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Can anyone explain the mindset of anti-vaxxers like this? – politicalbetting.com

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  • Options
    MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,440
    edited December 2021
    I'm sure the great thread reset is coming, but still:

    https://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-inheritors-how-three-families-shielded-their-fortunes-from-taxes-for-generations?utm_source=pocket-newtab

    "The Great Inheritors: How Three Families Shielded Their Fortunes From Taxes for Generations"

    “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” he wrote, invoking former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He then added his own knife twist: “Too many individuals, however, want the civilization at a discount.”

    Seems particularly pertinent for today.


    Maybe Rishi could become our Roosevelt :wink:.
  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Ghislaine Maxwell's mistake, (from her point of view, not everyone else's), was not staying in a country like France which doesn't extradite nationals to the United States. She must have been very complacent to actually choose to reside in the United States itself, and not even Canada or the UK.

    Did she actually choose to stay in the US, or was that where she happened to be when the FBI put out an arrest warrant in her name?
    She was in France only a short time before she was arrested, and she must have known there was a good chance of being arrested if she returned to the US, but she chose to do so anyway. I think she must have convinced herself it wouldn't actually happen, in the face of reality.
    Tellingly she was quoted as asking of no one in particular at a pre trial hearing "How did it come to this?"

    Bod on r2 who sounded well informed saying today there *is* a formal procedure by which she can spill beans about others in exchange for a 15% discount on sentence.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,399
    edited December 2021
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    Tres said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    I'm going to step out of the conversation as it isn't productive. You're the only one I can see calling people a bully, or insulting people. I stepped in to defend Charles after he was unfairly smeared.

    This conversation seems most unproductive. If you've got nothing nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all is a good rule of thumb.
    You bullied somebody off this website. Don't you dare try and call me a bully.
    I did no such thing.

    Someone left the website because they didn't like my opinion, politely expressed. That is not bullying. If I was bullying I'd expect to be rightly banned, but politely expressing your own opinion is never bullying even if others don't like that opinion.
    They asked you to stop engaging with them, which you ignored. So they left.
    It’s a pity this forum doesn’t have a block function for such instances.
    It's actually possible to bodge together your own crude "block" functionality. There are browser addons that allow you to program certain sites to hide html elements that meet certain criteria. So you could fairly easily have it detect a user's name, say "Farooq", and your browser would collapse that element and you wouldn't see it.

    It might also spoil your experience since you'd end up seeing weird orphan threads etc., but it can be done.
    I had one many years ago, not sure what browser support is like for user scripts nowadays or whether you have to turn it into an extension or what:

    https://github.com/edmundedgar/greasemonkey-widgets/tree/master/pb
    Your widget is part of PB mythology. The only problem was how frequently certain posters felt the need to loudly proclaim that they'd used Edmund's widget to block poster X, Y or Z which kinda negated its function I felt.
    The best one was proclaiming to have blocked some user or other while responding to their post and being grateful that they didn't have to see it. That was peak PB.
    No, peak PB came this year, when one of our dear commenters opined that:

    "supermarket tannoy announcements aren't as good as they used to be"

    thus implying that there was some Golden Age of Entertaining Supermarket Tannoy Announcements (probably before Brexit)
    Bring Back ASDA FM.

    Update: They rebranded it.
    https://www.asda.com/radio
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 46,857
    An encouraging thread about Omicron in SA (with the caveat about kids)


    [Thread] JUST IN:

    How sick did #COVID19 patients in SA get during Gauteng's #Omicron wave?

    NEW
    @TheLancet
    preprint: https://bit.ly/3FJj6mA (via Waasila Jasat,
    @ProfAbdoolKarim
    et al.)

    https://twitter.com/miamalan/status/1476535918781734912?s=20
  • Options
    EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    Tres said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    I'm going to step out of the conversation as it isn't productive. You're the only one I can see calling people a bully, or insulting people. I stepped in to defend Charles after he was unfairly smeared.

    This conversation seems most unproductive. If you've got nothing nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all is a good rule of thumb.
    You bullied somebody off this website. Don't you dare try and call me a bully.
    I did no such thing.

    Someone left the website because they didn't like my opinion, politely expressed. That is not bullying. If I was bullying I'd expect to be rightly banned, but politely expressing your own opinion is never bullying even if others don't like that opinion.
    They asked you to stop engaging with them, which you ignored. So they left.
    It’s a pity this forum doesn’t have a block function for such instances.
    It's actually possible to bodge together your own crude "block" functionality. There are browser addons that allow you to program certain sites to hide html elements that meet certain criteria. So you could fairly easily have it detect a user's name, say "Farooq", and your browser would collapse that element and you wouldn't see it.

    It might also spoil your experience since you'd end up seeing weird orphan threads etc., but it can be done.
    I had one many years ago, not sure what browser support is like for user scripts nowadays or whether you have to turn it into an extension or what:

    https://github.com/edmundedgar/greasemonkey-widgets/tree/master/pb
    Your widget is part of PB mythology. The only problem was how frequently certain posters felt the need to loudly proclaim that they'd used Edmund's widget to block poster X, Y or Z which kinda negated its function I felt.
    The best one was proclaiming to have blocked some user or other while responding to their post and being grateful that they didn't have to see it. That was peak PB.
    No, peak PB came this year, when one of our dear commenters opined that:

    "supermarket tannoy announcements aren't as good as they used to be"

    thus implying that there was some Golden Age of Entertaining Supermarket Tannoy Announcements (probably before Brexit)
    I thought it was generally accepted by now that peak PB was meta navel-gazing about all the previous peak PB moments.
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,882
    Leon said:

    An encouraging thread about Omicron in SA (with the caveat about kids)


    [Thread] JUST IN:

    How sick did #COVID19 patients in SA get during Gauteng's #Omicron wave?

    NEW
    @TheLancet
    preprint: https://bit.ly/3FJj6mA (via Waasila Jasat,
    @ProfAbdoolKarim
    et al.)

    https://twitter.com/miamalan/status/1476535918781734912?s=20

    Am I supposed to trust the Lancet or not?

    Lose track tbh.
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,943
    edited December 2021

    I'm sure the great thread reset is coming, but still:

    https://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-inheritors-how-three-families-shielded-their-fortunes-from-taxes-for-generations?utm_source=pocket-newtab

    "The Great Inheritors: How Three Families Shielded Their Fortunes From Taxes for Generations"

    “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” he wrote, invoking former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He then added his own knife twist: “Too many individuals, however, want the civilization at a discount.”

    Seems particularly pertinent for today.


    Maybe Rishi could become our Roosevelt :wink:.

    The US has always had an aristocracy of a form, just of the super rich rather than aristocratic titles created by businessmen and financiers and passed down the generations. Indeed the Roosevelts and the Kennedys and arguably Trump came from that class and won the Presidency.

    Very often the children of American plutocrats would marry into families of Dukes and Earls in the UK, so the former would get a title and ancient estate and the latter benefit from an influx of new funds
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,246
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    Tres said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    I'm going to step out of the conversation as it isn't productive. You're the only one I can see calling people a bully, or insulting people. I stepped in to defend Charles after he was unfairly smeared.

    This conversation seems most unproductive. If you've got nothing nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all is a good rule of thumb.
    You bullied somebody off this website. Don't you dare try and call me a bully.
    I did no such thing.

    Someone left the website because they didn't like my opinion, politely expressed. That is not bullying. If I was bullying I'd expect to be rightly banned, but politely expressing your own opinion is never bullying even if others don't like that opinion.
    They asked you to stop engaging with them, which you ignored. So they left.
    It’s a pity this forum doesn’t have a block function for such instances.
    It's actually possible to bodge together your own crude "block" functionality. There are browser addons that allow you to program certain sites to hide html elements that meet certain criteria. So you could fairly easily have it detect a user's name, say "Farooq", and your browser would collapse that element and you wouldn't see it.

    It might also spoil your experience since you'd end up seeing weird orphan threads etc., but it can be done.
    I had one many years ago, not sure what browser support is like for user scripts nowadays or whether you have to turn it into an extension or what:

    https://github.com/edmundedgar/greasemonkey-widgets/tree/master/pb
    Your widget is part of PB mythology. The only problem was how frequently certain posters felt the need to loudly proclaim that they'd used Edmund's widget to block poster X, Y or Z which kinda negated its function I felt.
    The best one was proclaiming to have blocked some user or other while responding to their post and being grateful that they didn't have to see it. That was peak PB.
    No, peak PB came this year, when one of our dear commenters opined that:

    "supermarket tannoy announcements aren't as good as they used to be"

    thus implying that there was some Golden Age of Entertaining Supermarket Tannoy Announcements (probably before Brexit)
    {Engages windup mode}

    "I was sitting outside the cocktail bar of a the best hotel in the Cote D'azur, and a famous German tennis world champion opined to me that British supermarket tannoy announcements aren't as good as they used to be"
    MaxPB said:

    TimT said:

    Another graphic from Flo - comparing vaccination roll out in France vs England:


    [Translated] As there is no Omicron open data at the moment, I took the opportunity to make a figure that I had been planning for a long time, which aims to compare the progress of the Covid vaccine campaigns in England and in France.

