By the way, PB, and this is genuinely privileged info - if you want the most amazing historico-archaeological holiday OF A LIFETIME then just fly to Sanliurfa (in far eastern Turkey), via Istanbul, and hire a car, and do it for yourself.
Yes it is an awkward connection but you will have an experience you will recall for the rest of your days. It is definitely better than another jaunt to Ibiza, or even Venice. You will feel like the person turning up at Tutankhamun's tomb about 2 days after it was discovered
Why? Because the Turks haven't even opened half these sites yet, and yet at the same time they don't stop people coming (a car full of rich Istanbul kids turned up at Karahan Tepe when we were there, no one even thought about stopping them)
Karahan Tepe and the other Tas Tepeler (stone hills) - https://arkeonews.net/turkeys-tas-tepeler-marks-the-beginning-of-civilization/ - will probably change everything we believe about human prehistory. Yet you can just drive up, chat with the (bored) guards, and then go see the penis temple. No one will stop you. It feels like you are the first person seeing the cave paintings of Lascaux
Go. Do it. Do it this year, This summer. Amaze yourself, and create a memory you can enshrine, and which you will tell to your stupefied grand-kids
And after that you can nip off to a Turkish resort on the Med and have a lovely time on the beach. AND it's really cheap
Does a holiday get better than that?
I approve this message. Also, Harran (ancient Carrhae) is just down the road, Nemrut Dag a couple of hours drive, Gaziantep has some fab mosaics from Zeugma, etc etc etc
Harran is great, Sogmatar is INTENSE
And the Tas Tepeler, oh my lord
You can fly to Sanliurfa for about £250 return. It is bonkers
Imagine if someone was unearthing the Sphinx or Stonehenge RIGHT NOW and you could just rock up, and there it is. In the dirt. And you will likely be alone, as you wander around it. And also, what you are looking at is WAAAAAAY more important than either Stonehenge or the Sphinx?
Also, great liver kebabs in Sanliurfa (which is a wonderful town, with a world class museum, full of these mindboggling Neolithic finds)
And for those with more modern tastes it was the County of Edessa 1098-1144 under the crusaders
And King Abgar exchanged a lot of letters with Jesus of Nazareth
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
He is probably in that class room at that time as part of the publicity photo shoot. but it does look a bit silly, and always good to mock the Russian armed forces.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
A Russian friend who did his military service in USSR time said the most remarkable thing about the Political Officers was that, there should have been some who were OK people. There were lots of them and by the laws of averages..
But no, each and every one he'd met was an utter thunderknut. The kind of people you hate from the first sentence they speak.
Didn't a PO on a RU submarine save us from nuclear war twenty odd years ago? There was a false alarm and the captain had to be overruled from letting off his nukes. Something along those lines?
By the way, PB, and this is genuinely privileged info - if you want the most amazing historico-archaeological holiday OF A LIFETIME then just fly to Sanliurfa (in far eastern Turkey), via Istanbul, and hire a car, and do it for yourself.
Yes it is an awkward connection but you will have an experience you will recall for the rest of your days. It is definitely better than another jaunt to Ibiza, or even Venice. You will feel like the person turning up at Tutankhamun's tomb about 2 days after it was discovered
Why? Because the Turks haven't even opened half these sites yet, and yet at the same time they don't stop people coming (a car full of rich Istanbul kids turned up at Karahan Tepe when we were there, no one even thought about stopping them)
Karahan Tepe and the other Tas Tepeler (stone hills) - https://arkeonews.net/turkeys-tas-tepeler-marks-the-beginning-of-civilization/ - will probably change everything we believe about human prehistory. Yet you can just drive up, chat with the (bored) guards, and then go see the penis temple. No one will stop you. It feels like you are the first person seeing the cave paintings of Lascaux
Go. Do it. Do it this year, This summer. Amaze yourself, and create a memory you can enshrine, and which you will tell to your stupefied grand-kids
And after that you can nip off to a Turkish resort on the Med and have a lovely time on the beach. AND it's really cheap
Does a holiday get better than that?
I approve this message. Also, Harran (ancient Carrhae) is just down the road, Nemrut Dag a couple of hours drive, Gaziantep has some fab mosaics from Zeugma, etc etc etc
Harran is great, Sogmatar is INTENSE
And the Tas Tepeler, oh my lord
You can fly to Sanliurfa for about £250 return. It is bonkers
Imagine if someone was unearthing the Sphinx or Stonehenge RIGHT NOW and you could just rock up, and there it is. In the dirt. And you will likely be alone, as you wander around it. And also, what you are looking at is WAAAAAAY more important than either Stonehenge or the Sphinx?
Also, great liver kebabs in Sanliurfa (which is a wonderful town, with a world class museum, full of these mindboggling Neolithic finds)
And for those with more modern tastes it was the County of Edessa 1098-1144 under the crusaders
And King Abgar exchanged a lot of letters with Jesus of Nazareth
and I think they have their own version of the Turin Shroud. And the world's most famous fishponds. It really is fun for all the family.
Also the birthplace of Abraham
Just as a side-note!
NB for PB holidaymakers, this sacred status in Islam means it is a bit harder to find booze, but much less difficult than it was 15 years ago, I am happy to report. Turkey is secularising, despite news otherwise
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
hmmm Laura pollock....role politcal education officer....party snp
That... doesn't mean sitting in a school you numpty
I had @Pagan2 down as a cokehead. I now think I was doing him a serious injustice. It's crystal meth.
Have never done crystal meth and kicked coke 20 odd years ago. However just carry on with the insults because I disagree with you politically just means all can see you lost the argument
Caesar's conquest of Gaul supposedly resulted in a million killed, and a million enslaved, which must have been quite a high proportion of the population at the time. So I guess the Roman empire must go down as one of the most evil in history.
Worse people to be ruled by, but the process of becoming ruled not a pleasant one.
Being ruled by Rome was bad. Like all empires, Rome was an extractive system leading to poverty for the subjected peoples.
"An unpublished survey of 1,867 skeletons from sixty-one sites in Britain likewise documents an increase in body height after the end of Roman rule. These findings reinforce the general impression conveyed by a more eclectic long-term survey of stature in different parts of Europe that identifies troughs during the Roman period and the High Middle Ages and peaks in the post Roman period and in the wake of the Black Death."
What we can learn from evidence like this is that in times of high inequality, which is what happens when extractive regimes hold hegemonic power, the average citizen suffers. Empires is an extremely bad system of government for normal people, and the continued sense of nostalgia and romance around them is a function of the narrative focus on the elites, who, of course, benefit hugely from such a system of government.
