Well, the new USSR is threatening nuclear drops every 48 hours. At some stage someone like Trump is going to…
Open Thread – Wed 3 Jan 2024
- The more you gets the less you eats
- Open Thread – Weekend 23 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 21 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 18 Nov 2024
- From darkness to the promise of light
As a life long cat owner, I can attest to the accuracy of this. https://ace.mu.nu/archives/cat%20christmas%20coming%20soon.jpg
A magnificent song.
Snap, BJ!
Shirt lifter also works well. There are shirt lifters and pillow biters everywhere. As my brother always says in diagnosing…
..and by that I mean supplier:retail price ratio.
Frinstance lamb chops at the local red cement packaged food mecca are over $70/kilo, my last sale was $4.70/kilo.
I don’t think we did a single consulting job without the client thinking someone up or down the value chain was making the profit they should have been making. Australian supermarkets are ridiculously concentrated, which of itself doesn’t really tell you much about pricing behaviour. I’m sure the Senate will be keen to “Do Something”.
Hopefully – too little, too late, Tony.
Well, killing an unborn child has been health care for some time now…
This is perfectly normal behavior.
Ironically, he’s doing exactly what the old matron is accusing me of doing.
…not that sheep are made up of 99% frenched cutlets, of course
JC at 10:07.
I find that stuff very, very hurtful.
Think how I feel about it. It feels like I’ve been pussy whipped.
Reading John C McManus “Fire and Fortitude – The U.S.Army in the Pacific War 1941 – 1943.”
Seems that, after the breakdown of his first, miserable marriage, one Douglas MacArthur – aged fifty – was playing “sugar daddy” to a sixteen year old Philippine girl, Isabel Rosario Cooper. He arranged for her to come to Washington, where he installed her in a Georgetown apartment…(Page 53.) Interesting reading..
From Cohenite’s 4:59 p.m. link above:
I’ve made a similar statement previously, suggesting that it is the failure of conservatives (not conservatism, but conservatives themselves) to substantially oppose the destructive social and economic policies in question, that has brought us to this point of decades of destruction.
It has been the failure to defend anything; without an alternative narrative, people will believe – reluctantly or otherwise – the only information placed before them.
The way forward (assuming that is desired?) is for conservatives (NOT the Lieborals – they are a political carcass) to seize the initiative, accept responsibility for their failures, and use the ‘Hey, we f*cked up. Sorry. We’re here to start again; let’s talk,’ approach to engage with demographics previously ignored.
Unfortunately, ego and pride stand in the way.
Don’t say “pussy whipped”.
The cat guy is still here.
BTC fixes money
Happy New Year
Custard! Good to see you back!
Custard
How so? How does BTC “fix” money when there are days it moves 10%? Try operating a business with say a 20% operating margin and BTC drops 1/2 of that in a single day, and that would mean that you would have to adjust prices for all inputs – including wages- with that sort of volatility.
BTC has gone up an incredible amount since 2008 against the AUD.
Good evening JC
The problem with money, time immemorial, is that trust is lost. We’ve seen silver diluted with other metals (to cheat) in Roman times, and the USA removing the gold standard during Nixon.
The USA dollar is the prime reserve currency of the world at this moment but clearly its days are numbered and there is no obvious or credible alternative prime reserve currency.
I believe that if the global financial system tip’s over (black swan event) then bitcoin with its capped 21m only ever amount of supply, is the cure to man’s greed over centuries.
The other thing to consider, if Trump is correct in saying that he “caught them all, I caught…”
The only way that you could be ascendant in making this claim is that you also took the money off them and to consider how that might come about.
Ed desk: Harvard’s Long Post-Gay Recovery
Ousted Harvard President Claudine Gay’s letter of resignation “deserves close reading,” scoffs Peter W. Wood at The Spectator. “The first, not entirely cynical reaction is: did she write it herself?”
Another question: Why wouldn’t Harvard “unload a dishonest, serial plagiarist, whose record of scholarship would embarrass a cooked lobster?”
And “why, oh why, Harvard Corporation, did it take this long to figure out the incalculable damage this pseudo-scholar and race-baiting activist was doing to Harvard’s reputation?”
“Gay, we can be sure, will land on her feet” and “play a part in politics after a due period of reputational rehabilitation.
Harvard may have to wait longer.” That’s “cause for lamentation for those of us who took pride in [a] once great institution.”
