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Midterms betting: GOP favourite for the House – DEM for the Senate – politicalbetting.com

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  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,304
    Carnyx said:

    More from the Graun feed re the Perth hustings:

    'Mackay says the Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross, said Boris Johnson misled parliament over Partygate. Does Truss agree?

    She replies:

    I don’t agree that Boris Johnson misled parliament. He did a great job as prime minister. He delivered Brexit, the election result, the vaccines. He’s the only world leader with a street named after him in Kyiv.

    Mackay says Johnson is also the only prime minister to have received a fixed penalty notice for breaking Covid rules, to which Truss says: “I think he was the only prime minister that’s actually been prime minister during Covid”. Things are getting silly now as the crowd continues to bray at Mackay for daring to mention Johnson’s law-breaking.'

    https://twitter.com/AndrewBowie_MP/status/1559593703454425091?s=20&t=CFkwH7iQg7Vy1cgXseZOwA

    SNP as hospitable as ever
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 27,830

    In better news, I read somewhere that the Iran nuclear deal might be back on. A very good time for Iranian oil to come back on to the world market.

    As if Iran is the world's Big Bad any more anyway. Why are they being sanctioned still?
    Because they're not our preferred brand of fundamentalist Muslim.
  • Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Ramsden solar farm plan pulled for changes

    Council planning officers said the plan, which was opposed by 167 people, could be "uncharacteristic and distracting". Another 12 people registered their support.

    The authority's conservation officer objected to the scheme and said Akeman Street's historical significance would be damaged by the project.

    Akeman Street is an "important" Roman road on a east-west route, linking Watling Street to Fosse Way and is "a fascinating survival of part of an impressive network", they said.

    Others opposed to the scheme have said it could damage the village's character, close to the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-62493219

    for anyone who was wondering why liz is on about sheepies vs panels

    I wonder if this kind of thing happened in WW2 as well.
    Well quite. In particular, Akeman Street is not that seriously affected if they aren't shutting it off (they aren't). And you are in a AONB or not, if you are close to it you weren't thought to have enough NB to be in it.
    The panels would need quite a bit of digging for foundations and cables. The hjold might make sense if it were Alchester Roman city but there is no mention of it being an archaeologically valuable landscape comparable to say that around Stonehenge or in Silchester. Maybe there is something we are missing.
    Archaeologically, going ahead is arguably the winning strategy, because the foundation digging might throw up something really interesting and you then get a hold, and a serious incentive for solarpanelco to sponsor the archaeology to get it done asap.
    I assume an awful lot of decent archaeology only happens because building or other activity is going to happen. Otherwise why bother digging in x field?
    IT does. But it has to be done in a hurry and covered over again, to someone else's timetable AIUI. Very different from the lkong term digs such as at Silchester. Pros and cons, horses for courses - a pipeline for instance gives a long swathe of country to sample, as does HS2.
    Even HS2 - for all that it likes to promote itself in terms of the archaeology - has done far more harm than good. There have been over 1600 archaeological sites identified along the HS2 route. A total of 100 (up from an initial plan of 60) are actually being investigated. The rest will be destroyed without any proper recording.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,037
    Foxy said:

    Sean_F said:

    The age of the enlightenment was also a time of some terrible abuses in British working practices. Four and five-year-old children were working in the mills and in the mines; working in conditions which threatened their lives.

    It was. The point is, things gradually got better, both then and subsequently.

    Without the Enlightenment, we'd be living in a world where about 5% of the population could vote, few would see anything problematic with child labour, and where our idea of fun would be popping down to Bedlam to torment the lunatics, visiting the local child brothel, or watching someone getting hanged, drawn and quartered.
    Yes, being Woke is just the Enlightenment continuing.
    Life and society is much better now and can still be improved, but that idea seems to be on the basis that any further changes must by definition be an improvement, as though there is an unstoppable march toward utopia without the possibility of fale turns along the way.
  • Bookmark this - Liz Truss on the pensions triple lock: “I won’t fudge the figures, I’m fully committed to the triple lock, which gives the highest rate.” That means of increase in pensions of around 9-10% in March.

    Fuck you Liz

    Waiting for you to say Fuck you Starmer for the fact he wants the triple lock.

    Won't hold my breath.
    Not only that it applies to benefits as well and is fully supported by Starmer
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197
    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,866
    kle4 asked: "Is it even possible to be a US Senator and not a millionaire? Or is that just a stereotype?"

    A quick search found these fairly recent numbers: "Net worth data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics for 2018, the most recent year available, shows that almost two-thirds of U.S. senators’ net worth exceeds $1 million. And a few of them are exceptionally wealthy."

    source: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/aug/13/cory-booker/cory-booker-said-us-senate-dominated-millionaires-/

    So it's possible. (One thing to remember is that housing values have risen so spectacularly in parts of the US that a senator can become a millionaire just by owning a house for 20 or 30 years. I suspect that may be true of Washington state's junior senator, Maria Cantwell, who is a millionaire.)
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,527
    edited August 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Ramsden solar farm plan pulled for changes

    Council planning officers said the plan, which was opposed by 167 people, could be "uncharacteristic and distracting". Another 12 people registered their support.

    The authority's conservation officer objected to the scheme and said Akeman Street's historical significance would be damaged by the project.

    Akeman Street is an "important" Roman road on a east-west route, linking Watling Street to Fosse Way and is "a fascinating survival of part of an impressive network", they said.

    Others opposed to the scheme have said it could damage the village's character, close to the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-62493219

    for anyone who was wondering why liz is on about sheepies vs panels

    I wonder if this kind of thing happened in WW2 as well.
    Well quite. In particular, Akeman Street is not that seriously affected if they aren't shutting it off (they aren't). And you are in a AONB or not, if you are close to it you weren't thought to have enough NB to be in it.
    The panels would need quite a bit of digging for foundations and cables. The hjold might make sense if it were Alchester Roman city but there is no mention of it being an archaeologically valuable landscape comparable to say that around Stonehenge or in Silchester. Maybe there is something we are missing.
    Archaeologically, going ahead is arguably the winning strategy, because the foundation digging might throw up something really interesting and you then get a hold, and a serious incentive for solarpanelco to sponsor the archaeology to get it done asap.
    I assume an awful lot of decent archaeology only happens because building or other activity is going to happen. Otherwise why bother digging in x field?
    Well exactly, and also, the prevailing orthodoxy among responsible archaeologists is: do not do archaeology (quite seriously). It's destructive even when done right, it is simply not done right by 95% of archaeologists, if we just leave shit undisturbed we'll be much better equipped for non invasive exploration in 100 years time. So a "now or never" situation
    is a rare opportunity to get stuck in.
    Im not going to comment on the suggestion that an entire academic discipline wait for some deus ex machina but, while not an archaeologist, I’m a trustee at Canterbury Archaeological Trust. We get most of our income from the excavations mandated by planning consents. One is holding oneself a hostage to fortune if one waits 100 years for a technology that may or may not arrive. Quite apart from the destruction caused by development we’ve got one site down near Dover, East Wear Bay, that will have fallen victim to coastal erosion far before that.
  • pingping Posts: 3,805
    Hmm.

    Thinking more about domestic electric prices (I posted earlier a quote from Scottish power for a 1yr fix which offered leccy @79p/kWh).

    At some point electric car charging is going to be uncompetitive vs ICE.

    Has anyone done the maths?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,037

    kle4 asked: "Is it even possible to be a US Senator and not a millionaire? Or is that just a stereotype?"

    A quick search found these fairly recent numbers: "Net worth data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics for 2018, the most recent year available, shows that almost two-thirds of U.S. senators’ net worth exceeds $1 million. And a few of them are exceptionally wealthy."

    source: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/aug/13/cory-booker/cory-booker-said-us-senate-dominated-millionaires-/

    So it's possible. (One thing to remember is that housing values have risen so spectacularly in parts of the US that a senator can become a millionaire just by owning a house for 20 or 30 years. I suspect that may be true of Washington state's junior senator, Maria Cantwell, who is a millionaire.)

    Only 2/3 is not bad actually, particularly as you say with house prices. A few younger ones also probably keeps the number down.

    I'm probably just getting confused because of the vast sums all elected officials have to dry to drum out of their supporters, as I expect Senate races are pretty expensive.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197
    edited August 2022

    kle4 asked: "Is it even possible to be a US Senator and not a millionaire? Or is that just a stereotype?"

    A quick search found these fairly recent numbers: "Net worth data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics for 2018, the most recent year available, shows that almost two-thirds of U.S. senators’ net worth exceeds $1 million. And a few of them are exceptionally wealthy."

    source: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/aug/13/cory-booker/cory-booker-said-us-senate-dominated-millionaires-/

    So it's possible. (One thing to remember is that housing values have risen so spectacularly in parts of the US that a senator can become a millionaire just by owning a house for 20 or 30 years. I suspect that may be true of Washington state's junior senator, Maria Cantwell, who is a millionaire.)

    "Cory Booker has bought a luxury house property in 2017, for $8 Million Dollars on a mortgage from JP Morgan. Cory Booker currently resides in this sprawling 5,200 square foot home located in Washington, D.C. Cory Booker’s home comes with spacious 5 Bedrooms and 6 Bathrooms with a 6-seater dining table and a wine cellar."

    https://caknowledge.com/cory-booker-net-worth-forbes/

    I think he is saying he is not a millionaire excluding housing wealth?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,527

    kle4 asked: "Is it even possible to be a US Senator and not a millionaire? Or is that just a stereotype?"

    A quick search found these fairly recent numbers: "Net worth data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics for 2018, the most recent year available, shows that almost two-thirds of U.S. senators’ net worth exceeds $1 million. And a few of them are exceptionally wealthy."

    source: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/aug/13/cory-booker/cory-booker-said-us-senate-dominated-millionaires-/

    So it's possible. (One thing to remember is that housing values have risen so spectacularly in parts of the US that a senator can become a millionaire just by owning a house for 20 or 30 years. I suspect that may be true of Washington state's junior senator, Maria Cantwell, who is a millionaire.)

