Dune 2021

 Hi All,

Looks interesting!

We're Back!!!

 Hi All, 

We're Back!

And what better way to celebrate than Howard the Nation's favourite Bank Manager giving us a song? 

Shabbat Open Thread

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Open thread ! 

Shabbat Shalom!

Sukkot

 Hi All,

Tonight is the start of Sukkot, the festival of Booths : 

Chabad.org - Sukkot: The Joyous Embrace - Bing video

Yom Kippur : El Nora Alila

 Hi All, 

"God of Awe, God Of Might, Pardon us in this hour"

"Gather Judah's scattered Flock, unto  Zion's rebuilt site "

Today we observed Yom Kippur- the most Holiest of days in Judaism - via Fasting, Prayer and Singing. 

" Come with Michael Prince of Israel ,With Gabriel , Your Angels Bright, With Elijah Come Redeem as The  Gates [of Heaven] close this night"

Shanah Tovah!

 Hi All, 

It's Rosh Hashanah !

Happy New Year!

Lost for words

 Hi All, 

Um ? 

NB- for those who aren't political geeks or outside of the UK , Michael Gove is a senior Cabinet Minister (Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster: don't ask!) and one of the most prominent supporters of Israel in the current government. Apparently he's getting divorced from his wife of 20 years, so maybe this is a midlife crisis ? 

Taliban Can form US policy, but not her allies

 Hi All,

Last week I compared the debacle in Afghanistan to Vietnam. In fact I will admit the analogy is somewhat misplaced : once that war was over, whilst Vietnam was united under Communist  rule, the state was , unlike Cuba,  content to consolidate its rule and defend her own homeland -hence the brief war against two Communist states -  Communist China and the overthrowing of the  Communist Pol Pot regime . But aside from that Vietnam wasn't exporting terrorists or funding to attack the American, let along European continents. Unlike the Taliban, who, as sure as night follows day will be doing just that. In fact this was the reason why America and the UK went into that country in the first place, alongside getting Bin Laden and his associates, there was also a feeling that no state should become a refuge, base or training ground for terrorists. In fact most of this got lost in the wind, especially as Tony Blair - the Liberal Imperialist that he was- soaked up the kool aid of the American 'neo-conservative' movement which had as its core belief that liberal  democracies are good and that rouge states/the world should be remade in that- American-  image, by the use of American military power if necessary. Added to this by Blair was the further identikit of women's rights, gay rights and all the other 'rights' causes that the left have developed in the past 30 years. Liberal Interventionism was a thing.

Who will do the exploring and colonising ?

 Hi All, 

I've written about this before, but I thought I would expand upon it. 

In terms of space exploration and colonisation, who will be doing this? The answer to my mind is a mixture of both state and private methods. Unlike in other science fiction wherein it is the state (e.g. the Empire in Star Wars or the Federation in Trek) that has the monopoly of exploration and colonisation, I believe a more realistic approach would be a free for all amongst these competing groups. 

Governments may want to colonise a strategic asset/planet or be forced to take over a private colony that is failing (for example the Fall of the East India Company) . But mostly I would suggest that government would only be active in exploration and colonisation if it were in a cold war with another power and be motivated either by prestige or fear that this 'other' would move in first. Alternatively there could be a situation in which the government does want to colonise, but is restrained by a budget or an ultra orthodox Treasury . In this case you could be in for a series of public-private partnerships, in which thanks to an accounting trick, the cost (like Gordon Brown's outsourcing and hospital building) takes time to appear on the public balance sheet. 

Private Corporations will be motivated by profit, be this in resources or such things as space tourism. I would also expect this companies to operate their colonies in a similar manner to the merchant shipping registry. In order to get around regulation, workers rights and have cheap costs, companies will use 'flags of convenience' . So just as Bermuda and Liberia have millions of tons of ships on their registry, you can well imagine that they  or other smaller less regulatory nations, would on paper be the world's largest colonial space powers.  

Religious Groups, will either be wanting to escape persecutions, such as Jews, Puritans and Catholics &  Russian Mennonites  and live their own cultures on other worlds or they may well be missionary explorers like David Livingstone. 

Private Wealthy Individuals . Yes there are historical examples of private individuals and then families  owning whole colonies, eg. William Penn, which is where PENN- Sylvania comes from. Imagine if there were whole worlds owned by Geoff Bezos , Richard Branson, Bill Gates or Elon Musk. 

Afghanistan = Vietnam 2

 Hi All,

Question : how does a global super power with a defence budget and military as big as most other nation states combined, get to loose to a group of wackos with small fire arms in SUV's?  

