UK Hot Weather

Hehe looking at the charts of the area, one with knowledge are reminded of German operations in the same part of the world back in WW2
Sadly i dont think the Ukrainians will take 100.000s of prisoners like back then.

Shock and awe are indeed still a valid approach to combat.
 
Not so apparently.

An article in today's New York Times about yesterday's liberation of the city Izium had this to say:

There is still a lot that we don’t know about the offensive, but it is clear this was well planned and executed by Ukrainian forces,” said Rob Lee, a military analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “It looks like a very effective combined arms operation with tanks, mechanized infantry, Special Operations forces, air defenses, artillery and other systems.”
Most of the russians had already left the Izium area, to defend the south from the planned Ukrainian advance into Crimea. An advance that was planned by the same countries that planned the fictional Calais invasion of D-Day, where the Germans moved almost all their troops to the wrong place because they didn't have enough left to defend the entire battle front!

Tanks do work well when they are only facing machine guns, but they were not really needed, the russian troops they encountered didn't want to fight, the ones that did want to fight had been moved south.
 
Most of the russians had already left the Izium area, to defend the south from the planned Ukrainian advance into Crimea.

That's not quite accurate! There have been fierce battles involving tanks and other mechanized weaponry as Ukrainian forces have routed the Russians in their advances resulting in waved white flags from the occupiers. Of course, you ignored my quote about the weaponry at play in the New York Times from the Foreign Policy Research Institute because, as always, you always claim to know better than everyone about everything.

In any event, there have been some rather amusing videos appearing on Telegram and Twitter of Russian tanks fleeing at high speed while being fired on by the Ukrainians. One of them shows Russian troops jumping off a T-72 tank before it crashes into a tree southeast of Kharkiv.


Nigel: Tanks don't seem to be much use these days, they can't reach the targets!

ukrainiantanks.jpg


imrs.jpg
 
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France set a new record for hot weather in September, 40.7 deg C
Up here where i am, low pressures are setting the order of the day, and a not particular warm or low wind order ( i need fairly low wind to be able to enjoy shooting my rifles )
We also need no rain if we are to work on our mountain we are building on again, in order for the concrete to not wash away.

PS. That tank taking down that tree, even if it is Russian its the best tree take down i have seen in a while.
 
France set a new record for hot weather in September, 40.7 deg C
The EU generated a record 12% of its electricity from solar from May to August 2022, helping to avoid a potential €29 billion in fossil gas imports.
That doesn't seem to have been enough though, UK electricity exports to the EU increased by 7.4TWh this August compared to last August, we only used 22 TWh ourselves.

Looks like the Viking link still has another year to go before it starts operating, exports are limited by cable capacity.

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Viking link being a DC power cable as i understand it ( 1,400 MW HVDC ), imagine how that as scare tactics could fry a elephant.
At full go probably the fastest incineration the world have ever seen, Indians getting cremated on the shores of the Ganges river,,,,,, this would be a much faster way to go,,,, and much less polluting than a funeral fire going for days.
Now would be a good time to invest in cable producing companies, not just for the main cables, but having smaller self supporting grids will be a good idea.

PS: this glorified extension cable,,,,,, not cheap.
 
PS: this glorified extension cable,,,,,, not cheap.
But very profitable!

Supposed to be profitable for the country at both ends, but for Norway, if they didn't have any interconnectors then their electricity price would not have been affected by the gas crisis; but since they do have interconnectors, all their electricity is being bought by places like GB, and the locals have to compete on price to buy their own hydropower which is increasing their electricity price considerably! UK normally sells their electricity on to France at huge profit, but right now, Norway are not sending us any, they are buying it from us and selling all their available power to the Germans at huge profit, GB is generating electricity for Norway, France, Netherlands and Belgium and receiving some from Ireland and Orkney.

Clearly, somebody benefits from all this, but it is not clear who. Presumably the Germans are doing best since without the interconnectors, they would currently have blackouts! Norway, as a country, is probably doing well because their government is receiving lots of extra tax income, but the residents are having to pay extra for their electricity! In GB, i don't know who makes the profit from the imports and exports, our electricity prices have risen dramatically, our government is making a fortune from our windpower, and the government is paying our electricity bills for us! Not how it is supposed to work.
 
