:

    Trutwaxer @ 743 A joke, which is more than half-serious & one actual reason why the EU is unpopular ... Actual EU Regulation - approx 2-4 sides of A4 FRENCH version of same regulation - approx ONE side of A5 BRITISH version of regulation ( After civil service gold-plating ) - a small paperback book

    This has been known of for some considerable time & the politicians COULD have done something about it, but they didn't, did they?

    @ 748 Which is why Biden is the LAST person they should select to run against DT ....

    755:

    I disagree. To me "I couldn't care less." sounds more formal than "I could care less.", but doesn't sound wrong.

    At least in the written corpus covered by Google Ngram Viewer, "couldn't care less" is used about three times more often than "could care less".(*) Interestingly, the "couldn't" version took off ca. 1940, while the "could" one didn't until the early 1960s.

    See https://tinyurl.com/y67updfp

    or, if you distrust tinyfication,

    https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Could+care+less%2Ccouldn%27t+care+less&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ccould%20care%20less%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Ccould%20not%20care%20less%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bcould%20not%20care%20less%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BCould%20not%20care%20less%3B%2Cc0

    (*) I agree that periods/full stops should be put outside final closing quote marks. So I do it unless writing in a situation where it would attract unnecessary opprobrium.

    756:

    The really hackish approach would be to invent a domain specific language for specifying controller languages, and make your parser generate interpreters for these, then use it to generate an interpreter for itself, complete with a Ken Thompson Easter egg, or a Quine or something.

    My favourite Perl module back in the day was Parse::RecDescent, because it was cool and so obviously in this sort of space. But I hardly ever used it and when I did it was exclusively for web scrapers. For getting real work done, it was always easiest just to write things in Perl. There was usually a module on CPAN that already did most of what I needed. That was years ago, of course.

    757:

    Oliver's show is essentially banned in the UK

    How does that even work when YouTube exists? Oliver has an official channel with clips, and invariably the full show goes up shortly after it's shown. Occasionally people play whack-a-mole but normally not.

    It's as silly as the BBC blocking VPNs... people outside the country are willing to pay to watch it, but the BBC is for whatever reason unwilling to accept their money. If they just said "$10/mo and you have to log in to watch" I would happily subscribe (even more so if it was 10 quid, because that's only going to get cheaper over time). On that note... wouldn't it be funny if the BBC because a visible source of foreign currency post-Brexit?

    758:

    "On that note... wouldn't it be funny if the BBC because a visible source of foreign currency post-Brexit?"

    Post Brexit the BBC will be sold to a consortium of coal and gas companies who are eager for yet-another-propaganda-outlet. It will eventually fall into the hands of a renegade Malaysian hedge-fund billionaire who will use AI to create 24-hour kiddies shows which use well-known toy properties to advance the cause of international fascism - think Lego-Superman with a Hitler moustache and Lois Lane played by Imelda Marcos.

    The artistic gem of the British Empire will end it's days as a monetized youtube channel which is eventually kicked off the 'net after the AI creates a show in which Eva Braun becomes Barron Trump's catsuit-wearing magical nanny and the execs are unable to successfully fight twin copyright takedown notices by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Disney.

    759:

    Any left wing party that mentions the word "austerity", in this time, isn't on the left. Easy way to see if they're on the left: do they advocate taxing the shit out of the billionaires and multinationals, and cracking down on tax havens? In their own words - absolutely, always and very strictly. In practice - not so much, and that is exactly what I was talking about. Last elections candidate from them is Mr. Grudinin, who is, among all the things, a communist mostly in the name, former ruling party member, entrepreneur and almost a billionaire (not really, it is said he just had some money abroad and somebody was trying to discredit him). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Grudinin A lot (if not most) of our old communists are like that - they are acclimatized to modern economy, but retain a lot of connections with parties and people.

    Just in the last few years, it's finally back to equivalent to the USSR? No, that'd be a huge overstatement. By many estimations, the political power is largely inflated personally by figure of President and economic power is behind most of other important powers(I would compare it to Germany, but Germany is again a part of EU). What the people in the world are concerned, of course, is the further potential nobody wants to play with too much. So, only in living standards, even if barely sufficient. But that is not the most interesting part of the situation.

    The unusual parts starts with near-political movements I observe pretty recently, and this is something only some independent experts are talking freely. There are several factorsб I'm not going to give you all the links (they are too many, anyway), but it is what I gathered for last couple of years.

    We're looking at the old line, that psychosis is doing the same thing, over and over, the same way, and expecting a different result from the one they got the previous time? FOR ONE, we have such people - they are not numerous and mostly just scammers who want to exploit nostalgia about USSR in most direct and obnoxious way - "let's disregard and overthrow current government with glorious Socialist revolution and do our own communist thing". They mostly melt after several good pointed questions. https://www.rferl.org/a/flouting-law-in-nostalgia-s-name-russia-s-growing-movement-of-soviet-citizens-/29962523.html (note how this is Radio Liberty of all the things and not some Communist Radio) I am strictly convinced that they are pretty much Trotskysts (financed by oligarchy, especially our old friend Hodor and his affiliates) who want to hijack our left movement and employ in sanction and political war against Russia. That is, IMO, a thing of a great concern and shall be dealt with ASAP. And these are, BTW, the same people who also say that Russia is a Nazi collaborator state (almost word to word). Anyway, very toxic bunch hanging around.

    SECONDLY, we have a great hulking amount of bureaucracy which is direct ancestor of USSR bureaucratic apparatus, sometimes in literal sense of the words. It is a bad thing that actually would prevent Russia from expanding and innovating enough to again become powerful enough to survive. Some estimate that there's about 3-5% government-employed people who could easily be more useful doing something else while not blocking administrative actions with their weight.

    THIRDLY, some OTHER more sane people argue that current government of Russia is using almost 70% of government control in economy. That is not direct control via Party apparatus or something similar, but a control via shareholders and stocks and big corporations like United Aircraft Corporation, Rosatom or Roskosmos. Liberals argue that this is A VERY BAD THING, because of the aforementioned monopoly of power, and I saw a person who explained that this is a very good thing and can help to overcome the same problem with (because state bureaucracy can be separated from corporate control). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_Russia If you check "state-owned enterprise" attribute marked, it is pretty obvious.

    to Troutwaxer @750 My message for sleepingroutine is that we'd love to see the USSR go commie again; maybe the U.S. would stop attacking itself in a bizarre frenzy! What a coincidence, this is almost exact words of one of my favorite political expert he was talking about at least last decade!

    760:

    Some time in the late 50s my dad bought a Henry J[1] as a early mid life crisis car. He was thinking of fixing it up as "his" car. My mother hated it. My dad didn't have time to deal with it so he let my much older cousin drive it. He as just over 16 at the time and loved the car. This was around 60-62. His comment on the car was "a gallon of gas and 2 quarts of oil and he was set for the week unless he had a date".

    [1] It was a different time then if this was considered a sporty car. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_J

    761:

    The F/A-18 is inferior to both in range and, respectively, BVR air defense and all weather strike/EW. What they gained was maintenance commonality and flight cycle time commonality

    The reduced maintenance man hours per flight hours was something like 140 to 40 which is just plain huge for a carrier.

    762:

    Some estimate that there's about 3-5% government-employed people who could easily be more useful doing something else while not blocking administrative actions with their weight. No, sorry, this sounds entirely wrong! I wanted to say 3-5% of ALL population of a country, which would be 3 million of bureaucrats. That is the exact problem of degenerative partocracy late USSR had and a source of major concern even for higher-ups in government.

    763:

    I suspect that Norfolk has more people (in and out of uniform) and stuff ($$$) than Fort Hood. Especially when you consider all the stuff that is based there but at sea at any one time. But in terms of floor space size FH is "just plain big".

    764:

    or, if you distrust tinyfication, Thanks for the nudge! expandurl(){ curl -sI $1 | sed -n 's/Location: *//p';} expandurl thetinyurl

    (via, and I'm sure it's not perfect, but it is helpful. Tinyurl still knows you asked, and etc, but that's a higher level of paranoia. )

    765:

    about 3-5% government-employed people who could easily be more useful doing something else

    In a post-capitalist country they would more likely be doing even more damage if not employed by the government. For each productive member of society that would be liberated you'd generate at least one lobbyist, financial services professional or equally sociopathic role-filler.

    I think there's a good argument for a state retail bank (see: Nicholas Gruen, John Quiggin caution, the latter posted in quite a grumpy mood) that provides basic banking services at low/no fees. That way everyone has access to the fundamentals necessary to receive government payments.

    Said bank could also lend money at the official cash rate for home buying, at least to some extent. Gruen suggests 50% of the government valuation, and also supports a land tax to give the government reasons to move valuations in both directions (lower = less lending, higher = more tax revenue).

    766:

    Who is going to protect that airbase in Qatar from attack by "irregular" forces? The biggest loss of aircraft during the current Great Afghanistan Adventure was back in 2012 when the Taliban broke through the fences at a joint-forces airbase attached to one of the in-country camps and destroyed a bunch of Harriers.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_2012_raid_on_Camp_Bastion

    Short-range slow aircraft are always at risk of this sort of attack since they have to be forward-deployed to be of any use. That costs in terms of risk, the defences needed to protect them and and the extra manpower requirements. Sure, during the initial invasion and subjugation of the local population it's not a big deal but once you gear down into the nation-building business of holding the territory and bombing wedding parties in revenge for ongoing attacks then it becomes an endless cost.

    767:

    "I think there's a good argument for a state retail bank (see: Nicholas Gruen, John Quiggin caution, the latter posted in quite a grumpy mood) that provides basic banking services at low/no fees. That way everyone has access to the fundamentals necessary to receive government payments."

    I think that's called "National Girobank". AFAIR it worked just fine and it was available to everyone. Like, really everyone. But it's either dead now or at the least a lot further gone than just resting, because Britain keeps getting governed by arseholes who destroy the good bits, and insist that everyone uses a regular bank account without acknowledging that everyone, like, really everyone, can't get one.

    768:

    That looks lovely. If it was right hand drive I'd rather like one of those, I think. Though of course I'd re-fit it with a decent engine that doesn't burn 2:1 two-stroke mix.

    769:

    There's still the Post Office Bank - which continues to work .....

    770:

    "This has been known of for some considerable time & the politicians COULD have done something about it, but they didn't, did they?"

    It's been known for sure, but it hasn't been exactly well publicised; as far as most of the public are concerned it's the EU that is supposed to be the entire cause of the thickness of the book.

    (I suspect you will agree that the absolute bloody worst case has got to be "separation of accounting for infrastructure and operations" turning into "detailed specification for the entire gigantic bubbling swamp"...)

    (And only recently, people were banging on about Corbyn being a liability because "new EU regs" won't let him nationalise the railways. None of whom had actually read the "new regs" or they wouldn't have been saying that in the first place. Though to be fair it is an enormous wad of tedious guff and does rather look as if it does say that if you don't read it as carefully as you would Tolkien.)

    Really, British governments bloody love the EU; it gives them such excellent opportunities for implementing great wads of unpopular legislation and then washing their hands and saying "Johannes l'étranger made us do it". Thing is, of course, when doing stuff like this, that you do have to make sure the loop gain is below unity once the phase reaches π. Otherwise you get the kind of mess we've got at the moment (and it doesn't even seem to be AC-coupled, either. I wonder if anyone in government has ever had a bench with a steadily-expanding gibbet of charred transistors on the wall behind it...)

    771:

    Isn't that the Bank of Ireland? (Seem to remember some print so small you really do need a magnifying glass to read it.) So... how long for, I wonder?

    772:

    One of the awesome things that happened some time after I got to Australia was the removal of the standard ~$6/mo "account fee" that I wasn't aware existed outside of history books. Somehow that had never been a thing in Aotearoa in my memory, came here and "it may have the same name but it's a different bank" (Australian banks own most NZ banks, although not in the simple direct sense that "ANZ bank NZ is also ANZ bank Australia" because that would be too simple).

    If you are literate in English and comfortable navigating the internet as well as authority systems like banks, and have access to a decent size city, you can find no-fee banking fairly easily. If you earn more than poverty wages you can even get decent levels of no-fee (I think deposit $2000/mo with ING and you get free POS and withdrawals over $200 at ATMs are free). Many of those things don't apply to poor people, obviously, but for people like me they to work very well.

    After the recent royal commission into the banking scum I think a lot of Australians would welcome the guillotine arrival of a state bank. Sadly most of the good names are already taken by former state banks.

    773:

    Ah, that reminds me of an Idea I had, though unfortunately I suspect it isn't practical...

    Initial concept: there is a database server, and there is a browser script that people install. When those people click on a t.co or other obfuscated URL, the browser script looks it up on the server, and the server responds from its own database. Only if it hasn't seen this URL before does it need to look it up itself on t.co. So nothing actually goes to t.co at all apart from one request from the first person to click on a newly-generated URL.

    Of course, people do just have to believe me when I say that the server keeps no records apart from the URL translations themselves and none of the data ever gets used for anything else. That's not really the problem. It does block the mining of URLs by t.co etc, and people can believe it or not as it suits them.

    The problem is that if it should become popular enough to start doing some significant good, then twitter will just block the server's IP so it can't do the initial lookup any more. So, we make the browser script do that lookup itself if the server doesn't have the answer, and then tell the server what it was. And here, of course, the problem is that people can mess it up by sending fake messages to the server with dud data.

    So the question becomes: how does A ask C a question when both question and answer go via B and B cannot be trusted. And I don't think there's a way to do that.

    774:

    The Post Office has, however, been privatized—and presumably its banking arm is now a sock puppet for services provided by one or other of the high street banks.

    Look for its utility to those folks who can't actually convince a real bank to give them an account to drop sharply (to say nothing of Theresa May's "hostile environment" regulations).

    775:

    The Royal Mail was privatized. The Post Office network remains publicly owned.

    776:

    @414: Are you talking about Johnson or Trump?

    777:

    But in terms of floor space size FH is "just plain big".

    By footprint, the White Sands Missile Range at 600,000 acres (2,430 sq km) is the largest currently. Colorado has finally got the Army to abandon its plan to expand the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site. The expanded site would have been 6,900,000 acres (28,000 sq km).

    778:

    Georgiana @ 776

    If you read my post # 414, you will see that I specifically said .... of why BOZO is unsuitable BOZO the clown, Boris Johnson, liar & fraud ... OK? Britains answer to DT, unfortunately.

    779:

    Re: Bozo

    America: Hold my beer.

    UK: That's easy mate, we can do it too.

    780:

    Thanks for that reference.

    OTOH, I was talking about use in speech. I don't think I've ever read "I could care less" meaning "I couldn't care less", except as an example or quotation. This is part of what I meant by "I could care less" is less formal. It is very interesting that the rise started around 1960, so that would imply (to me) that it started either in the San Francisco Bay area, or among college students...or, of course, both.

    781:

    Though of course I'd re-fit it with a decent engine that doesn't burn 2:1 two-stroke mix.

    Just to make sure you understand. The engine was a 4 cycle. It just leaked and bypassed enough oil that it seemed to need almost as much oil as gas.

    There were multiple such car companies in the 50s where the small companies making vehicles for the military during WWII decided they could compete with Ford and GM. Turns out they couldn't.

    782:

    Seem to remember some print so small you really do need a magnifying glass to read it.)

    Back in the 80s I discovered that Canadian consumer laws were a bit different than US laws. Credit card legal docs in the US might be 4 pages where in Canada the same thing would be printed in micro lettering on 2 pages.

    Then there was that whole thing were to get a mortgage loan in much of Canada you had to give the bank/processor 12 checks at a time. 11 of them post dated.

    783:

    Not sure this is true. The UK has, if I recall correctly, a bit of a sweetheart deal. The ideal outcome might be exiting with no deal and nigh immediately crawling back - to be faced with a trial EU membership (duties, but limited voting privileges until assured that the UK couldn't torpedo further integration.). From the perspective of an EU bureaucrat - I'd be willing to sacrifice 10% of the UK economy for that sort of outcome. The other nations would be happy to feel a bit more fairly treated. Particularly if much of that sacrifice involved shuttling financial services over to the EU...

    784:

    Hey Charlie. I'm rereading Accellerando, and it's amazing how differently it reads post-Trump. What's surprising is that, despite your many hints that Accellerando is a dystopian novel, the future it points at is, in some way, a very stark contrast to the to racist, fascist, extremely primitive and fearful roadmap Trump is laying out. On one hand I can see the warts in the post-Singularity future, on the other hand I prefer it to another round of fascist, frightened bullshit...

    What would you do if you were beginning to write the Manfred Macx stories today? Do you think we can get to a post-scarcity future that doesn't involve capitalism run amok? Other than the fact that you see the novel as dystopian, what are your thoughts on it today? And WFT happened to software agents? (I don't count Alexa or Siri - they're under far too high a degree of corporate control.)

    785:

    Oh, I understand fine, thanks - I had one like that :)

    786:

    "I notice some of you are railing about "if people don't have to work for a living millions will just sit and watch TV all day"."

    As the one who introduced that phrase to the discussion, I think I should point out that I was railing against the people who think that outcome is undesirable.

    "Kids these days barely watch TV as we knew it: they're all over YouTube and on the net playing Fortnite (or was that last year already? I'm so old and slow ...). Their idle time activities bear no relationship to the stereotype couch potato sitting alone on the sofa absorbing Fox News; that's for the old farts like us, who are doing a 20-30 year fade-out."

    Well, if you can't manage it, there's no way I'm ever going to be able to come up with something up-to-date, accurate, and immediately comprehensible by this audience - especially if I have to research it anew every time the subject comes up...

    "Please find a new metaphor for idleness."

    How about "sitting around drinking beer"? That's universally popular regardless of age, era or technology level.

    "Like, eh, working a third side hustle to try and make this month's rent payment because minimum wage laws are unenforced and it's too low to live on anyway."

    But the context was explicitly one in which the curse of Adam was firmly behind us.

    "(This has not been a moderation notice, but just an advance warning that I'm getting heartily sick of obsolete stereotypes being rolled out to implicitly diss the younger generations.)"

    Umm... see first reply para ;)

    787:

    ...So I just looked it up.

    It is Bank of Ireland and they are pulling the plug next month.

    788:

    It's wrong anyway. Everyone knows it's not littoral combat commanders who drive MGs, it's fighter pilots, and they go for the T series.

    789:

    You are quite right, and they are already doing exactly what you suggest. Search terms like recycled plastic road surface bring up loads of results, many pointing to a Scottish outfit called MacRebur who seem to have had the idea first.

    Unfortunately, since it is the problem that first occurs to me, I haven't had useful results from adding motorcycling to the search terms.

    790:

    "He told one scientist that he was bankrolling efforts to identify a mysterious particle that might trigger the feeling"

    (it's been a long time now since you've been aware)

    "that someone is watching you."

    ...(he's gonna get you) You got no choice, 'cause you can't escape the Voice...

    791:

    "-that someone is watching you?"

    Might that be the guiltion? The moralton? Would it involve "stringing-yourself-along theory? "I don't really feel bad about boffing that 13-year-old, it's just physics?"

    792:

    "Unfortunately, human beans don't work that way. There are a lot of folks who feel like nothing if they don't have a job, and define themselves by it."

    Yeah, that's part of the problem. We need to undo the damage of centuries of cultural conditioning which the current establishment is very keen not to see undone. So far progress has consequently mainly been in the area of overlap with Men Procreate And Shoot Guns And Bring Home The Bacon.

    Not to deny that there are people who would still feel like that even without the conditioning. At present they are often exploited. Nobody from Britain becomes a nurse for the money, because they don't get any more than the minimum necessary to attract nurses from other countries where they get paid even less. They do it because they believe in it, and so get dumped on because they can be.

    But people like that are not excluded. I'm not envisaging the extinction of cooperative human endeavour; far from it, I expect it to be fertilised. People will certainly freely assemble to do stuff, purely for the enjoyment, that is to all intents and purposes a job - they do this already - preserved railways are a good example (at least on the UK pattern). Because they're doing it purely because they are into it and want to, they aren't happy with doing a half-arsed job of things, and do it really well to the limits of their resources.

    I think someone else mentioned sewer workers... I will absolutely fucking guarantee that if people can decide to work in the sewers because they enjoy it, then there will be no shortage of people who do work in the sewers because they enjoy it. I might even be one of them, given how into sewers I was when I was a nipper. Somewhere there is probably still a teacher with conflicted memories of "My Holiday Down the Drain"...

    The other point, and this I reckon is the conditioning's weak spot, is that the vast gap between "work" and "useful work", currently enthusiastically obscured, will become inescapably obvious in the absence of the money motive that is such a useful smoke generator and source of excuses. People will be far more likely than at present to do useful stuff because the patent pointlessness of doing stuff that isn't useful will put people off. (This is a very broad sense of "useful" indeed, but nevertheless one which currently is probably more likely to need to depend on charitable organisations than not.)

    "And after a lot of games, and screwing around, there will be some group of idiots who desperately have to show they're worth something by being "better" than someone else...which is where you get terrorist organizaitons like the KKK... and where you get militias and armies that take over."

    MOCK THEM. MOCK THEM WITHOUT MERCY.

    They'll never be "better" than pigeons. Pigeons are far more dangerous. There are so many of them and they all walk around saying "Military coup! Military coup!"

    Being serious, though, there will, indeed, always be some idiots. I don't believe universal anarchy is a stable condition. Self-magnifying perturbations will arise and the ideal of removing all controls is essentially paradoxical in the long term. Some negative feedback mechanism is essential, even if it's on the level of "everyone thinks you're a wanker, so build yourself a custom satellite habitat and fuck off and live on that, there's a good chap". But then Iain Banks has gone into that far more deeply than I ever have.

    I do think it's pretty unarguable, though, that we'll be better off without a lot of people who do have a lot of stuff to be pissed off about, whether justified or not, and act like the office boy kicking the cat, with a complete and utter disregard for appropriate targeting that often encourages becoming a KKK-type shithead.

    "There's got to be another solution, I just haven't seen it yet. We can't go back to what we did 10,000 years ago, because we've conceived of so much more than telling stories, scratching our private parts, and chasing game."

    Ah, but then there's Pratchett's idea that telling stories is what the whole thing is really all about...

    793:

    The issue is that there are a lot of people who really are not self regulating - they do better with jobs.

    Now, I am not sure how true it is - but some German coworkers asserted that, in Germany, you don't need to work if you don't want to and also that there were gigantic efficiency gains from only hiring people who wanted to work.

    Now, regarding waste management - in the US - it seemed to be less than 0.5% of the economy - so a year for everyone seems nonoptimal. Now, extend that to climate maintenance and you've got something, maybe.

    794:

    I don't like the phrase "climate maintenance."

    Let's assume that right now, today, we start doing everything right where climate is concerned... the next 3-500 years will be one defeat after another on the climate front. The species-saving difference is that our retreats will be well-organized and our withdrawals from places that become too-hot or too wet will be well-planned and executed.

    But the next 3-500 years will still suck. They'll just suck a lot less. So "climate maintenance" isn't quite the word I'd use. Maybe "civilization's careful retreat" or something similar.

    795:

    I quite like “civilization’s careful retreat”, but I can’t really believe it. “Humanity’s disastrous rout” is a lot more believable, sadly.

    796:

    Depending on how well we handle climate change, we get to choose something on the continua between those two phrases...

    797:

    Indeed, although the perception of choice is problematic. The “we” who would choose are fractious and currently handing the responsibility for choosing over to people who, in a great many cases, would be better suited to different activities.

    798:

    "...would be better suited to different activities."

    That's the politest thing I've read this decade.

    799:

    Pigeons are far more dangerous. There are so many of them and they all walk around saying "Military coup! Military coup!"

    I have slightly more free range chickens than usual as a result of moving house - the fence has gone but the chooks remain. Unlike the silverbeet, which has been pecked to bare stalks. Or the lettuce, which is just gone. In exchange there is management all over the lawn.

    And they are very active managers. Doesn't matter what I'm doing, if they can see me they will all rush over to supervise and give their opinion on what I'm doing.

    Don't step in the management.

    800:

    @ 794 et seq There's a phrase for that, from JRRT, actually.

    "Fighting the long defeat"

    801:

    In brighter political news, I read that in a recent by-election Ukip was soundly defeated by the Monster Raving Loony Party, which admittedly would be my preference as well.

    Their winning platform stated in part: "We will send Noel Edmonds to negotiate Brexit because he understands Deal or No Deal. There will be no need for a backstop to the Brexit negotiations. We'll have Alec Stewart as wicket-keeper."

    Can anyone arrange for a Prime Minister with a Brexit plan at least as good as that one?

    ... Please?

    802:

    What will happen in Northern Ireland if neither BoJo, nor Varadkar plans to police the border betweek Ireland and NI?

    Will there be a flow of people going in, using this as a gateway to the UK and sponge of the BREXIT-voting taxpayer?

    Or will there be a flow of people trying to get out?

    803:

    @ 802 Most of the internal Irish border is a very long way from anywhere ... at all. Simply not worth it, except in terms of "local" trade, I suspect.

    THIS view lookin NOrth into NI, shows a typical one - the boundary is where the road surface changes. Incidentally, this smae road crosse the border twice moe, before finally staying in the N .....

    804:

    Search terms like recycled plastic road surface bring up loads of results, many pointing to a Scottish outfit called MacRebur who seem to have had the idea first.

    The problem with re-using plastic in this way is it guarantees that large amounts of microscopic bits of plastics will enter the environment.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics

    805:

    If someone wants to really see a road boundary change drive Sunset Strip from LA into Beverly Hills. The boundary is not perpendicular which gives it an interesting look. And it is striking as you go from the typical city street to the upscale street, curbs, sidewalks, etc.

    806:

    Smuggling is still a major industry, and is one of the activities the organised criminal gangs that the militants turned into (including the mainstream IRA, of course) are deeply into. The EU is seriously worried about diseases and toxic substances (and possibly weapons) being imported via that route, including from the USA, with good reason. The UK ungovernments aren't, of course (except, to some extent, fuel smuggling) - but aren't prepared to note that such activities are the lifeblood of organised crime.

    807:

    Now, regarding waste management - in the US - it seemed to be less than 0.5% of the economy - so a year for everyone seems nonoptimal.

    The proposal by H which stared this topic had to do with greatly expanding the processes we (US) apply to garbage so that figure would increase.

    Plus garbage service would be only one option. Picking up roadside trash, clearing waterways from crap dumped 50+ years ago, clearing up coal ash piles from abandoned coal power plants, etc...

    As a side note what do other "1st world" countries do with their mountains of coal ash?

    808:

    I think someone else mentioned sewer workers... I will absolutely fucking guarantee that if people can decide to work in the sewers because they enjoy it, then there will be no shortage of people who do work in the sewers because they enjoy it. I might even be one of them, given how into sewers I was when I was a nipper. Somewhere there is probably still a teacher with conflicted memories of "My Holiday Down the Drain"...

    Indeed. See for example farming, a profession that relies on one being out in all weathers, at the mercy of the weather, the international markets, the politics of the day etc. Dirt, smells, injuries and so on. And people (including some on this website) line up to slowly lose their property to the bank.

    Finding the farmers or the sewer workers or the care workers or whatever in sufficent numbers after a transition to post-Adamic economics might, in time, become a problem, at which point maybe society will need to figure out how to encourage people to do the jobs. For an example farming (dirty, hard, dangerous) is a noble profession, while sewer work (dirty, hard, dangerous) is considered somewhat less so*. This is not to disparage farming (some of my friends and family etc) but to suggest we should appreciate the people who dig up our streets more.

    Anyway, that one might be able to sit on a couch drinking beer and playing Destiny 2 or Titanfall 2, or god help us, Team Fortress without worrying about being thrown out on the street to starve does not mean that it would be a good or comfortable life. It does suggest to me that employers will have to offer more than the minimum to get people off their bums and into work, which in theory ought to make better capitalists as they have to compete against sloth rather than poverty to attract staff.

    While I'm at it, it does seem extraordinary that directors and chief executives get quite so much renumeration. I know people who would pay good money for the chance at a big office and directing the work of hundreds of people. Smart shareholders could economise by hiring the lowest bidders for management services, who in turn can cut costs by using people who love managing and will do it for peanuts.

    • Though a sewer equivalent of the gentleman farmer seems unlikely to arise, mostly for good reasons, inheriting vast tracts of sewage tunnels and renting them out to subsidise one's own sewer work seems like a poor model.
    809:

    Unfortunately UKIP were only defeated by the Monster Raving Looney Party because they've imploded over the last 3 years, hemorrhaging votes to the much better organized and run (albeit with extremely shady funding sources) Brexit Party, prop. N. Farage, who was previously UKIPs charismatic-but-punchable face.

    BXP is not an improvement over UKIP. They're both racist as hell and appeal to the authoritarian right; the difference is that UKIP is a real political party while BXP is tightly managed by Farage and whoever his financial backers are (hint: they've been encouraging anonymous small donations via Paypal from the United States, which is kind of illegal, but the Electoral Commission isn't able to cope with this stuff).

    810:

    Well, you did say "part of the problem", so OK.

    We can't eliminate work. Not yet. However if a job can be automated, it's often cheaper to automate it (or part of it). But some of the kinds that we can't eliminate require decades of preparation, and we can't predict at the start of the training whether the job will have been automated away by the end of the training.

    Note that I didn't say anything about how pleasant or desirable that job is to the person doing it. That's because it's a totally independent variable. So some really unpleasant jobs will continue to be needed, and some desirable jobs will be automated away. And you can't tell which ones. This makes investing your life in preparation a gamble...and one where you can't calculate the odds.

    Suppose that the only job that will be available in a decade is on-site maintenance tech inside a working sewer. How many people do you think would invest a decade in preparation, when they don't know ahead of time that it will even be available? Yeah, that's a rather unlikely choice, but is there a likely one? That we can be fairly certain that some jobs will be the last ones automated doesn't tell us which ones. And the best guesses are things like legislator, judge, CEO, company owner. Those aren't ones that most people can prepare for.

    811:

    I would guess the EU would be forced to implement a checked border between Ireland and the rest of the EU.

    Like it or not, for a variety of reasons unless there is a legal agreement in place between 2 countries a checked border is a necessity.

    For the terms of Brexit, if it goes ahead there are 3 options - 1) EU/Ireland 2) Ireland/Northern Ireland or 3 Norther Ireland/rest of UK.

    812:

    I don't think you've been paying attention.

  • The only reason for a hard border between UK and EU is Theresa May's self-imposed Red Line—"end free movement". Brexit with continuing membership of the Customs Union and free movement rights was on the table (and could probably be back there again if the Little Englander asshats in the Commons would STFU).

  • Given the need for a hard border (which is self-inflicted by the UK), it can be, as noted, in three places. BUT …

  • a. There can be no EU/Ireland hard border unless Ireland leaves the EU. (Currently Irish support for continuing EU membership is somewhere between 90% and 95%, per polling.)

    b. There can be no Northern Ireland/GB hard border according to the DUP (without whom the Conservatives don't have a majority in Parliament, i.e. proposing it would collapse the government immediately)

    c. The NI/Ireland border is about as practical as the old East Germany/West Germany border—it runs through houses, never mind roads, separates families, will kneecap businesses that need to move goods and people across the border multiple times a day: just for example consider a milk tanker picking up from farms along the road Greg linked to in #803.

    An IN/IE border might be made to work, if we had several years to build the 300+ checkpoints, recruit and train the >2000 customs personnel and guards to staff them, and build 500km of barbed wire fence along the rest of the border. And then somehow stop the New IRA from blowing things up. Like it or not, all the paramilitary groups in NI made a chunk of their revenue from organized crime, specifically smuggling—a hard border will therefore become an instant target. If we're lucky, they'll just cut holes in fences. If not, they'll start taking customs' officers families hostage and threatening to kneecap or shoot people until they're allowed access. This happened in the bad old days of the 1970s through 1990s.

    The current hot air from Westminster is all dipsy la la we'll have frictionless border crossings once the IT Fairy sprinkles her magic customs pixie dust across the frontier. As anyone who's witnessed a large scale government IT roll-out—much less a highly ambitious new program to track every vehicle movement and shipment across an international frontier—knows, this is kinda hilarious if it wasn't so dangerous. (I'm predicting a ten year/multi-billion pound cost overrun … if it can be made to work at all. Remember: lots of people with an incentive to game it.)

    Finally, remember it's the UK that wants the border—not the EU. Like Trump shrieking at Mexico to pay for his foolish wall and Mexico politely ignoring him, the EU couldn't give a shit what the Tories have promised the Gammon. If the border happens at all, the UK will end up paying for it. 100% guaranteed.

    813:

    1% vs. 0.4% is just noise. Has MRLP ever actually had a seat in Parliament? You’d think this would be their time - lately the other parties look no more sensible than they do.

    814:

    I'm WAY behind reading comments. Been doing some kind of (almost) useful work ... or actually attending classes & seminars to find out HOW to do that almost useful work.

    Taking a break to semi-catch up.

    815:

    Damian @ 593:

    "I have seen articles where they HATE "Obamacare".. but keep your hands off my ACA"

    Is that really real? I heard of a single discussion thread where a commenter apparently didn’t understand they are the same thing and several people set him straight. There are actual real articles and not just satire, or random uninformed commenters?

    I suppose I wouldn’t be surprised if there were, it’s just that is a level beyond what I have happened across in my bubble.

    The cliché is some "older" person who opposes "obamacare" because he doesn't want the GUBMENT interfering with Social Security & Medicare.

    Yeah, there really are people that stupid ... or mainly misinformed; mainly people who get all their information about what's going on in the world from Fox News FAUX NEWZ and AM Talk Radio (Rush Limberger and his ilk).

    816:

    David L @ 595: There are also those like me who are scared crapless that we'll get the DMV[1] version of healthcare.

    [1] In the US in most states the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) is the butt of millions of jokes. If you say DMV most people immediately think of lines and sitting in chair waiting for your number to be called. They are set up by each state and typically take car of vehicle registrations, sales, and drivers licensing. And as it is almost universally treated as a cost sink by the states it tends to be always barely funded enough to get by. Sometimes less. I need to replace my drivers license with one that requires me to bring in some paperwork. I've been by about 4 times and each time the lines were over 1 hour long. So I've bailed and just keep the paperwork in my car.

    Fortunately here in North Carolina, where you go to renew your driver's license is separate from where you have to go to do title work and/or deal with license plates. The License PLATE agency isn't that bad, as long as you avoid it the first week of the month ... when all the idiots who let their registration expire or forgot to get their inspection or are having to turn their plates in because they let their liability insurance lapse. Most people only have to deal with the hassle of the Driver's License Office once a decade.

    David needs a new kind of enhanced Driver's License mandated by Homeland Security to deal with TSA, and he has to go to the Driver's License Office to get it. I don't have to renew for several more years, and I'm hoping they have most of the enhanced hassles ironed out by then so I only have to endure the regular DMV Driver's License Office hassles.

    817:

    Erwin @ 597: I can see hating Obamacare if you are youngish and healthy. It is essentially a tax on young poor people to help old poor people and people who already have health insurance - not an accident it was a Republican plan. Copying the UK system, or really anywhere in the EU, would be better.

    The republicans foisted as many poison pills into the plan as they could with a dual purpose, first so that young healthy people would feel like they're being screwed (well, they are actually, but not in the way the republicans want them to think they're getting screwed and not getting screwed any more than older, less healthy people are getting screwed by private insurance companies) ... and secondly trying to set it up so the Supreme Court would declare the Affordable Care Act UNCONSTITUTIONAL (and with that ruling in hand they're set up to go after Medicaid, Medicare and privatizing Social Security). Fortunately, the Supreme Court hasn't gone completely down that path (although they will if That Very Bad, Unpleasant Man the Orange Shitegibbon gets to appoint another Supreme Court "justice").

