Zoraptor

Modi to visit China for first time in 7 years. The man responsible surely deserves a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize.

That is a rather different concept to what RFK was talking about though. Well, probably, he doesn't seem to have much in the way of grasp on one or all of semantics/ reality/ science, and practicality, so who knows what he really means. The concept of having vaccines target something fundamental in virus families to reduce the effect of mutation and target the whole family (eg orthomyxoviridae/ flu) at once is far from new, certainly. But he's talking about a 'universal' vaccine apparently as an actual universal vaccine, not just for a family. Flu virus and coronavirus are not closely related at all- at viral Kingdom level- despite both being ssRNA viruses. The corollary would be something like wanting a universal solution for piranha and lions because they both eat people; and share many other similarities that surely can be targeted, like a spine and haemoglobin? There has been a lot of work on targeting reverse transcriptase which is the enzyme that turns viral RNA into DNA and could, very theoretically, target any RNA virus. But even that wouldn't be universal since there are DNA viruses too. Overall, more practical than horse dewormer or injecting bleach, but not that much so.

There is no international obligation to aid in ethnic cleansing though. Everyone knows that if Palestinians go anywhere outside of Palestine they'll never be allowed back and will be there permanently- we've got nearly 80 years of history demonstrating that fact. Doesn't matter anyway, it's an existential matter for Sisi and no matter what is offered or what his theoretical obligations might have been he cannot accept it. It's hard enough keeping the lid on sympathy for the Palestinians without being seen to obviously and actively aid the policies of Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich against his own country's interests. He'd get Sadat'ed by someone in the military, and be extremely lucky if that was all he got since a lot of his population would happily Gaddafi him instead. Yeah, no credible way to spin it, instead of no way at all. Of course there's been no credible way to spin a lot of stuff that Israel has done but that hasn't stopped their rubbish being reported without pointing out that it's rubbish, until now.

Kind of weird watching a news report from our state broadcaster yesterday where they didn't use 'according to the Hamas run health ministry' but did mention western media being banned from Gaza by Israel. It had been nearly two years of steadfastly refusing to acknowledge exactly why there was never any corroboration of anything from western journalists on the ground so they had to- had to- both sides everything no matter how obvious the truth was. Guess they realised there was simply no way to spin emaciated children and flattened cities as being precise and humanitarian action by the only democracy in the ME any more.

Yezhov_disappears.gif Not sure there's anything geopolitically funnier than the current US v India stoush. All that work at bromancing Modi and all those poor photons and elctrons working overtime about how Russia was losing India and it's back to 1971 because Trump has the mentality of a 7 year old*. If it's hard work isolating China without Russia it's absolutely impossible without India as well, let alone if you manage to drive an actual rapprochement. It's also the fundamental problem with buddying up to strongman populists- they know their popularity relies on Nationalism and appearing strong, so they cannot be seen to back down from public threats. Doubly so when it's a country that has been a colony within (just) living memory. It's not even like there's a major pro US party other than the BJP in India. *It'd be interesting to know if the views of those in the EU who thought they rolled over for Trump on the tariffs would change if that was the cost for imposing secondary sanctions on those trading with Russia**. Because that would be an alternative reading besides Trump hating BRICS and not being given his tendies diet coke and well done steak on a silver platter with sufficient subservience. **Excepting, of course, the EU's trade with Russia. It really is a mystery why the rest of the world think the west are a bunch of hypocrites.

Probably worried Canada will burn down the White House again. Though on reflection that seems unlikely. Given Trump thought the US Revolution involved airfields his knowledge of history is suspect. Maybe he watched some South Park to see what all the fuss is aboot?

There is some theoretical value in getting 14-1 votes in the Security Council instead of 10-1 and 160-10 votes in the UNGA instead of 135-10 at least, if only for the optics of it all. But yes the sort of people in power in Israel- and to be blunt about it the sort of people Israelis elected, as the Only Democracy in the Middle East™ and have consistently elected pretty much this entire century- are not going to fundamentally change their minds unless forced to by more than mere optics. If they were that sort of person we wouldn't be in this situation. Until something actually happens it's all lip service anyway and the absolute barest of bare minimums* that they think they can get away with to placate the populace seeing starving children on their screens. If Israel stopped tomorrow it would all go away, when it really, really, shouldn't. Leaving Palestinians in the state they've been in for the past 70+ years is a sad indictment on pretty much everyone involved, but we all know the collective west would be perfectly happy to leave them that way so long as it isn't actively embarrassing. If they weren't that sort of people we also wouldn't be in this situation. *Similar to the ICC response really, they've done the barest of bare minimums to paper over accusations that they're western puppets and that's all. They haven't even updated to include new (eh, not that far away from his anniversary in the role) Defence Minister Katz yet let alone added anyone else, despite the very obvious evidence.

