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Jerry? Is that you?

Takes me back to my holiday in Scotland.

The corollary of that implies I've made a sytload of stuff. No wonder I need a nap.

Just teach them to swim first. The ones with guns will sink.

While Little donold is usung the US military to manipulate the oil futures market, the media has forgotten the Israel/Palestine battles. Palestine, which only existed for 28 years, was carved out of the Ottoman Empire by the Brits in 1920. The Ottomans had been there for 500 years but backed the wrong side in WW1. Nobody wants to see Israel returned to the Ottomans, and the Ottomans probably don’t want it back. Before that the Romans merged Judea into Syria-Palestine and as such it was owned by countless empires without a separate identity until the British mandate of Palestine. The first Arabs arrived in about the 7th century. The Jewish tribes of Israel had lived there since the Bronze Age , so about 2,700-3,500 years before them. Even if the dates are off, the Jews of Canaan and Judea were in Israel then Palestine before the Arabs. Who came first and where they came from needn’t matter. What matters is what exists now and how to fix it. Kicking the 7 million Israelis out of Israel and calling it Palestine is not a viable or moral option. Nor is driving the Palestinians into the sea.

The EV sales here are well up.

Good idea. They pay for what will ultimately benefit them and you keep your pension money.

You have had the benefit of the cover and that's NOT nothing. It would not be reasonable to expect a refund of payments. That's how insurance works. Nev

What is happening in the ME will give a real Impetus to EV sales. People don't want to be hung out to dry every time someone does silly things with supply.. Nev

Manufacturing accounts for around 20% of electricity consumption. It's drop in electricity consumption, according to AI, is due to structural issues and reduction in production outputs; not efficiency gains, so that needs to be addressed - but that is outside the scope of this thread, unless you are somehow asserting the transition to renewables is inhibiting manufacturing output. Of course, one can argue that the cost of the transition has to be borne and this flows into higher input costs for manufacturers, which makes them less competitive. But, that would be an argument more that the longer term planning of our manufacturers and government was deficient as the world's largest manufacturing country, China, is going hell for leather into renewables and surely they would be having similar transition costs. Be that as it may, if we stay with relatively high fossil fuel costs or move to expensive nuclear costs, we will, by the next generation or so, have much higher input energy costs. Not to mention the increasing cost of geopolitical and civil unrest by staying with fossil fuels and further accelerating the earth heating up, drying out, and food and other resources (such as wood) becoming more and more scarce. The one saving grace on resource demand is in the western world, the birth rates are declining and in some cases, dramatically, but the rest of the world will fill that hole. Also, other environmental impacts such as ocean warming, jetstream and gulfstream disruption will have a profound impact and cost far in excess of economic costs. Algal blooms; microrganisms dying which are causing starvation up the food chain are very worrying because of the impact they will have on the ecology and life on earth - ironically which sustains human life. It looks like there will be an "I told you so" moment able to be delivered by Greta. But I digress.. The cost of not doing it is far bigger than the cost of doing it.

Here is a bit of red tape that is hard to understand the reasoning for. This came to my attention in a conversation with my son when we were visiting him in NZ. There are some either new rules or old rules now being enforced regarding passports that seem absolutely crazy to me. So my wife and I are Australian citizens, but by virtue of the fact we were both born in the UK we retain British citizenship. This now means that if we were to travel to the UK the UK government now requires that we have British passports. UK passport changes leave Australians with dual citizenship scrambling before border rules kick in That is inconvenient enough, but it gets worse for my son. My son was born in Australia, but by virtue of the fact that both his parents are British citizens, he also is considered to be a British citizen. My son moved permanently to NZ and is a citizen of NZ. The rules that apply to travelling into the UK also apply to travelling into Australia. This means that if my son were to travel to the UK via a stopover in Australia, he would need an Australian passport (because he retains Aus citizenship), a British passport because he retains British citizenship, and to get back home to NZ he needs an NZ passport. Here is an AI summary of the situation: "Because you and his other parent were Australian citizens at the time of his birth, your son is automatically an Australian citizen by birth. Since he also holds British citizenship (from you) and New Zealand citizenship (by naturalisation), he is a triple citizen. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] This status changes the passport requirements for his travels: Document Requirements by Destination Traveling to Australia: He must enter on an Australian passport. The Australian Government requires all citizens to enter and leave the country using an Australian passport. He cannot use his New Zealand passport to get a Special Category Visa anymore, as visas cannot be granted to people who already hold Australian citizenship. [] Traveling to Britain: He must enter on a British passport. As a British citizen, he cannot use an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) or a foreign passport alone to clear UK border control. [1, 2, 3, 4] Traveling back to New Zealand: He must use his New Zealand passport to seamlessly re-enter his home country."