Big J

I listen to a lot of podcasts at work and one of the regulars is one called The Bulwark from the US which comes from what was originally a centre right conservative group of republicans who define themselves now as "Never Trumpers". A very interesting and usually moderate source of news and opinion. Anyway what was an amusing aside to an otherwise depressing escalation of events from the US, was that they referenced an old Mitchell and Webb sketch where Nazis on the front line in World War II have a moment of self-reflection and wonder, nay, realise that they are the baddies. Tim Miller of the Bulwark posed that question about the US now. Siding with Russia against Ukraine, denouncing European countries and repeatedly talking about forceful territorial expansion does nothing to dissuade me of that notion either.

I am not quite working 9:00 to 5:00, rather Monday to Friday shift work during the daytime. I seem to have fallen into the role of sawmilling contractor, working between the two big sawmills in the neighboring village. The work is good, and the cycle commute to get there is wonderful. It is not quite what I imagined I would end up doing, but it forms a perfectly satisfactory part of what is a very nice life. I appreciate your curiosity 😁 Proper Alpine cold as a wonderful thing. Those mornings where you can see the ice crystals hanging in the air, the deep frosts and possibilities for actually enjoying winter. I imagine that a Devon winter is pretty similar to an Irish one. They are genuinely insufferable, and the 19/20 winter almost broke me and was the final straw for us moving out of the country.

A little colder again this morning on the way to work. Minus 12°c. Made for some excellent beard ice. It's hard to get across to people in the UK that cycling in that temperature is much more pleasant than 3-4°c and rain in the UK. Here, there is no wind, no rain, no humidity and no mud. It's just cold. I personally do enjoy it, even if I prefer the warmer months.

The ice had been forming for a week or more, and we just had one period of a few hours of snow that lightly covered the ice. It's a good idea to try to clear it before the sun gets on to it because if the snow melts partially and then refreezes, you have a very rough surface to skate on. That whole corner of the lake is only about 90 CM deep. The lake as a whole is 120 ha and this corner is maybe 15. I use an auger to drill through the ice and take measurements from various places. It all tends to be pretty much the same though and we have about 95 mm of ice.

Wonderful weather at the moment. Deep frosts overnight and a degree or two above during the day. We did a lot of skating over the weekend on the lake. I am not a very good skater, but it is a lot of fun.

You're conflating the crews that flew the bombers with the commanders than designed the operations. The crews were not party to the level of civilian death they were responsible for. Bomber command (as in, the commanders) intended to kill maximal numbers of civilians and destroy maximal amounts of civilian infrastructure. I am not saying that this style of operation wasn't done by the Nazis too (although it was on a lesser scale - I don't think that's the most important issue - intent is intent), and that it's equally morally reprehensible. What I'm saying is that people in Britain have a habit of looking backwards with rose tinted, holier than thou glasses, whereas the truth is much less pleasant.

The thing is that very few in bomber command knew the totality of the plan that was carried out on Hamburg and Dresden. The flight crews were intentionally kept in the dark about the nature of their targets and the type of bombs that they were carrying. I am not blaming them for one minute. But Bomber Command knew exactly what they were doing, and what they were doing was intentionally massacring tens of thousands of people in the most brutal fashion imaginable. Look, Nazi Germany needed to be stopped, I fully understand and support that. It was a dark chapter in human history, but I do think that it's crucial to be cognizant of all actions on both sides, rather than sugar coating aspects of history that don't suit our agenda. You now have a situation where Musk, his cronies and the European far right are seeking to rewrite much of the history relating to the Nazis, which is frankly terrifying. Those who choose to ignore history are doomed to repeat it. I will fully agree with you that humans are mostly awful, or at the very least, capable of being utterly awful. We think we're civilised but we really aren't.

Dresden and the firebombing of Hamburg were war crimes. Hamburg especially. As many people died in Operation Gommorah (lasting 8 days and 7 nights) as the entire Blitz. Very few people actually knew the full scope of the operation and the truly evil details. Arthur "Bomber" Harris masterminded it, with the specific goal of maximising civilian casualties and terror within the German population. The sequence of bombing was as follows: first to be dropped were high explosive bombs to destroy windows and doors (creating the ideal conditions for the rapid spreading of fire). Then incediary rounds were dropped to create a firestorm, alongside timed high explosive to target emergency workers. A quarter ofbetter a million homes were destroyed. 37,000 (mostly) civilians died in a week. It was a war crime. Another example is the Bengal famine of 1943. Churchill intentionally diverted food away from Bengal and continued rice exports as the population starved. This was to supply well fed European soldiers and top up European stockpiles. He referenced the Bengalis as "breeding like rabbits". 3 million Bengalis died. Yes, the UK was fighting on the of what was right in WW2, but it doesn't absolve it of responsibility for heinous acts. Looking a little further back into the UK's past and you can take your pick of any number of atrocities, oppressions and wars for which the UK was entirely responsible. I detest this revisionist attitude towards British Imperialism as being a universally benevolent force in the world. Yes, it brought some benefit in some ways, but it was largely hugely negative. India, as an example, had between 25-35% of global GDP for the 1500 years preceding British colonialism, and 2% when the Brits left in 1947. Come to think of it, is there a single example of a country anywhere in the world that is objectively better for having being under colonial rule? Perhaps Australia and New Zealand, but their history with their aboriginal populations is chequered at best, and genocidal at worst. It's a huge topic

