beefybake
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Posts posted by beefybake
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3 hours ago, Shadow Play said:
I see what you are both saying now. I genuinely do appreciate your patience with me. Having said that I’m still a bit surprised that Syria wouldn’t have seen the potential problems of striking whilst the tractors were still in Israel (albeit a demilitarised area). I would have thought they would have been better ignoring this for what is was and only considering action if the tractors entered Syria.
The tractors weren't in Israel.
Suggest you troll elsewhere.
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2 hours ago, Shadow Play said:
Very much appreciate you taking the time to explain this in detail, although I’m more depressed than ever about any possible solution. I just can’t see there being a solution in our lifetimes.
One thing I still can’t understand though. Is the demilitarised area in Israel or Syria? If it is in Israel why would Syria fire on tractors ploughing land in Israel? Would it not simply be better ignored?
Definition of a demilitarized zone is where warring parties parties agree to cease open military warfare, pending a diplomatic solution. The dispute concerns territory. The border prior to the 1967 war is internationally recognised. Israel did not, and does, accept this border. The words of Moshe Dayan are an admission that Israel deliberately provoked further open military conflict, to expand the territories under its control, whilst giving the impression of being the victim.
Demilitarized zones are usually tense, fragile affairs. If you don't want conflict you don't send your tractors in, 'innocently' assuming it's OK.
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2 hours ago, Shadow Play said:
Sorry, I’m not understanding the bit on bold. Why would Syria respond to farmers in tractors being near their border. I’m assuming I’m misunderstanding?
"..... It is an article of faith among Israelis that the Golan Heights were seized in the 1967 Middle East war to stop Syria from shelling the Israeli settlements down below. The future of the Golan Heights is central to the search for peace in the Middle East, and much of the case against giving the Golan Heights back to Syria rests on the fear of reviving that threat.
But like many another of Israel's founding legends, this one has come under question lately, and from a most surprising quarter: Moshe Dayan, the celebrated commander who, as Defense Minister in 1967, gave the order to conquer the Golan.
General Dayan died in 1981. But in conversations with a young reporter five years earlier, he said he regretted not having stuck to his initial opposition to storming the Golan Heights. There really was no pressing reason to do so, he said, because many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland.
General Dayan did not mean the conversations as an interview, and the reporter, Rami Tal, kept his notes secret for 21 years -- until he was persuaded by a friend to make them public. They were authenticated by historians and by General Dayan's daughter Yael Dayan, a member of Parliament, and published two weeks ago in the weekend magazine of the newspaper Yediot Ahronot.
Historians have already begun to debate whether General Dayan was giving an accurate account of the situation in 1967 or whether his version of what happened was colored by his disgrace after the 1973 Middle East war, when he was forced to resign as Defense Minister over the failure to anticipate the Arab attack.
But on a more immediate level, the general's 21-year-old comments play directly into the current dispute over whether the Golan Heights should be returned to Syria in exchange for peace. The Government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is firmly opposed to returning the Golan, contending that the high ground is vital for Israel's security.
''Look, it's possible to talk in terms of 'the Syrians are b*****ds, you have to get them, and this is the right time,' and other such talk, but that is not policy,'' General Dayan told Mr. Tal in 1976. ''You don't strike at the enemy because he is a b*****d, but because he threatens you. And the Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.''
According to the published notes, Mr. Tal began to remonstrate, ''But they were sitting on the Golan Heights, and . . . ''
General Dayan interrupted: ''Never mind that. After all, I know how at least 80 percent of the clashes there started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let's talk about 80 percent. It went this way: We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was.''
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Earlier in this thread, there were excerpts from letters by former Israeli leader, Moshe Dayan, in referring to the real reasons for the 1967 war.
He admitted that the real reason was not the threat from Syria, it was simply about territory. Israeli farmers would send their tractors into the approaches towards the Syrians, deliberate goading to force a response, and to make it look like Israel was the victim.
So here we are again, Israel attacks an Iranian consulate, Iran responds, and the West et al, go along with this sick joke that Israel is again the victim.
Watching that slime face Cameron talking his crap would almost make you want to puke. The utter moral bankruptcy of it all.
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9 hours ago, Dunning1874 said:
We already knew from the WCK statement that three separate cars were hit. What's now become clear is that survivors of the hit on the first vehicle were able to leave and entered the second vehicle. Survivors of the hit on the second were able to leave and enter the third, until there were no survivors. It was obviously deliberate anyway, but it's not like they can even argue it was one mistaken strike on one location - the third vehicle was hit over 2km away from the first. They purposefully tracked them until they were all dead, it was targeted assassination of aid workers.
