I have not been following the Rittenhouse case, but after reading the NPR (not exactly a bastion of right-wing, gun-toting, Trumpism), I'd be gobsmacked if he's found guilty.
In the land of the gun toting free, this will be self-defense.
But he went there, with a rifle, into a riot to (in his own words) “protect property”. And now people are dead & he’s in court hoping to avoid a life sentence.
What he actually did was make a bad situation worse.
He’s an irresponsible little shit who killed people. What the jury makes of that is a judgment on them.
Jury selection basically struck off anyone who says that racism is a problem.
So all but one potential black juror was struck off.
I don't understand how his case for self defence for killing an unarmed man was that the unarmed man could have grabbed the tactical rifle that he illegally brought to the protest.
Some of his assailants were also armed
The line the prosecutor took about the last person he shot was utterly utterly comical - the guy has a pistol in his hand and is acting threateningly toward Rittenhouse who is vulnerable on the ground. But because the man with the handgun didn't shoot him 10 feet away, or stand in front of him in a standard 2 hand pistol firing position it entirely nullified Rittenhouse's right to self defence. He should never have his AR15 there, but when people
1) Grab your gun barrel after earlier threatening to kill you 2) Kick you in the head & go after you with a skateboard being used as a weapon & 3) Point a gun at you whilst you're lieing on the ground
You're definitely fearing for your life in all those situations.
I think his assailants (And they all were) assumed he wouldn't use his gun being a somewhat short kid or something. The prosecution has been dire, particularly on the final shooting.
But here's the thing. Someone is waving a gun at you. Isn't the logical thing - to protect yourself - to grab the gun barrel?
I'm not saying Rittenhouse is guilty of murder. But it does seem that this is somewhat akin to drunk driving. You are knowingly putting yourself in a position where somebody is dramatically more likely to die as a result of an accident.
Isn't the situation the other way around? That he had a gun pointed at him first to which he then responded. That at least seems to line up with what had been said in the courtroom. If that is the case, and I have no reason to doubt it, then it really is self defence. Whether or not he was carrying a gun is irrelevant, at least by American standards.
My sense is that liberals want this guy to be guilty of whatever crime(s) they ascribe white people in the US. The facts, as are seen in court anyway, are not what they expected. A prosecution witness has said he pointed a gun at the defendant unprovoked, that's basically the end of the case in a legal sense. In a cultural sense it will stoke the flames of the culture wars in the US. The right will say they have been unnecessarily turned into villains when the reality is that one of their own was threatened first. The left will be adamant that this is another example of variable justice for white people vs non white people.
It's become a no-win situation and America will pay the price regardless of the verdict. Half of them will say this guy is guilty regardless of the witness statement and if it's a guilty verdict the other side will say it's a liberal conspiracy to lock up a white male.
I understand that the man who pointed a pistol at him was the third one he shot. In other words, he'd already shot two people before the pistol was pointed. If that is accurate, "unprovoked" is a word that doesn't belong in your description.
Again, none of us were there and America is a different place. Three guys come up to you, one has a gun that is pointed at you. Even though you have done nothing to aggravate them (again this is as per the witness testimony). You're also a bit of an arsehole (maybe more than a bit).
You might not like the answer but ultimately (and this is likely the end result of this court case) it's a situation of self defence. If he wasn't a massive cunt then the people wouldn't have died, for sure, but he is and they are, however, being a cunt isn't against the law.
All I'm objecting to is your use of the word "unprovoked". If the situation was as I understand it, there was on ongoing confrontation, Rittenhouse shot one person. A second person hit him with a skateboard and Rittenhouse shot him. A third person pointed a gun at him and Rittenhouse shot him as well.
If that account is correct, then the skateboard, the pistol pointing, and the shooting of those two people can ALL be described as "provoked". Where the provocation started, that's a harder question. I'm not on one side of this or the other, it would be foolish to be confident either way, but your assertion that the pistol pointing was unprovoked looks false.
Off topic (like every other post this evening tbf)...
Is there a simple calculator available online that shows the global warming impact we each have through the choices we make?
If we could easily get a summary of the impact of our personal choices (e.g. electric car, flying long-haul, solar panels, new boiler, going veggie, etc. etc.) it might help people decide which steps they could take themsleves.
My assumption is that none of us are going to do everything we possibly could but a simple calculator might make it easy to choose the options that work for us as individuals.
There are quite a few apps and online carbon calculators. The WWF has one. Some seem to be pushing carbon offset sales but I think the calculations themselves are OK.
My carbon footprint on the WWF is 9 tons per year, slightly less than the national average that they cite, and I haven't flown anywhere, and have an electric car and we'll insulated house. It isn't going to be easy going lower.
11 tonnes. I live in a shockingly badly insulated house.
I lied about my flights on the survey. I haven't flown in the last year, but I counted backward from March 2020 so included 1 flight in the year to that point.
Thanks @Foxy that's just the sort of calculator I was looking for.
9.19 tonnes for me. (Disappointed it didn't ask me about our air source heat pump though!)
I'm really surprised by your figures. I thought the UK average was down to 7 tonnes.
Hard to know without looking at the details whether the calculator is up-to-date.
That said, the Monbiot article today had some startling figures on the disparities in carbon use with wealth, so perhaps that explains it.
I have not been following the Rittenhouse case, but after reading the NPR (not exactly a bastion of right-wing, gun-toting, Trumpism), I'd be gobsmacked if he's found guilty.
In the land of the gun toting free, this will be self-defense.
But he went there, with a rifle, into a riot to (in his own words) “protect property”. And now people are dead & he’s in court hoping to avoid a life sentence.
What he actually did was make a bad situation worse.
He’s an irresponsible little shit who killed people. What the jury makes of that is a judgment on them.
Jury selection basically struck off anyone who says that racism is a problem.
So all but one potential black juror was struck off.
I don't understand how his case for self defence for killing an unarmed man was that the unarmed man could have grabbed the tactical rifle that he illegally brought to the protest.
Some of his assailants were also armed
The line the prosecutor took about the last person he shot was utterly utterly comical - the guy has a pistol in his hand and is acting threateningly toward Rittenhouse who is vulnerable on the ground. But because the man with the handgun didn't shoot him 10 feet away, or stand in front of him in a standard 2 hand pistol firing position it entirely nullified Rittenhouse's right to self defence. He should never have his AR15 there, but when people
1) Grab your gun barrel after earlier threatening to kill you 2) Kick you in the head & go after you with a skateboard being used as a weapon & 3) Point a gun at you whilst you're lieing on the ground
You're definitely fearing for your life in all those situations.
I think his assailants (And they all were) assumed he wouldn't use his gun being a somewhat short kid or something. The prosecution has been dire, particularly on the final shooting.
But here's the thing. Someone is waving a gun at you. Isn't the logical thing - to protect yourself - to grab the gun barrel?
I'm not saying Rittenhouse is guilty of murder. But it does seem that this is somewhat akin to drunk driving. You are knowingly putting yourself in a position where somebody is dramatically more likely to die as a result of an accident.
But here's the thing. Someone is waving a gun at you. Isn't the logical thing - to protect yourself - to grab the gun barrel?
Err no. The logical thing is to stop chasing after someone who has just pointed a gun at you 5 seconds earlier.
Really? You'd turn your back on someone who'd been waving a gun at you?
Should people be drilled in how to behave if there's a AR15 toting teenager on the street?
RUN - Escape if you can - Consider the safest options - Is there a safe route? Run, if not Hide - Can you get there without exposing yourself to greater danger? - Insist others leave with you, but don’t let their indecision slow you down. - Leave belongings behind. - Do not attempt to film the incident. Run.
HIDE
- If you cannot Run, Hide
Pretty straightforward advice. If any of Rittenhouse's three assailants had followed it, they would have been fine.
Off topic (like every other post this evening tbf)...
Is there a simple calculator available online that shows the global warming impact we each have through the choices we make?
If we could easily get a summary of the impact of our personal choices (e.g. electric car, flying long-haul, solar panels, new boiler, going veggie, etc. etc.) it might help people decide which steps they could take themsleves.
My assumption is that none of us are going to do everything we possibly could but a simple calculator might make it easy to choose the options that work for us as individuals.
There are quite a few apps and online carbon calculators. The WWF has one. Some seem to be pushing carbon offset sales but I think the calculations themselves are OK.
My carbon footprint on the WWF is 9 tons per year, slightly less than the national average that they cite, and I haven't flown anywhere, and have an electric car and we'll insulated house. It isn't going to be easy going lower.
11 tonnes. I live in a shockingly badly insulated house.
I lied about my flights on the survey. I haven't flown in the last year, but I counted backward from March 2020 so included 1 flight in the year to that point.
14 tonnes for me, actually not as bad as I thought
The travel gets me (even in the Year of Covid). If it weren't for that I'd have a surprisingly light-footed impact on this green earth
Yes a small flat and limited driving helps.
I should downsize really, now that my boys have left home.
I have not been following the Rittenhouse case, but after reading the NPR (not exactly a bastion of right-wing, gun-toting, Trumpism), I'd be gobsmacked if he's found guilty.
In the land of the gun toting free, this will be self-defense.
But he went there, with a rifle, into a riot to (in his own words) “protect property”. And now people are dead & he’s in court hoping to avoid a life sentence.
What he actually did was make a bad situation worse.
He’s an irresponsible little shit who killed people. What the jury makes of that is a judgment on them.
Jury selection basically struck off anyone who says that racism is a problem.
So all but one potential black juror was struck off.
I don't understand how his case for self defence for killing an unarmed man was that the unarmed man could have grabbed the tactical rifle that he illegally brought to the protest.
Essentially Rittenhouse tried to retreat & de-escalate. The first victim chased him across a parking lot before trying to grab his rifle. Rittenhouse is claiming in court (possibly reasonably) that in that moment he was in fear of his life & was justified in shooting. This wasn’t a grab that just happened - the events leading up to it caused Rittenhouse to genuinely believe he was under threat.
That the twerp should never have brough an AR-15 to a riot is separate issue.
You mean concerned citizens were shot dead while trying to disarm an active shooter terrorist?
If Rittenhouse were Afro-American or Muslim he would be dead at the scene. He is only on trial because of being who he is.
The prosecution case would say that, however their star witness has said he pointed a gun at the defendant unprovoked. That validated the defence case that it was an act of self defence. Though I'm not an American, were a gun pointed at me I feel as though I would respond in kind and let the consequences be what they will be.
America is such a strange place and none of us really can be 100% sure about what we'd do in the situations that occur. If you can say 100% that you wouldn't defend yourself against someone who had raised their weapon and threatened your life then fair enough. I wouldn't be able to.
Strange place indeed. Their use of our language masks some of its bizarre weirdness. Especially outside cities.
Not really. For me it's about riding a horse across country *on a wholly unpredictable route*. The trouble with the current pretendy substitute is that you know in advance that the route has been planned by a human being, with all the elf n safety considerations that entails. Nobody goes hunting to "see an animal ripped to pieces" any more than they eat beef to celebrate a bullock being killed in an abattoir.
You can ride a horse across the countryside without ripping foxes to shreds you know.
I would have thought it impossible to miss the point I was making, while still having the ability to connect to and post on the internet. Thank you for surprising me.
Un pre dict ab le.
5 syllables.
The point you were making was that you wish to make a mess of other people’s land without any responsibility purely in the name of “fun”.
I thought you aspired to be a lawyer? Do you genuinely think that hunts cross country without the consent of the landowner? How do you think that would happen?
“Consent of the landowner” aye of course
Jesus. Before a day's hunting a hunt rings each and every landowner in the area, and keeps off land on which it does not have permission to go.
How else do you think it works? Is there a hunting exemption in the law of trespass? Where?
Care to answer my point?
Are you a gallowgate sockpuppet? Because I'm not seeing a point in your own name here
No, I asked about the pets killed by foxhounds that clearly do not have permission to be where they kill the pets.
I find it useful to consider what would happen if a purely working class or chav group came along with dogs and killed someone's cat, or trashed their crop and lawn.
I'm sure the feds would understand that accidents happen
They do. Consider the history of Oxford University dining clubs, and compare the result with what the magistrates would say if a dozen skinheads from the Cowley housing schemes came into a nice Oxon restaurant and then trashed the place. Obviously very understanding, at least until recent years, though.
I grew up in Oxford during the 80s and 90s
- There were nearly no posh eateries. There are a few now, but that is post 2000. - It's a small town. The bar staff all work the different places and know each other. - When the Bullingdon stories first became a thing, when Cameron became Opposition leader, journalists started offering 5 figures for evidence.
So either, the stories were true and a group of university students trashed non-existent posh restaurants and then covered it up so that no-one ever said "I was there". Despite the offer of serious sums of money.
Or a bunch of students threw some bread rolls around in a curry shop and the tales got... enlarged.
Oxford is a city of over 150,000 people, not a small town
More like it’s a small town of over 150,000 people. Or a small town surrounded by fields ringed by a donut of 150,000 people.
An urban area of 150,000 people is on no definition a small town.
A small town is typically a market town of less than 50,000 people, not 3 times that.
Oxford is a city on any definition, confirmed by the fact it has a cathedral and 2 universities too
It's a lot of housing, sure.
In terms of places you go out to in the evening - a few small areas, and you can cover most of them on foot, unless you are heading up the Cowley Road or something.
