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#11
Gaming HQ / Re: Victoria 3
Last post by Zanza - May 07, 2026, 05:10:59 PMIs it already worth trying this? Otherwise I will wait another two weeks.
#12
Off the Record / Re: Iran War
Last post by mongers - May 07, 2026, 05:05:02 PMQuote from: The Minsky Moment on May 07, 2026, 04:52:46 PMQuote from: Sophie Scholl on May 07, 2026, 03:33:47 PMI feel like the Saudis are hurting a lot more than they're letting on and maybe looking for new partners other than the US. Their new movie that was supposed to be their big splash into the global, and especially US, markets is tanking terribly. Their golf league is possibly shuttering. Their financed WWE experiment for American wrestling is facing layoffs and paycuts for those that remain. Something is up...
All that stuff is relatively small scale compared to some of the massive projects thatOzymandiasMbS was promoting, like the crazy (multi-?) trillion dollar Neom project, the Red Sea tourism project, Qadiyya . . . all of which appear to be over budget and under-built.
The wheels have been coming off Vision 2030 from the moment the draft plans hit the presses.
Those are plans worthy of the orange buffoon, bet he puts in a bid for the projects remains and tries to move/build them in the USA.
#13
Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic
Last post by The Minsky Moment - May 07, 2026, 05:04:39 PMQuote from: Sheilbh on May 07, 2026, 01:13:25 PMI always have at least slightly mixed views on the neo-con wing of Trump opponents.
That's a bit of a broad brush, she was far from being an ally of Rumsfeld, Cheney, etc.
#14
Off the Record / Re: Iran War
Last post by The Minsky Moment - May 07, 2026, 04:52:46 PMQuote from: Sophie Scholl on May 07, 2026, 03:33:47 PMI feel like the Saudis are hurting a lot more than they're letting on and maybe looking for new partners other than the US. Their new movie that was supposed to be their big splash into the global, and especially US, markets is tanking terribly. Their golf league is possibly shuttering. Their financed WWE experiment for American wrestling is facing layoffs and paycuts for those that remain. Something is up...
All that stuff is relatively small scale compared to some of the massive projects that
The wheels have been coming off Vision 2030 from the moment the draft plans hit the presses.
#15
Off the Record / Re: Iran War
Last post by Sophie Scholl - May 07, 2026, 03:59:27 PMQuote from: Sheilbh on May 07, 2026, 03:58:36 PMI'd not heard of this - looked at the trailer. It doesn't look bad to be fair.I was actually contemplating going to see it, but it legit lasted for 1 showing a week for a week near me.
But really interesting to me that it's basically a story from pre-Islamic Arabia (which sort of makes sense but is still interesting) and the Persians are yet again the baddies with a despotic emperor (Kingsley) trying to crush the Arab tribes and forcing them to cooperate. Poor Persians, it's always them
#16
Off the Record / Re: Iran War
Last post by Sheilbh - May 07, 2026, 03:58:36 PMQuote from: Sophie Scholl on May 07, 2026, 03:48:46 PMDesert Warrior. Anthony Mackie, Ben Kingsley, and some other folks. 596k take so far on a $150 million budget.I'd not heard of this - looked at the trailer. It doesn't look bad to be fair.
https://deadline.com/2026/05/desert-warrior-anthony-mackie-box-office-1236877487/
But really interesting to me that it's basically a story from pre-Islamic Arabia (which sort of makes sense but is still interesting) and the Persians are yet again the baddies with a despotic emperor (Kingsley) trying to crush the Arab tribes and forcing them to cooperate. Poor Persians, it's always them
#17
Off the Record / Re: TV/Movies Megathread
Last post by Sheilbh - May 07, 2026, 03:52:42 PMJust saw the trailer for the De Gaulle biopic.
I will be going. I can only assume it'll be on at the Imax.
I will be going. I can only assume it'll be on at the Imax.
#18
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by Sheilbh - May 07, 2026, 03:51:33 PMBy the by just on the local elections - in terms of how much a damp squib Your Party has turned out to be (for so many reasons) really struck that there were no Your Party candidates in my ward.
The Greens ran a full slate, and TUSC even had a candidate - this is a borough that, at the last election, elected 100% Labour councillors and my constituency at the last election went 60% Labour (with the Greens second on 20%). So fair to say in terms of areas where you'd expect a Jeremy Corbyn backed party of the left, this is exactly the sort of area you'd expect them to be. But absolutely nothing.
