Westminstenders: War and Weirdos

[RedToothBrush]

With weirdos set to run No10 and Trump seemingly having started a new war in the Middle East, 2020 already looks set to be a cracking year.

To start off your year, it turns out that chinese curse about interesting times is actually a fallacy...

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times

Happy New Year.

May we make 2030...

squid, your posts are so heartbreaking.
I hope you are taking time off for yourself. I had a burnout 18 months ago and know how tough it is to recover.

squid
The media are covering it
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51046616
but WW3 is higher up the news agenda for the broadsheets
and Meghan for the tabloids
as there are no easy answers to the NHS crisis so its not a good story to write

And yet people voted for the Tories, knowing that their reputation on the NHS is already dismal.

DGR
The Ukranians know how to investigate an airliner shot down with a Russian made missile ...
Once it was known the plane broke up in the air it was just a matter of time till Iran had to own up.

Iran has admitted that it did shoot down the Ukranian plane

I have no source for that: CNN, Al Jazeera, AFP, Reuters, France 24....

All I'm getting is US leaks.

(It took months for the US to formally admit guilt in the Vincennes case, even after everyone knew.)

Mockers
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/09/tehran-crash-plane-downed-by-iranian-missile-western-officials-believe

I'm wondering if there's a little bit of US pixie dust that's been sprinkled over Iranian air defence systems to make them believe they were being attacked ?

My cynicism knows no bounds when it comes to the US willingness to sacrifice innocents for the cause, I'm afraid. Especially if they aren't American.

If the aim was to effectively spike Iranian guns and prevent a full scale retaliation for the Solemani strike, it seems to be "job done".

I bet Boeing are unclenching their butt-ocks ...

....Western officials believe is not an admission by Iran.

As things stand, the crooks are still in charge of the crime scene.

Western officials believe is not an admission by Iran.

Are they acting guilty ?

This is the culprit:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_missile_system

It saw a plane and someone on the ground interpreted it as hostile.

The usual problem for military SAMS is they can see a military IFF but not a civilian transponder. The Vincennes Incident was a product of faulty groupthink on the vessel.

The Ukrainian 737 was climbing from the airport and heading west away from Tehran, which seems pretty unambiguous.

In the case of MH17, the drunken mercenaries had all the safety catches off. Don't think that would be the case in Iran.

I guess the question is ....
have there been any instances of airliners totally disintegrating in flight that did not involve explosive devices either inside or outside?

Technical faults tend to leave significant parts of the fuselage intact ...

Iran knew that the truth would out the minute the black boxes were recovered
and the missing data argument was clearly bilge as well

At least this might calm Trumpy down a bit

Any Birdstrike, engine fire or catastrophic structural failure always leaves enough time for a Mayday at the very least.

If the Iranians decide to copy the Soviets in 1983 and send the recorders back mysteriously blank, they are unlikely to get a sympathetic hearing.

At least this might calm Trumpy down a bit

It's his calm which makes me suspect US involvement ...

I am left wondering if there is any possible level of demonstrable public support for the Johnson deal that would lead them to back it?

Why should it? If someone believes something is objectively wrong/damaging/unethical, their views should not be influenced by public opinion.

For many years the public supported hanging and opposed gay marriage. Does that mean parliamentarians were wrong to oppose capital punishment and to support marriage equality? Of course it doesn't.

You don't seem to understand what an MP's duties are nor what an opposition is for.

NB: an MP's very first duty is to act in what he or she believes to be in the public interest.

At least this might calm Trumpy down a bit

Why should this calm Trumpy down?

This will make the military less likely to present him with obviously OTT extreme reaction options three previous presidents rejected out of hand.

Why? Do you mean that the Iranians have shown that they can shoot down civilian airliners, so it could be an American one next?

Peregrina
Trump is all about win and lose seal the deal, he has no concept of nuanced succession events.

He took out a bad guy, he looked bad.
Iran took out an airliner. They look worse.
He wins.

and he's likely got the money for his wall
and impeachment will restart next week

Mistigri has sagely suggested I post this here rather than the other place where I occasionally post stubbornly.

Today I learnt that Erasmus grants for student exchanges to/from the UK ceases on Feb 1st.
Students already abroad on that date can carry on, but those arriving after midnight on the 31st will have no funding.
The transition period is not v transitional for some.

Our Labour MP stood on an openly anti-Brexit, pro-EU (and yes, left-wing) platform. And was emphatically re-elected, here in this diverse and extremely Remainy constituency. I fail to see why he should suddenly adopt a hollow-eyed mannequin-face and start parroting empty Brexitatious slogans to assuage Leavers' victim-complex insecurities - that wouldn't be him representing the oh-so-vaunted democratic rights of his constituents (any more than if he started parroting support for starving disabled people by cutting benefits - after all, by the logic supplied above, he ought to do this too).

Re Trump, and in an effort to inject levity, I'll just post link.

Auld
Do you have a link for that Erasmus info
just that a couple of links I've checked show 2020/21 as still being OK

Erasmus reality check www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-47293927

AuldAlliance is better placed to know what's happening on the ground than a BBC reporter.