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If the polls continue like this can Sunak survive? – politicalbetting.com

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  • ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    That seems improbable.
    He has his disciples and often seems cross.
    Nailed it.
    It's a thorny issue.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585
    Nigelb said:

    .

    Taz said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    The U.K. is not doing enough to get to net zero, in a report from a Tory MP who is standing down at the next election.

    He is standing down to focus his future career, coincidentally, on Britain’s net zero transformation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64257057

    Of course.
    Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.
    Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.
    Heat pumps are not suitable for many properties....
    Banning new gas boilers in ten years time would give well over a decade to fix that, since you could still fit one in 2032 and continue to use it beyond that. I don't see how that's massively onerous.

    And the rule would force investment to make the change feasible.
    Wouldn’t the problem be, that for all the installed gas boilers, they might just fail one day, meaning that you need to rip your house to bits - immediately and at great cost - to install whatever is allowed to be bought at the time.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,072

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    The U.K. is not doing enough to get to net zero, in a report from a Tory MP who is standing down at the next election.

    He is standing down to focus his future career, coincidentally, on Britain’s net zero transformation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64257057

    Of course.
    Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.
    Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.
    Well, perhaps it looks unrealistic now, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence that with the attention and investment that it could easily look a lot more realistic in five years time.

    A lot of people said that wind energy would never amount to anything and now it is happening.
    But, it's not rhetoric that delivers that - it's people like me that deliver complex infrastructure. And retrofitting tens of millions of homes and their distribution networks (some over a century old) is a mammoth undertaking.

    It's also far harder than the cost efficient mass manufacturing of wind turbines and their deployment offshore.

    And it's legislation which forces people like you to plan for it.
    The reality is that a 2033 date means all new properties will have to be properly insulated - and old properties with gas appliances have the best part of another decade to retrofit.

    Just kicking the can down the road achieves nothing.

    And no doubt nearer the time there will be exemptions for hard cases.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,658

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    EVs are certainly heavier, which is part of the reason they have such a smooth ride, and have rapid acceleration despite the weight. They do seem to all come with advanced electronic stability and collision avoidance technology though.

    Is there real evidence of increased fatalities and injuries from them? Or is it just based on mass?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,960
    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Tory MPs seem to have lost their reputation for cool rational decision making about their leaders, so depending on how the May locals go this Summer /early Autumn could be a very difficult time for Mr Sunak, who I dont feel has a hard core faction willing to fight for him personally.. however the Tories have an outstanding capacity to fight elections, I must admit I'd welcome a '97 style wipeout but I dont see it happening (quite yet).

    Rishi is helped by the fact the Tories only got 28% in the local elections in May 2019 when the seats up in May were last up, which is not much more than the current average Tory voteshare of about 25/26% anyway.

    So while they may lose some seats to Labour, the losses may not be too heavy and the Tories might even pick up a few LD seats given the LDs got 19% in the 2019 locals which is about 10% higher than they are polling now
    Generally LD vote share is much higher in Locals than General Elections, that will probably be true this May too.
    Yes but the LDs were still polling 13% in the final Yougov before the May 2019 local elections compared to just
    9% now in the latest Yougov

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2019_United_Kingdom_general_election
  • Foxy said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    EVs are certainly heavier, which is part of the reason they have such a smooth ride, and have rapid acceleration despite the weight. They do seem to all come with advanced electronic stability and collision avoidance technology though.

    Is there real evidence of increased fatalities and injuries from them? Or is it just based on mass?
    According to the story, there has been an increase in the number of deaths to their highest level since 2005. It would be difficult, one imagines, to link any particular death to weight.
  • Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    Taz said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    The U.K. is not doing enough to get to net zero, in a report from a Tory MP who is standing down at the next election.

    He is standing down to focus his future career, coincidentally, on Britain’s net zero transformation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64257057

    Of course.
    Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.
    Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.
    Heat pumps are not suitable for many properties....
    Banning new gas boilers in ten years time would give well over a decade to fix that, since you could still fit one in 2032 and continue to use it beyond that. I don't see how that's massively onerous.

    And the rule would force investment to make the change feasible.
    Wouldn’t the problem be, that for all the installed gas boilers, they might just fail one day, meaning that you need to rip your house to bits - immediately and at great cost - to install whatever is allowed to be bought at the time.
    You'd want to make sure that insulation standards were improved in the interim, since that reduces gas use straight away, and makes it easier to switch to alternatives later.

    It's also why people are developing more efficient electric boilers so that they would be an option for a like-for-like replacement that wouldn't require new radiators, etc.

    This implies that we need to be planning for a large expansion in electricity use when taken together with electric vehicles, which is one reason we need to increase the pace we're deploying wind energy as much as possible.
    And the insulation thing is the obvious elephant in the room. Partly that's down to our temperate climate making heat flows less of an issue, but also because we fetishise old buildings which aren't easy to retrofit.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,863

    Boris Johnson could agree not to challenge Rishi Sunak in exchange for the promise of a safe seat at the next election, friends of the former prime minister have said.

    Johnson would “leverage” his position over Sunak if the Conservatives did badly in the local elections in May under plans being discussed by his allies.

    Four months after he left Downing Street, a determined group of Johnson’s supporters still hope he will return as prime minister before the next general election.

    One close ally of the prime minister said that the number of Conservative MPs who wanted Johnson to oust Sunak amounted to “only two dozen, maybe three dozen at most” and warned: “We would just look ridiculous if we changed PM again. Most people get that.”

    Yet the former prime minister is unlikely to quit politics. “He would find it very hard to give up,” the ally conceded.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-wont-oust-rishi-sunak-prime-minister-txhbtcswl

    That feels like an offer Sunak should refuse.

    Partly because only a fool would trust BoJo to keep his side of the deal. But mostly because if one high-profile backbencher is allowed to chicken run, others will want to as well. See 1997 for how good that looks.
    Note that we don't know what mix of carrot and stick persuaded the lying clown not to stand, just recently.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,072
    Moor View (Plymouth) council by-election result:

    LAB: 53.2% (+23.9)
    CON: 33.0% (-30.5)
    IND: 6.9% (+6.9)
    GRN: 3.3% (-1.1)
    LDEM: 2.9% (+0.6)
    TUSC: 0.7% (+0.2)

    Votes cast: 2,658

    https://mobile.twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1613702347766521857
  • American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,723
    edited January 2023
    Unless Starmer is caught with a goat the Tories are going to lose. The momentum is with Labour. C'est La Vie.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,863
    Heathener said:

    Good thread, Mike i.e. well put.

    The Conservatives cannot and will not win from here. The dye is cast and the longer it drags the more certain it becomes.

    1997 Redux.

    It certainly looks, and feels, like that right now.

    But if the Reform vote goes back to the Tories along with the chunk of the don't knows/won't votes, and Labour's thin offering fails to inspire during the campaign, you do risk looking as foolish as Leon whenever his latest calamity fails to materialise...
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,786
    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Tory MPs seem to have lost their reputation for cool rational decision making about their leaders, so depending on how the May locals go this Summer /early Autumn could be a very difficult time for Mr Sunak, who I dont feel has a hard core faction willing to fight for him personally.. however the Tories have an outstanding capacity to fight elections, I must admit I'd welcome a '97 style wipeout but I dont see it happening (quite yet).

    Rishi is helped by the fact the Tories only got 28% in the local elections in May 2019 when the seats up in May were last up, which is not much more than the current average Tory voteshare of about 25/26% anyway.

    So while they may lose some seats to Labour, the losses may not be too heavy and the Tories might even pick up a few LD seats given the LDs got 19% in the 2019 locals which is about 10% higher than they are polling now
    Generally LD vote share is much higher in Locals than General Elections, that will probably be true this May too.
    Yes but the LDs were still polling 13% in the final Yougov before the May 2019 local elections compared to just
    9% now in the latest Yougov

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2019_United_Kingdom_general_election
    We had this discussion yesterday. It's fair to say you have the facts on your side with this one and mine is only a gut feeling or wishful thinking, but it does feel the electorate is in a mood to punish the conservatives and there should be a significant labour vote (according to current polls) for the LDs to squeeze in LD/Tory wards.

    What is your gut feeling in places like Surrey?
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,664
    IanB2 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread, Mike i.e. well put.