    Time advances from left to right


    https://twitter.com/flodebarre/status/1476261645223665666?s=20

    France started the booster roll out sooner - but the NHS has been better at targeting older.

    That is the mistake that quite a few people make in comparing across nations - ignoring age. Vaccination is hundreds of times more... valuable?... for an 85 year old than a 14 year old. It's still worthwhile for the 14 year old, but the margin of advantage is much, much smaller.
    Valuable? Perhaps effectiveness measured in terms of NNT - number needed to treat. (= the number of patients treated to get one changed outcome)
    The value is surely in not needing extraordinary restrictions on normal living to protect the vaccine refuser cohort in older age groups.
    Best guess of completely unvaccinated in England. The Scottish numbers don't work at the moment - even using the Scottish health population estimates, it's full of negative numbers! The dashboard deals with this by saying 100%....

    image
  • Options
    FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    I was browsing an old thread yesterday (don't ask) and there was a prediction from Leon's "clairvoyant" that there would be a big war between two major powers in 2021.

    Since we've not even 1.5 days left, who's going to be declaring war on whom tomorrow?
  • Options
    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Good morning PB.

    Seems to be getting rather heated here... Maybe everyone chill and have a mince pie? :D

    They say it’s always 5pm somewhere. Well, for me anyway, that time is now. Work finished for 2021. Cheers PB! 🍻
    Green with envy. Here in Blighty we're stuck in the middle of the sixth bloody Sunday in a row with four more to come.
  • Options
    IshmaelZ said:

    TimT said:

    When I was in the UK at the beginning of the month, I went down with a heavy head cold. Symptoms were snot-filled sinuses, brain fog and a scratchy throat. That progressed over 2 weeks to loss of my voice and an occasional phlegmy (not dry) cough.

    I thought it could be COVID, so I did 3 self-administered LFTs at home, all negative. I also did the officially sanctioned LFT at Heathrow for my flight back, also negative. So I convinced myself that I did not have COVID, just a cold.

    Now I see this: https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/new-key-omicron-symptom-discovered-22601856

    The additional symptom that I did not associate with the head cold was very itchy hives across my lower back.

    Now I am wondering again whether what I really had was omicron and that the LFTs simply did not pick it up.

    FDA says lfts are a bit rubbish at detecting omicron

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10352381/Lateral-flow-tests-effective-spotting-Omicron-health-chiefs-rule.html
    They certainly seem to be detecting a fair chunk of cases in this country.

    Chalk up another one.

    Triple vaccinated, cough and runny nose.

    If it wasn't for the two solid lines on the test I'd have said common cold.
  • Options

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    Tres said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    I'm going to step out of the conversation as it isn't productive. You're the only one I can see calling people a bully, or insulting people. I stepped in to defend Charles after he was unfairly smeared.

    This conversation seems most unproductive. If you've got nothing nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all is a good rule of thumb.
    You bullied somebody off this website. Don't you dare try and call me a bully.
    I did no such thing.

    Someone left the website because they didn't like my opinion, politely expressed. That is not bullying. If I was bullying I'd expect to be rightly banned, but politely expressing your own opinion is never bullying even if others don't like that opinion.
    They asked you to stop engaging with them, which you ignored. So they left.
    It’s a pity this forum doesn’t have a block function for such instances.
    It's actually possible to bodge together your own crude "block" functionality. There are browser addons that allow you to program certain sites to hide html elements that meet certain criteria. So you could fairly easily have it detect a user's name, say "Farooq", and your browser would collapse that element and you wouldn't see it.

    It might also spoil your experience since you'd end up seeing weird orphan threads etc., but it can be done.
    I had one many years ago, not sure what browser support is like for user scripts nowadays or whether you have to turn it into an extension or what:

    https://github.com/edmundedgar/greasemonkey-widgets/tree/master/pb
    Your widget is part of PB mythology. The only problem was how frequently certain posters felt the need to loudly proclaim that they'd used Edmund's widget to block poster X, Y or Z which kinda negated its function I felt.
    The best one was proclaiming to have blocked some user or other while responding to their post and being grateful that they didn't have to see it. That was peak PB.
    No, peak PB came this year, when one of our dear commenters opined that:

    "supermarket tannoy announcements aren't as good as they used to be"

    thus implying that there was some Golden Age of Entertaining Supermarket Tannoy Announcements (probably before Brexit)
    {Engages windup mode}

    "I was sitting outside the cocktail bar of a the best hotel in the Cote D'azur, and a famous German tennis world champion opined to me that British supermarket tannoy announcements aren't as good as they used to be"
    MaxPB said:

    TimT said:

    Another graphic from Flo - comparing vaccination roll out in France vs England:


    [Translated] As there is no Omicron open data at the moment, I took the opportunity to make a figure that I had been planning for a long time, which aims to compare the progress of the Covid vaccine campaigns in England and in France.

    Time advances from left to right


    https://twitter.com/flodebarre/status/1476261645223665666?s=20

    France started the booster roll out sooner - but the NHS has been better at targeting older.

    That is the mistake that quite a few people make in comparing across nations - ignoring age. Vaccination is hundreds of times more... valuable?... for an 85 year old than a 14 year old. It's still worthwhile for the 14 year old, but the margin of advantage is much, much smaller.
    Valuable? Perhaps effectiveness measured in terms of NNT - number needed to treat. (= the number of patients treated to get one changed outcome)
    The value is surely in not needing extraordinary restrictions on normal living to protect the vaccine refuser cohort in older age groups.
    Best guess of completely unvaccinated in England. The Scottish numbers don't work at the moment - even using the Scottish health population estimates, it's full of negative numbers! The dashboard deals with this by saying 100%....

    image
    Yo Rutland. SSI will be pleased.
  • Options
    TresTres Posts: 2,208
    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
  • Options

    I'm sure the great thread reset is coming, but still:

    https://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-inheritors-how-three-families-shielded-their-fortunes-from-taxes-for-generations?utm_source=pocket-newtab

    "The Great Inheritors: How Three Families Shielded Their Fortunes From Taxes for Generations"

    “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” he wrote, invoking former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He then added his own knife twist: “Too many individuals, however, want the civilization at a discount.”

    Seems particularly pertinent for today.


    Maybe Rishi could become our Roosevelt :wink:.

    Teddy?
    Walk quietly and carry a big stick (tbf any stick would look big on Rishi).
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,246
    Farooq said:

    I was browsing an old thread yesterday (don't ask) and there was a prediction from Leon's "clairvoyant" that there would be a big war between two major powers in 2021.

    Since we've not even 1.5 days left, who's going to be declaring war on whom tomorrow?

    I used to have a Titan II launch key somewhere. Wonder if the locks on the Minutemen are different?
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,932

    MaxPB said:

    And another one - click the link to see the animated vaccine roll out differences:

    Here is an animated version of the vaccine pyramid, to compare the vaccination campaigns in France and England.
    (I changed the source for the English data)

    I am preparing another visualization, static, which I will post this evening.


    https://twitter.com/flodebarre/status/1476145618775068674?s=20

    Here's the static version:



    https://twitter.com/flodebarre/status/1475891948938530816?s=20

    From age 40+ the English/UK rollout is way better but the French have been good at getting a lot of younger people into the funnel, probably related to the vaccine passport policy. The English rollout has probably delivered a lot better value in terms of lives saved than the French one and it's probably allowed for the UK to live with far fewer restrictions since the middle of May compared to most of the continent. Hopefully our rapid booster rollout will help keep the restrictions away.
    Still a good chunk of 40-60 years old in the UK who need a kick up the arse. Boosters have been available to them for several weeks now.
    I suspect a lot of 40-60 year olds have had covid recently so a waiting for the 4+ weeks before having their vaccination.

    I probably had Covid in late November so its 9:50 on Sunday Jan 2nd for me,
  • Options
    Liverpool hospital bomber was killed by ‘murderous’ device he created, coroner rules
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/liverpool-hospital-bomber-killed-by-device-coroner-b974297.html

    But never mind that. The photo clearly shows Britain's most incompetent terrorist has pineapple on his pizza.
  • Options
    FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Farooq said:

    I was browsing an old thread yesterday (don't ask) and there was a prediction from Leon's "clairvoyant" that there would be a big war between two major powers in 2021.

    Since we've not even 1.5 days left, who's going to be declaring war on whom tomorrow?