    818:

    Zane @ 608: Yes, everything Moz said, plus having a median house price that's currently massively outpacing most median incomes (Last I looked, it was heading north of 6 times median annual income. Do not look to NZ if you want housing that's insulated, well heated or economic.

    If I didn't own this house already I wouldn't be able to afford to buy a house in Raleigh. I'd hardly be able to buy a house anywhere in North Carolina. I'd be living under a bridge somewhere eating cat food.

    820:

    Elderly Cynic @ 613: Are you considering forbidding pedestrians, cyclists and horse-riders?

    I think we should ban all horse's asses that are not physically a part of the horse's anatomy.

    821:

    Jeff Fisher @ 632: Bankruptcy is the legal mechanism by which we ensure that a company going under financially does not result in the lights going out.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis

    822:

    The point I was replying to is what happens when the UK exits the EU if both the UK and Ireland don't put up a border.

    Now yes, in theory a miracle may occur and the UK may leave while remaining in the customs union but that appears highly unlikely at this point, and so if the UK is outside of the EU customs union then a border is necessary.

    And while the EU has been (at least publicly) very circumspect about it they are also insisting on a checked border if the UK leaves no-deal - it is after all the whole reason the contentious back-stop is in the agreement.

    So given that, if Ireland refuses to put up a border with NI, then the EU will be forced by some measure to institute a border with Ireland. The only other alternative, having no border, would make a mockery of the EU's position on Brexit and thus provide fuel for the other separatist movements within the EU.

    823:

    Greg Tingey @ 640: Hteromeles

    "it's illegal for the government to take anyone's property without compensation,"

    In which case, how do you account for the giant theft/fraud of US Civil Forfeiture?
    Which AIUI, is being used by corrupt & the=iving police forces right across the USA?

    Well, the actual wording of the amendment mentions "due process of law" and "just compensation".

    "Article [V] (Amendment 5 - Rights of Persons) ... No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

    Which branch of the United States Government gets to decide what is or is not "due process of law" and what is "just compensation"? For that matter, who determines whether private property IS being taken for public use and what the hell public use is in the first place?

    I'll give you a hint. Some cases go all the way to the Supreme Court, but MOST do not and frequently the various circuit courts don't agree among themselves. Those disagreements don't get resolved UNTIL a case goes all the way to the Supreme Court ... and sometimes not even then.

    I'll give you a hint. Some cases go all the way to the Supreme Court, but MOST do not and frequently the various United States Courts of Appeals and United States District Courts don't agree among themselves. Those disagreements don't get resolved UNTIL a case goes all the way to the Supreme Court ... and sometimes not even then.

    824:

    the License PLATE agency isn't that bad, as long as you avoid it the first week of the month ... when all the idiots who

    Actually it is for all the ones I've been to. Any time of month. With kids aging into their own cars and such and me buying/selling 3 cars on my onw I've been there 2 or 3 time per year for the last decade or so. Only ONCE was the line under 10 people. And many times the room of zig zag people was full. I'll have to find out the office you visit and see how that one is.

    David needs a new kind of enhanced Driver's License mandated by Homeland Security to deal with TSA

    Actually I don't NEED it. But getting it will just mean I don't have to carry a second federal ID for day to day use. I have 2 other federal ID cards plus a passport that all get me through TSA.

    Of course for most people day to day isn't likely to involve TSA like it does for me.

    825:
    So given that, if Ireland refuses to put up a border with NI

    Have you read a quote from an Irish government official that's said that? There have been lots of we abhor, and a border would be terrible, and suchlike; but a direct "we won't"?

    826:

    I'll give you a hint. Some cases go all the way to the Supreme Court,

    Interestingly in the JBS and David L North Carolina the NC supreme court just held that the process of mapping out POSSIBLE major road right of ways was a taking of property and must be compensated. It kills the resale value of a home compared to those a few hundred feet away if you have an official NC Dept of Tranportation map showing a highway planned through your living room. And if you have to sell (job relocation or similar) and then the road never gets built you are totally out a huge chunk of change.

    The NC DOT has set aside $1bil as an estimate for the current backlog of claims. And will have to factor this into future budgets.

    827:

    David L @ 648: Well so far Roberts seems to be doing his best to keep the courts honest.

    Uhhhhhhh NO.

    So far he's been doing his best to enact the so-called Federalist Society's hard right-wingNUT agenda without being so blatant about it that he destroys the court's reputation as a "non-partisan honest broker". He's fascist incrementalist moving to the right using stealth and misdirection.

    828:

    Scott Sanford @ 650: These days it's too easy to forget that 'conservative' and even 'hard core conservative' isn't a synonym for 'fascist' or 'theological dingbat.'

    That may be true for some, although I think you're going to have a hard time naming one well known conservative for whom it is NOT exactly that. It certainly IS an appropriate synonym in the case of John Roberts, and even more so in the cases of Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.

    Gorsuch is probably the most extreme ideologue on the court at this time and Thomas is just plain Nucking Futs.

    829:

    Charlie Stross @ 658:

    And in the first draft of such legislation how many deferment classes will there be.

    Ahem.

    A friend of mine was drafted into the Italian army in the late 1990s for 12 months. He was in the middle of a postgraduate degree in Edinburgh when his deferments ran out, because when they had universal military service (for males) … they meant "universal"; you can defer it in 12 month increments from age 18 to age 24, but if you hit 24 and haven't served, then tough: you have to interrupt your PhD and go stomp on a parade ground for a while.

    I feel the US draft was somehow deficient in not having this proviso.

    That's because by the time of the Vietnam War, the U.S. Draft was a patchwork of contradictions from trying to take the Selective Service mechanism from WWII and adapt it to an undeclared "Police Action" in Korea and then an ongoing "peace-time" draft for the Cold War that escalated the Vietnam war on top of an already broken system.

    If they were going to bring back conscription in the U.S. it has to be UNIVERSAL (that means draft women too), with NO exceptions, although the "12 month increments from age 18 to age 24" of deferments would probably be necessary. The point is deferments can't be a way for the rich man's son (or daughter) to entirely avoid fulfilling his obligation.

    But the U.S. doesn't really need a multi-million person active Army. It would be best to have everyone (again male AND female) do six months of active duty for training and then require them to drill once a month (plus 15 days annual training) for the next four years and then for the four years after that they become inactive (or semi-inactive) reservists. That would give the U.S. a pool of trained cannon fodder for the unlikely event we ever do have another DECLARED war.

    I think it would also be a good idea for the law to specify that draftees cannot be used for combat operations UNLESS there is an actual Declaration of War by Congress.

    Of course, no one in Congress cares what I think, so if they do bring back the draft, they'll fuck it up just like they have every time before.

    830:

    Elderly Cynic @ 664: The comments implied that there were proposed (or extant?) changes that make USA law very different; I can't speak to those. While I agree (yes, AGREE) that the statement was nonsense as it stood, the target it was aiming at definitely exists. Not just earlier executives' and directors' pay, bonuses etc., but some of the less ethical uses of loans.

    And, while shareholders are not formally creditors, the receiver often arranges a sale where they get some proportion of their money back - which is not related to the, by then more-or-less non-existent, share price.

    If y'all are talking about the Blackjewel coal mine in Harlan, KY, what's going on is the miners aren't getting paid as a result of the company and the state breaking the law. Kentucky has a law requiring mine companies to post a bond to guarantee employees will get paid if the company goes bankrupt. Blackjewel didn't post that bond and the state commissioner who was responsible for enforcing the law did nothing about it.

    The miners haven't been "officially" laid off (which would make them eligible for unemployment insurance from the state - although I doubt Blackjewel paid the premiums for that either).

    The company "paid" the miners, but the checks bounced.

    https://www.npr.org/2019/07/31/747041494/kentucky-coal-miners-protest-after-not-being-paid-by-company-that-declared-bankr

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtSLMGc4VSA

    ... which is where I leave y'all for today

    831:

    Probably worth reading the entire thread. The original Takings issue was about the State of California turning Pacific Gas and Electric (net worth $68 billion, with possibly $30 billion in fire-related claims) into a state-owned utility. That would be illegal, no? The point was that the $10 billion that the state set up to pay for PG&E insurance issues was tiny compared to the alternatives (buying PG&E, bailing them completely out, etc.). It's great to rant about the shortcomings of the US judicial system. Feel free to also rant about the problems with state governments trying to find the least bad solution to dealing with a problematic monopolist.

    As for a universal draft, the original post was #635, about the US (in a post-consumerist fantasy future) instituting a universal service draft where people spend part of their service year sorting garbage, rebuilding infrastructure, and dealing with disasters. It's not about armed service at all, but about things like: --What a post-consumerist society might look like, with things like the democratization of dealing with waste and rebuilding, rather than measuring status by how much crap you make other people deal with. --Incorporating something like the CCC into the Green New Deal --What to do with the Military Industrial Complex when it finally dies. There's a lot of logistics expertise that could be usefully repurposed to dealing with disasters and chronic problems in the US. While I'm not a veteran, I suspect that there's a contingent of veterans who would welcome a peaceful mission at home, even if it is KP and worse all the time. They might be even more open if everyone had to rake muck and learn disaster recovery.

    832:

    The way they get away with Civil Forfeiture is in the name. "Civil." Essentially, it's just a coincidence that upon your being arrested a civil (not criminal) action was taken against you to remove all the property which the state contends came from the proceeds of crime. Since it is a civil, not criminal court, you are not entitled to an attorney and you have to prove your innocence rather than have your guilt be proven.

    It's a load of shit, but also the current law in the U.S.

    Because drugs.

    833:

    As for a universal draft, the original post was #635, about the US (in a post-consumerist fantasy future) instituting a universal service draft where people spend part of their service year sorting garbage, rebuilding infrastructure, and dealing with disasters. It's not about armed service at all, but about things like:

    Here in Finland we do have almost universal male conscription. It's possible to opt for civil service, which is longer, or a relatively light jail sentence for serious objectors, and obviously some of the men are deemed unfit for service. Women can apply, and I think each year about two thousand women apply.

    We obviously are somewhat constrained in our need for a military by geography, but I'd still be happy if the conscription was more about serving the country as a whole (so using that civil service also for what Heteromeles proposes) and universal. There's been occasionally talks about a professional army, but our defense needs are somewhat difficult to achieve with that.

    834:

    The EU can't have a border with Ireland; it'd be a fundamental violation of EU law.

    If the UK leaves the EU, both parties are required by WTO regulations to enforce their border.

    I'm not sure what you're arguing for; your position appears to be internally inconsistent.

    835:

    Bring back the draft? In the US? When Reagan floated that one in the '80s, it had to be dropped because it was clear it would have revived '60s style student protest, with unforeseeable consequences. Briefly, there was a pretty sizeable student anti-draft movement which nobody even remembers even without it being voted on. Since then, the US has done a number of wars, often not too successfully, without much in the way of serious anti-war unrest. 'Cuz since it's a volunteer army, and every effort is made to make sure that US casualties are kept down at any possible cost, well, people don't necessarily like it, it got the Democrats elected in 2008, but people put up with it. Since if you don't want to be a soldier you don't have to be. If there was a draft and a massive army, the US would shortly be in deep crap. Quite likely even militarily, with the verb "to frag" re-entering Americanese. That there will never be a draft in the USA, ever again, under any circumstances, is an unofficial amendment to the US Constitution. After all, given all those nukes, the US could never really need one for defense.

    836:

    UNIVERSAL (that means draft women too), with NO exceptions

    Do accident victims in persistent vegetative state get drafted? How about extremely disabled schizophrenics, people with non-communicative autism, and people with muscular dystrophy?

    I reckon about 5% of any population are incapable—physically or mentally—of serving in any capacity: literally incapable of understanding orders because they have no language capability, incapable of saluting because they can't raise their arms (or don't have arms, or …) and so on. And another 5-20% are useless for any obvious purpose. Example: son of a friend of mine who has CFS: bright kid, energetic when he's well, then immune system randomly fritzes out and he winds up in bed for a fortnight.

    Your conscript service is going to have to have its own internal system for ditching the people it doesn't want. Otherwise it's just going to generate overheads for itself.

    And then you're back to the problem of how to tell the difference between a severely disabled person (who may have communication difficulties too, making it hard for them to assert that they're unable to serve) and a rich kid whose daddy paid a tame doctor to certify that he has bone spurs.

    837:

    One option would be to auction off draft exemptions to make that system explicit. It's all about making the rich pay, and if the number of exemptions is hard capped the competition could get quite intense. I can imagine a Trump type being willing to pay quite a lot not to have their kids out picking up rubbish for a couple of years. But you would also want something to prevent the Bush outcome ("drafted" but somehow didn't do anything he didn't want to do).

    Some kind of reward system might also help, I'm not sure it should be political (or, bob help us, Heinleinesque), possibly more like a tax (ideally a sin tax?) or exemption from some other civic obligation... but the sort of thing we could exempt people from is likely the sort of thing the good ones will do anyway and we don't want to bias those systems against good people (jury duty, for example).

    838:

    My paternal grandfather volunteered on 5th August 1914 - & was immediately rejected as medically unfit. He tried to volunteer at least twice more .... Somehwere I have his official guvmint card saying that "Mr Tingey is permanently medically unfit to serve in HM forces & is not allowed to join up" - or words to that effect

    839:

    You'd kind of need to make it so that the expectation is that people will join. Of course the societies are different, but I haven't at least heard of much draft-dodging happening here. It used to be so that having a reserve officer rank was kind of expected and at least a good thing on many managerial tracks in companies, so many didn't skip it.

    This probably requires at least a semblance of everybody being in the same boat, and again, that geographical situation helps with that. I know many people who did their military service but have expressed the opinion that if the push comes to shove, they'd leave Finland by mostly any means necessary, though.

    840:

    Well we can mandate certain civics qualifications for all sorts of attractive (paid or otherwise) public roles and many private roles that require some sort of licence (including some that don’t now). We can make these qualifications dependent on accruing a certain number of continuous professional development (CPD) points to stay current, the way that it already works now in many professions. And then the much-bandied gamification would involve a scoring system so that the things we want to reward or encourage earn more CPD points.

    The gotcha is finding ways that the qualification system doesn’t arbitrarily exclude or disenfranchise people with disabilities that do not impair their ability to serve in the attractive, potentially representative roles. But in that case there is likely to be some genuinely useful CPD activity that still suits them too and we could encourage those. Similarly in finding ways rich daddies can’t just buy you a bunch of CPD points (e.g. pay someone to do your service and fake the paperwork)... it seems that the more inequality the more challenging that would be to police.

    It is possible in present day legal systems to make some rights inalienable (e.g. some kinds of copyright). A mandated system of strong authentication might be hard, but not impossible to incentivise. It could be possible to make it strong enough to tolerate a certain proportion of cheats anyway, though there’s always an equity issue.

    841: 735 - I always took the F/A in "F/A-18" as meaning "Fvck All". It does nothing as well as any of the types it replaced. (well, OK, I don't know if the Growler is a good EW/Wild Weasel type) 777 - Hebrides Ranges have fired missiles that required us to issue a NOtice To AirMen to Canadian International At Gander. That was for some 240_000 km^2. 822 - Given the existence of the Atlantic Ocean, La Manche and the German Ocean, a "hard border" between the British Isles and mainland Europe is trivially easy but illegal under EU law. A "hard border" between Eire and the UK is physically difficult at best.
    842:

    #735 - I always took the F/A in "F/A-18" as meaning "Fvck All". It does nothing as well as any of the types it replaced.

    Except being ready & turning up of course. I'm told that counts for a bit.

    843:

    Any system needs to be robust enough to handle a modicum of cheating. Because it's going to happen no matter what. (I am reminded of the utter and inevitable futility of the UK government's obsession with benefit cheats: what is the bloody point, when historical examples without number show that even there not being a benefit system to cheat doesn't stop people doing it.)

    Thing is, it's an attitude problem; don't bother trying to accountant stuff, just engineer it. It's just a loss, like any other loss, and everything has losses. Typically it only takes pretty basic stuff-you'd-be-doing-anyway kind of measures to render it insignificant compared to whatever the principal losses are. No point getting all airigated over the 2% of food leaving the supermarket under someone's coat and paying a horde of comical rentacops to plod around the place looking like builders, when 40% of it goes in the skip out the back and you're paying people to put it there. There's nothing special about that 2% to justify giving it 40% of the attention.

    See also: how to make a container watertight. There are two methods: (1) make it gas-tight, sealed glass ampoule kind of thing. (2) put a hole in the bottom.

    Concerning the "draft" sub-thread, I reckon that's been doomed from the word go by the mere choice to discuss the concept in the language of military conscription. Everyone knows that national service or whatever you want to call it is guaranteed to be a mindbuggeringly shit experience and something to be avoided at all costs - and that the possibility of actual combat is well down on the list of reasons why. (That's the sense of "everyone" that allows for the Martins and the sewer workers, see previous.) It's an association that triggers visceral opposition from all sorts of people, whose specific interpretation of it may be Vietnam or it may be cutting grass with nail scissors in Shropshire, doesn't make much difference. So the whole discussion starts circling around the thing in the analogy and its manifold shitnesses, instead of around the thing itself, of which, it being a new construction and not a subfunction of a machine for fighting wars, it surely goes without saying that those shitnesses won't be part of the design in the first place - why bother taking the effort to specify them?

    I think it's had it now, but it'll probably be OK again by the time anyone's figured out how to discuss the idea of a period of service by people conscripted on a national scale without using terms like "national service" or "conscription".

    844:

    Except being ready & turning up of course. I'm told that counts for a bit., OK, you turn up with 4 visual range missiles, when I turn up with 12 BVR. We'll see who wins (well, I will anyway).

    845:

    Nah. I'll turn up to half a dozen different places, while you get to win in one of them as your planes are all in bits in the hangar.

    That's what turning up means.

    846:

    Rather sad news today - Nikolai Kardashev, the scientist, creator of pretty famous Scale by his name, has passed away yesterday at 88. He was also a director of RadioAstron program which studied the skies with space-based radio telescope in recent years.

    847:

    @757 Oliver's show is essentially banned in the UK

    "How does that even work when YouTube exists? Oliver has an official channel with clips, and invariably the full show goes up shortly after it's shown. Occasionally people play whack-a-mole but normally not."

    He's commented on air that they're not allowed to broadcast in the UK; I don't know what the boffins do to block access to YouTube. Ask a Brit, I'm just an ignorant USAian.

    848:

    You'll turn up in 6 places, and waste fuel, because you have no opponent. I'll win in 1 of them, and check fuel state, then maybe turn up in a second still carrying maybe 10 missiles...

    Even if you bring all 12 of your fighters to the same place as my 2, I've still got the radar to track all of them several times over.

    849:

    @760 "Some time in the late 50s my dad bought a Henry J[1] as a early mid life crisis car."

    Neat little car. If you really want something that looks like it came out of a cartoon, try a Nash Metropolitan. Bathtub body, unboosted mechanical brakes, tiny engine.

    850:

    Oliver has commented on air that they're not allowed to broadcast in the UK

    This probably means "we can't agree contract terms with a UK broadcaster". There is no system by which he can contact to get, say 1 hour a week on PBS.

    851:

    Yes. While there ARE things that are banned from being broadcast, mocking politicians is not one, and there are plenty of such programs. Definitely a sour grapes comment.

    852:

    @761 "The reduced maintenance man hours per flight hours was something like 140 to 40 which is just plain huge for a carrier."

    Agreed. I didn't say it was a bad tradeoff, but we did lose some (particularly long range strike and CAP) capability there.

    Note that the F-14 with the AIM-54 Phoenix missile was optimized for CVBG CAP against the Soviet Naval Aviation threat - primarily the Backfire/Tu-22M carrying the AS-4 Kitchen/Kh-22 antishipping missile. Thus the requirement for BVR intercepts against multiple targets (albeit not highly maneuverable ones). Even against fighter-sized targets, the AWR-9 multiple track capability and a mixed AIM-7/AIM-9, matched with the maneuverability of a swing-wing fighter, make it a formidable interceptor. Without Phoenix, an F-14 can easily load out 6 AIM-7 and 2 AIM-9; and F-18 is more likely to carry 2 AIM-7 or AIM-120 and 2 AIM-9. Had it been retained, I have no doubt the AIM-120 would have been integrated into the F-14.

    The A-6 gave the carrier air wing its long-range, all weather strike capability. The A-6E could carry up to 18,000 lbs. of guided and unguided weapons with very high delivery accuracy with a combat range of 880nmi. Maintained and upgraded over the years, the Navy could have bought an upgraded A-6F or G once the A-12 program was canceled. By comparison, the F/A-18E can carry up to 17,750 lbs. to a combat radius of 390nmi. Carrier long-range strike is now dependent on the availability of USAF aerial tankers (not optimal from the Navy point of view).

    853:

    No I haven't, this has been a theoretical based on post 802 that asked what would happen if both sides refused.

    Having said that, while I haven't been looking per se I don't recall any stories about construction of border posts happening in Northern Ireland, and the latest hard deadline is somewhat rapidly approaching.

    854:

    Snarl.

    Rant: the US Post Office was "semi-privatized", which I still consider not merely illegal, but unConstitutional, given that - this may seem odd to non-USAns, but post office workers swear the Oath of Office, and are one of the seven uniformed services of the US. (If you're wondering, besides the Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard, it's the Post Office, the Public Health Service and NOAA. Wikipedia is wrong in missing the PO....

    855:

    The US has utter scum for banks. If your downpayment is less than 12% (it may have been raised to 20%) you have to pay for PMI (private mortgage insurance), which is solely for the benefit of the mortgage co. When I told them to drop it, they asked, "are you sure?"

    Then, I have to tell people NEVER, EVER let the mortgage co set up your "homeowner's insurance", because they don't, they only insure THEMSELVES, and if something happens, they get paid, and you're SOL

    856:

    @766 "Who is going to protect that airbase in Qatar from attack by "irregular" forces?"

    Qatar is not Afghanistan. The security environments are very different. From the Al Udeid Wiki article: "According to media reports in June 2017, the base hosted over 11,000 U.S. and U.S.-led anti-ISIL coalition forces and over 100 operational aircraft". It is the site of the Central Command Combined Air [and Space] Operations Center (CAOC), controlling all U.S. and coalition military air activity over the Southwest Asia area of operations. While it's theoretically possible a terror attack could succeed, this is not a soft target.

    "Short-range slow aircraft" - slow, yes, short range, no. The A-10 has a combat radius of 250nmi with nearly two hours loiter time. And really, how much faster than a speedboat does it need to be for this mission?

    A fixed site is more vulnerable than a mobile one. On the other hand, you have a 12,000 ft. runway that can handle anything up to and including B-52s - and sustain a much greater launch and recovery rate than a carrier; essentially unlimited fuel; and a much greater weapons storage capacity.

    857:

    But the question, in post 802, was what happens if both parties refuse to?

    It's easy to sit back and say that both parties are required to enforce WTO regulations, but that assumes that the governments are interested in actually doing their job. But as we sadly see, there are too many governments around these days that aren't what one would deem sane and functional.

    What is clear however is that Ireland appears to be working on the principal that a deal will occur that will absolve Ireland with having to deal with the border, whether it is a UK/EU deal or an Ireland/EU deal. There are no indications in the media that Ireland had done anything to prepare to enforce their border with the UK, and in fact this Washington Post article indicates that Ireland appears to be doing their best to find a way with the EU to avoid the border issue.

    So the question, per 802, is what does the EU do if Ireland refuses to deal with their border with NI? Does the EU step in the run the border for Ireland? Do they find another way to force Ireland to deal with it? Do they kick Ireland out of the EU? Do they change EU law to allow a EU/Ireland border? Or does the EU give in and allow an open border regardless of what WTO regulations require?

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-a-no-deal-brexit-would-mean-for-the-irish-border/2019/08/02/0ecaad16-b4e1-11e9-acc8-1d847bacca73_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ff831dfd4f76

    858:

    I want my general purpose artificial stupid (AS): tell it to deal with vaious and sundry, and it handles it all, and it's default, when it doesn't have a rule for it, is DO NOT GUESS: "duh, hey, boss, what should I do wit' dis?"

    859:

    Hah. In the US, it's 'Vettes. My late ex told me that after Glenn made his three orbits, a local car dealer in Cocoa Beach gave him a 'Vette. And he kept having to bring it back in for repairs, 'cause he was a lousy driver.

    860:

    You wrote: "There's got to be another solution, I just haven't seen it yet. We can't go back to what we did 10,000 years ago, because we've conceived of so much more than telling stories, scratching our private parts, and chasing game."

    Ah, but then there's Pratchett's idea that telling stories is what the whole thing is really all about...

    Well, he's clearly wrong on that. It was all the cats, who domesticated us, so that they could live in a manner which they intended to become accustomed to.

    861:

    Quatar is INSIDE the straits of Hormuz. I realise that, theoretically, anything ( Really? Anything? ) could be brought in overland, through Saudi, subject to wear & tear, or by air, bu, um, err .... And aren't Saudi & Quatar not talking to each other, this week, as well?

    862:

    You wrote: "Don't step in the management."

    ROTFLMAOKMFITA!

    863:

    Like the "moderates" of the Democrats. They still think they can chase Dem votes that went to the Reptilians...40 years ago, and are blind to the fact that almost half the US is registered independent, because the D's have been chasing the Rs, rather than running in horror the other way.

    The problem is that the bulk of those independents are moderates. The larger problem beyond that is that the plurality of eligible voters don't vote, and most of them are anti-political apathetics.

    There is no reserve army of unactivated progressives and socialists sufficient to swarm the U.S. political system and tip the balance of power. To the limited extent such people exist, they already live in Blue states (which actually works against the left in the Electoral College) or in Blue districts in Red states.

    Getting real, lasting results means colonizing Red America. Liberals, progressives, and socialists need to leave California and the Acela Corridor, move to Red States, become actively engaged in local politics, and, in order to win the long game, breed like jack-rabbits. It worked in Virginia and Colorado. Until a few years ago, it was starting to work in North Carolina.

    Stamping out the reactionaries means devouring their strongholds from the bottom up.

    864:

    I would argue that universal should mean universal. If someone is vegetative, then you need to care for them and try to find a use. (Medical tests? Patient for trainee doctors and nurses?)

    OTOH, I would also argue that it shouldn't be primarily military. It should be primarily for infrastructure maintenance, with sufficient training that if they were needed for the military they could be quickly integrated. And conscientious objectors for any reason would be allowed to do other useful work (but would still be required to be trained). (Not conscientious objectors to the draft, though, that should be a requirement for citizenship.)

    Perhaps those volunteering for the military wing could get out of the draftee period early at the cost of being recalled for retaining several times over a period of years.

    865:

    Among the people that I know well enough to have an informed opinion about, the ones that don't vote don't vote because NONE of the candidates appeal to them. Or a few because they don't trust any of the candidates that "sort of" appeal to them.

    Personally, I always vote, but at times I've voted third party because I couldn't stomach any of the candidates that had a chance of winning. (The third party candidate wasn't any better, but wasn't any worse either.)

    The thing is, nobody who is both sane and moral would put up with running for office. And I have a strong suspicion that I should have said "sane or moral".

    866:

    The idea of a draft in the U.S. is done. over. dead. not gonna happen.

    Apart from the previously noted possibility of student and "peace activist" protests, the modern battlefield, and the current American way of fighting wars, do not require masses of conscripts; let the other side be cannon fodder. I also think it would be very difficult to get political consensus for national service - the right would just as soon keep them as subsistence-level wage slaves, and the left would be suspicious of anything controlled by the Federal government (that isn't a benefits program).

    The best hope for mass action is through volunteer groups. While not as efficiently organized or as large in reach, they typically arise to meet specific functional needs (i.e., Medicine sans Frontiere) or specific local requirements (neighborhood cleanups, blood drives, etc.). If we get to the point of having a universal basic income and more people with leisure time, I expect to see an increase in this sort of volunteerism.

    867:

    Since both sides are nicely wrong here but are both related to the truth, a little clarification: John Oliver's show Last Week Tonight is broadcast on Sky. However, one of his occasional sources of humor is John Bercow, and he likes to illustrate that with footage from Commons proceedings. It turns out that it is against British law to broadcast Parliamentary proceedings for satirical purposes, a condition that was pushed through by fearful MP's back when TV first entered the chambers. For the Sky broadcasts, they substitute footage of the most annoying replacements they can think of - for example, Gilbert Gottfried reading Yelp reviews of 3-star restaurants in Boise, Idaho. I assume YouTube goes unfiltered.

    868:

    @ 867: I was originally replying to this comment from JBS:

    @ 522 NOT available in the UK ....

    That was with respect to my posted YouTube link. Can any Brits explain why it doesn't work there?

    869:

    JBS comment was at 697.

    870:

    I say eminent domain, and buy the bonds back with surplus (US law, non-profits don't make a profit, but they can make a "surplus"; go ahead, ask me more about 501(c)3...)

    Pension funds, ditto; straight investor, tough luck.

    871:

    Going back to the original topic, it now appears that BoJo is going to press on with "crashing out" of the EU.

    872:

    What I've heard many times over the years is a one or two year universal service: explicitly not all military. CCC, or construction, VISTA, Peace Corps - stuff that most people would want to do. And, serve your year(s), and college tuition as a benefit.

    873:

    Moderates? Really?

    Sorry, not from all the people I've spoken with. When I wound up working the Kerry campaign, in Florida, in '04, let me assure you a lot of older Dems didn't want him, they'd wanted Dean... and for someoene like Warren or Bernie, who sound damn well like FDR or LBJ, they will turn out happily.

    And there's a lot of young people who, after '16, discovered it does matter, and give them someone other than a damn neoliberal*, they'll vote (and have).

    • The difference between a neoliberal and a mid-last-century conservative is... oh, that's right, Bill Clinton would not have sent troops into the South to desegregate the schools, the way Republican Eisenhower did.
    874:

    Until a few years ago, it was starting to work in North Carolina.

    Hey, I resemble that remark.

    I've been in NC for 30 years. Got here when Jessie was beating any or all comers for the Senate while trailing in the polls every election. (Here in Raleigh we are still dealing with the tail effects of his widow being the largest owner of low cost housing for years. And in many ways it is not what you might think.)

    Anyway I am in no way what anyone here would call a progressive. Nor would any of my progressive friends here think of me as such. And the friends who are conservative know I'm not really on their side either. But the stats that mater are that D's are out registering R's by non trivial margins and I's out numbering both of them in new registrations at something like 2 I's per 1 D+R.

    Most of the younger folks (<40) despise the R's for an assortment of reasons even though they don't agree with the types of things put forward here by various progressives.

    But the folks moving here in waves (65 per day for 30 years now) are not older conservatives but younger tech oriented folks who want to work in tech areas for startups and nimble larger companies.

    Things are changing. A LOT. But just not straight forward R to D.

    And it IS going to be a rocky road.

    This is an interesting article. Paywall if you've reached your free limit.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/30/simple-math-that-should-keep-republicans-up-night/

    A key take away: The most common age in the United States is 27, a function of the population boom that marked the millennial generation and of the natural effects of the baby boomers getting older. But that most-common age is not the same across racial or ethnic groups. Among black Americans, the most common age is 27, as it is for nonwhite Americans overall. The most common age among whites? Fifty-eight.

    875:

    Moderates? Really?

    Yes, really.

    Spend some time in the suburban and small-city Midwest (i.e. outside Chicago).

    And there's a lot of young people who, after '16, discovered it does matter, and give them someone other than a damn neoliberal*, they'll vote (and have).

    That's wonderful! Now, they need to marry, move to Ohio (or Michigan, or Wisconsin, or (if they really want to play the long game) Texas), have a shitload of kids, raise 'em liberal, and run for local office.

    The difference between a neoliberal and a mid-last-century conservative is... oh, that's right, Bill Clinton would not have sent troops into the South to desegregate the schools, the way Republican Eisenhower did.

    You're preaching to the choir, dude. But, this is a long-haul fight on every front, and it's not going to be won with protests or a single presidential election. It's going to take changing the facts on the ground across the country and re-taking the culture from the bottom up.

    876:

    if they really want to play the long game) Texas

    Texas is weird. And like NC the demographics are hard against the Rs. (I have a house in NC and an apartment in the DFW area so I get to see both.)

    Texas is very close to electing state wide D's and if so in 10 years the R lead in district elections due to redistricting will likely go away.

    NC elected a D governor and the R's lost their veto proof majority in 2018. And if the D as a party in NC would quite acting like a 3 stooges skit they would do even better.

    And sorry but positions like those put forth by withrow actually advance the R's in elections by making it easy to basically say in very coded ads:

    You might not like us but do you really want those nuts to run things?

    FUBAR007 is right. 1/3 are progressive, 1/3 are medium to hard core right and neither can stand the thought of the others in charge. Or are just flat out afraid if the other is in charge. In the middle are a bunch of folks who just want to lead their lives without either end telling yelling at them. And when that middle votes it is mainly against the side that scares them the most. Which is why you have so many crazy ads in the last week aiming for that last few percent who can tip things either way. At least in NC and TX.

    Am I a professional political analyst/pollster? No. But in my and my wife's immediate family are folks who think withrow is too conservative on one end and birthers who think Trump is saving the country. I get to hear a wide range of thought like it or not.

    877:

    Sadly becoming less correct by the day. There is currently a huge stealth privatising of Post Office branches going on with many Crown (main) Post Offices now closed and replaced by franchised branches in W H Smiths. A uk stationers who have been tottering in the edge of closing due to lack of a usp* for 30 years or more.

    Once the retail arm is gone it will be easy to start stripping out the remainders.

    *People used to browse (read) print media in Smiths before the Internet. Ironically I suspect their look to buy ratios were very similar to a typical website.

    878:

    Also special post for Greg (Charlie/Mods delete if too off topic)

    Your Stella just absolutely p0wned Arron Banks (the public face of Brexiteer/UKIP/Leave funding)

    https://mobile.twitter.com/stellacreasy/status/1158371703917072391

    879:

    I don't recall any stories about construction of border posts happening in Northern Ireland

    I'm planning on getting the train from Dublin to Belfast later this month. Problem is, there's a bus replacement service for half the journey—because the line is closed while they install customs/border facilities for Brexit.

    So yes, it's happening. Just not making headlines.

    880:

    1/3 are progressive, 1/3 are medium to hard core right ... In the middle are

    What I'm seeing, as so many have said, is that the Overton Window has shifted so far that "medium right" is further right than any president before Reagun, and "progressive" includes people who fought to keep Jim Crow laws, because the bulk of the Republican party are now either very hard right or too cowardly to do anything that suggests otherwise. It's also important to note that it's the Democratic Party that qualifies as "slightly to the right of the average person eligible to vote".

    But, and this is important, some of the more controversial positions used to signify hard right are actually mainstream they're just not talked about. At the mild end you have the right of cops to shoot black people, slightly nastier you have the internment camps that have been used variously for losers of the civil war, Native Americans, Japanese, African Americans and now refugees (in all cases those camps also held children, and IIRC the euphemism "assimilation" was used to describe taking children from their parents in several of those groups). At the really nasty end you have support for genocide, whether that be Native Americans or Native Palestinians... both are core beliefs of many US politicians.

    The US isn't unique in having politicians and policies like this, just unusual (right now) in having a big empire. The UK invented concentration camps, for example, when they had an empire, and now they're used everywhere from Australia to Zimbabwe.

    881:

    Agreed so completely you would never know.

    882:

    Dave P @ 630:

    "@589 "if they do the equivalent of national guard reserve (and indeed, this is what the national guard used to do)""

    The National Guard is still very much in the business of disaster relief; in some ways, it's their primary mission. From weather emergencies to civil unrest, the Guard is a state governor's "go to" force for emergencies.

    For you non-USAians, the U.S. National Guard is a militia organized in accordance with the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force as part of our reserve forces, but under the daily control of state governors. It is the direct descendant of the colonial militias of the Revolutionary War era. Mostly manned by people with full-time civilian jobs, they train on weekends, but are on call for emergencies. It is associated with, but separate from, the Reserve forces of the Department of Defense

    That's not how it was intended to work. The State Militia's were to be the primary military component of the United States when Called into National Service. See Constitution of the United States Article One, Section Eight, Paragraph 15 & 16. The Second Amendment was intended to keep the Federal Government from taking military power away from the State Governments.

