alanjjohnstone
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You may find the views of present-day anarchists in the region of some interest.
News that reveal the failure of COP26 keeps arriving almost daily.
The government is considering licences for new oil and gas fields in the North Sea, under pressure from backbench MPs and media commentators, who claim new fossil fuel development is needed to reduce energy bills.
But the additional greenhouse gas emissions from developing new oil and gas fields, as existing wells are depleted, would bust the UK’s carbon budgets and set the world on course to exceed the limit of 1.5C targeted at last year’s Cop26
Daniel Welsby, a research fellow at UCL said for the government to justify licensing new fossil fuels, ministers would have to be able to persuade other countries to reduce their production.
“There is no need for new oil and gas fields in the UK,” he told the Guardian. “For the UK to produce more oil and gas, another oil producer would need to keep their oil and gas in the ground.”
Misdirection? Or mission accomplished?
Defence ministry spokesman Igor Konoshenkov, who described ongoing exercises that involved forces from “practically all military districts, fleets, and the airborne forces”.
“Units of the Southern and Western Military Districts, which have accomplished their missions, are boarding trains and trucks and will head for their garrisons later today,” Konoshenkov said in the statement. The defence ministry also released a video of some Russian tanks and other heavy weaponry being loaded on to railway cars.
Russia has moved some long-range artillery and rocket launchers into firing position, threatening Ukraine, according to a U.S. official.
Some Russian units have left their assembly areas — the bumper-to-bumper formations seen in satellite photos — and are beginning to move into “attack positions,” according to the official.https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ukraine-attack-by-end-week/
And just to say I always preferred King of Queens with my morning cuppa
MS, I thought that it was Stalin’s insistence that the Second Front was opened with the invasion of Europe by US/UK.
You make it appear Stalin was opposed to D-Day. It was its delay that he opposed.
Historians always wondered whether the Soviets could have prevailed without it and won the war alone.
I think they could have.
The Allied bombing campaign on German cities and factories was perhaps more significant than the D-Day Landing.
But who knows?
It gets all messy and utterly confusing
Ukraine’s UK ambassador clarifies his remark…
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/ukrainian-ambassador-uk-clarifies-nato-090207998.html
I am sure neither side seeks outright war
But I have no confidence that reason will prevail with diplomatic brinkmanship or that there will not be an accidental incident.
I’m pretty sure that the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines MH17 was not a deliberate act but it happened.
IF war between Ukraine and Russia breaks out, I have no confidence that it could be contained and would not escalate.
But I do not expect it to become a nuclear exchange. The doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction remains dominant.
But a widespread regional war is a possibility and NATO does not honour its treaty obligations to come to the assistance of its members involved. YMS offers an analysis that even if it does not spill over, a protracted war is a possibility. The occupation of Kiev may not signal the surrender of Ukraine. On the other hand, it might. I have no special insight.
I’m reminded of that childhood ditty, the Grand Old Duke of York when it comes to the propaganda…
Oh, the grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.When they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only halfway up,
They were neither up nor down.A report by the commissioner and thinktank Autonomy found that about two-thirds of Welsh people would ideally work a four-day week and almost 60% said they would support the Welsh government piloting a scheme to move towards it.
The report says moving to a four-day week in the Welsh public sector could be particularly effective as sickness rates are high and giving staff an extra day off could help to tackle this.
What was the whole point of it?
Europe’s biggest banks led by HSBC, Barclays and BNP Paribas have provided £24bn to oil and gas companies that are expanding production less than a year since pledging to target net zero carbon emissions.
25 banks that signed up to reduce emissions have provided $33bn (£24bn) in loans and other financing to 50 companies with large oil and gas expansion plans.
A very telling request.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has asked to see evidence to support claims that Russia intends to invade Ukraine within days.
“If you, or anyone else, has additional information regarding a 100% Russian invasion starting on the 16th, please forward that information to us.”
There were other alliances CENTO and SEATO, both dissolved.
But as we see with the present rivalries in the Indo-Pacific, it is relatively easy to revive such military pacts.
If NATO had not existed, I’m fairly confident that the UK and US would be instrumental in building up another military alliance of Eastern European countries, designed to counter and discourage Russian expansionism.
The French (De Gaulle) have usually been ‘maverick’ member of NATO
U.S. Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) is calling on Americans to own “sufficient” weaponry to overthrow the government, suggesting they should do so “if 30 to 40 percent agree” the nation is living under “tyranny.”
“If 30 to 40 percent could agree that this was legitimate tyranny and it needed to be thrown off they need to have sufficient power without asking for extra permission – it should be right there and completely available to them in their living room in order to effect the change,”
France’s police use tear gas against protesters
New Zealand police play Barry Manilow against protesters
Many here know that when equations get involved my mind goes a blank. However…
James Fearon’s Rationalist Explanations for War
Fearon has three basic assumptions about war. First, war is a more costly choice than peace. Second, war is predictably unpredictable. In other words, although neither side may be sure exactly who will win, they can agree on the relatively likelihood each will win. And third, there are no direct benefits from fighting.
Thus, using John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern expected utility functions, Fearon finds the expected utility for war for states A and B, which are PA – CA and (1 – PA) – CB, where PA is A’s probability of winning a war, CA is A’s costs for war (proportional to how much they value the utility), and CB is B’s costs for war (proportional to how much they value the utility). With simplification, if X is A’s share of a peaceful settlement, Fearon finds that peace is better than war when PA – CA < X < PA + CB. A satisfactory X exist if PA + CB > PA – CA, or CA + CB > 0. Because CA and CB are individually greater than 0, so is their sum. Therefore, the inequality holds and so some settlement is mutually preferable to war.
The question is why two rational states cannot find an X that satisfies both sides, even though one must always exist and war is the worst feasible payoff for both sides.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War%27s_inefficiency_puzzle
http://slantchev.ucsd.edu/courses/pdf/fearon-io1995v49n3.pdf
I was somewhat surprised by the language used by this Russian government spokesperson
Hysteria at the White House is revealing more than ever. The Anglo-Saxons need war. At any cost. Provocations, disinformation and threats are favorite method of solving their own problems,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote
https://www.rt.com/russia/549149-anglo-saxon-propaganda-brigade/
Have the differences now become “racialised” between Slavs and Anglo-Saxons?