Have you ever been there?
I spend half my time there alongside Epping as my wife works there, indeed I am there now in Summertown which has plenty of high quality eateries
High quality? In Summertown? You are having a laugh.
Or do you class the "New Dancing Dragon Bar" as high end?
Two One Five, Pompette?
Pompette I wasn't impressed with - South Parade has always been a rather average.
Haven't tried Two One Five.
I just wonder what you're comparing Oxford with (then or now) to have such a poor opinion of its restaurant scene.
Try growing up in Hastings or living in Selby, both of which I have... I can tell you Oxford is a culinary paradise in comparison!
Not fine dining by any stretch but Browns was an institution back in the 80s - no booking and queues every night to get a table. Those were the days!
Christ... Browns.... The inedible in search of the gullible..... They did do some good cocktails for a while, though.
The food was certainly edible and not extortionate. It had an atmosphere that was hard to beat. I have many fond memories of boozy meals there. Went back a few years ago for 'old times' sake'... A very strange experience: the decor is entirely unaltered, the atmosphere completely gone.
Perhaps you were 2 bottles too sober to enjoy it?
It is interesting when you go back to places - have they become shit, or did we just grow out of them?
A bit of both with Browns I suspect. The atmosphere was always great and at the time I thought the food was fine too.
Now I reflect back, the food was very ordinary by today's standards... but this was the 80s.
I remember enjoying Browns around 1989 or something. In fact they even had a branch in Soho
Looking back it was almost certainly mediocre brasserie food. But I do recall a highly boisterous atmosphere
You've nailed it succinctly. (You should become a writer!)
I don't think it requires Tolstoy to pin down Browns circa 1989
A lot of fun but iffy food. Anyone who was young in the 80s or 90s and went to Oxford (as a visitor, resident or student) went to Browns. Not surprising Boris did too
Incidentally a friend of mine from UCL (where we were both students in the 80s) went back there in a professional capacity last week. He went to the student union, to the cloisters, to several of our favoured cafes and pubs. He told me it is all eerily quiet. Everyone works hard and looks studious. Lots of diligent East Asians. No one openly dealing speed on the 5th floor
I found his account unfathomably depressing. I know we were irresponsible fuckwits with student grants (rather than loans) but my God we had fun. I am really not sure these modern kids are having fun. They stare at their phones. They swipe left. They worry about climate change. They end up in debt
Cox is popular, do not forget he has turned a seat the LDs held in 1997 and 2001 into one with a Tory voteshare of 60% in 2019 since he first won the seat in 2005
Off topic (like every other post this evening tbf)...
Is there a simple calculator available online that shows the global warming impact we each have through the choices we make?
If we could easily get a summary of the impact of our personal choices (e.g. electric car, flying long-haul, solar panels, new boiler, going veggie, etc. etc.) it might help people decide which steps they could take themsleves.
My assumption is that none of us are going to do everything we possibly could but a simple calculator might make it easy to choose the options that work for us as individuals.
There are quite a few apps and online carbon calculators. The WWF has one. Some seem to be pushing carbon offset sales but I think the calculations themselves are OK.
My carbon footprint on the WWF is 9 tons per year, slightly less than the national average that they cite, and I haven't flown anywhere, and have an electric car and we'll insulated house. It isn't going to be easy going lower.
11 tonnes. I live in a shockingly badly insulated house.
I lied about my flights on the survey. I haven't flown in the last year, but I counted backward from March 2020 so included 1 flight in the year to that point.
Thanks @Foxy that's just the sort of calculator I was looking for.
9.19 tonnes for me. (Disappointed it didn't ask me about our air source heat pump though!)
Yes, I have seen more sophisticated ones. I need to think seriously about a heat pump system while the subsidy is going. I pay enough in tax, so perhaps should try to get some back, like I did with the electric car.
Off topic (like every other post this evening tbf)...
Is there a simple calculator available online that shows the global warming impact we each have through the choices we make?
If we could easily get a summary of the impact of our personal choices (e.g. electric car, flying long-haul, solar panels, new boiler, going veggie, etc. etc.) it might help people decide which steps they could take themsleves.
My assumption is that none of us are going to do everything we possibly could but a simple calculator might make it easy to choose the options that work for us as individuals.
There are quite a few apps and online carbon calculators. The WWF has one. Some seem to be pushing carbon offset sales but I think the calculations themselves are OK.
My carbon footprint on the WWF is 9 tons per year, slightly less than the national average that they cite, and I haven't flown anywhere, and have an electric car and we'll insulated house. It isn't going to be easy going lower.
11 tonnes. I live in a shockingly badly insulated house.
I lied about my flights on the survey. I haven't flown in the last year, but I counted backward from March 2020 so included 1 flight in the year to that point.
14 tonnes for me, actually not as bad as I thought
The travel gets me (even in the Year of Covid). If it weren't for that I'd have a surprisingly light-footed impact on this green earth
Yes a small flat and limited driving helps.
I should downsize really, now that my boys have left home.
Yes, that's where I "win". And I don't commute. I walk everywhere if I can (and I generally can in central London)
I feel positively virtuous
I have a lefty, somewhat virtue-signalling friend.... who also has a private jet which he uses quite a lot. His carbon footprint must be insane. I wonder how long he can endure the cognitive dissonance. Indeed I wonder how long private jets will be publicly admissible. Unless you are literally a president or a prime minister, no one *needs* a private jet, ever, and the carbon footprint is surely horrific
I bet in about 10 years they will be shamefully hidden away, and no one will admit to using one. Then they will actually banned, perhaps
Off topic (like every other post this evening tbf)...
Is there a simple calculator available online that shows the global warming impact we each have through the choices we make?
If we could easily get a summary of the impact of our personal choices (e.g. electric car, flying long-haul, solar panels, new boiler, going veggie, etc. etc.) it might help people decide which steps they could take themsleves.
My assumption is that none of us are going to do everything we possibly could but a simple calculator might make it easy to choose the options that work for us as individuals.
There are quite a few apps and online carbon calculators. The WWF has one. Some seem to be pushing carbon offset sales but I think the calculations themselves are OK.
My carbon footprint on the WWF is 9 tons per year, slightly less than the national average that they cite, and I haven't flown anywhere, and have an electric car and we'll insulated house. It isn't going to be easy going lower.
11 tonnes. I live in a shockingly badly insulated house.
I lied about my flights on the survey. I haven't flown in the last year, but I counted backward from March 2020 so included 1 flight in the year to that point.
14 tonnes for me, actually not as bad as I thought
The travel gets me (even in the Year of Covid). If it weren't for that I'd have a surprisingly light-footed impact on this green earth
Yes a small flat and limited driving helps.
I should downsize really, now that my boys have left home.
It's all about choices though isn't it? I should downsize, give up meat (go vegan even), stop travelling, buy no more stuff...
But I'm only going to do some of those things, not all, hence it's good to understand how those choices affect my footprint.
Off topic (like every other post this evening tbf)...
Is there a simple calculator available online that shows the global warming impact we each have through the choices we make?
If we could easily get a summary of the impact of our personal choices (e.g. electric car, flying long-haul, solar panels, new boiler, going veggie, etc. etc.) it might help people decide which steps they could take themsleves.
My assumption is that none of us are going to do everything we possibly could but a simple calculator might make it easy to choose the options that work for us as individuals.
There are quite a few apps and online carbon calculators. The WWF has one. Some seem to be pushing carbon offset sales but I think the calculations themselves are OK.
My carbon footprint on the WWF is 9 tons per year, slightly less than the national average that they cite, and I haven't flown anywhere, and have an electric car and we'll insulated house. It isn't going to be easy going lower.
11 tonnes. I live in a shockingly badly insulated house.
I lied about my flights on the survey. I haven't flown in the last year, but I counted backward from March 2020 so included 1 flight in the year to that point.
14 tonnes for me, actually not as bad as I thought
The travel gets me (even in the Year of Covid). If it weren't for that I'd have a surprisingly light-footed impact on this green earth
Yes a small flat and limited driving helps.
I should downsize really, now that my boys have left home.
Yes, that's where I "win". And I don't commute. I walk everywhere if I can (and I generally can in central London)
I feel positively virtuous
I have a lefty, somewhat virtue-signalling friend.... who also has a private jet which he uses quite a lot. His carbon footprint must be insane. I wonder how long he can endure the cognitive dissonance. Indeed I wonder how long private jets will be publicly admissible. Unless you are literally a president or a prime minister, no one *needs* a private jet, ever, and the carbon footprint is surely horrific
I bet in about 10 years they will be shamefully hidden away, and no one will admit to using one. Then they will actually banned, perhaps
Yeah, I already keep mine under wraps, behind the yacht.
Off topic (like every other post this evening tbf)...
Is there a simple calculator available online that shows the global warming impact we each have through the choices we make?
If we could easily get a summary of the impact of our personal choices (e.g. electric car, flying long-haul, solar panels, new boiler, going veggie, etc. etc.) it might help people decide which steps they could take themsleves.
My assumption is that none of us are going to do everything we possibly could but a simple calculator might make it easy to choose the options that work for us as individuals.
There are quite a few apps and online carbon calculators. The WWF has one. Some seem to be pushing carbon offset sales but I think the calculations themselves are OK.
My carbon footprint on the WWF is 9 tons per year, slightly less than the national average that they cite, and I haven't flown anywhere, and have an electric car and we'll insulated house. It isn't going to be easy going lower.
11 tonnes. I live in a shockingly badly insulated house.
I lied about my flights on the survey. I haven't flown in the last year, but I counted backward from March 2020 so included 1 flight in the year to that point.
Thanks @Foxy that's just the sort of calculator I was looking for.
9.19 tonnes for me. (Disappointed it didn't ask me about our air source heat pump though!)
I'm really surprised by your figures. I thought the UK average was down to 7 tonnes.
Hard to know without looking at the details whether the calculator is up-to-date.
That said, the Monbiot article today had some startling figures on the disparities in carbon use with wealth, so perhaps that explains it.
According to the WWF calculator the UK average looks to be about 12.5 tonnes (hard to be sure, it's a dodgy looking graph).
Off topic (like every other post this evening tbf)...
Is there a simple calculator available online that shows the global warming impact we each have through the choices we make?
If we could easily get a summary of the impact of our personal choices (e.g. electric car, flying long-haul, solar panels, new boiler, going veggie, etc. etc.) it might help people decide which steps they could take themsleves.
My assumption is that none of us are going to do everything we possibly could but a simple calculator might make it easy to choose the options that work for us as individuals.
There are quite a few apps and online carbon calculators. The WWF has one. Some seem to be pushing carbon offset sales but I think the calculations themselves are OK.
My carbon footprint on the WWF is 9 tons per year, slightly less than the national average that they cite, and I haven't flown anywhere, and have an electric car and we'll insulated house. It isn't going to be easy going lower.
11 tonnes. I live in a shockingly badly insulated house.
I lied about my flights on the survey. I haven't flown in the last year, but I counted backward from March 2020 so included 1 flight in the year to that point.
14 tonnes for me, actually not as bad as I thought
The travel gets me (even in the Year of Covid). If it weren't for that I'd have a surprisingly light-footed impact on this green earth
Yes a small flat and limited driving helps.
I should downsize really, now that my boys have left home.
Yes, that's where I "win". And I don't commute. I walk everywhere if I can (and I generally can in central London)
I feel positively virtuous
I have a lefty, somewhat virtue-signalling friend.... who also has a private jet which he uses quite a lot. His carbon footprint must be insane. I wonder how long he can endure the cognitive dissonance. Indeed I wonder how long private jets will be publicly admissible. Unless you are literally a president or a prime minister, no one *needs* a private jet, ever, and the carbon footprint is surely horrific
I bet in about 10 years they will be shamefully hidden away, and no one will admit to using one. Then they will actually banned, perhaps
I know quite a lot of people that use private jets, but no-one that actually owns one. Unless you are insanely wealthy (I'm talking minimum $3-400m), then it's much more sensible to do charters or to have jet card.
Cox is popular, do not forget he has turned a seat the LDs held in 1997 and 2001 into one with a Tory voteshare of 60% in 2019 since he first won the seat in 2005
Off topic (like every other post this evening tbf)...
Is there a simple calculator available online that shows the global warming impact we each have through the choices we make?
If we could easily get a summary of the impact of our personal choices (e.g. electric car, flying long-haul, solar panels, new boiler, going veggie, etc. etc.) it might help people decide which steps they could take themsleves.
My assumption is that none of us are going to do everything we possibly could but a simple calculator might make it easy to choose the options that work for us as individuals.
There are quite a few apps and online carbon calculators. The WWF has one. Some seem to be pushing carbon offset sales but I think the calculations themselves are OK.
My carbon footprint on the WWF is 9 tons per year, slightly less than the national average that they cite, and I haven't flown anywhere, and have an electric car and we'll insulated house. It isn't going to be easy going lower.
11 tonnes. I live in a shockingly badly insulated house.
I lied about my flights on the survey. I haven't flown in the last year, but I counted backward from March 2020 so included 1 flight in the year to that point.
14 tonnes for me, actually not as bad as I thought
The travel gets me (even in the Year of Covid). If it weren't for that I'd have a surprisingly light-footed impact on this green earth
Yes a small flat and limited driving helps.