The union as in the EU itself? The EU as a whole has definite advantages for weaker members- developmental funding, large free trade bloc and the like- which make staying in it a positive trade off. Or, perhaps, a trade off that is seen as significantly safer/ less risky than the alternative. A proper single economy would have advantages for them too, similar to how somewhere like Alabama in the US is subsidised federally by California's stronger economy; it's the weird hybrid thing that doesn't really work well. The union as in the monetary union? Arguably, Greece would have been far better off leaving the Euro during its crisis. Instead of having its currency tied to Germany's and effectively having money pumped out they could have set their own exchange rates to improve competitiveness and inflated their debt away at the same time. With a floating independent currency and a weak economy you have a weak currency, and competitiveness improves since you'd get more drachma for the olive oil you sell to Germans and they'd get better value for their holidays so would be more likely to visit. But with a weak economy and a strong currency Middle Eastern or North African olive oil is cheaper, and it's cheaper to holiday in Turkey. It's extremely risky to leave though, and there would be a lot of the more, hmm, strident Europhiles who'd want anyone leaving the Euro out of the EU as well. That's a particular risk for a single, relatively small country like Greece though, not so much if it was the whole PIGS+ since Italy and Spain are too big to kick out. It's certainly a bad thing if your economy is weak though. Ultimately the problem is the same as it's been since its inception: the Euro is weaker than it 'should' be for its strong economies, which improves their competitiveness and stronger than it should be for the weaker ones, decreasing their competitiveness. That's a classic viscous* circle for the weak and not really a virtuous one for the strong since the benefit for them lasts only until the time the weaker ones start pulling them down. *sigh. I knew one of these days I'd actually write it

The Euro is a massive net disadvantage for its smaller/ weaker members because monetary policy of the Eurozone is run for the larger, stronger members. That's true of just about every EU policy. If it's a choice between benefiting Cyprus, Portugal, Malta, Finland, Slovenia; or Germany, then the decision is automatically made to favour Germany. Most of the PIIGS have never really recovered from the 2009+ financial crises- 16 years ago now- and Ireland only did by stealing tax revenue off everyone else. Current EU is an awful worst mish mash of federalism/ ad hoc integration and independent policies that is the worst of both worlds.

Yeah... there is one way it could work. Rebadge Russian hydrocarbons. Already being done extensively by Azerbaijan, India and Turkey at very least. You know Trump would love to be in on that rort considering how much cash it's making the Aliyev and Erdogan families. (OK, even that would struggle to get to 250bn p/a, but it would get a lot closer)

I suspect a lot of professional reviewers only watch the episodes they're given for advance screenings. If you do that you get a rather skewed view of quality*. There's also potentially the, hmm, Game of Thrones S8/ Bethesda effect of reviewers not really wanting to give something with a Reputation bad reviews. Many of the complaints about nuTrek by their nature require extended watching- or at least, multiple episodes to be watched- to come to the fore. Things like the massive plot holes, inconsistent plotting, logic gaps etc are often only evident when you can compare them with what happened previous/ after. Fans, by their nature, tend to both watch the whole series and notice their issues because they spend more than a few seconds thinking about it. Some will forgive anything of the subject of their fandom, some start a Cato Censoriusesque [programname] delendam esse campaign. *imagine watching the TNG episode about warp destroying the fabric of the universe, but in isolation and with little to no background on the series. With that proviso it's not such a bad episode because you wouldn't know half the stuff that makes it bad. In context though, it's awful. That would, of course, also require you as showrunner/ publicist to think that Force of Nature was the best episode to show reviewers...

I was a bit unfair on Picard S1, up to a point I rather liked it. I think a lot of people wanted TNG S8 instead though. Once at the point I didn't like though... people say you can't retroactively ruin episodes you've already seen, but I reckon Picard S1 (and for that matter, Discovery S1) is a good argument you can.

Haven't seen the new episodes yet (weeks away at the rate I watch TV nowadays) but iirc the previous Gorn episodes were non IP infringing Alien Franchise rip offs down to the first being Alien and the second being Aliens. The first couple of seasons were very underwhelming really. Last season was like a completely different and far better program.