    The Conservatives cannot and will not win from here. The dye is cast and the longer it drags the more certain it becomes.

    1997 Redux.

    It certainly looks, and feels, like that right now.

    But if the Reform vote goes back to the Tories along with the chunk of the don't knows/won't votes, and Labour's thin offering fails to inspire during the campaign, you do risk looking as foolish as Leon whenever his latest calamity fails to materialise...
    What’s the 2024 Tory manifesto? Change? More of the same? Both? Neither? They will try to stand on safety and stability and be laughed at.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,362

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    Taz said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    The U.K. is not doing enough to get to net zero, in a report from a Tory MP who is standing down at the next election.

    He is standing down to focus his future career, coincidentally, on Britain’s net zero transformation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64257057

    Of course.
    Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.
    Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.
    Heat pumps are not suitable for many properties....
    Banning new gas boilers in ten years time would give well over a decade to fix that, since you could still fit one in 2032 and continue to use it beyond that. I don't see how that's massively onerous.

    And the rule would force investment to make the change feasible.
    Wouldn’t the problem be, that for all the installed gas boilers, they might just fail one day, meaning that you need to rip your house to bits - immediately and at great cost - to install whatever is allowed to be bought at the time.
    You'd want to make sure that insulation standards were improved in the interim, since that reduces gas use straight away, and makes it easier to switch to alternatives later.

    It's also why people are developing more efficient electric boilers so that they would be an option for a like-for-like replacement that wouldn't require new radiators, etc.

    This implies that we need to be planning for a large expansion in electricity use when taken together with electric vehicles, which is one reason we need to increase the pace we're deploying wind energy as much as possible.
    And the insulation thing is the obvious elephant in the room. Partly that's down to our temperate climate making heat flows less of an issue, but also because we fetishise old buildings which aren't easy to retrofit.
    It's also the case that our damper climate makes insulation a bit more difficult to achieve without creating internal moisture problems.

    My wife was talking to a friend in New York state recently who was explaining about the third humidifier she's started using - not an issue you'd need to address in Britain and Ireland.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,526
    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    What about him?
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,727

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    What about him?
    Them, surely? Unless Geert Wilders is Jesus. Be a bit of a shock, that would.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,784
    That Plymouth Moor View Council byelection ought to give the Tories the heebie geebies. Labour gain from the Tories on a massive swing in a Brexity city. Exactly the kind of result we would expect if the Tories were on course for an epic general election drubbing.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,072

    Unless Starmer is caught with a goat the Tories are going to lose. The momentum is with Labour. C'est La Vie.

    And it's possible even the goat would be overlooked.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    edited January 2023
    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh more evidence, if more proof were needed, that the University of Oxford needs to be razed. Also what is it about Swedes and their xenophobia and racism?

    An Oxford academic has apologised for a 1996 email in which he wrote: “Blacks are more stupid than whites.”

    In the message, Professor Nick Bostrom added: “I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that . . . [it] seems to be synonymous with: I hate those bloody n*****s!!!!”

    The University of Oxford said it had launched an investigation and condemned “in the strongest terms possible the views this particular academic expressed in his communications”.

    Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher, is director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He made the comments as part of a mailing list for an internet forum, The Extropians. In a statement published on his website, Bostrom said he chose to apologise — and re-publish the message — after hearing rumours that past comments would be “maliciously framed” and used in “smear campaigns”.

    Bostrom said that the Extropians forum had been a place for conversations about “science fiction, future technologies, society and all sorts of random things” but that there was also a lot of “silly, mistaken, or outright offensive stuff”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacks-more-stupid-than-whites-wrote-oxford-don-8gsj8l0wf

    I’m surprised his comments were even acceptable back then. I doubt holding him to account for those words would be a smear campaign. But he is the victim here.

    Mind you in other race/Uni/woke News, and I am sure @Leon has seen it, fields are racist.

    https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945
    They weren't. Though rather more common to hear back then.
    I recall being slightly surprised in the early eighties when a North American took offence over the idiomatic “n*****r in the woodpile” - but it was clear even then that it’s days as acceptable language were numbered…..meanwhile, in a great win for genderists:

    "I look forward to a time where awards shows can be reflective of society we live in" -Sam Smith at the Brits , 2021
    Wish granted? this year our sexist society is reflected so brilliantly that no women are nominated for best artist
    Bravo genderists 👏👏


    https://twitter.com/susannarustin/status/1613656699050790918


  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,727

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    Taz said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    The U.K. is not doing enough to get to net zero, in a report from a Tory MP who is standing down at the next election.

    He is standing down to focus his future career, coincidentally, on Britain’s net zero transformation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64257057

    Of course.
    Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.
    Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.
    Heat pumps are not suitable for many properties....
    Banning new gas boilers in ten years time would give well over a decade to fix that, since you could still fit one in 2032 and continue to use it beyond that. I don't see how that's massively onerous.

    And the rule would force investment to make the change feasible.
    Wouldn’t the problem be, that for all the installed gas boilers, they might just fail one day, meaning that you need to rip your house to bits - immediately and at great cost - to install whatever is allowed to be bought at the time.
    You'd want to make sure that insulation standards were improved in the interim, since that reduces gas use straight away, and makes it easier to switch to alternatives later.

    It's also why people are developing more efficient electric boilers so that they would be an option for a like-for-like replacement that wouldn't require new radiators, etc.

    This implies that we need to be planning for a large expansion in electricity use when taken together with electric vehicles, which is one reason we need to increase the pace we're deploying wind energy as much as possible.
    And the insulation thing is the obvious elephant in the room. Partly that's down to our temperate climate making heat flows less of an issue, but also because we fetishise old buildings which aren't easy to retrofit.
    It's also the case that our damper climate makes insulation a bit more difficult to achieve without creating internal moisture problems.

    My wife was talking to a friend in New York state recently who was explaining about the third humidifier she's started using - not an issue you'd need to address in Britain and Ireland.
    You've got to be careful with ventilation/vapour barrier provision for sure.

    Interesting thing with our extension has been that all the morning condensation in the kitchen/dining room has disappeared (the extension removed those windows and external wall). The new extension windows get condensation on the outside as the heat loss is so low that the outside surface is cold; nothing on the inside. But the moisture in the air, no longer efficiently removed by shoddy windows in the kitchen, has to go somewhere and so we've had worse problems in some of the older parts of the house. We've done some internal insulation over the years, while redecorating, along with improved windows, and those rooms have not had the condensation issues.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,960
    Russian criminals responsibile for Ransomware attack on Royal Mail

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64244121
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 1,134

    You'd want to make sure that insulation standards were improved in the interim, since that reduces gas use straight away, and makes it easier to switch to alternatives later.

    That's the theory, and it's what I'm trying to do, but so far every company I've contacted has been "sorry, we're super busy right now". I'm told the eco-refit market in this area is overheated with demand comfortably exceeding supply -- there aren't enough firms out there with the expertise to do it right.

  • Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    The U.K. is not doing enough to get to net zero, in a report from a Tory MP who is standing down at the next election.

    He is standing down to focus his future career, coincidentally, on Britain’s net zero transformation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64257057

    Of course.
    Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.
    Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.
    Well, perhaps it looks unrealistic now, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence that with the attention and investment that it could easily look a lot more realistic in five years time.

    A lot of people said that wind energy would never amount to anything and now it is happening.
    But, it's not rhetoric that delivers that - it's people like me that deliver complex infrastructure. And retrofitting tens of millions of homes and their distribution networks (some over a century old) is a mammoth undertaking.

    It's also far harder than the cost efficient mass manufacturing of wind turbines and their deployment offshore.

    And it's legislation which forces people like you to plan for it.
    The reality is that a 2033 date means all new properties will have to be properly insulated - and old properties with gas appliances have the best part of another decade to retrofit.

    Just kicking the can down the road achieves nothing.

    And no doubt nearer the time there will be exemptions for hard cases.
    There is also the fact that gas, being a finite resource, will inevitably become more expensive over the years. At some point it will make no financial sense, let alone environmental sense, to run a gas boiler.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,727
    Nigelb said:

    Unless Starmer is caught with a goat the Tories are going to lose. The momentum is with Labour. C'est La Vie.