Dot
It also collapsed from 61k toi 15k in 12 months – a drop of 75%. Not just the drop, but the recent rise is also gobsmacking from that November 22 low of 15k, it’s gone to 43k today, which is a rise of 187%.
How is it possible to operate an economy using BTC with that sort of volatility, leaving aside that it has zero capacity to facilite massive numbers of transactions per day. It’s not possible.
Fat Propaganda Roundup: #BodyPositive Terrorists Hijack Southwest Airlines
Documenting the meatiest, juiciest cuts of “fat acceptance” propaganda from corporate and social media.
The Fat Crusade marches on, thunderously. They’re at the gates.
Tributes will be paid.
Southwest Airlines submits to #SocialJustice, grants fats free seats no-charge
The fats, as we know, mix with aviation like oil with water.
Complementary extra seats on airplanes have long been a top demand of the #bodypositivity lobby.
Because demanding free stuff is way easier than eating responsibly.
Because inertia.
*Calling an unfair accommodation for human-walrus hybrids — who, again, as a matter of physics, hog up more space and suck up more jet fuel than normal-sized humans — a “customer of size” policy is a total disservice to these people. They need tough love, not sugar-coating their obesity in the “soft language” that George Carlin ranted about back in the day.
**The very fact that there exists in this world an occupation called “travel influencer” is, perhaps, the best evidence thus far that we are living in the endtimes.
Oh, Lawd, take the wheel!
400-pound aspirational gym teacher denied work, sues school district for fat discrimination
The absolute hubris.
The other interesting thing about BTC is the “halving “.
This event is when a successful BTC miner manages to create a BTC and this requires an enormous amount of energy, and they get gifted BTC for their efforts.
Their reward for doing so is about to be halved.
This will impact on the price of BTC .
The economy can handle volatility.
Barley prices are similarly volatile. Do farms still exist?
When there is more uptake, the price will rise and stabilise.
Visa etc like spreading the myth about the blockchain being slow. It isn’t true anymore.
It’s legal tender in Japan and the national currency in Nicaragua.
A Mooslime marries a TWELVE year old girl.
She refuses to enter the marital bed….
HEALTHFlorida Surgeon General Calls for Complete Halt of COVID-19 Vaccines
“These vaccines are not appropriate for use in human beings.”
The Pfizer COVID-19 “vaccine” injected into billions of arms was not the same one used in Pfizer’s clinical trials.
There was a “bait-and-switch.” The public received vials contaminated with plasmid DNA.
A new study by Kevin McKernan and colleagues found “the presence of billions to hundreds of billions of DNA molecules per dose in these vaccines. Using fluorometry, all vaccines exceed the guidelines for residual DNA set by FDA and WHO of 10 ng/dose by 188 to 509-fold.”
Dr. Ladapo Addresses the FDA
On December 6, 2023, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo sent a letter to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding safety concerns after the discovery of billions of DNA fragments per dose in Pfizer’s and Moderna’s mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines.
Citing guidance published by the FDA in 2007, Dr. Ladapo presented the following concerns with respect to regulatory limits for DNA in vaccines:
DNA integration could theoretically impact a human’s oncogenes – the genes which can transform a healthy cell into a cancerous cell.
DNA integration may result in chromosomal instability.
The Guidance for Industry discusses biodistribution of DNA vaccines and how such integration could affect unintended parts of the body including blood, heart, brain, liver, kidney, bone marrow, ovaries/testes, lung, draining lymph nodes, spleen, the site of administration and subcutis at injection site.
On December 14, 2023, The FDA responded to Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo with a letter, providing no reassurance that DNA integration assessments were conducted to address the safety concerns outlined by the FDA itself in 2007.
As such, Dr. Joseph Ladapo called for a halt to the use of all COVID-19 mRNA injections on Wednesday, January 3, 2024. He issued the following statement:
“The FDA’s response does not provide data or evidence that the DNA integration assessments they recommended themselves have been performed. Instead, they pointed to genotoxicity studies – which are inadequate assessments for DNA integration risk. In addition, they obfuscated the difference between the SV40 promoter/enhancer and SV40 proteins, two elements that are distinct.
“DNA integration poses a unique and elevated risk to human health and to the integrity of the human genome, including the risk that DNA integrated into sperm or egg gametes could be passed onto offspring of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine recipients. If the risks of DNA integration have not been assessed for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, these vaccines are not appropriate for use in human beings.
