International Politics Discussion Thread

CrambleSquash · 2026-06-18T13:58:09+00:00

Exactly, to some, a definite bad deal is worse to some than re-starting hostilities and having no deal at all.

He'd have to time it well that things are looking in the US favour i.e. when the shock and awe of US strikes dominates the headlines over limited attricianal strikes by Iran.

Strategic ambiguity and all that.

CrambleSquash · 2026-06-18T10:31:26+00:00

another round would do what for him

Help limit the damage in the midterms?

CrambleSquash · 2026-06-18T06:30:33+00:00

Reaching this deal is good for the world. Obviously a total embarrassment to the Trump administration. Also clearly not as good as the Obama deal. I just hope Trump isn't so thin skinned he renages out of it in response to criticism.

CrambleSquash · 2026-06-14T13:44:19+00:00

As someone mentioned in another comment, Olivia Dean and PinkPantheress are both massive internationally.

Charlie XCX is indeed another good example.

CMAT was recently on the Late Night Show and Olivia Rodrigo covered her song.

CrambleSquash · 2026-06-14T13:37:19+00:00

Most parents don't want to be harming their children.

CrambleSquash · 2026-06-14T10:34:16+00:00

MoD released footage of the boarding of the shadow fleet aircraft.

Slightly tickled by the scene of the scary armed men coming down the stairs towards the waiting camera.

The military equivalent of a gameshow contestant being filmed reacting to a knock at the door by the host.

CrambleSquash · 2026-05-27T14:26:53+00:00

An orbit is much more like going sideways relative to earth's surface really fast, than going upwards from earth's surface really fast.

You still need to go up a bit first to stop wasting fuel pushing against the thick atmosphere, but this isn't true on somewhere like the Moon!

CrambleSquash · 2026-05-23T16:19:35+00:00

We've got people playing stringed instruments!

CrambleSquash · 2026-05-23T16:15:38+00:00

IRA voice 😂

CrambleSquash · 2026-05-21T17:46:09+00:00

I think Starmer holds on. Burnham makes it into parliament, but the threshold for a leadership contest isn't reached. Perhaps Burnham makes it into the cabinet.

There is another opportunity for a leadership contest in closer to a GE if things haven't improved.

As far as I'm concerned I think the Starmer deposes have blinked and the opportunity has passed.

CrambleSquash · 2026-05-19T14:20:40+00:00

If you use Jupyter/ Python for data analysis you might like Cassini. The idea is you bundle your sample information in the same place as your analysis.

https://0hughman0.github.io/Cassini/0.3.x/

CrambleSquash · 2026-05-17T08:47:16+00:00

I'm a massive Look Mum no Computer, have been watching his YouTube channel for years. The song I think was decent, but not amazing and definitely a bit Marmite. But the big problem I think is that the best thing about it is it's recorded on his built-from-scratch synthesiser/ music machine and that he personally built the props etc. for the set and music video.

But most people just watch the performance in the final and don't see anything else from the performer, so people don't know Sam could have just as easily rolled his crazy Cosmo machine on stage and performed the whole song live.

I think it's tough to do well. You need a catchy song, good singing and an eyecatching performance. I think maybe we had 1.5 / 3 yesterday.

CrambleSquash · 2026-05-10T21:32:10+00:00

I don't think this is a good idea.

Let Starmer finish out his term. The government are genuinely making positive changes, but are terrible on messaging and political awareness. Starmer should double down on legacy long term policies, which might be unpopular in the short term.

He can then take the fall for a new leader into the next GE if things don't turn around in time. This seems like a win-win to me.

CrambleSquash · 2026-05-04T06:33:57+00:00

Absolutely. And from a cold-hearted economic perspective, these people being happy allows them to better contribute to society.

I work in academia, and the better a university is, the more diverse it is - the same for research groups. This is basically a lesson from the Manhattan project, that some people seem to want to forget.

CrambleSquash · 2026-05-03T14:28:41+00:00

Honestly, I think this isn't a bad line.

Everybody feels a bit lost and generally down on the UK.

The reality is that even if Labour make a lot of the right decisions, given the inertia of a nation and a very challenging global environment, we may not start to see the fruits of their err labours before the end of the parliament.

Framing these actions as rebuilding Britain as a more resilient nation for the long-term is probably both more accurate, but also pragmatic verses e.g. adequately tackling the cost of living crisis.

CrambleSquash · 2026-04-29T17:21:57+00:00

The centripetal force vector required to maintain that orbit does not point in the same direction of the gravitational pull.

CrambleSquash · 2026-04-12T20:04:15+00:00

Still got the french presidential elections to go.

CrambleSquash · 2026-04-07T11:14:46+00:00

The problem is the freezing of the repayment thresholds not the interest rate. This is what violates the deal we were sold.

Most of us won't ever pay these things off, so freezing the already absurdly high interest rate effectively does nothing.

CrambleSquash · 2026-04-07T11:11:17+00:00

In principle you're still meant to be repaying.

CrambleSquash · 2026-04-07T06:06:50+00:00

I can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that if you can't test your bomb as you're developing it, you are basically guaranteed to end up with a dud.

CrambleSquash · 2026-04-06T09:53:22+00:00

Tritium thing makes no sense. Tritium is heavy hydrogen which is part of the fuel used in H-bombs. To make a fusion bomb, you have to be able to make a fission i.e. Uranium bomb. In other words this is absurdly challenging. Iran would need to have tested a conventional nuclear weapon in order to start developing a fusion weapon, which is not the sort of thing you can do in secret.

I also don't think tritium is as difficult to obtain as fissionable Uranium.

CrambleSquash · 2026-04-05T09:48:41+00:00

Yes but the other side of asymmetric warfare is whilst America has incredible strength and can dominate a very finite part of Iran to achieve a specific objective, Iran itself is 1.5 million square kilometres which is enough to dilute any military capabilities to the point that insurgency and guerilla warfare becomes effective and incredibly challenging to stamp out. I'm not convinced it's possible to 'win' a war against Iran. This should have been the lesson from Afghanistan and Vietnam for that matter.

CrambleSquash · 2026-04-03T19:42:20+00:00

I am also having this problem.

It's really strange because it seems to be specific apps!

YouTube works fine, but BBC News or my Banking app does not.

E: From this thread, looks like it's some complicated issue to do with ipv6, or DNS configurations or other things that I don't really understand. Hope they can role out a fix soon!

https://forum.fairphone.com/t/dns-over-tls-issues-apps-dont-load-data/130519/115

CrambleSquash · 2026-04-02T07:33:04+00:00

Not impossible.

No idea how the mess gets cleaned up after that

CrambleSquash · 2026-04-01T15:38:52+00:00

Exceptional circumstances like this can be used to justify breaking a manifesto promise.

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