Morning everyone! Minus 15c here. Perfect for world-class beard ice whilst cycling. And I made an ice skating area on the lake. I love this kind of winter weather.

Absolutely. The firebombing of Hamburg and the flattening of Dresden sadly spring to mind. With the powerful that lead our countries, the best you can hope for is that they are benevolent c**ts. If you get a malevolent one, you're in trouble 😔

It shouldn't need to be stated that the actions of the Nazis in WW2 were utterly evil. But it's irrefutable that the collective guilt of the West has been exploited by Zionists forever conflating what happened 80 years ago with the situation today. Sadly, and ironically, the strongest common thread between the Holocaust and Israel in 2025 is that the Zionists are treating the Palestinians as the Nazis treated the Jews in the 30s and 40s. Israel is a state that is founded on the very notion of religious and ethnic purity. A similar ideal underpinned the Third Reich. The expansionist agenda of Israel (Golan Heights, West Bank, clearing Gaza etc) find much commonality with the policy of expanding Germany to allow for Lebensraum. The Israeli policy of unequal human rights depending on ethnicity and religion isn't a million miles from the Nazi concept of the Untermensch. I am not equating Nazi Germany and Israel in terms of scale or global impact, but I defy anyone to look at the state of Gaza now and say that it isn't a concerted and determined effort on the part of Israel to make Gaza unliveable. It's industrial war and the industrial clearance of a people. And please remember that Hamas terrorists commited the atrocities of Oct 7th. Not the Palestinian people, who have been subject to brutal collective punishment.

I think you can legitimately be against both Hamas and the Israeli state. Both have engaged in truly barbaric acts of cruelty. The difference, I'd argue is that in the instance of this latest episode that for Hamas it was a single day, and for Israel is has been 16 months and counting, as well as almost 50 times as many dead. My understanding of the situation is reasonable, but by no means scholarly or in great depth. For me, the fundamental injustice is that since the inception of Israel, it has been an inherently racist and exclusionary state. It offers citizenship to any Jew of any nation, but not the Palestinians who have called that part of the world their home for thousands of years. Terrorist Zionist actions have occured since the 1920s, and the with the 1948 Nakba, Jewish settlers asserted themselves by force, making refugees of over half a million Palestinians. In the intervening 80 years, successive Israeli governments have worked to great effect the lingering Western guilt over WW2 to obtain unconditional support (increasingly now only from the US) both in terms of material goods and poltiical will. In that time, Palestinians have seen what few rights they've had stripped, what little land they owned stolen and the future of ahead of them darkened. I make no defense of the actions of Hamas. They are evil. But you have to understand that systemic and systematic oppression of a population over multiple generations will do nothing other than breed extremism. As a young man, growing up in Gaza with a bleak future, living at the behest of your Israeli neighbours, you will do whatever you can to resist. Now that Israel has killed almost 3% of Gaza's population, injured a further 4.5%, every person in Gaza will have lost loved ones. Every family will have been affected. More than 70% of all buildings are destroyed or severely damaged. This atrocity, this genocide will haunt Israel for generations. So Trump suggests that he should take ownership of Gaza. Clear them all out, he says. Literally the textbook definition of ethnic cleansing...... I think it's fairly clear now that international law is going to have little effect on the situation in the Middle East. The powerful will exert their might on the vulnerable and the world will be all the worse for it.

Finally, some sustained cold here. It's a few degrees below freezing just now - everything dry, largely ice and snow free. Very pleasant. Our weather forecast:

I guess I was referring more to the immediate area we lived in. There was a lot of mining around the Firth of Forth, and particularly shale oil in West Lothian.

Northumberland isn't Scotland though, is it. Cumbernauld, Armadale, Livingston (which is admittedly a new town), Broxburn, Falkirk, Bathgate, Airdrie to name but a few. All incredibly rough in places, and not ethnically diverse. Of course, there are parts of Glasgow that are very culturally and ethnically diverse, but the biggest issues with serious crimes don't come from those groups.

