Best Of

I can't think of anywhere I'd want sympathy from less than the PB branch of Free The Paedos

https://www.channel4.com/news/freed-palestinian-doctors-describe-torture-in-israeli-prison

Them's the breaks....

I had a Palestinian Medical Student in my clinic last week. My University has temprarily accepted her as her studies in Gaza are no longer possible. Hearing her stories of how her fellow medical students were killed, and her family bombed out of their home with white phosphorous, grandparents, children and all. I know it is nothing new to see on the news or social media, but hearing her quietly describing it all first hand was heartbreaking.

An excellent post. It's a case of it being a far off place and therefore meaning nothing to most on here. Three or four positively wish them ill. All the Arab nations aren't the same but having worked with many the Palestinians are among the most humble.

I can't think of anywhere I'd want sympathy from less than the PB branch of Free The Paedos

https://www.channel4.com/news/freed-palestinian-doctors-describe-torture-in-israeli-prison

Them's the breaks....

I had a Palestinian Medical Student in my clinic last week. My University has temprarily accepted her as her studies in Gaza are no longer possible. Hearing her stories of how her fellow medical students were killed, and her family bombed out of their home with white phosphorous, grandparents, children and all. I know it is nothing new to see on the news or social media, but hearing her quietly describing it all first hand was heartbreaking.

An excellent post. It's a case of it being a far off place and therefore meaning nothing to most on here. Three or four positively wish them ill. All the Arab nations aren't the same but having worked with many the Palestinians are among the most humble.

Trouble is, what does one do? Both sides are awful - I saw some heartbreaking footage on this morning of the toys of a Jewish toddler strewn abandoned, left as they were after Oct 7, plus some video of the poor kid playing happily before he was murdered. Certainly tugged at my heart strings, having a toddler of a similar age. I don't doubt that the plight of many kids in Gaza has been as tragic.

But how do you fix a problem like Gaza, where the leaders of both sides seem to just want to kill each other's people until there is none left? If I could see a solution I'd advocate for it, but I genuinely can't see a good route out of the tragedy.

The simple solution is that the residents of Gaza relocated to the West Bank, and Israel abandons its settlements there.

Sadly, that (sensible) option is off the table with the current Israeli government. Netanyahu's coalition contains a bunch of parties who represent Settler interests, and who are committed to expanding Greater Israel inside the West Bank.

So the space for Palestinians in the West Bank is inexorably shrinking, and they simultaneously see Israelis killing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

I don't think it's shuffling people around between different pieces of land that is the issue.

The issue is that Israel isn't willing to allow an independent Palestinian state to exist, with the sovereign freedom to trade with other countries free of Israeli control, to have its own army and so on.

From the Israeli pint of view, allowing such a state to be created would be tantamount to training your own executioner.

Brains Trust:

I'm after a new laptop PC. Can anyone recommend?

Criteria:

Probably 15-17" screen.
Solid state (if disk drives are still a thing.)
Touch screen.
Windows.
Routine usage up to video editing, watching films and video calls - not gaming.
The current one is about 6 years old.

Budget: I'd be happy towards £1000, but he last one was more like £399.

I'm very happy with my One Plus Chromebook. Don't miss Windows at all.

I ran a £700 Chromebook for 18 months. Managed at first, increasingly incapable of doing what I needed. Had to switch to Windows for a client project, hated it, went Mac, won't go back.

Chromebook is worth considering if all the following hold for you:

1. Your main communication device is an Android phone
2. You mostly use a browser for your activities
3. You don't need specific Windows applications - most likely Office
4. You don't need to link it to a corporate network.

The advantages it gives over Windows are a less resource hungry operating system (although this is less of an issue than before); you avoid the Windows upgrade pain; you automatically share data between phone apps and desktop. Chromebook can be clunky sometimes, which may put people off.

Macs at twice the price of Windows machines and Chromebooks are normally only worth it if you also run an iPhone, for the same reason as Chromebook and Android. For everyone else, it's Windows.

Lenovo, Dell or HP. for longevity.
You should be fine with I5 processor.
I have a 6 year old Lenovo think book that is going to and from office in a bike bag, no issues. Colleagues have dell and hp, all similar.
Got eldest an Asus, same £800 price point, 2 years younger, sits on the desk and now has overheating issues.

Hadush Kebatu is deported.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly9rxlvp85o

I wonder what Roger now thinks ?

Not Roger, but this looks like the state doing its job effectively.

Clearly there was an omnishambles last Friday. But since then, this guy has been tracked down and deported, and a process introduced which should reduce the chances of a repeat. An inherited problem fixed.

Boring competence and incremental improvement, in other words. Repeat it a few thousand times and we might start to be getting somewhere.