Eh. 'Might be' is doing some pretty heavy lifting there. Recent history suggests that every country will bury such accusations for as long as possible, deal with them in a minimal manner and do so after being forced into it and- preferably- after the perpetrators are dead or too old to stand trial. See: Australian warcrimes in Afghanistan. Not directly applicable but recent/ ongoing and still the only person convicted is... the guy who blew the whistle. More applicable; the whole Stolen Generations (stealing Aboriginal babies) issues, not many convictions there for all the abuse and slavery. Similar issues in Canada, and the church related issues in Ireland and elsewhere. NZ's historic abuse in care scandal. Waited until a lot of the victims were dead to hold an inquiry (a cynic might say to cut down on compensation payments), no convictions despite the guy who ran Lake Alice 'hospital' being alive (deliberately waited until he wasn't mentally competent). The whole Jimmy Saville issue in the UK. Systematically covered up by pretty much every establishment entity. And that's completely off the top of my head. Having said that, if there were truly no consequences there wouldn't be any reason not to release a list. If you're Trump you probably don't want to give too much impetus to such things though, it's the sort of issue where you can get runaway momentum which won't always be dissipated by toothless no fault public inquiries decades later designed specifically to do nothing while making people feel like something is being done.

It also has that rarest of rarities, Adam Nagaitis not playing a bad guy. OK, maybe not quite as rare as Burn Gorman not playing a bad guy. Chernobyl is a really weird one for me. It's simultaneously both the best and most flawed series of the past ten years. It's not just the "what is the price of lies?" tagline demanding accuracy, it's that the changes were narratively unnecessary half the time*. Why send Akmetov (?) off to stare into the reactor on pain of being shot when you had the alternative of the three valve closure volunteers historically not actually being volunteers but just being the first three on shift alphabetically? If you want to show The System not caring that's a perfectly fine example which actually happened. Why imply they died then admit they didn't at the end? Why use the Bridge of Death myth if you've already got the historical firefighters and plant workers to use? It's not like what really happened wasn't dramatic, and making stuff up for the drim drams cheapens what really happens. It's a massive compliment to how good the good bits are that I've gone out of my way to watch it so many times. *and occasionally badly so. The Soviet Minister of Coal at the time actually was an ex miner. If you want to skewer a system for having out of touch suit wearers appointed for ideological reasons who have no idea about what their workers actually do you might consider a documentary on the MBA types running post merger Boeing, uh, into the ground.

Are you saying you'd oppose violence and criminality in Russia as a way to achieve political change or around disagreements how the Russian government defines its geopolitical views? Would you support protestors attacking and damaging Russian public sector institutions like the Duma or is it only Russian military sites you support being attacked? And then would you support left-wing groups breaking the law in protests or is it only anti Russian groups that should be allowed to break the law? Yeah, the UK isn't Russia. But every British PM since Thatcher would like it to be when it comes to state repression and has used 1984 as a guidebook rather than cautionary tale. This isn't even protection for Britain. It's protection for fricking Israel, and a blatant attempt to silence free speech and free expression. The fact that the vast majority of Brits don't support Israel and didn't support invading Iraq in 2003 is irrelevant when the politicians do and did; the only time they ever listen is when you threaten something they value. Like post career company directorships or being reelected (in 4 years for Starmer, so he doesn't care, yet). Indeed, it's particularly ironic for that Quisling, who built much of his reputation on being anti 2003 war yet is now staunchly pro genocide. The last British politician with a scintilla of honour and integrity was Robin Cook, and he died nearly twenty years ago.

Heh, last time the Islands of Tranquility/ Humanitarian Cities came up Israel managed to imply that they'd actually killed 400k people since they were for Gaza's entire 1.8 million people. Watching media contort themselves trying not to use concentration camps/ ethnic cleansing for what so very clearly is a plan for both is as always grimly amusing. And still no ICC indictment for Katz.

Well yeah. Quite apart from depopulating Diego Garcia for a US base British conduct in their African colonies is well within living memory. And that involved mass ethnic cleansing, concentration camps (with wonderful euphemisms like 'villagisation'; albeit that's a step back from 'islands of tranquility' or whatever it was Hagari came up with for the concentration camps in Gaza) including 'work camps', torture (with an active policy of gelding captives) and murder quite apart from the 'legit' military stuff. You might think from their rhetoric about it all being in the past that the Brits might have apologised, paid reparations, maybe put a few people on trial. Yeah, nah; their policy is that it just sort of randomly happened with no input from them, Britain had nothing to do with it and all complaints have to be addressed to their legal successor states like Kenya. Due to, and I am not making this up, a ruling about Patagonian Toothfish. They did eventually give them some money to get them to Just Shut Up, though with no apology or admission of having done anything wrong; indeed, with a reiteration that it was all Kenya's problem. Though, of course, the successor state did not get any of the relevant files from the old colonial state for some strange reason, they went to, hmm, Whitehall UK. Where they were promptly 'misfiled' and lost. Funny that. Not just a Brit thing either, see the Nama/ Herero genocides of Germany I mentioned a week ago and how they tried to minimise and disclaim responsibility. Though at least (well, 'at least') that is out of living memory now. And people wonder why the bleating rhetoric about how it was so long ago and they're really sorry from euros rings extremely hollow.