    "Cory Booker has bought a luxury house property in 2017, for $8 Million Dollars on a mortgage from JP Morgan. Cory Booker currently resides in this sprawling 5,200 square foot home located in Washington, D.C. Cory Booker’s home comes with spacious 5 Bedrooms and 6 Bathrooms with a 6-seater dining table and a wine cellar."

    https://caknowledge.com/cory-booker-net-worth-forbes/

    I think he is saying he is not a millionaire
    excluding housing wealth?
    I very briefly met Cory Booker at freshers fair when he was President of Oxford University L'Chaim Society. All I remember is my very sheltered, white, middle class Home Counties upbringing being utterly confused as to why this big black American guy was running a Jewish society.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,385

    kle4 asked: "Is it even possible to be a US Senator and not a millionaire? Or is that just a stereotype?"

    A quick search found these fairly recent numbers: "Net worth data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics for 2018, the most recent year available, shows that almost two-thirds of U.S. senators’ net worth exceeds $1 million. And a few of them are exceptionally wealthy."

    source: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/aug/13/cory-booker/cory-booker-said-us-senate-dominated-millionaires-/

    So it's possible. (One thing to remember is that housing values have risen so spectacularly in parts of the US that a senator can become a millionaire just by owning a house for 20 or 30 years. I suspect that may be true of Washington state's junior senator, Maria Cantwell, who is a millionaire.)

    "Cory Booker has bought a luxury house property in 2017, for $8 Million Dollars on a mortgage from JP Morgan. Cory Booker currently resides in this sprawling 5,200 square foot home located in Washington, D.C. Cory Booker’s home comes with spacious 5 Bedrooms and 6 Bathrooms with a 6-seater dining table and a wine cellar."

    https://caknowledge.com/cory-booker-net-worth-forbes/

    I think he is saying he is not a millionaire excluding housing wealth?
    "a 6-seater dining table"??
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,580
    Off topic.

    Liz is right. Let's see a spot of graft. Get back to work you lazy so and sos!
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,385

    Bookmark this - Liz Truss on the pensions triple lock: “I won’t fudge the figures, I’m fully committed to the triple lock, which gives the highest rate.” That means of increase in pensions of around 9-10% in March.

    Fuck you Liz

    Waiting for you to say Fuck you Starmer for the fact he wants the triple lock.

    Won't hold my breath.
    Not only that it applies to benefits as well and is fully supported by Starmer
    But he does have a plan to reduce inflation by freezing the energy price cap.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197

    kle4 asked: "Is it even possible to be a US Senator and not a millionaire? Or is that just a stereotype?"

    A quick search found these fairly recent numbers: "Net worth data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics for 2018, the most recent year available, shows that almost two-thirds of U.S. senators’ net worth exceeds $1 million. And a few of them are exceptionally wealthy."

    source: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/aug/13/cory-booker/cory-booker-said-us-senate-dominated-millionaires-/

    So it's possible. (One thing to remember is that housing values have risen so spectacularly in parts of the US that a senator can become a millionaire just by owning a house for 20 or 30 years. I suspect that may be true of Washington state's junior senator, Maria Cantwell, who is a millionaire.)

    "Cory Booker has bought a luxury house property in 2017, for $8 Million Dollars on a mortgage from JP Morgan. Cory Booker currently resides in this sprawling 5,200 square foot home located in Washington, D.C. Cory Booker’s home comes with spacious 5 Bedrooms and 6 Bathrooms with a 6-seater dining table and a wine cellar."

    https://caknowledge.com/cory-booker-net-worth-forbes/

    I think he is saying he is not a millionaire excluding housing wealth?
    "a 6-seater dining table"??
    Have you seen the size of American plates?
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,613

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    Yes, I recall all that. There wasn't much evidence to back it up though - more the vague notion that wages simply have to rise when there are labour shortages. It just has to happen! A silly assumption then and a silly assumption now.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,037
    People can probably relate. Ah, it's most likely something to do with moral fibre I expect.

    https://twitter.com/NoContextBrits/status/1559167166506729472/photo/1
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,825
    Foxy said:

    Sean_F said:

    The age of the enlightenment was also a time of some terrible abuses in British working practices. Four and five-year-old children were working in the mills and in the mines; working in conditions which threatened their lives.

    It was. The point is, things gradually got better, both then and subsequently.

    Without the Enlightenment, we'd be living in a world where about 5% of the population could vote, few would see anything problematic with child labour, and where our idea of fun would be popping down to Bedlam to torment the lunatics, visiting the local child brothel, or watching someone getting hanged, drawn and quartered.
    Yes, being Woke is just the Enlightenment continuing.
    I'm not really convinced. It seems to encompass some distinctly pre-enlightenment ideas like inherited guilt and inherited virtue, stringent curbs on speech, ending the presumption of innocence etc.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,580

    Bookmark this - Liz Truss on the pensions triple lock: “I won’t fudge the figures, I’m fully committed to the triple lock, which gives the highest rate.” That means of increase in pensions of around 9-10% in March.

    Fuck you Liz

    Waiting for you to say Fuck you Starmer for the fact he wants the triple lock.

    Won't hold my breath.
    Not only that it applies to benefits as well and is fully supported by Starmer
    I believe you and Barty Bobbins have made a compelling case that Sir Beer Korma is the architect of British economic woes
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197
    kle4 said:

    People can probably relate. Ah, it's most likely something to do with moral fibre I expect.

    https://twitter.com/NoContextBrits/status/1559167166506729472/photo/1

    Then keep it for the winter and burn it to keep warm.
  • I did say fuck you Starmer. One of Labour’s worst policies
  • pingping Posts: 3,805
    edited August 2022
    ping said:

    Hmm.

    Thinking more about domestic electric prices (I posted earlier a quote from Scottish power for a 1yr fix which offered leccy @79p/kWh).

    At some point electric car charging is going to be uncompetitive vs ICE.

    Has anyone done the maths?

    Assuming;

    An efficient, reasonable EV does 4.5 miles per kWh (Hyundai ionic, not Renault tizzy)
    Leccy @ 79p

    ~18p/mile

    ICE;

    50mpg ~11 miles per litre
    £1.70 per litre

    ~15.5p/mile

    If I’ve done my maths right….? Obviously, the great thing with EV’s are they can be charged off peak, but still…
  • Bookmark this - Liz Truss on the pensions triple lock: “I won’t fudge the figures, I’m fully committed to the triple lock, which gives the highest rate.” That means of increase in pensions of around 9-10% in March.

    Fuck you Liz

    Waiting for you to say Fuck you Starmer for the fact he wants the triple lock.

    Won't hold my breath.
    Not only that it applies to benefits as well and is fully supported by Starmer
    But he does have a plan to reduce inflation by freezing the energy price cap.
    The IFS has refuted that claim and what happens in April
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197

    Bookmark this - Liz Truss on the pensions triple lock: “I won’t fudge the figures, I’m fully committed to the triple lock, which gives the highest rate.” That means of increase in pensions of around 9-10% in March.

    Fuck you Liz

    Waiting for you to say Fuck you Starmer for the fact he wants the triple lock.

    Won't hold my breath.
    Not only that it applies to benefits as well and is fully supported by Starmer
    Has Truss said she is putting up all benefits by double digits? Really?
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,866
    Cory Booker is an interesting man, for example: "Booker was born in Washington, D.C.; he grew up in Harrington Park, New Jersey, 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Newark.[1][2] His parents, Carolyn Rose (née Jordan) and Cary Alfred Booker, were among the first black IBM executives.[2][3][4] Booker has said that he was raised in a religious household and that he and his family attended a small African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Jersey."

    Oh, and he won a Rhodes scholarship, among other things. He and I often disgree on issues, but I admire a man who, with many more pleasant alternatives available to him, would take on the thankless job of mayor Newark, New Jersey.
    source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker

    (Perhaps one of you can suggest a comparable city in Britain to Newark, which will help others understand why I admire him.)
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,037
    edited August 2022
    kle4 said:

    People can probably relate. Ah, it's most likely something to do with moral fibre I expect.

    https://twitter.com/NoContextBrits/status/1559167166506729472/photo/1

    On a non related note, this is one of the funniest things I've ever seen on the internet, and I'd bet good money the lady in question (yelling at some workmen) has a vote in the Tory leadership contest. (yes yes, could be fake speculates comments, but it's very spot on all the same, I bought it as I've seen many like it in real life).
    https://twitter.com/NoContextBrits/status/1558716436721311745?cxt=HHwWgoCxxeeV1qErAAAA
  • Bookmark this - Liz Truss on the pensions triple lock: “I won’t fudge the figures, I’m fully committed to the triple lock, which gives the highest rate.” That means of increase in pensions of around 9-10% in March.

    Fuck you Liz

    Waiting for you to say Fuck you Starmer for the fact he wants the triple lock.

    Won't hold my breath.
    Not only that it applies to benefits as well and is fully supported by Starmer
    Has Truss said she is putting up all benefits by double digits? Really?
    The triple lock applies to pensions and benefits
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,527
    edited August 2022

    Cory Booker is an interesting man, for example: "Booker was born in Washington, D.C.; he grew up in Harrington Park, New Jersey, 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Newark.[1][2] His parents, Carolyn Rose (née Jordan) and Cary Alfred Booker, were among the first black IBM executives.[2][3][4] Booker has said that he was raised in a religious household and that he and his family attended a small African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Jersey."

    Oh, and he won a Rhodes scholarship, among other things. He and I often disgree on issues, but I admire a man who, with many more pleasant alternatives available to him, would take on the thankless job of mayor Newark, New Jersey.
    source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker

    (Perhaps one of you can suggest a comparable city in Britain to Newark, which will help others understand why I admire him.)