    I used to have a Titan II launch key somewhere. Wonder if the locks on the Minutemen are different?
    I'm a little concerned about your avatar. Are you become Malmsbury, destroyer of worlds?
  • Options
    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,982

    Dura_Ace said:

    Taz said:

    Tres said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    I'm going to step out of the conversation as it isn't productive. You're the only one I can see calling people a bully, or insulting people. I stepped in to defend Charles after he was unfairly smeared.

    This conversation seems most unproductive. If you've got nothing nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all is a good rule of thumb.
    You bullied somebody off this website. Don't you dare try and call me a bully.
    I did no such thing.

    Someone left the website because they didn't like my opinion, politely expressed. That is not bullying. If I was bullying I'd expect to be rightly banned, but politely expressing your own opinion is never bullying even if others don't like that opinion.
    They asked you to stop engaging with them, which you ignored. So they left.
    It’s a pity this forum doesn’t have a block function for such instances.
    It would be good if you could block one and only one other contributor. The agony of that decision would be exquisite.
    I'd find it dead easy to make my choice, actually. No competition.
    Yeah, you're right, it's fucking obvious who would have to get the single bullet in the back of the dome.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,399
    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,814
    kyf_100 said:

    Taz said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    Guys, guys, look at us. Arguing. Bickering. It didn’t used to be like this.
    Hmm. I'm a fairly irregular poster, but I started posting here around five or (maybe nearer six?) years ago after years of lurking.

    I stopped posting almost entirely this year due to health issues which I've been fairly candid about, but I also stopped lurking too, so I've been absent almost an entire year.

    My perspective is that while much has stayed the same... it also seems like a much angrier, testier and less civil place to be. Spats will always happen, but they seem to go from 0 to all the way up to 11 in the blink of an eye now.

    I don't know if that is because two years of this pandemic has worn us all down to the bone and made us snappier and grouchier, or if it's something else.

    But that's my two cents, as someone who took a year's sabbatical from posting on or reading PB.
    KYF, hopefully your health has improved and welcome back. It certainly is more fractious on here nowadays, I am far calmer now mind you.
  • Options
    MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,440
    HYUFD said:

    I'm sure the great thread reset is coming, but still:

    https://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-inheritors-how-three-families-shielded-their-fortunes-from-taxes-for-generations?utm_source=pocket-newtab

    "The Great Inheritors: How Three Families Shielded Their Fortunes From Taxes for Generations"

    “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” he wrote, invoking former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He then added his own knife twist: “Too many individuals, however, want the civilization at a discount.”

    Seems particularly pertinent for today.


    Maybe Rishi could become our Roosevelt :wink:.

    The US has always had an aristocracy of a form, just of the super rich rather than aristocratic titles created by businessmen and financiers and passed down the generations. Indeed the Roosevelts and the Kennedys and arguably Trump came from that class and won the Presidency.

    Very often the children of American plutocrats would marry into families of Dukes and Earls in the UK, so the former would get a title and ancient estate and the latter benefit from an influx of new funds
    True. But the article and myself argue that the interests of dynastic wealth and those of wider society do not necessarily intertwine.

    I find it very tricky to see that generations divorced by time and character to those that created their inheritances deserve the economic and political power they have by birth right. Especially so when they insist on meddling in politics to further their wealth.

  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,095

    Farooq said:

    I was browsing an old thread yesterday (don't ask) and there was a prediction from Leon's "clairvoyant" that there would be a big war between two major powers in 2021.

    Since we've not even 1.5 days left, who's going to be declaring war on whom tomorrow?

    I used to have a Titan II launch key somewhere. Wonder if the locks on the Minutemen are different?
    "I used to have a Titan II launch key somewhere."

    Only on pb.com......
  • Options
    TresTres Posts: 2,208
    edited December 2021
    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to play down Johnson's documented friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
  • Options
    TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    An encouraging thread about Omicron in SA (with the caveat about kids)


    [Thread] JUST IN:

    How sick did #COVID19 patients in SA get during Gauteng's #Omicron wave?

    NEW
    @TheLancet
    preprint: https://bit.ly/3FJj6mA (via Waasila Jasat,
    @ProfAbdoolKarim
    et al.)

    https://twitter.com/miamalan/status/1476535918781734912?s=20

    Am I supposed to trust the Lancet or not?

    Lose track tbh.
    I tend to read all scientific papers, particularly biological ones, with a pinch of salt until other papers confirm the same findings. Various studies have pointed to the 'replicability crisis' in science, with one paper stating that only 11% of biological research findings could be replicated by other research teams.

    A more robust study of this problem found the number to be in the 42-75% range, but based on looking at only 12 studies: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13194-019-0269-1
  • Options
    EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Marlborough is a high school. Not that it matters.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,246

    Liverpool hospital bomber was killed by ‘murderous’ device he created, coroner rules
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/liverpool-hospital-bomber-killed-by-device-coroner-b974297.html

    But never mind that. The photo clearly shows Britain's most incompetent terrorist has pineapple on his pizza.

    I am proposing that we create a new Treason Act.

    Why, you ask? Well, the whole nonsense with detention without trial, removal of passports etc was set in train by the getting rid of the offence of engaging i n armed conflict against the UK state while a citizen of that state...

    If we had a sensible Treason act, we could simply sentence Begum et. al. to 40 years and go on to other things...

    The relevance? Well, I am trying to work out the list of things that should be on the Treason list.

    - Participating in armed conflict against the UK state, it's citizens, agents or assets.
    - Possession, sale or advocating the sale of flaked Parmesan.
    - Riding an eScooter on a pavement
    - Calling the police the "Feds"
    - Being called Piers

    that's what I have so far. Not sure about pineapple on pizza....
  • Options
    FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
  • Options
    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,982
    malcolmg said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Taz said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    Guys, guys, look at us. Arguing. Bickering. It didn’t used to be like this.
    Hmm. I'm a fairly irregular poster, but I started posting here around five or (maybe nearer six?) years ago after years of lurking.

    I stopped posting almost entirely this year due to health issues which I've been fairly candid about, but I also stopped lurking too, so I've been absent almost an entire year.

    My perspective is that while much has stayed the same... it also seems like a much angrier, testier and less civil place to be. Spats will always happen, but they seem to go from 0 to all the way up to 11 in the blink of an eye now.

    I don't know if that is because two years of this pandemic has worn us all down to the bone and made us snappier and grouchier, or if it's something else.

    But that's my two cents, as someone who took a year's sabbatical from posting on or reading PB.
    KYF, hopefully your health has improved and welcome back. It certainly is more fractious on here nowadays, I am far calmer now mind you.
    It's the better for it. I despise the simulated civility of the English middle class and the pretence that we're all jolly good pals really.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,095

    HYUFD said:

    I'm sure the great thread reset is coming, but still:

    https://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-inheritors-how-three-families-shielded-their-fortunes-from-taxes-for-generations?utm_source=pocket-newtab

    "The Great Inheritors: How Three Families Shielded Their Fortunes From Taxes for Generations"

    “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” he wrote, invoking former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He then added his own knife twist: “Too many individuals, however, want the civilization at a discount.”

    Seems particularly pertinent for today.


    Maybe Rishi could become our Roosevelt :wink:.

    The US has always had an aristocracy of a form, just of the super rich rather than aristocratic titles created by businessmen and financiers and passed down the generations. Indeed the Roosevelts and the Kennedys and arguably Trump came from that class and won the Presidency.

    Very often the children of American plutocrats would marry into families of Dukes and Earls in the UK, so the former would get a title and ancient estate and the latter benefit from an influx of new funds
    True. But the article and myself argue that the interests of dynastic wealth and those of wider society do not necessarily intertwine.

    I find it very tricky to see that generations divorced by time and character to those that created their inheritances deserve the economic and political power they have by birth right. Especially so when they insist on meddling in politics to further their wealth.

    I used to work with a great guy who was Boston old money. He was going out with a stunner, the daughter of a Greek shipping magnate - and whip smart. She was destined to be very, very senior in a major cosmetics conglomerate.

    His WASP friends took him out one night and said "You can't possibly marry her - she's far below your status."

    To his eternal credit, he told them to fuck off - and married her.
  • Options
    FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Dura_Ace said:

    malcolmg said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Taz said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    Guys, guys, look at us. Arguing. Bickering. It didn’t used to be like this.
    Hmm. I'm a fairly irregular poster, but I started posting here around five or (maybe nearer six?) years ago after years of lurking.

    I stopped posting almost entirely this year due to health issues which I've been fairly candid about, but I also stopped lurking too, so I've been absent almost an entire year.

    My perspective is that while much has stayed the same... it also seems like a much angrier, testier and less civil place to be. Spats will always happen, but they seem to go from 0 to all the way up to 11 in the blink of an eye now.

    I don't know if that is because two years of this pandemic has worn us all down to the bone and made us snappier and grouchier, or if it's something else.