“Providers concerned about patient health risks associated with COVID-19 should prioritize patient access to non-mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and treatment. It is my hope that, in regard to COVID-19, the FDA will one day seriously consider its regulatory responsibility to protect human health, including the integrity of the human genome.”
“In the spirit of transparency and scientific integrity, State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo will continue to assess research surrounding these risks and provide updates to Floridians.”
The entire bulletin from the Florida Department of Health is available to read here.
Custard, leave aside the Roman Empire, even though, like you, I think about the Roman Empire every waking moment.
Nixon did NOT take the dollar off the gold standard, as there was no gold standard to speak of after Bretton Woods. There was a gold exchange standard, which theoretically meant that central banks could make a physical claim against the Fed at any time. The frogs tried with Nixon. Nixon told them to buzz off, and the dollar floated the next Monday. No individual could make a claim for gold with an exchange of dollars after Bretton Woods. In fact, it was illegal for Americans to trade in gold.
Your assertion doesn’t defend itself. If there is no credible alternative, then how do you claim its days are numbered?
What you believe and what is credible are two different things.
And in other news caravan sales at shows in the last 12 months are down between 50-70 %
I didn’t sell a single van in December.
The economy is tanking….
Alas
The Reddit cuckerinos could not answer my question.
It’s just been seven idiots telling me what their opinion is on the purpose and virtues of superannuation are.
JC
If I’m wrong, you should be able to tell us all what the alternative is.
I don’t pretend to know what it is.
Do you know what it is?
The situation as it stands is going to massively tip over…
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Jan 4, 2024 11:02 PM
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2024/01/delightful.html
A Mooslime marries a TWELVE year old girl.
She refuses to enter the marital bed….
Zulu,
you forgot to add from that link – the Mentality of the InBred Muslim Arab Camel Traders Mles – or Muslims Males Anywhere in the World – Lovely People
Dr. Jimmy Yam
@JimmyJoeYam
A #Muslim marries a 12 year old girl.
She refuses to go to the marital bed.
This hurts the man’s feelings, so he goes to find his gun and kill her.
“No, no” say his friends.
“We are not #Savages . Show her your power as a man.
Rape her!”
in yet another incredible coincidence
suddenly JCs approval skyrockets
but is just as suddenly matched by equal number of downticks
and nobody noticed … amazing
Gerhard Berger, a 10-time Grand Prix winner, believes that his former McLaren team-mate Ayrton Senna and reigning world champion Max Verstappen are the two best drivers he has witnessed during his time watching F1.
The 64-year-old ranked the pair above the iconic duo of Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton.
Speaking to Austrian news outlet Kronen Zeitung, Berger explained: “Verstappen and Senna are unique in the business.
They are the two best I have seen in the last 50 years.
Schumacher and Hamilton are also exceptional drivers. Of course, you should always look at the statistics, they are both fantastic.
But Senna died early, and Verstappen is still young.”
I didn’t sell a single van in December.
…because Perth has had $2 diesel and Exmouth’s weather since August
Not of this type permeating through the economy, because it too volatile as a medium of exchange.
Barley is a tiny slither of the economy and while the price of the underlying commodity is volatile the end price of a completed product doesn’t display this sort of volatility.
The price of beer (barley input) doesn’t move that much even with a doubling of barley prices because barley is but one input of many. Imagine though, if the price of beer moved 10% a day if the medium of exchange forced it to do so. It would be a nightmare of Elm Street proportions.
Let’s wait and see, but I have many doubts.
Visa can do 65000 transactions in a second. Can BTC?
And I bet the prices are adjusted to the yen and the dollar on a live screen. In other words it’s not sitting alone.
Condolences though, Custrad. I know machinery chains have had $1m John Deeres lined up from Esperance to Northampton, no-one’s biting, even with bottom grade oats above $400. Local Deutz fella is desperate, he’s got new stock coming in and he’s still holding lemons from 2018.
J.C.
I accused you of being complicit in the dobbing in of Brian. That’s a different story altogether, but it holds with your tactic of manufacturing bullets and giving them to someone else to fire off.
It’s part of your personality that Sancho hasn’t yet worked out but he will when you leave him swinging in the breeze.
And you brought this up this time, not me.