    Its namesake in Nottinghamshire is pretty grim TBF.

    EDIT actually that’s not fair. It’s one of the nicer towns in Notts.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197

    Bookmark this - Liz Truss on the pensions triple lock: “I won’t fudge the figures, I’m fully committed to the triple lock, which gives the highest rate.” That means of increase in pensions of around 9-10% in March.

    Fuck you Liz

    Waiting for you to say Fuck you Starmer for the fact he wants the triple lock.

    Won't hold my breath.
    Not only that it applies to benefits as well and is fully supported by Starmer
    Has Truss said she is putting up all benefits by double digits? Really?
    The triple lock applies to pensions and benefits
    No, it has not done historically and would be a massive and very expensive policy announcement if Truss has committed to it.
  • Bookmark this - Liz Truss on the pensions triple lock: “I won’t fudge the figures, I’m fully committed to the triple lock, which gives the highest rate.” That means of increase in pensions of around 9-10% in March.

    Fuck you Liz

    Waiting for you to say Fuck you Starmer for the fact he wants the triple lock.

    Won't hold my breath.
    Not only that it applies to benefits as well and is fully supported by Starmer
    Has Truss said she is putting up all benefits by double digits? Really?
    The triple lock applies to pensions and benefits
    No, it has not done historically and would be a massive and very expensive policy announcement if Truss has committed to it.
    The state pension and universal credit rose by 3.1% this year

    I understood they would rise the same under the triple lock but I stand to be corrected
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 47,891
    edited August 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    But they're not Woke, they're led by Sleepy Joe.
    OMG they really are Woke, and even when they are not they are like @kinabalu or @Foxy - they are too myopic and complacent to stop Wokeness, because they still naively think it is the same game of social justice that was played in the 80 and 90s, it just occasionally goes "a bit far into silliness"

    Woke is really not silly. It is cultural Marxism turned into an eerie new religion. It is powerful and growing. It is destroying America from the inside out, beginning with the universities but now infesting everything over time. It is a species of rot. It will be the end of the West and the Enlightenment if it is not checked

    I get that most people on here completely disagree with me, but this is my honest appraisal. I fear for us all
    There is something destroying America from the inside out:
    Guns having more rights than women
    Cletus the Fetus having more rights than the mother. Until its born. Then it has no rights
    Women heading towards a travel ban in case they are trying to obtain an out-of-Gilead abortion
    Elections still legal for Demtards and non-American races but with only one polling both for half a million people who cares as their votes either won't be cast or counted
    Etc etc etc.

    Shitkicker states in America are turning into Gilead right before our eyes. And seemingly you'd rather have that than north of the Mason-Dixon-Sanity line because "woke".

    You really need to drink more.
    As I said the other day, America faces a truly terrible choice between the religious freaks on the right, and the Cultural Marxists on the left

    I'D RATHER NOT HAVE THAT CHOICE, PERSONALLY

    But if forced, I'd go for the freaks as I think there is a better chance of a potent, credible, coherent America emerging from the inevitable rubble. It's a bit like Chile probably benefiting from Pinochet if the alternative is/was a form of Chavez

    The most rightwing people I know are Venezuelans
    Since you're a heterosexual white man you have little to fear from Gilead, unless they do prohibition again in which case you would be fucked. There are plenty of people for whom rule by Christian nationalist fascists would literally be a death sentence. The worst the woke would do to you would be to make you do an implicit bias course or become a vegan.
    Again, a total inability to grasp what I'm on about

    Have you read that article about Wokeness in US medicine? I'll link it one more time

    https://www.city-journal.org/the-corruption-of-medicine

    it's long, detailed, brilliant, and terrifying, and gives the lie to any trivial bullshit that Wokeness is merely about "pronouns". And this is just one area of American life

    I want my kids to live in a western world that is free, prosperous, dynamic, liberal and Enlightened (in the 18th century sense). All that is, I believe, threatened by this
    There are so many things wrong with this article that I can barely be bothered to dismantle it. The biggest thing is the assumption that there is a thing called 'merit' that we can accurately measure which itself has universal 'merit' in predicting future success in medicine.

    While the attempt to overcome the inherit biases in the archaic approach to developing good doctors inherently espoused by the article does include a whole bunch of gobbledegook, that does not invalidate the criticisms of the old merit by test approach, nor indeed the need to seek better ways to develop doctors. To read this article, you'd believe that cramming the latin names of tiny bones was considerably more important than being able to speak to a patient with empathy and LISTEN to them.
    Ah yes

    So you mean they assess the students to see how "likeable" they are? How friendly and smiley? Coz that's quite important in a doctor

    Also it's quite handy if you want to drive down the awkwardly large number of bright Asian students. Fuck them. Stupid Chinese geeks. No one likes them anyway


    "Harvard’s method for tamping down its Asian American applicants to an acceptable level has controversially involved using a subjective “personal” score, gauging qualities such as “likability, courage, kindness and being ‘widely respected.’” According to Harvard, Asian Americans systematically score worse by these measures than any other racial group, weighing down their admittance rate despite higher academic scores."

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/02/the-left-is-gaslighting-asian-americans-on-school-admissions.html


    If you're asking me if I'd prefer a Harvard Medical School graduate to a graduate from a second-tier medical school, where the emphasis is on holistic medicine and working with the patient to find the treatments they want, I'd take the latter any day of the week.
    Shit, really? The two serious demands I have made of doctors in the past decade have been to cause me not to have cancer any more, and to pop a couple of titanium hip joints in. I gave as much of a fuck about holisticism as I care whether my truck gets holistically serviced.
    Holisticism is pretty important in both cases imo - though I'd want anyone replacing my bones to have a pretty thorough grasp of anatomy obvs.
    Why? If you are out of it on competently administered anaesthetic, who would trade a pound of holisticism for an ounce of nerdish technical dexterity?
    The reason that in Medical Schools care so much about communication skills, both in the selection process, and in the course itself is not about having congenial dinner parties. It is because the key skill in most specialities is in decision making rather than dexterity, and the key to making the correct decision is via communication skills, with both patients and fellow staff.

    A surgeon doing a complex procedure technically correctly but not appropriately is not a good surgeon. History taking is the key part of medical diagnosis, and for informed consent as to the options.

    We should also bear in mind the many hospital scandals here and abroad where the root cause has been poor communication skills and a toxic workplace culture.

    Without good communication skills, academic knowledge is just a conceit in a doctor.

  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,825
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    Silly boy.
    Remember Leon droning on about Remainers trying to overturn the EU ref result but in vomit inducing hypocrisy is backing Trump who sent a mob to storm Congress and who wanted to overturn the US election .
    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
    From a British perspective, Trump was the most benign President since Reagan, if not before.
    Where British = Russian.

    Trump undermined Britain's alliances like NATO, friends like Ukraine whom he tried to shaft by tying aid to digging up dirt on his opponents etc.

    I can see why your mate Vlad likes Trump. Britain, not so much. Worst President of my life by far from a British perspective.
    I don't think there's any empirical measure by which your argument stacks up. Trump did not oblige Britain to enter any conflicts to shed treasure (or worse, blood) in so doing. He didn't seek to chide us or interfere with our domestic politics. He didn't oblige us to sanction anyone and force our biggest companies to divest their assets. He didn't sanction the pillage our companies in the manner of Standard Chartered or BP. He even made positive noises about a trade deal. I happen to think his proposed trade deal would have been bad for us and good for America, but I can't add that to the negative pile because it never happened. It was a brief, peaceful interregnum.
    "Peace" isn't a good thing if that peace is achieved by surrender.

    Your argument is no different to the argument of Ishmael that we shouldn't have women wearing short skirts as it might provoke rape, we shouldn't publish literature as it might provoke torture etc

    You want "peace" by surrendering to Putin etc. No thank you.
    Don't be such an utterly insufferable fucking prick. Nothing I said is analogous or reduces to the short skirt point, and your utterly moronic position is that the right to free speech always and everywhere overrides the right of Jews not to be tortured to death. If you don't understand that ask a grown up to read the previous thread and confirm it to you.
    Plenty of grown ups read the previous thread and they almost all confirmed that your moral compass is broken.

    Jews should not be tortured to death and if any are that is the responsibility of the torturers and those who aid and abet them, not those who sell short skirts or publish novels.
    You are a twat. You really are. It is like dealing with self righteous, very small children. You tell them that global warming is Very Bad, and then you ask them stuff like, would it be OK for ed the eskimo to burn some coal if his solar panels had broken down and his six children would be frozen to death. Oh no, miss, they say, global warming is Really Bad. You are the same: too irretrievaby dim to recognise competing rights and competing goods, including the right not to be tortured to death.

    Really stupid. I am not saying that to goad or insult, but because it is true. Taz level stupid.

    And I can't help noticing both the Bataclan and anne Frank examples, the ethnicity of the people about whom you self rghteously give not a fuck.
    I never said to say where Anne Frank is, indeed I made a point about not abetting crimes, so the problem isn't that I'm missing the competing rights its that you're too irredeemably thick that you think you've got a good point even after its been answered.

    Abetting a crime = bad.
    Publishing a novel/cartoon etc = not bad.

    Not a single person has died due to a cartoon or novel. If they've died, they've died due to the actions of criminals, criminals who quite probably could and would have found something else objectionable if not a particular novel or cartoon. Your surrender view doesn't work until we've surrendered everything so that we're like the Taliban, and probably not even then either.
    Dem 4 by 2s, eh?

    Idiot cunnig at work: you think your chat about "abetting a crime" obscures the question of whether something causes something to happen vs not happen. You are thick first for thinking that is an argument, secondly because a reasonably bright cockroach would see what you are up to, and thirdly because you think legal technicalities are a good area for a fuckwitted layman to try to get the better of an actual lawyer.
    I'm sure that the mere fact of one's being born causes some things to happen that would not otherwise have happened. However, what interests lawyers and ethicists is the issue of proximate causes.