    And it's possible even the goat would be overlooked.
    Depends which greatest of all time, I guess.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,362
    edited January 2023

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    What about him?
    A speech to the Dutch Parliament: "Prime Minister, you have imported a Monster called Islam into our Country"

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AmyMek/status/1613792637919842307

    Wants to close mosques, intern suspected jihadist sympathisers, close the borders, compulsory printing of Mohammed cartoons in the Press.

    Basically this is what Leon sees as a sensible centrist agenda on Islam, which explains why he thinks British politics is dominated by the woke Left.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,784
    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
    I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,960

    That Plymouth Moor View Council byelection ought to give the Tories the heebie geebies. Labour gain from the Tories on a massive swing in a Brexity city. Exactly the kind of result we would expect if the Tories were on course for an epic general election drubbing.

    Not really. Labour won Plymouth Moor View even in 2010 when they lost nationally, the Tories only gaining it in 2015 with Mercer.

    It is a Labour leaning marginal seat, not a Tory safe seat or even Tory leaning marginal seat
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585

    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
    I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
    Yes, that’s also a factor. An SUV is usually heavier than an estate car, and more people are now buying the SUV.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    Jonathan said:

    IanB2 said:

    Heathener said:

    Good thread, Mike i.e. well put.

    The Conservatives cannot and will not win from here. The dye is cast and the longer it drags the more certain it becomes.

    1997 Redux.

    It certainly looks, and feels, like that right now.

    But if the Reform vote goes back to the Tories along with the chunk of the don't knows/won't votes, and Labour's thin offering fails to inspire during the campaign, you do risk looking as foolish as Leon whenever his latest calamity fails to materialise...
    What’s the 2024 Tory manifesto?
    Lukewarm culture wars bollocks with a bit of transphobic shit. They do sometimes struggle to calibrate this though and can end up on the wrong side of public opinion.

    Transparently insincere attempt to pretend Brexit isn't shit and must defended against Starmer's natural europhile tendencies.

    Vague stuff about tax cuts to be funded by illusory growth and imaginary efficiency savings.
  • American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    To be fair, it is not particularly newsworthy now. The story comes from an obscure tech news site, not Fleet Street. The American research did point to the dangers of increased weight over 10 years ago, as quoted.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,960
    edited January 2023
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Tory MPs seem to have lost their reputation for cool rational decision making about their leaders, so depending on how the May locals go this Summer /early Autumn could be a very difficult time for Mr Sunak, who I dont feel has a hard core faction willing to fight for him personally.. however the Tories have an outstanding capacity to fight elections, I must admit I'd welcome a '97 style wipeout but I dont see it happening (quite yet).

    Rishi is helped by the fact the Tories only got 28% in the local elections in May 2019 when the seats up in May were last up, which is not much more than the current average Tory voteshare of about 25/26% anyway.

    So while they may lose some seats to Labour, the losses may not be too heavy and the Tories might even pick up a few LD seats given the LDs got 19% in the 2019 locals which is about 10% higher than they are polling now
    Generally LD vote share is much higher in Locals than General Elections, that will probably be true this May too.
    Yes but the LDs were still polling 13% in the final Yougov before the May 2019 local elections compared to just
    9% now in the latest Yougov

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2019_United_Kingdom_general_election
    We had this discussion yesterday. It's fair to say you have the facts on your side with this one and mine is only a gut feeling or wishful thinking, but it does feel the electorate is in a mood to punish the conservatives and there should be a significant labour vote (according to current polls) for the LDs to squeeze in LD/Tory wards.

    What is your gut feeling in places like Surrey?
    Most Tory marginal council seats in Surrey already went LD in 2019 anyway.

    I don't expect much change in Tory LD marginal wards therefore, albeit there will likely be Tory councillors losing seats to Labour given Labour are polling much higher than the 28% they got in May 2019 and the Tories slightly lower
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,727
    edited January 2023

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh more evidence, if more proof were needed, that the University of Oxford needs to be razed. Also what is it about Swedes and their xenophobia and racism?

    An Oxford academic has apologised for a 1996 email in which he wrote: “Blacks are more stupid than whites.”

    In the message, Professor Nick Bostrom added: “I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that . . . [it] seems to be synonymous with: I hate those bloody n*****s!!!!”

    The University of Oxford said it had launched an investigation and condemned “in the strongest terms possible the views this particular academic expressed in his communications”.

    Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher, is director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He made the comments as part of a mailing list for an internet forum, The Extropians. In a statement published on his website, Bostrom said he chose to apologise — and re-publish the message — after hearing rumours that past comments would be “maliciously framed” and used in “smear campaigns”.

    Bostrom said that the Extropians forum had been a place for conversations about “science fiction, future technologies, society and all sorts of random things” but that there was also a lot of “silly, mistaken, or outright offensive stuff”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacks-more-stupid-than-whites-wrote-oxford-don-8gsj8l0wf

    I’m surprised his comments were even acceptable back then. I doubt holding him to account for those words would be a smear campaign. But he is the victim here.

    Mind you in other race/Uni/woke News, and I am sure @Leon has seen it, fields are racist.

    https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945
    They weren't. Though rather more common to hear back then.
    I recall being slightly surprised in the early eighties when a North American took offence over the idiomatic “n*****r in the woodpile” - but it was clear even then that it’s days as acceptable language were numbered…..meanwhile, in a great win for genderists:

    "I look forward to a time where awards shows can be reflective of society we live in" -Sam Smith at the Brits , 2021
    Wish granted? this year our sexist society is reflected so brilliantly that no women are nominated for best artist
    Bravo genderists 👏👏


    https://twitter.com/susannarustin/status/1613656699050790918


    It's pretty astonishing to me that the woodpile phrase was ever acceptable.

    One that did surprise me was eeny, meeny, miny, moe. As a kid I understood that we were saying 'nicker' (which I took to mean 'thief') but now I wonder what other children and parents understood by it. I only became aware of the other version after the Clarkson fuss. Should maybe ask my parents.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,072
    Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder:

    https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3267095/pentagon-press-secretary-air-force-brig-gen-pat-ryder-holds-an-on-camera-press/
    ...GEN. RYDER: So, broadly speaking, again, whether it's tanks, whether it's air defense, whether it's artillery, these are all areas that we continue to discuss closely with our international allies and partners. As you know, we've got the Ukraine defense contact group coming up next week. And so, I fully expect that this will be an area for further discussion.

    Q: For the Brits and the Germans – the Poles – they’ve already talked about the tanks. Can you give us a sense of the Pentagon's position of this? Are they supportive of this? Is it something separate that those countries will do?

    GEN. RYDER: Yeah, no, we're absolutely supportive of any type of defense capabilities that our international allies and partners can provide to Ukraine to include tanks. Again, part of the factor…the equation that goes into that is the ability to train on this equipment, sustain it, and maintain it. And so, that will be a part of any discussion whether it's United States or our partners. But certainly, we are supportive of any type of capability that will give the Ukrainians an advantage on the battlefield...
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,914
    felix said:

    Taz said:

    UK economy grows by 0.1% against a forecast of a fall of 0.3%.

    Good news

    Scotty won't be posting that one and Sky/Beeb doom mongers will be well pissed off,
    I'm not sure it's lack of growth that's pissing people off
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,727

    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
    I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
    You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,269
    Taz said:

    Ugh more evidence, if more proof were needed, that the University of Oxford needs to be razed. Also what is it about Swedes and their xenophobia and racism?

    An Oxford academic has apologised for a 1996 email in which he wrote: “Blacks are more stupid than whites.”

    In the message, Professor Nick Bostrom added: “I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that . . . [it] seems to be synonymous with: I hate those bloody n*****s!!!!”

    The University of Oxford said it had launched an investigation and condemned “in the strongest terms possible the views this particular academic expressed in his communications”.

    Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher, is director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He made the comments as part of a mailing list for an internet forum, The Extropians. In a statement published on his website, Bostrom said he chose to apologise — and re-publish the message — after hearing rumours that past comments would be “maliciously framed” and used in “smear campaigns”.

    Bostrom said that the Extropians forum had been a place for conversations about “science fiction, future technologies, society and all sorts of random things” but that there was also a lot of “silly, mistaken, or outright offensive stuff”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacks-more-stupid-than-whites-wrote-oxford-don-8gsj8l0wf

    I’m surprised his comments were even acceptable back then. I doubt holding him to account for those words would be a smear campaign. But he is the victim here.