    But that's my two cents, as someone who took a year's sabbatical from posting on or reading PB.
    KYF, hopefully your health has improved and welcome back. It certainly is more fractious on here nowadays, I am far calmer now mind you.
    It's the better for it. I despise the simulated civility of the English middle class and the pretence that we're all jolly good pals really.
    Spot on. If someone acts like clueless swine rolling around in the filth of their own lies, say it. If they cry, good.
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,607
    Farooq said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
    It's an article by Rachel Johnson (Boris' sister) saying that she knew Maxwell during her uni days, Boris is mentioned only in the context of he and Maxwell going to the same college. It's pretty thin gruel.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,399
    edited December 2021
    Farooq said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
    Turn off Javascript for Telegraph and Spectator.

    Rightwingers like the client-side.

    It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell — 500 days and counting in solitary confinement. I intersected briefly with her at Oxford. As a fresher I wandered into Balliol JCR one day in search of its subsidised breakfast granola-and-Nescafé offering and found a shiny glamazon with naughty eyes holding court astride a table, a high-heeled boot resting on my brother Boris’s thigh. She gave me a pitying glance but I did manage to snag an invite to her party in Headington Hill Hall — even though I wasn't in the same college as her and Boris. I have a memory of her father, Bob, coming out in a towelling robe and telling us all to go home. I’m sure fairweather friends would not reveal they went to a Ghislaine Maxwell party: as Barbara Amiel’s brilliant memoir Friends and Enemies proves, you only know who your real chums are when you’re in the gutter.

  • Options
    TresTres Posts: 2,208
    edited December 2021
    Farooq said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
    It's from Rachel Johnson's column in the Spectator, a smashing periodical, noting how she sympathises with Maxwell and states that she met her via her brother at Oxford.

    Actually the full quote in all of it's Johnsonian glory does it far more justice:

    'It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell — 500 days and counting in solitary confinement. I intersected briefly with her at Oxford. As a fresher I wandered into Balliol JCR one day in search of its subsidised breakfast granola-and-Nescafé offering and found a shiny glamazon with naughty eyes holding court astride a table, a high-heeled boot resting on my brother Boris’s thigh.'
  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to play down Johnson's documented friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    Other than you making a first class arse of yourself.

    GM was at Balliol incidentally, Marlborough's a public school. Which makes your point, if such a thing were possible, even weaker than it looks at first sight.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,246

    HYUFD said:

    I'm sure the great thread reset is coming, but still:

    https://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-inheritors-how-three-families-shielded-their-fortunes-from-taxes-for-generations?utm_source=pocket-newtab

    "The Great Inheritors: How Three Families Shielded Their Fortunes From Taxes for Generations"

    “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” he wrote, invoking former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He then added his own knife twist: “Too many individuals, however, want the civilization at a discount.”

    Seems particularly pertinent for today.


    Maybe Rishi could become our Roosevelt :wink:.

    The US has always had an aristocracy of a form, just of the super rich rather than aristocratic titles created by businessmen and financiers and passed down the generations. Indeed the Roosevelts and the Kennedys and arguably Trump came from that class and won the Presidency.

    Very often the children of American plutocrats would marry into families of Dukes and Earls in the UK, so the former would get a title and ancient estate and the latter benefit from an influx of new funds
    True. But the article and myself argue that the interests of dynastic wealth and those of wider society do not necessarily intertwine.

    I find it very tricky to see that generations divorced by time and character to those that created their inheritances deserve the economic and political power they have by birth right. Especially so when they insist on meddling in politics to further their wealth.

    I used to work with a great guy who was Boston old money. He was going out with a stunner, the daughter of a Greek shipping magnate - and whip smart. She was destined to be very, very senior in a major cosmetics conglomerate.

    His WASP friends took him out one night and said "You can't possibly marry her - she's far below your status."

    To his eternal credit, he told them to fuck off - and married her.
    While I wouldn't claim vast knowledge of the American monied classes... From the ones I've met, they take such things far more seriously than the UK old money types they appear to be trying to emulate.
  • Options
    EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    TimT said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    An encouraging thread about Omicron in SA (with the caveat about kids)


    [Thread] JUST IN:

    How sick did #COVID19 patients in SA get during Gauteng's #Omicron wave?

    NEW
    @TheLancet
    preprint: https://bit.ly/3FJj6mA (via Waasila Jasat,
    @ProfAbdoolKarim
    et al.)

    https://twitter.com/miamalan/status/1476535918781734912?s=20

    Am I supposed to trust the Lancet or not?

    Lose track tbh.
    I tend to read all scientific papers, particularly biological ones, with a pinch of salt until other papers confirm the same findings. Various studies have pointed to the 'replicability crisis' in science, with one paper stating that only 11% of biological research findings could be replicated by other research teams.

    A more robust study of this problem found the number to be in the 42-75% range, but based on looking at only 12 studies: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13194-019-0269-1
    So, we should be sceptical about the existence of the replicability crisis, because further studies have been unable to replicate the finding that studies often cannot replicate findings?

    Does that make the situation better, or worse?
  • Options

    Liverpool hospital bomber was killed by ‘murderous’ device he created, coroner rules
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/liverpool-hospital-bomber-killed-by-device-coroner-b974297.html

    But never mind that. The photo clearly shows Britain's most incompetent terrorist has pineapple on his pizza.

    I am proposing that we create a new Treason Act.

    Why, you ask? Well, the whole nonsense with detention without trial, removal of passports etc was set in train by the getting rid of the offence of engaging i n armed conflict against the UK state while a citizen of that state...

    If we had a sensible Treason act, we could simply sentence Begum et. al. to 40 years and go on to other things...

    The relevance? Well, I am trying to work out the list of things that should be on the Treason list.

    - Participating in armed conflict against the UK state, it's citizens, agents or assets.
    - Possession, sale or advocating the sale of flaked Parmesan.
    - Riding an eScooter on a pavement
    - Calling the police the "Feds"
    - Being called Piers

    that's what I have so far. Not sure about pineapple on pizza....
    Another treasonous crime must surely be using Americanisms like "one year anniversary".
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/one-year-anniversary-of-uk-approving-oxfordastrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine
  • Options
    MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,440

    HYUFD said:

    I'm sure the great thread reset is coming, but still:

    https://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-inheritors-how-three-families-shielded-their-fortunes-from-taxes-for-generations?utm_source=pocket-newtab

    "The Great Inheritors: How Three Families Shielded Their Fortunes From Taxes for Generations"

    “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” he wrote, invoking former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He then added his own knife twist: “Too many individuals, however, want the civilization at a discount.”

    Seems particularly pertinent for today.


    Maybe Rishi could become our Roosevelt :wink:.

    The US has always had an aristocracy of a form, just of the super rich rather than aristocratic titles created by businessmen and financiers and passed down the generations. Indeed the Roosevelts and the Kennedys and arguably Trump came from that class and won the Presidency.

    Very often the children of American plutocrats would marry into families of Dukes and Earls in the UK, so the former would get a title and ancient estate and the latter benefit from an influx of new funds
    True. But the article and myself argue that the interests of dynastic wealth and those of wider society do not necessarily intertwine.

    I find it very tricky to see that generations divorced by time and character to those that created their inheritances deserve the economic and political power they have by birth right. Especially so when they insist on meddling in politics to further their wealth.

    I used to work with a great guy who was Boston old money. He was going out with a stunner, the daughter of a Greek shipping magnate - and whip smart. She was destined to be very, very senior in a major cosmetics conglomerate.

    His WASP friends took him out one night and said "You can't possibly marry her - she's far below your status."

    To his eternal credit, he told them to fuck off - and married her.
    No doubt those from intelligent parents are more likely to be above the mean. But the more generations the more time to regress back to it!
  • Options
    FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    MattW said:

    Farooq said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
    Turn off Javascript for Telegraph and Spectator.

    Rightwingers like the client-side.
    Thanks, but on reflection I'll keep things as they are.
  • Options
    TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    Liverpool hospital bomber was killed by ‘murderous’ device he created, coroner rules
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/liverpool-hospital-bomber-killed-by-device-coroner-b974297.html

    But never mind that. The photo clearly shows Britain's most incompetent terrorist has pineapple on his pizza.

    I am proposing that we create a new Treason Act.

    Why, you ask? Well, the whole nonsense with detention without trial, removal of passports etc was set in train by the getting rid of the offence of engaging i n armed conflict against the UK state while a citizen of that state...

    If we had a sensible Treason act, we could simply sentence Begum et. al. to 40 years and go on to other things...

    The relevance? Well, I am trying to work out the list of things that should be on the Treason list.