I should downsize really, now that my boys have left home.
Yes, that's where I "win". And I don't commute. I walk everywhere if I can (and I generally can in central London)
I feel positively virtuous
I have a lefty, somewhat virtue-signalling friend.... who also has a private jet which he uses quite a lot. His carbon footprint must be insane. I wonder how long he can endure the cognitive dissonance. Indeed I wonder how long private jets will be publicly admissible. Unless you are literally a president or a prime minister, no one *needs* a private jet, ever, and the carbon footprint is surely horrific
I bet in about 10 years they will be shamefully hidden away, and no one will admit to using one. Then they will actually banned, perhaps
I know quite a lot of people that use private jets, but no-one that actually owns one. Unless you are insanely wealthy (I'm talking minimum $3-400m), then it's much more sensible to do charters or to have jet card.
He owns. He and his wife are insanely wealthy. He actually invited me on it a few weeks ago, to catch some Californian sun, but it was impossible as the US was not letting in Europeans then (plus I had to go take my older daughter to see a sixth form in North Finchley, which is quite bathetic)
Off topic (like every other post this evening tbf)...
Is there a simple calculator available online that shows the global warming impact we each have through the choices we make?
If we could easily get a summary of the impact of our personal choices (e.g. electric car, flying long-haul, solar panels, new boiler, going veggie, etc. etc.) it might help people decide which steps they could take themsleves.
My assumption is that none of us are going to do everything we possibly could but a simple calculator might make it easy to choose the options that work for us as individuals.
There are quite a few apps and online carbon calculators. The WWF has one. Some seem to be pushing carbon offset sales but I think the calculations themselves are OK.
My carbon footprint on the WWF is 9 tons per year, slightly less than the national average that they cite, and I haven't flown anywhere, and have an electric car and we'll insulated house. It isn't going to be easy going lower.
11 tonnes. I live in a shockingly badly insulated house.
I lied about my flights on the survey. I haven't flown in the last year, but I counted backward from March 2020 so included 1 flight in the year to that point.
Thanks @Foxy that's just the sort of calculator I was looking for.
9.19 tonnes for me. (Disappointed it didn't ask me about our air source heat pump though!)
Yes, I have seen more sophisticated ones. I need to think seriously about a heat pump system while the subsidy is going. I pay enough in tax, so perhaps should try to get some back, like I did with the electric car.
At least some of the questions are fairly stupidly written. I've not got a clue how many hours a week I spend driving. I know I drive about 25k miles a year, at about 50mpg (although it's dropped by about 10% since the switch to E10 - which reduction will be more than offsetting any eco-virtue from switching from E5, as well as costing me a fortune - thanks stupid green morons).
45,416 cases in Germany, 244 deaths (both higher than the UK) - as per Worldometer
Really surging there
Is this a statistical freak, or gremlin, or something else? Because 45k cases is way higher than anything expected, and by far the biggest daily number ever reported in Germany
Could you please stop picking days of reporting from Germany.
For whatever reason, their reporting is very very spiky. So post 7 day averages.
Those are bad enough, at the moment.
I'll do what I like, thanks very much, and you can ignore it or not
45k cases is so completely out of whack it does raise suspicions. The previous highest was ~32k back in April 2021
Worldometers' 7 day average supports your point here Leon. It's doubled in two weeks.
It looks like chunks of Europe are heading for new lockdowns. Romania has had a curfew for a while, already
As you said yesterday, though, most places will have restrictions that fall short of 'lockdowns'. There'll be mask mandates and vaxports... but (except in a very few places) no compulsory shutdowns of businesses.
Yes, I still think that is the likelier outcome.
However, remember how close the UK got to new lockdowns. Remember Plan B, Starmer whining, all the wanker-lefty doctors and iSAGE doing their shtick. LOCKDOWN NOW AND FOREVER
I was quite surprised HMG held their ground, and I was pleased they did
Will that be repeated across Europe? Lots of those countries have already gone further than the UK- they have vaxports and 2G and all that. How many days of alarmingly spiking cases can they endure, before the psychological pressure to lockdown "properly" becomes irresistible?
That's one reason I pointed to the German figure today. Yes it is clearly a statistical outlier but you only need a few of those to freak people out.... and then they don't become outliers, anyway. They are a trend
I'm not sure why you always insist on inaccuracy whenever you mention Germany. It is really very simple to get the actual German figure, as you have been told several times, rather than the made up "worldometer" figure. Eg here: https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Fallzahlen.html 39,676 Also, daily cases and deaths are lower than the UK per capita, although that will change very soon.
But I don't know why you imagine 45k cases would be way higher than expected (in general terms), I am actually surprised it didn't reach that kind of figure a weeks ago.
Anyway, the problem in Germany is not numbers of cases, it's the very high number of unvaccinated people. Even now there are 3.5 million over 60s who are unvaccinated - this is why nobody has been tempted to deliberately have an exit wave. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much of any kind of plan.
Not really. For me it's about riding a horse across country *on a wholly unpredictable route*. The trouble with the current pretendy substitute is that you know in advance that the route has been planned by a human being, with all the elf n safety considerations that entails. Nobody goes hunting to "see an animal ripped to pieces" any more than they eat beef to celebrate a bullock being killed in an abattoir.
You can ride a horse across the countryside without ripping foxes to shreds you know.
I would have thought it impossible to miss the point I was making, while still having the ability to connect to and post on the internet. Thank you for surprising me.
Un pre dict ab le.
5 syllables.
The point you were making was that you wish to make a mess of other people’s land without any responsibility purely in the name of “fun”.
I thought you aspired to be a lawyer? Do you genuinely think that hunts cross country without the consent of the landowner? How do you think that would happen?
“Consent of the landowner” aye of course
Jesus. Before a day's hunting a hunt rings each and every landowner in the area, and keeps off land on which it does not have permission to go.
How else do you think it works? Is there a hunting exemption in the law of trespass? Where?
Care to answer my point?
Are you a gallowgate sockpuppet? Because I'm not seeing a point in your own name here
No, I asked about the pets killed by foxhounds that clearly do not have permission to be where they kill the pets.
I find it useful to consider what would happen if a purely working class or chav group came along with dogs and killed someone's cat, or trashed their crop and lawn.
I'm sure the feds would understand that accidents happen
They do. Consider the history of Oxford University dining clubs, and compare the result with what the magistrates would say if a dozen skinheads from the Cowley housing schemes came into a nice Oxon restaurant and then trashed the place. Obviously very understanding, at least until recent years, though.
I grew up in Oxford during the 80s and 90s
- There were nearly no posh eateries. There are a few now, but that is post 2000. - It's a small town. The bar staff all work the different places and know each other. - When the Bullingdon stories first became a thing, when Cameron became Opposition leader, journalists started offering 5 figures for evidence.
So either, the stories were true and a group of university students trashed non-existent posh restaurants and then covered it up so that no-one ever said "I was there". Despite the offer of serious sums of money.
Or a bunch of students threw some bread rolls around in a curry shop and the tales got... enlarged.
Oxford is a city of over 150,000 people, not a small town
More like it’s a small town of over 150,000 people. Or a small town surrounded by fields ringed by a donut of 150,000 people.
An urban area of 150,000 people is on no definition a small town.
A small town is typically a market town of less than 50,000 people, not 3 times that.
Oxford is a city on any definition, confirmed by the fact it has a cathedral and 2 universities too
It's a lot of housing, sure.
In terms of places you go out to in the evening - a few small areas, and you can cover most of them on foot, unless you are heading up the Cowley Road or something.
Have you ever been there?
I spend half my time there alongside Epping as my wife works there, indeed I am there now in Summertown which has plenty of high quality eateries
High quality? In Summertown? You are having a laugh.
Or do you class the "New Dancing Dragon Bar" as high end?
Two One Five, Pompette?
Pompette I wasn't impressed with - South Parade has always been a rather average.
Haven't tried Two One Five.
I just wonder what you're comparing Oxford with (then or now) to have such a poor opinion of its restaurant scene.
Try growing up in Hastings or living in Selby, both of which I have... I can tell you Oxford is a culinary paradise in comparison!
Not fine dining by any stretch but Browns was an institution back in the 80s - no booking and queues every night to get a table. Those were the days!
Christ... Browns.... The inedible in search of the gullible..... They did do some good cocktails for a while, though.
The food was certainly edible and not extortionate. It had an atmosphere that was hard to beat. I have many fond memories of boozy meals there. Went back a few years ago for 'old times' sake'... A very strange experience: the decor is entirely unaltered, the atmosphere completely gone.
Perhaps you were 2 bottles too sober to enjoy it?
It is interesting when you go back to places - have they become shit, or did we just grow out of them?
A bit of both with Browns I suspect. The atmosphere was always great and at the time I thought the food was fine too.
Now I reflect back, the food was very ordinary by today's standards... but this was the 80s.
Ahmed's Kebab van outside Univ? The Carfax chippy?
No Michelin starred restaurant could possibly compete.
On topic, it isn't a very balanced understanding between the parties, because while the LDs have a good chance of winning North Shropshire, there's not much possibility of Old Bexley going to Labour.
Off topic (like every other post this evening tbf)...
Is there a simple calculator available online that shows the global warming impact we each have through the choices we make?
If we could easily get a summary of the impact of our personal choices (e.g. electric car, flying long-haul, solar panels, new boiler, going veggie, etc. etc.) it might help people decide which steps they could take themsleves.
My assumption is that none of us are going to do everything we possibly could but a simple calculator might make it easy to choose the options that work for us as individuals.
There are quite a few apps and online carbon calculators. The WWF has one. Some seem to be pushing carbon offset sales but I think the calculations themselves are OK.
My carbon footprint on the WWF is 9 tons per year, slightly less than the national average that they cite, and I haven't flown anywhere, and have an electric car and we'll insulated house. It isn't going to be easy going lower.
11 tonnes. I live in a shockingly badly insulated house.
I lied about my flights on the survey. I haven't flown in the last year, but I counted backward from March 2020 so included 1 flight in the year to that point.
Thanks @Foxy that's just the sort of calculator I was looking for.
9.19 tonnes for me. (Disappointed it didn't ask me about our air source heat pump though!)
Yes, I have seen more sophisticated ones. I need to think seriously about a heat pump system while the subsidy is going. I pay enough in tax, so perhaps should try to get some back, like I did with the electric car.
At least some of the questions are fairly stupidly written. I've not got a clue how many hours a week I spend driving. I know I drive about 25k miles a year, at about 50mpg (although it's dropped by about 10% since the switch to E10 - which reduction will be more than offsetting any eco-virtue from switching from E5, as well as costing me a fortune - thanks stupid green morons).
Yes, it wasn't exactly sophisticated. Some questions seemed to be more advert targeting than CO2 calculations.
For the record, about 7.8t here. No flying and not vast amounts of driving (before or after covid), small house, don't buy a lot of 'stuff'.
Going to be annoying when I do get free to go places and it is all banned or 5 times the price of today. I guess the bicycle collection will just have to get a bit larger.
Every public building I've been in recently has had the heating turned up to 100% despite the fact that it's been around 12-15 degrees outside. I had to walk out of one building because it was so hot inside, in order to get some fresh air. Therefore one way to help with climate change might be to not put the heating on unless it's actually necessary, which would be less than 10 degrees.
Every public building I've been in recently has had the heating turned up to 100% despite the fact that it's been around 12-15 degrees outside. I had to walk out of one building because it was so hot inside, in order to get some fresh air. Therefore one way to help with climate change might be to not put the heating on unless it's actually necessary, which would be less than 10 degrees.
It is worth remembering that there is no gradient with building heating system: they are either on or they are off. The issue is supposed to be solved with thermostats that mean heating only comes on when the temperature inside the building is below a certain level.
The problem with some buildings is that they tend to see-saw: when the thermostat trips off, there is still 2-3 degrees of heating to come, and when it trips on, the temperature is still going to drop a couple of percent before the heating compensates.
45,416 cases in Germany, 244 deaths (both higher than the UK) - as per Worldometer
Really surging there
Is this a statistical freak, or gremlin, or something else? Because 45k cases is way higher than anything expected, and by far the biggest daily number ever reported in Germany
Could you please stop picking days of reporting from Germany.
For whatever reason, their reporting is very very spiky. So post 7 day averages.
Those are bad enough, at the moment.
I'll do what I like, thanks very much, and you can ignore it or not
45k cases is so completely out of whack it does raise suspicions. The previous highest was ~32k back in April 2021
Worldometers' 7 day average supports your point here Leon. It's doubled in two weeks.
It looks like chunks of Europe are heading for new lockdowns. Romania has had a curfew for a while, already
As you said yesterday, though, most places will have restrictions that fall short of 'lockdowns'. There'll be mask mandates and vaxports... but (except in a very few places) no compulsory shutdowns of businesses.
Yes, I still think that is the likelier outcome.
However, remember how close the UK got to new lockdowns. Remember Plan B, Starmer whining, all the wanker-lefty doctors and iSAGE doing their shtick. LOCKDOWN NOW AND FOREVER
I was quite surprised HMG held their ground, and I was pleased they did
Will that be repeated across Europe? Lots of those countries have already gone further than the UK- they have vaxports and 2G and all that. How many days of alarmingly spiking cases can they endure, before the psychological pressure to lockdown "properly" becomes irresistible?
