I had excellent news from my cardiologist yesterday. Ready to think about other things now. I am horrified by the continuing stream of ” royal” baby hype on television. Truly pathetic – is this 1313 or 2013? Who buys into this nonsense?
I thought the Lib Dem take on Trident missiles was hilarious. This small group of islands does apparently need to retain the ability to wipe out one third of the urban population of humankind, as a defence against something undefined – possibly people we invade getting too annoyed about it – and in order to increase our “influence” in the World. As we plainly have less influence than the Germans, who don’t feel this need for the power of obliteration, I do not quite see how this works. Nor do I see Pakistan, which does have nuclear weapons, as very influential. Nor do I quite understand how our influence can be increased by possessing something under effective American control. But there you are.
Anyway, the Lib Dems have come to the intellectually scintillating conclusion that we do need this world shattering power, but we don’t need it on Wednesday or Thursday afternoons or on Saturday mornings, which will be cheaper. Brilliant, and plainly does not dodge any big ethical or practical questions at all.
Welcome back, Craig. Take it easy.
I echo that and the water’s nice and warm Craig. I am so glad you are OK.
Nice start to the morning. Good to have you back, Craig.
Welcome back, Craig.
Almost as annoying as the royal baby nonsense is the wall-to-wall guff in the media about the HEATWAVE. We’re on level 3 alert now, one below National Emergency. It’s just so humiliating, foreigners must think we are complete idiots. I lived for ten years in Thailand and it never dropped below national emergency level. God knows how I survived.
Glad the auguries are good, Craig.
The Trident programme is being spun as a response to new and emergent threat*. It is not being spun as a cheap forward unit for the Yanks. All media please copy.
Intriguing, the speed with which we could reimagine a purely deterrent weapon as an active response to a threat, if you see what I mean. And if you don’t, sorry.
*People who don’t like us.
Glad to hear your good news from the cardiologist Craig. I had predicted that some months ago when you first highlighted the issue but its good to get a solid diagnosis with all the excellent modern technology around these days. Do bolster your confidence with some lifestyle modifications — sleep timings, brisk walking/swimming, natural foods tailored to your constitution, periods of silence etc.
Also, recommend you explore this herbal product, Cardimap, from the goodness of the forest:
http://www.maharishiayurvedaindia.com/shops/product_info.php?products_id=53
Health is everything!
Glad you’re well Craig. Heart problems are pretty bloody scary. Fuck knows what level 3 means. I used to work in a regional resilience office and when the York flooded, absolutely fuck all happened – useless gimps. All the best dude.
Welcome back.
You are right. The only reason we will buy Trident will be as our hundred billion pound subscription to the Pentagon World Domination and Destruction Dinner Club: NATO with its extra affiliated member Israel. What use is a nuclear deterrent in dealing with real rather than imaginary modern-day enemies? Our politicians are giving arms to Al Qaeda in Syria. Our politicians are powsywowsy with the Taliban in Afghanistan while they are picking off our troops only a few miles away.
The biggest vulnerabilities of delivery of very serious lasting damage to the UK are not incoming Cold War style nuclear warheads from China, Russia or Iraq (remember Blair), they are (i) the risks of bankruptcy of our economy as in 2008 by rogue bankers/traders and (ii) major disruption to our data networks with a high-power Stuxnet from someone else which would bring us to our knees without any bomb.
What use is one hundred billion pounds’ worth of end-of-the-world missiles in four submarines to sort either of those out? Ultimately we are our own worst enemy and learning that would cost one cold shower.
Komodo: “*People who don’t like us.”
Good point and its related directly imo to Craig’s : “Nor do I see Pakistan, which does have nuclear weapons, as very influential. ”
While in general, on the world stage, that is true, Pakistan is one country that has been able to run little circles around the US in the post 911 period. Their ISI/Jihadist alliance has been able to assure the defeat of ISAF in Afghanistan and the survival/pending revival of the Taliban and the propagation of the AQ philosophy/phenomena. As such they serve as an inspiration to jihadists in the Middle East in particular and the World at large. I wonder if the Afghan war and US handling of Pakistan would’ve followed a different course had they no nuclear weapons. I am certainly not making a case for nuclear weapons but one cannot deny their power. Of course the Trident project is unrelated and thanks for baring its conspicuous ludicrousness.
“*People who don’t like us.”
The French you mean?
I’ve been interested in this beastie for some time –
http://en.rian.ru/video/20121022/176824675.html
And I do accept that whatever the “reason” for squandering our borrowed cash on Trident, the proposed alternative based on cruise missiles might not be such a good idea. The S-1’s been upgraded considerably since this promotional video; the Algerians have a variant with a superb radar and optics for instance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_47J_hzuRr4
Selling like hot cakes, they are. Those 30mm guns are vicious.
Villager gets the point, Fred. You don’t.
Go. Go. You disgusting warmonger with your medals and your big fat Army pension. There is a niche in some board room or other awaiting you, and probably a peerage.
http://news.sky.com/story/1117254/syria-britain-must-be-prepared-for-war
Glad your ticker has been mended and you feel better for it.
Komodo’s point is noted, there are bad people, and others who want revenge. Pakistans threat is over hyped here, indeed it is a very remote threat. The Taliban would never be able to control the nuclear capabilities, it is something they are not trained for.
By best estimates it would take all of Pakistan’s trained scientists some 6 month to assemble the various parts of their nuclear weapons, they are NOT assembled and located in different parts of the country.
Trident is a cold war defensive relic which has now been upgraded to am first strike weapon, a slight change in purpose and policy from what was there for a long time.
Western military aggression is increasingly taking on globally strategic positions, fighting for economic means and resource and creating their own terror to justify their aggression, the only justification there is for such blatant move to world domination.
Great to have you back Craig.
Try to chill whenever you can,its important.