    - Participating in armed conflict against the UK state, it's citizens, agents or assets.
    - Possession, sale or advocating the sale of flaked Parmesan.
    - Riding an eScooter on a pavement
    - Calling the police the "Feds"
    - Being called Piers

    that's what I have so far. Not sure about pineapple on pizza....
    You forgot talking on your phone in a public space with the phone on speaker.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,137
    ydoethur said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Taz said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    Guys, guys, look at us. Arguing. Bickering. It didn’t used to be like this.
    Hmm. I'm a fairly irregular poster, but I started posting here around five or (maybe nearer six?) years ago after years of lurking.

    I stopped posting almost entirely this year due to health issues which I've been fairly candid about, but I also stopped lurking too, so I've been absent almost an entire year.

    My perspective is that while much has stayed the same... it also seems like a much angrier, testier and less civil place to be. Spats will always happen, but they seem to go from 0 to all the way up to 11 in the blink of an eye now.

    I don't know if that is because two years of this pandemic has worn us all down to the bone and made us snappier and grouchier, or if it's something else.

    But that's my two cents, as someone who took a year's sabbatical from posting on or reading PB.
    I think the whole country is a much angrier, testier and less civil place tbf. Everyone is on edge, exhausted, strained, fed up.
    One thing I have noticed is that last year pretty much every house in the village went big and early on Christmas decorations. It was a kind of defiance, like the Thursday clapping. This year there are a surprising number of houses with no decorations at all. I think your description is spot on.
  • Options
    TresTres Posts: 2,208
    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
    It's an article by Rachel Johnson (Boris' sister) saying that she knew Maxwell during her uni days, Boris is mentioned only in the context of he and Maxwell going to the same college. It's pretty thin gruel.
    Not quite true is it Maxy?
  • Options
    TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Endillion said:

    TimT said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    An encouraging thread about Omicron in SA (with the caveat about kids)


    [Thread] JUST IN:

    How sick did #COVID19 patients in SA get during Gauteng's #Omicron wave?

    NEW
    @TheLancet
    preprint: https://bit.ly/3FJj6mA (via Waasila Jasat,
    @ProfAbdoolKarim
    et al.)

    https://twitter.com/miamalan/status/1476535918781734912?s=20

    Am I supposed to trust the Lancet or not?

    Lose track tbh.
    I tend to read all scientific papers, particularly biological ones, with a pinch of salt until other papers confirm the same findings. Various studies have pointed to the 'replicability crisis' in science, with one paper stating that only 11% of biological research findings could be replicated by other research teams.

    A more robust study of this problem found the number to be in the 42-75% range, but based on looking at only 12 studies: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13194-019-0269-1
    So, we should be sceptical about the existence of the replicability crisis, because further studies have been unable to replicate the finding that studies often cannot replicate findings?

    Does that make the situation better, or worse?
    LOL. Very droll.

    Seriously, it does cast doubt on the extent of the crisis, but all such studies point to the existence of the problem.
  • Options
    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Marlborough is not an Oxford College, it's a school.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,399
    edited December 2021
    IshmaelZ said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to play down Johnson's documented friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    Other than you making a first class arse of yourself.

    GM was at Balliol incidentally, Marlborough's a public school. Which makes your point, if such a thing were possible, even weaker than it looks at first sight.
    That college mistake was me, not @Tres. BTW. Hoodwinked by wiki.

    My cockup. Apologies.

    And with that, time for work.
  • Options
    EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    Tres said:

    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
    It's an article by Rachel Johnson (Boris' sister) saying that she knew Maxwell during her uni days, Boris is mentioned only in the context of he and Maxwell going to the same college. It's pretty thin gruel.
    Not quite true is it Maxy?
    Go on then, you tell us what it says.
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,607
    edited December 2021
    Tres said:

    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
    It's an article by Rachel Johnson (Boris' sister) saying that she knew Maxwell during her uni days, Boris is mentioned only in the context of he and Maxwell going to the same college. It's pretty thin gruel.
    Not quite true is it Maxy?
    Yes it is, they both went to the same college where Rachel Johnson met her while she was at a function to meet Boris. I mean beyond that do you have any evidence that Boris was friends with Maxwell or associated with her in any way during or beyond their university days? If you do please pass it on to the police.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,246
    TimT said:

    Liverpool hospital bomber was killed by ‘murderous’ device he created, coroner rules
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/liverpool-hospital-bomber-killed-by-device-coroner-b974297.html

    But never mind that. The photo clearly shows Britain's most incompetent terrorist has pineapple on his pizza.

    I am proposing that we create a new Treason Act.

    Why, you ask? Well, the whole nonsense with detention without trial, removal of passports etc was set in train by the getting rid of the offence of engaging i n armed conflict against the UK state while a citizen of that state...

    If we had a sensible Treason act, we could simply sentence Begum et. al. to 40 years and go on to other things...

    The relevance? Well, I am trying to work out the list of things that should be on the Treason list.

    - Participating in armed conflict against the UK state, it's citizens, agents or assets.
    - Possession, sale or advocating the sale of flaked Parmesan.
    - Riding an eScooter on a pavement
    - Calling the police the "Feds"
    - Being called Piers

    that's what I have so far. Not sure about pineapple on pizza....
    You forgot talking on your phone in a public space with the phone on speaker.
    - Using your phone as portable speaker for music.
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,932
    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
    It's an article by Rachel Johnson (Boris' sister) saying that she knew Maxwell during her uni days, Boris is mentioned only in the context of he and Maxwell going to the same college. It's pretty thin gruel.
    It's a £1000 (or whatever the going rate for a telegraph article is) for saying not very much but being at the right place at the right time.
  • Options
    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,982
    MaxPB said:

    Once again, like the bogus stories on Boris going to Italy and now the bogus story on him going to Mustique the people who want to get rid of him are damaging their own credibility with this latest attempt to smear him for potentially knowing Maxwell during their university days.

    There's so many legitimate reasons to want him out and for him to be removed from office, why resort to illegitimate ones?

    Because he's such a well evidenced shit that almost anything about him sounds believable and it might work. It's still worth doing even if all it does is force him to deny it.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,399
    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
    It's an article by Rachel Johnson (Boris' sister) saying that she knew Maxwell during her uni days, Boris is mentioned only in the context of he and Maxwell going to the same college. It's pretty thin gruel.
    It's a £1000 (or whatever the going rate for a telegraph article is) for saying not very much but being at the right place at the right time.
    Spectator Diary. And that is right :smile:
  • Options
    TresTres Posts: 2,208
    I'm sure it will go down a treat with the red wall voters.
  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Farooq said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    malcolmg said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Taz said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    Guys, guys, look at us. Arguing. Bickering. It didn’t used to be like this.
    Hmm. I'm a fairly irregular poster, but I started posting here around five or (maybe nearer six?) years ago after years of lurking.

    I stopped posting almost entirely this year due to health issues which I've been fairly candid about, but I also stopped lurking too, so I've been absent almost an entire year.

    My perspective is that while much has stayed the same... it also seems like a much angrier, testier and less civil place to be. Spats will always happen, but they seem to go from 0 to all the way up to 11 in the blink of an eye now.

    I don't know if that is because two years of this pandemic has worn us all down to the bone and made us snappier and grouchier, or if it's something else.

    But that's my two cents, as someone who took a year's sabbatical from posting on or reading PB.
    KYF, hopefully your health has improved and welcome back. It certainly is more fractious on here nowadays, I am far calmer now mind you.
    It's the better for it. I despise the simulated civility of the English middle class and the pretence that we're all jolly good pals really.
    Spot on. If someone acts like clueless swine rolling around in the filth of their own lies, say it. If they cry, good.
    If they are found hanging from the hook on the back of the door to their mum's basement, bullseye
  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited December 2021
    "LFTs seem to available again:"

    https://twitter.com/fact_covid/status/1476532837629276165?s=20

    Get'em while they are hot....

    Edit - too late they are gone. More chance of getting a PS5 than a home delivery of LFT at the moment.

    Looks like PCR test are nearly all gone today. That is definitely quicker than previous days. I presume the elastic will go pop at some point over the next few days.
  • Options
    kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,936
    malcolmg said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Taz said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    Guys, guys, look at us. Arguing. Bickering. It didn’t used to be like this.
    Hmm. I'm a fairly irregular poster, but I started posting here around five or (maybe nearer six?) years ago after years of lurking.

    I stopped posting almost entirely this year due to health issues which I've been fairly candid about, but I also stopped lurking too, so I've been absent almost an entire year.

    My perspective is that while much has stayed the same... it also seems like a much angrier, testier and less civil place to be. Spats will always happen, but they seem to go from 0 to all the way up to 11 in the blink of an eye now.

    I don't know if that is because two years of this pandemic has worn us all down to the bone and made us snappier and grouchier, or if it's something else.