    The proximate cause of the murder of Jews is that a group of loons freely and voluntarily decided to murder them. It is not that a third party chose to publish a cartoon that said loons did not like. Other people might have been liable too, if they encouraged the loons to murder the Jews, or if they told the loons where they could find Jews to murder (your Anne Frank/mad axeman example). The first is incitement, the second is abetting. The cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo are guilty of neither.

    If as you imply, you are a lawyer, you ought to understand this. No court is going to hold Charlie Hebdo liable for the acts of the murderous loons.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 31,504
    "An elderly man riding a mobility scooter has been stabbed to death in west London. The attack happened on Cayton Road in Greenford, Ealing, at just after 4pm on Tuesday.Metropolitan Police officers were called to reports of a man with stab injuries, and despite the efforts of paramedics, he was declared dead at the scene. Police have said the man is believed to be in his 80s and a crime scene is in place. There have been no arrests."

    https://news.sky.com/story/elderly-man-on-mobility-scooter-stabbed-to-death-in-west-london-12674673
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,384
    Foxy said:

    Sean_F said:

    The age of the enlightenment was also a time of some terrible abuses in British working practices. Four and five-year-old children were working in the mills and in the mines; working in conditions which threatened their lives.

    It was. The point is, things gradually got better, both then and subsequently.

    Without the Enlightenment, we'd be living in a world where about 5% of the population could vote, few would see anything problematic with child labour, and where our idea of fun would be popping down to Bedlam to torment the lunatics, visiting the local child brothel, or watching someone getting hanged, drawn and quartered.
    Yes, being Woke is just the Enlightenment continuing.
    Messy though. The screeching of so many foghorn entitled male white voices as they cling to privilege is quite painful on the ears.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,385
    edited August 2022

    Bookmark this - Liz Truss on the pensions triple lock: “I won’t fudge the figures, I’m fully committed to the triple lock, which gives the highest rate.” That means of increase in pensions of around 9-10% in March.

    Fuck you Liz

    Waiting for you to say Fuck you Starmer for the fact he wants the triple lock.

    Won't hold my breath.
    Not only that it applies to benefits as well and is fully supported by Starmer
    Has Truss said she is putting up all benefits by double digits? Really?
    The triple lock applies to pensions and benefits
    The Triple Lock only applies to the State Pension, not to other benefits such as UC.

    The basic State Pension's yearly increase is determined by a rule known as the “triple lock”, it being the greatest of:
    - the growth in national average earnings;
    - the growth in retail prices as measured by the Consumer Price Index;
    - 2.5 per cent.


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Pension_(United_Kingdom)#Pensions_Act_2007

    However, the inflation element is going to be the driver this year, which is also the driver for other benefit increases.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 21,884

    kle4 asked: "Is it even possible to be a US Senator and not a millionaire? Or is that just a stereotype?"

    A quick search found these fairly recent numbers: "Net worth data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics for 2018, the most recent year available, shows that almost two-thirds of U.S. senators’ net worth exceeds $1 million. And a few of them are exceptionally wealthy."

    source: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/aug/13/cory-booker/cory-booker-said-us-senate-dominated-millionaires-/

    So it's possible. (One thing to remember is that housing values have risen so spectacularly in parts of the US that a senator can become a millionaire just by owning a house for 20 or 30 years. I suspect that may be true of Washington state's junior senator, Maria Cantwell, who is a millionaire.)

    "Cory Booker has bought a luxury house property in 2017, for $8 Million Dollars on a mortgage from JP Morgan. Cory Booker currently resides in this sprawling 5,200 square foot home located in Washington, D.C. Cory Booker’s home comes with spacious 5 Bedrooms and 6 Bathrooms with a 6-seater dining table and a wine cellar."

    https://caknowledge.com/cory-booker-net-worth-forbes/

    I think he is saying he is not a millionaire excluding housing wealth?
    "6 Bathrooms with a 6-seater dining table"

    I prefer not to shit and eat in the same room.

    Goodnight!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,705
    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez
  • DougSeal said:

    Cory Booker is an interesting man, for example: "Booker was born in Washington, D.C.; he grew up in Harrington Park, New Jersey, 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Newark.[1][2] His parents, Carolyn Rose (née Jordan) and Cary Alfred Booker, were among the first black IBM executives.[2][3][4] Booker has said that he was raised in a religious household and that he and his family attended a small African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Jersey."

    Oh, and he won a Rhodes scholarship, among other things. He and I often disgree on issues, but I admire a man who, with many more pleasant alternatives available to him, would take on the thankless job of mayor Newark, New Jersey.
    source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker

    (Perhaps one of you can suggest a comparable city in Britain to Newark, which will help others understand why I admire him.)

    Its namesake in Nottinghamshire is pretty grim TBF.

    EDIT actually that’s not fair. It’s one of the nicer towns in Notts.
    I'm watching you Doug!! :)

    Actually Newark is a great place - or was before they decided to double it in size in 20 years.

  • Goodness me a Tory lying and using their lies to attack Labour
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    Sean_F said:

    The age of the enlightenment was also a time of some terrible abuses in British working practices. Four and five-year-old children were working in the mills and in the mines; working in conditions which threatened their lives.

    It was. The point is, things gradually got better, both then and subsequently.

    Without the Enlightenment, we'd be living in a world where about 5% of the population could vote, few would see anything problematic with child labour, and where our idea of fun would be popping down to Bedlam to torment the lunatics, visiting the local child brothel, or watching someone getting hanged, drawn and quartered.
    Yes, being Woke is just the Enlightenment continuing.
    Messy though. The screeching of so many foghorn entitled male white voices as they cling to privilege is quite painful on the ears.
    Oh, the irony.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197

    Bookmark this - Liz Truss on the pensions triple lock: “I won’t fudge the figures, I’m fully committed to the triple lock, which gives the highest rate.” That means of increase in pensions of around 9-10% in March.

    Fuck you Liz

    Waiting for you to say Fuck you Starmer for the fact he wants the triple lock.

    Won't hold my breath.
    Not only that it applies to benefits as well and is fully supported by Starmer
    Has Truss said she is putting up all benefits by double digits? Really?
    The triple lock applies to pensions and benefits
    No, it has not done historically and would be a massive and very expensive policy announcement if Truss has committed to it.
    The state pension and universal credit rose by 3.1% this year

    I understood they would rise the same under the triple lock but I stand to be corrected
    Triple lock is exclusively for state pension. Other benefits have been falling in real terms the last couple of decades. That is why it is controversial.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,825
    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Yet, there are still people who think that Venezuela is a model to be adopted by other middle income countries. Chavez was certainly worse than Pinochet.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,385
    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
  • Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    Yes, I recall all that. There wasn't much evidence to back it up though - more the vague notion that wages simply have to rise when there are labour shortages. It just has to happen! A silly assumption then and a silly assumption now.
    And they have risen.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/timeseries/kac3/lms

    Deal with the reality of rising wages even if it upsets you.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,825
    edited August 2022

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,705
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Yet, there are still people who think that Venezuela is a model to be adopted by other middle income countries. Chavez was certainly worse than Pinochet.
    Venezuela is a catastrophe. And they have managed to do this... despite having the biggest oil reserves in the world. That takes some doing. I know lefties are stupid ignorant fucks, but still. Bravo

    Pinochet, by contrast, was good for the Chilean economy. And Chile now has a GDP per cap of $16,000, ten times that of Venezuela

    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez. But probably not if you're a radical socialist that got tortured and shot, but, hey, them's the breaks, eggs and omelettes and all that
  • Goodness me a Tory lying and using their lies to attack Labour

    If you are referring to me I have already said I stand to be corrected though this year the pensions and universal credit rose together at 3.1%

    I may have been mistaken but I was not lying
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    None of the six named so far are remotely woke!
  • Cory Booker is an interesting man, for example: "Booker was born in Washington, D.C.; he grew up in Harrington Park, New Jersey, 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Newark.[1][2] His parents, Carolyn Rose (née Jordan) and Cary Alfred Booker, were among the first black IBM executives.[2][3][4] Booker has said that he was raised in a religious household and that he and his family attended a small African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Jersey."

    Oh, and he won a Rhodes scholarship, among other things. He and I often disgree on issues, but I admire a man who, with many more pleasant alternatives available to him, would take on the thankless job of mayor Newark, New Jersey.
    source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker

    (Perhaps one of you can suggest a comparable city in Britain to Newark, which will help others understand why I admire him.)

    Given Newark's location in the New York conurbation but on the 'wrong side of the river' how about Woolwich / Thamesmead as an equivalent.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,551
    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    Sean_F said:

    The age of the enlightenment was also a time of some terrible abuses in British working practices. Four and five-year-old children were working in the mills and in the mines; working in conditions which threatened their lives.

    It was. The point is, things gradually got better, both then and subsequently.

    Without the Enlightenment, we'd be living in a world where about 5% of the population could vote, few would see anything problematic with child labour, and where our idea of fun would be popping down to Bedlam to torment the lunatics, visiting the local child brothel, or watching someone getting hanged, drawn and quartered.
    Yes, being Woke is just the Enlightenment continuing.
    Messy though. The screeching of so many foghorn entitled male white voices as they cling to privilege is quite painful on the ears.
    Strange how it takes one, it’s mainly a high pitched whine for me.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,705
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez
    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    Hitler v Stalin is actually quite hard

    Both are, to me, examples of pure evil

    Mao is another, likewise Pol Pot

    All brought catastrophe on their nations, and killed millions. Deliberately

    Perhaps Hitler's evil was of a uniquely Satanic kind, even worse than Stalin? But was it tho? The Holodomor was pretty out there, and the immense system of state torture under Stalin was bigger than anything Hitler did to the German people

    Tough call
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,385
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    The point I was trying to make is that we don't have to choose either. Nor do we have to choose between Pinochet and Chavez.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,384
    Endillion said:

    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    Sean_F said:

    The age of the enlightenment was also a time of some terrible abuses in British working practices. Four and five-year-old children were working in the mills and in the mines; working in conditions which threatened their lives.