That's one reason I pointed to the German figure today. Yes it is clearly a statistical outlier but you only need a few of those to freak people out.... and then they don't become outliers, anyway. They are a trend
I'm not sure why you always insist on inaccuracy whenever you mention Germany. It is really very simple to get the actual German figure, as you have been told several times, rather than the made up "worldometer" figure. Eg here: https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Fallzahlen.html 39,676 Also, daily cases and deaths are lower than the UK per capita, although that will change very soon.
But I don't know why you imagine 45k cases would be way higher than expected (in general terms), I am actually surprised it didn't reach that kind of figure a weeks ago.
Anyway, the problem in Germany is not numbers of cases, it's the very high number of unvaccinated people. Even now there are 3.5 million over 60s who are unvaccinated - this is why nobody has been tempted to deliberately have an exit wave. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much of any kind of plan.
Worldometers was publishing a cumulative number as data became available, but the official RKI figure has just been released and it's +50,196.
Brilliant film by Nick Broomfield just finished on BBC4 about his relationship with his father (an important photographer in his own right which I didn't know) plus other important stuff. Intimate is such a whored out word but it's so intimate it hurts. Recommended.
He can be such an egoitist which can drive you mad but he really got that one right. I saw it a while ago. Well worth watching. It's excellent
The MP, whom The Times is not naming, was taken to her hotel and was unable to attend a “welcome event” put on for the MPs by the military
It is understood that she was returning to the UK today — two days early — after speaking to Labour whips
The report said that the female MP was with two SNP MPs, David Linden and Drew Hendry, who were “difficult” with customs and testing staff at the airport on Tuesday night
I was messaged earlier that the Labour MP is Charlotte Nichols.
Fuck me. They must be sure of their ground, calling an MP drunk in print, if they weren't, is fucking expensive.
Plus, we've all been that drunk in university days, but most people have learned to control/moderate/disguise it by their mid twenties.
Not really a good week for those who govern us, on any front.
We’ll probably discover (a few minutes after she does) that she is a nervous flyer and took a pill to help her sleep. Before getting bladdered on a modest number of drinks
'I wasn't drunk, it was my pills': Labour MP who 'needed a wheelchair to get off three-hour flight to Gibraltar for Remembrance event' says she had 'less than five' drinks as Defence Secretary slams her and other 'boozy' Commons colleagues for 'disrespect'
The MP, whom The Times is not naming, was taken to her hotel and was unable to attend a “welcome event” put on for the MPs by the military
It is understood that she was returning to the UK today — two days early — after speaking to Labour whips
The report said that the female MP was with two SNP MPs, David Linden and Drew Hendry, who were “difficult” with customs and testing staff at the airport on Tuesday night
I was messaged earlier that the Labour MP is Charlotte Nichols.
Fuck me. They must be sure of their ground, calling an MP drunk in print, if they weren't, is fucking expensive.
Plus, we've all been that drunk in university days, but most people have learned to control/moderate/disguise it by their mid twenties.
Not really a good week for those who govern us, on any front.
We’ll probably discover (a few minutes after she does) that she is a nervous flyer and took a pill to help her sleep. Before getting bladdered on a modest number of drinks
'I wasn't drunk, it was my pills': Labour MP who 'needed a wheelchair to get off three-hour flight to Gibraltar for Remembrance event' says she had 'less than five' drinks as Defence Secretary slams her and other 'boozy' Commons colleagues for 'disrespect'
Were they those pills that say: 'Do not take with alocohol?'
45,416 cases in Germany, 244 deaths (both higher than the UK) - as per Worldometer
Really surging there
Is this a statistical freak, or gremlin, or something else? Because 45k cases is way higher than anything expected, and by far the biggest daily number ever reported in Germany
Could you please stop picking days of reporting from Germany.
For whatever reason, their reporting is very very spiky. So post 7 day averages.
Those are bad enough, at the moment.
I'll do what I like, thanks very much, and you can ignore it or not
45k cases is so completely out of whack it does raise suspicions. The previous highest was ~32k back in April 2021
Worldometers' 7 day average supports your point here Leon. It's doubled in two weeks.
It looks like chunks of Europe are heading for new lockdowns. Romania has had a curfew for a while, already
As you said yesterday, though, most places will have restrictions that fall short of 'lockdowns'. There'll be mask mandates and vaxports... but (except in a very few places) no compulsory shutdowns of businesses.
Yes, I still think that is the likelier outcome.
However, remember how close the UK got to new lockdowns. Remember Plan B, Starmer whining, all the wanker-lefty doctors and iSAGE doing their shtick. LOCKDOWN NOW AND FOREVER
I was quite surprised HMG held their ground, and I was pleased they did
Will that be repeated across Europe? Lots of those countries have already gone further than the UK- they have vaxports and 2G and all that. How many days of alarmingly spiking cases can they endure, before the psychological pressure to lockdown "properly" becomes irresistible?
That's one reason I pointed to the German figure today. Yes it is clearly a statistical outlier but you only need a few of those to freak people out.... and then they don't become outliers, anyway. They are a trend
I'm not sure why you always insist on inaccuracy whenever you mention Germany. It is really very simple to get the actual German figure, as you have been told several times, rather than the made up "worldometer" figure. Eg here: https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Fallzahlen.html 39,676 Also, daily cases and deaths are lower than the UK per capita, although that will change very soon.
But I don't know why you imagine 45k cases would be way higher than expected (in general terms), I am actually surprised it didn't reach that kind of figure a weeks ago.
Anyway, the problem in Germany is not numbers of cases, it's the very high number of unvaccinated people. Even now there are 3.5 million over 60s who are unvaccinated - this is why nobody has been tempted to deliberately have an exit wave. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much of any kind of plan.
Worldometers was publishing a cumulative number as data became available, but the official RKI figure has just been released and it's +50,196.
Worldometers still have the figure for the 10th Nov as 45,416 when as you say it should be 50,196 (and deaths 235). Worldometers may be attempting to update as data becomes available, but they seem to be doing a very bad job of it. Their daily Germany figures have been wrong since the start of the pandemic, sometimes wildly so.
So, a quick look around the papers says the top three stories this morning are:
1. Duchess of Sussex, presumably taking one step further towards being the former Duchess, after admitting to ‘mis-remembering’ a key detail of a court case. 2. Geoffrey Cox, who hasn’t done anything wrong but is despised for having a really good job. 3. Labour MP getting blotto on a flight to a remembrance service.
Are we seeing a change in the narrative?
The continued pushing of the Cox story, by opponents of the government, is seriously distracting from other Conservatives who do have questions to answer about paid lobbying.
45,416 cases in Germany, 244 deaths (both higher than the UK) - as per Worldometer
Really surging there
Is this a statistical freak, or gremlin, or something else? Because 45k cases is way higher than anything expected, and by far the biggest daily number ever reported in Germany
Could you please stop picking days of reporting from Germany.
For whatever reason, their reporting is very very spiky. So post 7 day averages.
Those are bad enough, at the moment.
I'll do what I like, thanks very much, and you can ignore it or not
45k cases is so completely out of whack it does raise suspicions. The previous highest was ~32k back in April 2021
Worldometers' 7 day average supports your point here Leon. It's doubled in two weeks.
It looks like chunks of Europe are heading for new lockdowns. Romania has had a curfew for a while, already
As you said yesterday, though, most places will have restrictions that fall short of 'lockdowns'. There'll be mask mandates and vaxports... but (except in a very few places) no compulsory shutdowns of businesses.
Yes, I still think that is the likelier outcome.
However, remember how close the UK got to new lockdowns. Remember Plan B, Starmer whining, all the wanker-lefty doctors and iSAGE doing their shtick. LOCKDOWN NOW AND FOREVER
I was quite surprised HMG held their ground, and I was pleased they did
Will that be repeated across Europe? Lots of those countries have already gone further than the UK- they have vaxports and 2G and all that. How many days of alarmingly spiking cases can they endure, before the psychological pressure to lockdown "properly" becomes irresistible?
That's one reason I pointed to the German figure today. Yes it is clearly a statistical outlier but you only need a few of those to freak people out.... and then they don't become outliers, anyway. They are a trend
I'm not sure why you always insist on inaccuracy whenever you mention Germany. It is really very simple to get the actual German figure, as you have been told several times, rather than the made up "worldometer" figure. Eg here: https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Fallzahlen.html 39,676 Also, daily cases and deaths are lower than the UK per capita, although that will change very soon.
But I don't know why you imagine 45k cases would be way higher than expected (in general terms), I am actually surprised it didn't reach that kind of figure a weeks ago.
Anyway, the problem in Germany is not numbers of cases, it's the very high number of unvaccinated people. Even now there are 3.5 million over 60s who are unvaccinated - this is why nobody has been tempted to deliberately have an exit wave. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much of any kind of plan.
Worldometers was publishing a cumulative number as data became available, but the official RKI figure has just been released and it's +50,196.
Yesterday's German numbers were down week-over-week to the extent that the seven day moving average actually dipped. Today's have returned the seven day average to trend growth, so my gut is that there was a Lander that didn't report yesterday, and which saw two days today.
There is a very curious pattern to German numbers, with Tuesday normally marking the high point for the week, and then a decline all the way to the following Monday, followed (again) by a big spike on Tuesday. This time, the Tuesday spike happened on Wednesday.
So, a quick look around the papers says the top three stories this morning are:
1. Duchess of Sussex, presumably taking one step further towards being the former Duchess, after admitting to ‘mis-remembering’ a key detail of a court case. 2. Geoffrey Cox, who hasn’t done anything wrong but is despised for having a really good job. 3. Labour MP getting blotto on a flight to a remembrance service.
Are we seeing a change in the narrative?
The continued pushing of the Cox story, by opponents of the government, is seriously distracting from other Conservatives who do have questions to answer about paid lobbying.
I would say the Cox story suits BJ (who doesnt like Cox) its not so much about corrupt but more a moonlighting story and therefore confuses folk (ie it makes it more about MPs and pay rather than the Paterson/IDS/Hancock antics....) I sense that it is being peddled as much by Conservatives (muddying the waters) than just opponents. BJ doesnt care for Cox (who is a somewhat pompous gammon) so he's the fall guy
Mornin' all. Reasonably good day chez Cole yesterday, although rather spoiled by the result at the cricket. Is it ABA today...... anyone but Australia?
Must say I suspect our PM is over-protesting when he says this country is 'nowhere near corrupt"; not a corrupt as many of course, but there are some rather nasty scandals waiting to be uncovered, some at least of them relating to his administration. And I feel that some at least of the furore over Sir Geoffrey Cox is jealousy at the amount of money he's been able to earn!
Every public building I've been in recently has had the heating turned up to 100% despite the fact that it's been around 12-15 degrees outside. I had to walk out of one building because it was so hot inside, in order to get some fresh air. Therefore one way to help with climate change might be to not put the heating on unless it's actually necessary, which would be less than 10 degrees.
It is worth remembering that there is no gradient with building heating system: they are either on or they are off. The issue is supposed to be solved with thermostats that mean heating only comes on when the temperature inside the building is below a certain level.
The problem with some buildings is that they tend to see-saw: when the thermostat trips off, there is still 2-3 degrees of heating to come, and when it trips on, the temperature is still going to drop a couple of percent before the heating compensates.
Yes, the system needs to either be hot or off. Tepid is a legionella risk.
So, a quick look around the papers says the top three stories this morning are:
1. Duchess of Sussex, presumably taking one step further towards being the former Duchess, after admitting to ‘mis-remembering’ a key detail of a court case. 2. Geoffrey Cox, who hasn’t done anything wrong but is despised for having a really good job. 3. Labour MP getting blotto on a flight to a remembrance service.
Are we seeing a change in the narrative?
The continued pushing of the Cox story, by opponents of the government, is seriously distracting from other Conservatives who do have questions to answer about paid lobbying.
I would say the Cox story suits BJ (who doesnt like Cox) its not so much about corrupt but more a moonlighting story and therefore confuses folk (ie it makes it more about MPs and pay rather than the Paterson/IDS/Hancock antics....) I sense that it is being peddled as much by Conservatives (muddying the waters) than just opponents. BJ doesnt care for Cox (who is a somewhat pompous gammon) so he's the fall guy
The Cox story suits pretty much everyone, except Labour.
Cox himself doesn’t care, and neither do his constituents. Those who really hate him are the FBPE mob on Twitter, because of his role in the Brexit legal advice, and these people have a high profile towards the media.
The government are happy for the ‘story’ to be about someone who’s clearly done nothing wrong, except for having the ability to earn well.
Labour need to ignore him, no matter how much they dislike the rich man personally, and concentrate their efforts exclusively on people with questions to answer about lobbying.
I also suspect, and I know that this is an unpopular view, that the public are prepared to give the government an awful lot of leeway on pandemic spending decisions. On the other hand, the national audit office are slowly going through all the contracts, and there will almost certainly be prosecutions of people who were taking the money and running.
The MP, whom The Times is not naming, was taken to her hotel and was unable to attend a “welcome event” put on for the MPs by the military
It is understood that she was returning to the UK today — two days early — after speaking to Labour whips
The report said that the female MP was with two SNP MPs, David Linden and Drew Hendry, who were “difficult” with customs and testing staff at the airport on Tuesday night
I was messaged earlier that the Labour MP is Charlotte Nichols.