Hmmm
That's interesting (and I suspect slavery is the key here, reducing the median height) but remember that human height diminished greatly when we moved from hunter-gathering to agriculture. Because domesticated animals gave us zoonotic plagues and diseases (!!) and the general life was probably tougher - Adam forced to hew and toil with the sweat of his brow
But who would seriously want to stop human evolution at the hunter-gathering stage?
We might be surprised, it is a bit of an implicit opinion when people lament the negatives of agricultural/urban civilization. I remember reading Humankind by Rutger Bremen, and he seemed to spend a lot of time rebutting, with some success, negative ('realistic') views of humanity by challenging some of the studies or opinions that suggest a pessimistic view as being without evidence, but then several times lapses into rose coloured views of hunter gatherer lifestyles without any evidence of his own.
Try "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber and David Wengrow.
That book made the grave mistake of being simultaneously enormously Woke AND confidently articulate on a subject where I just happen to be more expert than almost anyone, having debated and written about this shit for years, and having visited all the sites (unlike the authors)
There is the odd interesting and provocative insight, but most of it is wish-casting piffle. It is oddly, metaphorically reminiscent of the penis pillars at Karahan Tepe, mostly surrounded by eccentric and useless backfill, put there for some sociopolitical reason which will remain obscure to our descendants, but hey, look, there's a cock made of sandstone, yay
Since you're the world's preeminent expert why don't you write a book on the subject?
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
hmmm Laura pollock....role politcal education officer....party snp
That... doesn't mean sitting in a school you numpty
I had @Pagan2 down as a cokehead. I now think I was doing him a serious injustice. It's crystal meth.
Have never done crystal meth and kicked coke 20 odd years ago. However just carry on with the insults because I disagree with you politically just means all can see you lost the argument
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
A Russian friend who did his military service in USSR time said the most remarkable thing about the Political Officers was that, there should have been some who were OK people. There were lots of them and by the laws of averages..
But no, each and every one he'd met was an utter thunderknut. The kind of people you hate from the first sentence they speak.
Didn't a PO on a RU submarine save us from nuclear war twenty odd years ago? There was a false alarm and the captain had to be overruled from letting off his nukes. Something along those lines?
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
Hahaha, I didn't hear about this before now.
AN ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
Bagehot. The English Constitution 1867.
Think about that.
He would have no truck with what he called ‘ultra-democratic theory’ – one person, one vote. ‘Once you permit the ignorant class to begin to rule you may bid farewell to deference for ever’, he argued
Caesar's conquest of Gaul supposedly resulted in a million killed, and a million enslaved, which must have been quite a high proportion of the population at the time. So I guess the Roman empire must go down as one of the most evil in history.
Worse people to be ruled by, but the process of becoming ruled not a pleasant one.
Being ruled by Rome was bad. Like all empires, Rome was an extractive system leading to poverty for the subjected peoples.
"An unpublished survey of 1,867 skeletons from sixty-one sites in Britain likewise documents an increase in body height after the end of Roman rule. These findings reinforce the general impression conveyed by a more eclectic long-term survey of stature in different parts of Europe that identifies troughs during the Roman period and the High Middle Ages and peaks in the post Roman period and in the wake of the Black Death."
What we can learn from evidence like this is that in times of high inequality, which is what happens when extractive regimes hold hegemonic power, the average citizen suffers. Empires is an extremely bad system of government for normal people, and the continued sense of nostalgia and romance around them is a function of the narrative focus on the elites, who, of course, benefit hugely from such a system of government.
Hmmm
That's interesting (and I suspect slavery is the key here, reducing the median height) but remember that human height diminished greatly when we moved from hunter-gathering to agriculture. Because domesticated animals gave us zoonotic plagues and diseases (!!) and the general life was probably tougher - Adam forced to hew and toil with the sweat of his brow
But who would seriously want to stop human evolution at the hunter-gathering stage?
We might be surprised, it is a bit of an implicit opinion when people lament the negatives of agricultural/urban civilization. I remember reading Humankind by Rutger Bremen, and he seemed to spend a lot of time rebutting, with some success, negative ('realistic') views of humanity by challenging some of the studies or opinions that suggest a pessimistic view as being without evidence, but then several times lapses into rose coloured views of hunter gatherer lifestyles without any evidence of his own.
Try "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber and David Wengrow.
That book made the grave mistake of being simultaneously enormously Woke AND confidently articulate on a subject where I just happen to be more expert than almost anyone, having debated and written about this shit for years, and having visited all the sites (unlike the authors)
There is the odd interesting and provocative insight, but most of it is wish-casting piffle. It is oddly, metaphorically reminiscent of the penis pillars at Karahan Tepe, mostly surrounded by eccentric and useless backfill, put there for some sociopolitical reason which will remain obscure to our descendants, but hey, look, there's a cock made of sandstone, yay
Since you're the world's preeminent expert why don't you write a book on the subject?
You're right! I should. If I make it really good, it might get translated into 20 languages and buy me a nice flat in central London
Caesar's conquest of Gaul supposedly resulted in a million killed, and a million enslaved, which must have been quite a high proportion of the population at the time. So I guess the Roman empire must go down as one of the most evil in history.
Worse people to be ruled by, but the process of becoming ruled not a pleasant one.
Being ruled by Rome was bad. Like all empires, Rome was an extractive system leading to poverty for the subjected peoples.
"An unpublished survey of 1,867 skeletons from sixty-one sites in Britain likewise documents an increase in body height after the end of Roman rule. These findings reinforce the general impression conveyed by a more eclectic long-term survey of stature in different parts of Europe that identifies troughs during the Roman period and the High Middle Ages and peaks in the post Roman period and in the wake of the Black Death."
What we can learn from evidence like this is that in times of high inequality, which is what happens when extractive regimes hold hegemonic power, the average citizen suffers. Empires is an extremely bad system of government for normal people, and the continued sense of nostalgia and romance around them is a function of the narrative focus on the elites, who, of course, benefit hugely from such a system of government.
Hmmm
That's interesting (and I suspect slavery is the key here, reducing the median height) but remember that human height diminished greatly when we moved from hunter-gathering to agriculture. Because domesticated animals gave us zoonotic plagues and diseases (!!) and the general life was probably tougher - Adam forced to hew and toil with the sweat of his brow
But who would seriously want to stop human evolution at the hunter-gathering stage?
We might be surprised, it is a bit of an implicit opinion when people lament the negatives of agricultural/urban civilization. I remember reading Humankind by Rutger Bremen, and he seemed to spend a lot of time rebutting, with some success, negative ('realistic') views of humanity by challenging some of the studies or opinions that suggest a pessimistic view as being without evidence, but then several times lapses into rose coloured views of hunter gatherer lifestyles without any evidence of his own.
