Best Of

Bonkers Westerly wind burst going on in the tropical Pacific at the moment. Gale force Westerly winds in a region that should have Easterlies. Those winds are collapsing the usual piled up hot ocean surface in the West and sending it to the other side of the basin in a Kelvin wave, cutting off upwelling.

We’re heading for a very pronounced El Niño this coming year. That means:

- Drought in Eastern Australia (Wheat)
- Drought in SE Asia (rice)
- Drought in Southern Africa
- Drought in NE Brazil (soy)
- Floods in East Africa
- Floods in Peru and collapsing sardine catch
- Floods in California (hopefully no wildfires)



Not unprecedented. But we’ve not seen this for a long time. Planetary warming if anything has encouraged La Niña conditions. It’ll mean the warmest year in record by miles in 2027 (and probably this year too).

"Badenoch considers burka ban

Tories understood to be ‘looking closely’ at merits of veto on face coverings as part of a review of Islamism"


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/03/27/kemi-badenoch-conservatives-burka-ban/

Poignantly, I saw a woman in a full burqa today, not far from my flat. I cannot know her inner state but her body language expressed great unhappiness. Weighed down by these hideous deathly black shrouds. I do not believe any woman under 60 - if any - would voluntarily wear these appalling garments, They are symbols of misogyny and TOOLS of misogyny

Kemi is right. Ban them

It would outflank Labour on closer alignment with Europe on the issues that people care about.

Kemi imputes that she knows how many thousands of people think, and evaluates them according to her personal opinions.

Kemi is a knee-jerking fool. This is no better than Farage or Anderson.

And yet this ban is what a vast majority of Brits want, according to polls. And several European countries - not notably Nazi - have banned them. And they are banned in multiple Muslim countries

So what exactly is your objection?

Catching up,

If there is no evidence of a basis for implementing a policy, then it is a matter of prejudice - which is not how we seek to operate as a society. There are only perhaps 1% of Muslim women who wear a full-face veil; that should be their choice.

I see from the Telegraph article that Kemi suggests that she views this as a low priority.

The thing that I find most startling in the survey is that 76% of the respondents want to ban "exclusion of women from religious leadership". Would you support that? That would ban the male only Roman Catholic priesthood, and male only Episcopates.



Gift link:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a5ca0614bc035101

More people also want to ban (male) circumcision.

I would argue the case for that ban is much stronger than that of banning the burqa.

0% of boys that are circumcised have any meaningful say over their genital mutilation. And funnily enough very few uncircumcised men choose to do so as a consenting adult.

At least with the burqa you can make the case that some women choose it. Even if coercion is the dominant factor.

"Badenoch considers burka ban

Tories understood to be ‘looking closely’ at merits of veto on face coverings as part of a review of Islamism"


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/03/27/kemi-badenoch-conservatives-burka-ban/

Poignantly, I saw a woman in a full burqa today, not far from my flat. I cannot know her inner state but her body language expressed great unhappiness. Weighed down by these hideous deathly black shrouds. I do not believe any woman under 60 - if any - would voluntarily wear these appalling garments, They are symbols of misogyny and TOOLS of misogyny

Kemi is right. Ban them

It would outflank Labour on closer alignment with Europe on the issues that people care about.

Kemi imputes that she knows how many thousands of people think, and evaluates them according to her personal opinions.

Kemi is a knee-jerking fool. This is no better than Farage or Anderson.

And yet this ban is what a vast majority of Brits want, according to polls. And several European countries - not notably Nazi - have banned them. And they are banned in multiple Muslim countries

So what exactly is your objection?

Catching up,

If there is no evidence of a basis for implementing a policy, then it is a matter of prejudice - which is not how we seek to operate as a society. There are only perhaps 1% of Muslim women who wear a full-face veil; that should be their choice.

I see from the Telegraph article that Kemi suggests that she views this as a low priority.

The thing that I find most startling in the survey is that 76% of the respondents want to ban "exclusion of women from religious leadership". Would you support that? That would ban the male only Roman Catholic priesthood, and male only Episcopates.



Gift link:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a5ca0614bc035101

More people also want to ban (male) circumcision.

Tiger charged with "driving under influence"

Luckily it seems nobody was killed in that crash or he would have been facing a lengthy jail term having been DUI. Another sporting genius with a less than brilliant personal life

I think its very likely the crash will lead to a VONC in Kemi and James Cleverly being made leader, frankly

56 Tory MPs are projected to lose their seats on the latest Nowcast. That is more than enough for a VONC if May's local and devolved elections are poor for the Tories
https://electionmaps.uk/nowcast

And you keep moving the definition of 'poor' because what you actually want is Kemi gone regardless of the results
Thats fine, just say it rather than this ridiculous dance

No if the Tories are first or second in May I will be Kemi's ultimate loyalist

Ultimate loyalty cannot be conditional, surely?

My ultimate loyalty is to the party, my loyalty to the party leader depends on their performance

Good job conservative mps and members back Kemi to make up for conditional so called supporters

They may do for now, if the Tories are third or worse in May Tory MPs letters will be flooding in to Blackman, they won't vote to keep a leader who will see them lose their seat, pay and perks

In that case, there is no possible leader for the Tories.

There is, Cleverly

My customers are in a two States that President Trump carried in 2024 on narrow margins: Arizona and Nevada.

In both cases, he won -I believe- because of two things.

Firstly, the inflation that ran through the developed world on the back of Covid and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Secondly, the chaos at the border that the Biden administration oversaw.

What Americans -particularly lower income Americans- did not vote for was to become poorer. Tariffs have pushed the prices of clothes up, without generating meaningful numbers of new manufacturing jobs. And now the wars have sent the price of petrol through the roof. (Which in turn will affect food and other prices.)

Retail electricity bills have yet to see the impact of rising energy prices, but that's coming too, and that's going to be ugly for lower income Americans finances.

My customers are lower income. In the past two weeks, they've cut their driving back sharply. We've seen Cancelled for Non-Payment skyrocket, as people choose to buy food or petrol over insurance.

If this isn't fixed, then the midterms will be horrible for the Republicans.

Agreed

Which is why Trump is under immense pressure to get the Straits reopened. Either with a deal, or by dropping lots of bombs

Whatever he chooses, he has to do it quickly

The thing is the damage has already been - opening up the straits is simply going to mitigate things.

Well, yes, but the damage - as is - can be painfully undone. But the longer the closure goes on, and the more Mid East energy infra that is destroyed, the worst the outcome for the entire world. I've seen sane voices on X predicting mass starvation and revolutions

Trump HAS to open the Straits before the very bad becomes quite horrifically bad

Does he? I mean, he doesn't care about poor people in Africa starving, or their governments being toppled in revolutions.

If he can get the voter disenfranchisement legislation through Congress he doesn't have to worry about the midterms much. He'll be able to stop enough Democrats and women from voting that he'll still win those.

Sure, it's a bit embarrassing, but I'm not seeing the imperative for Trump to reopen the Strait with urgency.

A hint of TDS in this comment, sorry

Given recent events is it not monumentally embarrassing to accuse people of TDS?