If you go to many of the ex-mining and industrial towns west of Edinburgh (or pretty much most of greater Glasgow, or Dundee for that matter), there terrible issues with drugs and violence, and they are not ethnically diverse at all. Yes, immigrants bring problems, but we've grown plenty of our own as well. The somewhat comical irony of Brexit is that not only has it substantially increased immigration, but the immigrants that are coming in are now more culturally different to the EU immigrants that made up the bulk of the intake, pre-Brexit. An own goal, I would say.

Malmö is not close to home. It's 3.5hrs away. I would feel no safer walking through parts of almost any large UK city too. It's a problem of urbanisation, no nationality. But I am not so naive as to say that Sweden doesn't have an urban gun violence problem. It's not dissimilar to London's knife violence problem too. The moral of the story is just don't live in a city if you can help it!

I don't like Mandleson. A political chameleon. It wasn't long ago that he was scathing of Trump but he's turned on a dime.... Money runs the country. There are many people in politics who are genuine and want to improve the situation but they are up against lobbying groups, moneyed interests and commercial entities. GDP has only gone up in the UK since Brexit due to increased immigration. GDP per capita hasn't. There is nothing wrong or unnatural to want to be with your family if you are working abroad.

I don't disagree, but after the last ten years of domestic and global politics, it's hard not to be a bit apathetic. Take Brexit as an example. It's universally accepted now that it was an act of national self harm, and in a recent YouGov poll, only 11% of the UK electorate felt that it had been a net positive for the country. Additionally (and please forgive the lack of the source) but a recent economic report stated that some of the econonic damage of Brexit had been mitigated by increased immigration. Brexit was sold as a means of making the UK richer whilst reducing immigration, but it's done the exact opposite. I know that things are a little better on this side of the pond, but I think that the moral highground is fast disappearing. The Tories seem to be trying to out-Reform Reform, whilst Labour are stuck in a kind of paralysis that's indicative of a inheriting a political and economic situation so ghastly that they have no idea how to fix it. The UK could do a lot worse than having proportional representation, mandatory voting, public funding for elections and a ban on politicians serving in any private sector role relating to their governmental position for a set period of time. And no second job whilst an MP. But it'll never happen. Each opposition party bangs on about electoral reform until they get into power and remember that the messed up system is what put them there.

Hegseth might have military experience, but he has no experience of running any organisation other than a small non-profit, which by all accounts, he did very badly. He also has a drinking problem and has been accused of sexual assault on several occasions. Trump essentially saw him on weekend Fox and though "oooh, he's telegenic, lets have him". Gabbard is considered a security risk within Five Eyes and western governments more broadly. She took an unauthorised trip to see Bashar al Assad and has publically supported Russia. Healey on the other hand has had decades of political experience, serving as minister running departments and has been the shadow defense secretary since 2020. A government well run is one by a minister who is well briefed on their department and well experienced in management and decision making. In the UK at least, the civil servants that run any given department aren't political appointees and it's crucial that anyone leading said department can listen to, analyse and use advice whilst having enough political and department-specific relevant experience to make the right call.

I do think that Trump is something new, insofar as the normal social and political norms just don't seem to apply to him. The lifetime of shameful conduct just doesn't seem to matter to his devotees. Anyway, his presidency will be a turning point for the US. Either a sudden realisation that the idolisation of money and celebrity above all else is morally and socially toxic. Or a continued fall into the abyss of transactional, America-first ologarchy where the rich get richer and financial and polical power become one and the same.

There is nothing wrong with having intelligent discourse. Just because a significant proportion of the population is too stupid or too selfish to comprehend the consequences of voting for fascism, doesn't mean it shouldn't be called out for what it is. I'll hold my hand up and say that I'm not a great believer in democracy, and that simply because I don't believe that the majority of the voting public is qualified to make such important decisions. In your case Gareth, I profoundly disagree with pretty much everything you say, but at least you have a strongly held opinion that has been researched. We're never going to agree and we'd always vote against each other, but that's your right and even if you get on my tits sometimes, I respect the fact that you're here discussing things. So, so many people vote based on spurious nonsense, misinformation and tradition. Knowing that the electorate is so easily maleable, politicians focus on short termism, soundbites and populist rhetoric (on both sides). Very little gets done for the greater good now, and next to nothing with a long term outlook. The political news cycle is far too short, and as such, real progress never happens.