    A couple of things happened along the way ... primarily lazy, slack SOBs refused to perform their militia service and the states didn't have the power to enforce the obligation ... so they changed the militia laws to divide the militia between those who do perform their obligations (active militia which became the National Guard a century later) and those who don't (unorganized militia). There was never any intention for there to be an "unorganized militia".

    The "regular" Army was expanded to take up the slack when the militia wasn't able (due to lack of manpower) "to provide for the common defense."

    Then, the South seceded over Slavery when Lincoln was elected & the national government couldn't put down the rebellion using state militias. The upshot of the U.S. Civil War was the United States ended up with the large standing army the founding fathers had wanted to avoid.

    883:

    Dave P @ 680: I assume you mean this.

    1) Why is it in your basement?
    2) No, they don't float well at all.

    I was just goofin' on y'all over the TLA having different meanings under different circumstances.

    The TL;DR ... I was doing home repairs that necessitated me parking it out on the street for ONE NIGHT (instead of in the back of the driveway where I usually parked it). I had never parked it on the street before.

    That night turned out to be the last night of the school year here in Raleigh and four high school boys vandalized my MGB as part of a longer vandalism spree. One of the four lived around the corner from my house and their spree started from there and went across town. I think my MGB was actually the first car they vandalized. They smashed my windshield & side windows.

    They did more than $300,000 damage to over a hundred vehicles in slightly less than 3 hours.

    Not knowing I would not be able to clean all of the glass splinters out of the interior, I only asked for enough to cover the cost of replacing the glass. Replacing the interior (carpet & upholstery etc) is four times the cost of replacing the broken glass.

    It's been sitting in my basement ever since, waiting until the day I can afford to complete the repairs & get it running again.

    884:

    whitroth @ 689: I'd assume he has some way in and out of his basement. Y'know, like the side of the basement that opens up into a tunnel, and lets him drive out from behind some bushes onto a two-lane road....

    Oh, wouldn't that be SO coooool? ... but it's just an old, barn-style double-door around back where the basement slab is at grade level. It's big enough to get the car in and out. Probably wouldn't work for most cars, but the MG is small enough I don't have to worry about it fitting.

    885:

    whitroth @ 690: Actually, there was this guy who lived in my neighborhood when I had the house in Chicago. He had what I assume was a kit car, it looked a lot like this http://luxurycarphotos.tripod.com/35rollsphantomII.jpg
    but it was *all* white, with chrome everywhere, a black dude, and talk about a chick magnet. As I said, if I were a woman....

    I've never seen a convincing Rolls-Royce kit car. Every one I've ever seen looked like this ... https://jalopnik.com/rolls-royce-once-sued-a-company-for-making-beetles-look-1684248416

    ... unless you know for sure that one was a fake,I wonder if it could have been a real one?

    Back in the 1960s, you could buy a pre-war U.S. Rolls-Royce (Springfield, MA) for a couple of thousand dollars. It was before the classic car restoration boom started

    About the time I got my driver's license a man I knew through our church bought a Rolls-Royce Limousine. Looked a lot like this one, but not as clean and shiny (in 1965 it was just an OLD car), also not a drophead, like I said a limousine ... anyway, he kept the flying lady in the house so it wouldn't get stolen. He took a bunch of us for a ride one day and demonstrated how smooth it ran by taking a silver dollar & standing it on edge on that flat radiator cap and then starting the car without knocking it over. I remember him telling us he'd paid less for it than a new 65 Chevy Impala, a cost I was familiar with because my dad had just bought one for my mom.

    Or something like this one, although it would have been Left-Hand Drive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Phantom_I#/media/File:1929_Rolls_Royce_Phantom_I_Hooper_Towncar_-_rvl.jpg

    It was a real Rolls-Royce, but cheap because nobody was buying old cars as an "investment" and the old car restoration boom was still a few years away.

    886:

    whitroth @ 873 Yeah ... like if the US dems are stupid enough to pick Biden - they will LOSE.

    gordycoale @ 877 THANKS for that - absolutely briiliant - stick it to'em Stalla!

    Meanwhile it really does look as if BOZO the clown is heading straight for the cliff-edge, doesn't it? EU saying, quite clearly - "No renegotiation, we already have an agreement" & BOZO "threatening" them with "No Deal" - which would hurt the EU, but devastate us ... Anyone going to give odds of him U-turning & being a "savious" - because I'm not buying it - I think, unless stopped by a "No Confidence" vote, he WILL drive us over the cliff. Problem: Will/would Corbyn actually support a a "NC" vote, now that his fence-sitting has trashed the Liebour vote, or his he waiting to "cleanup" AFTER the disaster & turn Britain communist? Or will he, unlike BZO or himself (up until now) put Country before party? Doesn't look good, does it?

    887:
    The upshot of the U.S. Civil War was the United States ended up with the large standing army the founding fathers had wanted to avoid.

    And that would have been the precise moment to abolish (or rescind—or whatever you do with amendments) the second amendment, because it had become obsolete.

    888:

    You still do get things like that happening occasionally. The reason is something along the lines of while the value/age curve of old Rolls Royces is essentially a horizontal line, the value/mileage curve looks like a comb filter response: pretty high most of the time but at regular intervals it hits the deck. There is some long-term service interval like every 48,000 miles (?) which is a BIG service (if you have to ask how much it costs you can't afford it - literally; it's not impossible that that's where that phrase originally came from) and you do not fuck with it or else Bad Things will happen. But it is a purely mileage-based interval, with no time element. So people doing wedding chauffeur services and the like buy cars that are still comfortably far from it, run them for years and years doing like 10 miles a day and not every day, and then punt them on when the big one is looming. At this point a bleedin' Rolls Royce mate, iss mint an' all innit? in perfect condition is advertised for a fraction of the price of some boring old dog of a family diesel, and some of them stagger on for a couple of thousand miles in the ownership of people who are learning exactly why they were cheap.

    Moreover, unlike normal cars, Rolls Royces do exactly follow the book: do all the things it says, exactly when and as it says to do them, and the car will continue to work; deviate, and it will not. Flat binary, no grey areas, no room for putting things off or getting away with this or that; follow procedures to the letter and the car will work for ever, but you do not get the leeway that you get with normal cars to do or not do anything differently. They are not like normal cars. Which sounds like snot-nosed pretentious bollocks aimed at keeping the plebs off, especially as Rolls Royce are known for that sort of behaviour anyway*, and is a red rag to people with attitudes like mine but more money - only as far as I know everyone who has thus put it to the test has found that it actually is true.

    Which still wouldn't put me off! The chat I've heard mostly centres around the hydraulic system with comments to the effect of it being "like Citroens but much, much worse". Well, I've always thought Citroen's reputation in that area to be undeserved. Like D-Jet. People say all the same things about D-Jet, for all the same reasons, but I love it. (Beats the living shit out of modern injection systems. D-Jet's just a piece of engineering, and you can engineer it. Modern systems are specifically designed to make you have to hack it.)

    What would put me off is simply that I don't really want a Rolls Royce. I'm not into them. To me a Rolls Royce is a car for some prannock who goes round looking like Colonel Sanders with a dead pigeon on his head. I'd rather go round with a live pigeon on my shoulder and driving a Jag. XJ12C, for preference. Or if Jags aren't around yet I'll have a Daimler Double Six, sleeve-valve, can only tell the engine's running because the car won't move otherwise, and do my best to drive it with a due awareness of the deceptive topographical peculiarities of Fenland roads.

    *Snot-nosed pretentious bollocks: "what's the power output of the engine?" - "Adequate" (sniff). Or the chap who found the right scrapyards and built himself a car with a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine in it and a Rolls-Royce radiator grille on the front, and they got on his case legally about it. (Though to be fair it did look like a piece of shit.)

    889:

    Or the chap who found the right scrapyards and built himself a car with a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine in it and a Rolls-Royce radiator grille on the front, and they got on his case legally about it

    Ah, the Beast

    890: 851 - Agreed. More refined version of my previous.

    Although a political satire is broadcastable, there is no right in the UK to go to a PBS channel and say "this is my programme; you must broadcast it". Instead, you have to go to a broadcaster (given some of the rubbish they have rights for C4 springs to mind) and negotiate a sales contract where you will deliver shows on a schedule. Given the late, lamented "Drop the Dead Donkey" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_the_Dead_Donkey which was still being filmed hours before transmission, I have to see not getting a UK broadcast as a failure by the production company.

    852 - I'll agree this, with the question of what happened to USN tankers other than the A6-D? (which was lost as part of the drawdown of the A6 fleet) 856 - And this, as long as we have an airbase for the Warthogs. I mean, a GAU-8 will likely work against most light motor boats. 867 - In which case, you could have actors reading things like Mhairi Black's "I'm not allowed to applaud someone, but I am allowed to bray like a donkey". 887 - Well, the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution (aka Prohibition) is the only one I know has been "cancelled", but that was done by ratifying the 21st Amendment. 888 and 889 - The Beast's "Merlin" was actually a Meteor from a Centurion tank.
    891:

    Anyway, here's a random idea for Charlie or anyone else who might be interested in galactic scale destructiveness. (My "feeling" for relativistic orbital mechanics is if anything negative, so it might be completely fucked, but I'm sure handwaves exist.)

    You can use black holes to make light go round in circles. (This is quite useful. We do it already, using bits of funny-shaped glass and stuff, but you can do more light with black holes than you can with glass.) At 1.5 times the Schwarzchild radius it exactly goes round in circles. A touch further out and it goes round in spirals until it flies off.

    (Or you could do fancy things, like have six black holes all orbiting a common centre in each others' L4/L5 points (is this stable? Feels like six or maybe three ought to be, because of symmetry, and also benzene but that's different) and send photons round and round in a hexagon (triangle) all round the outside, so they pass alternately through "bent" and "normal" regions of space. Or maybe even fancier orbits that criss cross across the middle. Depends how pretty it needs to look.)

    Anyway, so you pop down to Homebase and grab something suitable off the shelves in the black holes section. Also while you're at it grab a suitable selection from the assorted mass department - or maybe get that from Wickes instead, in case they look at you funny at the checkout. Chuck the black hole up into space and practice make photons go round and round it until they ping off.

    Then leave various clouds of mass further out in collapsing orbits, suitably arranged so that by the time it's nearly fallen in to 1.5 times the Schwarzchild radius, whatever state it's in at that point is a suitable mix for the gravitational energy it's acquired to pump it into a state of population inversion.

    You now have a matter-to-energy-conversion-powered star-cloud-slicing laser disc version of Oddjob's hat. Oh, and with spikes out the ends as well. Fun for all the family (do not use without adult supervision do not use near inhabited systems handle only with gravitational slingshot provided not suitable for orange children).

    892:

    Piogeon @ 888 Older Land-Rovers, like mine or older ( i.e. NO ELECTRONICS ) are like that too. Change the engine oil every 6000 miles & the transmissions oils every 12k ... & they will, to all intents & porpoises never wear out. Follow the torque settings CAREFULLY .....

    with a due awareness of the deceptive topographical peculiarities of Fenland roads. Ah the opening of The Nine Tailors SMILE

    893:

    The Beast's "Merlin" was actually a Meteor from a Centurion tank.

    Yup. However, given the close relationship between the Merlin and the Meteor, many of the latter being rebuilt Merlins jigged to rotate the other way, the confusion is allowable. It's quite possible that the Meteor used was originally a Merlin.

    894:

    Yes in engineering terms, but given the difference in power output, if you say "Merlin" and actually have a Meteor, people who know will think "bullshitter!"

    895:

    Or you could do fancy things, like have six black holes all orbiting a common centre in each others' L4/L5 points (is this stable? Feels like six or maybe three ought to be, because of symmetry,

    Without a mass in the centre you don't have any L4/L5 points, however for certain values of "stable" the number of objects doesn't matter. If the bodies are all of a similar mass then you can have an odd or even number, if it's an even number you can also have alternate heavy and light. "Klemperer rosette" is the term, example in SF being the five Puppeteer worlds in Larry Niven's books.

    896:

    The upshot of the U.S. Civil War was the United States ended up with the large standing army the founding fathers had wanted to avoid.

    Madison decided militias were a bad idea after getting pushed around by the British in what the US calls the war of 1812.

    897:

    It's the difference between insane and ludicrous. Given that most people who have heard of the Merlin probably haven't heard of the Meteor, saying 'it's a Merlin' without saying ' ... except it's had bits changed, and these pistons are cast not forged and it's got a different oil sump, but the block was originally in a genuine Merlin', well, I'd take it as a simplification.

    898:

    #852 - I'll agree this, with the question of what happened to USN tankers other than the A6-D? (which was lost as part of the drawdown of the A6 fleet)

    I think that some of the FA18s on each carrier can deploy a fueling hose. It got some brief mention in the PBS doc series "Carrier" a few years back when bad weather was keeping just from lander after patrol. One or two of the squadron leaders took up jets to refuel the guys circling.

    899:

    (And mdive @583)

    Also, if you've been paying attention in detail (rather than just the headline items in the regular media), the Irish government has made it's priorities very clear:

    1) Protect Ireland's relationship with and status in the EU.

    2) Mitigate impact of Brexit (in whatever form it finally takes) to the Irish economy.

    3) Meet it's obligations under the Good Friday Agreement (under which we could include: mitigate social impact of Brexit on both sides of the border).

    With this ranking in mind, without using the actual words "Ireland will start putting border controls in place", it should be abundantly clear that border controls will be put in place should they be necessary to protect 1 & 2, and 3 will be sacrificed. If the Irish government didn't already know the perils of unbendingly sticking to mutually contradictory red-lines and endlessly switching priorities, they almost certainly have taken on board the object lesson offered by the UK in the last few years.

    900:

    I'd hope we have 2 and 3 swapped, but I have little evidence for my preferred order and given it's Fine Gael in government I'd sadly lay odds you're right.
    Either way, (1) demands border controls, (3) demands not accepting any agreement predicated on - or even accepting a likelihood of - there being a hard border, we haven't hit the hundred year anniversary of the last time we accepted enormous economic damage in the name of screwing concessions out of the Brits, and everyone's tired of HMG's inability to reckon with reality. All signs point to No Deal and - possibly - the politest economic blockade the EU can manage.

    901:

    Concerning the "draft" sub-thread, I reckon that's been doomed from the word go by the mere choice to discuss the concept in the language of military conscription. Everyone knows that national service or whatever you want to call it is guaranteed to be a mindbuggeringly shit experience and something to be avoided at all costs - and that the possibility of actual combat is well down on the list of reasons why. (That's the sense of "everyone" that allows for the Martins and the sewer workers, see previous.) It's an association that triggers visceral opposition from all sorts of people, whose specific interpretation of it may be Vietnam or it may be cutting grass with nail scissors in Shropshire, doesn't make much difference. So the whole discussion starts circling around the thing in the analogy and its manifold shitnesses, instead of around the thing itself, of which, it being a new construction and not a subfunction of a machine for fighting wars, it surely goes without saying that those shitnesses won't be part of the design in the first place - why bother taking the effort to specify them?

    There's two things missing from this discussion.

    One is that idea of the government drafting the labor of its people for public projects is literally as old as the pyramids, if not thousands of years older. The term of art is "corvee," and yes, the CCC is a really romantic and positive version of it.

    On the other hand, if the notion for doing corvee is to "save civilization from the mess your parents made" there's going to be a lot of really interesting propaganda around it. Thing is, civilization literally can't depend on the equivalent of the "cajun navy" showing up every time to save it, because that disempowers the civilization to have important services devolve onto ad hoc volunteer efforts.

    Anyway, look up corvee

    The other issue is one of morality, and I think the fairly simple example is what happened in the later Roman Empire: austerity replaces conspicuous consumption. I think we can all agree that consumerism and conspicuous consumption is an ethic that's making it harder to deal with climate change. When the uber-rich show up to a climate change conference in their private jets and mega-yachts, the point makes itself. Late Roman pagan religion was all about the conspicuous display. As Christianity took over and also as things went south, religion took a hard turn toward displays of austerity. The heroes were less the super rich, gold-plating their favorite temple or bath, and more the extreme athletes who lived on pillars or in desert caves. We've already got that vein of austerity for the world's sake in our society, and it's pretty straightforward to imagine it becoming the default meme.

    Now yes, I'm cynical about all the ways an American corvee system can be gamed. Heck, we've got the example of North Korea, which has both wretched excess and corvee labor feeding it. Getting to that point's actually pretty easy: just let the Republicans stay in power for another few years.

    The rather harder alternative to imagine is where there's a system and a large chunk of society that's actually serious about dealing with climate change, with corvee being a part of that. That's science fictional, but at this point I think it's seriously worth SFF people trying to get their heads around what that might look like and playing with the idea.

    It's not just about how such a system breaks, because people dodging corvee undoubtedly spurred the first writing and accounting systems to arise. Focusing on that is the epitome of laziness. Rather, the important question is how it works, and whether it could work well enough to keep civilization going or not.

    902:

    Well, that should have been "KA-6D" of course. that said its deliverable fuel without drawing on its own internal tanks was, at most 1_500 US gallons.

    903:

    the politest economic blockade the EU can manage

    That bit, right there.

    And, yes, my personal preference would also be to swap 2 & 3, but as you point out, the current Irish government seems much more concerned about the economic optics than the social/cultural optics (and it may be that they're partially right, else they risk wading into the same ideological swamp that the UK has stuck it's head in).

    904:

    @902 Here's an interesting bit from the F/A-18E/F Wiki: The Super Hornet, unlike the previous Hornet, is designed to be equipped with an aerial refueling system (ARS) or "buddy store" for the refueling of other aircraft, filling the tactical airborne tanker role the Navy had lost with the retirement of the KA-6D and Lockheed S-3B Viking tankers. The ARS includes an external 330 US gal (1,200 L) tank with hose reel on the centerline, along with four external 480 US gal (1,800 L) tanks and internal tanks, for a total of 29,000 lb (13,000 kg) of fuel on the aircraft. On typical missions a fifth of the air wing is dedicated to the tanker role, which consumes aircraft fatigue life expectancy faster than other missions [emphasis added].

    Doing some quick calculations from the same source, a Super Hornet consumes about 2.85kg of fuel per kilometer traveled. The five external tanks for the ARS contain about 8,400kg of fuel, yielding an overall range extension capability of about 2,500km, which would likely be shared among several strike aircraft.

    So, the shorter legs of the Super Hornet impose a significant overhead on carrier strike operations. As for USAF or tanker support, note that the Hornet uses a probe and drogue refueling system, so the only USAF tankers that can support are the KC-10 and the upcoming KC-46. The KC-135 requires a special adapter to refuel probe and drogue aircraft, which supplants its ability to refuel aircraft which normally refuel by the flying boom for that sortie. The USMC KC-130 also has a probe and drogue refueling capability, but it is primarily used for helicopter refueling.

    905:

    I'd hope we have 2 and 3 swapped, but I have little evidence for my preferred order and give...

    IIUC, the terms of the EU membership (1) would require border controls on imported goods. So 3, keeping the Good Friday Accords, is impossible, as it would contradict the terms of EU membership. As a result 3 cannot be accomplished at the same time as 1 without at least NI being a member of a customs union with the EU.

    Therefore it's quite reasonable that any other desirable goal be ranked higher then 3, because 3 is incompatible with 1...except on terms that the UK seems unwilling to accept.

    906:

    Elderly Cynic @ 712: The early computer terminals used essentially the same mechanisms as typewriters, as did paper tape punches, telegraph machines and so on. But that has nothing to do with conventions like two spaces after full stops.

    I never got to use the keyboard on an early computer terminal. By the time I got sucked into the computer business, it was IBM PC compatible keyboards (and almost time for Micro$oft to introduce the Windoze keyboard).

    In the mid-60s I did have "access" to an Associated Press teletype machine when I worked for the local newspaper after school (copy-boy, aka "Gofer" in the advertising department), but I never used the keyboard. My job was only to tear the paper off whenever a message came in & run it upstairs to whatever department it was addressed to. But yeah, I do remember the machine had a keyboard kind of like the typewriter I learned to type on in High School.

    That job was where I saw my first "fax" machine ... also Associated Press for sending out the AP Wire Photo.

    And learned about "cut & paste" and "Clip Art" when clip art still came in a big book & you actually took scissors to the page and cut the artwork out; - then pasted it on the sheet of paper where you were composing an ad. Also learned "column inches" and compositing (rudimentary compositing).

    907:

    Flip side: virtually every other air force in NATO relies on probe-and-drogue, so the FA-18 E/F is compatible with the rest of their allies—it's just the USAF who do flying boom refueling. The flying boom is a superior option for heavy aircraft like the B-52, B-1, B-2, or other tanker-sized craft—it can sustain a higher fuel flow rate, AIUI—but can't refuel two or more aircraft simultaneously (like the RAF's Voyager or earlier Victor and VC-10 tankers, which could trail a drogue from pods under each wing for two fighters flying in formation).

    A boom refueling system requires a boom operator, so really demands a larger tanker aircraft—does not play well with aircraft carriers.

    908:

    paws4thot @ 715: #673 - Or a new SLUF variant, since what we want is something capable of carrying 12 or 18 Paveway IV or Brimstone. Unlike the A-10, the A-7 already has cat and trap hardened undercart and folding wings designed in.

    How many hardpoints? What kind of loitering airspeed? I like the A-10 because it has those broad wings & is really capable of going low & slow when needs be.

    #679. :-), even though "Motor Gun Boat" predates "Morris Garages MGB" by at least 20 years.

    Yah, but I've never owned a "Motor Gun Boat".

    #697 - Using Wikipedia (UK, English edition) "wiff waff" redirects to "ping pong" and hence to "table tennis". BoJo the Clown proves the "stopped clock theory".

    Not, however, dispositive. Merely suggests a possibility, doesn't proves anything. After all, "a stopped clock tells the correct time TWICE a day", and here we only have a single documented instance where Bozo Bojo might have been correct.

    909:

    andyf @ 722: I wonder if the Iranians are smart enough to recreate the torpedo boat? a dumbfire ww2 tech torpedo is unjammable, and utterly lethal. This gunboat diplomacy, its not too bright really.
    Hubris....

    'm sure they're smart enough. Question I have is do they have a good enough source of plywood? That's what the U.S. WWII PT Boats were made of.

    Also what's their domestic automobile manufacturing like? Our WWII PT Boats were powered by three Packard V12 engines. Can Iran manufacture a suitable engine for a PT Boat?

    910:

    Tim H. @ 728: *Skyraider 2, Wartier warthog!

    I like it.

    911:

    They're ranked priorities. I was expressing the hope that the most Anglophile, neoliberal party in Irish politics would care more about the Good Friday Agreement than preserving the current state of the Republic's economy.

    And (in a certain light) (1) and (3) are not entirely mutually exclusive. Preserving the current border arrangements may be impossible, but restoring them is not.
    What do you think will be the first precondition of any FTA with the EU, post No-Deal exit? Heck, if all hold their nerve signing up to the backstop may be a precondition of an FTA with the US.

    912:

    Dave P @ 733: @705: The National Guard is a full partner in USNORTHCOM; there have been good suggestions over the years that they should take over the full command. From the Wiki article on USNORTHCOM: "The National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 stipulates that at least one deputy commander of USNORTHCOM be a National Guard general officer unless the commander is already such an officer."

    I won't go into the minutiae of the National Response Framework, but when I was there, use of active duty military forces was basically the last resort to an incident. The preference is municipal>county>state>federal (FEMA)>National Guard>active duty DOD capabilities.

    They are NOW. When Katrina hit in 2005, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 integrating the National Guard into USNORTHCOM had not yet happened.

    I'm not putting USNORTHCOM down, just noting that in 2005 they were still learning the part about "provide military assistance to non-military authorities" in the context of the National Guard's traditional role as a State's primary agency for such operations, and particularly that they couldn't draw from the National Guard's LOCAL resources & experience at that time due to the Louisiana National Guard's deployment

    It's not just USNORTHCOM. Louisiana's State Government disaster relief plan relied on the National Guard. But what do you do if the National Guard is halfway around the world and are not available? It was one of those "UNKNOWN unknowns" that required some foresight that no one recognized.

    913:

    Hetreomeles @ 901 nd more the extreme athletes who lived on pillars or in desert caves. We've already got that vein of austerity for the world's sake in our society Yes - it's called "the new Puritanism & its evil. The only manifestations I have seen are stamping on people enjoying themselves, usually alcholol-related & saving the planet by all wearing hair shits & deliberately making ourselves poor peasants, rather than applying real-world large-scale industrial" solutions to the very real problems that face us. The religious objection to anything with the word "Nuclear" in it is a dead give-away, too.

    Dave P @ 904 With the exception of the USAF ( Because NOT invented HERE in the USA! ) almost everybody else, including the USN uses probe-&-drogue, whcich is, of course a British invention. Oops, as the saying goes. That trade-off for tanker support for the USN air arm really, really sucks, doesn't it? Oh yes, see also Charlie @ 907.

    JBS @ 89909 These days - not plywood, but glass-fibre-composite, I think. Given that Persia is awash in oil, I would go for a gas-turbine powered MTB/MGB, or in areas like the Persian GUlf, maybe hovercraft would be a better option?

    914:

    Dave P @ 735: @728: "a stretched A-7 with an afterburner" - why do you want to make an A-7 back into an F-8? There's no need for an afterburner in a CAS aircraft; the lack of speed, and associated increased loiter time, is one of the things that makes the A-10 superior to the F-16 and F-35 for CAS.

    There's no need to focus solely on carrier aviation for this mission; A-10s flying out of Al Udeid in Qatar could easily do the job.

    It was just a Wild Hare idea of what might be possible if you needed a good great CAS aircraft someplace that doesn't have U.S. basing.

    Or what about if the airbase is over-run by Al Qaeda or Al Shebob or Hizbollah and you can no longer fly out of Al Udeid?

    915:

    whitroth @ 741: Nofolk, biggest? Um, that'd be a nope.
    Norfolk Naval Base, approx 3400 acres.
    Fort Hood, TX: 214,000 acres.

    Yes, really.

    I believe I did specify Naval Base ... I could be mistaken, but the last time I was at Fort Hood, it was still an active Army Base, located inland and NOT hovering around at an elevation of approximately 10' MSL. A 10' sea rise probably wouldn't do that much short term damage to Fort Hood.

    916:

    David L @ 760: Some time in the late 50s my dad bought a Henry J[1] as a early mid life crisis car. He was thinking of fixing it up as "his" car. My mother hated it. My dad didn't have time to deal with it so he let my much older cousin drive it. He as just over 16 at the time and loved the car. This was around 60-62. His comment on the car was "a gallon of gas and 2 quarts of oil and he was set for the week unless he had a date".

    [1] It was a different time then if this was considered a sporty car.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_J

    My father-in-law had FOUR of them in the mid-late 70s. He "collected" old cars; mostly mid-50s to mid-60s cars he could get for less than a humdred dollars - before the vintage car market ran out of pre-WWII "classic" vehicles to restore and moved on to more mundane vehicles.

    "They" told me it could never be done,, but I actually taught my wife to drive a manual transmission using one of those Henry Js. She whined & moaned & fussed about it, but she finally got the hang of it, at least well enough she could drive someone to the emergency room in a manual transmission car if she didn't have any other choice.

    917:

    Also what's their domestic automobile manufacturing like?

    Glad you asked: Automobile manufacturing accounts for about 10% of Iran's GDP—they're one of the largest automobile manufacturers in Asia. While a chunk of it is partnerships with the likes of BMW and Citroen, there are domestic vehicle and engine parts manufacturers, including diesel trucks.

    So I'd say it's a hard "yes" to Iran being able to design and build something with equivalent power output to a 1940 Packard engine—and probably something a whole lot better.

    As for plywood … about 7% of Iran's land area consists of forest, and they're a major regional producer of hardwood and softwood.

    (I keep having to repeat this: Iran is not an oil-exporting monocrop kleptocracy held together with dictator-brand duct tape like Iraq; it's the Persian empire, they beat off the Ottomans and the Mongols and the Romans and conquered as far as the gates of India, and while they've been having a bad century they're way better positioned to compete globally than any of the arab nations. There's a reason the Sauds are shit-scared of them.)

    918:

    Georgiana @ 776: @414:
    Are you talking about Johnson or Trump?

    Yes.

    919:

    Pigeon @ 792:

    "Unfortunately, human beans don't work that way. There are a *lot* of folks who feel like nothing if they don't have a job, and define themselves by it."

    Yeah, that's part of the problem. We need to undo the damage of centuries of cultural conditioning which the current establishment is very keen not to see undone. So far progress has consequently mainly been in the area of overlap with Men Procreate And Shoot Guns And Bring Home The Bacon.

    Not to deny that there are people who would still feel like that even without the conditioning. At present they are often exploited. Nobody from Britain becomes a nurse for the money, because they don't get any more than the minimum necessary to attract nurses from other countries where they get paid even less. They do it because they believe in it, and so get dumped on because they can be.

    or how about decoupling the work ethic from the need to earn a living so people could do useful, fulfilling work without having to worry if it would pay the rent or not?

    920:

    Charlie @907: Concur and agree. The boom refueling system was specifically and primarily intended for strategic bombers - B-47 and B-52. Note that 1950s U.S. fighters up to and including the F-105 were built with probe and drogue systems. The USAF changed over to boom refueling for fighters with the F-4C; Navy F-4s continued with probe and drogue systems.

    It also appears I somewhat misspoke earlier; the KC-135 can be fitted with underwing probe and drogue systems, although they are normally not carried by USAF aircraft.

    "The Multi-point Refueling Systems (MPRS) modification adds refueling pods to the KC-135's wings. The pods allow refueling of U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and most NATO tactical jet aircraft while keeping the tail-mounted refueling boom. The pods themselves are Flight Refueling Limited (FRL) MK.32B model pods, and refuel via the probe and drogue method common to USN/USMC tactical jets, rather than the primary "flying boom" method used by USAF fixed-wing aircraft. This allows the tanker to refuel two receivers at the same time, which increases throughput compared to the boom drogue adapter." [see earlier KC-135 Wiki citation]

    France operates 3 KC-135R with probe and drogue systems, and several other countries operate tankers derived from the 707.

    My original point in the discussion, though, is that the USN switch to an all-F/A-18 wing came with a significant reduction in long range strike capability; ergo, limitations on its ability to meet the Persian Gulf threat, because Hornets don't have the range/loiter time other airframes like the Warthog do.

    921:

    Hah - I was thinking about some of the roads up round Wisbech. Especially the time when I was collecting some furniture...

    922:

    JBS @833: That's horrible. Testosterone poisoning is a terrible thing.

    JBS @912: "I'm not putting USNORTHCOM down, just noting that in 2005 they were still learning the part about "provide military assistance to non-military authorities".

    Oh, very much (I was a civil servant with USNORTHCOM from founding in 2002, through 2009, when I went to USEUCOM). It was discovery learning all the way through. Don't even get me started on how poorly the Louisiana state government and FEMA dealt with the crisis. You might want to peruse one of the several General Accounting Office reports on the subject.

    Greg @913: See my post @920.

    JBS @914: "Or what about if the airbase is over-run by Al Qaeda or Al Shebob or Hizbollah and you can no longer fly out of Al Udeid?"

    See my post @852. We also have basing rights in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but would prefer something closer the Straits of Hormuz and at least a hair removed from being completely in bed with the Saudis.

    923:

    The Packard V12s in the PT boats were derived from the Liberty V12 of WW1 so, a low bar to clear.

    924:

    I.e. the ones with some of the highest death rates in the UK? They are extremely deceptive, even to a cautious old fogey, let alone a tanked-up post adolescent.

    925:

    Right. But, as far as I can see, Eire is behaving about as rationally as it is possible to. Countries can mature, as well as become demented.

    On the matter of a polite economic blockade, the UK's ruling idiots don't realise that is an almost inevitable of not honouring our commitments - i.e. not paying the exit bill, as proposed by the loons.

    As a digression, I also note that the Wee Fishwife is inviting me to do what I have been talking about - move my domicile north of the border, and tell the rabid Little Englanders to sod off.

    926:

    Tankers: It's especially amusing that the RAF got A330-based tankers without the boom option, and has since purchased more receivers that use booms (Rivet Joint, P-8A). While the RAAF A330 tankers are much appreciated in the ongoing Middle East CF for their offload capacity and flexibility. So the RAF is now considering adding booms to at least some, of course at more cost than if they had done it originally. It's also worth noting that different hose installations have different max flow rates, an important factor when tanking large aircraft like A-400Ms.

    927:

    Everything about British defense procurement has been broken since, oh, 2010 or thereabouts—or maybe earlier. Free market dogma meets public private partnerships (leasing warplanes?!? Outsourcing maintenance speciality?) and the reality of government/defense industry collaboration.

    928:

    Whelp, turns out the answer was probably:

    India Kashmir Art 370 Sushma Swaraj dying of heart attack right at the moment of tension Lord X (2nd Muslim Lord) sends letter to BoJo

    Or - Modi pulls a Colonial Handgrenade, pulls the pin and wants a hard hard LOC for the coming water crisis.

    Relation:

    UK 1st/2nd gen expats from the region (from all sides) are inherently conservative (despite what the UKIP people claim about mass voting blocks, c.f. Peterborough) and this could be interesting. Seem to remember BoJo having some billionaire friends from the area also.

    Could dump a massive load of links but Talking Cat "?GUY?" got Ganked / Exiled / Wiped.

    So.

    Bon Chance.

    929:

    Oddly enough the A-400M is itself a tanker of sorts -- it is outfitted with the basic plumbing from the fuselage along the wings and it can be fitted with underwing drogue hose reel units and fuel bladders to operate as a tanker for fighters and helicopters.

    930:

    Madelaine @ 921 I USED to know that area extremely well. My paternal grandmother lived in Holbeach ... I've even had a ride on the WIsbeah & Upwell Tramway ( WHich sends some raiway loonies into fits of teeth-grinding.)

    Grainy early 1960's clip complete with Drewry diesel ......

    931:

    Aircraft that go low and slow get shot down. The A-10 is basically a pilot-killer in contested areas if it does actually fly low and slow, assuming it can actually get to a firezone in time to be of any use since it's slow. Really slow, like slower than a 737 slow. Flying low uses up a lot of fuel since it's thick air, too.

    Loitering in cabrank ovals near a conflict area to be ready to cover an incident is a great idea as long as you have lots of aircraft, lots and lots of them since every hour in the air going round in circles means several hours of time in the hangar being worked on to keep it safe enough to fly the next day.

    Pilots, well you can feed them amphetamines and wake-up pills and have them fly twelve hours a day seven days a week but that will cost you in terms of accidents, losses and blue-on-blue incidents -- it's been a tradition of wars in the Middle East over the past thirty years or so for at least one Warthog-on-British-armour incident to happen every few years due to the pilots being hopped up on speed to keep them flying all day every day to keep up the optempo.

    932:

    ...just what can a destroyer do to argue the toss with a Russian carrier fleet that a MGB can't?

    Stay at sea for more than a day or two; stay at sea in bad weather; operate a helicopter; the list goes on.

    The RN does actually employ just such small ships; the River-class OPVs do for the constabulary work you mention, and the Archer-class patrol boats are about MGB-sized. There was even faux outrage when HMS Forth ended up escorting a Russian warship through the Channel

    https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/our-organisation/the-fighting-arms/surface-fleet/patrol/river-class/hms-forth

    The Archer-class vessels are used for training purposes (HMS Archer is normally based in Leith) and have spent this summer in the Baltic Sea playing "Enemy FAC", if I read things correctly.

    https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/our-organisation/the-fighting-arms/surface-fleet/patrol/archer-class/hms-archer

    For those interested in a deeper analysis of the Royal Navy, its problems, and its solutions, I can heartily recommend the "Thin Pinstriped Line" blog. One of the issues it addresses is the desire to have "lots of cheap ships", and why it's actually a false economy...