    It was. The point is, things gradually got better, both then and subsequently.

    Without the Enlightenment, we'd be living in a world where about 5% of the population could vote, few would see anything problematic with child labour, and where our idea of fun would be popping down to Bedlam to torment the lunatics, visiting the local child brothel, or watching someone getting hanged, drawn and quartered.
    Yes, being Woke is just the Enlightenment continuing.
    Messy though. The screeching of so many foghorn entitled male white voices as they cling to privilege is quite painful on the ears.
    Oh, the irony.
    🙂 - impressionistic overview of the situation that's all
  • Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Yet, there are still people who think that Venezuela is a model to be adopted by other middle income countries. Chavez was certainly worse than Pinochet.
    Venezuela is a catastrophe. And they have managed to do this... despite having the biggest oil reserves in the world. That takes some doing. I know lefties are stupid ignorant fucks, but still. Bravo

    Pinochet, by contrast, was good for the Chilean economy. And Chile now has a GDP per cap of $16,000, ten times that of Venezuela

    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez. But probably not if you're a radical socialist that got tortured and shot, but, hey, them's the breaks, eggs and omelettes and all that
    Marxist regimes also have a long history of torturing and shooting radical socialists.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,705

    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    Sean_F said:

    The age of the enlightenment was also a time of some terrible abuses in British working practices. Four and five-year-old children were working in the mills and in the mines; working in conditions which threatened their lives.

    It was. The point is, things gradually got better, both then and subsequently.

    Without the Enlightenment, we'd be living in a world where about 5% of the population could vote, few would see anything problematic with child labour, and where our idea of fun would be popping down to Bedlam to torment the lunatics, visiting the local child brothel, or watching someone getting hanged, drawn and quartered.
    Yes, being Woke is just the Enlightenment continuing.
    Messy though. The screeching of so many foghorn entitled male white voices as they cling to privilege is quite painful on the ears.
    Strange how it takes one, it’s mainly a high pitched whine for me.
    Surprised you can hear anything above the endless, infantile mewling of the Scot Nits for their precious 2nd referendum, which they are never getting
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,396
    edited August 2022

    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    Silly boy.
    Remember Leon droning on about Remainers trying to overturn the EU ref result but in vomit inducing hypocrisy is backing Trump who sent a mob to storm Congress and who wanted to overturn the US election .
    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
    From a British perspective, Trump was the most benign President since Reagan, if not before.
    Where British = Russian.

    Trump undermined Britain's alliances like NATO, friends like Ukraine whom he tried to shaft by tying aid to digging up dirt on his opponents etc.

    I can see why your mate Vlad likes Trump. Britain, not so much. Worst President of my life by far from a British perspective.
    Also the small detail of him doing secret deals with the Taliban no less which shafted our position in Afghanistan without any warning. He is a lying devious bastard on his good days and they are not frequent.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,385

    Goodness me a Tory lying and using their lies to attack Labour

    If you are referring to me I have already said I stand to be corrected though this year the pensions and universal credit rose together at 3.1%

    I may have been mistaken but I was not lying
    I am sure it was a genuine mistake.

    The important difference is that when inflation was less than 0.5% State Pension was still uplifted by at least 2.5% each year. UC, disability benefits, etc. were not.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    The point I was trying to make is that we don't have to choose either. Nor do we have to choose between Pinochet and Chavez.
    Also it has nothing to do with woke, unless woke means authoritarian communism somehow.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,705
    edited August 2022

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    The point I was trying to make is that we don't have to choose either. Nor do we have to choose between Pinochet and Chavez.
    Is that so?

    In Latin America in the 20th century it was not at all clear. For many people it really did feel like you had a brutal and unhappy choice between a rightwing hardman and a leftwing calamity

    Have you been to Chile? I have. Been all over Chile. The voices you hear there are not the lefty liberal Chilean voices we get in the UK

    Average Chileans are often surprisingly pro-Pinochet, or at least grudgingly grateful that the old bastard saved them from Chavezzy or Castro-y Marxism, leaving them the wealthiest nation in LatAm (and a pretty decent democracy, too)
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,385

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    Yes, I recall all that. There wasn't much evidence to back it up though - more the vague notion that wages simply have to rise when there are labour shortages. It just has to happen! A silly assumption then and a silly assumption now.
    And they have risen.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/timeseries/kac3/lms

    Deal with the reality of rising wages even if it upsets you.
    By the time of the next election average real disposable income will be less than it was when the Tories came to power in 2010.
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,005
    I think we need to go onto a war-footing for energy. Two key issues to address:

    - Switch gas usage to electricity
    - Increase electricity generation and storage

    It needs to be a massive effort from everyone in the country. Side effect would be that we go net zero much more quickly! It will cost but makes a lot of sense to reduce our reliance on others for energy.

    Ideas for the first:
    - Ban gas use in new builds immediately. Electric hobs, ovens and heat pumps instead.
    - Big incentives to switch existing household gas devices (i.e. boilers and hobs) to electric
    - Incentives for UK businesses to manufacture heatpumps

    Ideas for the second:
    - Massively remove impediments to new solar and wind generation devices being setup
    - All new builds to have solar panels, battery storage and car charging ports
    - Big subsidies on domestic solar and battery installation
    - All tidal schemes to get immediate go-ahead
    - Use existing nuclear sites to setup many mini-nuclear reactors

    We can't really waste time. We need to crack on now.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,396

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Ramsden solar farm plan pulled for changes

    Council planning officers said the plan, which was opposed by 167 people, could be "uncharacteristic and distracting". Another 12 people registered their support.

    The authority's conservation officer objected to the scheme and said Akeman Street's historical significance would be damaged by the project.

    Akeman Street is an "important" Roman road on a east-west route, linking Watling Street to Fosse Way and is "a fascinating survival of part of an impressive network", they said.

    Others opposed to the scheme have said it could damage the village's character, close to the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-62493219

    for anyone who was wondering why liz is on about sheepies vs panels

    I wonder if this kind of thing happened in WW2 as well.
    Well quite. In particular, Akeman Street is not that seriously affected if they aren't shutting it off (they aren't). And you are in a AONB or not, if you are close to it you weren't thought to have enough NB to be in it.
    The panels would need quite a bit of digging for foundations and cables. The hjold might make sense if it were Alchester Roman city but there is no mention of it being an archaeologically valuable landscape comparable to say that around Stonehenge or in Silchester. Maybe there is something we are missing.
    Archaeologically, going ahead is arguably the winning strategy, because the foundation digging might throw up something really interesting and you then get a hold, and a serious incentive for solarpanelco to sponsor the archaeology to get it done asap.
    I assume an awful lot of decent archaeology only happens because building or other activity is going to happen. Otherwise why bother digging in x field?
    IT does. But it has to be done in a hurry and covered over again, to someone else's timetable AIUI. Very different from the lkong term digs such as at Silchester. Pros and cons, horses for courses - a pipeline for instance gives a long swathe of country to sample, as does HS2.
    Even HS2 - for all that it likes to promote itself in terms of the archaeology - has done far more harm than good. There have been over 1600 archaeological sites identified along the HS2 route. A total of 100 (up from an initial plan of 60) are actually being investigated. The rest will be destroyed without any proper recording.
    This island of ours has been fairly densly populated for a very long time. We either paralyse ourselves or we get selective about what we keep.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,384

    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    Sean_F said:

    The age of the enlightenment was also a time of some terrible abuses in British working practices. Four and five-year-old children were working in the mills and in the mines; working in conditions which threatened their lives.

    It was. The point is, things gradually got better, both then and subsequently.

    Without the Enlightenment, we'd be living in a world where about 5% of the population could vote, few would see anything problematic with child labour, and where our idea of fun would be popping down to Bedlam to torment the lunatics, visiting the local child brothel, or watching someone getting hanged, drawn and quartered.
    Yes, being Woke is just the Enlightenment continuing.
    Messy though. The screeching of so many foghorn entitled male white voices as they cling to privilege is quite painful on the ears.
    Strange how it takes one, it’s mainly a high pitched whine for me.
    Yes better, and so looking on the bright side maybe it will get higher and higher until one day soon - us not being dogs - we won't be able to hear it anymore!
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,556
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/16/leaked-audio-reveals-liz-truss-said-british-workers-needed-more-graft

    I see that Liz Truss thinks British workers are all lazy bastards, especially outside London. I imagine this will go down well with the Red Wall.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,530
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    Sean_F said:

    The age of the enlightenment was also a time of some terrible abuses in British working practices. Four and five-year-old children were working in the mills and in the mines; working in conditions which threatened their lives.

    It was. The point is, things gradually got better, both then and subsequently.

    Without the Enlightenment, we'd be living in a world where about 5% of the population could vote, few would see anything problematic with child labour, and where our idea of fun would be popping down to Bedlam to torment the lunatics, visiting the local child brothel, or watching someone getting hanged, drawn and quartered.
    Yes, being Woke is just the Enlightenment continuing.
    Messy though. The screeching of so many foghorn entitled male white voices as they cling to privilege is quite painful on the ears.
    Strange how it takes one, it’s mainly a high pitched whine for me.
    Surprised you can hear anything above the endless, infantile mewling of the Scot Nits for their precious 2nd referendum, which they are never getting
    Oh they are getting it. It might be 2 years or it might be 20 years, but it will happen even if it is once in a generation. However the more stubborn and offensive to Scotland the UK government is the more likely the Nats will win which is why the Tories attitude is so stupid because it drive Scotland away.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,385
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    The point I was trying to make is that we don't have to choose either. Nor do we have to choose between Pinochet and Chavez.
    Is that so?