Try "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber and David Wengrow.
That book made the grave mistake of being simultaneously enormously Woke AND confidently articulate on a subject where I just happen to be more expert than almost anyone, having debated and written about this shit for years, and having visited all the sites (unlike the authors)
There is the odd interesting and provocative insight, but most of it is wish-casting piffle. It is oddly, metaphorically reminiscent of the penis pillars at Karahan Tepe, mostly surrounded by eccentric and useless backfill, put there for some sociopolitical reason which will remain obscure to our descendants, but hey, look, there's a cock made of sandstone, yay
Since you're the world's preeminent expert why don't you write a book on the subject?
You're right! I should. If I make it really good, it might get translated into 20 languages and buy me a nice flat in central London
Caesar's conquest of Gaul supposedly resulted in a million killed, and a million enslaved, which must have been quite a high proportion of the population at the time. So I guess the Roman empire must go down as one of the most evil in history.
Worse people to be ruled by, but the process of becoming ruled not a pleasant one.
Being ruled by Rome was bad. Like all empires, Rome was an extractive system leading to poverty for the subjected peoples.
"An unpublished survey of 1,867 skeletons from sixty-one sites in Britain likewise documents an increase in body height after the end of Roman rule. These findings reinforce the general impression conveyed by a more eclectic long-term survey of stature in different parts of Europe that identifies troughs during the Roman period and the High Middle Ages and peaks in the post Roman period and in the wake of the Black Death."
What we can learn from evidence like this is that in times of high inequality, which is what happens when extractive regimes hold hegemonic power, the average citizen suffers. Empires is an extremely bad system of government for normal people, and the continued sense of nostalgia and romance around them is a function of the narrative focus on the elites, who, of course, benefit hugely from such a system of government.
Hmmm
That's interesting (and I suspect slavery is the key here, reducing the median height) but remember that human height diminished greatly when we moved from hunter-gathering to agriculture. Because domesticated animals gave us zoonotic plagues and diseases (!!) and the general life was probably tougher - Adam forced to hew and toil with the sweat of his brow
But who would seriously want to stop human evolution at the hunter-gathering stage?
We might be surprised, it is a bit of an implicit opinion when people lament the negatives of agricultural/urban civilization. I remember reading Humankind by Rutger Bremen, and he seemed to spend a lot of time rebutting, with some success, negative ('realistic') views of humanity by challenging some of the studies or opinions that suggest a pessimistic view as being without evidence, but then several times lapses into rose coloured views of hunter gatherer lifestyles without any evidence of his own.
Try "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber and David Wengrow.
That book made the grave mistake of being simultaneously enormously Woke AND confidently articulate on a subject where I just happen to be more expert than almost anyone, having debated and written about this shit for years, and having visited all the sites (unlike the authors)
There is the odd interesting and provocative insight, but most of it is wish-casting piffle. It is oddly, metaphorically reminiscent of the penis pillars at Karahan Tepe, mostly surrounded by eccentric and useless backfill, put there for some sociopolitical reason which will remain obscure to our descendants, but hey, look, there's a cock made of sandstone, yay
Since you're the world's preeminent expert why don't you write a book on the subject?
You're right! I should. If I make it really good, it might get translated into 20 languages and buy me a nice flat in central London
..and yet never be taken seriously by anyone.
Fiend!
If that should ever happen - WHICH IT WON'T - I will just change my name
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
Hahaha, I didn't hear about this before now.
AN ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
Bagehot. The English Constitution 1867.
Think about that.
He would have no truck with what he called ‘ultra-democratic theory’ – one person, one vote. ‘Once you permit the ignorant class to begin to rule you may bid farewell to deference for ever’, he argued
Hahaha! Fuck deference.
ho ho, very democratic. the ignorant class brought us brexit. I think I'll stick with elective oligarchy.
I would say "tempered by assassination" because I think Phatboi is getting very close to the point where you'd be hard pushed to argue against that, but I find that sort of suggestion attracts very tiresome soft bans, so I won't.
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
A Russian friend who did his military service in USSR time said the most remarkable thing about the Political Officers was that, there should have been some who were OK people. There were lots of them and by the laws of averages..
But no, each and every one he'd met was an utter thunderknut. The kind of people you hate from the first sentence they speak.
Didn't a PO on a RU submarine save us from nuclear war twenty odd years ago? There was a false alarm and the captain had to be overruled from letting off his nukes. Something along those lines?
I think you are referring to an incident during the Cuban missile crises, when Yes the PO vetoed the COs decision to use a nuclear tipped torpedo to sink a UK warship that was tracking the Soviet ship with Nuclear weapons onboard to Cuba.
IIRC the CO was interpreting his orders literally, the US ship was within the ordered distance of the Soviet ship, but the PO could see that the Soviet ship could get in to Cuban port so there was no need to escalate. we are all luckily that at least that one was good.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Er... South Korea GDP per capita = $35,196; Italy = $35,585; Spain = $30,537...
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Er... South Korea GDP per capita = $35,196; Italy = $35,585; Spain = $30,537...
south korea birth rate 1.05 italy 1.3 spain 1.26 seems western levels of income arent the determinant then
Caesar's conquest of Gaul supposedly resulted in a million killed, and a million enslaved, which must have been quite a high proportion of the population at the time. So I guess the Roman empire must go down as one of the most evil in history.
Worse people to be ruled by, but the process of becoming ruled not a pleasant one.
Being ruled by Rome was bad. Like all empires, Rome was an extractive system leading to poverty for the subjected peoples.
"An unpublished survey of 1,867 skeletons from sixty-one sites in Britain likewise documents an increase in body height after the end of Roman rule. These findings reinforce the general impression conveyed by a more eclectic long-term survey of stature in different parts of Europe that identifies troughs during the Roman period and the High Middle Ages and peaks in the post Roman period and in the wake of the Black Death."
What we can learn from evidence like this is that in times of high inequality, which is what happens when extractive regimes hold hegemonic power, the average citizen suffers. Empires is an extremely bad system of government for normal people, and the continued sense of nostalgia and romance around them is a function of the narrative focus on the elites, who, of course, benefit hugely from such a system of government.
Hmmm
That's interesting (and I suspect slavery is the key here, reducing the median height) but remember that human height diminished greatly when we moved from hunter-gathering to agriculture. Because domesticated animals gave us zoonotic plagues and diseases (!!) and the general life was probably tougher - Adam forced to hew and toil with the sweat of his brow
But who would seriously want to stop human evolution at the hunter-gathering stage?