Well if British State Media says it's ok to designate a peaceful protest group as- and they do their best to obfuscate it- Terrorists then I guess it's OK. And of course The Law must be followed. So I expect zero complaints from Bruce about RT and people following Russian Law. Heh, if it was in Russia it'd 100% be about silencing dissent, because it 100% is about silencing dissent. That law was designed specifically to be abused in this precise way with this precise intention. Things which are terrorism in the UK: Chucking some paint on planes. Can you imagine how much terror it engendered in, um, uh... someone. Things which aren't terrorism in the UK: Blowing up children, torturing doctors to death and blowing up other doctors with their children; starvation as a method of war, collective punishment, waging aggressive war, deliberate and sustained targeting of civilians, journalists, medics, intellectuals; mass detention without trial. And stealing land for settlers from its original inhabitants isn't colonialism. It was the final command of Starmer: Reject the Evidence of Your Eyes and Ears.

Has the XBox/ Gaming division of MS ever made a genuine profit? It is there very much because of potential profits which have never eventuated. More interesting news out of MS recently: the directive about staff being Obligated to use AI. Copilot doesn't even get answers about MS' own software consistently correct. It also told me Easter Sunday was on the 26th of April this year.

Does anyone like a draft officer except politicians? Even volunteers hate them for having a safe (well, mostly) cushy job and for the bribery. Also tend to disproportionately be mirrored Jain symbol/ pagan tattoo aficionados. Kind of funny seeing Ukraine say they expect Russia to bomb TCC offices more after doing so a couple of days ago got such a positive response among Ukrainians.

Dredge is a fine game made by a fine people. I have been playing Bioshock /2. Didn't really like either of them when I first played them but I have obviously mellowed in my expectations- System Shock 3, essentially- over time since I have enjoyed both. Still reckon Bioshock has the best art direction of any game I've played though its level design makes zero sense from a practical standpoint and while flawed if you spend too much time on them the stories are great. The gameplay is... there? Adequate? OK? Haven't been enthused, haven't got tired of it. I always wished stealth and care was a more realistic approach in them though. And of course for a Big Daddy Delta is as tough as a wet paper bag compared to the meatbag of the first game.

How can you blame countries for colonising places, deliberately favouring one ethnicity over another as a matter of policy, drawing up borders that force those two ethnicities that now hate each other together and insisting that those borders are Sacrosanct (except when we don't like them any more) and have to be respected? How can you blame them for bribing their leaders to make decisions against their nations' interests? Reminder, quite apart from the execrable Belgian colonial conduct in the Congo every single IMF/ WB loan to Zaire and policies demanded from them resulted in a worse position for Zaire and Zaireans. That didn't end with Mobutu and the country's name change either. The mess the DRC is in now has a direct line to western colonialism of the C21st variety. See also every single western intervention in the ME. At some point you have to accept that it isn't all good intentions going wrong when it goers wrong so very consistently; it's deliberate policy. I mean, getting money/ apologies out of Germany for genociding the Herero and Nama was like drawing blood from a stone and didn't address any of the ongoing grievances; it was more of a billion dollar bung to the ruling class to Just Shut Up. Then they acritically support Israel's genocide of the Palestinians and flagrant land grabs, showing how much they really hate colonialism. As for Starmer, that watermelon salesman, he deserves not just my shoe but everyone's. Enlightened Centrists are without exception embarrassments at best but he manages to take it all a step further than any other of those cringe artists. You just knew the UK would start abusing badly written anti terror laws- after all they've gone after noted radicals and rabble rousers, uh, Iceland with them before- it is after all their purpose. Blowing up tens of thousands of women and children and having an active policy of starvation plus ordering your troops to shoot indiscriminately is OK but painting some warplanes is terrorism. So is being mean to the IDF or Israel because of it. It'd be pathetic, if it wasn't a blueprint from 1984.

Iran's parliament voted for it. As noted in the article, that is not the end of the matter and it does not amount to kicking the IAEA out, yet. To illustrate, their parliament also voted to shut the Straits of Hormuz four days ago, which didn't happen.

Gotta get the last word missile in. Iran at least seems to have acknowledged the ceasefire announcement now. Whoever briefs Trump better leave out precisely how they phrased the acknowledgement though.