Good to hear you are getting better Mr Murray.
King of Welsh Noir I have not complained about the weather but the garden is burnt up and there will be few or no vegetables. 33C here yesterday. Our home interiors are not designed for these temperatures and humidity with carpets, upholstered furniture, heavy curtains, etc. They are more appropriate for the cold, wet and long winters we have been receiving from Gaia who we have angered.
The contrasts are extreme. It was -20C here on one night in the Winter. Awaiting Thames Water to announce a water shortage and drought measures now.
Thames Water is owned by the Australian bank, Macquarie, btw and don’t we get big bills for our metered water now.
I think major reason for retaining nucs is that UK (or more accurately British establishment) is still living in the post WWII era. World have changed considerably since but Britain conservatively trying to retain the prestige and influence it had in 20th century. As you pointed out Germany does not need nucs to be major European power nor does Japan need them to be major power in its region. But for Britain membership in the exclusive club of potential humanity destroyers is major attribute of being important nation. Is it possible that this is all because we have nothing else to muscle with?
There are casualties of course who have our sympathy.
http://news.sky.com/story/1117248/a-and-e-admissions-rise-in-britains-30c-heatwave
Nevermind in great mindless form: “Pakistans threat is over hyped here, indeed it is a very remote threat. ”
Has it been overhyped here? Where? By whom?
The threat of a dirty bomb is hardly remote, God forbid, if you understood the intricacies of the ISI/Jihadist alliance.
Re: “By best estimates it would take all of Pakistan’s trained scientists some 6 month to assemble the various parts of their nuclear weapons, they are NOT assembled and located in different parts of the country.”
Sources please.
“Western military aggression is increasingly taking on globally strategic positions, fighting for economic means and resource and creating their own terror to justify their aggression, the only justification there is for such blatant move to world domination.”
Man has been fighting man for five, ten, forty thousand years. How do you propose to break the cycle?
Glad to see you back!!
Take it easy sir
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.536433
This will make good reading.
p.s. to Craig. I spent time with Liz W.’s brother last week. She is doing fine.
I’m less concerned by the ‘disgusting warmonger’, who, when younger, probably earned at least some of those medals the hard way, but by the lousy logic he employs to justify his approach to the very real problem of how to stop the bad guys getting their hands on the chemicals. If we’d kept our noses out of Syria from the start, or if we propped Assad up, even now, the problem would be solved. The one entity in Syria which is definitely hostile to Sunni fundamentalists is the Assad regime. And if Assad’s a bastard, and he is, his track record’s no worse than many bastards we’ve left alone.
Yes, Nevermind, but I wasn’t pointing to Pakistan or anyone else specific. My point was that ‘people who don’t like us’ are not a new or emergent threat. Even people with nukes who don’t like us (like France, Fred?).
And I have to say that the reasons that Germany doesn’t have nukes are unconnected to whether it feels it needs them or not. Quite apart from anything else, it realises that the US arsenal covers it. Our similar realisation has been a long time a-coming; I’m still waiting.
“Villager gets the point, Fred. You don’t.”
Well throughout history our greatest threat has always come from our near neighbours. Pakistan never tried to invade Britain, N. Korea neither and I can’t envisage a time coming when they ever would.
France has nuclear weapons, Europe has had two wars to end all wars in the last century.
Israel has nuclear weapons and an expansionist policy. If they decided to annex Cyprus we could be on a sticky wicket.
Komodo
Middle East has been Proxy conflicts area for centuries and even millennias. I would say since collapse of Roman Empire. Syria itself (Assad’s late father) used Lebanon as proxy. The problem in Syria as similar to Iraq with the difference that this time Sunnis are majority that oppressed by Alawait minority. Meddling in conflicts prolong them or make more complicated but by no mean start them. Potential of conflict in Syria and in many other conflicts where West was involved lay within conflicting parties.
I could give you one clear example of this. In Central Asia due to complexity of geographical location and proximity of Russia and China Western influence is minimal. But this does not help with the fact that regions have long list of potentially deadly issues starting from economic underdevelopment and corruption to inter and intraethnic tensions, interborder tensions and most of all water security. Whether or not West or any other party is meddling or not these issues will (unfortunately) one day turn into conflicts (there have already been some in Southern Kyrgyzstan).
I trust my most recent post explains where I am coming from Fred. I am criticising the current rebranding of Trident in terms of the War on Tourism paranoia, in order to sell it to the plebs as a done deal. It’s a deterrent. It’s always been a deterrent. I grant you our historical fear of France getting jiggy, and I don’t trust Russia an inch, but we seriously need to examine the cost benefit of this one.
*(I could see the point if we detached ourselves from the US, but that’s not going to happen)
I recommend Power Aid, as I believe it’s isotonic. Keep plenty of bottles in the fridge!
I am mildly interested in the forthcoming Royal baby – but first he or she needs to be safely born and healthy, which would be a gift in itself.
A British navy captain after a missile test was asked by a reporter, ‘But if you actually fire it, its Armageddon -there would be no realm left to defend.’ He replied that it was the capacity to do something terrible that protected us, i.e. the deterrent effect. No-one will invade a nuclear power.
Do the Libdems really believe that certain weekdays are perfectly safe? 🙂
Villager, once again your wind chimes need adjusting.
“God forbid, if you understood the intricacies of the ISI/Jihadist alliance.”
you obviously do have much more of a military education and insight than me, I only served 8 years and wrote my dissertation on it, so I’m always up for learning from you, mother superior.
So what is/was you clearance level? top secret?, cosmic top secret? you still serving now?
You tell us why it takes 6 month to assemble Pakistan’s nuclear threat, you are so clever by half that you really do not need any links from me, bar one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSqHrZgiwRM&list=RD02p55uyEztZ7w
“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.” JK