    Mind you in other race/Uni/woke News, and I am sure @Leon has seen it, fields are racist.

    https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945
    Some of the worst regimes in history name the worst organisations “Department, “Committee” or “Office”

    Reichssicherheitshauptamt…

    Should something be done?
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    Nigelb said:

    Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder:

    https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3267095/pentagon-press-secretary-air-force-brig-gen-pat-ryder-holds-an-on-camera-press/
    ...GEN. RYDER: So, broadly speaking, again, whether it's tanks, whether it's air defense, whether it's artillery, these are all areas that we continue to discuss closely with our international allies and partners. As you know, we've got the Ukraine defense contact group coming up next week. And so, I fully expect that this will be an area for further discussion.

    Q: For the Brits and the Germans – the Poles – they’ve already talked about the tanks. Can you give us a sense of the Pentagon's position of this? Are they supportive of this? Is it something separate that those countries will do?

    GEN. RYDER: Yeah, no, we're absolutely supportive of any type of defense capabilities that our international allies and partners can provide to Ukraine to include tanks. Again, part of the factor…the equation that goes into that is the ability to train on this equipment, sustain it, and maintain it. And so, that will be a part of any discussion whether it's United States or our partners. But certainly, we are supportive of any type of capability that will give the Ukrainians an advantage on the battlefield...

    Well, that's cleared that up.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,362
    Selebian said:

    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
    I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
    You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
    The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,322
    edited January 2023

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    What about him?
    A speech to the Dutch Parliament: "Prime Minister, you have imported a Monster called Islam into our Country"

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AmyMek/status/1613792637919842307

    Wants to close mosques, intern suspected jihadist sympathisers, close the borders, compulsory printing of Mohammed cartoons in the Press.

    Basically this is what Leon sees as a sensible centrist agenda on Islam, which explains why he thinks British politics is dominated by the woke Left.
    This is all in your head. I just said “Geert Wilders. Jesus” to see how people would react to an entirely cryptic remark, and to see whether inane PB-ers would project their own versions of the world into the void

    And you did exactly that. My experiment is done
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,269
    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    The electric Hummer, in the UK, would require a lorry licence to drive, as it’s over 3.5t.

    Just about any EV towing a trailer would have the same problem - not that you’d want to tow a trailer with an EV, because it kills the range.
    My relative who runs a building company, used his Model X to tow a JCB electric mini digger, on a trailer, from the JCB depot outside London into London.

    Worked out fine - we were surprised by how much charge was left on it at the end.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,322
    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,727
    Taz said:

    Ugh more evidence, if more proof were needed, that the University of Oxford needs to be razed. Also what is it about Swedes and their xenophobia and racism?

    An Oxford academic has apologised for a 1996 email in which he wrote: “Blacks are more stupid than whites.”

    In the message, Professor Nick Bostrom added: “I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that . . . [it] seems to be synonymous with: I hate those bloody n*****s!!!!”

    The University of Oxford said it had launched an investigation and condemned “in the strongest terms possible the views this particular academic expressed in his communications”.

    Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher, is director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He made the comments as part of a mailing list for an internet forum, The Extropians. In a statement published on his website, Bostrom said he chose to apologise — and re-publish the message — after hearing rumours that past comments would be “maliciously framed” and used in “smear campaigns”.

    Bostrom said that the Extropians forum had been a place for conversations about “science fiction, future technologies, society and all sorts of random things” but that there was also a lot of “silly, mistaken, or outright offensive stuff”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacks-more-stupid-than-whites-wrote-oxford-don-8gsj8l0wf

    I’m surprised his comments were even acceptable back then. I doubt holding him to account for those words would be a smear campaign. But he is the victim here.

    Mind you in other race/Uni/woke News, and I am sure @Leon has seen it, fields are racist.

    https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945
    Leon was all over the 'fields' story yesterday.

    Woe betide any lecturer in the department who suggests to a black student that 'fieldwork' would be a good idea? :open_mouth:
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    You liked the fucking stupid old queen so get this.


  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,362
    edited January 2023
    Leon said:

    Hanif

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    What about him?
    A speech to the Dutch Parliament: "Prime Minister, you have imported a Monster called Islam into our Country"

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AmyMek/status/1613792637919842307

    Wants to close mosques, intern suspected jihadist sympathisers, close the borders, compulsory printing of Mohammed cartoons in the Press.

    Basically this is what Leon sees as a sensible centrist agenda on Islam, which explains why he thinks British politics is dominated by the woke Left.
    This is all in your head. I just said “Geert Wilders. Jesus” to see how people would react to an entirely cryptic remark, and to see whether inane PB-ers would project their own versions of the world into the void

    And you did exactly that. My experiment is done
    It's no different to things you've said in the past, so hardly all in my head. But, yes, I bit today where I managed not to do so over the fields of racism yesterday. Congrats.
  • Roger said:

    felix said:

    Taz said:

    UK economy grows by 0.1% against a forecast of a fall of 0.3%.

    Good news

    Scotty won't be posting that one and Sky/Beeb doom mongers will be well pissed off,
    I'm not sure it's lack of growth that's pissing people off
    Only indirectly. If there's no growth, people's pockets will empty and there won't be the cash to improve public services.

    From that point of view, +0.1% in a month is neither here nor there. (And the BBC report I heard pinned a lot of the credit on people going to pubs for the World Cup.) Indeed, government pointing to economic growth when people don't feel like the economy is growing might just annoy them.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,322

    Leon said:

    Hanif

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    What about him?
    A speech to the Dutch Parliament: "Prime Minister, you have imported a Monster called Islam into our Country"

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AmyMek/status/1613792637919842307

    Wants to close mosques, intern suspected jihadist sympathisers, close the borders, compulsory printing of Mohammed cartoons in the Press.

    Basically this is what Leon sees as a sensible centrist agenda on Islam, which explains why he thinks British politics is dominated by the woke Left.
    This is all in your head. I just said “Geert Wilders. Jesus” to see how people would react to an entirely cryptic remark, and to see whether inane PB-ers would project their own versions of the world into the void

    And you did exactly that. My experiment is done
    It's no different to things you've said in the past, so hardly all in my head. But, yes, I bit today where I managed not to do so over the fields of racism yesterday. Congrats.
    It’s because you’re not very bright
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,960

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    What about him?
    A speech to the Dutch Parliament: "Prime Minister, you have imported a Monster called Islam into our Country"

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AmyMek/status/1613792637919842307

    Wants to close mosques, intern suspected jihadist sympathisers, close the borders, compulsory printing of Mohammed cartoons in the Press.

    Basically this is what Leon sees as a sensible centrist agenda on Islam, which explains why he thinks British politics is dominated by the woke Left.
    The Netherlands is even less Christian than we in the UK are now. Just 31% of the Dutch are Christian and over 50% are non religious, one of the highest irreligious percentages of any country in the world.

    However only 5% are Muslim too so Wilders exaggerates the issue for his nasty agenda

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Netherlands
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,405
    Selebian said:

    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
    I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
    You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
    It has been known to save lives !

    https://www.oddee.com/item_98687.aspx
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,269

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    The U.K. is not doing enough to get to net zero, in a report from a Tory MP who is standing down at the next election.

    He is standing down to focus his future career, coincidentally, on Britain’s net zero transformation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64257057

    Of course.
    Only reasonable for a Tory to go where the money is. That hardly detracts from the conclusions of the report.
    Of all of those it's the phasing out of gas boilers that is the most unrealistic.
    Well, perhaps it looks unrealistic now, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence that with the attention and investment that it could easily look a lot more realistic in five years time.

    A lot of people said that wind energy would never amount to anything and now it is happening.
    But, it's not rhetoric that delivers that - it's people like me that deliver complex infrastructure. And retrofitting tens of millions of homes and their distribution networks (some over a century old) is a mammoth undertaking.

    It's also far harder than the cost efficient mass manufacturing of wind turbines and their deployment offshore.
    Sure. It's easy for a politician to set a target for a future time when they won't be in office and not do any of the grunt work that is required to make the target achievable - but Britain isn't operating in a vacuum here. We benefited from the work other countries did on wind turbines, and I expect we will benefit from the work done on home heating technology for other countries.