We might be surprised, it is a bit of an implicit opinion when people lament the negatives of agricultural/urban civilization. I remember reading Humankind by Rutger Bremen, and he seemed to spend a lot of time rebutting, with some success, negative ('realistic') views of humanity by challenging some of the studies or opinions that suggest a pessimistic view as being without evidence, but then several times lapses into rose coloured views of hunter gatherer lifestyles without any evidence of his own.
Try "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber and David Wengrow.
That book made the grave mistake of being simultaneously enormously Woke AND confidently articulate on a subject where I just happen to be more expert than almost anyone, having debated and written about this shit for years, and having visited all the sites (unlike the authors)
There is the odd interesting and provocative insight, but most of it is wish-casting piffle. It is oddly, metaphorically reminiscent of the penis pillars at Karahan Tepe, mostly surrounded by eccentric and useless backfill, put there for some sociopolitical reason which will remain obscure to our descendants, but hey, look, there's a cock made of sandstone, yay
Since you're the world's preeminent expert why don't you write a book on the subject?
You're right! I should. If I make it really good, it might get translated into 20 languages and buy me a nice flat in central London
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
Hahaha, I didn't hear about this before now.
AN ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
Bagehot. The English Constitution 1867.
Think about that.
He would have no truck with what he called ‘ultra-democratic theory’ – one person, one vote. ‘Once you permit the ignorant class to begin to rule you may bid farewell to deference for ever’, he argued
Hahaha! Fuck deference.
ho ho, very democratic. the ignorant class brought us brexit. I think I'll stick with elective oligarchy.
I would say "tempered by assassination" because I think Phatboi is getting very close to the point where you'd be hard pushed to argue against that, but I find that sort of suggestion attracts very tiresome soft bans, so I won't.
There is a time and a place for assassinations, but only in extremis when there is no way to democratically remove someone AND they are operating beyond the reach of enforceable laws covering the barest levels of normal decency. So a dictator who kills, tortures, or rapes, that sort of thing. If someone wants to cleave THAT kind of person open, I have no problem with it.
We don't have anyone in this country who is remotely close to being a legitimate target.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Er... South Korea GDP per capita = $35,196; Italy = $35,585; Spain = $30,537...
south korea birth rate 1.05 italy 1.3 spain 1.26 seems western levels of income arent the determinant then
You accept then that South Korea does have "what we would consider western living standards"?
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
Hahaha, I didn't hear about this before now.
AN ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
The story of England takes place on an island, so I don't know that title is necessarily stupid unless they refer to the island itself as England. Were it still a sovereign state it would be an island country.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
I thought average IQ everywhere was 100 by definition? Anyway I have been to all those places except Japan, whereas I don't think you have ever left Epping. I can promise you Nepalis are not 42% as clever as the English.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Average IQ in the UK 99. Average IQs range 106 in Japan to 78 in Sudan, 76 in India, 74 in Zimbabwe, 52 in the Gambia and just 42 in Nepal
On South Korea you are also wrong, South Korean gdp per capita $35,196 and South Korean IQ average 102
Hell of a caveat on that page: It bears mentioning that Lynn's studies, while comprehensive, tend to spark considerable debate. Some researchers dispute the techniques Lynn employs to calculate estimates when hard data is lacking. Others claim Lynn, an unabashed eugenicist, misinterprets his data to support conclusions that are both scientifically inaccurate and supportive of white supremacy.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Where does all you stats prove they arent rising. You present a static picture simple fact is most developing countries are seeing a yoy increase. Don't even start on iq as it is fairly well accepted now its biassed towards western ways of thinking
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
I thought average IQ everywhere was 100 by definition? Anyway I have been to all those places except Japan, whereas I don't think you have ever left Epping. I can promise you Nepalis are not 42% as clever as the English.
Not if it is compared to everyone. The average IQ of super genius professors is not 100, for example.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Er... South Korea GDP per capita = $35,196; Italy = $35,585; Spain = $30,537...
south korea birth rate 1.05 italy 1.3 spain 1.26 seems western levels of income arent the determinant then
You accept then that South Korea does have "what we would consider western living standards"?
Accept they have similar levels of income, income is not equivalent to western living standards however
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
It'll be a while before global unemployment disappears. And I'm not suggesting we try to lure them, just recognise that they'll come.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Er... South Korea GDP per capita = $35,196; Italy = $35,585; Spain = $30,537...
south korea birth rate 1.05 italy 1.3 spain 1.26 seems western levels of income arent the determinant then
You accept then that South Korea does have "what we would consider western living standards"?
Accept they have similar levels of income, income is not equivalent to western living standards however
Ok fair enough. How would you define 'western living standards'?
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
Hahaha, I didn't hear about this before now.
AN ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
The story of England takes place on an island, so I don't know that title is necessarily stupid unless they refer to the island itself as England. Were it still a sovereign state it would be an island country.
Well quite
“This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,-- This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
"(Save the land borders to the North and West)" would be an easy pentameter, but Will decided for some reason against it.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
It'll be a while before global unemployment disappears. And I'm not suggesting we try to lure them, just recognise that they'll come.
Not quite my point though....do you agree or disagree that we should not be as government policy trying to lure the best and brightest from developing nations. I personally say no we shouldn't. Your response is?
Can I just say that I have had the theme tune of World at war and the somber voice of Laurence Olivier in my head the entire day after your contribution this morning.
Nearly 50 years on and I don’t think anything I have seen on TV came close to matching it. Surely the greatest documentary series of all time.
I would agree with that. The opening lines of the first episode are haunting.
‘Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a world at war.’
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Er... South Korea GDP per capita = $35,196; Italy = $35,585; Spain = $30,537...
south korea birth rate 1.05 italy 1.3 spain 1.26 seems western levels of income arent the determinant then
You accept then that South Korea does have "what we would consider western living standards"?
Accept they have similar levels of income, income is not equivalent to western living standards however
Ok fair enough. How would you define 'western living standards'?
Can I just say that I have had the theme tune of World at war and the somber voice of Laurence Olivier in my head the entire day after your contribution this morning.
Nearly 50 years on and I don’t think anything I have seen on TV came close to matching it. Surely the greatest documentary series of all time.
I would agree with that. The opening lines of the first episode are haunting.
‘Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a world at war.’
I remember watching World at War as a child with my father who had fought in it.
A superb documentary.
Great thread, except for the suggestion this was anything other than a commonplace event
To re-repeat myself
"Another plug for Come and See, search for that and mosfilm on YouTube. Russian fllm 1985 which is pretty much the film of [Oradour-sur-Glane], except set in Belarus. Where the same thing happened in 628 villages."