    In Latin America in the 20th century it was not at all clear. For many people it really did feel like you had a brutal and unhappy choice between a rightwing hardman and a leftwing calamity

    Have you been to Chile? I have. Been all over Chile. The voices you hear there are not the lefty liberal Chilean voices we get in the UK

    Average Chileans are often surprisingly pro-Pinochet, or at least grudgingly grateful that the old bastard saved them from Chavezzy or Castro-y Marxism, leaving them the wealthiest nation in LatAm (and a pretty decent democracy, too)
    'Chavezzy or Castro-y Marxism' does not = 'woke' though, does it?

    As @Foxy said earlier being Woke is just the Enlightenment continuing.

    At what point in the Enlightenment did you want it to stop?
  • Goodness me a Tory lying and using their lies to attack Labour

    If you are referring to me I have already said I stand to be corrected though this year the pensions and universal credit rose together at 3.1%

    I may have been mistaken but I was not lying
    I am sure it was a genuine mistake.

    The important difference is that when inflation was less than 0.5% State Pension was still uplifted by at least 2.5% each year. UC, disability benefits, etc. were not.
    I just do not lie but yes I can be mistaken and accept so when I am

    I agree with you on benefits, and they should be triple locked as well but if you recall, when the triple lock was set aside this year, Starmer and labour made political capital by objecting to the set aside, effectively ensuring its reinstatement which he shoulders the responsibility for to those who object to it

    Grown up politics would have seen it ended this year
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,556

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    Yes, I recall all that. There wasn't much evidence to back it up though - more the vague notion that wages simply have to rise when there are labour shortages. It just has to happen! A silly assumption then and a silly assumption now.
    And they have risen.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/timeseries/kac3/lms

    Deal with the reality of rising wages even if it upsets you.
    By the time of the next election average real disposable income will be less than it was when the Tories came to power in 2010.
    Sunlit uplands.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,270
    edited August 2022
    Meanwhile in China:

    China's advanced coal production capacity has been expanded by a total of 490 million tons per year since September, the National Mine Safety Administration told a press conference on Aug 5.

    The administration said 147 coal mines have attained the necessary qualifications for advanced production capacity since the beginning of this year.


    https://english.www.gov.cn/statecouncil/ministries/202208/05/content_WS62ed1ccfc6d02e533532ee7e.html

    China's coal output each MONTH is about 50% greater than the UK achieved in its peak YEAR of 1913.

    Puts our carbon emissions into perspective doesn't it.
  • DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Ramsden solar farm plan pulled for changes

    Council planning officers said the plan, which was opposed by 167 people, could be "uncharacteristic and distracting". Another 12 people registered their support.

    The authority's conservation officer objected to the scheme and said Akeman Street's historical significance would be damaged by the project.

    Akeman Street is an "important" Roman road on a east-west route, linking Watling Street to Fosse Way and is "a fascinating survival of part of an impressive network", they said.

    Others opposed to the scheme have said it could damage the village's character, close to the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-62493219

    for anyone who was wondering why liz is on about sheepies vs panels

    I wonder if this kind of thing happened in WW2 as well.
    Well quite. In particular, Akeman Street is not that seriously affected if they aren't shutting it off (they aren't). And you are in a AONB or not, if you are close to it you weren't thought to have enough NB to be in it.
    The panels would need quite a bit of digging for foundations and cables. The hjold might make sense if it were Alchester Roman city but there is no mention of it being an archaeologically valuable landscape comparable to say that around Stonehenge or in Silchester. Maybe there is something we are missing.
    Archaeologically, going ahead is arguably the winning strategy, because the foundation digging might throw up something really interesting and you then get a hold, and a serious incentive for solarpanelco to sponsor the archaeology to get it done asap.
    I assume an awful lot of decent archaeology only happens because building or other activity is going to happen. Otherwise why bother digging in x field?
    IT does. But it has to be done in a hurry and covered over again, to someone else's timetable AIUI. Very different from the lkong term digs such as at Silchester. Pros and cons, horses for courses - a pipeline for instance gives a long swathe of country to sample, as does HS2.
    Even HS2 - for all that it likes to promote itself in terms of the archaeology - has done far more harm than good. There have been over 1600 archaeological sites identified along the HS2 route. A total of 100 (up from an initial plan of 60) are actually being investigated. The rest will be destroyed without any proper recording.
    This island of ours has been fairly densly populated for a very long time. We either paralyse ourselves or we get selective about what we keep.
    Its not a case of what we keep. Its a case of making sure we record it before we destroy it. And I object to a company claiming to be doing all this wonderful archaeological work whilst ignoring the fact they are destroying 90% of the sites without any form of investigation. Particularly when a non governmental project would not be allowed to do that.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,396

    Meanwhile in China:

    China's advanced coal production capacity has been expanded by a total of 490 million tons per year since September, the National Mine Safety Administration told a press conference on Aug 5.

    The administration said 147 coal mines have attained the necessary qualifications for advanced production capacity since the beginning of this year.


    https://english.www.gov.cn/statecouncil/ministries/202208/05/content_WS62ed1ccfc6d02e533532ee7e.html

    China's coal output each MONTH is about 50% greater than the UK achieved in its peak YEAR of 1913.

    Puts our carbon emissions into perspective doesn't it.

    And we agonise about 1 coal mine to maintain our steel industry. Did we ever get a decision on that?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,037
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Yeah, did Chevez and co really spend that much time on combating woke microaggressions and the like, or were just focused on extremely barmy economic policies and political repression?

    Wokism, as typified by the things you generally raise around teaching, hiring policies and the like, seems more an american thing. Indeed, weren't you focusing on how it was The West that was indulging in it? Venezuela ain't the West.

    I realise you were probably looking to spark a reaction, but this one is so wide of the mark I don't think you're getting the outrage reaction you were hoping for, rather confusion.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    Silly boy.
    Remember Leon droning on about Remainers trying to overturn the EU ref result but in vomit inducing hypocrisy is backing Trump who sent a mob to storm Congress and who wanted to overturn the US election .
    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
    From a British perspective, Trump was the most benign President since Reagan, if not before.
    Where British = Russian.

    Trump undermined Britain's alliances like NATO, friends like Ukraine whom he tried to shaft by tying aid to digging up dirt on his opponents etc.

    I can see why your mate Vlad likes Trump. Britain, not so much. Worst President of my life by far from a British perspective.
    I don't think there's any empirical measure by which your argument stacks up. Trump did not oblige Britain to enter any conflicts to shed treasure (or worse, blood) in so doing. He didn't seek to chide us or interfere with our domestic politics. He didn't oblige us to sanction anyone and force our biggest companies to divest their assets. He didn't sanction the pillage our companies in the manner of Standard Chartered or BP. He even made positive noises about a trade deal. I happen to think his proposed trade deal would have been bad for us and good for America, but I can't add that to the negative pile because it never happened. It was a brief, peaceful interregnum.
    "Peace" isn't a good thing if that peace is achieved by surrender.

    Your argument is no different to the argument of Ishmael that we shouldn't have women wearing short skirts as it might provoke rape, we shouldn't publish literature as it might provoke torture etc

    You want "peace" by surrendering to Putin etc. No thank you.
    Don't be such an utterly insufferable fucking prick. Nothing I said is analogous or reduces to the short skirt point, and your utterly moronic position is that the right to free speech always and everywhere overrides the right of Jews not to be tortured to death. If you don't understand that ask a grown up to read the previous thread and confirm it to you.
    Plenty of grown ups read the previous thread and they almost all confirmed that your moral compass is broken.

    Jews should not be tortured to death and if any are that is the responsibility of the torturers and those who aid and abet them, not those who sell short skirts or publish novels.
    You are a twat. You really are. It is like dealing with self righteous, very small children. You tell them that global warming is Very Bad, and then you ask them stuff like, would it be OK for ed the eskimo to burn some coal if his solar panels had broken down and his six children would be frozen to death. Oh no, miss, they say, global warming is Really Bad. You are the same: too irretrievaby dim to recognise competing rights and competing goods, including the right not to be tortured to death.

    Really stupid. I am not saying that to goad or insult, but because it is true. Taz level stupid.

    And I can't help noticing both the Bataclan and anne Frank examples, the ethnicity of the people about whom you self rghteously give not a fuck.
    I never said to say where Anne Frank is, indeed I made a point about not abetting crimes, so the problem isn't that I'm missing the competing rights its that you're too irredeemably thick that you think you've got a good point even after its been answered.

    Abetting a crime = bad.
    Publishing a novel/cartoon etc = not bad.

    Not a single person has died due to a cartoon or novel. If they've died, they've died due to the actions of criminals, criminals who quite probably could and would have found something else objectionable if not a particular novel or cartoon. Your surrender view doesn't work until we've surrendered everything so that we're like the Taliban, and probably not even then either.
    Dem 4 by 2s, eh?

    Idiot cunnig at work: you think your chat about "abetting a crime" obscures the question of whether something causes something to happen vs not happen. You are thick first for thinking that is an argument, secondly because a reasonably bright cockroach would see what you are up to, and thirdly because you think legal technicalities are a good area for a fuckwitted layman to try to get the better of an actual lawyer.
    I'm sure that the mere fact of one's being born causes some things to happen that would not otherwise have happened. However, what interests lawyers and ethicists is the issue of proximate causes.

    The proximate cause of the murder of Jews is that a group of loons freely and voluntarily decided to murder them. It is not that a third party chose to publish a cartoon that said loons did not like. Other people might have been liable too, if they encouraged the loons to murder the Jews, or if they told the loons where they could find Jews to murder (your Anne Frank/mad axeman example). The first is incitement, the second is abetting. The cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo are guilty of neither.

