ICTChris

The apartment bombings in 1999 took place just as he took office as Prime Minister under Yeltsin. A number of apartment blocks were blown up in various Russian cities, hundreds were killed. This pre-empted the outbreak of the Second Chechen war. In Ryazan, local police arrested a number of men who they found planting a bomb in the basement of an apartment building. After being hailed as great police work, it was quickly established tbh at the men arrested planting the bomb were local FSB agents. The FSB then stated that the agents had been taking part in a drill and the bomb wasn’t viable, they were testing local police reactions. The cops who found the bomb were certain it was viable. There are lots of proponents of this as a false flag - it could well be one but it’s also true that the war in a Chechnya was probably inevitable and that elements of the Chechen rebels would happily have blown up Russian apartments.

Here’s the screenshot from the TASS website of the reaction to the warnings.

There seems to have been a pretty large scale gun attack in Moscow. Several attackers have targeted a concert hall in the city, reports of dozens killed. This sort of attack has been seen before on Moscow, Chechen and other Islamist groups carried out similar during the Chechen wars. Infamously a theatre was occupied with hostages taken in 2002, which ended with Russian special forces pumping gas into the venue and killing hundreds. There were reports of militants in Inigushetia a few weeks ago fighting local police but there hasn’t been a large scale attack on several years. Most of the radicals in the Caucausas went to Syria in the mid 2010s and almost all the leadership have been killed. I’d be surprised if this was anything directly related to the war in Ukraine but as ever with Russia, who knows what will come out or what conclusions can be drawn? Edited to add - the US publicly warned a few days ago of a potential terrorist attack in Moscow, specifically mentioning crowded venues and concerts. Putin dismissed this as “blackmail” and “an attempt to destabilise our society”.

Trying to think of worse media work than whoever was handling the press for the royals on this one. Appalling.

A study has found that infidelity is approximately 40-60% genetic in origin. This is approximately the same as the genetic contribution to high blood pressure, depression or suffering migraines. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dating-and-mating/202403/the-surprisingly-strong-link-between-genetics-and-infidelity No specific gene has been identified as influencing infidelity and researchers pointed out that they are not suggesting that our behaviour is non modifiable. Will any P&Bers be using the “it’s in my genes!” defence when their other half catches them in flagrante? Do any P&Bers have top shaggers as parents and feel their coitus-enthusiast families have the shagger genes?

Great advice for those looking to build a business

News reporters and readers have a duty to maintain strict impartiality and any suggestion that a story might be frivilous could in itself be an indication of bias. However, even seasoned pros have their limits

Conservatives polled 19% in the latest YouGov poll, almost within the margin of error for Reform UK.

Shogun is very good. Two episodes in and it’s gripping. Not being a writer or director or having any creative talent I’m always amazed when things that shouldn’t be so compelling are - a translated conversation about maritime treaties between a Japanese feudal Lord and a prisoner should not be high drama, but it is.

I can take or leave marmite.

I was trying to think why I hated this so much. Comes down to a number of different factors I think. There are spoilers in this but you should read it as it’s better to have it spoiled than waste your time watching it. I can’t actually believe it’s been praised to high heavens, it was utterly shite.

Sound like a nice bunch of lads https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-68616180

I didn't think hipsters were real but then I saw a guy with a beard riding a penny farthing in Edinburgh. It happened and we let it happen.

A fucking tune is what it is

Hipster Rangers fans are definitely a thing.

Just to add, I was speaking to my wife about the battery farm - she has no interest in football or Highland council planning process. I told her that if the battery farm was built it would be good for Caley and she said "not so good for the poor hens though!"

If we get into the promotion play offs I will personally attend our play off matches dressed as a battery from the battery farm.

Being 100% honest, if you had to construct a "median" listener of Open Goal it would probably be someone with a sleeve tattoo, a gymshark tracksuit who loves banter and for A View From The Terrace it'd be a bearded hipster who likes making jokes about wrestling on Twitter. There's nothing wrong with both of these people - they all add to the rich, beautiful tapestry of life and I love and care for both these people very deeply.

I asked ChatGPT to describe the average viewer of A View From The Terrace I also asked it to describe the average listener to the Open Goal podcast

We have a friend who moved back with her parents about ten years ago to care for them - her dad was in end stages of cancer and he died shortly after, her mum is very frail and needs someone there to help her. She has several siblings, who have spread out over the world and have families of their own so don't see much of them. After a few years, her mum wanted to change the will to give her daughter the house outright when she died - it's her home, she lives there has done for years etc. One of her siblings objected, said that they need the money for long term planning. I don't know legally where they stand but it's just appalling behaviour IMO. There is a lot more they'll inherit rather than just the house but they want to squeeze every last few quid out of it, no matter the impact on their sister who has looked after their parents for years. The house is not some country pile, it's a completely normal family home.

Why does he not want his windows replaced? I looked up the story - he doesn't think new windows will look nice.