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MicroB

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Posts posted by MicroB

  1. On 5/24/2025 at 1:29 PM, Evil Penevil said:

    Zulu - A great movie from 1964 about the Battle of Rorke's Drift is free on YouTube.  It stars Stanley Baker, Michael Caine, and Jack Hawkins.

     

     

    A film well known for its one liners. Colour Sergeant Bourne in the movie is played by a middle aged Nigel Greene, as a rather fatherly character. In reality, Bourne was 24 years old. Astonishing.

     

  2. A South African complaining about BBC coverage, irrespective of the issue, does not constitute backlash in the way I understand the ter,. Generally, backlash is taken to mean a groundswell of public opprobrium against an organisation or individual. The BBC might be receiving complaints from a private South African citizen about its coverage of current events in his country, but in the UK, I am not sensing any sort of "backlash". His correct recourse is to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, which is responsible for the conduct of correspondants working for foreign news organisation in South Africa.

     

    Of course he is not some random South African businessman. He is one of the Hersovs; a prominant business family in South Africa for the last 3 generations. His father made an utter fortune in mining and arms during the Apartheid years.

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglovaal

     

    Why is a British South African dual national worried about how a British news organisation covers news relating to the United States?

     

    He is the former chair of BIPA; the British Internet Publishers Association, a trade body, and has been a long term critic. So really, his latest is nothing new. He's had a beef with the BBC probably his entire life.

     

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2000/dec/09/internetnews.business1

    https://variety.com/2000/digital/news/a-battle-for-supremacy-1117788816/

     

    https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200001/cmselect/cmcumeds/161/1013114.htm

     

     

    And I get an idea about his bio here;

    https://www.ny-forum-africa.com/en/speakers/2014/

     

    So he has a portfolio of board positions that include the media. He call to dismantle the BBC is based on commercial concerns. He's always been opposed to the BBC on principle. Maybe Gary Lineker said hurtey things about him. Notably, he made no such complaints about Channel4, ITV nor Skynews, who have lead with basically the same stance as the BBC.

     

    Nothing will come of his complaint, nothing. But its just theatre.

     

    Here he is joking with fellow South Africans that there is no white genocide going on.There is complex ZA domestic policies at play:

     

     

    Its all about who can invest in a Star Link South Africa subsidiary. As its in telecommunications, the South African government says it must have 30% investment from a historically disadvantaged group. It can't have investment from one of Hersov's media companies, because, as the son of Basil Hersov, he's never been disadvantaged. As soon as that is sorted out, I expect any American issue with South Africa to evaporate, and the refugees being politely told they are no longer refugees, and need to regularise their presence before ICE comes a knocking.

     

    And here is the change

     

    https://mybroadband.co.za/news/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/52712-3218-Comms-Policy-Direction-ICASA-BEE-2025-05May-23-1.pdf

     

    Musk's own tweets expose the lie about "white genocide". If white genocide is actually happening, why does he want to invest in that country? He knows its <deleted>.

     

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  3. 13 hours ago, blaze master said:

    Anyone know what presidents over time have taken the most time off. Golf or no golf. 

     

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_vacations

     

     

    HTH          
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
          49 - 12
  4. 1 hour ago, Bkk Brian said:

    Yes be fair, why is Israel in a crisis?

     

    1948 I guess. The Crisis didn't start in October 2023; things weren't all rose they day before. Some in the Israeli political scene have accused Netanyahu of facilitating the rise of Hamas.

     

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

     

    Netanyahu had previously indicated opposition to withdrawal from the Gaza settlements.

     

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/aug/08/israel

     

    As Prime Minister, he elevated recognition of Hamas, an organisation he had warned about, as some sort of counterweight to the West Bank government. He disregarded attacks on Israeli settlements in the south, I suspect because they weren't the people who'd vote for him anyhow. Cynicism or appalling judgement lead him to this point.

     

    Lord Carrington offered his resignation in the wake of the Falklands invasion. Netanyahu should have done the same. He's not a naive man.

     

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  5. 27 minutes ago, WDSmart said:

    Data is the result of applying an opinion. It's the result of someone's (or some AI's) decision on how to calculate the data. In the case of your data, that calculation did not include all the extraneous technologies, machines, and structures that would be required to create, deliver, operate, maintain, and finally retire the energy-harvesting technology.

    I am prohibited from posting links to or even the title of my book. I assume I'd be allowed to send that to you via a message, but I won't do that unless you ask.

    You might be interested to know that in my book, I reduce the sources of energy used by energy-harvesting technologies to just three: solar, nuclear, and gravity. I included all the fossil fuels under solar because the biological method in which they were created is exactly like how we use solar panels today. I also included wind and water mills under solar. I placed tides under gravity.

    Soon after my book was published, which was five years ago, I decided that solar should also just be a type of nuclear energy. Then several years later after a lot of thinking on the subject, I decided that ALL ENERGY comes from a type of a force we call "gravity."

    I have not revised my book since these realizations because classifying types of energy sources is not the main focus of my book. The focus of my book is broader than that. It is an ideological inquiry into the human-caused degradation of the Earth's biosphere. 

     

     

    Some very interesting viewpoints on LCA. You are no doubt very familiar with James Lovelock, and peope like John Martin.

     

    I spent the early part of my career demonstrating the viability of CLAW.

     

    It boils down to the idea of perpetual motion machines.

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  6. Obviously, he's not in favour of wet flour.

     

     

    Time for him to mend bridges with the separatists in Scotland. Wee Mammy has gone. Alex Salmond is dead. Humza is sorting out his Gaza relatives.

     

    Jim Swinney recently met with Son Number 2 over tea and Tunnock's teacakes.

