The upcoming departure of Stephen Breyer, the oldest judge on the US Supreme Court and one of three progressive judges, has triggered a frenzy of speculation on who will get the nod to replace him. Ordinarily I avoid markets like this like the plague, since they are so dependent on the whims of a single person whose mind we cannot know. But Supreme Court watchers have become extremely good at this game, and I might make an exception here.
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Noble stopped and said I am nearly at the break couldn't you have waited, guy says I can't wait bursting, I'll only be a sec, can you wait.
Noble says some people seem to think this works like Sky Plus and you can just pause it when you need to go the toilet or make a cuppa. Guy comes back, and he then he acted out like he was a moving Sky Plus, reversing, pausing, fast forwarding.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=MkydWp_5NgQ
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZzkTewpzjss
Enough there to offend absolutely everyone.
Just catching up after having friends staying overnight. Congratulations to @MikeSmithson and all PBers who have been in from the start. I believe it’s success has been because even though many of us have strong opinions, we all almost always respect others views, and their right to hold them. Long may it continue!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10479127/Spotify-purges-70-Joe-Rogan-episodes-defiant-host-returns-airwaves-Says-lockdowns-dont-work.html
Some strange episodes in the new list of ones that have got cancelled e.g. Tim Ferriss.
Also that's fake news from Daily Mail, the "far right ones" ones were never transferred over when he first joined Spotify. This latest 70 are not really the nutter ones.
✍️ Isabel Hardman
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/boris-is-finished-it-s-when-not-if
I can't imagine Ferriss has said anything himself that is extreme. I find him a bit of a BS artist and is into some hippy dippy ideas that lots of silicon valley are into, but he is mainstream tech investor guy who himself just interviews business people.
I respect their decision to dissent, but I can’t be arsed changing platforms.
More usable quotes than 'Casablanca'
https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1486398035135549442
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/04/gaslight-playbook-corrupt-company-government-sociopath
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60270467
He needs to find a Governor, aged about 50, who is competent, intelligent and coherent. Somebody who will still be young enough to replace him in two years or six.
It was brought up specifically in equalities training I did several months ago. About the only surprising thing that came up was reference to Henry the Navigator as the world's first racist, which seems optimistic.
But her car crash apology she explicitly said that is exactly how see shes race, there are black people and white people.
Hopefully she might listen and learn.
But interesting double standards. Sharron Osborne got canned from the same show for saying I know Piers Morgan, he isn't a racist. Goldberg two week time out for moronic comments on the holocaust.
I wonder what 2035’s banned word will be, that people say now without too much thought?
Funny how there’s literally dozens of N-words in Chapelle’s special though, so we are now at the point where the offensiveness of a word depends on who says it.
Rock’s routine on the use of language is indeed brilliant.
In the case of Goldberg comments, the best thing they could have done is not suspend her, rather have somebody on who is an expert on the holocaust and explain why her comments were incorrect. And let the panel ask questions about their presumptions about the history and have them confirmed or corrected. I think it would probably a good thing for the viewers.
I just bought a kilo of the finest dead cow fillet for Valentine’s Day. Life without steak would not be much of a life.
If Her Majesty (whose platinum jubilee is tomorrow) makes it to the school summer holiday, she will have the longest confirmed reign of any monarch who acceded to the throne as an adult.
Already it's the longest reign of anyone who was over the age of 20 at the time they started the reign.
Another 2 years and 111 days from tomorrow and HM the Queen overtakes Louis XIV and takes the record.
Within some circles they have this notion you can't "punch down" in comedy, that is when your joke isn't a joke anymore its just offensive. Which is why Roma can't be joked about, but within these circles there is massive hypocrisy.
Staff at The Times and The Sunday Times [and Wall Street Journal & New York Post] appear to have been the target of “persistent nation-state attack activity” thought to be linked to China.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-and-sunday-times-hack-linked-to-china-mmlp0cg9h (£££)
Rulers of Holy Roman Empire states seem to have had a lot of longevity.
The thing to do when they call, I am told, is to invent some reason why you need to go back indoors for a moment, after which you’d be most interested to hear what they have to say, then close the door, and stay indoors.
https://fraserofallander.org/who-pays-the-state-pension-in-an-independent-scotland/
There, said it.