Edit: I think I posted an article about the Independent Coalition in Birmingham. Pretty extraordinary interview with two of the leading figures on this by Lewis Goodall (basically from about 15-25 minutes in this video). For context, local polling isn't really a thing in the UK because it's too expensive but I think in Birmingham there's been some polls suggesting that basically Reform, Labour, Tories, Greens and the Independents will all be on somewhere between 15-25%:
It is a really interesting phenomenon. I think Tamas was saying earlier that sectarian politics isn't really a problem and I think there are areas of the country where it is emerging in a problematic way, like Birmingham. The independents who have formed a coalition there really started as Gaza Independent campaigns in the last election. It is also democratic - their point about Labour basically relying on just weighing votes and traditional biradari/clan voting is historically true. In part this is a revolt of younger people who were born and grew up in Britain expressing themselves democratically, rather than being part of a traditional Pakistani form of machine politics, to Labour's disadvantage.
They're also not wrong on the Greens talking a lot about Gaza with Muslim voters and not about a very, very socially liberal stance on other issues (there's some pretty grim leaflets out there). Birmingham was where there were protests (instigated by outsiders) against the national curriculum mandated sex education (which includes LGBT education) by Muslim parents a couple of years ago. It was also the scene of a very, very nasty sectarian campaign by independents against a Labour MP in 2024. I think Birmingham will be a place to watch (some huge issues for the council too which was Labour won and went bust after a massively failed IT project with multi-billion cost over-runs and a huge, union-backed equal pay claim succeeded).
The Greens ran a full slate, and TUSC even had a candidate - this is a borough that, at the last election, elected 100% Labour councillors and my constituency at the last election went 60% Labour (with the Greens second on 20%
). So fair to say in terms of areas where you'd expect a Jeremy Corbyn backed party of the left, this is exactly the sort of area you'd expect them to be. But absolutely nothing.Edit: I think I posted an article about the Independent Coalition in Birmingham. Pretty extraordinary interview with two of the leading figures on this by Lewis Goodall (basically from about 15-25 minutes in this video). For context, local polling isn't really a thing in the UK because it's too expensive but I think in Birmingham there's been some polls suggesting that basically Reform, Labour, Tories, Greens and the Independents will all be on somewhere between 15-25%:
It is a really interesting phenomenon. I think Tamas was saying earlier that sectarian politics isn't really a problem and I think there are areas of the country where it is emerging in a problematic way, like Birmingham. The independents who have formed a coalition there really started as Gaza Independent campaigns in the last election. It is also democratic - their point about Labour basically relying on just weighing votes and traditional biradari/clan voting is historically true. In part this is a revolt of younger people who were born and grew up in Britain expressing themselves democratically, rather than being part of a traditional Pakistani form of machine politics, to Labour's disadvantage.
They're also not wrong on the Greens talking a lot about Gaza with Muslim voters and not about a very, very socially liberal stance on other issues (there's some pretty grim leaflets out there). Birmingham was where there were protests (instigated by outsiders) against the national curriculum mandated sex education (which includes LGBT education) by Muslim parents a couple of years ago. It was also the scene of a very, very nasty sectarian campaign by independents against a Labour MP in 2024. I think Birmingham will be a place to watch (some huge issues for the council too which was Labour won and went bust after a massively failed IT project with multi-billion cost over-runs and a huge, union-backed equal pay claim succeeded).
#19
Off the Record / Re: Iran War
Last post by Sophie Scholl - May 07, 2026, 03:48:46 PMQuote from: Jacob on May 07, 2026, 03:35:13 PMWhich movie?Desert Warrior. Anthony Mackie, Ben Kingsley, and some other folks. 596k take so far on a $150 million budget.
https://deadline.com/2026/05/desert-warrior-anthony-mackie-box-office-1236877487/
#20
Off the Record / Re: Iran War
Last post by Sheilbh - May 07, 2026, 03:45:30 PMQuote from: Sophie Scholl on May 07, 2026, 03:33:47 PMI feel like the Saudis are hurting a lot more than they're letting on and maybe looking for new partners other than the US. Their new movie that was supposed to be their big splash into the global, and especially US, markets is tanking terribly. Their golf league is possibly shuttering. Their financed WWE experiment for American wrestling is facing layoffs and paycuts for those that remain. Something is up...Some of this pre-dates the war though.
There's been a lot of report on them re-trenching in the very splashy overseas investments and sports-washing projects for the last year or so. Plus a lot of MBS' Project 2030 projects (like NEOM) being pipe-dreams (ironically Neom could actually be the destination port of a new East-West pipeline, but hardly re-positioning Saudi from oil and gas). The golf thing is insane as they spent something like $4 billion on that (largely on players). Weirdly a really good insight into this over the last year plus has been football podcasts and journalism about how much the Saudi sovereign fund (the PIF) is really into Newcastle now.
From what I've read the goal is now far, far more focused on internal investments and projects in Saudi - which makes sense they've got a growing population with over 60% under 30. And they need to plan a future beyond hydrocarbons.
On that, ironically enough, the Gulf was a major source of financing for clean energy projects around the world and I believe there's fears this war basically simultaneously disrupts global fossil fuel supplies and financing for clean energy.