Links 45: Penguin fightback edition

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Penguins fight back

Remember when Trump slapped tariffs on an island full of penguins? Now the penguins are fighting back:

Penguins celebrate victory

...and the penguins celebrate victory:

Grangemouth not like Scunthorpe

The BBC reports:

The closure of Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland is "not comparable" to the situation at British Steel in Scunthorpe, MPs have been told.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said an emergency law aimed at saving the Lincolnshire site from closure was an "exceptional situation".

SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn challenged Reynolds over similarities to the closure of the Scottish refinery on the Firth of Forth - with the loss of 400 jobs.

Recently both the oil refinery at Grangemouth in Scotland, and the steel plant at Scunthorpe in England, were threatened with closure.

The UK government reconvened parliament to save the Scunthorpe plant, but did fuck all to save Grangemouth.

Why the difference? Because the Westminster regime only cares about England, not Scotland. It's time Scotland was independent.

Spotting stealth aircraft using lots of cheap cameras

Consistently Inconsistent explains how to locate stealth fighters with cheap cameras in real time:

His method uses lots of cheap cameras, working out the parallax for supposed objects and seeing where the parallax rays from multiple camera intersect.

This would probably also work at night-time using infra-red cameras. The advantage of using passive sensors is that they are next to impossible for the attacker to detect.

Europeans want a European army

The Times reports that Europeans want a European army:

British, French and German voters support the creation of a European army, an international poll has found.

In the UK and Germany, 59 per cent of voters favour a European army, according to the poll by Public First and Stonehaven, a consultancy. In France, 50 per cent of adults would like European countries to pool their military strength, compared with 11 per cent who are opposed.

Even Reform voters want a European army:

Traditionally, there has been deep scepticism in the UK about a European army [...] However, the polling shows that even Eurosceptic voters in the UK now favour greater military integration. Forty-eight per cent of Reform UK voters support the creation of a European army.

Alba policies to combat Reform?

Watching the highlights of the 2025 Alba conference (which I guess proves I'm a politics nerd), they are setting up a working group to propose policies that will combat the growth of popularity of Reform UK in Scotland particularly Glasgow:

These are likely to be policies on limiting immigration and asylum, plus more housebuilding and affordable housing. I think these policies are likely to be popular with many voters, particularly ones on immgration because:

• Most Scots want lower immigration.

• Of the three largest pro-independence parties, two (SNP and Greens) are broadly pro-immigration.

Therefore independence supporters who want lower immigration currently have no-one to vote for, and Alba could potentially win big on this policy.

Also, affordable housing is likely to be popular: when I stood for election in the early 2010s on that platform, of the voters I talked to, most were enthusiastically in favour and literally no-one was against the idea.

Trump's price for a trade deal

The Independent tells us that Trump's price for a trade deal will be repealing UK hate speech laws:

Sir Keir Starmer must embrace Donald Trump’s agenda by repealing hate speech laws in order to get a trade deal over the line

a senior Washington figure [...] claimed [Vance] is “obsessed by the fall of Western civilisation” – including his view that free speech is being eroded in Britain – and that he will demand the Labour government rolls back laws against hateful comments, including abuse targeting LGBT+ groups or other minorities, as a condition of any deal.

It'll be interesting to see which way Starmer goes on this.

• On the one hand he's a craven coward who wants to be America's subservient poodle, suggesting he'll go along with it.

• One the other hand, he's a nasty authoritarian who can't stand criticism, suggesting he'll reject the deal.

My own position is that the UK needs to get closer to Europe -- forming a European superstate -- rather than the USA. This is particularly true while Trump is president as he cannot be trusted, and no deal with him will be worth the paper it's written on.

While I do think UK legislation on hate speech, on the internet and on social media needs to be radically changed, I very much imagine that my preferences for changes would be radically different from Trump's and Vance's, since the idea they support free speech is absurd.

Israel and Turkey to fight over Syria?

James Ker-Lindsay discusses whether Israel and Turkey will fight over Syria:

I suspect they probably won't, since while both Netanyahu and Erdogan are happy to fight wars against much weaker actors, neither side wants a war with a roughly-equally-matched opponent.

Farage / Truss talks

Nigel Farage is in talks with Liz Truss:

This should be a real pub sign.