Jealousy is a curse, Trans. You recently told us you didn’t much care about ticks and now look at you, drunk and trying to sound smart. I’ve ticked one single time and then I informed the poster. That’s the extent of my ticking. You’re a god oracle, but not a very smart one.
Do you play chess JC?
This blog (sadly) is still off the pace…
That’s just incomprehensible sludge.
When will Driller leave you swinging in the breeze for being a complete imbecile?
Of course I brought it up, seeing you made negative comments about highlighting the
Driller’s questionable/ flexible ethics regarding plagiarism. You knew about Brian’s total disavowal that I had anything to do with it, yet you tried that slanderous old hoax again. Your dishonesty and stupidity is beyond redemption.
I believe you also defended and denied the Adonis treachery too. You were part of that team I believe. I find you totally offensive.
MatrixTransform
Jan 4, 2024 11:10 PM
Oh, I noticed all right. Projection is a near constant in JCs rants.
I know, but you’re repeating yourself
In my lifetime? The dollar.
Custard, you told us it’s BTC.
I just said, in my lifetime , it will be the dollar.
Why, because you lost that bet putting it all on a Trump win?
You’ve been off pace ever since. 🙂
I know Winston … just saying it out loud
We’ll see JC
Yo, gutless dago, you located a citation for your false claim yet?
custard
Jan 4, 2024 11:04 PM
And in other news caravan sales at shows in the last 12 months are down between 50-70 %
I didn’t sell a single van in December.
The economy is tanking….
custard,
sitting in the Honda Jazz at Warringah Mall while my Wife went shopping for sale bed sheets
Brand New Heavily Modified Toyota 78 Series Troopy V8 pulled up just further down
Missed seeing driver leave, but got out and wandered around looking at the Mods
Running 315LT70 x 17 Alloy Wheels & Tyres with 2 Spares on Swing Away at rear and with JmacX Front & Rear Supsension – ARB Bull Bar, Warn Winch, GME Aerial, Safari Snorkel, ARB Side bars and Steps, ARB Lights, etc – loads of accessories plus roof top
Having road tested the Original 78 Series V8 Troopy, when it was released up in FNQ & the Cape, Toyota had to widen the front track to accommodate the new V8 Turbo Diesel (Super Motor – glides over Simpson Desert Sand Dunes) but they left the rear 100 mm narrower – drove & looked like it was crabbing on original test
I noticed on this New V8 Troopy that the rear matched the front
When the Driver returned, turned out to be a young tradie, I complimented him on one of the best 78 Series V8 Troopys I had seen.
I asked if he has used spacers to get rear alignment or gone for full rear diff replacement
Answer Full Diff replacement
JMACX Track Correction Leaf Diff
$6,200.00 inc GST
. Stronger 6mm fabricated Housing with Chromoly spindles, stronger than OEM
. Full CNC machine finished to guarantee trueness and straightness of finished product
. Full float heavy duty 300M axles
. Sway Bar Compatible
. Factory Electric Locker Compatible
. Direct Bolt In (No Mods Needed)
. Corrects Vehicle Track
. Comes with extended brake line & handbrake extensions
He had the 70 Series Leaf Alpha Suspension Lift Kit
$5,400.00 inc GST
70 Series Alpha Steering Damper Kit
$750.00 inc GST
He had the full JmacX Kit & Caboodle
The Inside was also well set up
In Northern Beaches Sydney – Tradies have not yet reached poverty!
Funny that, I haven’t looked up-thread, all downticks I accrue are genuine, but upticks aren’t.
Perhaps, you’re not half as popular as you think you are matron Turtlehead.
Charming.
Have you admitted the Rear Admiral plagiarized the American Thinker piece? Of course you haven’t, you Whitetrash fraud.
Thank you Eyrie. I’ve been called a couple of times in the past few years. Should I be called again, I’ll scrutinize the paperwork more closely.
Once again, thanks.
rosie and other cat europe travellers
this is a web site we have used in France, Greece & Italy
happy with the private vehicles we booked
https://montransport.com/en/
Yet again, no citation. i.e. you’re full of shit.
Look around you sook, nobody is backing you on this. Nobody.
I will admit I found this one hard to believe
Stephen Hawking underage orgy claim forced Jeffrey Epstein to offer cash reward
A 946-page trove of court documents unsealed over 170 names connected to the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking scandal.