    It's not like Britain has a particularly extreme climate. If heat pump technology can be developed to work for continental European homes then it will work just fine for British homes.

    I would have done things the other way round - developed the technology and then used the law to mop up refuseniks - but I don't think the timeframe is that unrealistic for development of the technology.

    We've had decades of people saying that things aren't possible in terms of moving away from fossil fuels, and the doomsters and gloomsters are always proved wrong. This is an achievable, solvable problem. Let's get it done.
    A surprising number of people are still unaware that an air conditioning unit can be used as an air source heat pump - with a 4-1 gain. That is a 1kw in gives you 5kw of heating.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,664
    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    Liz Truss and Jacob Rees Mogg re-enacting the famous scene at the front of the Titanic. That is closest visual representation of your political beliefs.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    To my 11 year old:
    “Do you hear kids in your school talking about someone called Andrew Tate?”

    “No”

    “OK let me know if you do”

    “The only person they talk about a lot is Jeffrey Dahmer”.


    https://twitter.com/chriswarburton_/status/1613440702536376321
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,592
    Selebian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh more evidence, if more proof were needed, that the University of Oxford needs to be razed. Also what is it about Swedes and their xenophobia and racism?

    An Oxford academic has apologised for a 1996 email in which he wrote: “Blacks are more stupid than whites.”

    In the message, Professor Nick Bostrom added: “I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that . . . [it] seems to be synonymous with: I hate those bloody n*****s!!!!”

    The University of Oxford said it had launched an investigation and condemned “in the strongest terms possible the views this particular academic expressed in his communications”.

    Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher, is director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He made the comments as part of a mailing list for an internet forum, The Extropians. In a statement published on his website, Bostrom said he chose to apologise — and re-publish the message — after hearing rumours that past comments would be “maliciously framed” and used in “smear campaigns”.

    Bostrom said that the Extropians forum had been a place for conversations about “science fiction, future technologies, society and all sorts of random things” but that there was also a lot of “silly, mistaken, or outright offensive stuff”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacks-more-stupid-than-whites-wrote-oxford-don-8gsj8l0wf

    I’m surprised his comments were even acceptable back then. I doubt holding him to account for those words would be a smear campaign. But he is the victim here.

    Mind you in other race/Uni/woke News, and I am sure @Leon has seen it, fields are racist.

    https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945
    They weren't. Though rather more common to hear back then.
    I recall being slightly surprised in the early eighties when a North American took offence over the idiomatic “n*****r in the woodpile” - but it was clear even then that it’s days as acceptable language were numbered…..meanwhile, in a great win for genderists:

    "I look forward to a time where awards shows can be reflective of society we live in" -Sam Smith at the Brits , 2021
    Wish granted? this year our sexist society is reflected so brilliantly that no women are nominated for best artist
    Bravo genderists 👏👏


    https://twitter.com/susannarustin/status/1613656699050790918


    It's pretty astonishing to me that the woodpile phrase was ever acceptable.

    One that did surprise me was eeny, meeny, miny, moe. As a kid I understood that we were saying 'nicker' (which I took to mean 'thief') but now I wonder what other children and parents understood by it. I only became aware of the other version after the Clarkson fuss. Should maybe ask my parents.
    I've never heard 'nicker' for that. It wa always the bad version.

    One I used to hear frequently was "As black as a ****** down a coalmine at night."

    Which never made much sense to me, as the 'night' bit is fairly irrelevant if they're in a coalmine. Unless, perhaps, it was an opencast pit. But then I'd realise I was probably overthinking it.

    Another one that I still use, and which I'm fairly sure is not at all racist, is "It's a bit black over Bill's mother's", for when there are distant dark clouds threatening rain.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585
    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    “Pork Fried Rice” in Chinese?
    https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3108745/lost-translation-dont-mock-boy-pork-fried-rice-tattoo-hong
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405

    Foxy said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    EVs are certainly heavier, which is part of the reason they have such a smooth ride, and have rapid acceleration despite the weight. They do seem to all come with advanced electronic stability and collision avoidance technology though.

    Is there real evidence of increased fatalities and injuries from them? Or is it just based on mass?
    According to the story, there has been an increase in the number of deaths to their highest level since 2005. It would be difficult, one imagines, to link any particular death to weight.
    Staggering difference UK vs USA. In the UK in 2021 there were 1608 road deaths. Rough calculation, taking account of population, the roads in the USA are 6x more dangerous (or at least fatalities are occurring at 6x the rate.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,072
    Dura_Ace said:

    Nigelb said:

    Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder:

    https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3267095/pentagon-press-secretary-air-force-brig-gen-pat-ryder-holds-an-on-camera-press/
    ...GEN. RYDER: So, broadly speaking, again, whether it's tanks, whether it's air defense, whether it's artillery, these are all areas that we continue to discuss closely with our international allies and partners. As you know, we've got the Ukraine defense contact group coming up next week. And so, I fully expect that this will be an area for further discussion.

    Q: For the Brits and the Germans – the Poles – they’ve already talked about the tanks. Can you give us a sense of the Pentagon's position of this? Are they supportive of this? Is it something separate that those countries will do?

    GEN. RYDER: Yeah, no, we're absolutely supportive of any type of defense capabilities that our international allies and partners can provide to Ukraine to include tanks. Again, part of the factor…the equation that goes into that is the ability to train on this equipment, sustain it, and maintain it. And so, that will be a part of any discussion whether it's United States or our partners. But certainly, we are supportive of any type of capability that will give the Ukrainians an advantage on the battlefield...

    Well, that's cleared that up.
    Next week's meeting at Ramstein might.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,362
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Hanif

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    What about him?
    A speech to the Dutch Parliament: "Prime Minister, you have imported a Monster called Islam into our Country"

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AmyMek/status/1613792637919842307

    Wants to close mosques, intern suspected jihadist sympathisers, close the borders, compulsory printing of Mohammed cartoons in the Press.

    Basically this is what Leon sees as a sensible centrist agenda on Islam, which explains why he thinks British politics is dominated by the woke Left.
    This is all in your head. I just said “Geert Wilders. Jesus” to see how people would react to an entirely cryptic remark, and to see whether inane PB-ers would project their own versions of the world into the void

    And you did exactly that. My experiment is done
    It's no different to things you've said in the past, so hardly all in my head. But, yes, I bit today where I managed not to do so over the fields of racism yesterday. Congrats.
    It’s because you’re not very bright
    Yes. That's right. You outwitted me again. Drat.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,658

    Selebian said:

    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
    I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
    You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
    The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
    Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Nigelb said:

    Unless Starmer is caught with a goat the Tories are going to lose. The momentum is with Labour. C'est La Vie.

    And it's possible even the goat would be overlooked.
    Well, a chap has got to relax somehow...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,322
    To be a little more serious, the story of Hanif “beautiful laundrette” Kureishi is singularly grim even in these shadowy times

    He went out for a beer in Rome on Boxing Day, then inexplicably fell over and now - no one is quite sure why - he is paralysed from the neck down

    He’s been tweeting about it (I believe he dictates his tweets). It is quite harrowing partly because he writes so beautifully 😶
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,727

    Selebian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh more evidence, if more proof were needed, that the University of Oxford needs to be razed. Also what is it about Swedes and their xenophobia and racism?

    An Oxford academic has apologised for a 1996 email in which he wrote: “Blacks are more stupid than whites.”

    In the message, Professor Nick Bostrom added: “I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that . . . [it] seems to be synonymous with: I hate those bloody n*****s!!!!”

    The University of Oxford said it had launched an investigation and condemned “in the strongest terms possible the views this particular academic expressed in his communications”.

    Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher, is director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He made the comments as part of a mailing list for an internet forum, The Extropians. In a statement published on his website, Bostrom said he chose to apologise — and re-publish the message — after hearing rumours that past comments would be “maliciously framed” and used in “smear campaigns”.

    Bostrom said that the Extropians forum had been a place for conversations about “science fiction, future technologies, society and all sorts of random things” but that there was also a lot of “silly, mistaken, or outright offensive stuff”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacks-more-stupid-than-whites-wrote-oxford-don-8gsj8l0wf

    I’m surprised his comments were even acceptable back then. I doubt holding him to account for those words would be a smear campaign. But he is the victim here.