    If as you imply, you are a lawyer, you ought to understand this. No court is going to hold Charlie Hebdo liable for the acts of the murderous loons.
    Oooh, "proximate cause." So fucking what? Moral responsibility asks, would this have happened but for my actions? Was it reasonably foreseeable to me? Am I therefore at fault if I went ahead and said Fuck it, I am going to publish anyway? You are doing a Bart, trying to sound clever at the cost of revealing that you are a very, very thick shit.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,278
    Rather than Pinochet v Chavez I'm more interested in energy prices.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578


    Now, now - we can't mention that because, by doing so, we are showing our imperialistic, racist tendencies. Far better to repeat the mantra it's all the fault of the U.K. / US

    Meanwhile in China:

    China's advanced coal production capacity has been expanded by a total of 490 million tons per year since September, the National Mine Safety Administration told a press conference on Aug 5.

    The administration said 147 coal mines have attained the necessary qualifications for advanced production capacity since the beginning of this year.


    https://english.www.gov.cn/statecouncil/ministries/202208/05/content_WS62ed1ccfc6d02e533532ee7e.html

    China's coal output each MONTH is about 50% greater than the UK achieved in its peak YEAR of 1913.

    Puts our carbon emissions into perspective doesn't it.

  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,385
    edited August 2022

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/16/leaked-audio-reveals-liz-truss-said-british-workers-needed-more-graft

    I see that Liz Truss thinks British workers are all lazy bastards, especially outside London. I imagine this will go down well with the Red Wall.

    Sadly, I suspect many will agree... that other British workers are all lazy bastards.

    It's a bit like everybody agreeing there are a lot of bad drivers, the other drivers not me obvs.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,825
    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez
    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    Hitler v Stalin is actually quite hard

    Both are, to me, examples of pure evil

    Mao is another, likewise Pol Pot

    All brought catastrophe on their nations, and killed millions. Deliberately

    Perhaps Hitler's evil was of a uniquely Satanic kind, even worse than Stalin? But was it tho? The Holodomor was pretty out there, and the immense system of state torture under Stalin was bigger than anything Hitler did to the German people

    Tough call
    I guess Pol Pot is worst for the sheer lunacy of his government, and for the harm he did in such a short period of time (killing 25% of the population in three years).

    Hitler lost, and Stalin won. Had Hitler won, he would not have just wiped out the Jews, but about 60% of the slavs as well, save for those lucky enough either to be Germanised, or kept for slave labour.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,705

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    The point I was trying to make is that we don't have to choose either. Nor do we have to choose between Pinochet and Chavez.
    Is that so?

    In Latin America in the 20th century it was not at all clear. For many people it really did feel like you had a brutal and unhappy choice between a rightwing hardman and a leftwing calamity

    Have you been to Chile? I have. Been all over Chile. The voices you hear there are not the lefty liberal Chilean voices we get in the UK

    Average Chileans are often surprisingly pro-Pinochet, or at least grudgingly grateful that the old bastard saved them from Chavezzy or Castro-y Marxism, leaving them the wealthiest nation in LatAm (and a pretty decent democracy, too)
    'Chavezzy or Castro-y Marxism' does not = 'woke' though, does it?

    As @Foxy said earlier being Woke is just the Enlightenment continuing.

    At what point in the Enlightenment did you want it to stop?
    Did I ever say it does = Woke?

    No. I was making a comparison of shit political choices, that is all. America might have to choose between mad Dem Wokeness and Donald bloody Trump, That's a horrible choice - and as I cast around the world for something similarly grim, I alighted on the Latin American choice between Marxism and quasi-Fascism in the 20th century. Shorthand: Pinochet versus Chavez

    I reckon the evidence is conclusive. Chavez is worse

    I had no idea Venezuela - with the world's biggest oil reserves - is now poorer than BOLIVIA

    I've been to Bolivia. Lovely people. but fuck, they have nothing there. Some salt. A few bowler hats. No coastline (it was stolen by Chile). Chavez and Maduro contrived to make Venezuela poorer than Bolivia. Mond boggling


    https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/richest-countries-in-south-america
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,037
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Yet, there are still people who think that Venezuela is a model to be adopted by other middle income countries.
    Generally those who haven't checked in on it in at least 10 years, or whose mental processes never update from their student politics days I expect.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,396

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Ramsden solar farm plan pulled for changes

    Council planning officers said the plan, which was opposed by 167 people, could be "uncharacteristic and distracting". Another 12 people registered their support.

    The authority's conservation officer objected to the scheme and said Akeman Street's historical significance would be damaged by the project.

    Akeman Street is an "important" Roman road on a east-west route, linking Watling Street to Fosse Way and is "a fascinating survival of part of an impressive network", they said.

    Others opposed to the scheme have said it could damage the village's character, close to the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-62493219

    for anyone who was wondering why liz is on about sheepies vs panels

    I wonder if this kind of thing happened in WW2 as well.
    Well quite. In particular, Akeman Street is not that seriously affected if they aren't shutting it off (they aren't). And you are in a AONB or not, if you are close to it you weren't thought to have enough NB to be in it.
    The panels would need quite a bit of digging for foundations and cables. The hjold might make sense if it were Alchester Roman city but there is no mention of it being an archaeologically valuable landscape comparable to say that around Stonehenge or in Silchester. Maybe there is something we are missing.
    Archaeologically, going ahead is arguably the winning strategy, because the foundation digging might throw up something really interesting and you then get a hold, and a serious incentive for solarpanelco to sponsor the archaeology to get it done asap.
    I assume an awful lot of decent archaeology only happens because building or other activity is going to happen. Otherwise why bother digging in x field?
    IT does. But it has to be done in a hurry and covered over again, to someone else's timetable AIUI. Very different from the lkong term digs such as at Silchester. Pros and cons, horses for courses - a pipeline for instance gives a long swathe of country to sample, as does HS2.
    Even HS2 - for all that it likes to promote itself in terms of the archaeology - has done far more harm than good. There have been over 1600 archaeological sites identified along the HS2 route. A total of 100 (up from an initial plan of 60) are actually being investigated. The rest will be destroyed without any proper recording.
    This island of ours has been fairly densly populated for a very long time. We either paralyse ourselves or we get selective about what we keep.
    Its not a case of what we keep. Its a case of making sure we record it before we destroy it. And I object to a company claiming to be doing all this wonderful archaeological work whilst ignoring the fact they are destroying 90% of the sites without any form of investigation. Particularly when a non governmental project would not be allowed to do that.
    I don't dispute the hypocrisy and outright lying for a moment Richard but it pains me how hard we find it to get on with anything. We have been arguing about another runway at a London airport for longer than most countries take to build multiple new airports and integrated transportation systems. Its killing us economically.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,385
    dixiedean said:

    Rather than Pinochet v Chavez I'm more interested in energy prices.

    No one cares about going cold or hungry this winter, the voters are all up in arms about Jerry Sadowitz being cancelled at the Fringe.
  • https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/16/leaked-audio-reveals-liz-truss-said-british-workers-needed-more-graft

    I see that Liz Truss thinks British workers are all lazy bastards, especially outside London. I imagine this will go down well with the Red Wall.

    Sadly, I suspect many will agree... that other British workers are all lazy bastards.

    It's a bit like everybody agreeing there are a lot of bad drivers, the other drivers not me obvs.
    I'm a good driver and a lazy bastard.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,705
    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Yeah, did Chevez and co really spend that much time on combating woke microaggressions and the like, or were just focused on extremely barmy economic policies and political repression?

    Wokism, as typified by the things you generally raise around teaching, hiring policies and the like, seems more an american thing. Indeed, weren't you focusing on how it was The West that was indulging in it? Venezuela ain't the West.

    I realise you were probably looking to spark a reaction, but this one is so wide of the mark I don't think you're getting the outrage reaction you were hoping for, rather confusion.
    You're confused because your IQ has recently dropped and you are misreading me

    I'm making a comparison between crap political choices, not saying anything about Woke. Smarten up
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,825
    IshmaelZ said:

    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    Silly boy.
    Remember Leon droning on about Remainers trying to overturn the EU ref result but in vomit inducing hypocrisy is backing Trump who sent a mob to storm Congress and who wanted to overturn the US election .
    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
    From a British perspective, Trump was the most benign President since Reagan, if not before.
    Where British = Russian.

    Trump undermined Britain's alliances like NATO, friends like Ukraine whom he tried to shaft by tying aid to digging up dirt on his opponents etc.

    I can see why your mate Vlad likes Trump. Britain, not so much. Worst President of my life by far from a British perspective.
    I don't think there's any empirical measure by which your argument stacks up. Trump did not oblige Britain to enter any conflicts to shed treasure (or worse, blood) in so doing. He didn't seek to chide us or interfere with our domestic politics. He didn't oblige us to sanction anyone and force our biggest companies to divest their assets. He didn't sanction the pillage our companies in the manner of Standard Chartered or BP. He even made positive noises about a trade deal. I happen to think his proposed trade deal would have been bad for us and good for America, but I can't add that to the negative pile because it never happened. It was a brief, peaceful interregnum.
    "Peace" isn't a good thing if that peace is achieved by surrender.

    Your argument is no different to the argument of Ishmael that we shouldn't have women wearing short skirts as it might provoke rape, we shouldn't publish literature as it might provoke torture etc

    You want "peace" by surrendering to Putin etc. No thank you.
    Don't be such an utterly insufferable fucking prick. Nothing I said is analogous or reduces to the short skirt point, and your utterly moronic position is that the right to free speech always and everywhere overrides the right of Jews not to be tortured to death. If you don't understand that ask a grown up to read the previous thread and confirm it to you.
    Plenty of grown ups read the previous thread and they almost all confirmed that your moral compass is broken.