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Er... South Korea GDP per capita = $35,196; Italy = $35,585; Spain = $30,537...
south korea birth rate 1.05 italy 1.3 spain 1.26 seems western levels of income arent the determinant then
You accept then that South Korea does have "what we would consider western living standards"?
Accept they have similar levels of income, income is not equivalent to western living standards however
Ok fair enough. How would you define 'western living standards'?
Aircon/central heating. Flush toilets. Broadband.
The Pointer household fails on Aircon/central heating.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Er... South Korea GDP per capita = $35,196; Italy = $35,585; Spain = $30,537...
south korea birth rate 1.05 italy 1.3 spain 1.26 seems western levels of income arent the determinant then
You accept then that South Korea does have "what we would consider western living standards"?
Accept they have similar levels of income, income is not equivalent to western living standards however
Ok fair enough. How would you define 'western living standards'?
Aircon/central heating. Flush toilets. Broadband.
The Pointer household fails on Aircon/central heating.
I had a CH free childhood in Lancashire. Don't ever want to be hungry no mo'.
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
Hahaha, I didn't hear about this before now.
AN ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
Bagehot. The English Constitution 1867.
Think about that.
He would have no truck with what he called ‘ultra-democratic theory’ – one person, one vote. ‘Once you permit the ignorant class to begin to rule you may bid farewell to deference for ever’, he argued
Can I just say that I have had the theme tune of World at war and the somber voice of Laurence Olivier in my head the entire day after your contribution this morning.
Nearly 50 years on and I don’t think anything I have seen on TV came close to matching it. Surely the greatest documentary series of all time.
I would agree with that. The opening lines of the first episode are haunting.
‘Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a world at war.’
I remember watching World at War as a child with my father who had fought in it.
A superb documentary.
Great thread, except for the suggestion this was anything other than a commonplace event
To re-repeat myself
"Another plug for Come and See, search for that and mosfilm on YouTube. Russian fllm 1985 which is pretty much the film of [Oradour-sur-Glane], except set in Belarus. Where the same thing happened in 628 villages."
628 villages in Belarus.
My husband visited years ago. Not one for overstatement of any kind, but he said he felt the presence of evil there.
I'm allowed to WFH indefinitely too. Daily Mail investigation into me coming?
Given time, I'm sure the Daily Mail would happily investigate all of us.
It's a problem for all governments... they can really want something to happen (whether it's a return to the office, an end to boom'n'bust, or taking control of our borders), but most of the time wanting isn't enough.
Some politicians are reasonably calm in the face of reality being bigger than them, but others get in a real tizz about it.
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
Hahaha, I didn't hear about this before now.
AN ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
The story of England takes place on an island, so I don't know that title is necessarily stupid unless they refer to the island itself as England. Were it still a sovereign state it would be an island country.
Any island containing England is a sceptred demi paradise and all sorts of other good shit I believe.
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
Hahaha, I didn't hear about this before now.
AN ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
Bagehot. The English Constitution 1867.
Think about that.
He would have no truck with what he called ‘ultra-democratic theory’ – one person, one vote. ‘Once you permit the ignorant class to begin to rule you may bid farewell to deference for ever’, he argued
Hahaha! Fuck deference.
ho ho, very democratic. the ignorant class brought us brexit. I think I'll stick with elective oligarchy.
I would say "tempered by assassination" because I think Phatboi is getting very close to the point where you'd be hard pushed to argue against that, but I find that sort of suggestion attracts very tiresome soft bans, so I won't.
There is a time and a place for assassinations, but only in extremis when there is no way to democratically remove someone AND they are operating beyond the reach of enforceable laws covering the barest levels of normal decency. So a dictator who kills, tortures, or rapes, that sort of thing. If someone wants to cleave THAT kind of person open, I have no problem with it.
We don't have anyone in this country who is remotely close to being a legitimate target.
Absolutely right. Well said.
But getting over my sense of incredulous outrage if someone were to splat Phatboi is a challenge to which I'm pretty sure my therapist and I would successfully rise between us.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
It'll be a while before global unemployment disappears. And I'm not suggesting we try to lure them, just recognise that they'll come.
Not quite my point though....do you agree or disagree that we should not be as government policy trying to lure the best and brightest from developing nations. I personally say no we shouldn't. Your response is?
On the one hand, I think importing the 'brightest and best" immigrants does lead to immigrants being the bosses rather than the menials. This tends to cause resentment in the native population.
On the other hand, those individuals do benefit themselves from the opportunities, and send earnings back to their homelands. It is fallacious to assume this reduces the intelligence of the emigrants country. After all, until the eighties, these islands had net emigration of the "brightest and best" and to an extent still do. Regression to the Mean keeps the talent pool still bubbling, indeed gives others opportunities to rise.
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
Hahaha, I didn't hear about this before now.
AN ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
The story of England takes place on an island, so I don't know that title is necessarily stupid unless they refer to the island itself as England. Were it still a sovereign state it would be an island country.
Any island containing England is a sceptred demi paradise and all sorts of other good shit I believe.
To be born in a colony with a land border with England is to scoop a pretty generous second prize in the lottery of life
Can I just say that I have had the theme tune of World at war and the somber voice of Laurence Olivier in my head the entire day after your contribution this morning.
Nearly 50 years on and I don’t think anything I have seen on TV came close to matching it. Surely the greatest documentary series of all time.
I would agree with that. The opening lines of the first episode are haunting.
‘Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a world at war.’
I remember watching World at War as a child with my father who had fought in it.
A superb documentary.
Great thread, except for the suggestion this was anything other than a commonplace event
To re-repeat myself
"Another plug for Come and See, search for that and mosfilm on YouTube. Russian fllm 1985 which is pretty much the film of [Oradour-sur-Glane], except set in Belarus. Where the same thing happened in 628 villages."
628 villages in Belarus.
Yes. It's not a competition, but there's a reason why WW2 casts a particularly long shadow in Eastern Europe. 25% of the Russian population in the occupied area were killed.
Can I just say that I have had the theme tune of World at war and the somber voice of Laurence Olivier in my head the entire day after your contribution this morning.
Nearly 50 years on and I don’t think anything I have seen on TV came close to matching it. Surely the greatest documentary series of all time.
I would agree with that. The opening lines of the first episode are haunting.
‘Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a world at war.’
I remember watching World at War as a child with my father who had fought in it.
A superb documentary.
Great thread, except for the suggestion this was anything other than a commonplace event
To re-repeat myself
"Another plug for Come and See, search for that and mosfilm on YouTube. Russian fllm 1985 which is pretty much the film of [Oradour-sur-Glane], except set in Belarus. Where the same thing happened in 628 villages."