    Mind you in other race/Uni/woke News, and I am sure @Leon has seen it, fields are racist.

    https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945
    They weren't. Though rather more common to hear back then.
    I recall being slightly surprised in the early eighties when a North American took offence over the idiomatic “n*****r in the woodpile” - but it was clear even then that it’s days as acceptable language were numbered…..meanwhile, in a great win for genderists:

    "I look forward to a time where awards shows can be reflective of society we live in" -Sam Smith at the Brits , 2021
    Wish granted? this year our sexist society is reflected so brilliantly that no women are nominated for best artist
    Bravo genderists 👏👏


    https://twitter.com/susannarustin/status/1613656699050790918


    It's pretty astonishing to me that the woodpile phrase was ever acceptable.

    One that did surprise me was eeny, meeny, miny, moe. As a kid I understood that we were saying 'nicker' (which I took to mean 'thief') but now I wonder what other children and parents understood by it. I only became aware of the other version after the Clarkson fuss. Should maybe ask my parents.
    I've never heard 'nicker' for that. It wa always the bad version.

    One I used to hear frequently was "As black as a ****** down a coalmine at night."

    Which never made much sense to me, as the 'night' bit is fairly irrelevant if they're in a coalmine. Unless, perhaps, it was an opencast pit. But then I'd realise I was probably overthinking it.

    Another one that I still use, and which I'm fairly sure is not at all racist, is "It's a bit black over Bill's mother's", for when there are distant dark clouds threatening rain.
    Yep. Makes me wonder if I was the only person saying 'nicker' :blush: At that age (primary school) I'd never heard the infamous N-word. I also didn't realise golliewogs were supposed to depict black people - I had no knowledge of the term 'wog' (to me didn't look like a person at all, some kind of weird monster, which is kind of the point, I guess). Sheltered childhood, I guess.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,072

    To my 11 year old:
    “Do you hear kids in your school talking about someone called Andrew Tate?”

    “No”

    “OK let me know if you do”

    “The only person they talk about a lot is Jeffrey Dahmer”.


    https://twitter.com/chriswarburton_/status/1613440702536376321

    Along those lines...
    https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/01/bryan-kohberger-criminology-student-idaho-murders.html
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,322

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Hanif

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    What about him?
    A speech to the Dutch Parliament: "Prime Minister, you have imported a Monster called Islam into our Country"

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AmyMek/status/1613792637919842307

    Wants to close mosques, intern suspected jihadist sympathisers, close the borders, compulsory printing of Mohammed cartoons in the Press.

    Basically this is what Leon sees as a sensible centrist agenda on Islam, which explains why he thinks British politics is dominated by the woke Left.
    This is all in your head. I just said “Geert Wilders. Jesus” to see how people would react to an entirely cryptic remark, and to see whether inane PB-ers would project their own versions of the world into the void

    And you did exactly that. My experiment is done
    It's no different to things you've said in the past, so hardly all in my head. But, yes, I bit today where I managed not to do so over the fields of racism yesterday. Congrats.
    It’s because you’re not very bright
    Yes. That's right. You outwitted me again. Drat.
    Well, yes. I did
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,592
    Foxy said:

    Selebian said:

    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
    I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
    You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
    The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
    Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
    That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,963

    Selebian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh more evidence, if more proof were needed, that the University of Oxford needs to be razed. Also what is it about Swedes and their xenophobia and racism?

    An Oxford academic has apologised for a 1996 email in which he wrote: “Blacks are more stupid than whites.”

    In the message, Professor Nick Bostrom added: “I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that . . . [it] seems to be synonymous with: I hate those bloody n*****s!!!!”

    The University of Oxford said it had launched an investigation and condemned “in the strongest terms possible the views this particular academic expressed in his communications”.

    Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher, is director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He made the comments as part of a mailing list for an internet forum, The Extropians. In a statement published on his website, Bostrom said he chose to apologise — and re-publish the message — after hearing rumours that past comments would be “maliciously framed” and used in “smear campaigns”.

    Bostrom said that the Extropians forum had been a place for conversations about “science fiction, future technologies, society and all sorts of random things” but that there was also a lot of “silly, mistaken, or outright offensive stuff”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacks-more-stupid-than-whites-wrote-oxford-don-8gsj8l0wf

    I’m surprised his comments were even acceptable back then. I doubt holding him to account for those words would be a smear campaign. But he is the victim here.

    Mind you in other race/Uni/woke News, and I am sure @Leon has seen it, fields are racist.

    https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945
    They weren't. Though rather more common to hear back then.
    I recall being slightly surprised in the early eighties when a North American took offence over the idiomatic “n*****r in the woodpile” - but it was clear even then that it’s days as acceptable language were numbered…..meanwhile, in a great win for genderists:

    "I look forward to a time where awards shows can be reflective of society we live in" -Sam Smith at the Brits , 2021
    Wish granted? this year our sexist society is reflected so brilliantly that no women are nominated for best artist
    Bravo genderists 👏👏


    https://twitter.com/susannarustin/status/1613656699050790918


    It's pretty astonishing to me that the woodpile phrase was ever acceptable.

    One that did surprise me was eeny, meeny, miny, moe. As a kid I understood that we were saying 'nicker' (which I took to mean 'thief') but now I wonder what other children and parents understood by it. I only became aware of the other version after the Clarkson fuss. Should maybe ask my parents.
    I've never heard 'nicker' for that. It wa always the bad version.
    It was "baby" when I was in primary school in the 80s. I was very surprised to find it had less good origins.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,072
    Jonathan said:

    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    Liz Truss and Jacob Rees Mogg re-enacting the famous scene at the front of the Titanic. That is closest visual representation of your political beliefs.
    Where Mogg clings to the life raft as Truss slowly slips beneath the waves ?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,269
    Selebian said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh more evidence, if more proof were needed, that the University of Oxford needs to be razed. Also what is it about Swedes and their xenophobia and racism?

    An Oxford academic has apologised for a 1996 email in which he wrote: “Blacks are more stupid than whites.”

    In the message, Professor Nick Bostrom added: “I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that . . . [it] seems to be synonymous with: I hate those bloody n*****s!!!!”

    The University of Oxford said it had launched an investigation and condemned “in the strongest terms possible the views this particular academic expressed in his communications”.

    Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher, is director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He made the comments as part of a mailing list for an internet forum, The Extropians. In a statement published on his website, Bostrom said he chose to apologise — and re-publish the message — after hearing rumours that past comments would be “maliciously framed” and used in “smear campaigns”.

    Bostrom said that the Extropians forum had been a place for conversations about “science fiction, future technologies, society and all sorts of random things” but that there was also a lot of “silly, mistaken, or outright offensive stuff”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacks-more-stupid-than-whites-wrote-oxford-don-8gsj8l0wf

    I’m surprised his comments were even acceptable back then. I doubt holding him to account for those words would be a smear campaign. But he is the victim here.

    Mind you in other race/Uni/woke News, and I am sure @Leon has seen it, fields are racist.

    https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945
    Leon was all over the 'fields' story yesterday.

    Woe betide any lecturer in the department who suggests to a black student that 'fieldwork' would be a good idea? :open_mouth:
    The professor in question is an actual racist.

    The fields thing is childish, performative theatre.
  • Foxy said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    EVs are certainly heavier, which is part of the reason they have such a smooth ride, and have rapid acceleration despite the weight. They do seem to all come with advanced electronic stability and collision avoidance technology though.

    Is there real evidence of increased fatalities and injuries from them? Or is it just based on mass?
    According to the story, there has been an increase in the number of deaths to their highest level since 2005. It would be difficult, one imagines, to link any particular death to weight.
    Staggering difference UK vs USA. In the UK in 2021 there were 1608 road deaths. Rough calculation, taking account of population, the roads in the USA are 6x more dangerous (or at least fatalities are occurring at 6x the rate.
    More driving, poor driving and a reliance on traffic light intersections rather than roundabouts.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585

    Foxy said:

    Selebian said:

    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
    I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
    You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
    The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
    Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
    That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
    There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
    I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
    Yes, that’s also a factor. An SUV is usually heavier than an estate car, and more people are now buying the SUV.
    I was wondering recently if any work is being done to analyse older multi story car-parks and their load bearing capacity. I’m sure it’s not a problem but I would imagine that they calculated weights of cars at the time they were built and potentially, if the average weight of cars has increased dramatically, then there could be issues, same amount of spaces (usually too small for modern cars, especially SUVs) but holding much greater weight.
  • Taz said:

    kamski said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh more evidence, if more proof were needed, that the University of Oxford needs to be razed. Also what is it about Swedes and their xenophobia and racism?