There is no international norm Israel will not break and gleefully boast about after doing so. It is a rogue state which knows it has impunity.
Been fairly obvious for quite some time.
The charity logo plastered all across the roofs of the vehicles. As you say, those aid workers were hunted down.
"Tragic mistake" does not remotely cover it.
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3 hours ago, Granny Danger said:
When I was in my early 60s I had concerns about going from a very full work life to having nothing to do. Fortunately the lockdowns during COVID showed me that there were positives in not having to go into work every day. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the two plus years since I’ve retired and living in a warmer climate certainly makes it easier to be physically active all year round which I think is fundamentally important.
For various reasons I waited until I was almost 67 before I retired and I’d encourage anyone who can do so earlier to seize the opportunity. All going well both my sons will be able to to retire in their 50s and even if they choose to work on knowing that the option is available is beneficial.
I find the only possible downside to retirement is that I sometimes procrastinate in a way that I hadn’t previously. Sometimes I’ll put off a ten minute task for days when I should really just get it out of the way.
There's a film made in the 80's called 'Pacific Heights'. I watched it on first release back then.
Michael Keaton plays the anti-hero.
There is a scene where Keaton is asleep in his pit. The alarm clock goes off.
This was the first time I'd seen a clock that you could record your own message on.
The message was a very loud...
"GET UP YOU LAZY B*****D... !"
That has become my mental kick up the arse to procrastination.
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13 hours ago, Derry Alli said:
I mind my mate shagged some boys bird and turned out the boy run one of the 'go to'places in Dundee at the time and him doing that seen about 4 or 5 of us banned.
We were apologised to by the bar staff but told we were not to be served anymore so we took the piss and sat about nursing the drinks to get on the boys tits. He come across and tried to snatch the glasses. The mate who had pegged his bird buggered off only to return with a big walnut whip shite sticking out the glass and handed it to the boy.
A work of art.
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6 hours ago, Ross. said:
The amount involved I wrote off at the time, not that it was particularly significant in the grand scheme of things. I done it with the expectancy of losing most of it. The 10k figure I have decided on will basically cover some stuff I want done at home and the likely tax bill I will get from the transaction in the first place. This stuff is starting to get too close to regulation for me to stay involved, so now happy to take what I can get before it becomes a headache at work.
You've been insider trading ... ?
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I rather got the impression long ago that everything was owned and controlled either by local oligarchs or offshore/American entities.
And that between them they're the ones who finance the gangs.
This undermines democratic institutions, and prevents any real development of the country.
Basically the definition of what used to be called 'banana republic'.
Except, here, without the bananas.
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On 27/02/2024 at 13:37, Venti said:
Anyone tried the Wonka ripoff?
Overpriced AF & may as well be Dairy Milk.
I haven't tried that particular flavour. I've had a couple of the other ones.
Quite pricey, but very much a high quality chocolate. Cadbury's generic stuff not really in the same league.
An occasional buy. Usual for me are the Ritters chocs.
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That was on the front page of the BBC yesterday morning.By early afternoon, it had disappeared. Only found it again by googling some of the key words.Funny isn't it, you invade someone else's country. The locals rise up, and somehow they're the terrorists.Your special forces set about executing innocent people. And it all ends as it always deserved to, in ignominious defeat,and scrambles for the last flights out of the country. I'm trying, failing, to find some moral superiority over current events.Armed Forces Minister James Heappey is my local MP. Prior to going into politics, he was an army officer, and was in Afghanistan.Always a big supporter of anything to do with the forces, looks like he's being accused of straightforward lying here.Wonder if that's why the report had such a very, very short time on the front page.2
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3 hours ago, sparky88 said:
This is to appeal to the Israeli voter base which leans right currently. Much like rest of the west and beyond. A right wing leaning vote in the UK and US gives you Brexit and Trump. A right wing government in Israel gives you 'levelling Gaza'. And Hamas knew this perfectly well on October 7th.
Israeli public opinion will not be as right wing as this forever so there will be a window of opportunity in the future but it might take a decade or so.
Rather depends on one's definition of 'right wing' or 'left wing'.
For decades it's hardly been necessary to scratch the surface to find Arabs being openly referred to as vermin in the Knesset ( Parliament of Israel ).
And the underlying Israeli acceptance of the necessity of a free, undominated Palestinian state has long been decidely murky ( to say the least ), regardless of the political labels.
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32 minutes ago, BFTD said:
It should be shocking to see someone defending venal amoral con-man Andrew Wakefield in 2024, but he's banging supermodels like Elle MacPherson and making millions from giving speeches to credulous idiots in America, so it's not like he's been seen to suffer in any way. His disgusting behaviour has brought him greater riches than an actual medical career would have.