628 villages in Belarus.
Yes. It's not a competition, but there's a reason why WW2 casts a particularly long shadow in Eastern Europe. 25% of the Russian population in the occupied area were killed.
Belarus and Ukraine had some of the highest mortality in WW2. Important to recognise that Soviet dead doesn't mean Russian dead.
Ukraine and Belarus suffered more per capita than Russia itself, so it is a very poor excuse for Russia to repeat the barbarity on Ukraine.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Where does all you stats prove they arent rising. You present a static picture simple fact is most developing countries are seeing a yoy increase. Don't even start on iq as it is fairly well accepted now its biassed towards western ways of thinking
Most developing nations, apart from those in the Far East are still miles behind the West in average gdp per capita and IQ and likely always will be. Hence there will always be migrants from the developing world wanting to come here and it is naive to think otherwise
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
Hahaha, I didn't hear about this before now.
AN ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
The story of England takes place on an island, so I don't know that title is necessarily stupid unless they refer to the island itself as England. Were it still a sovereign state it would be an island country.
Any island containing England is a sceptred demi paradise and all sorts of other good shit I believe.
So those with poetic tongues would have us believe. Can't say the reality lives up to it, but never mind, I hadn't commented on that, just that stories of any nation on this island can accurately be called an Island story, as was pretty obvious.
Well done to Robert Jenrick MP for showing that there’s still some compassion and humanity residing in the Tory party .
I suppose statistically speaking at least a handful will be compassionate and decent types even among his colleagues. Not a path to advancement though.
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
Hahaha, I didn't hear about this before now.
AN ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
The story of England takes place on an island, so I don't know that title is necessarily stupid unless they refer to the island itself as England. Were it still a sovereign state it would be an island country.
Any island containing England is a sceptred demi paradise and all sorts of other good shit I believe.
To be born in a colony with a land border with England is to scoop a pretty generous second prize in the lottery of life
Cecil Rhodes
I’m not even competitive but that makes me want to roar we’re not second, we’re WINNAHS!
Well done to Robert Jenrick MP for showing that there’s still some compassion and humanity residing in the Tory party .
I suppose statistically speaking at least a handful will be compassionate and decent types even among his colleagues. Not a path to advancement though.
Perhaps if he deported his refugees to central africa he could get a promotion to the Home Office.
Well done to Robert Jenrick MP for showing that there’s still some compassion and humanity residing in the Tory party .
I suppose statistically speaking at least a handful will be compassionate and decent types even among his colleagues. Not a path to advancement though.
Naah, he's a creepy lying little fuck with a lorra money and a lorra houses. Very easy to give refugees homes in exchange for publicity in those circs.
I'm allowed to WFH indefinitely too. Daily Mail investigation into me coming?
I dislike WFH and there are downsides, but after 2 years it's pretty hard to argue it is essential for a lot of people.
We've gone from total WFH to 2 days a week in the office now. People were quite nervous initially, and the ones with long commutes weren't keen, but we're trying to make it feel fresh and new. I invited my team to wine and nibbles at 10 am on the first day as a welcome-back (unheard of normally) and we chat in between work more than we used to, so as to get into the spirit of it. It does strike me that the amount of actual joint work needed that couldn't be done online is minimal (obviously that's very different in different workplaces - we all have pretty disjunct jobs), but it's good fun to see some people again.
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
Hahaha, I didn't hear about this before now.
AN ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
The story of England takes place on an island, so I don't know that title is necessarily stupid unless they refer to the island itself as England. Were it still a sovereign state it would be an island country.
I believe they refer to the island as being named after Albion, the favoured son of Poseidon, before it was renamed Britain in honour of Brutus of Troy.
Can I just say that I have had the theme tune of World at war and the somber voice of Laurence Olivier in my head the entire day after your contribution this morning.
Nearly 50 years on and I don’t think anything I have seen on TV came close to matching it. Surely the greatest documentary series of all time.
I would agree with that. The opening lines of the first episode are haunting.
‘Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a world at war.’
I remember watching World at War as a child with my father who had fought in it.
A superb documentary.
Great thread, except for the suggestion this was anything other than a commonplace event
To re-repeat myself
"Another plug for Come and See, search for that and mosfilm on YouTube. Russian fllm 1985 which is pretty much the film of [Oradour-sur-Glane], except set in Belarus. Where the same thing happened in 628 villages."
628 villages in Belarus.
Yes. It's not a competition, but there's a reason why WW2 casts a particularly long shadow in Eastern Europe. 25% of the Russian population in the occupied area were killed.
Soviets killed. I think Byelorussia and Ukraine accounted for c.8.5m dead between them.
The tiresome "race and IQ" crowd are out tonight, unsurprisingly led by the Le Pen rampers in the big betting event right now. Your reminder that (a) tons of the data are junk because the test-takers are positively or negatively selected for academic achievement; (b) the population-level averages say nothing about any genetically heritable component.
The tiresome "race and IQ" crowd are out tonight, unsurprisingly led by the Le Pen rampers in the big betting event right now. Your reminder that (a) tons of the data are junk because the test-takers are positively or negatively selected for academic achievement; (b) the population-level averages say nothing about any genetically heritable component.
It's not a "crowd" though, is it? It's just HYUFD.
This Rwanda scheme is awful. It won't work as planned and will make us look like idiots when it falls apart.
The underlying problem is that our political parties cannot agree there is a problem with immigration, let alone what to do about it. It is becoming part of this culture war nonsense, which is really shorthand for the Americanisation of our politics - people are not listening to each other and are seeing fellow citizens as idiots. It is really unhealthy for our body politic and could kill our civil society.
What is clear is that people want to come to the UK. Refugees for safety and economic migrants for opportunity. The UK is not perfect but with our language and rule of law, we are a damn sight better than most places in the World. We cannot take everyone who wants to come here because there will be a backlash against incomers. We need to have an efficient and fair way to welcome those we should.
The only thing I can see is that we have to reduce the pull factor by making it really painful to employ illegal immigrants even in the black economy. We might need an amnesty followed by huge fines for employers of new illegal immigrants. Make the employers the problem to fix, not the immigrants.
Can I just say that I have had the theme tune of World at war and the somber voice of Laurence Olivier in my head the entire day after your contribution this morning.
Nearly 50 years on and I don’t think anything I have seen on TV came close to matching it. Surely the greatest documentary series of all time.
I would agree with that. The opening lines of the first episode are haunting.
‘Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a world at war.’
I remember watching World at War as a child with my father who had fought in it.
A superb documentary.