    An Oxford academic has apologised for a 1996 email in which he wrote: “Blacks are more stupid than whites.”

    In the message, Professor Nick Bostrom added: “I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that . . . [it] seems to be synonymous with: I hate those bloody n*****s!!!!”

    The University of Oxford said it had launched an investigation and condemned “in the strongest terms possible the views this particular academic expressed in his communications”.

    Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher, is director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He made the comments as part of a mailing list for an internet forum, The Extropians. In a statement published on his website, Bostrom said he chose to apologise — and re-publish the message — after hearing rumours that past comments would be “maliciously framed” and used in “smear campaigns”.

    Bostrom said that the Extropians forum had been a place for conversations about “science fiction, future technologies, society and all sorts of random things” but that there was also a lot of “silly, mistaken, or outright offensive stuff”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacks-more-stupid-than-whites-wrote-oxford-don-8gsj8l0wf

    I’m surprised his comments were even acceptable back then. I doubt holding him to account for those words would be a smear campaign. But he is the victim here.

    Mind you in other race/Uni/woke News, and I am sure @Leon has seen it, fields are racist.

    https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945
    They weren't. Though rather more common to hear back then.
    Oi! Less of this "back then" crap. It was 1996 not 1956!

    Making me feel ancient.
    We are further away from 1996 today, than 1996 was to 1956. It is 27 years ago.

    1970 is the earliest year that we are further away from 1996 than 1996 was to it.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397
    Nigelb said:

    Jonathan said:

    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    Liz Truss and Jacob Rees Mogg re-enacting the famous scene at the front of the Titanic. That is closest visual representation of your political beliefs.
    Where Mogg clings to the life raft as Truss slowly slips beneath the waves ?
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4150498/#Comment_4150498
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,397
    boulay said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
    I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
    Yes, that’s also a factor. An SUV is usually heavier than an estate car, and more people are now buying the SUV.
    I was wondering recently if any work is being done to analyse older multi story car-parks and their load bearing capacity. I’m sure it’s not a problem but I would imagine that they calculated weights of cars at the time they were built and potentially, if the average weight of cars has increased dramatically, then there could be issues, same amount of spaces (usually too small for modern cars, especially SUVs) but holding much greater weight.
    The one in Cannock actually closed three years ago for that reason.

    Sadly, it is still standing.

    Must be the worst eyesore in the West Midlands, and that's up against some fierce competition.
  • Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    ‘My other mid-life crisis symptom is a red sports car’
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,072
    .
    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    Mostly Harmless
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,322
    I might get a tattoo of Mike Smithson on my butt
  • Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    What about him?
    A speech to the Dutch Parliament: "Prime Minister, you have imported a Monster called Islam into our Country"

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AmyMek/status/1613792637919842307

    Wants to close mosques, intern suspected jihadist sympathisers, close the borders, compulsory printing of Mohammed cartoons in the Press.

    Basically this is what Leon sees as a sensible centrist agenda on Islam, which explains why he thinks British politics is dominated by the woke Left.
    So he does actually believe Geert is Jesus?

    There's a new strong man in Leontown.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,269
    Taz said:

    Selebian said:

    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
    I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
    You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
    It has been known to save lives !

    https://www.oddee.com/item_98687.aspx
    I went looking for actual data

    https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Weight-comparison-between-various-types-of-diesel-ICE-passenger-cars-and-corresponding_tbl1_353150136

    For the vehicles in question the EVs seemed to be 300kg heavier (varies)

    One thing to consider, though, is that these vehicles will be a half way house conversion of an existing design to electric. Designing from the ground up as electric can reduce the difference - using the battery to stabilise the structure, for example.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,784
    Driver said:

    Selebian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh more evidence, if more proof were needed, that the University of Oxford needs to be razed. Also what is it about Swedes and their xenophobia and racism?

    An Oxford academic has apologised for a 1996 email in which he wrote: “Blacks are more stupid than whites.”

    In the message, Professor Nick Bostrom added: “I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that . . . [it] seems to be synonymous with: I hate those bloody n*****s!!!!”

    The University of Oxford said it had launched an investigation and condemned “in the strongest terms possible the views this particular academic expressed in his communications”.

    Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher, is director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He made the comments as part of a mailing list for an internet forum, The Extropians. In a statement published on his website, Bostrom said he chose to apologise — and re-publish the message — after hearing rumours that past comments would be “maliciously framed” and used in “smear campaigns”.

    Bostrom said that the Extropians forum had been a place for conversations about “science fiction, future technologies, society and all sorts of random things” but that there was also a lot of “silly, mistaken, or outright offensive stuff”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacks-more-stupid-than-whites-wrote-oxford-don-8gsj8l0wf

    I’m surprised his comments were even acceptable back then. I doubt holding him to account for those words would be a smear campaign. But he is the victim here.

    Mind you in other race/Uni/woke News, and I am sure @Leon has seen it, fields are racist.

    https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945
    They weren't. Though rather more common to hear back then.
    I recall being slightly surprised in the early eighties when a North American took offence over the idiomatic “n*****r in the woodpile” - but it was clear even then that it’s days as acceptable language were numbered…..meanwhile, in a great win for genderists:

    "I look forward to a time where awards shows can be reflective of society we live in" -Sam Smith at the Brits , 2021
    Wish granted? this year our sexist society is reflected so brilliantly that no women are nominated for best artist
    Bravo genderists 👏👏


    https://twitter.com/susannarustin/status/1613656699050790918


    It's pretty astonishing to me that the woodpile phrase was ever acceptable.

    One that did surprise me was eeny, meeny, miny, moe. As a kid I understood that we were saying 'nicker' (which I took to mean 'thief') but now I wonder what other children and parents understood by it. I only became aware of the other version after the Clarkson fuss. Should maybe ask my parents.
    I've never heard 'nicker' for that. It wa always the bad version.
    It was "baby" when I was in primary school in the 80s. I was very surprised to find it had less good origins.
    We had moved on to ip dip dog shit which I suppose was progress.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,322
    edited January 2023
    Sandpit said:

    Foxy said:

    Selebian said:

    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
    I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
    You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
    The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
    Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
    That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
    There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.
    A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to

    DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"

    BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."

    DOOCY: "So the material was in a locked garage?"

    BIDEN: "Yes— as well as my Corvette.

    https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1613568419390963712?s=46&t=JbkhC-zCc5kYAfm4fCCJ3A
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,269
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    What about him?
    A speech to the Dutch Parliament: "Prime Minister, you have imported a Monster called Islam into our Country"

    https://mobile.twitter.com/AmyMek/status/1613792637919842307

    Wants to close mosques, intern suspected jihadist sympathisers, close the borders, compulsory printing of Mohammed cartoons in the Press.

    Basically this is what Leon sees as a sensible centrist agenda on Islam, which explains why he thinks British politics is dominated by the woke Left.
    The Netherlands is even less Christian than we in the UK are now. Just 31% of the Dutch are Christian and over 50% are non religious, one of the highest irreligious percentages of any country in the world.

    However only 5% are Muslim too so Wilders exaggerates the issue for his nasty agenda

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Netherlands
    There is an interesting sub type of agenda in the Netherlands for this kind of hate shit. It’s not just reactionary stuff - there is also the Pim Fortuyn style thing. All about protecting gay rights from the The Evul Religion etc….
  • Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    I'm thinking of getting a section from one of Dürer's sublime woodcuts but I've yet to find a tatoo artist that I'd be confident has the ability to reproduce them.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,965
    edited January 2023

    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    I'm thinking of getting a section from one of Dürer's sublime woodcuts but I've yet to find a tatoo artist that I'd be confident has the ability to reproduce them.
    Though nothing will ever top this for aging inked flesh.




