adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 24, 2024 17:01:16 GMT
But for this to have affected hundreds of sub-postmasters this kind of behind the scenes data editing / manipulation must have been effected hundreds, if not thousands of times, which points to systemic problems and some kind of accepted approach to resolving them. And there's no record of this? Something just doesn't add up. There's still more than 11,500 post offices - and there would have been more at the time this was all going on. Prosecutions went on for 15 years after Bates first reported problems, the year after Horizon was introduced. 700 postmasters were prosecuted - about 6% of the current number, and it would have been a smaller %age at the time. That's one HELL of a lot of transactions, the vast majority with no issue. Now, add together a flaky system that occasionally mis-records transactions, and a helpdesk with no audit tracking... you can see that there could easily have been a LOT of errors with rolling back faulty transactions. And many of those would have been ignored, accepted as user error, rolled in to normal adjustments, etc. Wrap all that in an apparent corporate culture of "it can't possibly be our fault" and buck-passing, and you can easily see how the finger-pointing escalated... It's a salutory lesson all round.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 24, 2024 12:26:22 GMT
Has anybody seen any information relating to who at (presumably?) Fujistsu ICL tinkered with the data, why they did so, and whether anybody directed them to do so? At the moment I really don't understand the whys of this. Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence. Everything else flows from trying to keep it quiet and find a scapegoat.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 24, 2024 11:43:00 GMT
He is without any doubt a military expert who certainly knows more about ground based warfare than most people who discuss the situation in Ukraine in the media. He might know more than "most people who discuss the situation in the media", but he certainly doesn't know more than the aggregate (more) senior ex-military people who discuss the situation in the media. All of whom disagree with him. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NMOllP3eN4
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 24, 2024 10:56:54 GMT
Obviously I do not have to agree with everything he has ever said to find his military analysis of the situation in Ukraine worth listening to. He is without any doubt a military expert who certainly knows more about ground based warfare than most people who discuss the situation in Ukraine in the media. So much more than an Egyptian river...
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 24, 2024 10:36:21 GMT
The fact he was Trump's military advisor (for less than three months), after Trump became aware of him through his Tucker Carlson slots on Fox, should be excellent grounds to discount his ramblings. From his Wiki page... "His thinking contributed to US strategy in the 2003 invasion of Iraq." - I suggest you read Rory Stewart on the subject of US strategy in Iraq and especially Afghanistan to see how much of a recommendation that is. He's also paid by the Russian state, let's not forget - but you've previously said that you think they're an unbiased source - where he actively called for the annexation of Donbas in 2014. He was also rejected as Trump's nominee as ambassador to Germany for his public pronouncements on "muslim invaders ... with the goal of turning the EU into an islamic state", and has argued in favour of summary execution for those irregularly crossing borders, as well as a long legacy of racist and antisemitic statements and denials of industrialised slavery. So, yeh, you'll forgive us for not finding him the one compelling speaker of truth. I cant really comment on any on this since I have not heard him making such extreme statements. As for being Anti-Semitic if anything I would say he is fairly Pro-Israeli, concerned about the security situation Israel finds itself in and seems to have contacts and friends within the IDF which he mentions on his shows. "Doing your own research" seems to stop when it gets inconvenient for your preconceptions. www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/576/douglas-macgregors-anti-semitic-comments-disqualify-him-from-serving-at-the-pentagon/Then there's his echoing of the Stalin-era trope, "rootless cosmopolitans" - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitanslate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/fox-news-analyst-rootless-cosmopolitans-jews-russia.htmlAnd let's not forget describing first-nation Americans as "stone age cannibals living in unspeakable filth" amongst a lot of other racist guff aimed at basically everybody not called Douglas MacGregor. www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-favorite-douglas-macgregor-stone-age-indigenous-people-south-asianYou (rightly) say that you aren't interested in Carlson (who, of course, was Putin's chosen tame idiot when it came to giving that toe-curlingly sycophantic interview), yet Carlson *made* MacGregor, and they're cut from the exact same cloth.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 24, 2024 9:52:54 GMT
The fact he was Trump's military advisor (for less than three months), after Trump became aware of him through his Tucker Carlson slots on Fox, should be excellent grounds to discount his ramblings.
From his Wiki page... "His thinking contributed to US strategy in the 2003 invasion of Iraq." - I suggest you read Rory Stewart on the subject of US strategy in Iraq and especially Afghanistan to see how much of a recommendation that is. He's also paid by the Russian state, let's not forget - but you've previously said that you think they're an unbiased source - where he actively called for the annexation of Donbas in 2014.
He was also rejected as Trump's nominee as ambassador to Germany for his public pronouncements on "muslim invaders ... with the goal of turning the EU into an islamic state", and has argued in favour of summary execution for those irregularly crossing borders, as well as a long legacy of racist and antisemitic statements and denials of industrialised slavery.