    933:

    To Charlies point I rather suspect they would regard a classic MTB well beneath their capabilities..

    To whit :

    https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/meet-iran’s-“mad-max”-navy-missile-armed-motor-boats-60607

    Also worth reading up on their submarine fleet linked in that article.

    I rather suspect Bolton and the rest of the US hawks are massively underestimating Irans capabilities even if the US forces in general dont. It appears that Iran has the best of both worlds - a decent professional military AND a large bunch of well armed lunatics/insurgents willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause.

    Oh and in another one of life's ironies - it appears that there is a good chance that the speedboats that captured the British registered tanker were a knocked off British design the Seraj-1 aka the Blade Runner 51.

    934:

    Oh, and something for host's tastes that also sums up Brexit:

    Some animals, such as hyenas, are known for a behavior called kleptoparasitism, in which they wait until an animal kills its prey and then drive the predator away to claim its meal. However, this nudibranch behavior — stealing the predator's feast by swallowing the predator and prey together — is something that was previously unknown, and researchers dubbed it "kleptopredation" in a new study

    https://www.livescience.com/60836-sea-slugs-kleptopredators.html

    Lazy Slugs becomes Dragons of the Sea !

    935:

    Everything about British defense procurement has been broken since, oh, 2010 or thereabouts—or maybe earlier

    Much earlier, but not completely useless. Plenty of blame to go around all types of Government.

    The Airtanker fiasco was down to the then-Chancellor Gordon Brown insisting on a PFI deal, or nothing. BOWMAN radios were screwed by the Labour Government demand to build them in a Welsh Labour marginal. The rise in cost of the QE-class carriers was Gordon Brown insisting that the carriers be built more slowly (and in his constituency). Then Cameron (not a details bloke) decided that they should be CATOBAR, not STOVL, until the grownups explained that this was a bad idea.

    The Nimrod MRA4 fiasco was driven by the desire to "rebuild" Nimrods rather than new-build them; because obviously that would be cheaper. Until they discovered that the fuselage length varied by a foot across the fleet, and the fuselage frames differed by inches (the delights of 1960s hand-build practises). The FRES fiasco was driven by a blind refusal to accept physics (no, you can't armour it up and still fit it in a C-130), and Challenger 2 was doomed by Army incompetence (namely, if you don't keep buying tanks, it's not worth keeping a tank factory open, and soon you'll lose even the ability to upgrade them).

    On the other hand, some things have gone reasonably well. The USN is rather jealous that the UK can build a pair of aircraft carriers for a fraction of the cost of a Ford-class; the Type 45 is a world-class system (although Liam Fox making a political decision on the engine didn't help); the Type 26 looks to be a good design, and has won the Canadian and Australian frigate competitions.

    The Eurofighter Typhoon has turned out to be a very credible aircraft; we've sensibly rejoined the Boxer program; the CR2 replacement turret looks plausible. Individual soldier equipment is pretty damn impressive these days, radios aside.

    936:

    Worth noting that one important factor here is "minimum crew at risk per missile launch", especially in an "exhaust enemy ammunition" scenario, where the Iranians seem to have got it down to approximately one person and $30k-$50k worth of boat. Give or take, an RIB with two manually guided missiles might work better with three crew while some of the bigger boats might give you 8 missiles that can launch in 60s but only need 3-4 crew.

    Even if it takes 100 boats/300 missiles to severely damage a carrier and few of the support vessels, the equation ends up being $10M in boats and 500 men lost on Iran's side vs tens of thousands of men and billions of dollars in boats. Iran can afford to lose that several times over because the US just doesn't have that many carrier fleets available. It's also pretty easy to build or buy RIBs in just about any quantity. And you don't have to missile-proof the boat if you intend to launch exactly two missiles off it then discard it. I suspect two guys with a stick welder and some cheap steel could do the conversion in a day.

    Iran has lots of experience with asymmetric warfare against the US, and has had lots of time to prepare. They may even have prepped teams to hit targets at some distance from Iran. Israel, France, the US and USSR/Russia have all been caught doing that stuff... there's a significant difference between defending your president against a lone nut with a rifle and a state-operated assassination team.

    937:

    I'm an immigrant to the area and now live further west in Huntingdonshire after moving to Cambridge in 1990. My grandfather was up at Emmanuel prior to doing his clinical training in London. We have (probably had as things got pinched in a burglary) phots of my very young mum riding on a haywain in Bottisham when the family spent about a year in Cambridge when granddad was doing some post-war training in the early 1920s. I believe it was after that they moved to the South Coast. Granddad's family came from Staffordshire.

    Those roads are interesting and you saw on that clip about 1:30 in one of the reasons why they are so dangerous - the deep water-filled ditch. There's one of those fen roads near me - the road from Willingham to Earith Bridge. Used as a rat-run to avoid the misery of the A14, it's got a high hedge on one side and the Great Ouse on the other with no barrier and very little clearance. Misjudge a bend or hit some subsidence and you're swimming.

    I'm old enough to remember steam trains - I recall as a teenager visiting a great aunt in Staffordshire and taking a direct train from Bournemouth. Mind you, I chiefly remember long car journeys; when we returned to the UK in the early 60's, my mum insisted on getting a car as public transport was not good where we lived and the local grocers were phasing out deliveries. I remember driving around the country - we had relations in the Midlands, more in Devon, other in North Wales and old family friends in Yorkshire.

    938:

    Out of genuine interest isn't the Type 45 under armed and over specialised?

    Looking at some of the more general purpose Frigates and Destroyers it seems only capable of having a good place in UK/US/NATO CBG's?

    It may just be be a "always fighting the last war" design based on the Type 42's in the Falklands, or may just be my ignorance.

    939:

    Madelaine They have de-kinked some of the dyke approaches - there used to be one, somwhere between Holbeach Drove & Wisbeach, where the road came up to a dyke, did 120° left, proceeded for about 150 yds, then 90° right to cross said dyke. Well - I've travelled Spalding to Lynn & Long Sutton to Peterboro' by steam .... I didn't read the "Nine Tailors" until I was about 20 & the vivid portayal of the fenlands is brilliant.

    940:

    "...just what can a destroyer do to argue the toss with a Russian carrier fleet that a MGB can't?

    Stay at sea for more than a day or two; stay at sea in bad weather; operate a helicopter; the list goes on."

    Obviously, the same applies for a helicopter-equipped destroyer; don't bring in red herrings. In such a case, the boat's job is (to be charitable) that of a building site watchman - to warn Johnny Foreigner off and to call in help if he insists on intruding. Getting into a fight is NOT in its remit.

    If you want more extensive endurance and bad weather capabilities, there are plenty of cheap boat designs (by destroyer standards) that would do the job.

    941:

    They may even have prepped teams to hit targets at some distance from Iran. Israel, France, the US and USSR/Russia have all been caught doing that stuff... there's a significant difference between defending your president against a lone nut with a rifle and a state-operated assassination team.

    Given the current occupant it would be strategically useful to keep the president. (Reference: why the Allies stopped trying to assassinate Hitler.) At least until the VP is removed and the line of succession will put someone willing to talk peace in power.

    On the other hand, a thoughtful country might see the usefulness of having a handful of sleepers waiting to see how many mortar rounds they could drop onto the Pentagon before anyone arrives to stop them. (Checking, I find a 15 round per minute fire rate and three person crew quoted for the British L16 81mm mortar, which I'll assume is typical.) When outnumbered of course the fire team should surrender, having worn full uniform to the event so as to clearly establish themselves as soldiers rather than criminals.

    942:

    When outnumbered of course the fire team should surrender, having worn full uniform to the event so as to clearly establish themselves as soldiers rather than criminals.

    Good idea, but you're kind of missing out the "formal state of war declared" phase of the operation. Otherwise they're just providing a back-stabbing sneak attack like Pearl Harbour and are eligible for a war crimes trial and probable execution after the wrap-up.

    On the other hand, I suppose these days you could deliver a declaration of war via the head of state's verified twitter account while the first mortar round is still hanging in the air ...

    943:

    Maybe we talk to different people. Parties are coalitions.

    I tend to interact more with the minority portion of the coalition. Female candidates and progressive economic policies will tend to depress turnout. Albeit, fear and loathing of Trump means turnout will be high regardless.

    There's also the coastal elitist/technocrat portion - probably in some sense - to the right of Republicans. (Solutions to industrial decay and rural areas boil down to removing welfare, disability, and subsidies and waiting for people that move or starve.)

    My assessment is that Biden loses because he is a bit of an idiot; Warren loses because she is female; Sanders loses to age and progressivism; and Harris loses to being female again.

    Still, the election will probably be close. And, nominally, every coalition member detests Trump. So, I'd argue that picking a candidate to depress Republican turnout probably has the best chance of victory.

    944: 907 - True. Of course, the Vulcan was also probe and drogue, and still holds the record for the longest distance air raid, set in 1982. 902 - Existing SLUFs have 8 hard points, 6 of which can load triple or multiple ejector racks (or triple Brimstone launchers would fit given the wiring). That's where I got the 18 from.

    Also I was suggesting that BoZo, being occasionally correct, is actually useless!

    932 - Patrol boats are way better than destroyers for "police work" like fisheries protection and anti-smuggling. No-one is claiming that patrol boats are a good answer for blue water work. 938 - A type 45 carries 1 mk8B gun, capable of engaging multiple surface and subsonic targets in a 90 degree arc, with different mixes of ammunition on each, 24 SAMs (mix of Aster 15 and 30, and with different launch tubes SM2 and SM3), 2 Phalanx guns, 8 ship-launched Harpoon, and 1 or 2 Lynx or Wildcat helicopters, oh and a radar that can handle targeting for all of them at once. 943 - No, a "political party" is a group of people who have agreed to support a single common platform. A "political coalition" occurs when 2 (or more) parties negotiate an agreement where they will vote together to gain a majority in the relevant chamber and promote at least some of the policies of each.
    945:

    you're kind of missing out the "formal state of war declared" phase

    I reckon you're showing your age. Most of the recent wars haven't been officially declared, or they were "declared" via some sort of war crime. If you're committing war crimes you're at war, right?

    The US has only been at war 11 times, for example, but their leaders (including the commander in chief) regularly reference wars that haven't been declared. Australia also hasn't declared war on anyone since WWII but gee we've lost a lot of soldiers in active conflict and I believe we even had a draft... all without having a war. We do, however, have the distinction of declaring war on a bird and losing. Maybe that's what put our leaders off?

    946:

    The Vulcan was a strategic bomber, but one designed to reach Moscow from the UK—the B-52 et al had to get there from the continental USA, about twice the distance. So, much bigger fuel tanks, so larger airframe, more powerful engines to carry everything, etc.

    (Also the distance record set by the Black Buck raids in 1982 was broken by B-52s and/or B-2s during the Iraq war which, IIRC, flew non-stop return trips from the USA to Iraq, about 9000nm rather than 8000nm, if I recall correctly.)

    This is frankly stupid trivia that my author brain refuses to let go of even though it's about a deplorable activity and hyper-specific to something of no actual relevance to my life.

    947:

    I reckon you're showing your age. Most of the recent wars haven't been officially declared, or they were "declared" via some sort of war crime. If you're committing war crimes you're at war, right?

    It gets complex, in international law.

    The United Nations was originally the allied coalition that stomped on the Axis powers, 1939-45 (arguably 1931-45, if you include pre-Communist China). It became a global organization post-war and was repurposed to replace the old League of Nations with something with teeth.

    Part of the UN treaty requires a committment not to wage aggressive warfare, so traditional declarations of war are strictly speaking illegal and a treaty violation that would bring the UN Security Council as a collective down on the perpetrator's head. Back in 1947, getting Stalin's USSR, the atomic-armed USA, plus Britain and France pissed at you was a credible threat— that was about 90% of the planet's military might.

    So "war" was essentially ruled illegal without a UN Security Council vote.

    The US/UK/France weaseled a UNSC vote through in 1951(?) for the Korean War, while the USSR was boycotting the UNSC and therefore wasn't present to veto the motion. Since then, almost every attempt to push a declaration of war through resulted in a permanent member issuing a veto. Hence the legal status of most nation-on-nation aggro since 1953 being "conflict" not "war" (e.g. the Falklands, Vietnam, the ongoing Arab/Israeli conflict, etc). The Kuwait thing and Iraq invasions might have been formal wars (I'm not sure) because the UNSC nodded them through, but in other contexts it becomes horribly murky.

    TLDR: a member of the UN Security Council can't legally "go to war" without a UNSC mandate, so they don't, they just fire off a bunch of cruise missiles and send in tanks. Yes, it's bonkers … but it's the law.

    948:

    Misjudge a bend or hit some subsidence and you're swimming.

    And going swimming in your car is bad news when the water is deep enough to cover the roof, but narrow enough to stop the doors opening.

    Those roads are among the straightest in the country and usually pretty empty. And then you get a right angle corner - not merely a bend, a sodding corner, with a dyke beyond a lot of the time - which is a problem if you've been going full speed. No wonder so many people die on those roads.

    949: 946 - Not sure about the B-52 sortie length. Otherwise about the only relevance that strategic bombers have to me for work is testing SAMs! It's not even like I have written a passage on carpet bombing the Grunmarkt with nukes using B-52s! 947 - That's mostly true, but in the Falklands, Argentina was definitely the aggressor.
    950:

    Also the distance record set by the Black Buck raids in 1982 was broken by B-52s and/or B-2s during the Iraq war which, IIRC, flew non-stop return trips from the USA to Iraq, about 9000nm rather than 8000nm, if I recall correctly.

    But the Vulcan flight had some sort of a complicated chain of 9 refuelings in some sort of relay as it was entirely over water. I think the refueling flights were also refueled to make it all work. All to drop 4 bombs on a runway and get one hit.

    Says he who had a Netflix doc on the last Vulcan in service playing in the background last night. They interviewed one of the pilots on that mission.

    951:

    And then you get a right angle corner

    A few years ago I tried out an app to rate my driving. The route I took home from the airport had 2 of those. It really downgraded me for not stopping at the corners. The speed limits at one was 45mph and the other 35mph.

    Oh, well. I deleted the app.

    952:

    #947 - That's mostly true, but in the Falklands, Argentina was definitely the aggressor.

    Yes, but 1982: the USSR would probably have vetoed any UNSC mandate in the UKs favour just for shits and giggles, because Thatcher.

    (Remember the first rule of diplomacy? Never ask a question if you know you won't like the answer.)

    953:

    Yep: tankers flying out of Ascension Island in the nearly-north Atlantic. One of the tanker crews got a serious flying medal of some sort (I forget which) for pumping their tanks dry, with bad weather between themselves and the nearest runway and no guarantee a relief tanker could get close enough to refuel them before they had to ditch, to ensure the Vulcan had enough fuel to get through.

    The damage those raids did was minimal, but the effect on the morale among the Argentinian troops was apparently significant (strategic bombers ahoy) … and it served notice on the junta in Buenos Aires that they were also within strike range, which probably had a much more significant effect.

    954:

    It's worse than bonkers - the claim that it isn't a war is used as an excuse to not observe the Geneva convention.

    955:

    EC IIRC the USA has never actually signed up to the Geneva Accords So, if they are feeling nasty, they don't .... far, far too often in my opinion.

    956:

    Erwin @943: Sanders loses to age and progressivism

    Don't forget antisemitism - you'd better believe that the antisemitism already seen in the US will be a pale shadow of what will occur if Sanders gets the nod.

    Elderly Cynic @954: It's worse than bonkers - the claim that it isn't a war is used as an excuse to not observe the Geneva convention.

    The story goes that in 1944-45, German parents told their kids who were drafted as cannon-fodder to surrender to the first American soldier they saw. Apparently US soldiers treated their prisoners well in WWI.

    Of course now, knowing that surrendering to US forces will lead to a trip to Guantanamo Bay or some other equally hellish place for months / years of various kinds of torture, enemy combatants will be more likely to fight to the last man, last bullet. Which will cause more US casualties.

    957:

    Good idea, but you're kind of missing out the "formal state of war declared" phase of the operation.

    You're not wrong.

    The other part of this operation, which hopefully the grunts on the ground were briefed on beforehand, is to establish the formal state of war for public relations. Representation, possibly an American legal firm paid through a neutral third party country and not briefed in advance, should be involved early.

    If the Arlington Police Department and other agencies handled them as common criminals, that would publicly establish that in the official opinion of the American government there is no war just civilians in green clothes blowing up stuff. That in turn would give justification to many hundreds of criminal charges being filed against American military personnel involved in blowing up bits of Iran.

    Historically most governments are too smart to own-goal themselves like this. But then, you've seen the news out of Washington these days.

    The basic framework of this occurred to me back when the Shrub was looking for excuses to go mess with Saddam Hussein again. I'm relieved it hasn't happened but unsure if it's unacceptable to the people the US is likely to attack or if we've just gotten lucky.

    958:

    Well, I was thinking that in that specific instance the UK wasn't legally declaring war so much as declaring defense.

    959:

    It isn't just the USA - the UK, France and others have done it, too, though covertly. And the USA has signed four, though ratified only two.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_Geneva_Conventions

    960:

    What happens if you're the defending party? Can you declare war? If the U.S. attacks Iran and in turn Iran declares war against the U.S., what happens then? Does the scenario Scott Sanford proposes (firing a mortar at the Pentagon) then become viable?

    961:

    What I remember John Oliver saying is that it is illegal to use footage of parliament for comedy purposes in the UK. So every time he has a segment which features such footage, he claims that the UK edit has different, usually ridiculous content. I have no reason to disbelieve it, but since I'm in the USA I don't have first-hand verification.

    962:

    Ah, now THAT is probably still true. It was when permission was first granted for the televising of Parliament, and I doubt it has changed. I can't remember the exact wording.

    963:

    If Boris refuses to resign after losing a confidence vote do we get to see John Bercow arresting him?

    Or does the Queen send bailiffs to Number 10?

    Or both? I am thinking that running the government (civil service, Navy, Army, ...) and being the Prime Minister in Parliament are not quite the same thing.

    964:

    The story goes that in 1944-45, German parents told their kids who were drafted as cannon-fodder to surrender to the first American soldier they saw. Apparently US soldiers treated their prisoners well in WWI.

    My wife's aunt's husband was drafted into service in the last days of the war. Southern Germany. He was old enough to not qualify until then. The story is that fairly soon he rounded up all the youngsters that were also drafted and took them to the US lines and surrendered them all.

    965:

    Oops, I was slightly careless in how I wrote that. The distinction is between Parliament and Privy Council, if we are being formal about it.

    966:

    The damage those raids did was minimal, but the effect on the morale among the Argentinian troops was apparently significant

    In the show one of the pilots said they hit the runway with 1 bomb which took it out of service which was the goal as repair was not really possible due to logistical reasons.

    967:

    Also the distance record set by the Black Buck raids in 1982 was broken by B-52s and/or B-2s during the Iraq war which, IIRC, flew non-stop return trips from the USA to Iraq, about 9000nm rather than 8000nm, if I recall correctly

    I doubt any B-52s flew direct from the US. Diego Garcia and other places were a better option. Ditto B1s.

    But for B2s their only base (ABICR) is in Missouri and all missions start there. Mainly due to the specialized maintenance they require, especially for the stealth skin. When they are on the ground they stay inside and the maintenance crews wear special shoes to keep the skin from being damaged.

    968:

    I have no idea where you're located, or who you hang around with, but you're vastly off.

    "Warren loses because she's a woman"? Really? So there's no chance at all that a black guy could ever become President. Or Sanders, and antisemitism... there's no chance a Catholic guy could become President, could they, Mr. JFK? (And remember, Trumpolini's father was involved in anti-Catholic riots.)

    And I'm REALLY FUCKING TIRED of the phrase "coastal elites". That's right-wing bullshit. Lessee, searching on east coast population returns 36% of the ENTIRE population of the US lives on the East Coast... and 99% of us are in the bottom 99%.

    Real progressive economic proposals, esp. when combined with soak the rich, will get a ton of votes, and increase turnout.

    Or didn't Bernie get a ton of votes in the primaries in '16? Or did I miss something, and the GOP held onto everything last year?

    I expect Warren as the "compromise" candidate, and at least 66% of the country ranges from "unhappy with Trump" to "utterly beyond fucking horrified by the SoB". There will be a big turnout, the large-scale effort to register voters is in full swing now.

    969:

    Oh, one more thing about Warren: there are a lot of folks who are ready to vote for a woman for President. Unfortunately, Hillary had 30 years of baggage - some true (I have not liked her since she screwed a national healthcare system in '93) - and some from 30 years of GOP lies. Warren has none of that baggage, and all the GOP slander machine can manages is trivial stuff.

    970:

    Unfortunately, Hillary had 30 years of baggage - some true

    Or mostly true. She was a entitled "I'm an elite and deserve it" person with a conniving AH as a husband. Who would these days be considered a sexual predator. (So would Kennedy but that's another matter.)

    Should would have been a terrible president.

    Which was why I voted for her.

    Sigh.

    971:

    I'd happily say that Hilary Rodham Clinton's politics are not to my taste—far too right wing—but she'd still have been a vastly better POTUS than Trump; not a white supremacist dipshit for starters, not a probable rapist for seconds, probably not involved in organized crime (if she was, do you think the millions the Republican party threw at digging up dirt on the Clintons wouldn't have found something more useful than a furtive office affair?) compared to Trump's alleged mafia links (hey, he's in real estate in NYC, of course he's mobbed up) … and more to the point, she has a prior track record as a politician and knows how the machine works.

    Not a nice person—the office of the President of the United States is inherently morally corrupt, like any great imperial throne, and only the utterly morally compromised can aspire to it—but at least a competent one. Whereas Trump is basically Emperor Nero with the brakes off.

    972:

    Charlie @971: "Trump is basically Emperor Nero with the brakes off"

    I hear he's taking up the violin.

    973:

    "Whereas Trump is basically Emperor Nero with the brakes off."

    He even plays the liar.

    974:

    Troutwaxer @973: Great minds run in the same gutter?

    975:

    Yeah, pretty much. (My history teacher told me that Nero didn't actually fiddle while Rome burned, he played a lyre. The rest was easy!)

    976:

    Yep. He was impeached via a fishing expidition - nothing they were looking for was true (Whitewater, where they lost money), so they kept looking. Whether he was a sexual predator... I dunno, power is an aphrodisiac.

    But right wing? Yes - that's neoliberal with spin. I think I mentioned before - the difference between neoliberal Clinton and Republican President Eisenhower is that Clinton would not have sent the troops in to desegregate the South.

    Of course I voted for Hillary (though I'd been for Bernie). The day after she got the nod, at the Democratic convention, a reporter interviewed a couple of young Bernie supporters on the floor. The guy was a jerk, but the young woman had it dead on: "Of course I'm disappointed, but fascism is fascism, and we have to stop fascism."

    977:

    No, B-52s did fly from bases in Missouri to Iraq and back to drop bombs there during the 2003 temper-tantrum. The airbase in Diego Garcia, still part of the British Empire because the US finds it useful, is quite limited given its remoteness if a lot of operations in a short period of time are envisaged. Delivering fuel, spare parts, personnel, bombs and other consumables requires either expensive logistical flights in and out or ship-borne transport whereas the Missouri airfields can be serviced by truck and rail straight from the suppliers.

    Diego Garcia has only one servicing hangar, quite a small one (a Boeing 777 wouldn't fit in it) and there is limited accommodation for crews and service people, technicians etc. It works as a bomber-capable unsinkable aircraft carrier for short grass-hut-burning exercises and a useful staging post for ferry flights from SE Asia as well as dealing with diversions but it can't support a tick-tock operational tempo of a dozen flights a day for weeks.

    978:

    "Also the distance record set by the Black Buck raids in 1982 was broken by B-52s and/or B-2s during the Iraq war which, IIRC, flew non-stop return trips from the USA to Iraq, about 9000nm rather than 8000nm, if I recall correctly."

    I'm pretty certain they didnt all fly directly there and home. A day or two after hostilities started I was standing in the High Street of Malvern (a UK tourist/rural town in Wiltshire) and a bunch of B52s came flew low over the top of the hills - clearly on the way down to Brize Norton. Was a hell of a sight - I had only seen one in a museum until then.

    979:

    Oops. Meant Worcestershire, not Wiltshire in previous email.

    980:

    They've staged B2s out of Diego Garcia (and Guam). They have B2 specific air transportable temporary hangers that they shipped out there that lets them do full servicing.

    @Nojay - Last I read says the base on DG is a full service facility of some 3000-5000 people. That's a fair step up from "limited acommodation".

    981:

    @978: RAF Fairford is used as a staging base both for bomber operations in the European theater and "points further east". From the Wiki article:

    "Due to RAF Fairford's location and infrastructure, the airfield is designated as a forward operating location for the US Air Force. It was used in the first Gulf War in 1991, with B-52s and KC-135s from Eaker AFB in Arkansas. It was later used during Operation Allied Force in 1999 when B-52s from Barksdale AFB, B-1Bs from Ellsworth AFB and KC-135s from Mountain Home AFB were used. During that conflict, Fairford-based bombers dropped 48% of the ordnance dropped by NATO on targets in the former Yugoslavia. In the 2003 Iraq War, Operation Iraqi Freedom included B-52s based at Minot AFB but flying from Fairford. In recent years the airfield has been occasionally used by American B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and is frequently visited by U-2 aircraft."

    I've been quoting extensively from Wikipedia so I make sure I don't say things I shouldn't in public.

    982:

    Hey, Charlie,

    Unrelated to bombers, ships, or politics: my novella was rejected by F&SF (in days, which is amazingly fast turnaround), and ->with personal comments<-, not a form, yeah, I know, I'm really close.

    Anyway, he talked about "the flow", and I looked up multiple PoV... and what I'm reading is that people use patterns in PoV, with multiple PoV characters, like ABBA, etc. Is this a thing, or is this just "I read it on the 'Net"? Does this actually help with the flow of the story?

    983:

    Yes it's a thing, and keeping control over your viewpoints is an important skill … but it's also important to keep things simple enough for the reader to keep track of what's going on: too many PoVs or too much switching makes it difficult. (I usually stick to about three per novel—one of the reasons I'm so overdue with INVISIBLE SUN is that I'm wrestling with about eight, because trilogy.)

    984:

    Just a quick ack to say good to see you, and that I like the new name, not least because it encouraged reading about the second and third components. (OK, wikipedia and some refs and wikilinks, but it's a start.) A very big space of meanings.

    [Bunch of potential/cusps here in US politics ATM; distracting.]

    985:

    Oy, as they say, vey. With my ship, with about 25 crew and 70 researchers, I've got, I was thinking, a primary, a secondary, and, um, well, at least four tertiary, and I don't see how I can lower that number.

    Well, one tertiary, yes: he dies midway through....

    But thanks, very much, for ycmts. Now to go through my daughter's cmts from a week ago, then start the redraft....

    986:

    As I mention when teaching, some old maps had "Here be dragons" where ships had disappeared and nobody knew why or what was there. Given the historical dog's dinner that is the British constitution, and the way that Bozo and his tame rabid dog are claiming they would abuse it, we would definitely be in dragon territory.

    987:

    Speaking as a reader, I loathe too many points of view, and agree that three is a good general limit. But an equally important aspect is how well established each is before the next is introduced - even three, introduced from the start and flipped between after narratively short episodes, is seriously off-putting.

    988:

    The reason I was concerned about HRC was that she clearly felt that she had to appear at least as testosterone-poisoned as any male opponent, and was rattling sabres like they were going out of fashion. If translated to action, that could easily have started WW III. For all his numerous and grievous faults, the current arsehole has not done that, yet.

    989:

    That was said about the Harrier raids, too, but the airfield in question stayed in operation until it was actually recaptured.

    990:

    I would like to be wrong. But, last election, I listened to a progressive female PhD froth against Clinton for half an hour. Trump got less concern. And sure, she wanted Sanders. But...she liked Biden.

    Then, I listened to a female minority feminist unload on Clinton while admitting to finding Trump personally palatable. (Reminds her of her father...admittedly toxic narcissist with a violent streak, tendency to corruption and limited competence and occasional rape really did fit well) The worms in our heads our parents give us are truly interesting.

    Then, I looked at polling for Biden and Warren and Harris against Trump...and came to the conclusion that being female costs about 6-8 percentage points from misogyny. Not necessarily overt - more along the likes of relatively subtle double standards. Men are forgiven. Women are punished.

    Other than coastal elites - how do you describe a mostly minority population with median income > 200k and prescriptions for the Midwest that make Republicans look like bleeding hearts? (Mixture of increasing direct costs, automation of the local job mix and elimination of social support to facilitate dissolution of a dying culture.) And well, about the 99% - the median income of voters is well above the median income. On the bright side, they'd mostly vote for a female president and are neither racist nor homophobic.

    When I mention free college - the Democrats I speak to tend towards 'not paying for that.'

    So, I'm just going to vote for the primary candidate with the highest popularity. (If Biden wasn't a bit slow, I'd favor him over Warren. In this case, his competence level may be enough to overwhelm his baked in advantage.) Still, I'll be pleasantly surprised if either wins.

    And, for racism and anti-Semitism, the last survey I checked (538ish) indicated that, even though there were more racist Republicans - the difference wasn't that big.

    So, yah, I suspect quite strongly that a generic white male Democrat has an easier path. Now, when Republicans trigger an economic crash - sure - you can elect an African American president. A really charming and competent one. But...it is still harder. Well - dunno - a convincing Hispanic candidate might do better - likely to be untested in this electoral cycle.

    991:

    Speaking of separated by a common tongue.

    In my news feed today I got this headline from a BBS article.

    French mayor run over after row over illegal tipping

    Had to read the article before I figured out that giving your server extra money was NOT the point of the article. (And is likely still legal to do in France.)

    It was about dumping trash.

    992:

    ...All to drop 4 bombs on a runway and get one hit.

    21 bombs, IIRC... (or two Shrike ARMs, depending). Not too bad once you consider it wasn't exactly the attack profile that the aircraft was designed or equipped for.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck

    (I once sat next to a Black Buck Vulcan navigator at a dinner night, but sadly resisted the urge to geek out and quiz him)

    As EC correctly points out, the Port Stanley airfield remained in use throughout the campaign, and one aircraft made it through on the last night or so. Others didn't; one C-130 was certainly shot down.

    However, it was still an effective operation - any thoughts that Argentina had of improving and extending the runway so as to base fast jets there, disappeared. That same "use eight tankers to get an aircraft to the islands" method also allowed critical stores and personnel to be transported to the Task Force; the ex-Hereford father of a friend got his South Atlantic medal near to retirement (doing air despatch out of the back of a C-130 into the sea, so that a ship could pick them up).

    NB When you see "Sharkey Ward" as the source, be careful - an outstanding naval fighter pilot, but a huge chip on his shoulder about all things RAF (and since his retirement, a lot of things RN). Just because you're experienced, doesn't guarantee that you're always right.

    993:

    Let's see. US and UK politics

    Traditional parties don't have very many common alignments that they used to have. Society is changing faster than the parties can handle. The Dixiecrat issues took 20-40 years to settle down. Now we have societal changes showing up and getting solidified way faster than the traditional party structures can handle. And putting parties on both countries with major issues that divide their members and thus make party loyalty piss off non trivial numbers of their membership/followers/voters.

    So now we have Brexit and Trump. And the parties don't seem to have a way out. Based on public surveys BJ and DT do NOT represent any where near a majority of the population but the population cna't figure a common goal instead. So minorities rule.

    And it seems everyone is pissed at everyone.

    994:

    And it doesn't have a High Street.

    It does, however, have other interesting things, like the UK's main centre of WW2-and-after radar research, lots of mad Victorians, uranium, Elgar, CS Lewis, and Weathertop.

    995:

    21 bombs, IIRC...

    21 500lb dumb freefall bombs. The pattern was deliberately stitched across the runway to raise the chances of one of the bombs hitting tarmac rather than attempting to get multiple hits along the length of the runway and missing by a hundred metres. It was accepted that any damage would be repaired speedily, one hit or many and without the mix of munitions a JP223 dispenser could deliver (self-burying mines, camouflet devices, delayed-action bomblets, anti-personnel devices etc.) then making a loud statement was the best that could be achieved at the time with the tech available.

    996:

    Heteromeles @ 831: Probably worth reading the entire thread. The original Takings issue was about the State of California turning Pacific Gas and Electric (net worth $68 billion, with possibly $30 billion in fire-related claims) into a state-owned utility. That would be illegal, no? The point was that the $10 billion that the state set up to pay for PG&E insurance issues was tiny compared to the alternatives (buying PG&E, bailing them completely out, etc.). It's great to rant about the shortcomings of the US judicial system. Feel free to also rant about the problems with state governments trying to find the least bad solution to dealing with a problematic monopolist.

    I have read the entire thread. I don't really have any problem with the state of California trying to find a "least bad solution". I have problems with the "preoblematic monopolist" essentially holding up (in the manner of a stage-coach robbery) the state of California. And I have problems with the way the courts allow them to get away with it. But the problem is not the corporation itself. It's the people who RUN the corporation and the way they use their control to shield themselves from accountability for their actions.

    As for a universal draft, the original post was #635, about the US (in a post-consumerist fantasy future) instituting a universal service draft where people spend part of their service year sorting garbage, rebuilding infrastructure, and dealing with disasters. It's not about armed service at all, but about things like:
    --What a post-consumerist society might look like, with things like the democratization of dealing with waste and rebuilding, rather than measuring status by how much crap you make other people deal with.
    --Incorporating something like the CCC into the Green New Deal
    --What to do with the Military Industrial Complex when it finally dies. There's a lot of logistics expertise that could be usefully repurposed to dealing with disasters and chronic problems in the US. While I'm not a veteran, I suspect that there's a contingent of veterans who would welcome a peaceful mission at home, even if it is KP and worse all the time. They might be even more open if everyone had to rake muck and learn disaster recovery.

    And Charlies post, the one I was responding to, was about the way Italian government used their MILITARY draftees. He expressed the idea that the "US draft was somehow deficient in not having this proviso." I agree, but my response was to try to explain how the U.S. draft came to be so fucked up, and to explain how a future draft would have to be if it was not going to be fucked up.

    But, the very idea that the U.S. government would ever bring back the draft to deal with climate change or a "Green New Deal" is a PIPE DREAM, and you must be smoking some weird shit.

    The reality is that IF the U.S. ever brings back the draft, it will be a military draft, and it will be just as fucked up and unfair as it was in every war where the U.S. resorted to a draft from the American Civil War to Vietnam. The poor man's son will again be sent to fight the rich man's war. PERIOD, FULL STOP. You're right, you're not a veteran, and you haven't got a clue what veterans would welcome.

    Any "logistics expertise" the U.S. military ever had was farmed out to private contractors like KBR, Boeing and L3 Corporation by Darth Cheney during the Bush II maladministration and the only thing it's EVER going to be repurposed for is increasing executive compensation at those corporations to previously unimaginable obscene levels.

    997:

    Troutwaxer @ 832: The way they get away with Civil Forfeiture is in the name. "Civil." Essentially, it's just a coincidence that upon your being arrested a civil (not criminal) action was taken against you to remove all the property which the state contends came from the proceeds of crime. Since it is a civil, not criminal court, you are not entitled to an attorney and you have to prove your innocence rather than have your guilt be proven.

    Actually, it's even goofier than that. The civil action isn't taken against the person whose property has been confiscated. That person is arrested on criminal charges. The civil action is against the property itself. Instead of suing John Doe, criminal defendant for having $1,000 in his car when he's stopped & searched; probable cause being the drug sniffing dog "alerted" it's handler, the DA's office sues the vehicle and the money for having drug residue on it ... NOTE: there is probably not a single piece of U.S. currency, including brand new, crisp $20 bills straight out of an ATM that does not have detectable (to a dog) drug residue transferred to it from being in the same bundle with old money.