  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    what.three.words
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382

    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    Asked and answered
    Tatoos are banned on PB
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382

    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    Asked and answered
    Tatoos are banned on PB
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Foxy said:

    Selebian said:

    Sandpit said:

    American road safety chiefs are concerned that the much heavier weight of electric cars than their petrol equivalents may lead to more deaths.
    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    It's rather bizarre that the example given is the electric Hummer, which weighs 9000 lbs, as opposed to the standard Hummer at 6000 lbs. A better question might be why the f*** does anyone need to drive such an enormous vehicle in the first place? There weren't any complaints about heavy vehicles as petrol cars got bigger and bigger.
    Yes there were. From the story:-

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average vehicle weight has reached an all-time record and is predicted to continue rising in the coming years. Vehicle weights dropped considerably in the 1980s compared to highs measured in 1975, but since then the average car and truck has increased from 3,200lbs to 4,200lbs.

    That's an average increase of 1,000 pounds, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said in 2011 was enough to increase accident fatality risk by 1,000 percent.

    https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/

    Yes, it's a fact that heavier vehicles, petrol or electric, increase accident fatality risk, but I don't remember it being particularly newsworthy when it was just increasingly large petrol vehicles. That's the point I was making.
    The increasing weight of traditional cars, was somewhat related to the increases in safety technology, both for occupants and pedestrians.

    The step-change in weight for electric cars, has not been accompanied by increases in safety technology in the same way.

    Most studies on the subject are quite flawed, because the current use case for an EV is quite different to that of a traditional car. In the UK, for example, most are company cars purchased for tax reasons.
    I thought it was related to increased market share of SUVs, which are much more dangerous for pedestrians because of the higher vehicle profile, quite apart from the fact they are also heavier.
    You'd think the increasing weight of pedestrians themselves would be protective, particularly given the energy absorbing properties of that extra weight... Although maybe pedestrians are not the group with greatest increasing weight.
    The distribution of the extra weight isn't uniform, so very little additional cranial protection, for example.
    Isn't it that while crash protection for passengers has vastly improved, for pedestrians it has got worse? Not helped by large blind spots on many SUV.
    That's one thing I don't get about Tesla's Cybertruck: I just cannot see how it will pass the EU's frontal pedestrian tests. Although IANAE, so might well be wrong.
    There’s plenty of US cars, including supercharged versions of the old Corvette and Dodge Charger, that failed European pedestrian impact tests in the past few years. The style is to stick the supercharger on top of the engine, partially sticking out of the bonnet, which is no-no as far as the EU is concerned.
    A lot of people don’t realise that Corvettes are really good for storing classified US government documents next to

    DOOCY: "Classified materials next to your Corvette?! What were you thinking?"

    BIDEN: "My Corvette's in a locked garage so it's not like it's sitting on the street."

    DOOCY: "So the material was in a locked garage?"

    BIDEN: "Yes— as well as my Corvette.

    https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1613568419390963712?s=46&t=JbkhC-zCc5kYAfm4fCCJ3A
    Biden's Corvette is undeniably cool. All original 67 C2 vert in Goodwood Green that he's owned since new.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,322

    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    Asked and answered
    I could have a tatt of Geert and Jesus on my left and right buttocks. But then where would Mike Smithson go?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,072

    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    Asked and answered
    Tatoos are banned on PB
    Discussion of, or depiction ?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,322

    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    I'm thinking of getting a section from one of Dürer's sublime woodcuts but I've yet to find a tatoo artist that I'd be confident has the ability to reproduce them.
    Though nothing will ever top this for aging inked flesh.




    HARD APPROVE
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,839

    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    Asked and answered
    Tatoos are banned on PB
    I'm guessing that the chance of @Dura_Ace not having a tattoo or two is less than 1%.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,329
    Taz said:

    More good news. Gas bills are predicted to fall to under 2500GBP in July as the price of natural gas falls and continues to fall. This should help the govt free up some cash for the nurses.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/uk-energy-bills-fall-gas-prices-cost-living

    Only 3 x as high as last year, people will be dancing in the streets.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,727
    malcolmg said:

    Taz said:

    More good news. Gas bills are predicted to fall to under 2500GBP in July as the price of natural gas falls and continues to fall. This should help the govt free up some cash for the nurses.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/uk-energy-bills-fall-gas-prices-cost-living

    Only 3 x as high as last year, people will be dancing in the streets.
    Cheaper way of keeping warm than heating a house, for sure.
  • Taz said:

    kamski said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh more evidence, if more proof were needed, that the University of Oxford needs to be razed. Also what is it about Swedes and their xenophobia and racism?

    An Oxford academic has apologised for a 1996 email in which he wrote: “Blacks are more stupid than whites.”

    In the message, Professor Nick Bostrom added: “I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that . . . [it] seems to be synonymous with: I hate those bloody n*****s!!!!”

    The University of Oxford said it had launched an investigation and condemned “in the strongest terms possible the views this particular academic expressed in his communications”.

    Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher, is director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He made the comments as part of a mailing list for an internet forum, The Extropians. In a statement published on his website, Bostrom said he chose to apologise — and re-publish the message — after hearing rumours that past comments would be “maliciously framed” and used in “smear campaigns”.

    Bostrom said that the Extropians forum had been a place for conversations about “science fiction, future technologies, society and all sorts of random things” but that there was also a lot of “silly, mistaken, or outright offensive stuff”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacks-more-stupid-than-whites-wrote-oxford-don-8gsj8l0wf

    I’m surprised his comments were even acceptable back then. I doubt holding him to account for those words would be a smear campaign. But he is the victim here.

    Mind you in other race/Uni/woke News, and I am sure @Leon has seen it, fields are racist.

    https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945
    They weren't. Though rather more common to hear back then.
    Oi! Less of this "back then" crap. It was 1996 not 1956!

    Making me feel ancient.
    We are further away from 1996 today, than 1996 was to 1956. It is 27 years ago.
    1970 is the earliest year that we are further away from 1996 than 1996 was to it.

    Is that ChatGPT output? 96 to 56 is 40 years isn't it?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,322
    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. Suggestions welcome

    Leon said:

    Geert Wilders. Jesus

    Asked and answered
    Tatoos are banned on PB
    Discussion of, or depiction ?
    That’s quite fierce moderation. Banning us from having tattoos. Also not sure how it can be enforced
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,072
    REPORT: DONALD TRUMP WANTED TO NUKE NORTH KOREA AND THEN BLAME IT ON ANOTHER COUNTRY
    Incredibly (seems perfectly credible to me), this wasn’t the only time he reportedly proposed attacking a foreign nation and then pretending the US didn’t do it.
    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/01/donald-trump-wanted-to-nuke-north-korea-and-blame-someone-else
  • Taz said:

    kamski said:

    Nigelb said:

    Taz said:

    Ugh more evidence, if more proof were needed, that the University of Oxford needs to be razed. Also what is it about Swedes and their xenophobia and racism?

    An Oxford academic has apologised for a 1996 email in which he wrote: “Blacks are more stupid than whites.”

    In the message, Professor Nick Bostrom added: “I won’t have much success with most people if I speak like that . . . [it] seems to be synonymous with: I hate those bloody n*****s!!!!”

    The University of Oxford said it had launched an investigation and condemned “in the strongest terms possible the views this particular academic expressed in his communications”.

    Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher, is director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He made the comments as part of a mailing list for an internet forum, The Extropians. In a statement published on his website, Bostrom said he chose to apologise — and re-publish the message — after hearing rumours that past comments would be “maliciously framed” and used in “smear campaigns”.

    Bostrom said that the Extropians forum had been a place for conversations about “science fiction, future technologies, society and all sorts of random things” but that there was also a lot of “silly, mistaken, or outright offensive stuff”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blacks-more-stupid-than-whites-wrote-oxford-don-8gsj8l0wf

    I’m surprised his comments were even acceptable back then. I doubt holding him to account for those words would be a smear campaign. But he is the victim here.

    Mind you in other race/Uni/woke News, and I am sure @Leon has seen it, fields are racist.

    https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945
    They weren't. Though rather more common to hear back then.
    Oi! Less of this "back then" crap. It was 1996 not 1956!

    Making me feel ancient.
    We are further away from 1996 today, than 1996 was to 1956. It is 27 years ago.
    1970 is the earliest year that we are further away from 1996 than 1996 was to it.
    Is that ChatGPT output? 96 to 56 is 40 years isn't it?

    Something has gone wrong with the block quotes…
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