Germany do pay ( healthy ) for Danish wind turbines to stand idle on windy days.
IMO this is a outrage, and just another proof that we too need to leave the EU gang ASAP

I would think ideally government should do as little as possible, sadly in Denmark it is the other way around with government muscle in where they can

On wiki reading about viking link it say by 2022 the GWH in Denmark is supposed to go up by 15DKkr,,,,,,, i think they will find it have gone up with way more than that, and also IF it go down again,,,,,, it will probably never be to where it was, or god forbid even lower so Denmark are no longer the worlds most expensive place to buy power.
For this reason small stores and businesses are closing here faster now than during the most severe corona lock downs.

Funny thing, the people here with alternative power sources on their house, they sell surplus to the grid,,,,,, very cheap, but if they need to buy from the grid they will have to pay the full price.
Which is just 1 reason i would never sell to the grid if i had power in my house to spare,,,,,, i would rather just burn it as heat than get screwed over that way.

And i am pretty sure the law say i must sell to the grid,,,,,, so once again this Dane find himself in between a rock and a hard place.

The people in other countries that can dish up with a fierce national patriotism,,,,,,, they confuse me, do they really have that much better government, or are there something wrong with them.
CUZ i cant do that with my country, everything are washed out here.
 
and also IF it go down again,,,,,, it will probably never be to where it was, or god forbid even lower so Denmark are no longer the worlds most expensive place to buy power.
Our latest offshore wind electricity is costing 1/9th the cost of electricity from gas, so once there is enough wind power, the cost of electricity should get very cheap. Today, Denmark's electricity is mainly from wind, so why do you not have cheap electricity? Are you selling all your cheap wind power to Germany and using your expensive imported (russian?) coal power for yourselves?

And i am pretty sure the law say i must sell to the grid,,,,,, so once again this Dane find himself in between a rock and a hard place.
Presumably you can store it in a battery for use by yourself?

The people in other countries that can dish up with a fierce national patriotism,,,,,,, they confuse me, do they really have that much better government, or are there something wrong with them.
UK and Denmark have a Royal families for that, no need for any "national patriotism" for the government, they can and are held to account by both the people and the Queen. For our countries the real power is held by the cabinet, not by a single person, and that generally results in better government; although you seem to have a voting system that results in coalition governments, which often means that nothing important ever gets done! It is places with presidents who are seen as being accountable to no one that have the real problems.
 
Politicians here just love to burn thru other peoples money, and it is especially so with the parties that have socialist inclinations, even if some conservative parties here have stronger socialist tendencies than actual communist parties in other countries.
It is also a mystery to me why power need to be this expensive here, and it is also cheap when the turbines really spin, but they also have to spin fast and over a big area, a squall here in Denmark done do much for the price, and it also just last a few hours.
On a annual average we are still ranking horrible high on Kwh prize.

Yeah you can do battery storage, but i am pretty sure there are some law there that either say if you battery are so and so large ( and thats probably a pretty small size ) then you must pay or sell to the grid.
It could also be that if you do low voltage DC you might stand a chance, and sure you can get inverters or also a 12 V washing machine ASO.
Really i can not tell for sure as i do not dare to look into it as i am sure it would not be good for my mental health.

The royal family here dont do squat, they are just a glorified hood ornament, i personally want them to go.
Some do argue that " well they get 300 mill DKkr a year, but do good will work "selling " Denmark for at least a billion DKkr, i would rather spend those 300 mill with a snake in the grass company like google selling Denmark that way.
The royal family here well know that 1 wrong peep out of them and they are out on their ass, so they just sign any papers put in front of them.

Now the Danes, well sure they could hold the politicians accountable with their votes, but as all eligible parties are garbage, and politicians flip flop as they please, or create new ones ( just got 2 new parties here, both created by conservative people, one a former PM and another a woman from another conservative party )
Both have brought over people from their old parties or people from that side at least, its not like any or very many new people have come in to freshen things up,,,, so it is just the same old - same old.
In addition to that we now have a eligible for election vegan party, and for the next election in +4 years time we will probably have a LGBTQ++ party to vote for too.

There should be a law that put a limit on these people in how long they can serve their country, to force rapid decision making and keep things fresh, what we have now are career politicians that are at best stale.