So, yeh, you'll forgive us for not finding him the one compelling speaker of truth.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 23, 2024 21:02:50 GMT
*- Apparently the Colonel has had his Security Clearance level reduced by the pentagon so he might not be such a great source of information going forward - I will still tune into his controversial podcast like many others such as George Galloway, Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump
Finally, the Colonel is placed in his proper context amongst his peers. I have no idea about Vexler. I couldn't get past his delivery to the content...
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 23, 2024 16:11:22 GMT
According to the below plus the recent $61B pledge, the US will have spent at least $140B of their taxpayers money on protecting the world from Russia. It started well before 2014 as they/Nato were building up their eastern flank [against Russia]. Let's put that number into perspective. US Dept of Defense budget is $1.6tn this year alone. 13.1% of total US government expenditure. www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-defense?fy=2024
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 22, 2024 22:04:40 GMT
It seems to me that the US neo-cons have for their own reasons tried to re-ignite this divisive part of Ukrainian history. Sorry, you're saying it's the actions of the US that are responsible for increased anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine since, ooh, 2014 or so? Not... the actions of... Russia? In, y'know, invading and annexing?
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 22, 2024 21:42:37 GMT
How many pensioners will be unable to afford all this? Why is it always "pensioners"...? Apart from a decade and a half of the pension triple lock, at a time when many people's real income has fallen, there's house value wealth. That's the main reason why more than one in four over-65s lives in a household with net wealth of more than £1m. To turn that round, a large majority of households with net wealth of more than £1m have an over-65 in them... Well, they are the demographic that's most likely to vote for the party that's gutted the NHS...
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 22, 2024 18:40:14 GMT
It's not up to Russia to say what friends Ukraine makes. Ukraine is a sovereign country, and can make its own decisions. The very fact that Russia thinks they get a say in who Ukraine is friends with, with carte blanche for a military invasion if they don't approve, simply proves the point. Yes, the Soviet Union collapsed a third of a century ago. Putin thinks that was a very bad thing, and wants to re-establish it. This is not new news. This is also why the Baltic states, along with the former Iron Curtain satellite states, are seriously nervous when they look at Ukraine. Except Hungary, because Orban also quite likes the idea of being back behind the Iron Curtain. Right up until the moment he realises that he won't get to keep any autonomy, having clearly forgotten about 1956 - or, indeed, the neighbours just over a decade later.Where is your evidence for Putin "wanting to re-establish the soviet union" ? Numerous speeches and actions from him across many years. With, of course, lots of kickbacks for Putin - as well as most of the internal market economy being built around an oligarchy inseparable from Putin - and the organised crime that he's been enmeshed in since his St Petersburg days. The external market changed drastically with the imposition of sanctions, of course.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 22, 2024 18:34:02 GMT
I suspect you might feel a bit differently if it was your daughter and her friends... I think I'd worry far more about her being out so late etc. What do you think an appropriate curfew for 20-something adults? Is this clear? www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/33/section/154If the photographer's behaviour is intended to cause distress, it's illegal.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 22, 2024 18:10:53 GMT
What do you see as a suitable end point of those negotiations, bearing in mind the starting positions... 1. Russia wants all of Ukraine to be Russia. 2. Ukraine wants none of Ukraine to be Russia, including the bits that Russia stole a decade ago. 3. Russia is the sole aggressor in this conflict, and the international community do not want invasion to be rewarded. How do you know what Russia wants? - the only idea we have is the Istanbul agreement which seems to suggest that Russia wants a Neutral Ukraine and protection for the Russian population within Ukraine from Anti-Russian extremists (who are funded by the US). I would disagree with the concept of Russia being the sole aggressor in this conflict, you have to look at what led up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine which in my opinion dates back to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the eastward expansion of NATO *. * - which is obviously no longer a defensive alliance It's not up to Russia to say what friends Ukraine makes. Ukraine is a sovereign country, and can make its own decisions. The very fact that Russia thinks they get a say in who Ukraine is friends with, with carte blanche for a military invasion if they don't approve, simply proves the point. Yes, the Soviet Union collapsed a third of a century ago. Putin thinks that was a very bad thing, and wants to re-establish it. This is not new news. This is also why the Baltic states, along with the former Iron Curtain satellite states, are seriously nervous when they look at Ukraine. Except Hungary, because Orban also quite likes the idea of being back behind the Iron Curtain. Right up until the moment he realises that he won't get to keep any autonomy, having clearly forgotten about 1956 - or, indeed, the neighbours just over a decade later.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 22, 2024 17:27:59 GMT
Chuffing Screwfix have recently changed their password requirements. Minimum 13 characters... but no need for extended character set. "chuffingscrewfix" will fit the requirements then Do you know ALL my passwords?
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 22, 2024 17:25:39 GMT
Considering 10,190 miles in 352 days is 29 miles per day average, a marathon across London would just be a nice warm-down jog.
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