Craig Sawyers

Yup - this is the opportunity to apply the rest of the world sanctions on Nestle products. Looking at the brand diagram, the only one we regularly buy is KitKat. No longer.

Very belated best wishes Al - hope it was a spectacular day!!

Astonishingly though this is the first step - alignment of the primary to one instrument. There are umpteen other steps involving the whole suite of instruments, followed by "fine alignment". But that image is a first taste of what this machine will do.

I missed this a couple of days ago courtesy of Covid - but the JWST has reached full optical alignment. The alignment object is a star well within our own galaxy, and you can see the 6-fold diffraction from the hexagonal mirrors. It is only visible because of the extreme brightness of the star. But everything else you can see are galaxies - right down to the faintest streaks you can pick out. This image is a tour de force of stunning optics and an astonishingly complex machine.

Good on Schwarzenegger. I really hope it makes some difference, but most information channels have been shut down in Russia to make sure that the Russian citizens have no access to anything remotely true.

Panic buying Russian tubes

Thank god he is not in charge of anything. We'd all be going to hell in a nuclear handcart

Donkey's years ago, my Dad really mashed his thumb. My Dad could never afford a decent car, so he had a succession of old beaters. One day he was working on the starter motor, and for whatever reason needed a hefty 2lb hammer. He picked a one that my Grandad (by this stage, dead) has fettled, by replacing the shaft. But he has put the head on at a jaunty angle of maybe 15 degrees or so the the shaft axis. So my Dad (a quarter century dead himself by the way) took a massive swing with this thing - and of course the head missed the target and hit his thumb. Which split wide open. Of course his hands were coated in black grease and road dirt, not ideal for sterility, and he had to press on to repair the starter, and put it back in the car, before he could drive to the Hospital. I really cannot recall him making a big fuss about this. Other than quietly cursing his Dad for the "repaired" hammer! Come Monday he got in the car and drove to work. Tough cookie.

Fuck me, Steve (not an invitation 😁) that looks bloody awful. I'd be heading for casualty for sure.

It is on YouTube too - the link is for the full movie. And yes - HBO. The basic topic is how a limited nuclear war breaks out. In the days of the USSR. Thinking of James Earl Jones, we were lucky enough to see him on the London stage, with Vanessa Redgrave in Driving Miss Daisy. Front row seats. Around 10 years ago. Awsome. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/oct/06/driving-miss-daisy-theatre-review

I think that is unclear

Happy birthday Fitzy! Hope it was superb!!

You'll get a pal for Silver in due course. I hope your ma's hip surgery goes well. I know a few people who have had this done, and say it transforms their lives.

Anyone seen a movie called "By Dawn's Early Night"? Now on You Tube. James Earl Jones, Martin Landau and Rip Torn among others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_Dawn's_Early_Light and

Jeeze. At least India immediately apologized for the "regrettable incident", and it was a relief that no one was killed. But it is technical malfunctions like this that could be absolutely disastrous.

Two Putin attacks in the UK in recent years need to be taken into account. In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a defecting KGB and FSB officer, was poisoned in London with Polonium added to his tea. He was so radioactive that he was buried in a lead coffin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko And then in March 2018, two identified Russians travelled to Salisbury with USSR era Novichok nerve agent (one of the most potent ever made) in a perfume bottle, and sprayed the door handle of a Russian double agent's house with the stuff. He and his daughter were hospitalized for weeks but ultimately survived. They then astonishingly dumped the perfume bottle in a waste bin, where it was found and then used with fatal consequences. There was a major cleanup with teams in full hazmat gear that went on for days. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_Skripal Both of these attacks on UK soil were widely reported, their perpetrators identities known and absolutely identified as being initiated with Putin's knowledge. And what did we do? Precisely fucking nothing.

The interesting thing is that we in the UK are not as reliant as other EU states are on Russian gas and crude. Which is good. That semi-independence seems to not have effected the petrol price at the pump, and gas and electricity prices, which are still spiraling rapidly upwards. I did not realize that China was so dependent on Russian crude. It is no wonder that they are tending not to rock Russia's boat too much.

The irony is that the oligarchs emerged when the USSR was broken up, and give commercial freedoms that were unheard of before. But yes - the West has become dependent on Russian gas and oil. None more than the EU. Just as the entire West is reliant on another war mongering autocracy, China (Taiwan - potentially China's Ukraine) - for goods manufacture (including semiconductors), and massive trillion dollar financial loans to Western governments and countries. And this is the price we pay for globalization. Sell your soul to the global devils and see what happens. But we're only interested in what Russia are doing because it borders on larger Europe and they have a nuclear arsenal. Other global conflicts that have killed hundreds of thousands, in Europe and elsewhere, which were reported on but otherwise not noteworthy - because none of us relied on the combatants for goods, oil or gas. Incidentally the Chechen/Russian conflict stared in 1785 and has run for 237 years, and is not yet resolved totally - quarter of a million dead in the second Chechen war. This first and second Chechen another Putin initiative. This is what Putin did to the capital city Grozny in 1995. Expect the same in Ukraine.

They are truly a sad looking lot. What are the red armbands? A prisoner combatant thing? I think it is telling that the shots of Putin talking to his commanders is him at the head of a long table, and his commanders way down at the other end. That has to be related to keeping potential attempts on his life a long way away.

You are a lot closer to Ukraine than us. But if it, God help us, gets as far as the UK, we have nowhere to run. We are far too heavily populated. Run to Scotland? No help - the major submarine bases are up there. And in our area we have AWRE - the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, GCHQ (Government Communication HQ) and Porton Down (the chemical weapons crew), and major RAFs base at Brize Norton and Abingdon. So we're fucked. Might as well kiss our asses goodbye.

So sorry Todd - my condolences for your loss.

Damned right Steve.

Yeah - I was quite emotional. And she organized it while she was in Australia - from https://www.bluecross.org.uk/oxfordshire-burford-rehoming-centre . She couldn't have chosen a better cat. He's super affectionate and after two days is now exploring the house She has a motto in her bedroom "A home without a cat is just a house". In Australia she has three cats , and a dog. Two are indoor cats, and the outdoor one is a murder specialist. Possums are found on their decking minus heads. They have no idea where the heads go (probably best not to ask). He once tackled a goanna (these grow up to 6 feet long); the lizard won and resulted in a big vet's bill to repair the cat. That hasn't discouraged him, clearly.