As it is now if you take all Danish law books and put them on top of each other you get a stack several feet high,,,,,, this should really be possible to do with just a few inches of laws.

Actually with a pending election here, things are happening, and with 3 PM candidates ( 1 socialist / current pm and 2 conservative ) it will be "fun", the conservative candidate he just announced he will divorce his husband.

Benny Hill would be so proud of the Danes
 
The royal family here dont do squat, they are just a glorified hood ornament, i personally want them to go.
Some do argue that " well they get 300 mill DKkr a year,...
We don't need to pay for ours, the king owns the UK seabed, which means that all the offshore wind farms have to pay him rent, which is giving an income of around £1 billion per year and rapidly increasing, most of which ends up with the government, reducing the taxes the rest of us pay. If that was run by the government, as yours is, then we would quite likely be making a loss on it!
 


The taxpayer pays the majority of the royal family’s spending through the Sovereign Grant, which was fixed at £86.3 million this year.

This grant is set each year based on whichever is highest: the amount of the previous year’s grant, or 25% of the profits from the £15.6 billion Crown Estate, which receives income from prime West London land and windfarms on the UK’s seabed.
 
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The taxpayer pays the majority of the royal family’s spending through the Sovereign Grant, which was fixed at £86.3 million this year.

This grant is set each year based on whichever is highest: the amount of the previous year’s grant, or 25% of the profits from the £15.6 billion Crown Estate, which receives income from prime West London land and windfarms on the UK’s seabed.
What that fails to point out is that although the taxman (not taxpayers) pays that money to the Royal Family, it is 25% of the profits from the Crown Estate, which the taxman pays back to the Royal Family ("Crown Estate") after the Crown Estate has paid the taxman 100% of the profits (largely profits from windfarms these days). The reason that the taxman takes 100% instead of 75% is that legally the Crown and the Royal Family are not the same thing, even though the King is head of both.

So the taxpayers, other than the Crown Estate, don't actually pay anything to the Royal Family, they have to earn it themselves, and then get charged 75% tax on it, and then they have to pay all their travel expenses for official business and maintenance costs for their estates out of what is left, instead of treating them as business costs before paying tax! The result is that they earn so little that the % had to be increased a few years ago when Buckingham Palace needed rewiring, and Buckingham Palace is clearly a workplace, not one of their private houses.
 
The "Taxman" not the "taxpayers"? This all sounds like a "royal" scam if you ask me. We here in "New England" still remember when the King owned all of the biggest old growth trees in our forests (marked as the "Kings Trees") that we were forbidden to touch but taxed on as they were cut down and shipped off to England to become ship masts. As you've stated, "the king owns the UK seabed, which means that all the offshore wind farms have to pay him rent", an indication that this archaic, exploitative legacy continues to this day.
 
Vast difference in between the Danish Royals, and " The firm " in the UK
 
Vast difference in between the Danish Royals, and " The firm " in the UK
Both our Queen and her husband were related fairly closely to the Danish Royal family, her husband was actually "Prince Philip of Denmark"...
 
yes when it come to blood / genes, these royal families of most of Europe are one big family more or less.
Which just worry me even more, even if they some times get at each others throats like WW1 for instance.

Like religion in general, i think the world should move away from these old concepts, as they will just be used as molds for even more horrible things.
 
All the commonwealth countries also pay royal family with their fair share of their own tax dollars collected from their own citizens, that is in addition to the contribution from all the subjects in UK.
 
All the commonwealth countries also pay royal family with their fair share of their own tax dollars collected from their own citizens, that is in addition to the contribution from all the subjects in UK.
Are you sure about that?

I doubt that any tax $ from any commonwealth country other than the UK go to the Royal family.

Canada estimates that the queen costs Canadian citizens about $1.55 per person annually, but that funds activities in Canada, it doesn't go to the Queen.

Most commonwealth countries do not have the Queen/King as head of state anyway, so the Royal family is obviously not going to cost them anything.

And remember that the Commonwealth brings member countries many benefits which more than pay for membership, for example:
"Bilateral costs for trading partners in Commonwealth countries are on average 19 per cent less than between those in non-member countries."

The Commonwealth would not have a population of 2.5 billion people (30% of all people), unless being a member was worthwhile!

Interesting to note that 13% of Australians were born in other Commonwealth countries, it is a community:
 
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