"An inherited problem fixed". You really don't think that there will not be another mistaken release within the next 10 days? It is utterly inevitable with such an overwhelmed system being operated by relatively low paid staff and an ever changing discount regime trying to keep the lid on the prison population. The Home Secretary has been able to act decisively in relation to this case and is due credit for that but "fixed" borders on delusional.

OK, fixed may be going too far. But it's a problem that's been creeping up on us since 2019 or so- steadily increasing from about one a week to nearly one a day.

The basic act of making people sign off on "are you sure this is the person you think it is?" and "are you sure you are right about where they are going next?" is likely to help a lot and doesn't seem to have been happening recently.

Doesn't mean that the justice system doesn't need more money, but we don't have any right now.

Trump Org’s income in the first half of 2024 was $51 million.

In the first half of 2025 it rose to $864 million.

A massive percentage came from foreigners.

It should be the biggest scandal in the history of American politics.

But few even care.
https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1983234367162835298

America is no longer a serious country.

Nobody much seems to give a fuck their democracy has been taken from them by charlatans and chancers and a bunch of weird, absolute obsessive reactionary slave owner wanting nutjobs who have spent their lives in basements in underpants.

Still, there's always shits and hoots on Facebook of cute cats or liberals covered in shit to keep the mind from doing anything stupid like wonder why the american revolution happened.

It's because opponents of Trump have outrage fatigue. Everything he does, or that is done on his behalf, is worthy of outrage, but it's pretty tiring to be angry all the time.

And for Republicans they've been convinced that their biggest enemy is the Democrats, and so as long as Trump is, "annoying all the right people," then it's secondary that he's openly corrupt, selling himself to foreign states, and generally acting as a traitor who is trashing the Constitution. He's owning the libs, so none of that matters.

What's the point of "owning" the Libs if you end up destroying everything you and your party believed in?

eg. yesterday's row about Ronald Reagan.

The enemy are the libs who are going to turn your children transgender and flood the country with illegal immigrants (who are also voting in record numbers across the country).

All that matters is the fight against the libs, and if we need to burn down the rule of law and the separation of powers to do it, then so be it.

Not being funny, but until recently there was a contingency of "Libs" who didn't ask too many questions before referring dysmorphic kids to Tavistock and the country sort of is being flooded with illegal immigrants.

The trouble is there's a grain of truth in it, as there is in the centrist Dads who brush it all off - and thus help fuel it.

There's a difference between being wrong and being the enemy.

From my point of view, Tories are [mostly] wrong, Russia is the enemy.

Trump, and to a lesser extent Farage, are big on treating people in their country they disagree with as the enemy. It's the sort of thing that people have done for rhetorical purposes in the past, but not really meant it, but these days, with Trump really meaning it, we should be making a special effort to step away from it.

Brains Trust:

I'm after a new laptop PC. Can anyone recommend?

Criteria:

Probably 15-17" screen.
Solid state (if disk drives are still a thing.)
Touch screen.
Windows.
Routine usage up to video editing, watching films and video calls - not gaming.
The current one is about 6 years old.

Budget: I'd be happy towards £1000, but he last one was more like £399.

I'm very happy with my One Plus Chromebook. Don't miss Windows at all.

I ran a £700 Chromebook for 18 months. Managed at first, increasingly incapable of doing what I needed. Had to switch to Windows for a client project, hated it, went Mac, won't go back.

Chromebook is worth considering if all the following hold for you:

1. Your main communication device is an Android phone
2. You mostly use a browser for your activities
3. You don't need specific Windows applications - most likely Office
4. You don't need to link it to a corporate network.

The advantages it gives over Windows are a less resource hungry operating system (although this is less of an issue than before); you avoid the Windows upgrade pain; you automatically share data between phone apps and desktop. Chromebook can be clunky sometimes, which may put people off.

Macs at twice the price of Windows machines and Chromebooks are normally only worth it if you also run an iPhone, for the same reason as Chromebook and Android. For everyone else, it's Windows.

You should not that the most technically literate people on here are all saying - get a Mac.

Heck my client’s laptop has adverts on it and that’s running Windows 11 Enterprise - it’s shittification in action

Those Open Council Data numbers are staggering.

The Conservatives have lost 38 councillors, and Labour 28, in October alone.

I like the focus on the numbers, but remember that half of those Cons were a splurge at Reform Conference, so saved up for who knows how long.

And we need totals for context.

Lab have 6k Councillors, so lost 0.7%. Con have 4.3k, so lost 0.9%.

We need more data, and to understand what is a big number in the general run of things.

Also, wearing my data hat, their dates are date logged, not date of change - which tbh will be good enough for PB purposes.

The Tories have lost 181 since May, Labour 160. There seems to real turmoil in some councils.

I can't see any point in being a councillor.

You job seems to be to be a punchbag for decisions you have no real control over, except at a very tactical level.