If you'd bother reading the thread, you'll see that what the issue really is, is the right to question what is being put in front of you,
and for whose benefit it actually got there.
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2 hours ago, ICTChris said:
1 - There was vast testing of MMR before it was introduced. It was introduced in the 1970s. Nothing in the testing or the subsequent studies has shown anything
2 - The person with vested interests in the vaccine-MMR controversy was Andrew Wakefield, who was being paid by lawyers trying to prove the MMR vaccine caused autism and had a patent for a single vaccine for measles. Even if his paper was absolutely bang on, why would the drug industry be opposed to it? Wakefield recommended single vaccinations so if the scary pharma companies are making huge money from vaccines then they'd continue to make the vaccines, it would probably be more profitable.
A specific reason for the introduction of MMR was economic. It's cheaper in immediate costs to administer several vaccinations at once rather than individually over a period of time.
The entrenched positions of both government and pharmaceutical companies and their relative powers ... answer your question as to why.
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1 hour ago, Freedom Farter said:
The BMA are a trade union. While doctors collectively earn a much higher salary than other professions, they are still workers and in most cases, they work for the state not private companies. Therefore, I don't think the BMA had much in the way of vested interests here.
While its reasonable to look at who opposed Wakefield, we must also judge his character too. Not all purported whistle-blowers are the same. You've mentioned Israel there and I know we're both interested in geopolitics so I'll use an example along those lines. Nargas Mohammadi is an Iranian human rights activist, currently held in solitary confinement in Tehran for the crime of dissenting against her government. She won the Nobel peace prize last year and has spoken many times of her support for Palestinians as part of the wider international liberation struggle she identifies with. Then there's Masih Alinejad, also an Iranian and a claimed human rights activist. She now lives comfortably in USA where she spends much of her time tweeting support for Israel when she's not meeting with Mike Pompeo and other politicians of that ilk. These aren't the same type of whistle-blower. Generally, someone who is genuinely standing up to power suffers for their stance. Like Nargas Mohammadi locked up in prison. Not like Masih Alinejad.
Wakefield is Masih Alinejad. He didn't suffer for his stance at all. He gained the infamy he desired and the huge, ongoing income from that infamy. Like Alinejad, he instantly ran off to USA, the true target audience of his initial campaign.
An hour and three quarters long but I gave this a listen and its the most thorough telling of Wakefield's story I've come across:
The thing with this topic too is that it is Wakefield. It all came from him, the "link" between vaccines and autism was only ever made by him. There was no controversy. No debate. No movement. He just pulled this out his arse one day and I think that's where it belongs, back up Andrew Wakefield's arse. There isn't any more discussion to be had on it.
In your opinion.
As I said, I had no particular skin in the game at the time. Nor particularly now.
My own view then and now, is that the the root question about whether a concoction of vaccines all mixed into one is proveably OK...is a valid question. Oh, and by the way, yes I'm well aware of what the BMA is. Doctors dish out what the state, and pharmaceutical companies assure them is OK..... , as was thalidomide, powerful hydocortisone creams that ruined skin, all the ****zepams etc.., that fostered addictions.. being handed out like sweeties. The list can go on.
The current favourite is statins, which the pharmaceutical industry has taken from a scenaria where they do have a good effect for those with very definite conditions, and managed to transform that into a scenario where almost anyone over a certain age is being recommended, or pushed, to go on statins.
There is a valid question there, and Wakefield is not that question.
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15 hours ago, SH Panda said:
In real terms it's still a bit below 2022 highs so may have a bit to go. No doubt there will be at least a bit of a correction this year too.
There's a a good argument that these highs are bad for society overall. Pretty much every rich person, and certainly every politician and person of influence, will be invested in the stock market. Any spike like this only excarcebates inequality, and it's been rich man's heaven since 2010.
A counter analysis to Capital by Thomas Piketty pointed out that real nominal incomes of the wealthy hasn't changed much in previous decades, and the US has seen a surge in wages at lower levels for the last few years. However, most wealth appreciation comes through assets like equity and property, so salary disparity is becoming a less robust measure of inequality.
Most people will have some pensions in the stock market but there's a decent chance they are invested in wildly underperforming life strategy funds, or even worse in the moribund FTSE index.
My portfolio is 97% ETF weighted and most of that is in the US (frankly, I wish all of it was), on capital accumulation alone since November I've more than the annual median salary. And thats not through working or doing anything productive.
The game is rigged, and if you're not benefitting from it you're paying for it.
Tl;Dr check your pension allocation, and invest what savings you have in low cost tracker funds. Never too late to start.