    It's a load of shit, but also the current law in the U.S.

    Because drugs.

    Yep. But it's a profitable sideline for small law enforcement agencies. They can buy all sorts of groovy equipment with the forfeited money. Sometimes it's used to supplement salaries and provide "benefits". In North Carolina, Court Fines are supposed to benefit the school systems. But Civil Forfeitures are not "Court Fines". The cops get to keep the money in house. And they frequently are not required to account for it.

    998:

    Charlie Stross @ 836:

    "UNIVERSAL (that means draft women too), with NO exceptions"

    Do accident victims in persistent vegetative state get drafted? How about extremely disabled schizophrenics, people with non-communicative autism, and people with muscular dystrophy?

    I reckon about 5% of any population are incapable—physically or mentally—of serving in any capacity: literally incapable of understanding orders because they have no language capability, incapable of saluting because they can't raise their arms (or don't have arms, or …) and so on. And another 5-20% are useless for any obvious purpose. Example: son of a friend of mine who has CFS: bright kid, energetic when he's well, then immune system randomly fritzes out and he winds up in bed for a fortnight.

    Your conscript service is going to have to have its own internal system for ditching the people it doesn't want. Otherwise it's just going to generate overheads for itself.

    And then you're back to the problem of how to tell the difference between a severely disabled person (who may have communication difficulties too, making it hard for them to assert that they're unable to serve) and a rich kid whose daddy paid a tame doctor to certify that he has bone spurs.

    That was kind of my point about why the U.S. draft was fucked up from end of WWII to Vietnam. And why if the draft is brought back, it will STILL be fucked up.

    It could be LESS fucked up than it was IF it was made as near universal as humanly possible, but I don't think it would be.

    999:

    _Moz_ @ 837: One option would be to auction off draft exemptions to make that system explicit. It's all about making the rich pay, and if the number of exemptions is hard capped the competition could get quite intense. I can imagine a Trump type being willing to pay quite a lot not to have their kids out picking up rubbish for a couple of years. But you would also want something to prevent the Bush outcome ("drafted" but somehow didn't do anything he didn't want to do).

    That wouldn't work. A system where the rich could bid up the cost of a draft exemption to explicitly make military service compulsory for poor people while their kids are exempt would lead to riots in the streets. Hell, I would be rioting in the streets! And I'm not talking kids throwing rocks and beer bottles at the cops, I'm talking French Revolution, storm the Bastille and let the Red Mass take the Aristos! riots in the streets. It would be the end of democracy in the U.S.

    I presume you're referring to Bush Junior, aka "Shrub". He didn't get drafted. Like many others of his generation he found a position in the National Guard that virtually guaranteed he wouldn't be sent to Vietnam (the Pentagon didn't want the National Guard, so they didn't call them up for Vietnam). The questions about Bush's service were whether political influence jumped him ahead of others seeking to get in. He joined a "champagne" Air National Guard unit that included other rich men's sons, politician's sons & members of the Dallas Cowboy's football team, so if he got an unfair advantage, he wasn't the only one. The other question is whether he completed his service obligation and if not, why not and why didn't the National Guard do anything about it. It's notable that his questionable failure to report for duty coincided with the National Guard instituting a get tough drug testing policy.

    Some kind of reward system might also help, I'm not sure it should be political (or, bob help us, Heinleinesque), possibly more like a tax (ideally a sin tax?) or exemption from some other civic obligation... but the sort of thing we could exempt people from is likely the sort of thing the good ones will do anyway and we don't want to bias those systems against good people (jury duty, for example).

    Actually, I think Heinlein's system in Starship Troopers gets a bad rap. People concentrate on his ideas for the military and ignore that his "Federation" explicitly DOES NOT have a military government. I blame that stupid movie. Heinlein would have been furious.

    The government in Starship Troopers is a representative democracy much like that of the United States in the mid-20th century (when Heinlein was involved in politics as part of Upton Sinclair's socialist End Poverty in California movement during the 1930s).

    The difference between Heinlein's "Federation" and the United States Heinlein lived in is people in the Starship Troopers universe had to demonstrate they care enough to take responsible government seriously, that they put the good of society above their own personal interests before they could become "citizens". You cannot be a citizen until you have satisfactorily completed your service. Even the generals and admirals don't get to vote until after they retired.

    The story takes place in time of war, but it's clearly stated that previous generations (Juan Rico's father & grandfather's generations) earned their citizenship by arduous service when there was NOT a war going on. The "term of service" of such peace-time service was the same as the basic obligation in the "peace-time" U.S. military in the late 50s when Heinlein was writing his book, i.e. two years OR for the duration ... same as it was for men who joined the U.S. military just before WWII.

    1000:

    Dave P @ 847:

    "@757
    Oliver's show is essentially banned in the UK "
    "How does that even work when YouTube exists? Oliver has an official channel with clips, and invariably the full show goes up shortly after it's shown. Occasionally people play whack-a-mole but normally not."

    He's commented on air that they're not allowed to broadcast in the UK; I don't know what the boffins do to block access to YouTube. Ask a Brit, I'm just an ignorant USAian.

    Probably the same way it works when I try to watch certain French Rock 'n Roll videos on YouTube (Johnny Halladay & Jean-Jaques Goldman ... get your minds out of the gutter). I get a notice that says this video is not available in my country.

    1001:

    Dave P @ 856:

    "@766
    "Who is going to protect that airbase in Qatar from attack by "irregular" forces?""

    Qatar is not Afghanistan. The security environments are very different. From the Al Udeid Wiki article: "According to media reports in June 2017, the base hosted over 11,000 U.S. and U.S.-led anti-ISIL coalition forces and over 100 operational aircraft". It is the site of the Central Command Combined Air [and Space] Operations Center (CAOC), controlling all U.S. and coalition military air activity over the Southwest Asia area of operations. While it's theoretically possible a terror attack could succeed, this is not a soft target.

    "Short-range slow aircraft" - slow, yes, short range, no. The A-10 has a combat radius of 250nmi with nearly two hours loiter time. And really, how much faster than a speedboat does it need to be for this mission?

    A fixed site is more vulnerable than a mobile one. On the other hand, you have a 12,000 ft. runway that can handle anything up to and including B-52s - and sustain a much greater launch and recovery rate than a carrier; essentially unlimited fuel; and a much greater weapons storage capacity.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khobar_Towers_bombing

    1002:

    MSB @ 887:

    "The upshot of the U.S. Civil War was the United States ended up with the large standing army the founding fathers had wanted to avoid."

    And that would have been the precise moment to abolish (or rescind—or whatever you do with amendments) the second amendment, because it had become obsolete.

    I don't think it is obsolete. But it is being misapplied.

    1003:

    When outnumbered of course the fire team should surrender

    Everyone underestimates the effort involved in setting up a mortar position...

    Firstly, the mortar is about 35kg of kit; and each individual mortar round is about 4kg. Assuming you want a couple of minutes of firing, and the aim is to do actual damage, not just a symbolic pinprick, you’ll need at least three of them. It’s also “steam gunnery” - if you want a different target, you have to resight the mortars.

    You now need a firing point big enough for three or four mortars, and room to unpack the ammunition - because carrying it unpacked and fuzed is an invitation to... “rapid unplanned disassembly” of the vehicle on encountering a pothole. You don’t fire it from the back of a vehicle, because you want to actually hit what you aim at.

    So; you arrive, park up, and take ten minutes to set up the mortars and ready the (say) fifty rounds of ammunition each. They wait for their observers to signal that their desired target is present (because these are indirect fire weapons), and each fires over the course of several minutes.

    Ten to twelve people, between 750kg and a ton of military metalwork. That’s a tricky amount to insert and keep hidden for just a single attack; which is historically why terrorists and sabotage teams have chosen the “explosives and a timer” approach over recent decades. And also why, when things are looking twitchy, every fixed installation wanders around looking for potential mortar baseplates in range (or SAM firing points, or potential sniper / MMG positions) and then starts sending a patrol to visit them on a regular basis...

    1004:

    Charlie Stross @ 917:

    "Also what's their domestic automobile manufacturing like?"

    Glad you asked: Automobile manufacturing accounts for about 10% of Iran's GDP—they're one of the largest automobile manufacturers in Asia. While a chunk of it is partnerships with the likes of BMW and Citroen, there are domestic vehicle and engine parts manufacturers, including diesel trucks.

    So I'd say it's a hard "yes" to Iran being able to design and build something with equivalent power output to a 1940 Packard engine—and probably something a whole lot better.

    s for plywood … about 7% of Iran's land area consists of forest, and they're a major regional producer of hardwood and softwood.

    He asked about obsolete technology, so I answer with obsolete technology.

    (I keep having to repeat this: Iran is not an oil-exporting monocrop kleptocracy held together with dictator-brand duct tape like Iraq; it's the Persian empire, they beat off the Ottomans and the Mongols and the Romans and conquered as far as the gates of India, and while they've been having a bad century they're way better positioned to compete globally than any of the arab nations. There's a reason the Sauds are shit-scared of them.)

    You don't have to explain it to me. I'm on record that I think picking a war with Iran is a lose-lose proposition and picking one with Iran as Saudi Arabia's proxy is double-plus ungood stupid. I thought it was a stupid idea back in 1998 when Rumsfield, Wolfowitz and Cheney tried to convince Clinton to invade Iraq as a prelude to going after Iran. And it got even stupider when Cheney/Bush decided to invade Iraq in response to 9/11 (when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor did we invade Peru?).

    Trump is a bully with an alligator mouth and a hummingbird ass and the attention span of an Irish Setter. Stupid as he is, I don't think he's committed to supporting Bolton's desire to actually go to war Iran. It's all sound and fury signifying nothing. It has all the power of "Get those kids off my lawn!"

    What I don't understand is why Iran is provoking him instead of just ignoring him until another squirrel runs past and diverts his attention to someone else? Even less I understand why Iran seems intent on provoking the UK and the EU who appeared reluctant to join Trump in his stupidity.

    1005:

    "auction off draft exemptions"... That wouldn't work. ... would lead to riots in the streets.

    Yeah, but so what? The US has riots in the streets all the time and that does nothing for government policy that the government didn't already want to do. The Iraq war protests were large and vigorous. Keystone and Occupy have both been rioted against (by state agents) and I don't think Charlottesville made Trump more violent or more racist. Kent State didn't affect the war in Vietnam as far as I can tell, except maybe in that "very early beginning of a change of heart" sort of way.

    I suspect that in practice the cynicism and despair of the US proletariat would lead to a widespread attack of shrugging and quite a lot of "make them pay" sentiment.

    The draft itself might we lead to riots, but I suspect that unless they were explicitly pro-corporate, pro-white riots the violence from the state would be overwhelming. Kent State would likely be the inspiration, along with the various nasty things done to protesters since then and never forgetting the heavily militarised police forces in the US that enable them to do really vicious stuff easily. This isn't Boris and his two water cannon, this is military vehicles and weapons in the hands of neofascists who are accountable to no-one as long as they only kill proles, preferably coloured ones. I'm sure there are decent police forces in the US just as there are in Australia. But as is so often the case the other 90% give them a bad name. Even the kiwi cops struggle to avoid blatant racism, but since they have fewer weapons and less deadly ones they don't manage to kill nearly so many people.

    As Chumbawamba observed: It is a great thing that we have an unarmed police force in this country. It is perhaps an even greater thing that a force that is unarmed is able to shoot so many people

    1006:

    Like many others of his generation he found a position in the National Guard that virtually guaranteed he wouldn't be sent to Vietnam...

    Dubya? Hell, that was my dad.

    During his hitch someone appeared on the nightly news complaining about the National Guard and accusing the men in it of joining up just to get out of going to Vietnam. At the armory that weekend the Guardsmen were all saying, "Yeah. So?"

    Aside from the liberation of a grenade simulator (a large firecracker but more expensive because it's military) and subsequent misuse of it, as far as I know he and his friends dressed in green on weekends and did exactly fuck all for the duration of the war.

    1007:

    JBS @ 1004 Even less I understand why Iran seems intent on provoking the UK and the EU who appeared reluctant to join Trump in his stupidity. Because "Revolutionary Guard" ultra-hotheads, with a Divine Mission running really high on testosterone & their version of islam - a really deadly combination. Their tail appears ( NOTE: APPEARS ) to be wagging the Persian dog at the moment ... which does not bode well.

    1008:

    Everyone underestimates the effort involved in setting up a mortar position...

    Firstly, the mortar is about 35kg of kit; and each individual mortar round is about 4kg. Assuming you want a couple of minutes of firing, and the aim is to do actual damage, not just a symbolic pinprick, you’ll need at least three of them. It’s also “steam gunnery” - if you want a different target, you have to resight the mortars.

    You sound as if you've played this game! I've not but the theoretical questions are interesting.

    The limiting factor would almost certainly be personnel.

    I'd imagined the fire team acquiring a civilian vehicle that would blend in with local traffic for the insertion. (Stolen, bought with cash, whatever.) It might be that a cargo van would be better than a sedan; a Smart Car would be right out.

    I got curious and did some googling last night. The Iranian HM 15 appears generally similar to the British British L16 (except that the latter has a Wikipedia page). This size seems to provide a good balance between effectiveness and portability.

    Firing location is tricky, to say the least. Range is going to be important here; pretty much everyplace within a kilometer or so is too exposed. Two kilometers southwest could put them in Aurora Highlands - a residential neighborhood with any number of back yards, fences, patios, and obstructed sight lines. (Three clicks and you're getting on Arlington Ridge, which has all of this and twisty streets too.) Discovering who's routinely away from home during the day is a challenge but informing the residents beforehand would be counterproductive. Driveways would be sub-optimal for exposure reasons. How suitable is a typical patio as a mortar baseplate?

    It's unclear if the Pentagon is routinely covered by projectile tracking radar - but wouldn't you? - so planning should assume that armed response is coming to the launch site as soon as the first projectile is in flight and the responders can get themselves moving.

    1009:

    Er, no. The UK is still sitting on a large pot of money paid by Iran for military equipment during the Shah's reign, not delivered when Khomeini took over, and is still attempting both not to pay a realistic interest in it and not to pay it back at all, using a variety of excuses. And you know perfectly well that the UK also started this current episode by helping the USA enforce its sanctions on Iran by seizing a tanker in the Straits of Hercules, using a legally dubious to bogus argument as a figleaf.

    Many, perhaps most and perhaps the leadership, of the Revolutionary Guards ARE fanatical hotheads, but that is NOT how this started. We (the UK) started it.

    1010:

    That sort of thing has been done fairly often by irregular forces, and it's easy to chuck a single round - at, say, No. 10, Downing Street. Or used to be until they upgraded its defences.

    Assuming modern mortars break down for transport, a dozen people each carrying 25 Kg in serious rucksacs or large, heavy suitcases isn't rare but isn't invisible on a busy street, either. However, there are plenty of other circumstances where such a group could vanish or infiltrate piecemeal. I use 25 Kg because it can be carried without looking unusually heavy - and (435+404)/12 is 25.

    1011:

    ..All to drop 4 bombs on a runway and get one hit.

    21 bombs, IIRC...

    OK. You got me to go back and find it in the documentary.

    7 refuelings.

    21 bombs. 1000 pounds each. 1 hit runway. Which kept is from being used by fast jets per the commentary.

    Sqn Ldr Martin Withers DFC - Vulcan Pilot

    Name of it is "Last flight of the Vulcan Bomber" 2015 They talk about that raid about 44 minutes in.

    1013:

    US Civil Forfeiture struct down mostly by Supreme Court in February of this year when it is excessive.

    Unanimous decision.

    BUT, as I mentioned above, they said it was OK if not excessive. And then didn't define excessive. So we get another 10 years of legal fights or more to nail that jello to the wall.

    They did say taking a $42,000 Land Rover over a $400 drug deal was excessive but past that it is still fuzzy.

    https://www.npr.org/2019/02/20/696360090/supreme-court-limits-civil-asset-forfeiture-rules-excessive-fines-apply-to-state

    1014:

    Hmm.

    I note with interest that development of the JP233 Low Altitude Airfield Attack System in the UK began in 1977, with the USAF as primary customer … but the USAF pulled out in 1982; nevertheless, the UK paid for the system, unlike most joint defense programs which get scrapped when the primary (deep pocket) partner cancels. And JP233, although primarily for Tornado, could be bolted onto a Harrier or Jaguar as well.

    I can't possibly imagine why in the wake of the Black Buck raids, with the retirement of Vulcan looming due to airframe fatigue, HM government wanted a fine-tuned anti-airfield can-opener that could be hung off a Harrier at a pinch, can you?

    1015:

    What I don't understand is why Iran is provoking him instead of just ignoring him until another squirrel runs past and diverts his attention to someone else? Even less I understand why Iran seems intent on provoking the UK and the EU who appeared reluctant to join Trump in his stupidity.

    Because Iran, population 70-80M, is as much a Borg that speaks with one voice as, say, the UK or USA—it's a complex semi-democracy with a bunch of competing state institutions, a miniature state-within-a-state in the shape of the Revolutionary Guard, and rival political factions.

    Some of them want to make nice and live a quiet life, others think they can get a better deal by talking tough, and they have periodic spy scares directed at US/UK infiltration (much like the successive Red scares in the USA, only with rather more justification because the USA and UK have a historical track record for having overthrown Iranian governments within living memory).

    So we're listening to a cacophony but our domestic narrative assumes it's a single voice.

    1016:

    and they have periodic spy scares directed at US/UK infiltration

    Not to mention actual acts of war against them - the UK piracy recently, the cyber attack on their uranium enrichment facilities, the economic war being waged against them right this second, the wholesale theft of fish from their territorial waters, the periodic "accidental" intrusions by various military forces some of whom own and operate their own satellite positions systems so should know exactly where they are. Stuff like that could perhaps incline some people towards a little bit of hitting back.

    You know, the way the UK decided to get all uppity when Argentina wanted the Malvinas back, or the US got a bit grumpy when Japan made a quick raid on the Kingdom of Hawai'i a while ago.

    1017:

    As you say. And add in the murders of nuclear scientists that were perpetrated by Israel, according to the USA, who were therefore at least accessories.

    http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/02/08/10354553-israel-teams-with-terror-group-to-kill-irans-nuclear-scientists-us-officials-tell-nbc-news

    1018:

    [sarcasm]

    Perhaps everything would be much calmer if Iran invested in a bigger navy and sent a carrier group or two to regularly patrol the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea. After all, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

    [/sarcasm]

    1019:

    We always seem to see nuance in ourselves and the complexities of the things around us, while looking at the other guy as a caricature, a simplistic automaton instantiating our prejudices. An aspect of alterity I guess - the reduction of the alien. Contrast the experience we all (presumably) have in our early years when we realise that all the complexity we perceive and understand is repeated again in unknowable combinations in every person we pass in the street, every car driving by, millions of times across the world. That is the “whoa” of gaining perspective. At least I assume everyone gets that at some point... introspection is not a great yardstick in a general sense.

    1020:

    Elderly Cynic @ 925: "the Wee Fishwife"

    And for the benefit of those of us not involved in the UK's political fray, "the Wee Fishwife" would be?

    1021:

    The Right Honourable Nicola Sturgeon MSP, First Minister of Scotland.

    (Who is "wee", but not a fishwife, IMO; she's highly articulate, literate, a lawyer by training, and manages to show up all the English political leaders in a very bad light simply by being five years into her term in office and not having fucked things up.)

    1022:

    _Moz_ @ 936: Worth noting that one important factor here is "minimum crew at risk per missile launch", especially in an "exhaust enemy ammunition" scenario, where the Iranians seem to have got it down to approximately one person and $30k-$50k worth of boat. Give or take, an RIB with two manually guided missiles might work better with three crew while some of the bigger boats might give you 8 missiles that can launch in 60s but only need 3-4 crew.

    Even if it takes 100 boats/300 missiles to severely damage a carrier and few of the support vessels, the equation ends up being $10M in boats and 500 men lost on Iran's side vs tens of thousands of men and billions of dollars in boats. Iran can afford to lose that several times over because the US just doesn't have that many carrier fleets available. It's also pretty easy to build or buy RIBs in just about any quantity. And you don't have to missile-proof the boat if you intend to launch exactly two missiles off it then discard it. I suspect two guys with a stick welder and some cheap steel could do the conversion in a day.

    Iran has lots of experience with asymmetric warfare against the US, and has had lots of time to prepare. They may even have prepped teams to hit targets at some distance from Iran. Israel, France, the US and USSR/Russia have all been caught doing that stuff... there's a significant difference between defending your president against a lone nut with a rifle and a state-operated assassination team.

    I dunno 'bout all that, but if I was running the USN, I wouldn't have the aircraft carriers IN the Straits of Hormuz. I'd have my carrier support group operating a fair bit away over the horizon out somewhere in the Indian Ocean. If I can figure that out, I expect the USN can as well.

    What kind of sea range do these "one time use" missile boats have? How close do they have to get to launch their missiles? How many of those missiles would have to hit to actually SINK an aircraft carrier? Could they operate 350+ nautical miles from shore?

    Aircraft carriers are kind of big, with lots of internal compartmentalization. The ones sunk by torpedo in WWII usually took multiple torpedoes ... and torpedoes have much larger warheads than the missiles you could launch from a jumped up fishing boat.

    I've heard it said that most militaries devote most of their planning to winning the last war they fought. Maybe not so bad for the USN who haven't fought a carrier war since WWII where the Japanese had carriers of their own and kamikazes. The USN got pretty good at stopping the kamikaze threat by shooting them down before they got into range. The same tactic would probably be used against your "one time use" missile boats.

    I don't think the Ayatollahs of Iran would want to make it personal by sending a hit team after the President of the United States. The U.S. might retaliate in kind.

    1023:

    Scott Sanford @ 941: On the other hand, a thoughtful country might see the usefulness of having a handful of sleepers waiting to see how many mortar rounds they could drop onto the Pentagon before anyone arrives to stop them. (Checking, I find a 15 round per minute fire rate and three person crew quoted for the British L16 81mm mortar, which I'll assume is typical.) When outnumbered of course the fire team should surrender, having worn full uniform to the event so as to clearly establish themselves as soldiers rather than criminals.

    Unless they openly wore their uniforms ALL the time they'd still be eligible for summary execution; quick drum-head tribunal & shot as spies.

    I can see it now. Iran's Revolutionary Guards in full regalia going through customs at JFK.

         Q: Your purpose in visiting the USA?
         A: Tourism.

    1024:

    Actually, nor mine! Yes, I agree she is by far the most competent political leader we have, followed by Sadiq Khan.

    But someone used that expression on this blog, and it's a wonderfully apt reference to her speaking style.

    1025:

    I don't think the Ayatollahs of Iran would want to make it personal by sending a hit team after the President of the United States. The U.S. might retaliate in kind.

    Too late.

    1026:

    Nah. Illegal entry to the USA is as trivial as to the UK. Just hire or buy a gin palace, turn up at an unstaffed harbour, disembark the soldiers and go away again. Or, more expensively and problematically, do the same with a private jet.

    1027:

    Not wanting to drag up the ghosts of discussions past, but you may not be aware that in NI (and I would suspect Scotland too), "fishwife" does not merely refer to speaking style but also carries connotations of "not saying anything worth listening too", as well as implying low social status.

    1028:

    David L @ 951:

    "And then you get a right angle corner"

    A few years ago I tried out an app to rate my driving. The route I took home from the airport had 2 of those. It really downgraded me for not stopping at the corners. The speed limits at one was 45mph and the other 35mph.

    Oh, well. I deleted the app.

    I got an app like that when I got an iPhone (along with a little module that plugs into the car). Every other week it tells me my driving score is lower than it should be because I've braked too hard. The algorithm doesn't seem to understand not running over idiots when they carelessly walk out in front of you without looking to see if there's any traffic. I just ignore that part of it, because the other information it gives me is useful.

    1029:

    Warren loses because she is female...

    While I will vote for Warren in the general election if she's the Democratic candidate, any bets I place will be against her. I'm a believer in the jinx on Democratic presidential candidates from the US northeastern urban corridor. None of them have won since Kennedy and it is arguable that Johnson, the VP candidate who was the Senate majority leader from Texas, delivered just enough southern states to put Kennedy over.

    I don't try to attribute reasons to it. A history/political science professor I know says it's not a jinx, it's that the rest of the country has a strong dislike for the urban corridor for various reasons, and it carries over into the voting.

    The same thing doesn't seem to happen to Republican candidates.

    1030:

    Greg Tingey @ 955: EC
    IIRC the USA has never actually signed up to the Geneva Accords
    So, if they are feeling nasty, they don't .... far, far too often in my opinion.

    The U.S. has "signed" on to most of them. A few of the more recent ones haven't been ratified by Congress, but the U.S. complies with even those, they're just not part of the "law of the land" as such.

    The attitude within the United States military is we don't want our guys committing war crimes against an enemy, because that gives the enemy an excuse to commit war crimes against out guys. "Nazis and North Koreans and North Vietnam do that kind of shit! We're AMERICANS!!! We're better than that. We have to be the good guys."

    I know we're not always successful living up to those ideals, but they are the ideals taught every American soldier ... whether they remember them or not once they reach the battlefield.

    That's why the Cheney/Bush administration's gyrations around "enhanced interrogations" & "unlawful combatants" caused such an uproar here.

    Plus, if you are an ENLISTED soldier, you better keep in mind who was actually punished when the shit came down about Abu Graib. It won't the fuckin' generals & the civilians at the Pentagon! It was the E6 squad leader and the E5s, E4s and PFCs in his squad who went to jail for following unlawful orders. The CIA contractors who gave those unlawful orders skated.

    1031:

    Charlie Stross @ 971: I'd happily say that Hilary Rodham Clinton's politics are not to my taste—far too right wing—but she'd still have been a vastly better POTUS than Trump ...

    Dennis Rodman would "have been a vastly better POTUS than Trump".

    George W Bush was "a vastly better POTUS than Trump", and I think by now y'all know what I think about "shrub" ... Try not to set the bar too high.

    1032:

    Iran might either maintain a safe house or use Airbnb for just such a contingency - and the Pentagon isn't the only reasonable target. The idea that someone is going to drive a van around looking for a mortar site is pretty primitive.

    1033:

    I was not. Thank you.

    1034:

    Erwin @ 990: Then, I looked at polling for Biden and Warren and Harris against Trump...and came to the conclusion that being female costs about 6-8 percentage points from misogyny. Not necessarily overt - more along the likes of relatively subtle double standards. Men are forgiven. Women are punished.

    Based on what I know about him right now, I could vote for Biden if he's the nominee, but Warren is my preferred candidate. Bernie I'm not so sure of. It's not really him, it's his supporters who creep me out.

    1035:

    Doesn't it worry you that some of the candidates are going to be really OLD by the time their first term ends ?

    In my book, age would relegate both Bernie, Biden and Warren to the VP slot...

    1036:

    Charlie @ 1021 Onlyn because she was stopped by the (actuality? Threat? ) of court action if she was really determined to push one of her partie's really nast policies through - you know which one I mean ....

    EC I can't stand Kahn - he's fucked-over London's transport, even after the mess left by BOZO the clown. And he is looking set to steal about £10k woth of my property in 2021, because he's a shit. He's also got religion - just like Blair, shudder. If you want a competent politiciian, try K Starmer

    1037:

    "...it tells me my driving score is lower than it should be because I've braked too hard. The algorithm doesn't seem to understand not running over idiots when they carelessly walk out in front of you without looking to see if there's any traffic. I just ignore that part of it"

    Assuming it has been coded by someone who has actually studied driving rather than just some nesh git doing it to nag at people (which is all too likely, really, but...), then:

    It understands just fine, and the point it's trying to make is that you should have clocked the divvy earlier and backed off the throttle/eased closer to the centre of the road to give them more clearance, so that when they did step out you didn't need to take further reactive evasive action.

    I regard unplanned hard braking as an indication that I have failed at anticipation: if I have to brake hard, I must have done something wrong, otherwise I wouldn't have had to brake. It's pretty much never possible to review the event afterwards and still honestly conclude that I really did have absolutely no fucking clue that anything was going to happen. Replaying what I saw and what was going through my head at that moment, it always turns out that I did know, but somehow discounted the indication for some reason (usually psychological and discreditable) to below the level of response. It is then that an opportunity to learn arises.

    Of course it is important to carry out the review at the time, while all the visual details and the thoughts that accompanied them are still fresh in short-term memory and available for reprocessing. It does seem kind of pointless to have a machine that can't capture any of that in the first place tell you a few days later, baldly, that dV/dt exceeded threshold at some point in the week.

    I wonder if it's a Brit thing to get nerdy about driving safety because we don't have guns to get nerdy over the safety of, but we do have a crowded island with a lot of funky roads. I can think of at least three respected institutions off the top of my head that provide education, courses etc. both to the public and to the high-end police driving units (with the same content and often with officers or ex-officers instructing).

    Note that an overseas perspective may well miss these organisations entirely and pick up on the nesh gits (see first para) who have completely taken over the "road safety" banner as far as the media are concerned: these are people who, despite having passed their test, have never learned anything and still do not fundamentally have a fucking clue what they are doing when they get behind the wheel. They therefore react to absolutely everything associated with roads with fear and incomprehension, and their own failure rate suffers accordingly, leading to a positive feedback situation.

    The aforementioned high-end instructors approach the general public with the general aim of breaking the feedback loop with rational instruction. It is a laudable aim but it tends not to get anywhere much for reasons like inarsability, cherished ignorance, expense, stuffy old fat white git exclusivity, etc.

    1038:

    "religion - just like Blair"

    Ah, so that would be the kind of religion that considers that a valid response to the contradiction between the Gospels and the Iraq war policy consists of... a copy of the fucking dodgy dossier.

    Which is an even more ludicrous document than it's known as. Apparently a sure sign that Saddam is a worthy target is that he's got a bigger palace than Liz.

    1039:

    While it's fair to say that in the vast majority of cases you are correct, there are of course exceptions.

    Friend of my parents hit a child, even though they were travelling at low speed (sub 30 mph): cars parked on either side, no room to manoeuvre, child small enough not to be visible past parked vehicles, ran between cars within a few feet of the moving vehicle, thud.

    (Fortunately the child survived, but they were hospitalized. Driver pretty much stopped driving after this as they became so nervous and unsure behind the wheel.)

    1040:

    Martin @ 1003:

    "When outnumbered of course the fire team should surrender"

    Everyone underestimates the effort involved in setting up a mortar position...

    Firstly, the mortar is about 35kg of kit; and each individual mortar round is about 4kg. Assuming you want a couple of minutes of firing, and the aim is to do actual damage, not just a symbolic pinprick, you’ll need at least three of them. It’s also “steam gunnery” - if you want a different target, you have to resight the mortars.

    You now need a firing point big enough for three or four mortars, and room to unpack the ammunition - because carrying it unpacked and fuzed is an invitation to... “rapid unplanned disassembly” of the vehicle on encountering a pothole. You don’t fire it from the back of a vehicle, because you want to actually hit what you aim at.

    So; you arrive, park up, and take ten minutes to set up the mortars and ready the (say) fifty rounds of ammunition each. They wait for their observers to signal that their desired target is present (because these are indirect fire weapons), and each fires over the course of several minutes.

    Ten to twelve people, between 750kg and a ton of military metalwork. That’s a tricky amount to insert and keep hidden for just a single attack; which is historically why terrorists and sabotage teams have chosen the “explosives and a timer” approach over recent decades. And also why, when things are looking twitchy, every fixed installation wanders around looking for potential mortar baseplates in range (or SAM firing points, or potential sniper / MMG positions) and then starts sending a patrol to visit them on a regular basis...

    If you didn't care about keeping the vehicles after, you could probably pull it off using reinforced standard U.S. Cargo Vans with sunroofs installed. All of the prep work would take place inside a van where it's out of sight from nosy strangers.

    You're not really going to have time for the crews to fire off 50 rounds apiece. Probably should plan on doing a 10 round stonk (10 rounds per tube), but with modified cargo vans, you could use heavy mortars.

    Wouldn't have to park them side to side. In fact you would want to give them a slight separation. You could easily park them in different rows in a Walmart parking lot and have them close enough to be an effective battery. This might work VERY well if you acquired different models of vans.

    Six mortars in a mortar platoon, so you'd need 7 vans (one for each tube, one for the ammo - NOT prefused) + plus a getaway vehicle that wouldn't draw undue attention.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tQD5k48QTU

    1041:

    JBS @1001: You really think we didn't learn anything from the tragedy of Khobar Towers? How many successful attacks have there been on DOD facilities since then (excluding Afghanistan, the whole of which I consider "Indian territory")? Note also that the Khobar Towers attack took place in 1996, when we were still discovering what an enemy we'd created in Al Qaeda and company.

    The only successful terror attack on a DOD installation since then was that of MAJ Nadal Hassan at Fort Hood in 2009. This was an insider attack by a self-radicalized soldier, a very different threat from the VBIED used on Khobar Towers.

    As you might imagine, force protection has become an ongoing emphasis for operations. I don't discount that an attack on Al Udeid could be successful, but it won't be a cake walk.

    1042:

    _Moz_ @ 1005:

    "auction off draft exemptions ... That wouldn't work. ... would lead to riots in the streets."

    Yeah, but so what? The US has riots in the streets all the time and that does nothing for government policy that the government didn't already want to do. The Iraq war protests were large and vigorous. Keystone and Occupy have both been rioted against (by state agents) and I don't think Charlottesville made Trump more violent or more racist. Kent State didn't affect the war in Vietnam as far as I can tell, except maybe in that "very early beginning of a change of heart" sort of way.

    You missed the part about NOT "kids throwing rocks and beer bottles at the cops, I'm talking French Revolution, storm the Bastille and let the Red Mass take the Aristos!" rioting

    There is a quantitative as well as a qualitative difference.

    The "Iraq war protests" were "large and vigorous" ... but they were not riots. I was there, I saw that with my own eyes.

    "Charlottesville" was not a riot. The demonstrations that preceded the Kent State killings were not a riot, although there is some evidence that an FBI agent provocateur did try to incite one.

    1043:

    "Trump is basically Emperor Nero with the brakes off" is unfair to Trump. Not that he deserves fairness, but Nero was worse.

    I suppose you could claim that Trump is more worse than the average US citizen than Nero was than the average Roman citizen. That's probably valid.

    OTOH, Nero did not play the violin, which hadn't been invented at the time. He did play the Lute (reportedly extremely poorly...so poorly that he had to have armed soldiers drag people to his performances), but there's no evidence that he was playing the Lute while Rome burned. (He was out at his country villa...though I don't know whether he was there when the fires started.)

    1044:

    @1035: "In my book, age would relegate both Bernie, Biden and Warren to the VP slot..."

    The Orange Shitgibbon is 73 years old, not exactly a spring chicken either.

    I agree that Biden and Sanders are too old for the office; Warren is on the margin. That's one of the reasons why I'm leaning toward Harris; plus I'm SURE she can take it to DT during debates. I'd like Buttigieg as VP, but the headwinds with a female of color + gay guy might be too strong.

    1045:

    Scott Sanford @ 1006:

    "Like many others of his generation he found a position in the National Guard that virtually guaranteed he wouldn't be sent to Vietnam..."

    Dubya? Hell, that was my dad.

    During his hitch someone appeared on the nightly news complaining about the National Guard and accusing the men in it of joining up just to get out of going to Vietnam. At the armory that weekend the Guardsmen were all saying, "Yeah. So?"

    When I joined the National Guard in 1975 (all volunteer army, no draft) there were still members serving who had joined to avoid Vietnam. I'm not criticizing them for it. I'm not criticizing GWB for joining to avoid Vietnam. I'm questioning how he came to the top of the list so quickly when there were others waiting for an opening and praying their number wouldn't come up before they got in.