    But that's my two cents, as someone who took a year's sabbatical from posting on or reading PB.
    KYF, hopefully your health has improved and welcome back. It certainly is more fractious on here nowadays, I am far calmer now mind you.
    Thank you, it's much appreciated!
  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    MattW said:

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
    It's an article by Rachel Johnson (Boris' sister) saying that she knew Maxwell during her uni days, Boris is mentioned only in the context of he and Maxwell going to the same college. It's pretty thin gruel.
    It's a £1000 (or whatever the going rate for a telegraph article is) for saying not very much but being at the right place at the right time.
    Spectator Diary. And that is right :smile:
    I must cancel my Spectator sub, the Christmas issue had a column by the duchess of bloody York ffs.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,814
    ydoethur said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Taz said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    Guys, guys, look at us. Arguing. Bickering. It didn’t used to be like this.
    Hmm. I'm a fairly irregular poster, but I started posting here around five or (maybe nearer six?) years ago after years of lurking.

    I stopped posting almost entirely this year due to health issues which I've been fairly candid about, but I also stopped lurking too, so I've been absent almost an entire year.

    My perspective is that while much has stayed the same... it also seems like a much angrier, testier and less civil place to be. Spats will always happen, but they seem to go from 0 to all the way up to 11 in the blink of an eye now.

    I don't know if that is because two years of this pandemic has worn us all down to the bone and made us snappier and grouchier, or if it's something else.

    But that's my two cents, as someone who took a year's sabbatical from posting on or reading PB.
    I think the whole country is a much angrier, testier and less civil place tbf. Everyone is on edge, exhausted, strained, fed up.
    It all started some years ago , people see the disaster Brexit is , couple that with covid and lots of people cannot cope.
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,932
    IshmaelZ said:

    MattW said:

    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
    It's an article by Rachel Johnson (Boris' sister) saying that she knew Maxwell during her uni days, Boris is mentioned only in the context of he and Maxwell going to the same college. It's pretty thin gruel.
    It's a £1000 (or whatever the going rate for a telegraph article is) for saying not very much but being at the right place at the right time.
    Spectator Diary. And that is right :smile:
    I must cancel my Spectator sub, the Christmas issue had a column by the duchess of bloody York ffs.
    How else will she survive when her beloved (Prince Andrew) has lost all his money.
  • Options
    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,982
    IshmaelZ said:

    Farooq said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    malcolmg said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Taz said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    Guys, guys, look at us. Arguing. Bickering. It didn’t used to be like this.
    Hmm. I'm a fairly irregular poster, but I started posting here around five or (maybe nearer six?) years ago after years of lurking.

    I stopped posting almost entirely this year due to health issues which I've been fairly candid about, but I also stopped lurking too, so I've been absent almost an entire year.

    My perspective is that while much has stayed the same... it also seems like a much angrier, testier and less civil place to be. Spats will always happen, but they seem to go from 0 to all the way up to 11 in the blink of an eye now.

    I don't know if that is because two years of this pandemic has worn us all down to the bone and made us snappier and grouchier, or if it's something else.

    But that's my two cents, as someone who took a year's sabbatical from posting on or reading PB.
    KYF, hopefully your health has improved and welcome back. It certainly is more fractious on here nowadays, I am far calmer now mind you.
    It's the better for it. I despise the simulated civility of the English middle class and the pretence that we're all jolly good pals really.
    Spot on. If someone acts like clueless swine rolling around in the filth of their own lies, say it. If they cry, good.
    If they are found hanging from the hook on the back of the door to their mum's basement, bullseye
    The Full Milligan.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,598
    MaxPB said:

    Tres said:

    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
    It's an article by Rachel Johnson (Boris' sister) saying that she knew Maxwell during her uni days, Boris is mentioned only in the context of he and Maxwell going to the same college. It's pretty thin gruel.
    Not quite true is it Maxy?
    Yes it is, they both went to the same college where Rachel Johnson met her while she was at a function to meet Boris. I mean beyond that do you have any evidence that Boris was friends with Maxwell or associated with her in any way during or beyond their university days? If you do please pass it on to the police.
    "[...] a shiny glamazon with naughty eyes holding court astride a table, a high-heeled boot resting on my brother Boris’s thigh. She gave me a pitying glance but I did manage to snag an invite to her party in Headington Hill Hall — even though I wasn't in the same college as her and Boris."
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,814

    🚧 Due to the ongoing effect of coronavirus isolation and sickness, there will be no direct services to/from London Victoria until 10 January.

    As a result, no Southern services will call at:
    ❌London Victoria
    ❌Battersea Park
    ❌Clapham Junction
    ❌Wandsworth Common

    https://twitter.com/SouthernRailUK/status/1476504249282576390

    Who gives a monkey's
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,932
    malcolmg said:

    🚧 Due to the ongoing effect of coronavirus isolation and sickness, there will be no direct services to/from London Victoria until 10 January.

    As a result, no Southern services will call at:
    ❌London Victoria
    ❌Battersea Park
    ❌Clapham Junction
    ❌Wandsworth Common

    https://twitter.com/SouthernRailUK/status/1476504249282576390

    Who gives a monkey's
    Anyone working round Victoria station next week that uses Southern rail to get to work.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,814
    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Ghislaine Maxwell's mistake, (from her point of view, not everyone else's), was not staying in a country like France which doesn't extradite nationals to the United States. She must have been very complacent to actually choose to reside in the United States itself, and not even Canada or the UK.

    Did she actually choose to stay in the US, or was that where she happened to be when the FBI put out an arrest warrant in her name?
    She was in France only a short time before she was arrested, and she must have known there was a good chance of being arrested if she returned to the US, but she chose to do so anyway. I think she must have convinced herself it wouldn't actually happen, in the face of reality.
    Tory arrogance
  • Options
    RobDRobD Posts: 58,961
    malcolmg said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Ghislaine Maxwell's mistake, (from her point of view, not everyone else's), was not staying in a country like France which doesn't extradite nationals to the United States. She must have been very complacent to actually choose to reside in the United States itself, and not even Canada or the UK.

    Did she actually choose to stay in the US, or was that where she happened to be when the FBI put out an arrest warrant in her name?
    She was in France only a short time before she was arrested, and she must have known there was a good chance of being arrested if she returned to the US, but she chose to do so anyway. I think she must have convinced herself it wouldn't actually happen, in the face of reality.
    Tory arrogance
    Huh?
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,187
    eek said:

    malcolmg said:

    🚧 Due to the ongoing effect of coronavirus isolation and sickness, there will be no direct services to/from London Victoria until 10 January.

    As a result, no Southern services will call at:
    ❌London Victoria
    ❌Battersea Park
    ❌Clapham Junction
    ❌Wandsworth Common

    https://twitter.com/SouthernRailUK/status/1476504249282576390

    Who gives a monkey's
    Anyone working round Victoria station next week that uses Southern rail to get to work.
    Interesting that they are prioritising the city over Westminster.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,814
    Carnyx said:

    malcolmg said:

    https://twitter.com/talkRADIO/status/1476131289870778374

    Campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen and James Max clash over the issue of 'sex-based rights' and JK Rowling's 'trans-row'.

    James: "I am slightly staggered by your views."

    Campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen: "What? That biological sex exists."

    @thejamesmax

    "Women can't commit rape" - erh, what? As in legally they can't?

    If you've transitioned to being a woman, this person would like you to not use female toilets - but where are they supposed to go then? Outside?

    That was not what she said, she said majority had not transitioned and they should not be able to use women only spaces. James Max was totally clueless, the idiot thought you could be born female but actually be a man, biggest bellend I have ever heard.
    Hello Malky! Mild and dry if grey here. Was thinking about clootie dumplings only a moment ago, prompted by the mince pie discussion ...
    Hello Carnyx, yes grey and windy here, not very pleasant. My old man's clootie dumplings were great , not had one in many many years.
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,187
    tlg86 said:

    eek said:

    malcolmg said:

    🚧 Due to the ongoing effect of coronavirus isolation and sickness, there will be no direct services to/from London Victoria until 10 January.

    As a result, no Southern services will call at:
    ❌London Victoria
    ❌Battersea Park
    ❌Clapham Junction
    ❌Wandsworth Common

    https://twitter.com/SouthernRailUK/status/1476504249282576390

    Who gives a monkey's
    Anyone working round Victoria station next week that uses Southern rail to get to work.
    Interesting that they are prioritising the city over Westminster.
    Thinking about it, I guess it’s easier to get from London Bridge to Westminster (SE to Charing Cross) than from Vic or clj to the city.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,814

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    @Endillion fair, but the simple fact is that this entire debate is completely meaningless. There is nothing stopping anyone from using whatever toilet they want. Talk of a distinction between pre- and post-op is meaningless because there isn’t a “between the legs” inspector at the door of every bathroom.