Fuck me. They must be sure of their ground, calling an MP drunk in print, if they weren't, is fucking expensive.
Plus, we've all been that drunk in university days, but most people have learned to control/moderate/disguise it by their mid twenties.
Not really a good week for those who govern us, on any front.
We’ll probably discover (a few minutes after she does) that she is a nervous flyer and took a pill to help her sleep. Before getting bladdered on a modest number of drinks
'I wasn't drunk, it was my pills': Labour MP who 'needed a wheelchair to get off three-hour flight to Gibraltar for Remembrance event' says she had 'less than five' drinks as Defence Secretary slams her and other 'boozy' Commons colleagues for 'disrespect'
Ah, it’s the old ‘it’s my pills’ excuse. Boozing while taking pills.what could go wrong !
So, a quick look around the papers says the top three stories this morning are:
1. Duchess of Sussex, presumably taking one step further towards being the former Duchess, after admitting to ‘mis-remembering’ a key detail of a court case. 2. Geoffrey Cox, who hasn’t done anything wrong but is despised for having a really good job. 3. Labour MP getting blotto on a flight to a remembrance service.
Are we seeing a change in the narrative?
The continued pushing of the Cox story, by opponents of the government, is seriously distracting from other Conservatives who do have questions to answer about paid lobbying.
I would say the Cox story suits BJ (who doesnt like Cox) its not so much about corrupt but more a moonlighting story and therefore confuses folk (ie it makes it more about MPs and pay rather than the Paterson/IDS/Hancock antics....) I sense that it is being peddled as much by Conservatives (muddying the waters) than just opponents. BJ doesnt care for Cox (who is a somewhat pompous gammon) so he's the fall guy
I have no doubt you are right. I suggested earlier in the week they were happy to throw Cox, who has done nothing wrong, under the bus.
So, a quick look around the papers says the top three stories this morning are:
1. Duchess of Sussex, presumably taking one step further towards being the former Duchess, after admitting to ‘mis-remembering’ a key detail of a court case. 2. Geoffrey Cox, who hasn’t done anything wrong but is despised for having a really good job. 3. Labour MP getting blotto on a flight to a remembrance service.
Are we seeing a change in the narrative?
The continued pushing of the Cox story, by opponents of the government, is seriously distracting from other Conservatives who do have questions to answer about paid lobbying.
I would say the Cox story suits BJ (who doesnt like Cox) its not so much about corrupt but more a moonlighting story and therefore confuses folk (ie it makes it more about MPs and pay rather than the Paterson/IDS/Hancock antics....) I sense that it is being peddled as much by Conservatives (muddying the waters) than just opponents. BJ doesnt care for Cox (who is a somewhat pompous gammon) so he's the fall guy
The Cox story suits pretty much everyone, except Labour.
Cox himself doesn’t care, and neither do his constituents. Those who really hate him are the FBPE mob on Twitter, because of his role in the Brexit legal advice, and these people have a high profile towards the media.
The government are happy for the ‘story’ to be about someone who’s clearly done nothing wrong, except for having the ability to earn well.
Labour need to ignore him, no matter how much they dislike the rich man personally, and concentrate their efforts exclusively on people with questions to answer about lobbying.
I also suspect, and I know that this is an unpopular view, that the public are prepared to give the government an awful lot of leeway on pandemic spending decisions. On the other hand, the national audit office are slowly going through all the contracts, and there will almost certainly be prosecutions of people who were taking the money and running.
No, the Cox story is quite useful for Labour. The idea of making £900 000 in a year in a part time job, flying to the Caribbean while everyone was locked down, all helps to show that the Tories haven't changed. Speaking for the Red Wall my arse!
So, a quick look around the papers says the top three stories this morning are:
1. Duchess of Sussex, presumably taking one step further towards being the former Duchess, after admitting to ‘mis-remembering’ a key detail of a court case. 2. Geoffrey Cox, who hasn’t done anything wrong but is despised for having a really good job. 3. Labour MP getting blotto on a flight to a remembrance service.
Are we seeing a change in the narrative?
The continued pushing of the Cox story, by opponents of the government, is seriously distracting from other Conservatives who do have questions to answer about paid lobbying.
I would say the Cox story suits BJ (who doesnt like Cox) its not so much about corrupt but more a moonlighting story and therefore confuses folk (ie it makes it more about MPs and pay rather than the Paterson/IDS/Hancock antics....) I sense that it is being peddled as much by Conservatives (muddying the waters) than just opponents. BJ doesnt care for Cox (who is a somewhat pompous gammon) so he's the fall guy
I have no doubt you are right. I suggested earlier in the week they were happy to throw Cox, who has done nothing wrong, under the bus.
While I think Cox was within the rules, I do feel he was rather pushing at the edges of those rules. There's also a suspicion that the administrations of such places as the BVI provide havens for those who similarly 'push the boundaries', and in acting for those administrations against the British Government he was keeping some very dodgy company.
Every public building I've been in recently has had the heating turned up to 100% despite the fact that it's been around 12-15 degrees outside. I had to walk out of one building because it was so hot inside, in order to get some fresh air. Therefore one way to help with climate change might be to not put the heating on unless it's actually necessary, which would be less than 10 degrees.
It is worth remembering that there is no gradient with building heating system: they are either on or they are off. The issue is supposed to be solved with thermostats that mean heating only comes on when the temperature inside the building is below a certain level.
The problem with some buildings is that they tend to see-saw: when the thermostat trips off, there is still 2-3 degrees of heating to come, and when it trips on, the temperature is still going to drop a couple of percent before the heating compensates.
Yes, the system needs to either be hot or off. Tepid is a legionella risk.
So, a quick look around the papers says the top three stories this morning are:
1. Duchess of Sussex, presumably taking one step further towards being the former Duchess, after admitting to ‘mis-remembering’ a key detail of a court case. 2. Geoffrey Cox, who hasn’t done anything wrong but is despised for having a really good job. 3. Labour MP getting blotto on a flight to a remembrance service.
Are we seeing a change in the narrative?
The continued pushing of the Cox story, by opponents of the government, is seriously distracting from other Conservatives who do have questions to answer about paid lobbying.
I would say the Cox story suits BJ (who doesnt like Cox) its not so much about corrupt but more a moonlighting story and therefore confuses folk (ie it makes it more about MPs and pay rather than the Paterson/IDS/Hancock antics....) I sense that it is being peddled as much by Conservatives (muddying the waters) than just opponents. BJ doesnt care for Cox (who is a somewhat pompous gammon) so he's the fall guy
The Cox story suits pretty much everyone, except Labour.
Cox himself doesn’t care, and neither do his constituents. Those who really hate him are the FBPE mob on Twitter, because of his role in the Brexit legal advice, and these people have a high profile towards the media.
The government are happy for the ‘story’ to be about someone who’s clearly done nothing wrong, except for having the ability to earn well.
Labour need to ignore him, no matter how much they dislike the rich man personally, and concentrate their efforts exclusively on people with questions to answer about lobbying.
I also suspect, and I know that this is an unpopular view, that the public are prepared to give the government an awful lot of leeway on pandemic spending decisions. On the other hand, the national audit office are slowly going through all the contracts, and there will almost certainly be prosecutions of people who were taking the money and running.
No, the Cox story is quite useful for Labour. The idea of making £900 000 in a year in a part time job, flying to the Caribbean while everyone was locked down, all helps to show that the Tories haven't changed. Speaking for the Red Wall my arse!
While that may be true, the concentration is on the trivial rather than the important cases. It’s the politics of envy, when there are others with genuine questions to answer - including a former leader of the Conservative party!
Lots of Woke people on Twitter are now complaining about the use of the word Woke, which is simultaneously vague, derogatory, pointless, lazy, biased, old-fashioned, inaccurate, or only used by old people. Or Trumpites. Or idiots. Or enemies of anti-racism.
"Let me say, again, the use of the word wokeness and/or woke by journalists is lazy and biased and counts on the reader/viewer filling in with his or her own stereotypes. If you can’t state specifically what you mean, why are you writing it?"
Clearly, they really hate the word Woke. It really stings. Good
You overlabel people as Woke, you find diverse reactions to the label. I mean, duh.
It's a perfect insult. And it's very catchy. That's why the Woke hate it.
It cleverly captures an entire spectrum of stupid "progressive" belief in one short, spiteful word. WOKE
It even sounds oddly menacing. The Woke. The Wokeness. The Wokening. They Are Coming. Be Afraid
Racist
It's a perfect insult. And it's very catchy. That's why the Racists hate it. It cleverly captures an entire spectrum of stupid "regressive" belief in one short, spiteful word. RACIST It even sounds oddly menacing. The Racists. The Racism. The Racialism. They Are Coming. Be Afraid
Oh dear. Oh deary me
I know what you mean. #oneofus
To be generous to you, you inadvertently make a point
For many years the Right has been looking for a decent insult to hurl at its opponents, as good as Fascist, or Trumpite or, yes, "racist"
Until now none has quite hit the mark. "Political correctness" is far too long and clumsy. "Liberal" might work for a few American Fox-watchers, but liberal has a tinge of goodness whoever you are. Liberal. Liberty, Libertarian!
"Marxist" is as extreme as Fascist but without the bite. "Commie" sounds antique. And so on
Suddenly there is a word which completely summarises all these annoying wanky people, and it is suitably venomous and monosyllabic
"Fuck off you Woke C*nt" has real bite. It just does: as an English language sentence
It is a true four letter word and insult, perhaps the first new one in English for 1500 years?
That's all very cis
lol, no. Cis doesn't cut it, no one knows what it means, no one is really sure how to pronounce it, and when you dig down, it is mad. And 3 letters
For a measure of how deep Woke cuts, here's a Woke person trying to claim its use is intrinsically..... racist. Yes.
"If you’re not black and started using “woke” pejoratively sometime post-2018 or so (or worse, don’t know anything about the earlier iteration of the term), I think it’s fair to consider it a racial slur."
45,416 cases in Germany, 244 deaths (both higher than the UK) - as per Worldometer
Really surging there
Is this a statistical freak, or gremlin, or something else? Because 45k cases is way higher than anything expected, and by far the biggest daily number ever reported in Germany
Could you please stop picking days of reporting from Germany.
For whatever reason, their reporting is very very spiky. So post 7 day averages.
Those are bad enough, at the moment.
I'll do what I like, thanks very much, and you can ignore it or not
45k cases is so completely out of whack it does raise suspicions. The previous highest was ~32k back in April 2021
Worldometers' 7 day average supports your point here Leon. It's doubled in two weeks.
It looks like chunks of Europe are heading for new lockdowns. Romania has had a curfew for a while, already
As you said yesterday, though, most places will have restrictions that fall short of 'lockdowns'. There'll be mask mandates and vaxports... but (except in a very few places) no compulsory shutdowns of businesses.
Yes, I still think that is the likelier outcome.
However, remember how close the UK got to new lockdowns. Remember Plan B, Starmer whining, all the wanker-lefty doctors and iSAGE doing their shtick. LOCKDOWN NOW AND FOREVER
I was quite surprised HMG held their ground, and I was pleased they did
Will that be repeated across Europe? Lots of those countries have already gone further than the UK- they have vaxports and 2G and all that. How many days of alarmingly spiking cases can they endure, before the psychological pressure to lockdown "properly" becomes irresistible?
That's one reason I pointed to the German figure today. Yes it is clearly a statistical outlier but you only need a few of those to freak people out.... and then they don't become outliers, anyway. They are a trend
I'm not sure why you always insist on inaccuracy whenever you mention Germany. It is really very simple to get the actual German figure, as you have been told several times, rather than the made up "worldometer" figure. Eg here: https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Fallzahlen.html 39,676 Also, daily cases and deaths are lower than the UK per capita, although that will change very soon.
But I don't know why you imagine 45k cases would be way higher than expected (in general terms), I am actually surprised it didn't reach that kind of figure a weeks ago.
Anyway, the problem in Germany is not numbers of cases, it's the very high number of unvaccinated people. Even now there are 3.5 million over 60s who are unvaccinated - this is why nobody has been tempted to deliberately have an exit wave. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much of any kind of plan.
Worldometers was publishing a cumulative number as data became available, but the official RKI figure has just been released and it's +50,196.
Yesterday's German numbers were down week-over-week to the extent that the seven day moving average actually dipped. Today's have returned the seven day average to trend growth, so my gut is that there was a Lander that didn't report yesterday, and which saw two days today.
There is a very curious pattern to German numbers, with Tuesday normally marking the high point for the week, and then a decline all the way to the following Monday, followed (again) by a big spike on Tuesday. This time, the Tuesday spike happened on Wednesday.
I'm not sure where you are getting a dip yesterday in the seven-day average from. According to
the last time I see a slight dip in the seven-day incidence was on the 3rd November (the 1st was a holiday for much of Germany).
Also, so far as I can tell the day of the week with the highest number is usually Wednesday if anything, although not by a lot, and it varies. Anyway midweek makes total sense, given the way testing is done here.
You can see that all the Länder did report yesterday here:
Interesting detail in the ONS GDP stats. It is my sector and conveyancing that is producing the growth. I note too that earlier months are being downgraded, and exports andmanufacturing shrinking I am not really convinced that is what the economy really needs.
