Messages

Boris's Brexit plan is just to remove backstop from Withdrawal Agreement. No more and no less.

Will the EU budge in October to get a deal done?

I think he will go for a NI only backstop. The EU would be happy with this also. The DUP obviously won't but they will be under the bus at that stage.

How does he get his deal with a NI only backstop through parliament?

I think they get cross party support for it and screw the DUP!

Yes, but how do they get a budget  through then?

Boris's Brexit plan is just to remove backstop from Withdrawal Agreement. No more and no less.

Will the EU budge in October to get a deal done?

I think he will go for a NI only backstop. The EU would be happy with this also. The DUP obviously won't but they will be under the bus at that stage.

How does he get his deal with a NI only backstop through parliament?

That's the £1Billion pound question.

I seem to remember it was only the DUP that rejected this proposal first time around. The question remains, though where Johnson would get the support to keep the government in power when the DUP withdraws its support in this scenario.

Excellent, Sid.

... or Minister for Exiting the European Union under Johnson.

I see Dolph's back.

I hadn't come across this before
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxxQOGGl2Jc
- from two years ago, an eloquent condemnation of Trumpism and an excoriation  of the collaboration of Irish Americans with the far right excesses of the Trump regime by Aodhán O'Riordan. I didn't know he had it in him. It deserves a wider audience, particularly to contrast with the paddywhackery in Clare last night when locals behaved like peasants who will dance for beer.

I'd guess a large proportion of it consisted of people who went to vote in the local elections and the referendum and had no interest in/knowledge of the Euro candidates, so they just didn't bother filling in the Euro paper.

"ROI only as I doubt we have a representative sample for NI"

You will still get northern shinners voting in this poll

Correctly predicted, sir. If we had a poll here to choose either the Spice Girls or Bob Dylan as your favourite act, Bob and the girls would come second and third.

He does and he will be the next Tory leader. Boris has been waiting for this moment and has all the right people around him (better people than what May has/had). Brexit is going to be delivered to the people one way or another now. I expect that us Irish are going to get screwed over big time.

I think he will wait yet. I think he doesn't want to be seen as the one creating the mess, he wants to be the one to be seen to be fixing it and there is plenty of messin to be done yet.

That's a good point. The next PM can only fail because all possible scenarios are failures of one kind or another.

- Brexit, even with the best possible deal will still leave the country worse off than it is (and with the immigration "problem still not solved - they will begin to notice that the brown people they hate are not generally coming from the EU).
- A no-deal Brexit will clearly be disastrous.
- A no Brexit will end the career of the PM who presides over it.

So that cunning self-promoter may well see his best opportunity occurring after the next PM has been immolated in the EU crucible like the last four Tory leaders, when he can present himself as the man who could have saved Britain and led them to the sunny uplands.

For what it's worth, this fella seems to me to be a voice of reason in the Tory party (which of course means he has no chance of being elected leader).

Brexit Bullshit Buster - the follow-up questions interviewers should be asking the chancers who spout WTO, Article 24, etc.

Which is worse ?

1. Eurovision
2  Rose of Tralee

The Israelis don't use the Rose of Tralee as a propaganda vehicle. So I suppose it's the Eurovision.

https://twitter.com/sportsdes/status/1124999371521777664

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/09/pentagon-builds-knife-bomb-kills-targets-without-exploding/

'Ninja bomb': Pentagon's new bladed missile that kills targets without exploding
•   Ben Farmer


The Pentagon has built a new missile known as a 'ninja bomb' which deploys a ring of steel blades to kill its target rather than exploding.
The secret R9X missile is designed to destroy individual terrorist targets without harming surrounding civilians and could potentially kill a car's front seat passenger without harming the driver.
American forces have only used the highly specialised weapon a handful of times since it was first developed from the more common Hellfire missile, the Wall Street Journal reported.
R9X missiles are thought to have been used on targets in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia. Victims include Jamal al-Badawi, who was accused of being behind the 2000 USS Cole bombing that killed 17 American sailors in a Yemeni port.
Ahmad Hasan Abu Khayr al-Masri, the Egyptian al Qaeda No 2, was also killed in Syria's Idlib province by an R9X fired from a US aircraft operated by the CIA in 2017.
There had been speculation about the possibility of a new Pentagon weapon after analysts noted the unusual aftermath of at least one high profile counter terrorism strike.
 
Moments before impact the missile deploys a ring of steel blades
America's weapon of choice for air strikes targeting terrorist suspects has long been the high precision Hellfire missile, which began life as a Cold War anti-tank missile but later became used for counter-terrorism strikes.

The Hellfire explodes on impact and reduces targets to blasted, burnt wreckage. Hellfire missiles are still used to target groups of militants where there are no concerns about civilian casualties.
However, photographs of Masri's vehicle after he was killed instead showed an oblong hole torn into the roof, with no burn marks to suggest an explosion. The windscreen was only cracked.
The R9X, which is nicknamed "the flying Ginsu" after a brand of American household knives, carried an inert warhead and was designed to punch 100lb of metal through car and building roofs, officials told the paper.
The effect is likened to an anvil falling from the sky onto the target. But the weapon is made more deadly by a ring of six long blades stowed inside which deploy through the skin of the missile immediately before impact, shredding anything in their way.


As well as cars, the weapon could also be used on flimsy buildings which could collapse and kill others if hit by an explosion.
The new missile was under development as early as 2011 and was reportedly born from Barack Obama's emphasis on cutting civilian casualties in America's long-running counter insurgency and counter terrorism campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
Officials said terrorist fighters had become increasingly aware of American efforts to cut civilian casualties because of the anger they caused among the local people.
Mr Obama in May 2013 said he was not ordering any strikes unless there was "near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured". Terrorists had adapted to the American hesitancy to strike by increasingly hiding among groups of women and children as human shields to avert strikes.
The R9X is now only used in limited cases, to target single individuals where there is detailed information about their location, officials said

Think I'd prefer to go in a wreck-all explosion rather than the Ninja Bomb....sounds grim.

Fair enough, though I doubt you'd notice the difference. But the lad beside you mightn't share your preference.

Fun with golf science

I signed up to N26 (similar to Revolut) recently for a trip to Australia. Perfect. Didn't handle cash once for the whole trip. You get 5 free cash withdrawals per month if you must.

Any reason for not using Revolut?

There was, but I can't remember what it was and it wasn't major. I didn't know about the stuff Shark refers to. I just remember that, when comparing the two, N26 had something slightly preferable, but I could easily have gone for either.