For the last decade or so China has waged a bit of a war on its wealthy asset owning class (or at least stopped bailing them out, and severely restricting outward capital flows). The UK certainly has neither the balls nor means for this though so you should be fine.
Many people don't understand investing or stock markets, or are not interested, or confident enough to make individual stock decisions. For those people. Life Strategy funds are excellent. What you are referring to as 'wildly underperforming' is nonsense. Like any other funds with signifant bond presence, multi asset funds like the life strategies... were heavily hit my last year's collapse in bond markets, from which quite a big recovery has been taking place.
The general tone of your comment here is that of someone who is deeply into growth funds (US) with heavy emphasis on the 6 or 7 giants that are fuelling the surge in US markets..., Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet ( Google ), Tesla etc...
..., and with little exposure to bonds.
There are index trackers for everything, including bonds...., Government bonds, Corporate bonds, Investment grade corporate bonds, Junk bonds.....,
and they can and do get hit the same as everything else.
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On 22/01/2024 at 10:07, ICTChris said:
Wakefield must be one of the real villains of modern Britain. A large measles outbreak in this country would be horrible.
Think you may have been caught up in the 'public vilifications' . I didn't at the time have any particular skin in the game but did note...
1. There didn't really seem to have been any proper independent testing of MMR.
2. Wakefield was going against the direct vested interests of the status quo..., ie the drugs industry, the government, and the likes of the BMA.
So he was always likely to be *ucked.
The result, and the situation now, is that the whole subject is rather like the scenario where no one hardly dares to question, or criticise, anything about Israel without being accused of anti-Semitism.
Basically public discussion of MMR has been closed down. Rather little wonder, sometimes, that people seek refuge in conspiracy theories.
https://youtu.be/bqcoMniqSQQ?si=fjjOiHufopMA3cQf
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17 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
I watched Blade Runner on first release. I thought it quite simply a classic, as is the dying scene with Rutger Hauer. As I recall, those lines were not in the script, but ad libbed, or suggested, by Hauer.
Years later, I was very surprised that it had performed poorly at the box office.
I've read some of the various discussions about the voice over. For me, the voice over added to the noir atmosphere, and that the studio executives were right to insist to Ridley Scott that it be included.
Blade Runner 2049. Nope, not for me, except for a few parts.
As I understand, the motives of the producers/financiers was to make lots of money off the back of the now cult classic original.
Not to make a worthy follow up. Despite that I did find the scenes of interaction with the hologram lover convincing.
Much of the rest of the film was just too much CGI.
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https://www.dw.com/en/dutch-court-bans-export-of-f-35-fighter-jet-parts-to-israel/a-68233104
Can the courts do similar in this country ?
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2 hours ago, flyingscot said:
Octopus Tracker tariff I am on is today 14.47p for electricity and 3.86p for gas. Wholesale prices have generally been tracking well lower than the price cap for a while.
Some useful info here.... ( links to Northern Scotland stats, there's a drop down menu for the other regions by clicking on Tracker at top of page. )
https://energy-stats.uk/octopus-tracker-northern-scotland/.
The various caveats/warnings about the Tracker tariff are listed on the Octopus site....
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1 hour ago, Newbornbairn said:
When the Americans said they were considering a response and then said they had a list of Iran-linked targets they were going to hit, I thought of this scene -
That gung-ho/heads gone attitude in the aftermath of 9/11 is what ended up with the mess that was Iraq and Afghanistan. And in the latter, the almost scene for scene repeat of the last helicopters taking off from the US Embassy in Vietnam in 1975. Except it was C-17's with people hanging off the undercarriages.
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1 hour ago, Wee Bully said:
Why, it won’t change the minds of anyone on here? It would be like screaming into the void.
Ah, Ok, so you were just out for a troll on a Sunday afternoon.
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1 hour ago, Wee Bully said:
It is massively wrong, affected as you say by your biases.
Well then, let's hear your take, backed up by respected source material.
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19 hours ago, MazzyStar said:
I assume that’s Rabin you’re talking about. That would be the same Rabin who ordered IDF troops to break the bones of unarmed Palestinian protesters when he was defence minister. Not such a pacifist after all. That’s not to mention that the Oslo accords were completely in Israel’s favour.
At the root of all this is whether the majority of Israeli citizens accept the prospect of a 2 state solution.
If they don't , then the 'Palestinian problem' does not exist.
The various Western powers then have to publically acknowledge that what this is is the 'Israel problem'.
At least some of the hypocrisy currently on display will dissipate.
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Car advice
in The General Nonsense Forum
Posted
Brembo have for some time gone downmarket, and offered a cheapo range of brake parts. The Brembos at Eurocarparts are little different to the others
that ECP sell, except they have a Brembo badge on the boxes.