I have not been following the Rittenhouse case, but after reading the NPR (not exactly a bastion of right-wing, gun-toting, Trumpism), I'd be gobsmacked if he's found guilty.
In the land of the gun toting free, this will be self-defense.
But he went there, with a rifle, into a riot to (in his own words) “protect property”. And now people are dead & he’s in court hoping to avoid a life sentence.
What he actually did was make a bad situation worse.
Can someone do a tl;dr or ELI5 on rittenhouse? Were his victims black? woke? jewish? in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or what?
The people he shot were white woke liberals protesting against violence.
Its a complicated situation because some of the people he killed were attacking him when he shot them, but he was a gun toting 'active shooter' while they were doing so, so them doing so was self-defence too.
The first was a nonce with a history of violence. The second had his own lengthy rap sheet. The third (survived) took the stand - watch his testimony if you can.
Every public building I've been in recently has had the heating turned up to 100% despite the fact that it's been around 12-15 degrees outside. I had to walk out of one building because it was so hot inside, in order to get some fresh air. Therefore one way to help with climate change might be to not put the heating on unless it's actually necessary, which would be less than 10 degrees.
It is worth remembering that there is no gradient with building heating system: they are either on or they are off. The issue is supposed to be solved with thermostats that mean heating only comes on when the temperature inside the building is below a certain level.
The problem with some buildings is that they tend to see-saw: when the thermostat trips off, there is still 2-3 degrees of heating to come, and when it trips on, the temperature is still going to drop a couple of percent before the heating compensates.
Yes, the system needs to either be hot or off. Tepid is a legionella risk.
I have my house set to 17.5 ànd water at 48 ?
The risk of legionella is with large scale heating systems like hospitals and hotels, not domestic ones.
The WWF calculator seems wrong. Percapita Co2 in the UK is 5.64 tons, with a world average of 4.5.
Domestic heating/cooling is something to think about. Perhaps central heating and aircon are the worst thing for the planet. They are the biggest part of my footprint.
Simplest perhaps to just turn it off, but I can forsee grumbles from Mrs Foxy.
I have not been following the Rittenhouse case, but after reading the NPR (not exactly a bastion of right-wing, gun-toting, Trumpism), I'd be gobsmacked if he's found guilty.
In the land of the gun toting free, this will be self-defense.
But he went there, with a rifle, into a riot to (in his own words) “protect property”. And now people are dead & he’s in court hoping to avoid a life sentence.
What he actually did was make a bad situation worse.
Can someone do a tl;dr or ELI5 on rittenhouse? Were his victims black? woke? jewish? in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or what?
You can read the court reports on NPR for the basic facts of the case, which appear to be that BLM protests / riots (description might depend on your politics) were happening in Kenosha, Wisconsin after police shot a black man called Jacob Blake and left him paralysed from the waist down. Our hero decided to take his AR-15 & drive from Illinois into Wisconsin to “protect businesses from unrest” (his words I believe). There was then a series of confrontations, where it’s currently unclear whether Rittenhouse was the initial aggressor (this is the main point of contention in the court case), but he was certainly followed & physically attacked by several people, several of whom he shot & killed whilst attempting (in his words) to retreat & turn himself into the police. The details are being hashed out in court. The ultimate outcome is that two people are dead & one shot & injured & now Rittenhouse is facing homicide charges.
So we have a shitshow that the various political sides can twist into whichever narrative they like. Pro-gun? Rittenhouse was obviously defending himself & those who attacked him were ultimately responsible for this terrible outcome: How sad, so sorry. Anti-gun? Rittenhouse acting as a lone warrior stirred up shit & ended up getting people killed. He’s guilty of criminial endagerment even if he was attacked. White supremecist? Rittenhouse was a virtuous soldier out there protecting the law-abiding majority against marauding BLM rioters. And so on & on.
The problem - as is so often the case - is that the defendant behaved very badly, but might not be guilty of actual murder. What they are guilty of is behaving in a way that escalates an existing tense situation and increases the chance of somebody (anybody) dying.
I have little doubt that he was genuinely afraid when he pulled the trigger. He put himself in a stupid situation, and was terrified, and was carrying an assault rifle.
The offence - to my mind - was deliberately putting himself in a situation where those bad things became more likely.
If you carry an assault rifle to a demonstration, that has to be a very, very serious offence.
I'm sure you're right that Rittenhouse was terrified. I wonder, though, if he was as terrified as the two men he killed? Because they're not around to tell us how terrified they were of Rittenhouse.
Regardless, what sort of 'advanced' society is it that allows a 17 year-old to wander around with an assault rifle? Bonkers.
It doesn’t. He was also charged with under-age possession of a firearm, and the person who supplied him with it was also charged with unlawful supply because Rittenhouse was under age.
Fire up the QUITE klaxon.
Also worth watching for how legitimately terrible the prosecution is.
Some lines of questioning have come close to getting the whole thing shut down.
Interesting detail in the ONS GDP stats. It is my sector and conveyancing that is producing the growth. I note too that earlier months are being downgraded, and exports andmanufacturing shrinking I am not really convinced that is what the economy really needs.
Not really. For me it's about riding a horse across country *on a wholly unpredictable route*. The trouble with the current pretendy substitute is that you know in advance that the route has been planned by a human being, with all the elf n safety considerations that entails. Nobody goes hunting to "see an animal ripped to pieces" any more than they eat beef to celebrate a bullock being killed in an abattoir.
You can ride a horse across the countryside without ripping foxes to shreds you know.
I would have thought it impossible to miss the point I was making, while still having the ability to connect to and post on the internet. Thank you for surprising me.
Un pre dict ab le.
5 syllables.
The point you were making was that you wish to make a mess of other people’s land without any responsibility purely in the name of “fun”.
I thought you aspired to be a lawyer? Do you genuinely think that hunts cross country without the consent of the landowner? How do you think that would happen?
“Consent of the landowner” aye of course
Jesus. Before a day's hunting a hunt rings each and every landowner in the area, and keeps off land on which it does not have permission to go.
How else do you think it works? Is there a hunting exemption in the law of trespass? Where?
Care to answer my point?
Are you a gallowgate sockpuppet? Because I'm not seeing a point in your own name here
No, I asked about the pets killed by foxhounds that clearly do not have permission to be where they kill the pets.
I find it useful to consider what would happen if a purely working class or chav group came along with dogs and killed someone's cat, or trashed their crop and lawn.
I'm sure the feds would understand that accidents happen
They do. Consider the history of Oxford University dining clubs, and compare the result with what the magistrates would say if a dozen skinheads from the Cowley housing schemes came into a nice Oxon restaurant and then trashed the place. Obviously very understanding, at least until recent years, though.
I grew up in Oxford during the 80s and 90s
- There were nearly no posh eateries. There are a few now, but that is post 2000. - It's a small town. The bar staff all work the different places and know each other. - When the Bullingdon stories first became a thing, when Cameron became Opposition leader, journalists started offering 5 figures for evidence.
So either, the stories were true and a group of university students trashed non-existent posh restaurants and then covered it up so that no-one ever said "I was there". Despite the offer of serious sums of money.
Or a bunch of students threw some bread rolls around in a curry shop and the tales got... enlarged.
Oxford is a city of over 150,000 people, not a small town
More like it’s a small town of over 150,000 people. Or a small town surrounded by fields ringed by a donut of 150,000 people.
An urban area of 150,000 people is on no definition a small town.
A small town is typically a market town of less than 50,000 people, not 3 times that.
Oxford is a city on any definition, confirmed by the fact it has a cathedral and 2 universities too
It's a lot of housing, sure.
In terms of places you go out to in the evening - a few small areas, and you can cover most of them on foot, unless you are heading up the Cowley Road or something.
Have you ever been there?
I spend half my time there alongside Epping as my wife works there, indeed I am there now in Summertown which has plenty of high quality eateries
High quality? In Summertown? You are having a laugh.
Or do you class the "New Dancing Dragon Bar" as high end?
Two One Five, Pompette?
Pompette I wasn't impressed with - South Parade has always been a rather average.
Haven't tried Two One Five.
I just wonder what you're comparing Oxford with (then or now) to have such a poor opinion of its restaurant scene.
Try growing up in Hastings or living in Selby, both of which I have... I can tell you Oxford is a culinary paradise in comparison!
Not fine dining by any stretch but Browns was an institution back in the 80s - no booking and queues every night to get a table. Those were the days!
Christ... Browns.... The inedible in search of the gullible..... They did do some good cocktails for a while, though.
The food was certainly edible and not extortionate. It had an atmosphere that was hard to beat. I have many fond memories of boozy meals there. Went back a few years ago for 'old times' sake'... A very strange experience: the decor is entirely unaltered, the atmosphere completely gone.
Perhaps you were 2 bottles too sober to enjoy it?
It is interesting when you go back to places - have they become shit, or did we just grow out of them?
A bit of both with Browns I suspect. The atmosphere was always great and at the time I thought the food was fine too.
Now I reflect back, the food was very ordinary by today's standards... but this was the 80s.
I remember enjoying Browns around 1989 or something. In fact they even had a branch in Soho
Looking back it was almost certainly mediocre brasserie food. But I do recall a highly boisterous atmosphere
You've nailed it succinctly. (You should become a writer!)
I don't think it requires Tolstoy to pin down Browns circa 1989
A lot of fun but iffy food. Anyone who was young in the 80s or 90s and went to Oxford (as a visitor, resident or student) went to Browns. Not surprising Boris did too
Incidentally a friend of mine from UCL (where we were both students in the 80s) went back there in a professional capacity last week. He went to the student union, to the cloisters, to several of our favoured cafes and pubs. He told me it is all eerily quiet. Everyone works hard and looks studious. Lots of diligent East Asians. No one openly dealing speed on the 5th floor
I found his account unfathomably depressing. I know we were irresponsible fuckwits with student grants (rather than loans) but my God we had fun. I am really not sure these modern kids are having fun. They stare at their phones. They swipe left. They worry about climate change. They end up in debt
Sad
Similar vibes the last time I was there for any length of time.
I think the University Experience has evolved into such a different beast, it was going that way in the late 00s when I finally finished*.
*Yes, I know, old and grey! Memes that didn't take off RIGHT THERE.
Every public building I've been in recently has had the heating turned up to 100% despite the fact that it's been around 12-15 degrees outside. I had to walk out of one building because it was so hot inside, in order to get some fresh air. Therefore one way to help with climate change might be to not put the heating on unless it's actually necessary, which would be less than 10 degrees.
It is worth remembering that there is no gradient with building heating system: they are either on or they are off. The issue is supposed to be solved with thermostats that mean heating only comes on when the temperature inside the building is below a certain level.
The problem with some buildings is that they tend to see-saw: when the thermostat trips off, there is still 2-3 degrees of heating to come, and when it trips on, the temperature is still going to drop a couple of percent before the heating compensates.
Yes, the system needs to either be hot or off. Tepid is a legionella risk.
I have my house set to 17.5 ànd water at 48 ?
The risk of legionella is with large scale heating systems like hospitals and hotels, not domestic ones.
The WWF calculator seems wrong. Percapita Co2 in the UK is 5.64 tons, with a world average of 4.5.
Domestic heating/cooling is something to think about. Perhaps central heating and aircon are the worst thing for the planet. They are the biggest part of my footprint.
Simplest perhaps to just turn it off, but I can forsee grumbles from Mrs Foxy.
How many modern commercial buildings have windows that don’t open, and are designed to operate only with a building management system controlling the temperature, often in quite a crude manner?
Aside that having no windows is a terrible idea when there’s a nasty virus going around, it also increases the carbon footprint of the building if natural ventilation isn’t used when it would be useful.
Not really. For me it's about riding a horse across country *on a wholly unpredictable route*. The trouble with the current pretendy substitute is that you know in advance that the route has been planned by a human being, with all the elf n safety considerations that entails. Nobody goes hunting to "see an animal ripped to pieces" any more than they eat beef to celebrate a bullock being killed in an abattoir.
You can ride a horse across the countryside without ripping foxes to shreds you know.
I would have thought it impossible to miss the point I was making, while still having the ability to connect to and post on the internet. Thank you for surprising me.
Un pre dict ab le.
5 syllables.
The point you were making was that you wish to make a mess of other people’s land without any responsibility purely in the name of “fun”.
I thought you aspired to be a lawyer? Do you genuinely think that hunts cross country without the consent of the landowner? How do you think that would happen?
“Consent of the landowner” aye of course
Jesus. Before a day's hunting a hunt rings each and every landowner in the area, and keeps off land on which it does not have permission to go.
How else do you think it works? Is there a hunting exemption in the law of trespass? Where?
Care to answer my point?
Are you a gallowgate sockpuppet? Because I'm not seeing a point in your own name here
No, I asked about the pets killed by foxhounds that clearly do not have permission to be where they kill the pets.
I find it useful to consider what would happen if a purely working class or chav group came along with dogs and killed someone's cat, or trashed their crop and lawn.
I'm sure the feds would understand that accidents happen
They do. Consider the history of Oxford University dining clubs, and compare the result with what the magistrates would say if a dozen skinheads from the Cowley housing schemes came into a nice Oxon restaurant and then trashed the place. Obviously very understanding, at least until recent years, though.