    Aside from the liberation of a grenade simulator (a large firecracker but more expensive because it's military) and subsequent misuse of it, as far as I know he and his friends dressed in green on weekends and did exactly fuck all for the duration of the war.

    I am intimately familiar with grenade simulators. I have the permanent hearing damage to prove it. Your father and his friends did exactly what the Pentagon wanted them to do, no more, no less. The main difference about today's National Guard is that sometime after the draft ended, the Pentagon Brass realized their all volunteer force wouldn't be large enough and since Congress wouldn't let them abolish the National Guard (the real meaning of that pesky Second Amendment), they'd better integrate those resources before the "fit hit the shan".

    1046:

    Charlie Stross @ 1021: The Right Honourable Nicola Sturgeon MSP, First Minister of Scotland.

    (Who is "wee", but not a fishwife, IMO; she's highly articulate, literate, a lawyer by training, and manages to show up all the English political leaders in a very bad light simply by being five years into her term in office and not having fucked things up.)

    Ok, thanks. I can see where the surname "Sturgeon" might have influenced the nick-name.

    1047:

    Ok, I'm at the point where I do not believe you.

    A feminist (self-proclaimed?) who found Trumpolini palatable?

    You wrote: Other than coastal elites - how do you describe a mostly minority population with median income > 200k and prescriptions for the Midwest that make Republicans look like bleeding hearts? --- end

    Ok Where'd you get that, the Daily Stormer? Dimbulb (Brightbart)? That isn't a lie - that's where you know something is false - as much as pure pulled it out of the air bullshit. 36% of the ENTIRE US POPULATION lives on the east coast, and I guarantee that more than half earn less than median income.

    I'm calling you on this. Moderators, sorry, but this is completely garbage.

    1048:

    Poul-Henning Kamp @ 1035: Doesn't it worry you that some of the candidates are going to be really OLD by the time their first term ends ?

    Not since I realized I'm getting old myself.

    1049:

    On the one hand, when the National Guard showed up at the Democratic convention in Chicago in '68 - yes, I was there, with my first wife, what we did instead of a honeymoon - we were all glad. We knew they'd joined to avoid being sent over, and a lot of them were on our side, and weren't going to attack us.[1]

    On the other hand, you missed where the Shrub[2] went AWOL for about a year, year and a half from TANG. He, and his whole group, were chickenhawks.[3]

  • As opposed to the pigs. Note that even in the streets, we were distinguishing between the ordinary cops, trying to do their jobs, and the riot pigs, in their baby blues, who were trying to bust heads. The federal report, months later, called it, officially, a "police riot", and noted Daley (sr) had literally given them a St. Crispin's Day speech before sending them after us.
  • Oh, how I miss Molly Ivins (who coined "Shrub").
  • US usage: to quote Phil Ochs (who I miss badly), "Oh, I hate Cho En Lai and I hope he dies, But one thing you've gotta see: Someone's gotta go over there and that someone isn't me.
    • Draft Dodger Rag
  • 1050:

    Pigeon @ 1037: I regard unplanned hard braking as an indication that I have failed at anticipation: if I have to brake hard, I must have done something wrong, otherwise I wouldn't have had to brake.

    OTOH, I regard it as proof that defensive driving works. You can't anticipate everything. You can adopt driving habits that give you a fighting chance against the idiots.

    1051:

    Hmm, take an older tanker, put cannon and mortors on it, add a landing pad for a few helicopters, and a way to launch something the size of a PT boat, and have half a dozen on board, and flag it and send it to the Gulf....

    1052:

    "Might retaliate in kind"?

    Esp. with Trumpolini in charge, I've got a fiver here that says they're already trying it.

    Or did you mean like trying to get an exploding cigar to Castro...?

    1053:

    "The rest of the country"? So, two thirds hates one third?

    Couldn't possibly have to do with gerrymandering out the wazoo, and unConstitutionally throwing people in the tens and hundreds of thousands off the voting rolls, or even sending them illegal letters telling them to use the wrong polling places, could it?

    1054:

    I want Warren, only because Bernie's too old.

    And thanks for telling me that I, personally, creep you out.

    1055:

    Narrow streets, and kids running out. My son got hit that way, went to ER, sent back. My father did his best to avoid a kid at dusk, and he and several co-workers went to the hospital after he hit the phone poll.

    ON THE OTHER HAND, I am sorely tempted to have a bumper sticker made - a takeoff on the obnoxious "I speed up to run down small, furry animals" - to say "I speed up to run down phoneaholics who walk into traffic without looking".

    1056:

    If you didn't care about keeping the vehicles after, you could probably pull it off using reinforced standard U.S. Cargo Vans with sunroofs installed.

    That's more or less what the Provisional IRA did during the 1991 Downing Street mortar attack. Difference is: they cut holes in the top of the van (singular) and covered it with a thin skin, and they used Mark 10 home-made mortars (the Barrack Buster).

    I'm pretty sure a state-level actor like the Iranian Republican Guard would be able to make something much more accurate and deadly, but it's worth noting that the Mark 10 could be made using readily available civilian supplies (plus the explosives).

    In fact, a state level actor able to deploy 12+ specialists into the USA could probably deploy something far more sophisticated, even if they couldn't smuggle military-spec artillery across the border (spoiler: I suspect they probably could).

    1057:

    I was at several anti-Iraq War demonstrations. There were NO riots. Period.

    Kent State... the National Guard kids SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CARRYING LOADED RIFLES. There was NO RIOT. There was an asshole who was going to Put Down these unamurkan hippies.

    (And back in the early nineties, on usenet, I had a net.friend who had a friend who was one of the dead.)

    1058:

    Something as simple as a Mark 10 would fall foul of a simple precaution in the US: ammonium nitrate sales are monitored, due to the Oklahoma City bombing. It's not widely used as a fertilizer, so you've got to radicalize someone who normally uses it to get access to it.

    More to the point, Russia's figured out that they can do the political equivalent of nuking DC by suborning the Republican party, so why bother with 1970s-level violent attacks, when you can do it elegantly?

    As an aside, it's worth remembering that the Chinese empires (notably the Ming) had basically militia/national guard level militaries, but they did okay by bribing and suborning their opponents, as often (or more) than beating them in stand-up fights. The strategy of confronting a superior military force by messing with their leaders and supporters really is centuries old. I'm sure the crusty old beards in the audience can think of many times when the Brits did that with all the border tribes, especially around the Raj. Possibly some of them may even remember this happening with the Roman Empire...

    1059:

    Russia's figured out that they can do the political equivalent of nuking DC by suborning the Republican party, so why bother with 1970s-level violent attacks, when you can do it elegantly?

    You know what a false flag operation is, right?

    The most convincing kind is when you play a game of "let's you and him fight" by arming hot-heads in group A to go after group B while making them believe you're members of group A too (while in fact you're group C, who are an enemy of both).

    Playing games with voting machines, Facebook targeted ads, and elections, is all very well, but the amount of fear and loathing you can generate with a terrorist outrage seemingly or actually perpetrated by someone else is immense.

    Yes, blowback is a risk. But the US intel community's ability to understand foreign motivations is ridiculously stunted—American exceptionalism is indoctrinated from birth, most Americans have no grasp of foreign languages never mind cultures and outlook, and those who do have to figure out a way to escalate their insights up through a ladder of committees staffed by politically-connected bureaucrats in order to get any attention.

    (Example: all the pieces were available to US Naval Intelligence to warn about the impending Pearl Harbour attack, but somehow it never quite got put together: there was a dangerous complacency, not to mention that anti-Japanese prejudice made many officers discount the threat.)

    1060:

    Re; Elect-ability. What Trumps election demonstrates (beyond "The voting machines are probably rigged") is that the qualities of the candidate do not matter, because the press is going to bias their coverage to whatever degree is required to get a close race. Pick a boring-white-guy-centrist, and it wont matter what he polls at now, the press is going to go after him with every trick in the book until they have a close race to report on.

    This is, after all, the press that ignored a pile of juicy scandals a mile high in order to report on the Email nothing-burger, because honest reporting would have resulted in a very boring blow-out of an election.

    They are going to do that again. So pick the candidate you like for the job. Dont meta-game. The election is going to be as close to a coin toss as the press can manage, regardless. If the economy blows up in Trumps face, that will be "Not that close", but in that case, any candidate with a D will win anyway, so meta concerns, still irrelevant.

    1061:

    The problem with this scenario is that when the blowback is all the legal crazies in SPECWAR doing what they love to do, even a small risk has disproportionately huge consequences.

    For example, this article debunking some mass shooter myths, like the notion that they're getting more common. I agree that reality is more nuanced. But assuming this is true...you don't have to radicalize a monster as a false flag operation, because that runs you a non-zero risk of RANGER SMASH! demolishing the building you're in at 3 AM a few weeks later.

    Instead, you simply set up a system to generate propaganda, misinformation, and to heighten fears and partisan tensions, and then you wait. Shootings happen fairly randomly, but when one pops up, you deploy your Psyops and reap most of the rewards of an actual false flag operation with none of the risks. By the time a year later that your influence has been discovered, you've disappeared. But the mechanism is still there, waiting for the next mass shooter.

    Heck, even the Bushies knew this. I very seriously doubt they conspired to cause 9/11, but they did the simpler thing of having systems in place to exploit a terrorist attack on the US if one happened. And it did, and they went for it, and some of them got rich, some got powerful, and hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars got wasted.

    1062:

    Congratulations sir, you have just re-invented https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Atlantic_Conveyor , which did not end well for those aboard.

    1063:

    Thinking about it, one of the other things to watch out for is that the story of American exceptionalism/cluelessness may also be a carefully spread myth.

    The problem with this story is that when you look at activity charts, you see that NSA seems to be doing as much "stuff" as Russia, China, and other actors. Possibly combined. Yet in the Anglophone media we rarely hear about what NSA is actually doing online.

    The simplest explanation seems to be that the US is doing to the nonanglophone world what the non anglophone world is doing to the US, up to and including false flag operations. However, since we're "stupid" about the rest of the world, obviously there's a layer of plausible deniability built in. Heck, any American knows that we don't do stuff like that. There's whole books, vetted by the CIA and written by former operatives, on how many mistakes we've made and their consequences.

    Yet there are those activity graphs that suggest that the reality is different than what we read. Worth thinking about.

    1064:

    Dave P @ 1041: JBS @1001: You really think we didn't learn anything from the tragedy of Khobar Towers? How many successful attacks have there been on DOD facilities since then (excluding Afghanistan, the whole of which I consider "Indian territory")? Note also that the Khobar Towers attack took place in 1996, when we were still discovering what an enemy we'd created in Al Qaeda and company.

    I'm sure we did learn lessons, but the only way to find out whether they were the lessons we needed to learn is when we find out they weren't the right lessons. We learned lessons from the 1983 Marine Corps Barracks bombing in Lebanon. Learning those lessons didn't keep us from having to learn new lessons at Kobar Towers in 1996. And more new lessons from the bombing of the American Embassies in Kenya & Tanzania. And then 9/11 happened.

    As you might imagine, force protection has become an ongoing emphasis for operations. I don't discount that an attack on Al Udeid could be successful, but it won't be a cake walk.

    I don't have to imagine force protection, I've done force protection. I never said it would be easy for someone to take out Al Udeid, just that it could be done. No matter how hard you make it for an enemy to attack you, if they're dedicated enough they will persist whether it's a cake walk or not. Suicide Jihadis don't care about cake.

    What do you do then?

    1065:

    you simply set up a system to generate propaganda, misinformation, and to heighten fears and partisan tensions, and then you wait.

    Yep. It's so commonplace these days there's a name for it: stochastic terrorism. (And yes, Donald Trump kinda-sorta specializes in it.)

    1066:

    @1064: The same thing we do every night, Pinky: try to take over the world.

    1067:

    @1064: So what, then - give up on fixed bases? Nothing is invulnerable. You say you've done force protection; so have I. You minimize the threats and try to be ready to react to the thing you haven't predicted.

    1068:

    Charlie @1059: "[T[he US intel community's ability to understand foreign motivations is ridiculously stunted—American exceptionalism is indoctrinated from birth, most Americans have no grasp of foreign languages never mind cultures and outlook, and those who do have to figure out a way to escalate their insights up through a ladder of committees staffed by politically-connected bureaucrats in order to get any attention."

    Heteromeles @1063: "Thinking about it, one of the other things to watch out for is that the story of American exceptionalism/cluelessness may also be a carefully spread myth. The problem with this story is that when you look at activity charts, you see that NSA seems to be doing as much "stuff" as Russia, China, and other actors. Possibly combined. Yet in the Anglophone media we rarely hear about what NSA is actually doing online."

    Congratulations. You two have bracketed the cliché critiques of U.S. intelligence: either we're a bunch of bumblers with no idea, or we're a super-competent system of manipulators. Let me know if y'all decide which is which.

    1069:

    whitroth @ 741: Nofolk, biggest? Um, that'd be a nope.
    Norfolk Naval Base, approx 3400 acres.
    Fort Hood, TX: 214,000 acres.

    Yes, really.

    Myself @ 915: I believe I did specify Naval Base ... I could be mistaken, but the last time I was at Fort Hood, it was still an active Army Base, located inland and NOT hovering around at an elevation of approximately 10' MSL. A 10' sea rise probably wouldn't do that much short term damage to Fort Hood.

    Ran across it looking for something else. I did write "military base", not naval base. I apologize for that. You were right & I was wrong.

    1070:

    I suspect the answer is six of one, half a dozen of the other: it's always context-dependent, so there will be some threats that are discounted (see the current administration's reluctance to admit that white supremacism is a driver of domestic terrorism, or the GWB administration's lax attitude to the Middle East prior to 9/11) while others are over-emphasized (paranoia about the Middle East now).

    To some extent the problem is the entrenched bureaucratic promotion ladder: you don't earn promotion by voicing unpopular opinions, so it takes a very long time for different/new/alarming voices to make themselves heard higher up the ladder.

    1071:

    whitroth @ 1049: On the other hand, you missed where the Shrub[2] went AWOL for about a year, year and a half from TANG. He, and his whole group, were chickenhawks.

    I don't think I missed that. @999: I wrote there were two questions about George W in the National Guard
    1. Did political influence advance him ahead of more qualified candidates already on the waiting list ...
    2. Did he complete his service obligation, and if not, why didn't the Texas ANG do anything about it.

    I also noted that the period in which Bush seems to have skipped out on his service obligation coincided with the TANG implementing a new "get tough" drug testing policy instituted by the National Guard.

    1072:

    I'd actually ask you to define your scale of black ops competence before I answer that question.

    My actual take is that most black ops/psy ops, and espionage is pure, unadulterated crap, based on the activities con artists and other denizens of the muck making an exploitative living in the land of infinite mirrors where truth and lies are indistinguishable.

    On that scale, it's entirely possible that the NSA is as good as the KGB, MI6, Mossad, or the Ministry of State Security ever was. It's also possible that "good" in this case means that what they do is mostly worthless, aside from promoting dictators, wasting money and people, and spinning bullshit to a fine art while rarely (if ever) benefiting reality with the results of that work.

    The point is, NSA's doing this kind of crap just as everyone else is, so as a country, the US probably isn't very exceptional.

    1073:

    It's certainly an EFFECTIVELY spread myth, whether or not it is deliberate. Look how often I get flamed here for pointing out that Russia has done nothing that is not SOP by the USA and UK.

    But, actually, the same is true about the USA/UK claims of various foreign threats, (in my lifetime) starting with the myth that the USSR had a MAD capability during the cold war. In the UK, most people seem to swallow the bullshit that we need multi-billion pound aircraft and ships, and nuclear weapons, to defend ourselves against imminent attack by foreign aggressors. Er, like who?

    1074:

    Charlie @1070, Heteromeles @1072, EC @1073: I'd much rather have this discussion over a bottle of Charlie's favored Talisker than here on the web.

    Caveats: 1) I have not worked as an intelligence officer since before 9/11. 2) I am still employed by DOD and limited in what I can discuss. 3) My world view is likely to vary from each of yours by some degree.

    There's a reason intelligence professionals rarely reach flag rank.

    "Intelligence is the art of telling people who outrank you things they don't want to hear, and making them listen." - Me

    1075:

    Like Faux "News", too. I consider Bill O'Wrongly personally culpable for the murder of the women's health provider (and provider of abortions) in Kansas, a few years ago.

    1076:

    whitroth @ 1057: I was at several anti-Iraq War demonstrations. There were NO riots. Period.

    That was my experience as well, but I'm not the one who said there were riots. I believe it was _Moz_.

    Kent State... the National Guard kids SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CARRYING LOADED RIFLES. There was NO RIOT. There was an asshole who was going to Put Down these unamurkan hippies.

    (And back in the early nineties, on usenet, I had a net.friend who had a friend who was one of the dead.)

    The National Guard at Kent State were NOT kids. Back when I went through Basic Training, all of the National Guard trainees had to take two weekends (while the RA & AR guys got a weekend pass) ... two LONG weekends ... of Civil Disturbance & Riot Control training. The instructors were from the National Guard. More than half of the training was about how the National Guard fucked up at Kent State & how when we got back to our units it was OUR responsibility to make damn sure the National Guard was never, ever going to fuck up that way again.

    1077:

    Back to PoV: Here's a scene I'm working on rewriting now: he comes to her quarters with food, they eat, he leaves. I think I'm ok with a conversation, but am I really changing the PoV if I have her think something after he leaves?

    1078:

    Much the same sort of thing happened with the Paras on Bloody Sunday in NI. (As far as I can tell from the repeated enquiries and/or declassified reports they were the wrong unit for the job, full of unreasonably violent head-bangers, had no training in policing work, were under the nominal command of an inexperienced officer, and he let the psychopaths off the leash with live ammo and ambiguous orders which some of them interpreted as a license to kill when rumours of an IRA gunman with a pistol went round.)

    1079:

    Dave P @ 1067: @1064: So what, then - give up on fixed bases?

    No. But you don't give up your aircraft carriers either so you don't have all your eggs in one basket.

    1081:

    "Intelligence is the art of telling people who outrank you things they don't want to hear, and making them listen."

    A skill that I never learnt :-(

    1082:

    Note that I consider unreasonable levels of violence by the state to be a riot. The term "police riot" has been used by others.

    I have spent enough time at non-violent protests and also violent ones to know that the difference between the two is almost always how the state forces treat the protest. I've also seen, even in Australia, false flag actions against protests. The funniest to date is seeing some idiot pull out a collapsible baton, get ready to use it, then get smashed to the ground by two uniformed cops who were frankly not having that shit on their watch. Media coverage later focused on the 5 days in hospital and two further weeks off work that the "undercover cop" needed to get over the effects of capsicum spray. Since protesters, even little old ladies, get over that stuff after half an hour without medical treatment I think the only conclusion we can come to is that cops are weak little flowers who wilt at the slightest suggestion of harm directed their way. Or, alternatively, cops systematically lie about the effect of capsicum spray... but surely that would never happen.

    Actually, another fun one: cops decided to run 6 horses through a crowd, single file. What they didn't notice was that there was a "traffic calming" island under part of the crowd, so the first horse to hit it went down. Broke the pelvis of a reporter that it fell on. The cops reported that as "anarchists threw marbles under the hooves of the horses". Kinda dents ones confidence in the violent arm of the state.

    1083:

    As someone who followed that at the time, all that is true, but is rather one-sided. There had been many complaints about them by human rights groups to officialdom, which were completely ignored - not even giving them a lecture on the difference between police work and being first in to enemy territory. It was common knowledge beforehand that the people who would become the PIRA were intending to trigger a confrontation (McGuinness carried a submachine gun), which must have made the PBI officers and men a bit twitchy. It was also reported at the time that the orders were to prevent the demonstration reaching somewhere, and that the officers on the ground knew that they were about to lose control.

    Fuck-ups rarely have a single cause, but that had an impressive number.

    1084:

    That’s a fair description. Until I read the Saville report, I’d have been willing to accept “hyped-up troops, inappropriately employed in a confusing situation, overloaded and reacting to echoes of gunfire”. (I’ve been through the NI training ranges at Lydd set up to prepare soldiers for that scenario, and one of them is specifically designed to introduce you to the different sounds from LV and HV ammunition, next to a building, as it’s fired across your front.)

    After reading it, damn right Soldier F should be tried for murder.

    1085:

    whitroth: Ok Where'd you get that, the Daily Stormer? Dimbulb (Brightbart)? That isn't a lie - that's where you know something is false - as much as pure pulled it out of the air bullshit. 36% of the ENTIRE US POPULATION lives on the east coast, and I guarantee that more than half earn less than median income.

    The dimension you're forgetting is the Electoral College. The Democratic candidate, whoever they are, will in all probability win the entire eastern seaboard from Virginia north. They will also certainly win the west coast (except Alaska). And, thanks to Chicago, Illinois. And, thanks to Denver, Colorado. And, thanks to Mexican Americans, New Mexico.

    Unfortunately, because of the Electoral College, that's not enough. Because of the distortions the Electoral College brings to the system and the current population distribution of the country, the Democratic candidate can't win the Presidency simply by winning the national popular vote. They HAVE to win in interior states that went for Trump in 2016. And, of those, the states most up for grabs are the formerly blue Rust Belt states: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. (If PA was just Philly, it'd be no contest there. Thing is, there's all that other stuff west and north of Valley Forge.)

    Because of the Electoral College, the Rust Belt--not the east coast--is where the election will be decided. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it's unjust. But, an amendment to the Constitution that ends the Electoral College and makes the President election a national popular vote is not going to happen before 2020.

    1086:

    You sound as if you've played this game!

    Thankfully, not for real.

    Our battalion’s war role during the Cold War was Home Defence - to defend key points against attacks by saboteurs and SF types. Our Company had a Naval fuel depot in the West Highlands.

    Those logistic demands are what made a serious attack by mortar “less likely” - our exercise scenarios worried about divers, locally-recruited saboteurs, and visits from the Units of Special Designation.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Forces_of_the_Main_Directorate_of_the_General_Staff_of_the_Russian_Armed_Forces

    Before anyone doubts “politically motivated British saboteurs attacking British installations”, remember that the GRU ran a rather successful operation in the Donbass to kick things off; they recruited the disaffected / thuggish, armed them, and started a war. They didn’t learn those skills overnight.

    There were occasional rumours about prepositioned arms dumps (courtesy of Vladimir Rezun) and it’s reasonable to assume that they (and presumably we) made some dry runs in peacetime; because kicking fifteen blokes out of a submarine, with all the equipment they need, is not an easy task - quite apart from the difficulties of manpacking serious load across a fairly hostile environment. I’m talking about the midges; the steep mountains and Forestry Commission plantations are just a bonus.

    Fortunately, our Key Point was remote, had a very limited number of access roads, and these were the days before GPS/GLONASS... they were also the days when you could assume that escape was a key part of the attack; no suicide bombers in PIRA or GRU. If we made our location secure enough, they’d hopefully sod off and attack another, softer, target. However, we also worried about Proxy bombers [1], again courtesy of PIRA...

    [1] “Drive this car bomb into that military base, or we’ll murder your wife and torture your children”. Revolutionary fervour occasionally attracts some very, very, evil b**tards.

    1087:

    I don't try to attribute reasons to it. A history/political science professor I know says it's not a jinx, it's that the rest of the country has a strong dislike for the urban corridor for various reasons, and it carries over into the voting.

    Though "rest of the country" is a bit strong, your professor acquaintance is generally correct.

    I grew up in rural and suburban Red America. Yes, most of the people there despise the Acela Corridor. (Even though most of them have never been there.) The general sentiment is that of a colony that resents the mother country. Part of it is an inferiority complex, part of it is plain ignorance, and part of it as a legitimate dislike of being condescended to. That's on top of the obvious culture gap, socioeconomic differences, effects of decades of political propaganda, etc.

    1088:

    Hmmm. The key facilities in Scotland that I'd worry about are all at least technically "West Highlands", and there is at least one road and/or railway line running through or along the side of each of them.

    1089:

    Believe what you like. It may be that we live in different worlds.

    For the first, up until Trump said something about Korea being part of China, she liked the guy. Really did remind her of her father. Wouldn't vote for him. But, yah. She also has an ongoing infatuation with Kavanaugh. (frustrates the heck out of me - almost thought she was trying to annoy me. Turned out no...just a side benefit.) Bear in mind that she's Korean. So, sure, she believes she deserves equal pay. ...but...her brothers gave advice on the proper ways to beat a woman...and she agreed. So similar in many ways - alien in others. And maybe she is an outlier.

    And no, not the daily Stormer. My relatives - who are lovely people, but really quite unsympathetic towards the Midwest and really anyone in the 25%. They vote Democratic because they are wary of the KKK - they are fine with the whole corporatist BS. (I mean, by and large, Medicare for all looks like a net savings for everyone..so....)

    But, the point being - I strongly suspect that progressivism loses votes among older minority voters. Polls do indicate that African Americans prefer Biden. And, based on their policies, Warren and Harris seem to poll below their worth. Significantly so. You won't convince me that being female won't be a net vote loser. It is true that both of us would vote for Warren - but I've met too many Democrats who wouldn't vote for Clinton. They all cited stuff they forgave in Biden. Now, if the young suddenly all started voting..sure...I'd be wrong. Hasn't happened yet. And lots of middle class minority voters won't vote for Sanders. There is a large section of the Democratic vote that is simply terrified of the KKK. They are not at all progressive. So, overall, as far as I can tell, it doesn't matter which of the candidates gets nominated. They all lose by a bit. Maybe I am just depressed - Caban just conceded. I was sort of hoping for a Hispanic Obama with a mildly progressive bent.

    But sure, if you assume Americans are not misogynistic - Warren is a great pick. And sure...if you assume the Democratic base will vote for Sanders...he will bring in some new votes. Could be.

    I suspect they'll lose by a bit more than Biden. Hope not though.

    1090:

    On the one hand, when the National Guard showed up at the Democratic convention in Chicago in '68 - yes, I was there, with my first wife, what we did instead of a honeymoon - we were all glad. We knew they'd joined to avoid being sent over, and a lot of them were on our side, and weren't going to attack us.[1]

    In case that event isn't remembered by the young or European, that was a very eventful convention, particularly if one happened to be out on the streets of Chicago.

    Mayor Richard Daley Sr. will be forever remembered for his statement to the press, "Let's get the thing straight, once and for all. The policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder."

    1091:

    Pigeon @ 1038 Entirely true, but probably irrelevant

    Dave t P @ 1039 THAT happened to me - I was doing 15 mph or less ( narrow road, blind T-junction ahead ... ) kid ran out head-down between 2 parked cars. We were both lucky - he was thrown back with a greenstick fracture to his leg - half-a-second earlier & the front wheel of my then Rover P4 would have gone over him ....

    & @ 1074 There's a reason intelligence professionals rarely reach flag rank. Oh, well, there's always Blinker Hall isn't there?

    Charlie @ 1070 No, or not quite. The current US admin are not "discounting" or "reluctant to admit" to domestic "white" fascist terrorism, because, in fact, they are backing it, if only with words, how convenient.

    FUBAR007 @ 1087 THAT exists here - "LONDON gets everything, lets crap on London!" - ignoring that it's the financial motor for the whole country. Hell, there are fuckwits like that on this blog, going on about gutting the UK's financial services, wouldn't that be a good idea - NOT.

    1092:

    Ref #1087 - Greg, more money was spent on the 1.1 miles of the "Limehouse Link" than the entire Scottish Office roads budget for the period (original source National Audit Office).

    1093:

    My relatives - who are lovely people, but really quite unsympathetic towards the Midwest and really anyone in the 25%. They vote Democratic because they are wary of the KKK.

    I don't know what you mean by "the 25%" in this context.

    The people I know in my region hate the Klan and are contemptuous of them - for obvious reasons - but don't particularly fear them. This may be geographical; the KKK is not active out here these days and our white supremacist assholes use different, often Neo-Nazi, vocabulary.

    What's the story with the Midwest? Out in the real west we may be guilty of not thinking about the Midwest at all but wishing them ill just isn't on the table.

    1094:

    Greg, that's the current US administration that are backing white supremacist terrorists.

    I was referring to intel assessments during the Obama administration, which warned of a wave of white supremacists being radicalized by the mere existence of a black POTUS—and which the bureaucracy systematically discounted, with the results we've seen since 2016.

    1095:

    I grew up in rural and suburban Red America. Yes, most of the people there despise the Acela Corridor. (Even though most of them have never been there.)

    The same folks hate California. It's full of liberals, isn't it? They never seem to notice the huge agricultural areas or vast stretches of outright wilderness.

    1096:

    It's not recent, and the de facto policy of focusing investment and power in London and the Home Counties was active in the 1960s, to my certain knowledge. The power has slightly been rolled back, but it's another case of "too little, and even that little too late". It has also resulted in a vast reduction in the range of important sources of national income and well-paid employment, though I am undecided whether that is a cause or an effect.

    The result has been the dependence on London's money laundering and gambling with other people's money, er, financial services, which has been incredibly harmful to the nation's well-being in several ways. We are likely to lose that following Brexit, whether or not we leave. The EU has been getting increasingly unhappy about the laundering, Frankfurt etc. would like more of the trade, and New York would like to swallow us up.

    1097:

    There is a corollary to what I was saying up above about how we all seem to attribute nuance to ourselves the things we’re familiar with, and to simplify, caricature and stereotype the things that are different, so that the familiar things take up more of the world than they really do by way of contrast and complexity. That is there is a tendency to take that internal representation of the other point of view as homogenous and make it a sort of assumed starting point, then decry the inconsistency of those on the other side when they do not align with your stereotype. People who complain about “the left” ALWAYS do this. I’m sure it’s done in relation to the “right” too, but tend to think less so simply because there is objectively more nuance and general giving-the-benefit-of-the-doubt going that way. Which is one way of saying there are more “hold yourself to a higher standard” people on the left than the right, but only because the right is inherently dishonest.

    1098:

    Yes, that is precisely the problem. To take one example that we hear a tedious amount about on this blog (no names - no pack drill!), the UK Labour party membership is anti-(hard)Brexit, the MPs are divided every which way and, while Corbyn probably still personally favours Brexit, he is NOT infected with the Little Englander rabies that permeates much of the Conservative party. Inter alia, he is now supporting a referendum.

    Yes, Corbyn is a pretty ghastly leader - inter alia, he should have slapped McDonnell down for his idiotic and inflammatory response to Cummings demented and inflammatory remarks. Asking the chief mandarin to intervene was vaguely reasonable, but he should have said that, as official leader of the opposition, he would ask Her Majesty to sack Bozo and appoint an interim prime minister who would not abuse the constitutional conventions.

    But, to assign a single viewpoint to the Labour party is just plain bonkers. It's considerably more incoherent than the Conservatives.

    1099:

    Well, I think a significant proportion of the host and commentariat are one of more of:- 1) Left wing 2) Hard core Remain 3) Pro one or both of the reunification of Ireland and Scottish independence from Englandshire.

    1100:

    the difficulties of manpacking serious load across a fairly hostile environment. I’m talking about the midges

    The putative terrorists/SF could easily exhaust their supplies of heavy mortar ammunition on the midges before they got to their intended target.

    1101:

    I would suggest "Jungle Formula" insect repellent, but I think they'd go through that at a similar rate to mortar bombs in today's weather! :-)

    1102:

    paws @ 1092 AND - it was a complete waste of money - remember this was during the Madwoman's years, when the DLR was just & only just built to a restricted budget & road-spending was running away.

    Charlie @ 1094 Agree - I think, possibly we were talking past each other?

    EC @ 1097 Oh dear, I'm going to make a slight, humorous, but true alteration to your comment ... "It's not recent, and the de facto policy of focusing investment and power in London and the Home Counties was active in the 1960s1690's, to my certain knowledge. " Cough ..... Whereas, @ 1098 you are, very unfortunately, correct.

    Nojay @ 1100 😓

    1103:

    whitroth:

    "Ok Where'd you get that, the Daily Stormer? Dimbulb (Brightbart)? That isn't a lie - that's where you know something is false - as much as pure pulled it out of the air bullshit. 36% of the ENTIRE US POPULATION lives on the east coast, and I guarantee that more than half earn less than median income."

    Don't know how I missed this before, but how can more than half of the people earn less than the median income?

    1104:

    Charlie Stross @ 1094: Greg, that's the current US administration that are backing white supremacist terrorists.

    I was referring to intel assessments during the Obama administration, which warned of a wave of white supremacists being radicalized by the mere existence of a black POTUS—and which the bureaucracy systematically discounted, with the results we've seen since 2016.

    The Obama administration didn't discount the report, they released it to the public. ... resulting in the Congressional GOP going bugfuck crazy over it. The analyst who wrote the report was forced to resign by the force of the vitriol coming out of the GOP and the Obama administration had to back off.

    1105:

    I find it a real pain - literally, because it stings like the devil in any midge bites, and isn't as effective as it claims. The one that works (DMP) rather better is no longer allowed to be sold. I was going to try a more eco-friendly one this year that does not sting in the same way, but had 7 days of extremely hot, calm weather and no more than a dozen midges - at the very end of June! Bizarre.

    1106:

    The median value of a set is the one in the middle. I'll use 5 value sets to save typing.

    1, 2, 3, 4, 5 has a median value of 3.

    So does 1, 2, 3, 4, 1000000.

    1107:

    The .01% is hoarding money, as a status symbol, an aphrodisiac, because they feel butthurt over their Grandparents acquiescing to The New Deal and if life extension becomes real, it'll be God damn expensive. They're also convinced that "Little people" would only get in trouble with it.

    1108:

    paws4thot @ 1101: I would suggest "Jungle Formula" insect repellent, but I think they'd go through that at a similar rate to mortar bombs in today's weather! :-)

    The army used to issue this thick cream insect repellent. It stunk like shit, was greasy and generally all around unpleasant to use, but it was effective. And it didn't come off when you saturated your uniform with sweat (many a day at Fort Bragg where I was soaking wet from my head to my feet without ever getting near the water0. High level of DEET though.

    https://www.amazon.com/Plant-Based-Eucalyptus-Insect-Repellent-4-Ounce/dp/B004N59OFU

    I found this stuff at REI (although I didn't find it on their website when I looked just now). No DEET and works as well as the old army bug cream did. Not as waterproof, but the best I've found.

    Before I went to Iraq, the army had me treat my uniforms with a pyrethrin solution. Soak them for an hour and then hang them up to dry. It was good for 50 cycles through the cleaners before they needed re-treating.

    1109:

    Greg @1091: Thanks for the link to Blinker Hall. He was unknown to this Yank. Fascinating bio, but I think he's rather the exception that proves the rule. Also, he didn't come to intelligence work until later in his career, when he had a well-established reputation.

    1110:

    paws4thot @ 1106: The median value of a set is the one in the middle. I'll use 5 value sets to save typing.

    1, 2, 3, 4, 5 has a median value of 3.

    So does 1, 2, 3, 4, 1000000.

    "Median value" and "Median Income" are not the same thing. "Median Income" is DEFINED as the amount that divides the income distribution into two equal groups, half having income above that amount, and half having income below that amount."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income

    It's impossible for more than half the people to earn less than the "median income", because exactly half of the people earn more and exactly half of the people earn less.

    1111:

    Tim H. @ 1107: "The .01% is hoarding money, as a status symbol, an aphrodisiac, because they feel butthurt over their Grandparents acquiescing to The New Deal and if life extension becomes real, it'll be God damn expensive. They're also convinced that "Little people" would only get in trouble with it.

    If living were a thing money could buy, the rich would live and the poor would die.

    1112:

    Perhaps if you'd capitalised a specialist term rather than relying on people following a link which appears to be adjective noun in form?