Biden and indeed  Trump ,  decided to turn away and abandon Afghanistan and reset the clock back to the year 2001. All that money, all the lives and all the cost and that is it. The Taliban are back in charge, free to let in any terrorist organisations they want, because neither America or anyone else is going to interfere now. It seems that Biden - why isn't he getting the slack from the left in Europe and America over this that he deserves ? - is as if not more isolationist and 'America first' as Trump was, although Trump was vilified at home and abroad for it , but here we have it, a unilateral pull-out from a left wing President  in which the views of allies weren't taken into account, only domestic opinion polls. Not that I'm actually convinced Biden is really in charge, given his demented and deteriorating state, which again isn't really commented upon by the media.

This is typical hypocrisy by the American media and establishment elites, to criticise a GOP President, but glorify can't do anything wrong with a Democratic one,  but it begs  us to ponder : the American establishment think they are going to take on China in a war at some point, as China is deemed to be the big 'threat' to American Super -Powerdom',  to wit they are trying to get allies to help them out. But if it were me, I'd be looking at Afghanistan and thinking if they can't even crush these guys with no navy, no airforce, no tanks and are small in numbers,,... why join them in trying to take on a country of a billion people, on a continental sized land mass, who has a navy, air force and a big army ? I'd think nah. Try it yourself mate. 

The background

 Hi All, 

There is an equal and opposite reaction : there are many different choices we make to forge our past, present and future. There are many different realities in which history tells a different story....

Timeline : 

66 million years ago- During the Cretaceous period the Sszzorg ,  a species of intelligent space faring Dromaeosauridae are the dominant species on the planet, alongside dinosaurs. They participate in-along with the Martians - the last great multiverse war . As a result their civilisation is destroyed, culminating in an attack on their Capital, which is known to humans as the Yucatan Peninsula , and the remnant are forced into hibernation chambers deep below the Earth : meanwhile most Martians ascend to another dimension, their planet in ruins, leaving behind a small contingent on the Red Planet to guard it against 'tomb raiders'. 

The Sszzorg systems are damaged, so their awakening mechanisms don't work, until world war 3 in 1962 wherein the radiation and energy released is enough to power their systems once more. Thankfully further genocide and mass slaughter is avoided as a result of diplomacy. The efforts of  Earth's First President Alec Douglas Home, Vice President Golda Meir and Secretary of State Richard Nixon, persuade the Sszzorg to join the Earth Union  as equal partners, especially after Lord Home proved humans were indeed a civilised species thanks to the game of Cricket, which is now a firm Sszzorg national sport .  [  the surviving human nation states had  banded  together to create a Constitutional  Parliamentary Democratic  world government, with its Federal  Capital City being Birmingham and the West Midlands region of England, UK].   

In 1965 there was the first successful mission to the moon and a year later to Mars, which led to a disastrous first contact, which resulted in the Earth- Martian war, a bitter conflict which eventually turned in Earth's favour thanks to the tactical and strategic brilliance of the combined Human Sszzorg Defence Forces ;  Generals Moshe Dayan &  Admiral Mo'zzorg  who halted the Martian invasion of the battle of  Woking  and won victory on the Elysium Planes and  Olympus Mons, which led to  the subsequent Hisrel Accords and the start of the Earth-Mars 'special relationship'.

During this time a young Moroccan- French scientist David Elharar had presented and demonstrated his theory of Quantum Entanglement Portals, which he developed at the Sorbonne and refined at Cambridge. There he met Jacob Horowitz , a son of the Managing Partner of the bulge bracket investment bank of the same name, they quickly became best  of friends. The Quantum portals allowed near instantaneous  travel between two points, thus removing the need for motor vehicles and this, combined with the Szssorg's Warp Drive technology, began a period of human exploration of the Galaxy and thanks to the discovery of several wormholes, many other galaxies. It also made Elharar  and Horowitz  the wealthiest  humans to ever have lived.... 

The Earther State had grown to  a population of at least 1 quadrillion, 5,750 member states, and millions of colonies and outposts in the Milky Way and beyond, but  consisting of 5 distinct groups : Humans, Sszzorg, the Trans-humans of Lunar, the Belt and Jupiter, The Gorf and finally many smaller  alien refugees & immigrants  who have fled various authoritarian genocidal regimes. 

The  Earth has come into contact with many hundreds of thousands and species, millions of states, mostly peaceful, others hostile: the largest war to date was the Earth- Minitour war  of 2081-2089, during the Presidency of Antonio Garibaldi in which it was discovered that aliens (who Earthers call Minitours on the basis they look like the bull-human of legend)  had  mass bred and cloned, billions of humans as slaves . Other conflicts include the wars against the Domulans, the Plingons, the Vardassians, Chard, Leopoldie and the Shell conflict. There are several powers of note : the Multiverse super powers of Byzantine, Nachash, Onconvar, Svinge, Koobe & Mars. Regional and great powers consist of Earth, Leopoldie, Vardassia, Minotaur, Chard and Ganoush. 

The year is 2121....