I grew up in Oxford during the 80s and 90s
- There were nearly no posh eateries. There are a few now, but that is post 2000. - It's a small town. The bar staff all work the different places and know each other. - When the Bullingdon stories first became a thing, when Cameron became Opposition leader, journalists started offering 5 figures for evidence.
So either, the stories were true and a group of university students trashed non-existent posh restaurants and then covered it up so that no-one ever said "I was there". Despite the offer of serious sums of money.
Or a bunch of students threw some bread rolls around in a curry shop and the tales got... enlarged.
Oxford is a city of over 150,000 people, not a small town
More like it’s a small town of over 150,000 people. Or a small town surrounded by fields ringed by a donut of 150,000 people.
An urban area of 150,000 people is on no definition a small town.
A small town is typically a market town of less than 50,000 people, not 3 times that.
Oxford is a city on any definition, confirmed by the fact it has a cathedral and 2 universities too
It's a lot of housing, sure.
In terms of places you go out to in the evening - a few small areas, and you can cover most of them on foot, unless you are heading up the Cowley Road or something.
Have you ever been there?
I spend half my time there alongside Epping as my wife works there, indeed I am there now in Summertown which has plenty of high quality eateries
High quality? In Summertown? You are having a laugh.
Or do you class the "New Dancing Dragon Bar" as high end?
Two One Five, Pompette?
Pompette I wasn't impressed with - South Parade has always been a rather average.
Haven't tried Two One Five.
I just wonder what you're comparing Oxford with (then or now) to have such a poor opinion of its restaurant scene.
Try growing up in Hastings or living in Selby, both of which I have... I can tell you Oxford is a culinary paradise in comparison!
Not fine dining by any stretch but Browns was an institution back in the 80s - no booking and queues every night to get a table. Those were the days!
Christ... Browns.... The inedible in search of the gullible..... They did do some good cocktails for a while, though.
The food was certainly edible and not extortionate. It had an atmosphere that was hard to beat. I have many fond memories of boozy meals there. Went back a few years ago for 'old times' sake'... A very strange experience: the decor is entirely unaltered, the atmosphere completely gone.
Perhaps you were 2 bottles too sober to enjoy it?
It is interesting when you go back to places - have they become shit, or did we just grow out of them?
A bit of both with Browns I suspect. The atmosphere was always great and at the time I thought the food was fine too.
Now I reflect back, the food was very ordinary by today's standards... but this was the 80s.
I remember enjoying Browns around 1989 or something. In fact they even had a branch in Soho
Looking back it was almost certainly mediocre brasserie food. But I do recall a highly boisterous atmosphere
You've nailed it succinctly. (You should become a writer!)
I don't think it requires Tolstoy to pin down Browns circa 1989
A lot of fun but iffy food. Anyone who was young in the 80s or 90s and went to Oxford (as a visitor, resident or student) went to Browns. Not surprising Boris did too
Incidentally a friend of mine from UCL (where we were both students in the 80s) went back there in a professional capacity last week. He went to the student union, to the cloisters, to several of our favoured cafes and pubs. He told me it is all eerily quiet. Everyone works hard and looks studious. Lots of diligent East Asians. No one openly dealing speed on the 5th floor
I found his account unfathomably depressing. I know we were irresponsible fuckwits with student grants (rather than loans) but my God we had fun. I am really not sure these modern kids are having fun. They stare at their phones. They swipe left. They worry about climate change. They end up in debt
Sad
Similar vibes the last time I was there for any length of time.
I think the University Experience has evolved into such a different beast, it was going that way in the late 00s when I finally finished*.
*Yes, I know, old and grey! Memes that didn't take off RIGHT THERE.
A clear sign that students have changed was on The Apprentice when one of Lord Sugar's now-millionaire protégés who'd graduated from UCL thought the British Museum contained dinosaurs. Three years at UCL and she'd not ventured inside a major cultural and tourist attraction just five minutes down the road.
Every public building I've been in recently has had the heating turned up to 100% despite the fact that it's been around 12-15 degrees outside. I had to walk out of one building because it was so hot inside, in order to get some fresh air. Therefore one way to help with climate change might be to not put the heating on unless it's actually necessary, which would be less than 10 degrees.
It is worth remembering that there is no gradient with building heating system: they are either on or they are off. The issue is supposed to be solved with thermostats that mean heating only comes on when the temperature inside the building is below a certain level.
The problem with some buildings is that they tend to see-saw: when the thermostat trips off, there is still 2-3 degrees of heating to come, and when it trips on, the temperature is still going to drop a couple of percent before the heating compensates.
Yes, the system needs to either be hot or off. Tepid is a legionella risk.
I have my house set to 17.5 ànd water at 48 ?
The risk of legionella is with large scale heating systems like hospitals and hotels, not domestic ones.
The WWF calculator seems wrong. Percapita Co2 in the UK is 5.64 tons, with a world average of 4.5.
Domestic heating/cooling is something to think about. Perhaps central heating and aircon are the worst thing for the planet. They are the biggest part of my footprint.
Simplest perhaps to just turn it off, but I can forsee grumbles from Mrs Foxy.
How many modern commercial buildings have windows that don’t open, and are designed to operate only with a building management system controlling the temperature, often in quite a crude manner?
Aside that having no windows is a terrible idea when there’s a nasty virus going around, it also increases the carbon footprint of the building if natural ventilation isn’t used when it would be useful.
A friend of mine is the only employee on Saturday and Sunday in the large office building of a law firm in London. She quite likes working from home and doesn't see the point of going to an empty office now, after working remotely during the pandemic, she is set up with all the IT kit to access the firm's files etc. Yet they have decided on a policy of everyone now returning to spending at least half their time in the office, which they have applied to her by insisting she goes in on Sundays.
Because the office is empty, apart from her and a few visiting cleaners, they haven't previously had the air conditioning running, despite there being no windows to open. She played this card - access to fresh air being a condition of decent working conditions - hoping they'd make her an exception and allow her to work from home.
Instead, they are now running the aircon for the whole building - which apparently costs £'000s a day - every Sunday.
Are MPs getting drunk and abusive on a Parliamentary trip funded by the MOD subject to the behaviour code?
CCHQ can be both panicking and pushing back, though you've got to wonder why MPs continued to be served drinks on the plane if they were, as reported, already drunk when they boarded.
Interesting detail in the ONS GDP stats. It is my sector and conveyancing that is producing the growth. I note too that earlier months are being downgraded, and exports andmanufacturing shrinking I am not really convinced that is what the economy really needs.
Ultimately no amount of sleaze will matter to voters if the economy seems to be doing OK and the opposition is uninspiring. It’s the economy that will ultimately switch votes. That’s the plain, unvarnished HUYFD truth.
I agree with others that the Cox story is a stunningly effective red herring that lets Boris off the hook. Well done Tory press. And for shame, for shame, Labour to have been so conveniently sucked in by the chance of a bit of class war.
Off topic (like every other post this evening tbf)...
Is there a simple calculator available online that shows the global warming impact we each have through the choices we make?
If we could easily get a summary of the impact of our personal choices (e.g. electric car, flying long-haul, solar panels, new boiler, going veggie, etc. etc.) it might help people decide which steps they could take themsleves.
My assumption is that none of us are going to do everything we possibly could but a simple calculator might make it easy to choose the options that work for us as individuals.
There are quite a few apps and online carbon calculators. The WWF has one. Some seem to be pushing carbon offset sales but I think the calculations themselves are OK.
My carbon footprint on the WWF is 9 tons per year, slightly less than the national average that they cite, and I haven't flown anywhere, and have an electric car and we'll insulated house. It isn't going to be easy going lower.
11 tonnes. I live in a shockingly badly insulated house.
I lied about my flights on the survey. I haven't flown in the last year, but I counted backward from March 2020 so included 1 flight in the year to that point.
Thanks @Foxy that's just the sort of calculator I was looking for.
9.19 tonnes for me. (Disappointed it didn't ask me about our air source heat pump though!)
I'm really surprised by your figures. I thought the UK average was down to 7 tonnes.
Hard to know without looking at the details whether the calculator is up-to-date.
That said, the Monbiot article today had some startling figures on the disparities in carbon use with wealth, so perhaps that explains it.
WWF says that I am on 10.7, but I'm hugely cynical about all such calculators because they use so many inapplicable averages, and from a group like WWF it is likely aimed at bashing / guilt-tripping developed countries.
This one asked me if I have a "big diesel", but not whether I drive it 3k or 30k miles per annum, and if I have "solar panels", but did not explore that they generate 2-3x as much electricity as I actually use.
On the meat, they often have a worldwide average which holds our local beef responsible for demolishing rainforests - whilst the research work shows that UK beef runs at approx. half the world average for emissions, with some systems being better than that.
I'm having a look at the more recommended one, but *&^% Apple are telling me I need V13 or V15 of their OS.
"In another life, Boris Johnson might have spent his days trying the handles of parked cars"
In another life, Boris might have spent his days chucking potted plants through restaurant windows. Or was that this life? (Tbf, some have claimed it was another Bullingdon member.)
Not really. For me it's about riding a horse across country *on a wholly unpredictable route*. The trouble with the current pretendy substitute is that you know in advance that the route has been planned by a human being, with all the elf n safety considerations that entails. Nobody goes hunting to "see an animal ripped to pieces" any more than they eat beef to celebrate a bullock being killed in an abattoir.
You can ride a horse across the countryside without ripping foxes to shreds you know.
I would have thought it impossible to miss the point I was making, while still having the ability to connect to and post on the internet. Thank you for surprising me.
Un pre dict ab le.
5 syllables.
The point you were making was that you wish to make a mess of other people’s land without any responsibility purely in the name of “fun”.
I thought you aspired to be a lawyer? Do you genuinely think that hunts cross country without the consent of the landowner? How do you think that would happen?
“Consent of the landowner” aye of course
Jesus. Before a day's hunting a hunt rings each and every landowner in the area, and keeps off land on which it does not have permission to go.
How else do you think it works? Is there a hunting exemption in the law of trespass? Where?
Care to answer my point?
Are you a gallowgate sockpuppet? Because I'm not seeing a point in your own name here
No, I asked about the pets killed by foxhounds that clearly do not have permission to be where they kill the pets.
I find it useful to consider what would happen if a purely working class or chav group came along with dogs and killed someone's cat, or trashed their crop and lawn.
I'm sure the feds would understand that accidents happen
They do. Consider the history of Oxford University dining clubs, and compare the result with what the magistrates would say if a dozen skinheads from the Cowley housing schemes came into a nice Oxon restaurant and then trashed the place. Obviously very understanding, at least until recent years, though.
I grew up in Oxford during the 80s and 90s
- There were nearly no posh eateries. There are a few now, but that is post 2000. - It's a small town. The bar staff all work the different places and know each other. - When the Bullingdon stories first became a thing, when Cameron became Opposition leader, journalists started offering 5 figures for evidence.
So either, the stories were true and a group of university students trashed non-existent posh restaurants and then covered it up so that no-one ever said "I was there". Despite the offer of serious sums of money.
Or a bunch of students threw some bread rolls around in a curry shop and the tales got... enlarged.
Oxford is a city of over 150,000 people, not a small town
More like it’s a small town of over 150,000 people. Or a small town surrounded by fields ringed by a donut of 150,000 people.
An urban area of 150,000 people is on no definition a small town.
A small town is typically a market town of less than 50,000 people, not 3 times that.
Oxford is a city on any definition, confirmed by the fact it has a cathedral and 2 universities too
It's a lot of housing, sure.
In terms of places you go out to in the evening - a few small areas, and you can cover most of them on foot, unless you are heading up the Cowley Road or something.
Have you ever been there?
I spend half my time there alongside Epping as my wife works there, indeed I am there now in Summertown which has plenty of high quality eateries
High quality? In Summertown? You are having a laugh.
Or do you class the "New Dancing Dragon Bar" as high end?
Two One Five, Pompette?
Pompette I wasn't impressed with - South Parade has always been a rather average.
Haven't tried Two One Five.
I just wonder what you're comparing Oxford with (then or now) to have such a poor opinion of its restaurant scene.
Try growing up in Hastings or living in Selby, both of which I have... I can tell you Oxford is a culinary paradise in comparison!
Not fine dining by any stretch but Browns was an institution back in the 80s - no booking and queues every night to get a table. Those were the days!
Christ... Browns.... The inedible in search of the gullible..... They did do some good cocktails for a while, though.
The food was certainly edible and not extortionate. It had an atmosphere that was hard to beat. I have many fond memories of boozy meals there. Went back a few years ago for 'old times' sake'... A very strange experience: the decor is entirely unaltered, the atmosphere completely gone.
Perhaps you were 2 bottles too sober to enjoy it?
It is interesting when you go back to places - have they become shit, or did we just grow out of them?
A bit of both with Browns I suspect. The atmosphere was always great and at the time I thought the food was fine too.
Now I reflect back, the food was very ordinary by today's standards... but this was the 80s.
I remember enjoying Browns around 1989 or something. In fact they even had a branch in Soho
Looking back it was almost certainly mediocre brasserie food. But I do recall a highly boisterous atmosphere
You've nailed it succinctly. (You should become a writer!)