Jeffrey Epstein was ready to offer a cash reward to prove that Professor Stephen Hawking did not participated in an underage orgy, newly released documents show.
In an email to Ghislane Maxwell, on January 12, 2015, Epstein asked her to see if any of Virginia Giuffre’s friends or family would come forward to help prove her allegations were false.
He then referenced the esteemed scientist’s visit to Epstein Island in 2006.
Epstein wrote: “You can issue a reward to any of Virginia’s friends, acquaints, family that come forward and help prove her allegations are false.
“The strongest is the Clinton dinner, and the new version in the Virgin Islands that Stephen Hawking participated in an underage orgy.”
It is unclear why Hawking visited the island, or why Epstein’s motives for disproving his involvement in an orgy were.
The conference Hawking attended was reportedly funded by Epstein on the neighbouring island of St. Thomas, and the twisted financier was known to invite famous figures he admitted to enjoying his hospitality.
Get a load of these three losers.
1. The driller owning a virtual pub for 20 years. No ethics.
2. Turtlehead, who thinks the Chinese could mount an invasion using commercial airlners landing at Melbourne airport. Buys iodine .
3. Trans, with a drinking issue talking about family problems and listing recipes in between stoush trolling.
Lotsa lads were told by their accountants last June, look you’ve got a tax problem, but it’ll go away if you spaff six figures on a “work vehicle”.
Is that meant to be me?
If so, wtf is the meaning?
LOL. The only person who’s backing you is the matron. Who wants that in their back pocket?
Still refusing to admit the Rear Admiral Adonis plagiarized. Nice ethics coming from up north. Labor royalty.
Bloke up the road bought a Ram. It is the gayest “pickup” I’ve ever seen, leavened slightly by the legendary 5.8L hemi.
Looks like I’ve got you on the mat again – this is too easy.
Stupid dago bastard. Not just a liar, a gutless liar. Go & clean yourself up.
OldOzzie
Jan 4, 2024 11:11 PM
Gerhard Berger, a 10-time Grand Prix winner, believes that his former McLaren team-mate Ayrton Senna and reigning world champion Max Verstappen are the two best drivers he has witnessed during his time watching F1.
The 64-year-old ranked the pair above the iconic duo of Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton.
Speaking to Austrian news outlet Kronen Zeitung, Berger explained: “Verstappen and Senna are unique in the business.
They are the two best I have seen in the last 50 years.
Schumacher and Hamilton are also exceptional drivers. Of course, you should always look at the statistics, they are both fantastic.
But Senna died early, and Verstappen is still young.”
I would have loved to have seen Senna at the Indy 500.
He was wheelchair bound in the 1970s and his paralysis got worse and worse.
His participation would have been as a victim.
What a ridiculous story.
New OT up.
The Red Sea is getting really dangerous now – and it’s not just the Houthis
Dithering governments have condemned our sailors to being ‘permanent goalkeepers’
TOM SHARPE
“Air threat warning Red” is up there with the calls you least want to hear in a warship. It means “air or missile attack is underway or imminent”.
Between 26 October and last night, sailors aboard warships in the Red Sea will have heard this call many times in response to 72 drone and 21 missile attacks across the period. And it is still happening. Last night three more weapons were fired at the CMA CGM Tage container ship but missed.
Looking at the anti-ship ballistic missiles that have been fired, imagine you’re on station 30 miles from the coast as some of those warships will be, and one is detected closing you at 2000 mph.
If you detect it as it goes ‘feet wet’ you have 54 seconds until it hits you.
Except it’s less. Take a few seconds off so that you can engage the inbound weapon at a range that ensures the remaining bits don’t still hit you at ballistic speeds.
Then take a few more off for the command decision to fire, and then a few more for your interceptor missile to launch, stabilise and close the target.
This example leaves you about 30 seconds to see the target, get a track on it (if the system hasn’t done it automatically), classify it as hostile (at least that is simple in this particular case of a ballistic threat), inform other ships, allocate your weapon systems, manoeuvre the ship to give your other countermeasures the best chance of success … and fire.
All this assumes that you have an interceptor missile which is capable of dealing with the incoming threat: not always true for the non-US warships.
Thirty seconds – imagine sustaining a crew at that level of alertness for weeks at a time.
Much has been made of the sustainability problems of engaging £20k drones with £1.5m missiles and rightly so.