    Ultimately self ID (in respect to toilets) does not create an increased danger to women because there is nothing stopping violent and abusive men from going into women’s toilets already, regardless of trans or otherwise.

    Sport and prisons etc is another debate entirely.

    I don't actually agree - because currently if a wannabe abuser sticks his head round the door of the ladies' toilets he gets shouted out 99 times out of 100, whereas if you change the rules, suddenly that's no longer possible or even legal - but it's not actually important. What I said was that I think it's emblematic of the way the debate is being conducted, with far too much focus on individual self expression and little to nothing on societal interactions.

    This is bizarre, because the debate sort-of breaks down into left/right blocs, and it is very strange to me that the left have completely forgotten about the societal aspects, and the right are having to remind them that not everything is about the rights of the individual.
    Only if a wannabe abuser doesn't pass as a woman. Otherwise who’s going to know?

    People seem to have in their heads that a trans woman is a person in a dress with stubble.
    No, you've missed the point, I fear. No-one sane is seriously concerned about actual trans people. The concern is that bad actors will take the opportunity to abuse the new system.
    And my point is that there is nothing to stop them abusing the current “system”.

    If a man wants to follow a woman into a toilet for nefarious purposes, there is nothing stopping them. Self ID isn’t going to change that.
    Utter claptrap, it is illegal at present whereas they would like it to be legal , completely different. Self ID would change many many things. If they have block and tackle they should be nowhere near women only spaces.
  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Taz said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    Guys, guys, look at us. Arguing. Bickering. It didn’t used to be like this.
    Hmm. I'm a fairly irregular poster, but I started posting here around five or (maybe nearer six?) years ago after years of lurking.

    I stopped posting almost entirely this year due to health issues which I've been fairly candid about, but I also stopped lurking too, so I've been absent almost an entire year.

    My perspective is that while much has stayed the same... it also seems like a much angrier, testier and less civil place to be. Spats will always happen, but they seem to go from 0 to all the way up to 11 in the blink of an eye now.

    I don't know if that is because two years of this pandemic has worn us all down to the bone and made us snappier and grouchier, or if it's something else.

    But that's my two cents, as someone who took a year's sabbatical from posting on or reading PB.
    I think the whole country is a much angrier, testier and less civil place tbf. Everyone is on edge, exhausted, strained, fed up.
    One thing I have noticed is that last year pretty much every house in the village went big and early on Christmas decorations. It was a kind of defiance, like the Thursday clapping. This year there are a surprising number of houses with no decorations at all. I think your description is spot on.
    Big tinsel deficit in Devon too. I am delighted. Baa, humbug.
  • Options
    BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,425
    malcolmg said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Ghislaine Maxwell's mistake, (from her point of view, not everyone else's), was not staying in a country like France which doesn't extradite nationals to the United States. She must have been very complacent to actually choose to reside in the United States itself, and not even Canada or the UK.

    Did she actually choose to stay in the US, or was that where she happened to be when the FBI put out an arrest warrant in her name?
    She was in France only a short time before she was arrested, and she must have known there was a good chance of being arrested if she returned to the US, but she chose to do so anyway. I think she must have convinced herself it wouldn't actually happen, in the face of reality.
    Tory arrogance
    ?? As it happens her late unlamented dad was a Labour MP in the dim and distant. His main achievement (as an MP) was selling off the Commons wine cellar. He also ran for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party - "Let Harold and Bob finish the job". Catchy.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,814
    IshmaelZ said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Ghislaine Maxwell's mistake, (from her point of view, not everyone else's), was not staying in a country like France which doesn't extradite nationals to the United States. She must have been very complacent to actually choose to reside in the United States itself, and not even Canada or the UK.

    Did she actually choose to stay in the US, or was that where she happened to be when the FBI put out an arrest warrant in her name?
    She was in France only a short time before she was arrested, and she must have known there was a good chance of being arrested if she returned to the US, but she chose to do so anyway. I think she must have convinced herself it wouldn't actually happen, in the face of reality.
    Tellingly she was quoted as asking of no one in particular at a pre trial hearing "How did it come to this?"

    Bod on r2 who sounded well informed saying today there *is* a formal procedure by which she can spill beans about others in exchange for a 15% discount on sentence.
    Wow , 55 years instead of 65 , whoopee she will only be 100 or so when she gets out.
  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    malcolmg said:

    Carnyx said:

    malcolmg said:

    https://twitter.com/talkRADIO/status/1476131289870778374

    Campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen and James Max clash over the issue of 'sex-based rights' and JK Rowling's 'trans-row'.

    James: "I am slightly staggered by your views."

    Campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen: "What? That biological sex exists."

    @thejamesmax

    "Women can't commit rape" - erh, what? As in legally they can't?

    If you've transitioned to being a woman, this person would like you to not use female toilets - but where are they supposed to go then? Outside?

    That was not what she said, she said majority had not transitioned and they should not be able to use women only spaces. James Max was totally clueless, the idiot thought you could be born female but actually be a man, biggest bellend I have ever heard.
    Hello Malky! Mild and dry if grey here. Was thinking about clootie dumplings only a moment ago, prompted by the mince pie discussion ...
    Hello Carnyx, yes grey and windy here, not very pleasant. My old man's clootie dumplings were great , not had one in many many years.
    Can't believe what climate change has brought us. BBC weather said yesterday it was going to get so cold in the New Year "Scotland might even see some frost."
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,814
    RobD said:

    malcolmg said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Ghislaine Maxwell's mistake, (from her point of view, not everyone else's), was not staying in a country like France which doesn't extradite nationals to the United States. She must have been very complacent to actually choose to reside in the United States itself, and not even Canada or the UK.

    Did she actually choose to stay in the US, or was that where she happened to be when the FBI put out an arrest warrant in her name?
    She was in France only a short time before she was arrested, and she must have known there was a good chance of being arrested if she returned to the US, but she chose to do so anyway. I think she must have convinced herself it wouldn't actually happen, in the face of reality.
    Tory arrogance
    Huh?
    She is of the Tory breed who think they rule the world, friends with fatso and other such lowlifes. The arrogance is bred into them from a young age. Thought she could just buy her way out of it as usual.
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,187
    This thread has terminated. All change, all change.
  • Options
    New thread.
  • Options
    RobDRobD Posts: 58,961
    malcolmg said:

    RobD said:

    malcolmg said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Ghislaine Maxwell's mistake, (from her point of view, not everyone else's), was not staying in a country like France which doesn't extradite nationals to the United States. She must have been very complacent to actually choose to reside in the United States itself, and not even Canada or the UK.

    Did she actually choose to stay in the US, or was that where she happened to be when the FBI put out an arrest warrant in her name?
    She was in France only a short time before she was arrested, and she must have known there was a good chance of being arrested if she returned to the US, but she chose to do so anyway. I think she must have convinced herself it wouldn't actually happen, in the face of reality.
    Tory arrogance
    Huh?
    She is of the Tory breed who think they rule the world, friends with fatso and other such lowlifes. The arrogance is bred into them from a young age. Thought she could just buy her way out of it as usual.
    Any evidence to back up that claim, or are you just talking bollocks?
  • Options
    BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,425
    malcolmg said:

    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    @Endillion fair, but the simple fact is that this entire debate is completely meaningless. There is nothing stopping anyone from using whatever toilet they want. Talk of a distinction between pre- and post-op is meaningless because there isn’t a “between the legs” inspector at the door of every bathroom.

    Ultimately self ID (in respect to toilets) does not create an increased danger to women because there is nothing stopping violent and abusive men from going into women’s toilets already, regardless of trans or otherwise.

    Sport and prisons etc is another debate entirely.

    I don't actually agree - because currently if a wannabe abuser sticks his head round the door of the ladies' toilets he gets shouted out 99 times out of 100, whereas if you change the rules, suddenly that's no longer possible or even legal - but it's not actually important. What I said was that I think it's emblematic of the way the debate is being conducted, with far too much focus on individual self expression and little to nothing on societal interactions.

    This is bizarre, because the debate sort-of breaks down into left/right blocs, and it is very strange to me that the left have completely forgotten about the societal aspects, and the right are having to remind them that not everything is about the rights of the individual.
    Only if a wannabe abuser doesn't pass as a woman. Otherwise who’s going to know?

    People seem to have in their heads that a trans woman is a person in a dress with stubble.
    No, you've missed the point, I fear. No-one sane is seriously concerned about actual trans people. The concern is that bad actors will take the opportunity to abuse the new system.
    And my point is that there is nothing to stop them abusing the current “system”.