I don't think it requires Tolstoy to pin down Browns circa 1989
A lot of fun but iffy food. Anyone who was young in the 80s or 90s and went to Oxford (as a visitor, resident or student) went to Browns. Not surprising Boris did too
Incidentally a friend of mine from UCL (where we were both students in the 80s) went back there in a professional capacity last week. He went to the student union, to the cloisters, to several of our favoured cafes and pubs. He told me it is all eerily quiet. Everyone works hard and looks studious. Lots of diligent East Asians. No one openly dealing speed on the 5th floor
I found his account unfathomably depressing. I know we were irresponsible fuckwits with student grants (rather than loans) but my God we had fun. I am really not sure these modern kids are having fun. They stare at their phones. They swipe left. They worry about climate change. They end up in debt
Sad
Similar vibes the last time I was there for any length of time.
I think the University Experience has evolved into such a different beast, it was going that way in the late 00s when I finally finished*.
*Yes, I know, old and grey! Memes that didn't take off RIGHT THERE.
A clear sign that students have changed was on The Apprentice when one of Lord Sugar's now-millionaire protégés who'd graduated from UCL thought the British Museum contained dinosaurs. Three years at UCL and she'd not ventured inside a major cultural and tourist attraction just five minutes down the road.
Shocking...in my day students were in and out of museums all the time.
Off topic (like every other post this evening tbf)...
Is there a simple calculator available online that shows the global warming impact we each have through the choices we make?
If we could easily get a summary of the impact of our personal choices (e.g. electric car, flying long-haul, solar panels, new boiler, going veggie, etc. etc.) it might help people decide which steps they could take themsleves.
My assumption is that none of us are going to do everything we possibly could but a simple calculator might make it easy to choose the options that work for us as individuals.
There are quite a few apps and online carbon calculators. The WWF has one. Some seem to be pushing carbon offset sales but I think the calculations themselves are OK.
My carbon footprint on the WWF is 9 tons per year, slightly less than the national average that they cite, and I haven't flown anywhere, and have an electric car and we'll insulated house. It isn't going to be easy going lower.
11 tonnes. I live in a shockingly badly insulated house.
I lied about my flights on the survey. I haven't flown in the last year, but I counted backward from March 2020 so included 1 flight in the year to that point.
Thanks @Foxy that's just the sort of calculator I was looking for.
9.19 tonnes for me. (Disappointed it didn't ask me about our air source heat pump though!)
I'm really surprised by your figures. I thought the UK average was down to 7 tonnes.
Hard to know without looking at the details whether the calculator is up-to-date.
That said, the Monbiot article today had some startling figures on the disparities in carbon use with wealth, so perhaps that explains it.
WWF says that I am on 10.7, but I'm hugely cynical about all such calculators because they use so many inapplicable averages, and from a group like WWF it is likely aimed at bashing / guilt-tripping developed countries.
This one asked me if I have a "big diesel", but not whether I drive it 3k or 30k miles per annum, and if I have "solar panels", but did not explore that they generate 2-3x as much electricity as I actually use.
On the meat, they often have a worldwide average which holds our local beef responsible for demolishing rainforests - whilst the research work shows that UK beef runs at approx. half the world average for emissions, with some systems being better than that.
I'm having a look at the more recommended one, but *&^% Apple are telling me I need V13 or V15 of their OS.
Yes, the averages are a big problem. This is why the only way is to look at your consumption directly as much as possible - how many litres of diesel burnt, how many kWh of electricity used, etc*. The other main discrepancy is in terms of imported CO2 emissions. Per capita CO2 emissions for the UK will be a lot lower than the average person's individual CO2 consumption, as it won't include the CO2 used to manufacture all the food and goods imported.
And the other thing is whether the data driving it is updated. A carbon calculator created 15 years ago might still be using a carbon intensity figure for electricity that includes a lot more coal burning.
* The corollary to this is that if it isn't easy to work out what your emissions are then it's hard to work out what you can do to reduce them. You'd basically just be guessing. So I'd concentrate on the things you can measure directly.
Comments
If that account is correct, then the skateboard, the pistol pointing, and the shooting of those two people can ALL be described as "provoked". Where the provocation started, that's a harder question. I'm not on one side of this or the other, it would be foolish to be confident either way, but your assertion that the pistol pointing was unprovoked looks false.
Hard to know without looking at the details whether the calculator is up-to-date.
That said, the Monbiot article today had some startling figures on the disparities in carbon use with wealth, so perhaps that explains it.
Marauding Terrorist Attack (MTA): RUN. HIDE. TELL.
RUN
- Escape if you can
- Consider the safest options
- Is there a safe route? Run, if not Hide
- Can you get there without exposing yourself to greater danger?
- Insist others leave with you, but don’t let their indecision slow you down.
- Leave belongings behind.
- Do not attempt to film the incident. Run.
HIDE
- If you cannot Run, Hide
Pretty straightforward advice. If any of Rittenhouse's three assailants had followed it, they would have been fine.
I should downsize really, now that my boys have left home.
A lot of fun but iffy food. Anyone who was young in the 80s or 90s and went to Oxford (as a visitor, resident or student) went to Browns. Not surprising Boris did too
Incidentally a friend of mine from UCL (where we were both students in the 80s) went back there in a professional capacity last week. He went to the student union, to the cloisters, to several of our favoured cafes and pubs. He told me it is all eerily quiet. Everyone works hard and looks studious. Lots of diligent East Asians. No one openly dealing speed on the 5th floor
I found his account unfathomably depressing. I know we were irresponsible fuckwits with student grants (rather than loans) but my God we had fun. I am really not sure these modern kids are having fun. They stare at their phones. They swipe left. They worry about climate change. They end up in debt
Sad
I feel positively virtuous
I have a lefty, somewhat virtue-signalling friend.... who also has a private jet which he uses quite a lot. His carbon footprint must be insane. I wonder how long he can endure the cognitive dissonance. Indeed I wonder how long private jets will be publicly admissible. Unless you are literally a president or a prime minister, no one *needs* a private jet, ever, and the carbon footprint is surely horrific
I bet in about 10 years they will be shamefully hidden away, and no one will admit to using one. Then they will actually banned, perhaps
But I'm only going to do some of those things, not all, hence it's good to understand how those choices affect my footprint.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
Only to be expected. Lower vax rates than Europe, early vaxxing (hence waning immunity). It would be a miracle if they entirely avoided Europe's fate
Under the rules as amended it should be settled for Yes today (11/11).
He does rent it out to poorer friends
Eg here:
https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Fallzahlen.html
39,676
Also, daily cases and deaths are lower than the UK per capita, although that will change very soon.
But I don't know why you imagine 45k cases would be way higher than expected (in general terms), I am actually surprised it didn't reach that kind of figure a weeks ago.
Anyway, the problem in Germany is not numbers of cases, it's the very high number of unvaccinated people. Even now there are 3.5 million over 60s who are unvaccinated - this is why nobody has been tempted to deliberately have an exit wave. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much of any kind of plan.
No Michelin starred restaurant could possibly compete.
For the record, about 7.8t here. No flying and not vast amounts of driving (before or after covid), small house, don't buy a lot of 'stuff'.
Going to be annoying when I do get free to go places and it is all banned or 5 times the price of today. I guess the bicycle collection will just have to get a bit larger.
The problem with some buildings is that they tend to see-saw: when the thermostat trips off, there is still 2-3 degrees of heating to come, and when it trips on, the temperature is still going to drop a couple of percent before the heating compensates.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10188871/Three-MPs-drank-heavily-official-trip-meet-troops-Gibraltar.html
'I wasn't drunk, it was my pills': Labour MP who 'needed a wheelchair to get off three-hour flight to Gibraltar for Remembrance event' says she had 'less than five' drinks as Defence Secretary slams her and other 'boozy' Commons colleagues for 'disrespect'
'Do not take with alocohol?'
1. Duchess of Sussex, presumably taking one step further towards being the former Duchess, after admitting to ‘mis-remembering’ a key detail of a court case.
2. Geoffrey Cox, who hasn’t done anything wrong but is despised for having a really good job.
3. Labour MP getting blotto on a flight to a remembrance service.
Are we seeing a change in the narrative?
The continued pushing of the Cox story, by opponents of the government, is seriously distracting from other Conservatives who do have questions to answer about paid lobbying.
There is a very curious pattern to German numbers, with Tuesday normally marking the high point for the week, and then a decline all the way to the following Monday, followed (again) by a big spike on Tuesday. This time, the Tuesday spike happened on Wednesday.
Must say I suspect our PM is over-protesting when he says this country is 'nowhere near corrupt"; not a corrupt as many of course, but there are some rather nasty scandals waiting to be uncovered, some at least of them relating to his administration.
And I feel that some at least of the furore over Sir Geoffrey Cox is jealousy at the amount of money he's been able to earn!
Cox himself doesn’t care, and neither do his constituents. Those who really hate him are the FBPE mob on Twitter, because of his role in the Brexit legal advice, and these people have a high profile towards the media.
The government are happy for the ‘story’ to be about someone who’s clearly done nothing wrong, except for having the ability to earn well.
Labour need to ignore him, no matter how much they dislike the rich man personally, and concentrate their efforts exclusively on people with questions to answer about lobbying.
I also suspect, and I know that this is an unpopular view, that the public are prepared to give the government an awful lot of leeway on pandemic spending decisions. On the other hand, the national audit office are slowly going through all the contracts, and there will almost certainly be prosecutions of people who were taking the money and running.
There's also a suspicion that the administrations of such places as the BVI provide havens for those who similarly 'push the boundaries', and in acting for those administrations against the British Government he was keeping some very dodgy company.
Interesting on Sir Geoffry Cox, and all the people telling each other how awful it is.
Editorial in the Guardian, basically saying nothing to see here apart from the phone call from the office, and that the relevant bits of regulation work.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/10/geoffrey-cox-the-main-controversies-about-his-second-job
I ran a counterfactual up the twitter flagpole, but no one wants to talk about it. Even to point out that some of the work is in a tax haven.
Listening to the Geoffrey Cox coverage on
@BBCWorldatOne
This is about £400-£500,000 extra tax for the UK, that we would not otherwise get, paid by a man who is providing good service for his constituency.
It's great.
https://twitter.com/mattwardman/status/1458427874181013513
All this faux-naif "I don't know what this word means" - spare us. Talk to me about something big. Like BurnerGate.
https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/COVID-19-Trends/COVID-19-Trends.html?__blob=publicationFile#/home
the last time I see a slight dip in the seven-day incidence was on the 3rd November (the 1st was a holiday for much of Germany).
Also, so far as I can tell the day of the week with the highest number is usually Wednesday if anything, although not by a lot, and it varies. Anyway midweek makes total sense, given the way testing is done here.
You can see that all the Länder did report yesterday here:
https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/Nov_2021/2021-11-10-en.pdf?__blob=publicationFile
https://twitter.com/ONS/status/1458691480021880832?t=MOG1yCF7DOAqQoCT8LUlYQ&s=19
The second had his own lengthy rap sheet.
The third (survived) took the stand - watch his testimony if you can.
I'd probably go for tax-avoiding trusts first, and commercial subsidiaries of corporate charities.
The WWF calculator seems wrong. Percapita Co2 in the UK is 5.64 tons, with a world average of 4.5.
Domestic heating/cooling is something to think about. Perhaps central heating and aircon are the worst thing for the planet. They are the biggest part of my footprint.
Simplest perhaps to just turn it off, but I can forsee grumbles from Mrs Foxy.
Also worth watching for how legitimately terrible the prosecution is.
Some lines of questioning have come close to getting the whole thing shut down.
I think the University Experience has evolved into such a different beast, it was going that way in the late 00s when I finally finished*.
*Yes, I know, old and grey! Memes that didn't take off RIGHT THERE.
Aside that having no windows is a terrible idea when there’s a nasty virus going around, it also increases the carbon footprint of the building if natural ventilation isn’t used when it would be useful.
"In another life, Boris Johnson might have spent his days trying the handles of parked cars"
Are MPs getting drunk and abusive on a Parliamentary trip funded by the MOD subject to the behaviour code?
Because the office is empty, apart from her and a few visiting cleaners, they haven't previously had the air conditioning running, despite there being no windows to open. She played this card - access to fresh air being a condition of decent working conditions - hoping they'd make her an exception and allow her to work from home.
Instead, they are now running the aircon for the whole building - which apparently costs £'000s a day - every Sunday.
I agree with others that the Cox story is a stunningly effective red herring that lets Boris off the hook. Well done Tory press. And for shame, for shame, Labour to have been so conveniently sucked in by the chance of a bit of class war.
This thread has done a pact with another and is standing down
This one asked me if I have a "big diesel", but not whether I drive it 3k or 30k miles per annum, and if I have "solar panels", but did not explore that they generate 2-3x as much electricity as I actually use.
On the meat, they often have a worldwide average which holds our local beef responsible for demolishing rainforests - whilst the research work shows that UK beef runs at approx. half the world average for emissions, with some systems being better than that.
I'm having a look at the more recommended one, but *&^% Apple are telling me I need V13 or V15 of their OS.
And the other thing is whether the data driving it is updated. A carbon calculator created 15 years ago might still be using a carbon intensity figure for electricity that includes a lot more coal burning.
* The corollary to this is that if it isn't easy to work out what your emissions are then it's hard to work out what you can do to reduce them. You'd basically just be guessing. So I'd concentrate on the things you can measure directly.