But what about the people?
If you’re an air picture compiler in the operations room and in your last six-hour rest period you didn’t sleep very well, no one will thank you if you miss 10 of those 30 seconds because you were asking for a coffee.
By and large, warships operate in one of three postures – ‘normal’, ‘defence’ and ‘action’.
The ‘action’ state sees the whole ship closed up, every sensor, weapon and bit of machinery crewed, damage-control parties ready and all hatches battened shut.
If you know an attack is coming, and you have time to get to this state, this is where you want to be.
The trouble is, it isn’t sustainable – no one sleeps.
So you have to find a compromise and this is where the ‘defence’ state comes in – split the ship’s company in half and rotate every six hours.
Six hours on watch and six off – during which you can normally get about four hours sleep – is sustainable.
It isn’t a huge amount of fun but ships and submarines routinely do it for protracted periods.
How little fun it is depends on what you are doing.
If you are conducting anti-submarine operations where decision-making can be done by semaphore over a cup of tea then it’s fine.
Even anti-piracy operations are OK; you still have minutes to gather information and start the process.
But if you’re at 30 seconds notice – life or death – and you are glued to your radar for six hours at a time, it is grim.
Part of the deal when operating in this environment is to operate as a network of ships, all connected and fighting off the same picture. Let’s say the example above is now a subsonic cruise missile doing 600 knots. You now have the ‘luxury’ of three minutes before it hits you.
You have your own radar picture but due to the vagaries of GPS and other factors, it is slightly different to the other ships of the group.
Whole teams in each ship are dedicated to fusing the different picture in real time into what is called the Recognised Air Picture (RAP).
This is essential: perhaps the target coming towards you, that you have identified as a missile and therefore hostile, is in fact a commercial airliner – it’s just that you are not detecting its transponder and have therefore misclassified it.
At that point you need another ship to query your assessment, and quickly.
Or, what is that other contact heading towards us at 140 knots, not ‘squawking’ on its transponder and not answering on the radio.
Is it a ‘low slow flyer’, a cheap and simple drone packed with explosives coming for us, or is it Indian Ship Kolkata’s helicopter returning to mother?
Without a good theatre-wide RAP, you may get the answer catastrophically wrong.
This is where things are getting interesting with three Chinese, four Indian and two Iranian ships now there, all operating as independent groups with their own air pictures and fighting circuits.
Then there are ships from the US and its friends, close and less close, mostly operating in some way under the international Operation Prosperity Guardian.
Countries all have valid reasons for being there and under the very international law Prosperity Guardian is set up to protect, are entitled to be so.
The problem is, every time a warship or a task force turns up and acts independently, the risk of miscalculation goes up.
British ships in the area will naturally be joined up properly with the US. French, Spanish, and Italian ships are still playing tunes on whether they’re operating under Operation Prosperity Guardian or the organisation running it, Combined Task Force 153.
This is for political reasons so that they can be seen to help but without condoning the US posture in Israel.
Nevertheless, you can guarantee those vessels at least are all operating off the same air picture.
The Greek and Danish ships will too when they join.
Japanese Ship Akebono is in the thick of it and will also be ‘plugged in’. She is not formally part of Prosperity Guardian but her time as part of CTF 151, on anti-piracy in the Gulf of Aden, will make her used to operating like this.
Of the 93 drones and missiles fired, 73 have been intercepted.
Of the 20 ‘leakers’ many have missed but some have hit merchant ships causing fires and damage.
That no sailors have been killed yet, and no ship has yet been sunk sunk spilling its contents all over the Red Sea, is a function of the alertness of the warships there: but also good luck.
How long will that luck hold?
Robust statements from the UK Defence Secretary declaring that the UK is “willing to take direct action” to repel Houthi attacks would indicate that the UK at least is willing to attack Houthi targets ashore.
So far the US has not been so willing, despite having all the assets it could possibly need ready on hand, though US Navy helicopters did kill ten Houthis who were attempting to board a ship at sea three days ago.
“Direct action” by the UK against Houthi-controlled Yemen would involve sending something to the Red Sea that the UK doesn’t yet have there: our carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, a Tomahawk-armed submarine or long-range RAF strike sorties from Cyprus.
That only one of these is even available at the moment sits awkwardly alongside the bold British rhetoric, not to mention an announcement the following day from No 10 Downing Street that “there are no plans to send additional assets there” and “no decisions have been made”.