I recall an old gag from Stephen Colbert I think describing the Jehovah's Witnesses as your best chance to meet old jamaican women.
But if he is cancelled, the effect on the wider world will be zilch in ten years' time. Someone else will take over the role of educating Leon.
BTW I recall concerning the forthcomijng NI rise that UKG, as reflected by one of us, rather obviously on orders from CCHQ, was recently pushing the spin of "NI is not a tax but a payment for entitlement to pensions etc" in response to general disgust (on PB as elsewhere) at the targeting of working folk rather than wealthy Tory-voting OAPs.
Personally, I don't think its funny, because as well as offensive, it just lazy.
But it comes back to my main point, there is among some who lead the media / comedy industry who openly state, offensive is only ok if you punch up. But among this logic there is massive hypocrisy. Resulting in joke about gypsies getting gassed, outrage headlines, joke about Jehovah Witness also getting gassed and bringing it upon themselves, not even worth a mention as part of the outrage.
https://twitter.com/grantshapps/status/1489894303207985152?s=20&t=_Tb_06dT3XvHkRwrlgQERQ
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60266353
We have seen it with social media, this creeping in of who gets a ban, in some cases getting banned having never said anything rule breaking on a particular platform, they just get the blanket un-personing.
The cancel culture stuff, it isn't about the too big to really cancel people, it the chilling effect among those that don't have 10 millions of listeners / viewers and top notch lawyers to fight everything.
Or simply blaming it on the voters.
How did the matter get arranged when the UK withdrew from its empire?
In India, the answer was that those who retired before independence were paid by the British. Afterwards, they were paid by the government of the country in question.
But - that applied to the defined benefit pension for state employees. Not to the state pension which didn't extend to those countries.
In Ireland - the only place where state pension rules applied - the Irish government had to take them over. And cut them substantially due to their limited financial resources (much more limited than would be available to Scotland).
I suspect the answer would be the same in Scotland. Public sector schemes that had been taken, would keep being paid by the UK government. The state pension however, both existing and commitment, would be a matter for payment by a new Scottish government.
Whether that's the way the SNP would frame it in a referendum campaign, I don't know. But if they want to be credible, they would be wise not only to do so but to have a convincing answer as to what they would do to pay for them
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1949/jul/06/indian-services-pensions
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/1924-05-01/6/
Carr's act is he takes an innocent sounding line and twists into something offensive punchline, touching on some really taboo subjects. I am not his biggest fan, but that's his act. To then go he did a gag about the gypsies that just not on, punching down....have you seen his catalogue of work! Its not exactly exclusively punching up. And there is hypocrisy in the outrage, where gypsies not on, saying a minority religious group probably brought it upon themselves, not worth a mention, because Jehovah Witness, its a certain type of religious belief the wider establishment are ok ripping the shit out of them as they see them as some weirdos (same with Morons).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36225652
Where there is no pot, and current pensions are paid by the government out of current revenue, then those in Scotland will be paid by Scotland, and those in the UK by the UK governments.
I suspect that the UK gov might allow people to move to the UK from Scotland, and be paid UK pensions if they do.
Deliberately offensive comedy - which is hard to pull off but can be very funny - would rely on not following such an approach, but even more mainstream stuff would have the opportunity, as otherwise you're removing a lot of possible comedic avenues.
My concern would be a suspicion whose explicit goal is punching up vs punching down as some kind of moral position, might well have a rather strange view of who comprises those targets of up and down.
My favourite Great British response was to the Labour governments call to come up with a slogan for modern Britain. My favourite was “Fatso, dipso, ASBO, Tesco”.
Needless to say they didn’t take it any further.
The sane choice would be Doncaster as there are a whole set of York people who could be relocated or just go for York (which is Network Rails secondary office anyway).
Barnett increases are based on current population, but the baseline on which those increases are placed is not (hence the difference in per capita funding). As England's population increases relative to Scotland, this difference gets bigger.
It's going to be a mess and will be rolled into all sorts of other stuff, Faslane stays UK territory for 100 years etc