The news thread

[ThistleWhistle]

1 hour ago, vanderark14 said:

https://news.sky.com/story/hamas-terrorists-were-carrying-instructions-on-how-to-make-chemical-weapons-israeli-president-claims-12990547

They just happened to be carrying instructions to make a chemical weapon

'Al-QAEDA' in English with a fuck off huge font and all! 

[bonzo]

Lay off the Tsingtao...brings a whole new meaning to piss water...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-67191242.amp

[Orraloon]

2 hours ago, bonzo said:

Lay off the Tsingtao...brings a whole new meaning to piss water...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-67191242.amp

Could be (and probably is) a lot worse stuff ends up in your beer. Chinese or otherwise. 🤣

[bonzo]

32 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Could be (and probably is) a lot worse stuff ends up in your beer. Chinese or otherwise. 🤣

Ignorance is bliss 😊 

[aaid]

Lesbian Nana at it again.  She’s out of control, look at her response compared to the other officers.  She shouldn’t be a police officer.

 

[Orraloon]

1 hour ago, bonzo said:

Ignorance is bliss 😊 

The fermentation process is quite a good way to purify stuff. 

[Ally Bongo]

The cap on bankers' bonuses is being removed as part of a post-Brexit shake-up of City rules, it has been confirmed.

They are just ripping the pish now

[StirlingEgg]

1 hour ago, Ally Bongo said:

The cap on bankers' bonuses is being removed as part of a post-Brexit shake-up of City rules, it has been confirmed.

They are just ripping the pish now

They were talking about the Tories researching what policies/type of voter to chase re the top tax cuts earlier this week. Probably all bullshit though; not actually chasing any voters but ensuring they are personally set up financially through board/directorships/tax bracket etc once voted out. 

You'd think Labour would channel the UK's anger at this kind of stuff but they never even seem to get the jacket off, let alone the gloves 🙄 

[aaid]

2 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

The cap on bankers' bonuses is being removed as part of a post-Brexit shake-up of City rules, it has been confirmed.

They are just ripping the pish now

Never made any difference to renumeration anyway, it just shifted the balance from bonus onto salary. 

[Hertsscot]

3 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

They are just ripping the pish now

They always have been! 

[Ally Bongo]

Everton chairman, West End & Movie producer and actor Bill Kenwright passes away aged 78 from cancer.

Have to doff your cap at his significant others - Anouska Hempel & Jenny Seagrove 

[scotlad]

12 hours ago, bonzo said:

Lay off the Tsingtao...brings a whole new meaning to piss water...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-67191242.amp

Jeezo 🤢

That certainly explains a few things (notwithstanding that the Tsingtao we get over here is probably brewed under license in a factory in Ashby-de-la-Zouch).

[exile]

Seems to me there's a lot of double standards out there

'X has a right to exist' 

'X has a right to defend itself'

'What they're doing has to be seen in historical context'

Seems to apply to one side not the other

[StirlingEgg]

2 hours ago, exile said:

Seems to me there's a lot of double standards out there

'X has a right to exist' 

'X has a right to defend itself'

'What they're doing has to be seen in historical context'

Seems to apply to one side not the other

It's almost sounding childish at times or some kind of war top trumps (again without meaning to disregard the seriousness & suffering within the ongoing situation). 

"But what they did was far WORSE" 

How do you explain that to kids, when countries are at war because of what exactly, religious belief? sacred territory? retribution? 

The US saying "now is not the time for a ceasefire". What a perverse statement; surely any time is ideal for a ceasefire in any conflict. 

Edited October 25, 2023 by StirlingEgg

[vanderark14]

 

[aaid]

37 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

 

He’s just been trotting out the same nonsense on Politics Live.  

[GroundsKeeper]

On 5/24/2021 at 8:02 AM, vanderark14 said:

This probably won't take off because there's only about three topics regularly discussed on here 🤣

Anyway

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57219860

Belarus being naughty today. A rather odd and desperate way to catch a journalist/activist. Why is this guy such a threat?

 

Holy feck. How is that possible?

Surely the ryan air pilot should have refused ?

[killiefaetheferry]

1 hour ago, StirlingEgg said:

The US saying "now is not the time for a ceasefire". What a perverse statement; surely any time is ideal for a ceasefire in any conflict. 

Not if you have a dog in the fight. 

[TDYER63]

1 hour ago, vanderark14 said:

 

What  an utter buffoon. Be reminds me a bit of Boris Johnson trying to bluster his way through. 

‘ Since I made the comments at conference I have had over 200 emails , 90% in support.

200 ? Really Tom ? In that case you must be absolutely right. 

He seems to like the phrase ‘ When you get integration, immigration is a force for good ‘ . When you don’t get integration its a big problem . He must  have learnt that at a Tory Conference Bollox Workshop. 

These ‘ integrating’  immigrants creating a big problem are they ?

 

[StirlingEgg]

34 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:

What  an utter buffoon. Be reminds me a bit of Boris Johnson trying to bluster his way through. 

‘ Since I made the comments at conference I have had over 200 emails , 90% in support.

200 ? Really Tom ? In that case you must be absolutely right. 

He seems to like the phrase ‘ When you get integration, immigration is a force for good ‘ . When you don’t get integration its a big problem . He must  have learnt that at a Tory Conference Bollox Workshop. 