     

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgw118nlkeo

     

    Or lock him in a beach hut with an old guy, a pile of beef sandwiches and a bottle of Whiskey, and he might emerge a different man.

     

     

    Great movie.

  7. To be fair, if not for the crisis that Israel is in right now, the ongoing bribery-fraud trials that the Israeli PM is facing, might be proceeding at pace (in the latest, the Prosecution has rested). As in Westminster, Israeli political parties do change leaders. The crisis, on one level, has proven convenient for his own political survival, because it was previously decidely shaky (Israeli governments are mostly delicate coalitions of a sort Americans won't really understand).

     

    I think there is no doubt that Putin is a thief, and that his war is making a few of his mates very very rich. If it ended tomorrow, there would be problems for him, as what has he achieved?

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  8. Part of JD Vance's authenticity when running for office was his Hillbilly roots and in particular, is Scots-Irish (Ulster Scots) heritage.

     

    https://www.ucdclinton.ie/commentary-content/q01ap6pj0cy5ti3db9scmv28i6jqdz

     

    Quote

    To understand me, you must understand that I am a Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart.............I may be white, but I do not identify with the WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) of the Northeast. Instead, I identify with the millions of working-class white Americans of Scots-Irish descent who have no college degree. To these folks, poverty is the family tradition…Americans call them hillbillies, rednecks, or white trash. I call them neighbors, friends and family.

     

    Cue the Democratic Unionist Party commissioning some geneological research, and present a nice report confirming that James Bowman was indeed a boy of County Tyrone of sound Prod Blue Nose stock.

     

    https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/gordon-lyons-to-present-jd-vance-with-history-of-his-scots-irish-roots-AMZESCSJXZDVLLEMV46DV4TSBQ/

     

     

    But, a mistake was having someone from the Northern Irish Government use public funds to do the research, making it subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

     

    https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/jd-vance-scots-irish-family-history-682pjm5j5

     

    JD Vance claims his Irish heritage through Andrew Williamson Vance, who was born in Ireland, and emigrated in 1733. Andrew Vance was a descendant of Lancelot Vance, the son of a Scots preacher, and who had died  during the Siege of Derry defending it from murderous hoardes of Catholics. Stirring stuff.  "Hillbillies" is a term that cames from "Billy Boys". The Billy Boys were the Protestants (well all of them) who pledged allegance to Prince WIlliam of Orange, aka King Billy. A statue of him stands near the beach at Carrickfergus. To call yourself a Hillbilly, you really do need that Ulster-Scots Prod heritage, otherwise you are a phoney. Resemblance to a cartoon in the Dandy comic doesn't count.

     

    image.jpeg.d53d9edfead3aca6a9fc2093ffd68521.jpeg

     

    It was assumed all Vances in the US are descended from this Vance.

     

    FOI requests showed that the Public Records Office for Northern Ireland had advised the Minister that "it has not been possible to establish conclusive proof of a direct Vance link back to Ulster at this stage" and "had run into the proverbial brick wall". The Minister quickly arranged the production of 25 copies of a bound dossier to present to the Vice President, as part of a suck-up effort to the Americans. It does present a story of the Tyrone Vances as they emigrated to North America. But the wrong Vances. The Vance Family Association, who has been running a DNA-based project for a while, feels certain the VP is not a direct descendant of the Reverand John Vance, who's son perished at Derry.

     

    So where does "Vance" come from, if not from John Vance?

     

    Vance is an English name. From the 1891 UK Census

     

    image.png.8b5b266d2552fa2426501654db4c9f65.png

     

    26% in Lancashire, a solid 21% in London.

     

    So he might well be an English, or even a Cockney Vance.

     

    Another explanation is a mistake at Staten island; very common, especially with Middle European names.

     

    Another reason is an ancestor hid a past, on the lam or something.

     

    Lastly, and peculiar to the US, Vance is the descendant of the results of slavery. Slaves took the names of their masters. In Tennessee, at an Alumni meeting, I was approached by someone who shared the same name as me. He had earnestly researched the history of the family in North America. But he was a black man. We remain email buddies after 35 years. There are many cases of liasons with slaves, some consensual, many not. Vance might have a bit of Nigerian in him.

     

    Which is ironic, because it turns out President Obama was more Irish.

     

    image.png.3b90130888388837cdff296e5a66e98b.png

  9. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8z174gk3jo


     

    Quote

     

    "This is a big deal for the King to do this," says Jeremy Kinsman, former Canadian high commissioner to the UK, as King Charles prepares for a historic visit showing support for Canada, which is facing pressure from US President Donald Trump.

    "I hope that Trump understands," says Mr Kinsman, ahead of the King becoming the first monarch to open Canada's Parliament in almost 70 years.

    So what can we expect from his speech as Canada's head of state, to be delivered in French and English in Ottawa on Tuesday?

    It will be written on the advice of Canada's government. But along with the workaday lines on policy plans, Mr Kinsman expects a message, loud and clear, that Canada will not be the 51st US state.

    "It's going to be very affirmative of Canadian sovereignty. And I can say personally that it's something that King Charles will celebrate saying. I have no doubt," says Mr Kinsman, who worked as a diplomat with the King when he was Prince of Wales.

    "It will say the government will protect, pursue and preserve the sovereignty of Canada as an independent state," he predicts about the speech, which follows an election won by Mark Carney on a wave of anti-Trump sentiment.

    The King's mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, was the last monarch to open Canada's Parliament in 1957 and was also the most recent to deliver the "speech from the throne" in 1977, in a ceremony that marks the start of a parliamentary session.

    She began that speech with a few of her own personal comments - so there is scope for the King to add his own thoughts.

     

     

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