I would love to know what this means, but probably not as much as the British, American and other sailors sitting in the Red Sea playing permanent goalkeeper.
At this point we haven’t even discussed the difficult part of Prosperity Guardian – commercial to military liaison.
Combine this multi-layered challenge with politically ambiguous direction from multiple countries, and the nature of the defensive-only mission itself, and you can see why shipping companies are wobbling.
We should acknowledge the merchant mariners making this run as well, as it is our economies they are preserving.
Maersk held back in late December, then ran the gauntlet a few times under US protection, then got attacked (that was the incident in which the would-be boarders were blown away) and has now ‘postponed indefinitely’.
Hundreds of ships are rerouting: many are still making the passage.
Either way, insurance rates are climbing, journeys are delayed and box ship freight rates have doubled.
Costs in your home will go up.
There is a solution to this problem ashore, but that took a step backwards last night with the death of the Hamas deputy leader.
Meanwhile, back in the warships, they will be on a war footing. With 93 drones and missiles having been fired, some of them offering just 30 seconds notice to respond, how could they be anything else? Every person and system will be at high readiness for weeks at a time.
They’ll no doubt be wondering what kind of war it is where one isn’t allowed to shoot back.
Tom Sharpe is a former Royal Navy officer. He was a specialist in Anti Air Warfare and commanded a surface combatant warship
Just ranting abuse and still refusing to admit Adonis plagiarized the post. What a loser.
We’ve got your measure now, lonely dago. Nobody is backing you. Totally unable to provide support for your bullshit, you’re howling at the moon.
Even the biggest doubter knew you were full of shit, when a couple of months ago you were challenged to bet on your mouth, & you backed down.
You lose – and it was all your own doing.
Don’t blame me. I remind them from time to time but it makes no difference.
Driller, enough of these sideshow antics and blowhard bluster. Sign on the dotted line, that Rear Admiral Adonis is a plagiarizer in the same mode as the outed Harvard prez, and we’re done.
Going all racist because you were called out for being a duplicitous inbred over the plagiarism issue isn’t going to cut it with most people here, no matter how much you want see that occur. Everyone knows what a blowhard bullshit artist you are anyway.
Redeem yourself for once.
Go!
Ego and pride might be in play. I’ll put that aside because accusations are rather ineffectual in changing behavior. Telling people they are too egoistic and prideful isn’t going to help them. They’ll just tell you to f off which is an appropriate response.
Insulting people is easy. The real challenge is providing a strategy, together with tactics, that gives people an operating platform, a way to move forward.
Oh dear. The top paddock is certainly being burned off.
I joined the Free Speech Union yesterday. I received a very polite note telling me that I was already a member.
Now where did I leave that bloody walker?
“Hmmm. Strange goings on at the Cat. In my previous, my text embellishments (UNICODE) were accepted in the posting panel and displayed correctly but rejected in the published post and replaced with “?????’. Works on any other blog that I post on.”
Could be database backend, or could be “extra paranoid” middle layer to prevent various injection attacks and so on, or just simply unicode not enabled on either or both.
In general, one should always parse user input for web page requests and only allow what is proven to be safe to get past the first post so to speak. Unicode character sequences may be tripping the “not safe” and being replaced, but I suspect that last of my explanations is most likely correct – that some part (or all) of the site does not have unicode enabled and your unicode is “trucated” to ASCII, then “parsed” into printable ASCII only.
Try using HTML markup instead, that seems to “work” – eg à shows as à
“Try using HTML markup instead, that seems to “work” …”
See here:
https://lilith.fisica.ufmg.br/~wag/TRANSF/codehtml.html
“The NSWaffen Police say that they’re unable to charge the Islamic hate preachers”
On the plus side, if “gas the Jews” and “from apes and pigs” aren’t criminal, then clearly a call for “a crusade against Muslim barbarians” wouldn’t be either, right?
And neither would a effigy of Mo nursing a pig, right?
Me, I’d rather NOT make such talk criminal to be honest – I want to know who these scum are, and I want to taunt them with similar crap as above when they start it; don’t show respect, you won’t get respect, simple as.
“GME Aerial,”
Fine, as long as you prefer looks over function… there are much better available, if function comes first (ask Motorola, or emergency services in any Australian state).