    1113:

    Alamut and Ismaili Persia invented sleeper agents and gave us a name for assassins but that was a long time ago. http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hashashin.html Modern state-sponsored assassination wouldn't be mortars or ritual daggers. It's much more likely to be doctored perfume bottles, radioactive tea, or perhaps martyrdom via sharing a line or two of cancer inducing cocaine; like Bruce Sterling's 1989 "We see things differently". http://www.revolutionsf.com/fiction/weseethings/01.html

    I blame SciFi short dystopias.

    1114:

    JBS @ 1103 Quite easily if you have a "long-tail" ditribution with a few people earning being paid insane amounts & the great majority struggling along. Then, you will find that the Median, the Mean & the Mode are all diferent, with the mode being at the bottom of the pile ...

    1115:

    And I don't doubt for a minute some of them are endeavouring for just that.

    1116:

    The Electoral College - yes... but: Wisconsin and Michigan now have Dem governors, and they're undoing the massive voter suppression committed by the previous GOP govs. And they did go Dem last election. Now, PA... I can only hope.

    1117:

    Eventful... yeah, you could say that.

    For some years, I've believed that all of the last 50 years of history would have been unbelievably different (and BETTER), if that bastard Daley, Sr., had had a heart attack in the winter of '67-'68. We, the protestors, might have gotten our permits (Daley's administration stalled for about 5 months, then walked; we came anyway), their violence would have been little-to-no, which probably would have meant Humphrey getting elected, 'Nam ending millions of lives sooner, Apollo going on, and leading to a real US-Soviet detante, and in space as well....

    I'd write that as a story, but it would be too much wish fulfillment.

    1118:

    Allow me to quote Mark Twain on US politics: "I am not a member of any organized political party; I'm a Democrat."

    1119:

    Apropos of watching the exchange rate this week: Do we think the pound and euro will achieve parity before October 31st, or after?

    1120:

    Sorry - allow me to clarify: the median income is, of course, for the entire US, and what I said was that of the 36% of the US population that lives on the East Coast, more than half of them earn under the median.

    Let's see, a lot of Baltimore, a lot of Philly, all the slums of NYC....

    1121:

    The Euro achieving parity with the Pound sterling would, to many minds, simply indicate the Euro is dangerously overvalued and about to collapse taking the entire bloated and undemocratic EU with it, just you wait.

    Of course those many minds have been saying the Euro is about to collapse since it was created in 1999.

    1122:

    Of course, "undemocratic EU" ignores the regular elections for Members of the European Parliament, and that most of the other significant posts (European Commissioners, EU President for example) are direct appointees of democratically elected governments.

    1123:

    What about all the unelected bureaucrats, the millions of them infesting Brussels dictating to British people what they can eat, what they can do, what laws they must obey? The many minds know this to be true and take it as proof that the unsustainable tottering edifice of the EU is doomed, just you wait.

    1124:

    And what about the hundreds of thousands of unelected civil servants in the UK platinum plating EU regulations?

    1125:

    That’s current US health care policy.

    1126:

    What would it take for Labour to pick a new leader?

    1127:

    how can more than half of the people earn less than the median income?

    The key is in "earn" vs "income". Capitalists don't work, by definition*, and thus are often considered not to earn their income. So in a kleptocracy you have 1% of the population who don't earn but have income, and thus more than half of the earning population have less than the median income.

    Because apparently median is one of those funny words and following links on the internet is not the done thing.

    • even neoliberal economists talk about "unearned income"
    1128:

    unelected civil servants in the UK platinum plating EU regulations?

    One theory I've heard is that civil servants are employed by the government to implement their policies.

    So in more normal times each minister will have knowledge of their portfolio, will be briefed on how pending/actual legislative changes will affect the department(s), and will consult with colleagues and the department(s) before making policy. This policy is then implemented by hordes of unelected bureaucrats.

    But currently some womble is vomited into a ministry, looked confused for a few moment, then is yanked out and replaced by a muppet who does the same thing. Meanwhile the bureaucrats watch "Have I Got News For You" in a desperate attempt to find out what their minister, or indeed the government as a whole, thinks they should be doing.

    1129:

    Well, at the time Faslane/Coulport had RM Commachio Group and MoD Police to defend them. Rather competent (understatement), don't underestimate them.

    Our company was scheduled to protect a POL depot at Loch Striven, and two of our other companies covered the ammunition depot at Glen Douglas - one inside, the other outside. Yes, they had railway tracks; but between them, they succeeded in keeping the OPFOR (the aforementioned Commachio) outside the wire for nearly a week.

    After a couple of our guys from Motherwell (the external security) got scragged by the Booties to the extent of hospital, it was getting a bit "gloves off", and it was just as well the exercise was coming to an end. But hey, it was the 80s. I watched as the Motherwell lads were unloading golf clubs from the QRF wagons at ENDEX, annoyed that they hadn't got their retaliation in...

    1130:

    The Euro achieving parity with the Pound sterling would, to many minds, simply indicate the Euro is dangerously overvalued

    Alternatively, given that the Euro / US Dollar ratio is roughly similar, it might indicate that it's not an overvalued Euro, it's actually the value of Sterling falling through the floor...

    ...I mean, who's going to invest in a UK facing economic collapse?

    1131:

    I and Greg Tingey are old enough to remember "more normal times", but I amn not sure how many other people here are.

    1132: 1128 - That is worryingly accurate! My main change would be to have them watch "Yes (Prime) Minister!" as well. 1129 - Ok yes Loch Striven isn't that accessible by road, but the other cited bases are all vulnerable to the already discussed "mortar van" attack. 1130 - Only a complete BoZo!?
    1133:

    That was Will Rogers, in Mark Twain's day Republicans were... different.

    1134:

    I and Greg Tingey are old enough to remember

    Once upon a time, a long time ago, two brave young men set out on a long journey... to a biiig city far, far away, where the wise men make cunning strictures from platinum.

    1135:

    DtP @ 1119 Sooner. £ to go to 0.5 € shortly therafter ......

    R v d H @ 1126 Coming FOURTH in the upcoming General Election FUCKING IDIOT WANKER COBYN still doesn't get it .....

    Mean / Median / Mode TRY HERE ... That is a classic example, & income is distrbuted like that ....

    1136:

    "I am not a member of any organized political party; I'm a Democrat."

    That was Will Rogers, in Mark Twain's day Republicans were... different.

    Yes, that was Will Rogers, in a book from 1935. (And how little has changed in some ways!) He also wrote, "There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole Government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I don't even have to exaggerate."

    1137:

    Eh. Not really the KKK - more shorthand for the strand of racism threaded through America. Overall, I'd say that they remember being grateful that the ERA meant that they could buy houses with 'no coloreds' on the lease in CA. And, having traveled literally all over the world - the place they didn't feel comfortable visiting was not Somalia. It was Georgia - and - to a lesser extent - Illinois. (As a result - their assessment of flyover country is more negative than indicated by flyover.) By the 25%, I'd mean people in the lower 25% of the income distribution. (Sorry - new baby == slightly more incoherent than normal). That said, they do well with the current policies of the Democratic party and the Republican party. Cause they are very similar. And, they notice that there are more people shouting 'go home' at their children since the current president was elected.

    My assessment of them is that they don't wish the red States poorly - but have no use for them; no interest in policies that support development in the red states; wait eagerly for the more elderly (and virulently antiminority) red stater to pass on; and tend to see people in the lower 25% of the income distribution as lesser. (Possibly objects of charity, but not equals) (and sure, this is less true among the younger generation.) Well, except for the bit about flyover states - no reason to go somewhere where they threaten your children.

    My opinion is that a sense of perspective is required. Now, sure, flyover country isn't suitable for raising children. But, eh, prejudice tends to die off on a timescale measured in generations. It isn't like the older generation isn't quietly extremely homophobic.

    I may have a point. And maybe it is this. Minority support for the Democratic party is very strong. Under the assumption that people are sort of rational and also that tendencies towards economic and/or social conservatism are, if anything, more pronounced elsewhere, Occam's razor would tend to indicate that there is a substantial portion of the Democratic party that is socially and economically conservative but votes with the party because of racial issues. This portion of the party does not appear to be enthused by significant changes in economic policy. Therefore, I'd expect that the current Democratic policies are close to a local maximum in support - probably a fairly broad one. (So, modest change, eg, Warren may not lose too much.). And people claiming that the Democratic leadership is clearly wrong for clinging to outdated policies are probably wrong. (In a political sense - from the perspective of good of the country - more progressive policies could be better - but they probably are not viable politically.)

    And, from that, it may follow that there is little point in being outraged at centrists. It may be true that their policies are bad for the nation. But, eh, they probably are at a local maximum in support. Asking for a jump to a new maximum is a bit of an ask - particularly since it may not exist. And then, you can end up with Republican control.

    On the bright side, based on population trends, the Republican party may not be viable after 2030, which is something I am hoping for... I sort of favor the maintaining business as usual until the Republicans collapse - but I am fairly risk adverse.

    It really is possible that there are other local maxima in policy. Mind you, the only obvious one is a regionalist, xenophobic economically progressive and nationalistic... Oh wait, more competent Trumpism. It really makes more political sense - as the red states are poorish. (Well, there is an issue about standard of living...) It may be the only way to break the beige dictatorship.

    @1120 I'm guessing that you meant that more than half earn less than the mean income. And, that is true. Unfortunately, the median income of voters is substantially higher than the median income.

    And, I'd agree that my relatives are well above the median income and thusly not representative. But...one point I was, um, failing to make is that the Democratic party is kind of a big tent. From a policy perspective, I suspect that bold proposals will have marginally negative effects on overall turnout.

    The second point is that, considering relatively high partisanship levels and apparent levels of misogyny - the negative influence of being female is probably bigger than either policy or competence. (My wife was pretty bitter over Obama's trouncing of Clinton.)

    In terms of my perspective of Brexit - if I had been charged to pick a country wherein leaving the EU would be most idiotic. I would have chosen the UK. (Mostly based on financial services). It is kind of like watching a car crash in slow motion. There is a mixture of horror and curiosity. For the sake of OGH, I hope it ends in a fizzle.

    1138:

    I just had to pay the DHS for an ESTA application (my old one had expired and I need to make a pre-Brexit business trip to see my publishers—my first US trip in nearly 3 years).

    Paypal gave me an exchange rate of 1.16 USD per GBP. That's where the Euro rate stood about 2-3 months ago. And B-day is still more than two months off.

    1139:

    On the bright side, based on population trends, the Republican party may not be viable after 2030, which is something I am hoping for…

    Pray that its death throes don't resemble those of the UK's Conservative party, then.

    Because that's what's going on right now. The Tory party received more donations from dead members' estates than from living members last year; at their last annual conference a third of the attendees were MPs, councillors, and political functionaries, a third were rank-and-file members, and a third were corporate lobbyists. The words "bought and sold" spring to mind, and the only reason they're capable of winning elections is because they've got a system that is congenial to them and fight to maintain it as such (not as bad as Republican gerrymandering efforts in the Red States and especially the South, but bad enough).

    Brexit is a symptom: until 2010 EU membership ranked something like 12th in a ranking of political issues of interest to the UK public—it was a shibboleth/loyalty test for the swivel-eyed fringe of the Tory party, a fringe who have now captured it because the internal institutions which kept it on track as a party of government in more normal times have atrophied and eventually withered away.

    1140:

    Charlie And, unless Corbyn changes course or actually LEARNS something for the first time since 1973, Liebour will go the same way ... That's assuming BOZO goes down after a No-Confidence vote & we get an election - in which "partY" alliegiance will be immaterial - the brexit stance of the candidates will be the No 1 priority ... And you can bet your boots that the Lem0crats will do what they did in Brecon/Radnor ... and not stand against strongly pro-remain sitting candidates ( Like Stella or Ken Clarke ).

    1141:

    In this event I have predicted a more or less complete wipeout of the LarndarnShire based Wrecksit parties (Liebour, Scottish Con, the Wrecksit Party itself) in Scotland, and well the Lemocrats are a side issue here; the big question how many seats the Scottish Greens could take from the SNP.

    1142:

    Be afraid: it takes six weeks to run a snap election and there are suggestions that Boris is planning to use Purdah time to prevent the Commons or subsequent caretaker government from cancelling A50 during the election campaign.

    It all depends how big his balls are. Is he convinced enough to lock the UK into a no-deal brexit with a general election running on rails 2-4 weeks after October 31st?

    If he loses the election and the widely predicted chaos emerges then he just dumped an entire sewage farm in his successor's—probably Corbyn's—lap. Which means the Tories are off the hook for the consequences (the electorate being dim-witted and short of memory, as we saw in 2010 when they blamed Gordon Brown for the global financial crisis and subsequent recession, rather than crediting him with rescuing them from something far worse). In which case all Boris has to do is hang in as leader of the opposition until there's another election (and he can position himself as the brave man who delivered the Will of the People, regardless of great personal cost to himself).

    1143:

    Greg Tingey @ 1114: JBS @ 1103
    Quite easily if you have a "long-tail" ditribution with a few people earning being paid insane amounts & the great majority struggling along.
    Then, you will find that the Median, the Mean & the Mode are all diferent, with the mode being at the bottom of the pile ...

    "Median income is the amount that divides the income distribution into TWO EQUAL GROUPS, half having income above that amount, and half having income below that amount."
         [Emphasis added]

    How incomes are distributed does not matter. A "long-tail" distribution" may move the amount of Median Income (move it down in fact, as counter-intuitive as that may be, by concentrating wealth in the hands of fewer people), but whatever the Median Income is, HALF of the people earn more than the Median Income and HALF of the people earn less.

    There's no way to have more than half the people earning less than the Median Income. Half above & half below is the DEFINITION of Median Income.

    1144:

    My theory (or fond hope) is that its death throes will resemble the situation in California. Nervousness translates into anti-immigrant sentiment, followed by anti-immigrant legislation, followed by young minority voters coming of age and hating the party, followed by a relativel rapid decline. We might well be on the cusp...

    1145:

    Charlie @ 1142 Me too - I'm just hoping that BOZO is not allowed to get away with it ... What Mr Speaker rules on could be VERY VERY important here.

    JBS @ 1143 I suspect that whoever posted that "income" thing in the first place, was simply thinking of "Average" without going too deeply into WHICH "average" they actually meant. If you see what I mean?

    1146:

    whitroth @ 1116: The Electoral College - yes... but: Wisconsin and Michigan now have Dem governors, and they're undoing the massive voter suppression committed by the previous GOP govs. And they did go Dem last election. Now, PA... I can only hope.

    Michigan and Wisconsin both still have legislatures dominated by the GOP. It was the legislatures that did the gerrymandering in the first place, and in both states the legislatures are trying to strip the Democratic Governors of what little power they have to correct the situation.

    Something similar is going on in North Carolina. The GOP have a majority in the legislature and they're trying to screw the Democratic Governor of his power to appoint members of election boards. North Carolina's governors have fairly weak veto powers, but up until the last election the GOP had a "veto proof" majority (thanks to gerrymandering & voter suppression), but they still managed to piss off enough voters to lose that super-majority. It's still an uphill battle to overcome the voter suppression & gerrymandering they managed to put in place before they lost their super-majorities.

    Funny thing. You don't hear a lot about voter fraud out of the GOP in North Carolina. That's because one of their operatives got caught & the situation was bad enough the Board of Elections refused to certify the election and the courts backed them up. The 3rd Congressional District is STILL VACANT from the 2018 election. A special election is scheduled for September 10.

    1147:

    Nojay @ 1123: What about all the unelected bureaucrats, the millions of them infesting Brussels dictating to British people what they can eat, what they can do, what laws they must obey? The many minds know this to be true and take it as proof that the unsustainable tottering edifice of the EU is doomed, just you wait.

    Are you familiar with Poe's Law?

    1148:

    Elderly Cynic @ 1131: I and Greg Tingey are old enough to remember "more normal times", but I amn not sure how many other people here are.

    Depends on how far back you think you have to go to find "more normal times", or if you can even find an agreement on what made them more normal.

    I was recently surprised to realize I'd made it to the biblical "three score & ten". Thinking back, I don't remember any times I'd characterize as "normal" within my lifetime.

    1149:

    That idiot who decided donning combat fatigues, body armor and carrying an assault rifle with a hundred round magazine to go film himself grocery shopping at a Walmart in Missouri a week after the mass killings in El Paso, TX & Dayton, OH ... his name is Dmitriy Andreychenko.

    Make of that what you will.

    1150:

    I'm guessing from the name that he ha(s|d) pale skin.

    Did he survive?

    1151:

    Apparently he had the good fortune to be detained by an armed member of the public, who in turn had the good fortune not to be shot by the police.

    1152:

    I don’t understand the British political system in detail. The Conservative party recently decided they didn’t like having Theresa May as their leader, so they replaced her with someone worse.
    Was that only possible because she resigned?
    What would it take, politically and institutionally, for Labour to do the same?

    1153:

    Was that only possible because she resigned?

    No. Each party has its own mechanisms for electing a leader and disposing of one. Political parties are just associations, so it’s the party rules that determine this not something baked into the political system (this is actually the case in the USA too, there is just a somewhat unique convention around party primaries there). It looks like the Tories have a two stage process where the parliamentary members have a gatekeeper role in challenges, but the vote still goes out to the general membership.

    What would it take, politically and institutionally, for Labour to do the same?”

    This already happened in 2016. The UK Labour Party currently directly elects its leaders from its membership, and in 2016 the membership re-elected Corbyn as leader. A challenger would need to convince a majority of Labour Party members to vote for them. It looks like the direct election system is recent, and previously there was a balance between the parliamentary party, affiliated unions and the general membership.

    In Australia until quite recently it was usual for the leader to be elected only by the parliamentary members (aka the “caucus”) in both major parties and still is for the (conservative) Liberal Party. The ALP recently introduced a direct election from the general membership system after criticism over the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd challenges a few years ago. The Liberals have changed leaders more often including while in government, but have yet to make such a change.

    Where I say full or general membership above, I mean people who pay membership fees and either go to party meetings or participate in running the party in some way, even if it is just pre-selecting candidates for local, state and federal elections. It looks like the UK Labour Party has a system of registering supporters from affiliated organisations (like unions) but this is clearly quite different to the US primaries registration system. One would expect Labour or ALP members will often also be members of some union or other.

    Historically they had a disproportionate influence in pre-selection and policy for “Labour” parties. The ALP for a number of decades had a factional system, where each faction would get a share of leadership roles. The factions were typically dominated by the union movement and union power brokers would also be ALP power brokers. For most of that time, ALP leadership was seen as the preserve of the “NSW right”, that is the right wing of the NSW branch of the Australian Labor Party, dominated by the Australian Council of Trades Union (ACTU). This system gave us Whitlam, Hawke, Keating and (shudder) Mark Latham. Rudd (a Queenslander) and Gillard and Shorten (both Victorians) were exceptional. Albanese is nominally from the left, but the ALP is really a neo-liberal centre-right party and (most likely) always will be.

    It isn’t clear that is the case with the British Labour Party at the moment. Corbyn is also nominally and in presentation from the left, but it is hard to see any really significant shift away from neo-liberal centre-right policy making. That stuff does seem to be baked into the political system everywhere thanks to the ideological boundaries, Overton window or whatever policed by the mostly-Murdoch-owned media.

    Anyhow that’s a bit of rambling and some things I haven’t bothered to look up could be a bit speculative. If you are after more detail, you could look at the Wikipedia pages for both the 2019 Tory party election and the 2016 Labour Party election. If you are after more random raving about the Australian system just poke me, I don’t need that much encouragement (it’s harder to get me to stop).

    1154:

    At least one report says the member of the public was a fireman who also happened to be armed. I wonder whether this individual’s ability to produce official looking ID and wave it around would be of assistance in making the situation survivable.

    Then I wonder whether the next series of gunmen will start out with lanyards and official looking ID to increase their own survivability. Just putting your driver’s licence on a plastic sleeve on an official looking lanyard would be a good start...

    1155:

    Other UK political parties are available. Beyond that Damien's #1153 is sufficiently accurate to not be worth correcting.

    1156:

    Other UK political parties are available.

    And despite using a primitive system (first past the post) the UK still manages to have more than two political parties in parliament(s). The US really is special in having so much official support for having exactly two political parties elected. Australia has a much more exciting electoral system(s) [1] which produces interesting results by design. It makes the various flavours of proportional representation seem quite tame (Israel, Germany, even the version used in Italy), but then it also makes the semi-democratic systems (Spain, Italy, US) seem both boring and fixed. Although Australia does experience periodic attempts to fix[2] the political system, of which Section 44 of the constitution[3] as interpreted by the High Court is merely the latest in a long line.

    One very common pattern that is arguably still happening is the contested middle, where the major parties fight to be closest to the centre of the body politic on most issues rather than aiming for the middle of "their side" of politics (however defined, the left-right axis is not the only meaningful one[4]). We see that to some extent in the UK and Australia, where the question put to the electorate at least on policy is "how hard would you like your neoliberal economics done to you" rather than having the option of democratic socialism or even "not neoliberalism". In other countries that's not the case, the question is more often "which communist/neofascist/Trumpslave would you like". Some elections are more like going to church - you can pray however hard you like, it's not going to change what happens, only how you feel about it.

    What is clear, though, is that the vast majority of the population don't consider some issues to be vote-changing. Those range from the climate emergency to racism in many forms (all the way from murdering refugees to electing black people), and covering a whole raft of minor issues like sexism, sexual abuse, war, inequality and so on. The issues that matter appear most easily grouped under "how much will you pay me" normally via tax reform. We call this populism when it's not about money (much to the disgust of economists, who struggle to express value other than through money). Populism seems to mostly cover the dark side of the irrelevant issues: racism, more of it; war, more of it; climate change, more of it... I'm obviously wrong about those not being vote-changing issues. Ooops.

    [1] preferential voting/instant run off/Hare-Clarke in many variations [2] fix in the sense of "produce a predetermined outcome, or one of a very small number of selected outcomes". [3] specifically the clause banning "foreign allegiance" taken to refer to citizenship of another nation or in some cases eligibility thereof, specifically excluding the right of return to Israel and recently being held anti-semitic if applied to any Jew for any reason; also excluding Catholicism, even extreme Catholicism, for reasons not clear; but not excluding birthright citizenship, even non-renounceable birthright as granted by Australia, except that that can in some cases be avoided by some kind of declaration made in Australia by the Australian in question. That's the simple version, I didn't say it was straightforward. [4] or even the most important, just the most commonly used in soundbites

    1157:

    The story:

    https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/crime/2019/08/09/man-charged-felony-after-gun-incident-springfield-walmart/1971037001/

    The best quote: “Andreychenko’s wife allegedly told police Andreychenko was an immature boy.”

    Yes, yes he is.

    “This is Missouri,” the statement quotes Andreychenko as saying. “I understand if we were somewhere else like New York or California, people would freak out.”

    FFS.

    1158:

    The only quibble I’d have to this is that I don’t think the term Hare-Clark is used outside Australia/NZ (but I guess I wouldn’t really know).

    The contested middle is worth exploring some more, but only because there are people who really believe in it. In some ways it is the ultimate expression of Levi-Strauss-style high Structuralism with a capital S. Every single dimension of our reality is reducible to a binary continuum, and our politics expresses locations on these continua. A two-party system, whether it’s explicitly institutionalised to the extent we see in the USA or kept to a matter of convention, albeit potentially just as strong, which we see in the UK and Australia (a strength that can tolerate minor parties), always carries an implicit assumption that inevitably the two parties will represent a balance of competing tugs of war averaging to a sort of Aristotelian medium on every one of these continua that the people of the democracy find important. In some ways this is the neo-liberal dream, just as assumed as the primacy of the market model and the invisible hand, a technocratic vision of a reality that behaves itself per the mechanisms we have to manipulate it. The world, of course, is redolent with emergent complexity that can never really yield deterministic outcomes, much as NDA models might provide insights into why things happen the way they do.

    Of course the idea of competing interests in dynamic tension really appeals to the people who don’t really believe in technocratic ideals at all, but see life as transactional and inevitably requiring winners and losers, dominants and submissives and ultimately penetrators and penetrated. That’s because if you can cheat, and hijack the mechanism that is supposed to yield competing interests in balance, and instead arrange a monopoly with a constrained arbitrage that gives you a licence to print money, you can almost claim a moral imperative to take everything you can grab with both hands and more. In general large interests that have been “balanced” for some time, may have developed “muscles” through the exercise of periodically attempting to overwhelm the counterbalance, so if you are able to remove the counterbalance, it will seem almost natural for the interest to “eat” everything around it. I’m sort of thinking of this in terms of corporations, but actually in politics this is one way to consider how easily autocracy happens.

    1159:

    According to Wikipedia "Hare-Clark" is a variation of Single Transferable Vote only used in Tazmania and Australian Capital Territory, although other Ozzie electoral systems are similar.

    1160:

    Quite so. It was devised in and for Tasmania and is used for the ACT Legislative Assembly. However it is also used by all manner of lower-level groups in elections. Many university student associations use it to elect their executives, for instance. I have been present at the counting in electoral exercises using Hare-Clark, it’s an interesting and almost elegant process (in contrast to most democratic exercises) and resembles Canasta and similar hand-building games (but not, of course, anything like a trick taking game).

    The interesting thing is that complex as it might seem, you can get elderly volunteers to scrutineers and run the counting with no technical problems, so long as you pick on a community that has a card-playing culture.

    There are plenty of other STV methods that resemble Hare-Clark a lot, and it makes sense to say STV is the more widespread term, just because it is more inclusive.

    1161:

    Well, since we've gone this route, Scottish local authority elections use "pure STV"; here is an alphabetised list of candidates, number the ones you like from 1 to N, then stop. Under it, there is no requirement to mark at least M candidates. We wouldn't be presented with a paper like the one on the Hare-Clark Wikipedia page.

    We also use Mixed Member Proportional (aka Additional Member) for the Scots Parliament. (chosen by Leibour specifically to prevent any one party obtaining an absolute majority in the chamber; of course, being Scotland we did once return an absolute (SNP) majority anyway.)

    1162:

    The requirement to number up to a certain number of candidates is variable around Australia. The Australian Senate has gone back and forth on it (it used to be that to vote “below the line” meant numbering every candidate, and for some states this could mean a LOT of candidates; for the last federal election it was up to a specific number). The single member electorates use a preference system where it’s mostly compulsory to number every candidate, but some states have experimented with “optional” preferences, where you only number as many candidates as you want up to the number of candidates running.

    I’m not clear Hare-Clark has anything in particular to recommend it, but it is definitely a type of STV.

    1163:

    Well, when your STV is reported in the UK media it's normally as "you must put a sequential positive against every single candidate".

    1164:

    What Moz described as the theory actually operated in practice up until the 1970s. I can't speak for other countries.

    1165:

    Charlie Stross @ 1150: I'm guessing from the name that he ha(s|d) pale skin.

    Did he survive?

    Yeah. So far.

    According to the news story where I got his name from, the Walmart store manager tripped the fire alarm to evacuate the store and "Dmitriy " ran out one of the emergency exits like all the other customers. The implication being that he's so stupid he didn't even understand HE was the reason everyone was trying to escape.

    WHAT A FUCKING IDIOT doesn't even begin to cover it.

    An off-duty fireman with a concealed carry permit drew down on him and held him until the police arrived to take him into custody.

    The story also said that his wife told him he was an idiot and not to do it, so he asked his sister to film it for social media. She refused and also told him he was an idiot.

    I just thought it was interesting - in light of that scumbag Trump's current jihad against Latino, African and Middle Eastern immigrants and his demonstrated preference for those from North & Eastern Europe along with that we're already seeing stories about how Putin plans to disrupt the election in 2020 - that this obvious candidate just itching for a Darwin Award has an ethnic name from "you know where".

    The only thing that would have made the story "better" was if he had Darwinated-by-Cop and his last words to his wife before he left home turned out to have been "Hold my beer and watch this!"

    I say "so far", because if the cops ever let him go, he's still got to go home and face his wife ... if she hasn't already tossed his shoes out of the trailer.

    I wonder if ICE will deport this clown like they did that guy from Detroit, who was not a nice person, but still ... He was apparently technically Iraqi even though he had never been there (born in Greece, LEGALLY lived in the U.S. since he was six months old), didn't speak a word of the local language and died because he didn't know how to find insulin there.

    In other NEWZ, I see where that scumbag Trump is already tweeting conspiracy theories blaming Jeffrey Epstein's suicide on Hillary Clinton. Although the only surprise is how long it took him to start. Look for an In The Event of My Death file with all the dirty little secrets revealed to show up any day now. If he didn't leave one behind, "THEY" will have to make one up for him. Be wary of its provenance.

    1166:

    “blaming Jeffrey Epstein's suicide on Hillary Clinton” I’m pretty sure it had bipartisan support.

    1167:

    I’m pretty sure it had bipartisan support. Among rich powerful male pedophile[0] associates of Epstein. This is why the conspiracy mills are so prolific; it's not a normal case, since so many rich and powerful are involved.

    [0] /paedophile - at least one famous UK person has been named.

    1168:

    Approximately 1.0 orange carcinoma has also been filmed, and shown on television, as a known associate of Epstein.

    1169:

    Y'know, I am usually skeptical of conspiracies - but I can't help noticing that being a nexus for embarrassing sex involving the wealthy tends to have about a 100% suicide rate.

    1170:

    embarrassing sex involving the wealthy tends to have about a 100% suicide rate.

    On the one hand that makes perfect sense, once someone loses their mates playing "game of mates" is difficult. And since they all live in what we could euphemistically call "grey areas" of the law, losing the support of their mates means that their normal habits become very high risk. Suicide is a reasonable response.

    But on the other, by the very nature of living in that grey area they have lots of former-mates who have the right contacts to make sure that suicide is the chosen option. Assisted suicide, perhaps?

    On the gripping hand... it's pretty high risk to be involved with the suspicious death of someone already under investigation. The risk of some dedicated blue badger digging away busily until they understand as much as they feel they need to is perhaps higher than usual. And the last thing the current PTB need is another Mueller type wandering round saying "I cannot say that XXX definitely ordered the execution of Epstein, but the following evidence cannot rule it out".

    1171:

    And on the 4th hand, the US Justice Department is led by a man (William Barr) dubbed by (deceased) US center right pundit William Safire the "Coverup-General" (1992). And on the 5th hand, DJT retweeted a "Hillary Did It" tweet yesterday, and the longstanding specific "law of projection" rule in the US is "every accusation by DJT is a confession". And that's like 5 percent of the space of conjectures/possible plays. And the backdrop is gigacide through climate change, the fight being over N.

    What it says. Another "Oh Shit" result re consequences of global warming. Ocean Heatwaves That Instantly Kill Coral Are Getting Worse, Scientists Warn - Marine heatwaves present “a distinct biological phenomenon” from bleaching events, and could threaten the livelihoods of half a billion people. (Becky Ferreira, Madeleine Gregory, Aug 8 2019)

    “Now, we see there is also a temperature at which the coral animal itself suffers from heat-induced mortality,” explained co-author Tracy Ainsworth, a marine biologist at the University of New South Wales, in an email. “This isn’t starvation, this is the animal itself undergoing mortality directly from the heat of the water.”

    The (Cell Current Biology) paper itself: Rapid Coral Decay Is Associated with Marine Heatwave Mortality Events on Reefs (12 authors, August 08, 2019, open fulltext)

    Here, we show that marine heatwave events on coral reefs are biologically distinct to how coral bleaching has been understood to date, in that heatwave conditions result in an immediate heat-induced mortality of the coral colony, rapid coral skeletal dissolution, and the loss of the three-dimensional reef structure.
    1172:

    Re the Vulcan raid.

    I'm not a war buff. I really have no idea, but it was always my impression that the idea of the raid was to fly a Vulcan or two over the enemy position rather than any actual effect on the airstrip.

    The idea being to have the guys on the ground look up and see a nuclear weapon carrying bomber sent by their foe, who has nuclear weapons. Then see that nuclear bomber, drop what amounts to a few practice bombs right on target with the message: we can do this any time and next time for real.

    That, in my opinion was a big part of the later success when the British commander, practically out of everything, hours from a complete disaster asked the argentine forces to surrender, and they did.

    If they'd just wanted to drop some bombs on an airfield they could have flown a 747 over at FL400 with a big cluster bomb hanging external on the hard point that all 747s of the era had.

    1173:

    150 000 lbs external on a 747.

    Not everyone seems to realise that the big friendly jet with the cute nickname is designed to do that.

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24149320_Boeing-747_aircraft_with_external_cargo_pod

    1174:

    A little high speed research shows that the runway at RAF Ascension Island is shorter than that needed for a 747 at maximum takeoff weight even if your hard point is made of duralumin rather than cooking foil.

    1175:

    What happens if you have JATO on the 747? I assume "little bits of burning 747 everywhere" but I'm not sure.

    1176:

    That's true. But while no one wanted to host a bunch of Vulcans, you could fly from a base in the UK to any civilian airport in South America, refuel, over fly Stanley, and head home, landing back in the UK.

    Once.

    Then you'd no longer be welcome.

    So if your goal was taking out the runway, a 747 bomber would do the trick.

    I don't think that was the goal.

    1177:

    Unless you also have a mod kit for 747 JATO, bits of 747 plus 240 m^3 of burning AVTUR everywhere! (another detail of day job includes operating cat + JATO launch targets).

    1178:

    You might want to look in more detail at "Black Buck 6" before proposing that the UK commit a technical act of war against a 3rd party, although Chile was highly sympathetic, and Brazil sufficiently so that the unexpended Shrikes were deliberately misidentified as Sparrows by the arresting personnel at Rio.

    1179:

    I just looked it up. Back then Ascension had a space shuttle landing runway.

    No problem staging a 747 bomber and taking off at mtow.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36076411

    1180:

    “blaming Jeffrey Epstein's suicide on Hillary Clinton” I’m pretty sure it had bipartisan support.

    Two headlines sum up the whole thing.

    A serious editorial: Nobody Will Ever Believe the Official Story on This

    A humor site: America's Rich Perverts Unsure Which One of Them Assassinated Epstein

    1181:

    Talking on/about "Whoops Apocalypse" ... It's breaking out all over - is it something in the water, or a "space infection" like the belt of unconsciousness portrayed in Conan Doyles "Challenger" adventure "The Poison Belt"? We are all familiar with the UK & US problems, but the fascists are making huge "progress" in Italy, Hungary, Poland, are actually in charge in Russia & Brazil, the Central Kingdom is committing vicious racial persecution ( using islam as a cover ) in Xinjiang & Modi, always unstable, appears to be deliberately encouraging an all-out India-Pakistan war over Kashmir ... I mean . w. t. f?

    1182:

    Australia has concentration camps, it's arresting journalists and raiding the national broadcaster. (think armed MI5 raids on Broadcasting House)

    Australia has always been too ready to join up in wars, anyone's wars, but this is not the country I grew up in.

    1183:

    Plus a new giant "forensic laboratory" in Brisbane which is actually just to spy on citizens using sweeping powers for warrantless digital wiretapping that they needed "because terror".

    1184:

    Yeah, about that. I looked up the actual length of the main runway at Wideawake, and takeoff run for a 747. It wouldn't occur to me to rely on "a BBC article says..."

    1185:

    The one I particularly like is that if you reasonably suspect* that someone is being detained without trial by the secret police it is a criminal offence to tall anyone this. So, for example, if a gang of armed men break into your house and violently remove your partner, you can ring the Police and say 'kidnapping" but should you have any reason at all to believe they work for the government you cannot say so even to your children, let alone to anyone outside your house.

    It makes the more recent "required to do anything we tell you to to any computer system you have access to, without telling anyone what you've done, or should you be caught, why you did it or for whom" stuff seem relatively benign. But since it affects multinationals directly it's made the news much more than the early "anti tourism" legislation.

    I am not sure of the exact terminology, but it is much looser than "know"

    1186:

    Lots of great things. I like the warrant they served on the ABC that allowed them to not only view and copy anything on the ABC equipment, but also to ADD and ALTER anything they wanted.