These ‘ integrating’  immigrants creating a big problem are they ?

 

😂

They really do get their ideas from perceived pet peeves and Daily Mail letters. What does his version of integration even mean? Morris dancing, dressing up as a poppy, church fetes...

He's dying to say something like "integration can work well because I love a curry". 

He sounds a bit fick. 

[Ally Bongo]

Israel are going to make sure Gaza is uninhabitable for Palestinians

The IDF are also beating up and arresting Christian protestors

I said years ago that i try to stay out of this as there is no solution whilst the parties of God are in charge of both Israel & Palestine

Clearly this is Israel's latest attempt at a solution and if Hamas had the same capability they would do the same to Israel

Edited October 25, 2023 by Ally Bongo

[TDYER63]

1 hour ago, StirlingEgg said:

😂

They really do get their ideas from perceived pet peeves and Daily Mail letters. What does his version of integration even mean? Morris dancing, dressing up as a poppy, church fetes...

He's dying to say something like "integration can work well because I love a curry". 

He sounds a bit fick. 

😂

I think its called the Goldilocks integration. Not enough integration then its ‘a big problem’ . Too much integration becomes ‘they are stealing our jobs’ ! 😱 

Wonder how many emails he has had telling him how shit his government is . 

[Hertsscot]

2 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

Israel are going to make sure Gaza is uninhabitable for Palestinians

Exactly, and goodness knows what that will do to the population density in the south of Gaza with half the population being displaced. It was already up there as being one of the most populous areas on earth.

Further in the future the Israelis have said they will no longer take any responsibility for providing electricity etc. to Gaza but I've not seen any comment about the practical implications of that.

[Hertsscot]

Almost to the day of the Hamas attacks I read this from a book about sin (of all things). It's lengthy and no one is compelled to read it, so don't moan!

'For years in the late eighties and early nineties, Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip terrorized Palestinian civilians, bulldozed their houses, and imprisoned their occupants, including children, and did a lot of it without due legal process. All along, they tried to block the access of journalists to the truth pof these matters. Soldiers also fired teargas canisters at Palestinian teenagers—gas manufactured in the United States but rejected by U.S. domestic police because it was too toxic. “How easily,” remarks one observer, “the Israelis throw gas canisters at people.” During these years, violent Israelis would claim that they were answering Palestinian terrorists, and their claim was entirely plausible. On the other side, Palestinians who knifed Israeli civilians or shot up Israeli tourist buses would claim that they were answering the state terrorism of Israel. And, to distressed outsiders, their claim sounded entirely plausible too—though, of course, neither claim justified what had been done. In a striking commentary on the echoing and re-echoing of sin in history, James Burtchaell remarks on the phenomenon of breaking the peace. Despite centuries of war, no one has ever done it, he notes: nobody has ever fired a first shot. All strikes are claimed to be counterstrikes. All shots are return fire. “For the Allies, World War II began at the Polish border in 1939; for the Germans, hostilities dated back to Versailles. Your military operation is an attack; mine is a retaliation.” Consider the way most of us look at terrorism. Most citizens of powerful nations think of terrorists as irrational persons. On this view, terrorists possess some wild and nameless malice that turns them into enemies of the peace that has been established by decent people. And, indeed, a few groups do seem to be fueled by what Burtchaell calls “nihilist rage.” But such groups are rare. Terrorists nearly always think of their violence as retaliatory. True, the violence against which terrorists rage may be systemic rather than freelance like their own, but, as Solzhenitsyn knew, no matter how state violence is masked, euphemized, and defended, it may still be as grievous and unjust as any conventional war of aggression—or as any instance of terrorism. And terrorists do typically think of themselves as respondents to a history of state violence. Accordingly, “no one will ever comprehend or cope with [terrorism] without reconstructing the sense of the past that terrorists harbor.” But who has the qualities of vision, fairness, and world-class responsibility to do some of this reconstruction? Which heads of state possess the maturity to reject the narrow self-interest that typically defeats any attempt to understand the motives of one’s adversaries? As it is, powerful nations bomb to their deaths citizens of smaller and less powerful nations without bothering to understand the history of these citizens or their desperation and without trying very hard to understand their grievances in terms of this history. What we need in order to cut the loops of state violence and terrorist reprisal, says Burtchaell, is the kind of “great, patient statecraft” that relies less on sheer might than on a persistent determination to “inquire into the causes of grievances, think about them, and strive to allay them.”

Depressingly it was written some thirty years ago and is still as relevant today.

[exile]

6 hours ago, StirlingEgg said:

It's almost sounding childish at times or some kind of war top trumps (again without meaning to disregard the seriousness & suffering within the ongoing situation). 

"But what they did was far WORSE" 

How do you explain that to kids, when countries are at war because of what exactly, religious belief? sacred territory? retribution? 

The US saying "now is not the time for a ceasefire". What a perverse statement; surely any time is ideal for a ceasefire in any conflict. 

Yes, I guess my earlier post was spurred by the thought: what if you are trying to be neutral here? But it is difficult to make 'neutral' statements when a statement that is acceptable applied to one side is not acceptable applied to the other side.

And yes, they are tying themselves in knots trying to say maybe there should be a 'pause' or a 'lull', anything but a 'ceasefire' which seems to be unacceptable to the western powers-that-be.