Great thread, except for the suggestion this was anything other than a commonplace event
To re-repeat myself
"Another plug for Come and See, search for that and mosfilm on YouTube. Russian fllm 1985 which is pretty much the film of [Oradour-sur-Glane], except set in Belarus. Where the same thing happened in 628 villages."
628 villages in Belarus.
Indeed. Only the day before the same bunch had hung 29 men from lamp-posts and balconies in the nearby town of Thule as a 'warning' to the Maquis. Those carrying out the atrocities - from the 2nd SS Panzer Division - had only recently been moved to France from the Eastern Front and simply didn't understand why anyone would be upset by what they did as it was so commonplace there.
The question in this poll is highly misleading. It suggests applications will be considered for asylum in Britain.
In fact the proposal is to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda where there may be the possibility of applying for asylum in Rwanda at the discretion of the Rwandan government but there is no possibility of asylum in the UK under this memorandum of understanding.
I suspect the people drafting the question misunderstood the proposal themselves
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The "ponzi scheme" doesn't collapse until such time as the global population starts seriously falling. This could be a problem some time in the future, but it's generally a fool's errand to worry about global population trends many generations away; A few decades ago people were worried about over-population and gravely intoning that we'd need some kind of population control, currently it doesn't seem like a problem. Maybe we won't need a lot of people to work because robots will do most of it, maybe population will tick back up again, nobody knows.
As far as brain drain goes this doesn't seem to be damaging in practice; In the short term the poorer country is helped by remittances, and in the long term it's helped by migrants developing better networks and transferring knowledge and technology back. This is why apart from weird cases like the DDR and North Korea, you don't normally see developing countries trying to prevent their people from leaving; On the contrary, for instance the Indian governing want more opportunities for their people to migrate to the UK as part of a trade deal.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
But we don't have a structural shortage of law income unskilled young workers though. As evidenced by the fact that wages for these groups have not climbed in 20 to 30 years. Let in all the doctors and nurses you want, but we shouldn't be bringing in manual laborers.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
It'll be a while before global unemployment disappears. And I'm not suggesting we try to lure them, just recognise that they'll come.
Not quite my point though....do you agree or disagree that we should not be as government policy trying to lure the best and brightest from developing nations. I personally say no we shouldn't. Your response is?
Why shouldn't countries (and companies) compete to recruit the best?
We wouldn't say "no Amazon, you can't recruit that person. Best let them stay at a local corner store, because that is fairer."
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The "ponzi scheme" doesn't collapse until such time as the global population starts seriously falling. This could be a problem some time in the future, but it's generally a fool's errand to worry about global population trends many generations away; A few decades ago people were worried about over-population and gravely intoning that we'd need some kind of population control, currently it doesn't seem like a problem. Maybe we won't need a lot of people to work because robots will do most of it, maybe population will tick back up again, nobody knows.
As far as brain drain goes this doesn't seem to be damaging in practice; In the short term the poorer country is helped by remittances, and in the long term it's helped by migrants developing better networks and transferring knowledge and technology back. This is why apart from weird cases like the DDR and North Korea, you don't normally see developing countries trying to prevent their people from leaving; On the contrary, for instance the Indian governing want more opportunities for their people to migrate to the UK as part of a trade deal.
Indeed. Could Ireland have been the success story it was in the 90s and 00s if there wasn't such an enormous skilled diaspora caused by emigration?
Putin's Russia is disturbing and utterly bonkers at same time...
Do they have the Hitler Putin Youth in Russia? If not, can't be long until they set it up.
They are mainlining Nazism, now
Why is there a 50 year old bloke sitting on the right in a school classroom in a military uniform?
Political Officer.
Incidentally the PO in Red October is called Putin.
So, what, they sit there checking teachers are not saying unapproved things? How long before the GOP turn to this idea in their war on education?
I have no idea, it's purely a guess that schools have POs (but if not wtf is he there for?)
Dont the snp have that in place?
No, they don't. Not like the Conservatives. You know, the chaps who want to make history teachers teach from 'Our Island Story'.
Hahaha, I didn't hear about this before now.
AN ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
Bagehot. The English Constitution 1867.
Think about that.
England used to be synonymous with Britain, and is still used that way by some foreigners. There was even a QI question about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O5rCjTa6v4
"The end of Time Out magazine is an omen of London’s cultural demise The nightlife that Time Out helped to define has been all but cleared out by property developers and the pandemic. By Emma Haslett""
OT just noticed the Transport for London website now has intrusive advertisements, presumably in a bid to make up the drop in revenue from fares and advertising on the bus and tube networks.
Many on the left want high levels of migration because it will dilute the current electorate, who are all too nasty and nationalist.
That's a bit of a myth - as HYUFD has pointed out, many immigrants are socially conservative and by no means keen on the left.
Personally I think the effort to get into the developed world (it's not just us) is an inevitable consequence of easy travel and global inequality. You only have one life to live, and you happen to be born in, say, Libya. You can just about get by, if you're not bumped off by one of the rival militias. Do you just shrug and put up with it, or try to get to a country where you can be 10 times better off, and safer as well?
Since we have shortages of young workers, we might as well establish an orderly system where applicants have a reasonable shot at getting in, instead of flailing around with Rwanda and other bonkers schemes. But that's not a particularly left-wing thought, just common sense.
What you neglect though Nick is realising its a ponzi scheme. As countries get educated and living standards raise their birth rates fall. Eventually there will be no where to poach migrants from. You also neglect that taking the brightest and best from developing countries completely fucks them over.....but then I guess you dont care about that
The likelihood of most of the developing world ever having the same gdp per capita and education levels of the UK is near zero. China probably, it may even surpass us, the rest of the world not.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Please dont talk bollocks. living standards and education levels round the world are rising. I did not claim they have to hit uk levels before birthrates drop. The lowest birthrate in the world is currently south korea and in general people there do not have what we would consider western living standards
Er... South Korea GDP per capita = $35,196; Italy = $35,585; Spain = $30,537...
south korea birth rate 1.05 italy 1.3 spain 1.26 seems western levels of income arent the determinant then
You accept then that South Korea does have "what we would consider western living standards"?
Accept they have similar levels of income, income is not equivalent to western living standards however
Ok fair enough. How would you define 'western living standards'?
Aircon/central heating. Flush toilets. Broadband.
So the country with the world’s fastest broadband would be a Westernised nation?
Comments
Any more questions on a country about which you haven't a clue, just let me know.