    1187:

    gasdive That is truly scary Is no-one protesting, oris that why they are going after journos? Heard NOTHING about it in the UK - from my usual press sources at any rate.....

    1188:

    We are all familiar with the UK & US problems, but the fascists are making huge "progress" in Italy, Hungary, Poland, are actually in charge in Russia & Brazil, the Central Kingdom is committing vicious racial persecution At least they (mostly) do not indulge into invasive and law-breaking ideological wars on yearly basis, unrestricted sanction applications, trade wars, dismissal of arms restricting treaties, and so on - on the level of US and their allies, that is. This domain, at least during best years since 1991 to 2011 was almost uncontested by rest of the world, and largely remains so today.

    My only rational assumption of US government "worries" about new "fascist regimes" (and especially the scale of such concern) is extreme awareness about competition - which is, quite possibly, no the same for civil population and has nothing to do with them. And this indeed is very sad.

    1189:

    "I am not a member of any organized political party; I'm a Democrat."

    Repubs to Dem currently: "Hold my beer".

    I personally believe the people at the top of the R's have no idea where they are headed. DT will likely die soon. The odds of someone his age remaining physically (and mentally) fit for much longer are very slim. (But maybe he's on the edge of the bell curve.)

    Anyway just now the R's are riding a wave dominated by one person. Who doesn't much think about the long term (1 week to 6 months) effects of his whim of the moment. Much less what it means a year or many into the future. Many of them hope he will fade away as quickly as he appeared.

    But as of now the (the long term R leaders) have no idea what will happen next. All they know is in 20 years everything they are doing now to stay in power will be moot as demographics wipes them out. And what ever plans they had to deal with it (prior to 3 years ago) (valid/likable or not) have been totally blown up by the big Donald.

    1190:

    The 3rd Congressional District is STILL VACANT from the 2018 election. A special election is scheduled for September 10.

    Yep. When the nominally apparent winner of the 2018 election for the seat got caught lying on the witness stand in front of the commission looking into whether or not to certify him as the winner it was game over for his possible win. Tisk tisk. Former mega church pastor and former head of they state SBC.

    You really have to be from the south in the US to understand how hypocritical that last position makes him. And the amount of congnitive dissonance that will have to take place as a result.

    1191:

    I was recently surprised to realize I'd made it to the biblical "three score & ten". Thinking back, I don't remember any times I'd characterize as "normal" within my lifetime.

    I think memories of "normal" times requires the absence of modern mass media. Since 99% of what you heard and learned about day to day way back when was very very local it was easy to think your personal experience was "normal".

    1192:

    I was referring to the description of what happens in "more normal times", as stated by Moz in #1128, which is why I put it in quotes in #1131. Specifically and precisely that, no more and no less.

    Whether or not mass media is involved, your point stands, which is why I have not thought in those terms since childhood, and rarely use the term myself. Your "normal" is not my mother's "normal", which is not my wife's "normal", which is not my children's "normal", which is not ....

    1193:

    What happens if you have JATO on the 747? I assume "little bits of burning 747 everywhere" but I'm not sure.

    That requires an air frame designed to be poke HARD at a few small points and not warp. I doubt that was in the design spec for the 747.

    1194:

    Here's the guardian take on it at the time.

    I don't know if anyone is protesting.

    First they came for the journalists, and I don't know what happened after that.

    ABC's Sydney headquarters raided by Australian federal police – video

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/video/2019/jun/05/abcs-sydney-headquarters-raided-by-australian-federal-police-video?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

    1195:

    But as of now the (the long term R leaders) have no idea what will happen next. All they know is in 20 years everything they are doing now to stay in power will be moot as demographics wipes them out.

    This assumes fair (or at least reasonably fair) elections - something the R's are coincidentally doing their best to dismantle.

    1196:

    Damian @1154: Then I wonder whether the next series of gunmen will start out with lanyards and official looking ID to increase their own survivability. Just putting your driver’s licence on a plastic sleeve on an official looking lanyard would be a good start...

    Unfortunately that particular trick is already in their toolbox. During the Utøya attack, the terrorist was wearing a pretty good impersonation of a police uniform. I don't think it helped much when the real police arrived, but it did have an effect on the victims.

    1197:

    Among rich powerful male pedophile[0] associates of Epstein.

    Don't assume all (or even most) of Epstein's associates are paedophiles.

    Serial predators like Epstein often try to attach themselves to influential/famous people because it gives them access, star appeal by proxy, and helps intimidate or groom their victims ("I'm pals with the President, you know, you don't want to get on my bad side").

    This doesn't mean Epstein's associates aren't paedophiles either, but the picture is extremely murky. I do believe Trump has something to hide, though, relating to this case.

    (Plaintiff voluntarily withdrew the rape accusation against Trump, citing death threats. As we have seen since his election, speaking out against him is … dangerous.)

    1198:

    I think you've forgotten just how freaking far away from everywhere (except Argentina) the Falklands are; 747s don't routinely come equipped for in-flight refueling, and the Black Buck raids were about 150% of the 747s range with that external load.

    1199:

    Agreed, I can think of exactly 2 747s that are equipped for flying boom IFR, and they both sometimes use the callsign "Air Force One".

    1201:

    _Moz_ @ 1175: What happens if you have JATO on the 747? I assume "little bits of burning 747 everywhere" but I'm not sure.

    I dunno, I've only ever seen it done with a C-130.

    OTOH, if you mount one on an automobile chassis you become an internet meme.

    https://www.wired.com/2000/08/rocketcar/

    A highly entertaining story, well worth reading even if you don't believe a word of it.

    1202:

    Some C-130s have been specifically engineered for JATO. I'm not aware of any 747 that has, not even the 2 airframes that have flying boom refueling receivers.

    The "JATO car" is an urban legend (source being Highway Patrol for most of the desert states it could have happened in). The technical detail in the Darwin Awards account is good enough to be believable, and should explain why you can't just bolt 2 JATO bottles onto a 747 as well as entertaining you.

    1203:

    David L @ 1190:

    "The 3rd Congressional District is STILL VACANT from the 2018 election. A special election is scheduled for September 10."

    Yep. When the nominally apparent winner of the 2018 election for the seat got caught lying on the witness stand in front of the commission looking into whether or not to certify him as the winner it was game over for his possible win. Tisk tisk. Former mega church pastor and former head of they state SBC.

    You really have to be from the south in the US to understand how hypocritical that last position makes him. And the amount of congnitive dissonance that will have to take place as a result.

    The only thing I still retain from being raised up "almost a Baptist" is that I always sit in the last pew on the back row. 8^)

    1204:

    The "Jato car" myth was tested three times on Mythbusters, with, erm, spectacular results.

    1205:

    Charlie Stross @ 1197:

    "Among rich powerful male pedophile[0] associates of Epstein."

    Don't assume all (or even most) of Epstein's associates are paedophiles.

    Serial predators like Epstein often try to attach themselves to influential/famous people because it gives them access, star appeal by proxy, and helps intimidate or groom their victims ("I'm pals with the President, you know, you don't want to get on my bad side").

    This doesn't mean Epstein's associates aren't paedophiles either, but the picture is extremely murky. I do believe Trump has something to hide, though, relating to this case.

    Plaintiff voluntarily withdrew the rape accusation against Trump, citing death threats. As we have seen since his election, speaking out against him is … dangerous.)

    The father of one of the plaintiffs against Epstein has made credible (I believe they're credible) accusations that Epstein hired a private detective to run him off the road.

    I think many of Epstein's "associates" should have seen enough to suspect he was abusing under-age girls and just turned a blind eye to it. (wilful blindness)

    In the last week or so, I've seen a number of news reports that Les Wexner, CEO and Founder of "Victoria's Secret" accused Epstein of deceiving him and embezzling or misappropriating "vast sums of money" from him and his family. It's even caused "L Brands" stock price to fall.

    So my personal favorite "conspiracy theory" -(on the principle of if you haven't heard a good rumor conspiracy theory lately, make one up)- is that Victoria's REAL secret is she put out the hit on Epstein.

    PS: Note for the humor impaired ... the previous paragraph is SATIRE, however poor it might be.

    1206:

    paws4thot @ 1199: Agreed, I can think of exactly 2 747s that are equipped for flying boom IFR, and they both sometimes use the callsign "Air Force One".

    They removed the mid-air refueling capability from the new, replacement "Air Force One" aircraft, so now there won't even be those two.

    1207:

    Yep; 2 UAV sized JATO bottles can push 400kg from rest to 100 m/s in about 1 second. The usual "rocket car myth" involves a Hercules bottle.

    1208:

    Heteromeles @ 1204: The "Jato car" myth was tested three times on Mythbusters, with, erm, spectacular results.

    Do you know if Mythbusters ever tested out the Wired story's version of trying to make a home-made, DIY rocket sled out of an old car body & railroad wheels and testing it out on abandoned railroad tracks?

    As I said, the story is highly entertaining, and answers most of the objections I've seen to why a JATO bottle on a hot-rod wouldn't work ... mostly with some variation of "Yeah, we thought that might be a problem too, so we didn't do it that way ... here's what we did instead".

    If the story in Wired is not true, it deserves to be!

    1209:

    I dunno, I've only ever seen it done with a C-130.

    Check Credible Sport. It seems to work on takeoff, but there have been problems with landing.

    See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSFjhWw4DNo

    1210:

    I've seen credible pictures of home-made JATO bottles used on a home-made jet-powered bike (as in the jet engine was home-made too). The Australian creator hoped to get up to 200mph with it but didn't succeed. He did survive though, if the magazine story was true.

    The "jet engine" was based on a 747 APU with a homebuilt afterburner, the JATO rockets were homebrewed chemicals, probably something like picric acid and a solid fuel like butyl rubber.

    1211: 1208 to #1210 inc.

    MoD Pendine operates a JATO powered test track in the UK. The USA also has one. Making a man carrying rocket sled is a solved problem. "Credible Sport" seems to have had more problems with sequencing landing rocket burns than anything else. That said, does anyone else have a feeling that video is in slow motion?

    1212:

    The old Air Force One aircraft were VC-25As, based on the Boeing 747-200B. The replacements are VC-25Bs, based on the 747-8. Range of the VC-25A is cited as 6,800nm (via wikipedia): a regular 747-200B maxed out at 6000nm. The stock 747-8 is good for nearly 8000nm; it'd be reasonable to expect the VC-25B to have drastically better unrefuelled range than its predecessor.

    1213:

    is no-one protesting, or is that why they are going after journos?

    Australia has a long and proud history of media being owned by rich individuals who use it as a political platform. Seeing the Voice of Rupert raided by his pet politicians mostly engendered schadenfreud. Seeing the ABC raided by neofascists[1] at the instruction of a far right hate group[2] was no surprise, that's merely a small escalation of an ongoing war.

    First they came for the aborigines, and the journos said "kill an abo, improve the country", then they came for the greenies, and the journo's said "fucking ferals should be shot", Then they came for the unions, and the press with one voice said "about fucking time", then they came for the refugees, and the journos said "Australian concentration camps are too good for illegal immigrants, send them back", then they came for the child abuse victims, and the journos said "respect the church", then they came for the free speech defenders, and the journos said "watch what you say", when they came for the journos most people rolled their eyes and said "what did you expect?"

    Yeah, there have been protests, but in an environment where public servants can be fired for mentioning politics, then protesters face high fines and jail time for almost anything (pdf, see mining and forestry offences in particular) and worker can only go on strike with the employers permission restrictions on the media are not the most pressing problem.

    [1] the Australian Federal Police [2] the Australian Liberal Party. As with "People's Democratic Republic" or "Fox News", the names are neither descriptive nor a claim about the contents.

    1214:

    True, but the point about refueling VC-25s is endurance rather than range, surely? Keeping it in the air for longer if much of the ground infrastructure is subject to externally applied disassembly/disruption? Although they may be getting close to other limits on endurance as fitted.

    1215:

    Yes, but if you've got an unrefueled range of 8000nm you can fly just about anywhere in an entire hemisphere where an airfield still exists.

    AF1 could be airborne over the central USA for a couple of hours when a nuclear strike happens, and still have enough fuel to make it to an airfield in the middle east, or south America, or Japan. And with modern satcom it doesn't have to stooge around over CONUS to make the President's orders heard.

    1216:

    There was a very token protest from Gnus Crop when one of their own was raided, but mostly the ABC raid was something they cheered on. I think the interesting point with the ABC raid though was the circumstances of the warrant.

    The AFP felt the need to sneak out to Queanbeyan (that is, a small NSW town that happens to be close enough to Canberra to act as a dormitory suburb) and hit up a very junior magistrate in a court that only nominally handles federal matters. This individual is widley regarded to have overstepped his authority and expertise in not referring it to another court, and it is likely the legal profession have already taken steps to ensure this can’t happen again, no legislation needed. Doesn’t mean there won’t be some made to re-enable it of course.

    1217:

    The point which I forgot to make though, is this shows the police knew what they were after was dodgy and a proper judge in a senior court would very likely knock them back.

    1218:

    The "jet engine" was based on a 747 APU with a homebuilt afterburner, You are familar with jet cars? (Drag racing with same.) Maybe it's an American thing. (Note I've never been to this place; it is said to be very very loud. The people involved must not care about climate change.) Jet Truck - Englishtown NJ Raceway Park Jet Cars at Raceway Park

    1219:

    this shows the police knew what they were after was dodgy

    Yes. The problem is, and likely the point of the raid, was to get them unfettered access to the ABC computer systems for the foreseeable future. As noted above, the warrant gave them the power to modify any computer system, so even after it's overturned and the police pinky swear that they have destroyed all the evidence, proving that the ABC network is untainted is impossible. In a way that doesn't matter, because the feds can just use the anti-google laws to suborn the IT staff if they want to. Sorry, I mean "the data access provisions of the countering violent extremism legislation". Ahem.

    OTOH, now the ABC can respond to any further leaks and possibly even unflattering material they produce with the impossible to disprove comment "the federal police have so compromised our computer systems that we have no idea who has access let alone who produced any particular report. Our request for funding to repair the system has been given to the government"

    1220:

    They've not been run very often (also AFAIK Nojay's not interested in drag racing) but the UK has a few pure reaction engine vehicles too. Likely name searches will be "Santa Pod" or "Shakespeare County Raceway".

    1221:

    pure reaction engine vehicles

    For some reason I have a vision of some pure aryan white nationalist strapped to the back of a drag car then when the light turns green a curtain drops to reveal... a family of non-white refugees. "eeeeeeeekkk" and the drag car is propelled violently down the track.

    1222:

    This article has a bit of an overview of Australia's various "Right to Shut Up and Do What You're Told" laws as contrasted with countries that have various dangerous foreign 'freedom' things: https://theconversation.com/why-an-australian-charter-of-rights-is-a-matter-of-national-urgency-121411

    The High Court has confirmed unanimously that Australians do not have a personal right to freedom of speech.

    Most Australians might be surprised to learn this, but this is one of the consequences of Australia being the only Western democracy without some form of charter of rights legislated by parliament or entrenched in the constitution.

    The High Court is technically right. The constitution does not explicitly protect the right to freedom of speech. In its ruling, the court upheld the government’s right to sack Michaela Banerji, a public servant, for her critical tweets about the indefinite detention of refugees offshore, among other concerns.

    1223:

    Moz @ 1222 You mean that the rights in the UK "Bill of Rights" 1688/9 have not been carried over to AUS? Or have been overwritten? That is realy scary - do you/we know how that happened?

    1224:

    Oh, I know there are assorted rocket and jet cars out there[0] but they tend to use existing professionally engineered motors that were surplused or acquired by various means. This nutter built his own jet engine using an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) from a 747, a device that is not meant to provide thrust in normal use. He then added an very-much-non-standard afterburner stage. The home-rolled JATO bottles were just the cherry on the top.

    [0] Embarrassingly a modern electric sports car, assuming enough investment in tyres and transmissions, can just about keep up with a rocket or jet engined drag car in terms of acceleration from a standing start. It takes time to spool up a jet engine or build up thrust on a rocket after ignition, an electric motor can deliver rated torque to the tyres within a couple of milliseconds.

    1225:

    Followed the Banerji case with a lot of interest and creeping fear. I am a public servant, and comment about matters like immigration (I’m very much an open borders person) and other topics all the time. I’m also a bit careful about where and with what privacy settings, but the current High Court seems to think that doesn’t help.

    Queensland has recently passed a Human Rights Act, I believe some other states and the ACT have done similar (not convenient to look it up just now). Agree it’s becoming urgent to get one at a federal level, though there are a few other constitutional issues I see as urgent on the same scale.

    1226:

    I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mean that - if he does he’d be wrong. The Glorious Revolution and the decades preceding and following it are just as foundational for the USA and Australia/NZ (without getting into historical detail you clearly simply lack the nuance to deal with) as they are for the UK. The instrument you refer to, however, does not in fact do what Moz is talking about. There is no implied right of free speech in the UK either. We are in a constitutionally similar position, though in Australian jurisdictions we have a few more advantages (like Queensland’s 2019 HRA).

    1227:

    You know more than I do about APU ( + Darwin candidate?). I was thinking of the various actual or alleged cases of JATO + Darwin candidate, and jet drag cars.

    1228:

    Most of the "shade tree mechanics" doing such things are fairly ignorant of ground effect and aerodynamics in general. Much less structural engineering.

    "Hey maybe we should use a bigger bar there. Naw, that's twice as big as the original, it should be fine."

    [1] Term used in the US to describe people who did their own work on their cars. In the summer under a big tree to get out of the sun.

    1229:

    Is there any way Hong Kong doesn't end badly for the people of HK? While another Tiananmen Square level killing might not happen the Party can't let people think this is to be tolerated. It is just not an option.

    1230:

    “Is there a way Hong Kong doesn’t end badly...?”

    I can’t see one. One is always hopeful, but sadly I think it will make Tiananmen Square look tolerable.

    1231:

    I presume "shade tree mechanic ~ Darwin candidate" in this context?

    1232:

    Sort of. It refers to folks who do such work without a formal shop or training. Some of the Darwin guys have money training and equipment behind them. And still get into "Hold my beer..."

    My father and I would have been considered shade tree mechanics as we did 99% of our own work on cars, lawnmowers, and the small farm tractor we owned. Sometimes in the garage, sometimes on the carport, sometimes in the gravel driveway, and a few times I got to change the head gasket in the middle of a field on the flat head Ford 8N tractor. It only required a single size of wrench and was accessible without removing anything else. And only once did I forget to re-torque the bolts after 15 minutes of use. [eyeroll]

    1233:

    I thought it referred to people like the guys in India who think nothing of taking a gearbox completely to pieces and fettling it at the side of the road.

    I think I would get on with those guys...

    1234:

    The time I forgot to tighten the head bolts after the engine had warmed I was mowing a field only a few minutes walk from our local gas/parts/whatever shop and was able to walk there and buy a gasket and sealer and put it on in the field. Timing was about right as the engine had cooled by the time I got back to the tractor with the gasket.

    1235:

    It refers to folks who do such work without a formal shop or training.

    There are surprisingly many "no formal training" types with actual shops and businesses too. It's unsurprising if you think about how awful school is for the not-literary types whether that be dyslexia etc or simply a poor start compounded by "active disinterest" from the school system.

    What's scary is that some of them produce stuff like truck bodies and trailers, sometimes with proper engineering approval and sometimes "based on a true story proper set of plans". When you buy such a thing it can be interesting to trace back and discover whether the much-used second hand with full legal compliance documentation thing is actually compliant with the regulations (at the time it was built, forget about the current regs).

    1236:

    The instrument you refer to, however, does not in fact do what Moz is talking about.

    Egg Zachary! We have the full gamut of traditional English legal instruments, but our constitution specifically excludes controversial measures like the freedoms being discussed, as well as having carve-outs to allow genocide and sundry other things now frowned upon. My understanding matches Damian's - the UK has some constitutionally protected freedoms but many less than are commonly supposed. And enforcement is subject to ability to sue, which requires not just wealth but a degree of freedom.

    I believe the UK has only recently decided that sedition is perhaps not best treated by beheading, and the nightmare that is 'private nuisance' and oh boy libel laws mean that even your "freedom of speech" is less vigorously protected than you might think from a naive reading of the ancient treaties.

    1237:

    That's less helpful than you might think, given that, just between David L, Pigeon, yourself and me, and with Pigeon's mention of India, we're already looking at 4 nations, for some purposes 5 legal systems, and at least 5 educational systems so far (through high school, the UK actually has 10 or 11 examining boards and syllibii and at least 3 separate boards for post high school but sub degree study).

    1238:

    My impression is that school systems are uniformly if not entirely unpleasant for people who struggle to read. I'm specifically aware of some attempts to make those systems less awful, and how unusual an effective program for doing that is. When the better governments have not just programmes but entire sub-departments dedicated to "helping people that struggle with the education system" it's pretty safe to assume that when more callous governments lack those facilities it's not because they've solved the problem.

    Which is why I didn't bother digging into the specifics of any one system, and indeed why I felt confident making a broad generalisation.

    1239:

    Will say that at least some Oregon schools do a pretty good job for people with special needs. Now, no one will ever be happy, as a rule, but I was positively impressed.

    1240:

    Well, talk about "changing the goal posts"; you've just switched the entire game! Or did I imagine #1235 reading "how awful school is for the not-literary types"?That doesn't require, or even imply, special needs, but simply a lack of interest in pursuing arts and/or languages.

    1241:

    Actually, so we're clear on this, special needs education provision in the UK varies, not by exam board (which would be complex enough) but by local authority, which means I think something like 103 bodies in the UK alone.

    1242:

    My point was perhaps better made as "school kids that don't quickly become comfortable with reading are frequently classified as slow learners and ignored rather than given sufficient extra assistance to catch up". Talk to a new entrant teacher and most will be well aware of the group of kids in every class who are socially handicapped rather than intellectually, and for whom part of the social handicap is not having parents who will push the school (and the kid) for success in the education system.

    I was meaning people who struggle with reading and writing (literally "not literary"), and thinking of that spectrum starting at the "prefer an apprenticeship over university" end of the scale and going right down the the hard end of intellectual disability. And the specific example is a friend of mine who is obviously dyslexic but owns a manufacturing business he developed from a garage operation. He can use CAD but it's one of those "wow despite dyslexia" things that I suspect costs him more effort than he is willing to discuss. But any maths he can't do in his head is out of the question, and even working off plans is often a bit of a challenge. His brain just doesn't work that way.

    A lot of those people don't qualify for "special needs education" and many would be offended at the suggestion. Since many have been on the school-to-prison track from an early age it's a fairly risky suggestion to make.

    1243:

    Oi, the full quote was "how awful school is for the not-literary types whether that be dyslexia etc or simply a poor start", so it obviously includes people with dyslexia and also people who just haven't been taught to read before they start school. And that particular disorder covers a range from "cannot recognise print as meaningful" through to "struggles with mathematical formulas that cover an entire page" (yes, compared to Ramanujan we are all dyslexic :).

    1244:

    at least some Oregon schools do a pretty good job for people with special needs

    Special needs, though, can mean "severe intellectual disability according to state certification ..." and an absolute cut-off in assistance for anyone even a quantum leap above that level; or it can mean "people who will be fine if they get an hour a week for a few months in their first year of school".

    My mother worked in one of the latter programmes and it was measurably successful even for the kids who were in it because there was no useful provision for kids in that socioeconomic decile with intellectual disabilities. Viz "you're special needs, here's an assistance program, you are therefore in it". But for the kids it was actually designed for it was often literally night and day. Kids that came in unable to read came out reading and writing with their peer group, and often stayed that way right through school. There is a limit to fixing socioeconomic disadvantage, obviously, but that programme definitely helped at least arrest the intergenerational decline.

    As the neoliberal scum like to put it, a small investment at the start pays off hugely over the rest of that kids life. That did not, of course, stop them "saving money" by imposing "efficiency dividends" until the program became ineffectual then canning it completely. The good news is that with the savings there and in other places they were able to fund a significant expansion of the "justice system" even including a new prison... so the economy grew! All hail the mighty masters of ever-growing GDP! Let us place them on pedestals to be admired by the population! Or perhaps use existing structures, like lamp-posts, and cheaper mounting systems, like rope... perhaps a top-down mounting system in honour of their love of top-down systems?

    1245:

    David L @ 1229: Is there any way Hong Kong doesn't end badly for the people of HK? While another Tiananmen Square level killing might not happen the Party can't let people think this is to be tolerated. It is just not an option.

    I had a thought earlier this evening that maybe Beijing would just get tired of the aggravation and invite the British to take their colony back.

    1246:

    paws4thot @ 1231: I presume "shade tree mechanic ~ Darwin candidate" in this context?

    Back before cars got so complex that you need an advanced computer science degree just to read the OBD codes, people often repaired their own cars ... things like replacing brake shoes & wheel bearings; rebuilding a carborator; replacing a water pump or a muffler ... and in the south, if you didn't have a garage to work in, you did it out in the yard under a shady tree. It was almost a rite of passage for teenage boys in U.S. during the 50s & 60s ... sometimes even into the early 80s.

    Someone mentioned Heinlein's Competent Man earlier. Add "Fix a flat tire on the side of the road" to the list of things he should be able to do. And you shouldn't have to take the car into the dealer's service department just to have a brake light bulb replaced.

    Nowadays it seems like people buy a car and don't even know how to open the hood. And if they do know, they still can't find the dipstick to check their oil.

    1247:

    I've done all of those things except "rebuilding a carborator": I have both rebuilt and replaced carburetors (single and twin barrel) though.

    That said, the entry for changing a headlight, front trafficator or parking light bulb on my sister's Honda Jazz begins "1. Put the steering onto full lock and remove the wheel arch liner." Various Renaults require the front bumper (plastic pelmut, not the crash beam) removing to replace a front bulb. Still think this is a roadside job?

    And back at my original point, I was suggesting that they were undertaking work beyond their knowledge/competence to complete safely.

    1248:

    Add "Fix a flat tire on the side of the road" to the list of things he should be able to do.

    To enhance my displeasure at my flat tire last month (as I've noted, literally after leaving my house for the last time before NASFIC), I discovered once stranded that I had no jack - either completely absent or buried under luggage beyond recovery. The AAA guy who showed up with a very nice jack appreciated that my enormous American car has "a real spare tire not a rubber doughnut."

    1249:

    Add "Fix a flat tire on the side of the road" to the list of things he should be able to do.

    Got to fix a flat on my Tundra pickup truck. (Rated to pull 10K pounds.) Not fun. 18" rims. Tire and rim weighs 40 to 60 pounds. (Hard to estimate as it is so frigging awkward to pick up.) Took a bit over an hour as I had NEVER actually done it and had to get out the manuals to find out where the tools were hidden. And I was on pavement. Hate to do in in dirt with plants growing or on an unpaved curb.

    1250:

    JBS @ 1245 NOT funny, unfortunately - wish it were true, perhaps? Apparently a lot of HK'ers are wanting theor evil longnosed colonial "Mastyers" back, because they were nowhere nearly as bad as the Han. Especially since word of what's happening in Xinjiang has got out.

    paws @ 1247 Bloody insane, isn't it? I ASSUME it's a deliberate freud on the part of the manufacturers' to increase money intake via franchised repair outlets

    1251:

    Re #1247 - More so (particular note for non-Europeans) since French law requires you to have a spare bulb kit in the car! You would therefore expect that a car which requires active dismantling to change a bulb would not pass French type approval (and maybe roadworthiness tests too).

    1252:

    I ASSUME it's a deliberate freud on the part of the manufacturers' to increase money intake via franchised repair outlets

    Now there's a Freudian slip worthy of the name.

    1253:

    The old (as in now someone else’s problem) Volvo required removing the wheel arch liner to get to the air conditioning compressor, which is sort of where all the trouble began. Changing front bulbs didn’t require this, the entire headlight assembly could be ejected like a cassette. Actually changing the bulbs however involved extending your fingers through narrow openings at unnatural angles and was hard enough to do at home, on a bench (I imagine proper Volvo people have special Volvo tools for this). I wouldn’t like to try it in the field.

    Haven’t got to that stage with the new little Mazda, but most things on it seem pretty sensible (once you get over all the empty space in the engine compartment around the tiny, tiny motor).

    1254:

    ...once you get over all the empty space in the engine compartment around the tiny, tiny motor...

    Is the model offered with different engines?

    I'd rather hoped for that situation myself, remembering 1970s cars, back when I was thinking about installing a PA speaker. It turned out that the engine compartment, instead of having enough extra space to house a family of raccoons, is tightly packed with engine. This is consistent with the strong performance of so much Detroit iron and the bill whenever I visit the gas station.

    1255:

    “Is the model offered with different engines?”

    I believe not, at least currently. There isn’t even a turbo variant. The more expensive versions have, as I understand it, the same engine just tuned to burn more fuel, while producing slightly more torque at the low end, and very little extra power. I should say it doesn’t feel the least bit underpowered, it is more the contrast with other modern cars that as you say leave no space at all.

    1256:

    Complete sidetrack, and I don't think anyone has posted this before:

    Well, we know where the penguins are.

    But where are the shoggot'im?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-49340715

    (I know, "soft parts don't fossilise well"...)

    1257:

    Well, there are original Lovecraft and continuity Cthulhu mythos stories set in Antarctica.

    1258:

    Actually, there's some interesting coolness there. Giant penguins have been popping up in the fossil records since, erm, 1859 (see Palaeeudyptes antarcticus. That one was found on Seymour Island, Antarctica. Oddly enough, penguins have a pretty decent fossil record, and there have been child-sized ones turning up for quite some time. This new one (Kumimanu biceae) just happens to be the biggest and oldest.

    Apparently, before marine mammals and especially seals and sea lions got big, giant penguins ruled the waves, at least in the southern hemisphere. Kind of a neat thought, really.

    Now I really have to write that novel, where the shoggothim are a pseudoplasmodial swarm of schmoos...

    1259:

    Kind of like how before Panama joined up South America was ruled by twelve-foot carnivorous killer ostriches. Bloody cats...

    (Well, OK, they weren't actually ostriches, but you get the idea.)

    1260:

    paws4thot @ 1251: Re #1247 - More so (particular note for non-Europeans) since French law requires you to have a spare bulb kit in the car! You would therefore expect that a car which requires active dismantling to change a bulb would not pass French type approval (and maybe roadworthiness tests too).

    My 2005 Ford Focus, you had to remove the windshield washer tank to get to the passenger side headlight when changing the bulb (halogen lamp). The driver's side you could just barely squeeze a hand in, but it was a lot easier if you removed the air filter duct from the intake manifold.

    1261:

    This has been going around my Facepalm feed today. I haven't been able to track down the original author.

    I’m not saying there wasn’t a democratic mandate for Brexit at the time. I’m just saying if I narrowly decided to order fish at a restaurant that was known for chicken, but said it was happy to offer fish, and so far I’ve been waiting three hours, and two chefs who promised to cook the fish had quit, and the third one is promising to deliver the fish in the next five minutes whether it’s cooked or nor, or indeed still alive, and all the waiting staff have spent the last few hours arguing amongst themselves about whether I wanted battered cod, grilled salmon, jellied eels, or dolphin kebabs, and if large parts of the restaurant appeared to be on fire but no one was paying attention to it because they were all arguing about fish, I would quite like, just once, to be asked if I definitely still wanted the fish.

    1262:

    Scott Sanford @ 1261: This has been going around my Facepalm feed today. I haven't been able to track down the original author.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HDFegpX5gI

    1264:

    Meanwhile behaiong fucking paywall, but now beiong repeated elsewhere .. No Deal WILL cause shortages & blockages & chaos -OFFICIAL I don't doubt this will be dismissed as more "experts" we don't need by the idiots in charge of the asylum .... Reuters also have a short piece on this: Here ...

    1265:

    Original source being a government document, which I saw a summary of www.briskoda.net, in the "Roadside Hotel" forum, last page of the Brexit thread.

    1266:

    I'm unclear on whether a direct link will get our host into trouble, but somebody copy/pasted it (I think whole, not sure) to reddit; google search on site:reddit.com "On Day 1 of No Deal, Her Majesty’s government will activate the" Glad it leaked.

    1267:

    Now it's been leaked it's not an issue beyond that I couldn't deep link it. If the leaker's name was known, they could be in trouble but there's no issue with quoting something that's already in the press (well beyond Gove sliming all over the TV news anyway).

    1268:

    No, there is no desire to have the Brits back in charge. The desire is to get the PRC side to actually honour the terms of the handover agreement and grant us a "high degree of autonomy" as promised.They've consistently refused to allow any meaningful reforms to the political system, and even reverted a bunch of Patten's changes one they too over.

    There is a desire to have the UK(as the signatory to the Join Agreement) to actually put pressure on the PRC, but so far there's been not much beyond some stern words. That might change, as an officer of the British Consulate has been detained in China for a few weeks.

    1269:

    ondaiwai @ 1268: No, there is no desire to have the Brits back in charge. The desire is to get the PRC side to actually honour the terms of the handover agreement and grant us a "high degree of autonomy" as promised.They've consistently refused to allow any meaningful reforms to the political system, and even reverted a bunch of Patten's changes one they too over.

    There is a desire to have the UK(as the signatory to the Join Agreement) to actually put pressure on the PRC, but so far there's been not much beyond some stern words. That might change, as an officer of the British Consulate has been detained in China for a few weeks.

    When I mentioned it, I was just goofin' on y'all ... like the suggestion that all of the United State's problems could be solved if the "Indians" would just take back Manhattan Island and give us our $24 worth of trinkets back.

    But humor (or humour if you will) is wasted on some people.

    1270:

    JBS @ 1269: I was just goofin' on y'all ... like the suggestion that all of the United State's problems could be solved if the "Indians" would just take back Manhattan Island and give us our $24 worth of trinkets back.

    Hmm. I think that would be an excellent idea, provided that the "Indians"/First Nations take back not only Manhattan, but by extension the whole continent, and anybody whose ancestors didn't live on the continent in 1491 had to leave. That would certainly solve a lot of the problems the rest of the world has with its current imperial power.

    On a slightly related note: I wonder why during the recent racist ruckus Donald Dumb made about Democratic Congresswomen who should 'go back [to their countries]' nobody immediately suggested that the 3rd generation immigrant Donald Dumb should set an example and return to his grandfather's birthplace. (Of course, nobody wants him here. But that is a different issue.)

    1271:

    Except the people of HK need to accept the reality that the UK is currently focused on achieving irrelevance on the world stage, and given the animosity generated by how the UK has behaved during this process the UK no longer has any influence with a small country let alone China.

    1272:

    I dispute that the UK is heading for irrelevance, because it is likely to achieve the status of a horrible example. But, as far as its influence on China goes, you are quite right.

    1273:

    I have to believe in parallel evolution - if only because it strains plausibility to imagine the Russians hearing about what the Puppies did to the Hugo Awards and saying, "We should try that on the US and Britain."

    1274:

    What Russia is doing is really just a modern version of what the Soviets did in the past, updated to reflect the modern reality in Russia (it's no longer the "communist utopia" targeting the left but rather an extreme right wing aiming at Republicans/Conservatives in the western world) and using modern methods of disinformation.

    1275:

    Heteromeles: All good points. The most romantic version of corvee of all was Trotskys "militarization of labor" to Try To Build Socialism Right Now In The Middle Of Apocalypse Now" idea, which Lenin shot down, preferring to go partway back to capitalism instead. Which Trotsky after some cogitation realised was more practical too, indeed he even claimed he'd proposed it in the first place and only went with "militarizing labor" when the other leaders turned it down the first time. However the CCC wasn't corvee, as it was voluntary, nobody was drafted into it. Basically, any form of draft forced labor under capitalism will turn out in practice to be something like Stalin's gulags, except maybe worse. You already have prisoners in the US used for forced labor paid almost nothing. The ugliest and most recent version is them being used as agricultural field labor, what with the traditional US importation of hideously exploited farm workers with no rights tap being turned off. With prisoners, nobody cares if the work conditions are so bad they get sick and die.

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