    If a man wants to follow a woman into a toilet for nefarious purposes, there is nothing stopping them. Self ID isn’t going to change that.
    Utter claptrap, it is illegal at present whereas they would like it to be legal , completely different. Self ID would change many many things. If they have block and tackle they should be nowhere near women only spaces.
    Don't generally agree with Malc but he's definitely on the side of the angels here. Who on earth really thinks this can possible be a good idea? The issue, which should be handled with great care, has been taken over by idealogues intent on winning a political war regardless of cost.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 91,646
    Dura_Ace said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Taz said:

    Tres said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    I'm going to step out of the conversation as it isn't productive. You're the only one I can see calling people a bully, or insulting people. I stepped in to defend Charles after he was unfairly smeared.

    This conversation seems most unproductive. If you've got nothing nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all is a good rule of thumb.
    You bullied somebody off this website. Don't you dare try and call me a bully.
    I did no such thing.

    Someone left the website because they didn't like my opinion, politely expressed. That is not bullying. If I was bullying I'd expect to be rightly banned, but politely expressing your own opinion is never bullying even if others don't like that opinion.
    They asked you to stop engaging with them, which you ignored. So they left.
    It’s a pity this forum doesn’t have a block function for such instances.
    It would be good if you could block one and only one other contributor. The agony of that decision would be exquisite.
    I'd find it dead easy to make my choice, actually. No competition.
    Yeah, you're right, it's fucking obvious who would have to get the single bullet in the back of the dome.
    I wouldn't take it personally.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,814
    MaxPB said:

    Tres said:

    MaxPB said:

    Farooq said:

    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to deflect Johnson's friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    What does the article say? Can only see the top couple of paragraphs and it's just some bollocks about pets.
    It's an article by Rachel Johnson (Boris' sister) saying that she knew Maxwell during her uni days, Boris is mentioned only in the context of he and Maxwell going to the same college. It's pretty thin gruel.
    Not quite true is it Maxy?
    Yes it is, they both went to the same college where Rachel Johnson met her while she was at a function to meet Boris. I mean beyond that do you have any evidence that Boris was friends with Maxwell or associated with her in any way during or beyond their university days? If you do please pass it on to the police.
    And the pet Met would do anything with it? Nothing to see , it happened in the past , move along move along.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,598
    Someone has nuked the mincepie on this thread.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,814
    Dura_Ace said:

    malcolmg said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Taz said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    Guys, guys, look at us. Arguing. Bickering. It didn’t used to be like this.
    Hmm. I'm a fairly irregular poster, but I started posting here around five or (maybe nearer six?) years ago after years of lurking.

    I stopped posting almost entirely this year due to health issues which I've been fairly candid about, but I also stopped lurking too, so I've been absent almost an entire year.

    My perspective is that while much has stayed the same... it also seems like a much angrier, testier and less civil place to be. Spats will always happen, but they seem to go from 0 to all the way up to 11 in the blink of an eye now.

    I don't know if that is because two years of this pandemic has worn us all down to the bone and made us snappier and grouchier, or if it's something else.

    But that's my two cents, as someone who took a year's sabbatical from posting on or reading PB.
    KYF, hopefully your health has improved and welcome back. It certainly is more fractious on here nowadays, I am far calmer now mind you.
    It's the better for it. I despise the simulated civility of the English middle class and the pretence that we're all jolly good pals really.
    Nothing to beat a good rumpus, too many wishy washy scared to upset anyone bods about for sure.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 91,646
    Dura_Ace said:

    malcolmg said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Taz said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    Guys, guys, look at us. Arguing. Bickering. It didn’t used to be like this.
    Hmm. I'm a fairly irregular poster, but I started posting here around five or (maybe nearer six?) years ago after years of lurking.

    I stopped posting almost entirely this year due to health issues which I've been fairly candid about, but I also stopped lurking too, so I've been absent almost an entire year.

    My perspective is that while much has stayed the same... it also seems like a much angrier, testier and less civil place to be. Spats will always happen, but they seem to go from 0 to all the way up to 11 in the blink of an eye now.

    I don't know if that is because two years of this pandemic has worn us all down to the bone and made us snappier and grouchier, or if it's something else.

    But that's my two cents, as someone who took a year's sabbatical from posting on or reading PB.
    KYF, hopefully your health has improved and welcome back. It certainly is more fractious on here nowadays, I am far calmer now mind you.
    It's the better for it. I despise the simulated civility of the English middle class and the pretence that we're all jolly good pals really.
    How are you judging what is civility and what is simulated civility? Seems like internal bias could skew the perception.

    Invective can be very useful and appropriate, but if civility and bonhomie can be simulated presumably so can coarseness.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,814
    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Would not be surprising
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,814
    Tres said:

    MattW said:

    Tres said:

    Endillion said:

    Tres said:

    I seem to have missed our dear PM's intimate connections with Ghislaine Maxwell. What a grubby world he inhabits.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-s-hard-not-to-pity-ghislaine-maxwell

    You mean that they applied to and were accepted to the same Oxford college, 40 years ago?

    Hang. Him.
    Well there was clearly a meeting of minds. Birds of a feather and all that.
    They weren't at the same college.

    Maxwell = Marlborough.
    Johnson = Balliol.

    So the entire student body Oxford University at any time from about 1985-1988 must be guilty of sex trafficking.

    Or something.
    Interesting. Lots of people trying to play down Johnson's documented friendship with Maxwell. Clearly nothing to see here.
    the cult on here worship him
  • Options
    malcolmg said:

    ydoethur said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Taz said:

    Somebody who bullied somebody off this website is calling other people abusive, ironic.

    I don't think Charles has ever bullied or been abusive to anyone. I don't get your vendetta against him and a few others.

    A bit more tolerance of people with views different to your own would do you good. Some of the best conversations I have on this site are with people I disagree with, and some of the people I find most objectionable vote the same way I do. Its enlightening to embrace a variety of viewpoints not just a circle of likeminded people.
    I wasn't referring to Charles when I said that. I think you know exactly who I was referring to.

    I get on with plenty of people I disagree with. HYUFD, MrEd, Richard, in fact the only people I don't get on with are the bullies and those who condescend and are abusive to me and others - and I am not the first to point this out.
    Politely disagreeing with you isn't bullying you, or "shouting you down".
    A bully calling somebody else a bully. Ironic.
    Guys, guys, look at us. Arguing. Bickering. It didn’t used to be like this.
    Hmm. I'm a fairly irregular poster, but I started posting here around five or (maybe nearer six?) years ago after years of lurking.

    I stopped posting almost entirely this year due to health issues which I've been fairly candid about, but I also stopped lurking too, so I've been absent almost an entire year.

    My perspective is that while much has stayed the same... it also seems like a much angrier, testier and less civil place to be. Spats will always happen, but they seem to go from 0 to all the way up to 11 in the blink of an eye now.

    I don't know if that is because two years of this pandemic has worn us all down to the bone and made us snappier and grouchier, or if it's something else.

    But that's my two cents, as someone who took a year's sabbatical from posting on or reading PB.
    I think the whole country is a much angrier, testier and less civil place tbf. Everyone is on edge, exhausted, strained, fed up.
    It all started some years ago , people see the disaster Brexit is , couple that with covid and lots of people cannot cope.
    yes there needs to be more kindness shown especially to ethnic minorities who dont trust the govt and have decided not to take the vaccine
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    Don't agree with any of this and think those guilty of any criminal offence should be charged. However cannot understand the reference to Piers Corbyn (who I agree has lost the plot) as I can't see him in any of the videos. Why mention him, unless you have another political agenda?
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    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,226
    GIN1138 said:

    ydoethur said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Good morning PB.

    Seems to be getting rather heated here... Maybe everyone chill and have a mince pie? :D

    There you go again, trying to pick a fight. I hate mince pies.
    I'm just concerned at this barbaric idea of having them chilled. Surely everyone heats them first?
    Mince pies should be eaten at room temperature.
    Now I like mince pies hot (when they first come out of the oven) and when they've cooled to room temperature.
    Don’t be led astray by how cheap Lidl mince pies are, is my advice.
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    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,226
    HYUFD said:

    I'm sure the great thread reset is coming, but still:

    https://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-inheritors-how-three-families-shielded-their-fortunes-from-taxes-for-generations?utm_source=pocket-newtab

    "The Great Inheritors: How Three Families Shielded Their Fortunes From Taxes for Generations"

    “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” he wrote, invoking former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He then added his own knife twist: “Too many individuals, however, want the civilization at a discount.”

    Seems particularly pertinent for today.


    Maybe Rishi could become our Roosevelt :wink:.

    The US has always had an aristocracy of a form, just of the super rich rather than aristocratic titles created by businessmen and financiers and passed down the generations. Indeed the Roosevelts and the Kennedys and arguably Trump came from that class and won the Presidency.

    Very often the children of American plutocrats would marry into families of Dukes and Earls in the UK, so the former would get a title and ancient estate and the latter benefit from an influx of new funds
    Remarkably, an astute point by our own HY. Recommended reading: White Trash by an NY university professor. Actually proper history, despite the clickbait title.
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