    Jews should not be tortured to death and if any are that is the responsibility of the torturers and those who aid and abet them, not those who sell short skirts or publish novels.
    You are a twat. You really are. It is like dealing with self righteous, very small children. You tell them that global warming is Very Bad, and then you ask them stuff like, would it be OK for ed the eskimo to burn some coal if his solar panels had broken down and his six children would be frozen to death. Oh no, miss, they say, global warming is Really Bad. You are the same: too irretrievaby dim to recognise competing rights and competing goods, including the right not to be tortured to death.

    Really stupid. I am not saying that to goad or insult, but because it is true. Taz level stupid.

    And I can't help noticing both the Bataclan and anne Frank examples, the ethnicity of the people about whom you self rghteously give not a fuck.
    I never said to say where Anne Frank is, indeed I made a point about not abetting crimes, so the problem isn't that I'm missing the competing rights its that you're too irredeemably thick that you think you've got a good point even after its been answered.

    Abetting a crime = bad.
    Publishing a novel/cartoon etc = not bad.

    Not a single person has died due to a cartoon or novel. If they've died, they've died due to the actions of criminals, criminals who quite probably could and would have found something else objectionable if not a particular novel or cartoon. Your surrender view doesn't work until we've surrendered everything so that we're like the Taliban, and probably not even then either.
    Dem 4 by 2s, eh?

    Idiot cunnig at work: you think your chat about "abetting a crime" obscures the question of whether something causes something to happen vs not happen. You are thick first for thinking that is an argument, secondly because a reasonably bright cockroach would see what you are up to, and thirdly because you think legal technicalities are a good area for a fuckwitted layman to try to get the better of an actual lawyer.
    I'm sure that the mere fact of one's being born causes some things to happen that would not otherwise have happened. However, what interests lawyers and ethicists is the issue of proximate causes.

    The proximate cause of the murder of Jews is that a group of loons freely and voluntarily decided to murder them. It is not that a third party chose to publish a cartoon that said loons did not like. Other people might have been liable too, if they encouraged the loons to murder the Jews, or if they told the loons where they could find Jews to murder (your Anne Frank/mad axeman example). The first is incitement, the second is abetting. The cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo are guilty of neither.

    If as you imply, you are a lawyer, you ought to understand this. No court is going to hold Charlie Hebdo liable for the acts of the murderous loons.
    Oooh, "proximate cause." So fucking what? Moral responsibility asks, would this have happened but for my actions? Was it reasonably foreseeable to me? Am I therefore at fault if I went ahead and said Fuck it, I am going to publish anyway? You are doing a Bart, trying to sound clever at the cost of revealing that you are a very, very thick shit.
    Gosh what a reasoned response. Are you onto your second or third bottle yet? You really are the pub bore, ranting in the corner, revealing your complete and utter ignorance of every subject you offer an opinion on.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 61,646
    Ah, good ole August in the world of politics...

    "Cyclists may need number plates" - Daily Mail front page.


  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,037
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez
    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    Hitler v Stalin is actually quite hard

    Both are, to me, examples of pure evil

    Mao is another, likewise Pol Pot

    All brought catastrophe on their nations, and killed millions. Deliberately

    Perhaps Hitler's evil was of a uniquely Satanic kind, even worse than Stalin? But was it tho? The Holodomor was pretty out there, and the immense system of state torture under Stalin was bigger than anything Hitler did to the German people

    Tough call
    I guess Pol Pot is worst for the sheer lunacy of his government, and for the harm he did in such a short period of time (killing 25% of the population in three years).

    Hitler lost, and Stalin won. Had Hitler won, he would not have just wiped out the Jews, but about 60% of the slavs as well, save for those lucky enough either to be Germanised, or kept for slave labour.
    I've said it before, but I am astonished Pol Pot is not better known as such an impactful, evil figure. He died in the late 90s for Christ's sake, probably of old age!
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197
    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Yeah, did Chevez and co really spend that much time on combating woke microaggressions and the like, or were just focused on extremely barmy economic policies and political repression?

    Wokism, as typified by the things you generally raise around teaching, hiring policies and the like, seems more an american thing. Indeed, weren't you focusing on how it was The West that was indulging in it? Venezuela ain't the West.

    I realise you were probably looking to spark a reaction, but this one is so wide of the mark I don't think you're getting the outrage reaction you were hoping for, rather confusion.
    Probably the aliens have used a mind meld on him as he was getting too close to revealing the truth and it has become even more frazzled than normal.
  • dixiedean said:

    Rather than Pinochet v Chavez I'm more interested in energy prices.

    No one cares about going cold or hungry this winter, the voters are all up in arms about Jerry Sadowitz being cancelled at the Fringe.
    Maybe I am naive but I have never heard of Jerry Sadowitz and I really could not care less
  • Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    Yes, I recall all that. There wasn't much evidence to back it up though - more the vague notion that wages simply have to rise when there are labour shortages. It just has to happen! A silly assumption then and a silly assumption now.
    And they have risen.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/timeseries/kac3/lms

    Deal with the reality of rising wages even if it upsets you.
    By the time of the next election average real disposable income will be less than it was when the Tories came to power in 2010.
    Its been like that for years.

    But wages are rising now.

    Not enough to keep up with price rises for many people.

    But the price rises were going to happen in any case.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,269
    AlistairM said:

    I think we need to go onto a war-footing for energy. Two key issues to address:

    - Switch gas usage to electricity
    - Increase electricity generation and storage

    It needs to be a massive effort from everyone in the country. Side effect would be that we go net zero much more quickly! It will cost but makes a lot of sense to reduce our reliance on others for energy.

    Ideas for the first:
    - Ban gas use in new builds immediately. Electric hobs, ovens and heat pumps instead.
    - Big incentives to switch existing household gas devices (i.e. boilers and hobs) to electric
    - Incentives for UK businesses to manufacture heatpumps

    Ideas for the second:
    - Massively remove impediments to new solar and wind generation devices being setup
    - All new builds to have solar panels, battery storage and car charging ports
    - Big subsidies on domestic solar and battery installation
    - All tidal schemes to get immediate go-ahead
    - Use existing nuclear sites to setup many mini-nuclear reactors

    We can't really waste time. We need to crack on now.

    Plus we all need to do what we can to reduce our usage in the short-term.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,345

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    This graph is rather out of date, but it appears to be a europe-wide phenomenon:



    The question is whether the real decrease in wages here is less or more than in the EU, or than if we had stayed in the EU.
  • Ah, good ole August in the world of politics...

    "Cyclists may need number plates" - Daily Mail front page.


    And restricted to 20 mph
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,037
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Yeah, did Chevez and co really spend that much time on combating woke microaggressions and the like, or were just focused on extremely barmy economic policies and political repression?

    Wokism, as typified by the things you generally raise around teaching, hiring policies and the like, seems more an american thing. Indeed, weren't you focusing on how it was The West that was indulging in it? Venezuela ain't the West.

    I realise you were probably looking to spark a reaction, but this one is so wide of the mark I don't think you're getting the outrage reaction you were hoping for, rather confusion.
    You're confused because your IQ has recently dropped and you are misreading me

    I'm making a comparison between crap political choices, not saying anything about Woke. Smarten up

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez


    You can't think of any reason why people might think you were saying something about woke with that comparson and wording, eh?

    If only a professional writer could have made the distinction clearer. As a mere consumer of words I rely on the professionals to eliminate any ambiuguity.
  • The choice America faces isn't Hitler vs Stalin, its more Hitler vs Harold Wilson.

    Slightly eccentric left-wingers who obsess over pronouns are not a threat to society, not like moonshit crazy traitors who want to violently overturn elections they lose.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 53,705
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez
    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    Hitler v Stalin is actually quite hard

    Both are, to me, examples of pure evil

    Mao is another, likewise Pol Pot

    All brought catastrophe on their nations, and killed millions. Deliberately

    Perhaps Hitler's evil was of a uniquely Satanic kind, even worse than Stalin? But was it tho? The Holodomor was pretty out there, and the immense system of state torture under Stalin was bigger than anything Hitler did to the German people

    Tough call
    I guess Pol Pot is worst for the sheer lunacy of his government, and for the harm he did in such a short period of time (killing 25% of the population in three years).

    Hitler lost, and Stalin won. Had Hitler won, he would not have just wiped out the Jews, but about 60% of the slavs as well, save for those lucky enough either to be Germanised, or kept for slave labour.
    it is almost impossible to say. As soon as I think: Yep. Hitler was worse, I recall some barbarism by Stalin or Mao. Stalin arguably did multiple mini genocides. Moving entire nations. Hoping they would die. Mao was, at one stage, the only well fed human in China

    It is Satan versus Beelzebub versus Lucifer

    For all the horrors of the 21st century, and it is off to a rocky start, it has nothing to match Stalin. Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot

    Yet
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,385

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    Yes, I recall all that. There wasn't much evidence to back it up though - more the vague notion that wages simply have to rise when there are labour shortages. It just has to happen! A silly assumption then and a silly assumption now.
    And they have risen.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/timeseries/kac3/lms

    Deal with the reality of rising wages even if it upsets you.
    By the time of the next election average real disposable income will be less than it was when the Tories came to power in 2010.
    Its been like that for years.

    But wages are rising now.

    Not enough to keep up with price rises for many people.

    But the price rises were going to happen in any case.
    A wage rise that is less than inflation is a fall in my book.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197
    carnforth said:

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    This graph is rather out of date, but it appears to be a europe-wide phenomenon:



    The question is whether the real decrease in wages here is less or more than in the EU, or than if we had stayed in the EU.
    My point was that they were playing silly politics back when they were claiming a success for wage rises due to Brexit, when they are the biggest employer in the country and inflation was inevitable. Typical get favourable headlines today at the expense of any credibility or what is best for the country.
This discussion has been closed.