He sounds roughly as qualified for his job as Hegseth does for Sec Def. Or Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. Or just about any other of Trump's appointments. My point is that political appointments to jobs requiring specific technical expertise are ridiculous. Rory Stewart has gone over this many times on TRIP, illustrating numerous examples where ministers were appointed with no idea about the department they were set to lead. And then, every cabinet reshuffle meant that often, ministers had insufficient time to familiarise themselves with their brief. Politicians are often self serving, ambitious and selfish. They will position themselves in such a way that makes their reelection more likely, and constructing a framework of sychophants and yes-men will likely make that goal easier. I just believe that the motivations of Republicans and Democrats differ substantially (for the most part - there are exceptions). Republicans are largely motivated by self-enrichment, furtherance of ideological ideals that are often bigoted and exclusionary, and increasingly, xenophobia. Democrats have a better track record of pushing for social change that benefits society on a broader basis. That's not to say that the Dems haven't done stuff that I profoundly disagree with, but for me, they are the lesser of two evils. Fundamentally, American society is morally corrupt, with such tragically extreme economic outcomes that it is one of the least equal countries in the world, and consequently has the lowest life expectancy in the developed world. This is fueled in large part by huge numbers of deaths in younger and middle age, usually from diseases or afflictions of 'misery'. These include drug deaths, suicide, gun violence and other homicides. MAGA is a sort of reaction and overreaction to a conscious (or unconscious) realisation that there are gigantic, systemic issues with the way that US society is structured and the direction it's going in. Unfortunately, MAGA will only exacerbate the situation, and support for that ideology will add fuel to the (dumpster?) fire. In short, the US is driving towards a brick wall. The MAGA lot are all stamping on the accelerator whilst the Dems are arguing amongst themselves about what is a car, what is acceleration and debating the existance of the wall. Head in the sand and all that.

Trump's base can be roughly split into two camps - those that hold their nose and vote for him because they believe they'll make more money with him in charge and those that can be described as 'low information'. As Trump once said: "We love the uneducated!" The US political system is a total mess. Between the election college, the vast sums of money involved, gerrymandering, voter suppression, continual lying and propaganda (on both sides, though greatly more from the GOP), without expending a very large amount of time and energy on the topic, it's hard to know what is actually going on. For what it's worth, I think that whilst Biden's domestic record was pretty good throughout his term, his support of Israel has been appalling. His inability to step aside at an appropriate time cost the Dems the election as they were unable to have a primary, which delegitimised Harris. FWIW, I don't think Kamala was a bad candidate, but they had better. And in the end, Biden just took a 'f**k it, I don't care anymore' attitude, and threw pardons out left right and centre. If I were in his position, I'd probably have done the same, but I'd be a terribly corrupt politician and I expect, nay, demand better standards from our elected officials Which ever way you look at it, America is now fulfilling almost all the criteria of fascistic rule. You may disagree, you may not. You may be OK with that, or (hopefully) not. The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC displays a poster written by Laurence Britt in 2003, entitled "The 14 early warning signs of Fascism". Tell me if you disagree that this is the way that the US is going. My comments are in brackets. Powerful and continuing nationalism (the MAGA movement is defined by this) Disdain for human rights (child separation policy of the first administration. Attempted revokation of 14th amendment ie birthright citizenship) Identification of enemies as a unifying cause (DEI, trans, immigrants) Supremacy of the military (continued overtures towards taking territory from smaller nations) Rampant sexism (I don't need to explain this one really - grab them by the....?) Controlled mass media (Fox News, the accelerating capitulation by Meta, ABC settling a defamation case, etc etc) Obsession with national security (the immigration emergency executive order) Religion and government intertwined (much the Maga movement is fundamentalist, and Trump has repeatedly compared himself to the Messiah, saying that God spared him for a reason with the attempted assassination) Corporate power protected (money is king for Trump - his tax cuts in the first term were worth three times as much to the top 1% as the bottom 60%) Labor power suppressed (he, like Musk, is fiercely anti union, and anti worker rights in general). Disdain for intellectual & the arts (his disregard for medical and scientific expertise is well-known. He has dissolved the Presidents committee on the arts, as an executive order) Obsession with crime and punishment (he has asked the question as to whether protesters could be shot during the BLM protests) Rampant cronyism and corruption (you could write a book on this one point alone) Fraudulent elections (his claims that the 2020 election was stolen were fraudulent. He has continually tried to undermine the legitimacy of elections in the US, but has been amusingly quiet on the topic when it went his way. It has been mooted that he will attempt to make constitutional changes to allow him to run for a third term). You can say that you like what he's doing - I find that easier to understand than saying that you don't believe that he is doing what he is doing. Everyone has a different world view, and some are indeed more isolationist and self-focused. I'm pretty antisocial and insular, but I try to work on the basis of being respectful and causing no harm. As such, I find Trump's politics to be offensive as he profits from the suffering of others, by way of deception, misinformation and outright lying. Sadly, that style of politics is gaining a foothold here in Europe too, so who knows what the future holds.