AN
ISLAND STORY
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
That well-known island, England
Marc Caputo
@MarcACaputo
Trump is planning to endorse JD Vance in Ohio’s Senate race, according to those who have spoken to him in recent days.
https://twitter.com/MarcACaputo/status/1514653428579975172
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/us/politics/ohio-jd-vance-trump-endorsement.html
And King Abgar exchanged a lot of letters with Jesus of Nazareth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abgar_Legend
and I think they have their own version of the Turin Shroud. And the world's most famous fishponds. It really is fun for all the family.
So we will always have migrants wanting to come here, the key from our end is to use our points based immigration system to select those we need. How the countries of origin try and keep their best is up to their governments
Just as a side-note!
NB for PB holidaymakers, this sacred status in Islam means it is a bit harder to find booze, but much less difficult than it was 15 years ago, I am happy to report. Turkey is secularising, despite news otherwise
Think about that.
Glad to see my cokedar is not entirely misguided.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov
Hahaha! Fuck deference.
If that should ever happen - WHICH IT WON'T - I will just change my name
Bwahahahahaha, etc
I would say "tempered by assassination" because I think Phatboi is getting very close to the point where you'd be hard pushed to argue against that, but I find that sort of suggestion attracts very tiresome soft bans, so I won't.
IIRC the CO was interpreting his orders literally, the US ship was within the ordered distance of the Soviet ship, but the PO could see that the Soviet ship could get in to Cuban port so there was no need to escalate. we are all luckily that at least that one was good.
Er... South Korea GDP per capita = $35,196; Italy = $35,585; Spain = $30,537...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
Average IQ in the UK 99. Average IQs range 106 in Japan to 78 in Sudan, 76 in India, 74 in Zimbabwe, 52 in the Gambia and just 42 in Nepal
On South Korea you are also wrong, South Korean gdp per capita $35,196 and South Korean IQ average 102
We don't have anyone in this country who is remotely close to being a legitimate target.
It bears mentioning that Lynn's studies, while comprehensive, tend to spark considerable debate. Some researchers dispute the techniques Lynn employs to calculate estimates when hard data is lacking. Others claim Lynn, an unabashed eugenicist, misinterprets his data to support conclusions that are both scientifically inaccurate and supportive of white supremacy.
Saying that, isn't the IQ rating bollocks?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
By this metric South Korea is basically on par with UK.
“This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
"(Save the land borders to the North and West)" would be an easy pentameter, but Will decided for some reason against it.
I remember watching World at War as a child with my father who had fought in it.
A superb documentary.
I'm allowed to WFH indefinitely too. Daily Mail investigation into me coming?
To re-repeat myself
"Another plug for Come and See, search for that and mosfilm on YouTube. Russian fllm 1985 which is pretty much the film of [Oradour-sur-Glane], except set in Belarus. Where the same thing happened in 628 villages."
628 villages in Belarus.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/right-wing-france-presidential-candidate-marine-le-pen-boris-johnson-rwanda-plan-b994573.html
Keep up, England.
It's a problem for all governments... they can really want something to happen (whether it's a return to the office, an end to boom'n'bust, or taking control of our borders), but most of the time wanting isn't enough.
Some politicians are reasonably calm in the face of reality being bigger than them, but others get in a real tizz about it.
He and his family has welcomed Ukrainian refugees into his home and said the experience was very humbling .
But getting over my sense of incredulous outrage if someone were to splat Phatboi is a challenge to which I'm pretty sure my therapist and I would successfully rise between us.
On the other hand, those individuals do benefit themselves from the opportunities, and send earnings back to their homelands. It is fallacious to assume this reduces the intelligence of the emigrants country. After all, until the eighties, these islands had net emigration of the "brightest and best" and to an extent still do. Regression to the Mean keeps the talent pool still bubbling, indeed gives others opportunities to rise.
Cecil Rhodes
Ukraine and Belarus suffered more per capita than Russia itself, so it is a very poor excuse for Russia to repeat the barbarity on Ukraine.
I think Byelorussia and Ukraine accounted for c.8.5m dead between them.
Edit: Foxy beat me to it.
The underlying problem is that our political parties cannot agree there is a problem with immigration, let alone what to do about it. It is becoming part of this culture war nonsense, which is really shorthand for the Americanisation of our politics - people are not listening to each other and are seeing fellow citizens as idiots. It is really unhealthy for our body politic and could kill our civil society.
What is clear is that people want to come to the UK. Refugees for safety and economic migrants for opportunity. The UK is not perfect but with our language and rule of law, we are a damn sight better than most places in the World. We cannot take everyone who wants to come here because there will be a backlash against incomers. We need to have an efficient and fair way to welcome those we should.
The only thing I can see is that we have to reduce the pull factor by making it really painful to employ illegal immigrants even in the black economy. We might need an amnesty followed by huge fines for employers of new illegal immigrants. Make the employers the problem to fix, not the immigrants.
In fact the proposal is to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda where there may be the possibility of applying for asylum in Rwanda at the discretion of the Rwandan government but there is no possibility of asylum in the UK under this memorandum of understanding.
I suspect the people drafting the question misunderstood the proposal themselves
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/memorandum-of-understanding-mou-between-the-uk-and-rwanda
As far as brain drain goes this doesn't seem to be damaging in practice; In the short term the poorer country is helped by remittances, and in the long term it's helped by migrants developing better networks and transferring knowledge and technology back. This is why apart from weird cases like the DDR and North Korea, you don't normally see developing countries trying to prevent their people from leaving; On the contrary, for instance the Indian governing want more opportunities for their people to migrate to the UK as part of a trade deal.
We wouldn't say "no Amazon, you can't recruit that person. Best let them stay at a local corner store, because that is fairer."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10723057/Britons-Boris-Johnsons-Rwanda-plan-poll-says-Huge-support-defies-hand-wringing-critics.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O5rCjTa6v4
"Rwanda: an imperfect but defensible plan
The outrage over the proposal misses the bigger point"
https://unherd.com/thepost/rwanda-an-imperfect-but-defensible-plan/
Now that Rwanda govt has provided the proprietor an unlimited stay at alternate accommodation?
"The end of Time Out magazine is an omen of London’s cultural demise
The nightlife that Time Out helped to define has been all but cleared out by property developers and the pandemic.
By Emma Haslett""
https://www.newstatesman.com/business/2022/04/the-end-of-time-out-magazine-is-a-omen-of-londons-cultural-demise
Previous day was 55/45.
10 polls completed in last two days - Macron on 53 or higher in every poll except one.
All polls moving in Macron direction or flat.
Macron just matched at 1.11.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2022_French_presidential_election#Macron_vs._Le_Pen
That would be *checks notes* South Korea
https://www.idgconnect.com/article/3580022/five-reasons-south-korea-has-the-fastest-internet.amp.html