tomo,
Certainly not good to see state-backed vendettas in the once land of the free. Magnificent country, great people, putrid state.

As for the Danish tree harvest, we might anticipate a flood of close-grained oak furniture, though maybe a shortage of woodworkers means it'll all be ground up and shipped across for Ikea's production.

.,
Broken eggs, omelettes and all that. In this modern ecology, the sacrifice of the koalas is necessary for the wellbeing of the endangered subsidy farmers.

Mailman,
We're off into the weeds. I'll happily agree that Vietnam was very badly executed, but I'll continue to believe it was closer to a gung-ho "kill the baddies and damn the consequences" effort than was Malaya. But rather than continuing to drift, and maybe finding ourselves arguing about the strategies of Napoleon, or the Peloponnesian War or whatever, let's get back to Gaza.

You pooh-poohed my lamenting that innocents had to die when Israel retaliated, asserting that there were *no* innocents in Gaza. You would, I think, strongly agree with what Douglas Murray says here (and says eloquently and vehemently).

I largely agree with him too, and I *don't* think much of the line that Piers Morgan starts with. I particularly liked Murray's skewering the "Israel has been perpetrating genocide" notion by asking where these millions of Gazans came from. However Murray's passion gets ahead of logic in places: the mob spitting on the woman isn't "random" is it? It's a self-selecting pile on. I bet there's also a North Korea effect of having to do what's expected of you.

Earlier you expressed a hope that Israel would "see this through to completion" (words to that effect). I should have asked you to clarify what constituted "completion". Instead, I assumed a ruthless killing spree akin to the Americans napalming, shelling Vietnamese villages, etc. Maybe you had something more nuanced in mind. I'd be interested to hear.

Showing my hand: my view is there is no "completion", because there isn't a finish line. The people of Gaza are far from the top of the list in Israel's worries. It is how other countries (allies and enemies) perceive their actions in Gaza that is their greater concern. "Completion" in Gaza won't be great if Israel then finds itself invaded by an incensed new alliance of Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and no recourse to a "we can no longer stomach you" ex-ally, USA.

Spotted this COVID lawsuit in a comment at Jo Nova's. His Down Syndrome daughter died in an American "COVID hospital". My chief objections on COVID were failure to treat, stupid epidemiological measures and the rush to vaccines, so this case of treatment that went badly isn't on my COVID hymnsheet. OTOH, the legal side (AIUI) is interesting in that, because the doctors took actions that they knew were likely to kill the girl, it was murder, not malpractice: no medical indemnity insurance and no legal indemnity.

It's widely held that the "just following orders" excuse doesn't wash anymore. I hope "just following guidelines" follows it out the door.

We had to destroy the village to save it

https://twitter.com/ElanderNews/status/1722714137782788354

Robbo,

You tried using Vietnam as an example of a no mucking about war. It was not a no mucking about war and is probably one of the best examples of what a NOT no mucking about war.

Friday bonus: The Green Transition Will Not Work as Planned, what might we do instead? (Prof. Simon Michaux; hour and twenty minutes)

He takes the climate crisis as a given and explores the impossible demands that would make on mining, construction and social upheaval. A fair amount of it strikes me as strawman arguments, except I think the strategies for dropping fossil fuels are no stronger than strawmen anyway. Worth a high speed listen IMO.

Spotted at Jo Nova's in a comment by ianl, who was a regular commenter here for a while.

tomo,
The Red Cross ought to lift their game in emotional blackmail.

(is a bit odd the guy rabbiting on about "Heatwaves, fires, storms and floods" from the rubble of a collapsed building; must have been a *really* bad heatwave)

John Campbell's report on the High Court test case against AstraZeneca. Hope it gets a good result, but a lot depends on the court and the lawyers. As usual, expectations low.

Ross Lea,
Thanks for the article. It's certainly an important topic, but the article seemed vague in its purpose. The title is passive: "Prospects for Nuclear Energy in the UK". Ok, so we'll be exploring possibilities, but the executive summary launches straight into policy: "the Government is still too tentative in its ambitions". Probably true enough as far as nuclear goes, but the body of the document doesn't seem to put meat on those bones (though I confess I only skimmed it).

If I were presuming to find political fault, I'd not be complaining about the government being "too tentative". What it has been is too meddlesome, and their meddling has been incompetent (or corrupt).

Mailman,
Military objectives are set by political objectives. War *is* politics.

Quite liked this article which believably enough describes the UK COVID Inquiry as propaganda. It skewers the line that all the stupid decisions were down to Dominic Cummings. However I don't agree with the last paragraph that "some greater authority exists above almost all national governments". I can't disprove it, but it just isn't necessary. National leaders simply went stupid as a group. Always thought herd immunity for COVID was a bit unlikely, but herd stupidity is no stretch at all.