Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No. Nick was proposing that the Lords initiate legislation - a task for individual experts - but have no effective vote when it comes to passing it into law. So no contradiction at all, since Nick has expertise on particular subjects, on which he'd weigh in, but would have no effective vote on stuff he knew nothing about.
I don't know if I like his proposal, but it is at least consistent.
"Loyalist" does not mean no effective vote it means voting on party political lines, which is the contradiction.
You have ideal world and then how the current world works.
And I can see why an ex-MP (especially 1 living in London) would love to be in the Lords (even ignoring the daily fees)...
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
Lol, fair point. But my general view is that NOBODY is an expert on everything - I'm an expert on some things, and ignorant on others - so is everyone. One may know all about living in poverty and struggling to start a business, while being entirely unfamiliar with the fishing industry or the balance of payments or the challenges of being a single parent. So you should stuff the Lords with people with every possible kind of experience relevant to legislation (a reformed ex-prisoner, for instance).
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I've just had an absolutely lovely run. It was not too hot this morning, and mist was rising from the grass after the overnight rain. Scores of rabbits were gambolling about, and a deer nonchalantly looked up as I jogged past.
In these summer mornings, it is worth getting up early and going into the local countryside - or even a local park - just before and/or after dawn, to see nature at its freshest. One of life's free joys.
We've not had any rabbits around here for over a year now as a virus took them all out. But it is a rare walk in the woods (my knees are not really up for running these days) where I don't see a deer, mainly roe but the odd red.
Ditto here. Saw a young roe fawn in the long grass of a meadow within sight of houses the other day.
Their numbers are seriously up, they must be causing significant losses to farmers.
The Scottish government has stopped the use of a chemical for controlling bracken and, indirectly ticks. The son of friends of ours lost 2 years of his life to Lymes disease, having to defer his University place. It is a deeply pernicious disease and he is still not fully over it.
Quite righ about deer; I do my best by buying and eating local venison, woke as it is.
Ticks aren't particularly specific to bracken, though - they're quite happy to use long grass, heather, and so on as we know ourselves (even though we never wear shorts on country walks, tuck in our socks, etc). The worst problem is the small instars (immature ones) which are difficult to spot. We have a couple of cheap plastic tick extractors stashed in our rucksacks.
The idea that farmers/landowners want to control bracken and thereby ticks out of concern for walkers on their land is most entertaining. Tbf it seems to be SCons pushing this particular line. How many of them are farmers and/or landowners I couldn’t say.
In Scotland and the Lakes sheep used to mop them up and then get dipped, which of course is now (quite rightly) banned.
Gamekeepers do have problems with ticks on birds so have an incentive to control them, but I believe the bird tick species are different to the ones that attach to humans (I find mostly Ixodes ricinus).
As Carynx says though, bracken is not really the issue. Deer population seems to be the main factor.
The worst places here are on our two moors (remnant lowland mires, not hills) where there is a significant Red deer population, although the problem is not limited to just those places.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
We are at 47.4% fossil fuels, and 20.6% renewables.
Given on windy days we can easily see these figures reversed, it's clear that a workable form of energy storage (preferably medium-term storage) is vital. Goodness knows what form that will be, though.
Given a small piece of regulatory legislation, the answer is probably baked in.
Small storage sites - up to a 10 or 12MWh - don’t need the full power station planning permission thing. So no enquiry lasting decades.
So at EV charging sites, add in a couple of shipping containers of batteries - no planning and very little anyone can do to stop you. This will provide time shifting to arbitrage cheap leccy - and excess capacity can be used for grid storage.
Yes, expensive - but avoiding a decade of planning will make this the cheap option.
By the way, are there any on-the-ground reports on how the three by-elections (and possible by-election in mid-Beds) are going? I'm told unsurprisingly that Uxbridge is awash with Labour volunteers, but no idea what's happening elsewhere beyond the regular appeals from them to help.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
More similar to the Shuttle. Known risks, but ignored because it worked fine the first few times.
That video says the sub had never been to 4000m.
From the reports, it seems fairly likely that it failed before it reached that depth.
Quite possibly, though wasn't the issue with Challenger that they ignored warnings about cold weather conditions? This situation is that the concept was simply not tested.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No. Nick was proposing that the Lords initiate legislation - a task for individual experts - but have no effective vote when it comes to passing it into law. So no contradiction at all, since Nick has expertise on particular subjects, on which he'd weigh in, but would have no effective vote on stuff he knew nothing about.
I don't know if I like his proposal, but it is at least consistent.
Talking about the Lords as providers of respected expertise, then justifying a request (perhaps only jokingly?) to be ennobled on the premise that you'd be loyal feels a little too close to contradiction for comfort. I know that Nick has areas of interest where he may be an expert (perhaps animal welfare? but then being interested doesn't make you an expert so I don't know). But being in the Lords affords you a lot of opportunities to vote on things that are outwith that expertise. And because expertise is, by definition, minority and niche even a body made up only of experts is, on any specific subject, non-majority expert.
To make the last point more concrete, suppose you have Lord Nick of Brox who is an animal welfare expert. He sits in the Lords and every so often his noble colleague listen to his contributions on animal welfare, sagely nodding at his thoughtful, compassionate, and witty observations. Then they go and vote loyally along party lines anyway. And the flip side, when someone chimes in on their expertise, perhaps aviation safety standards about which our hypothetical Lord Nick knows nothing and doesn't need to know anything because he's there to be "loyal". What is gained?
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I'm far from convinced the ?19?-year old fully knew the risks. Besides, it is not just a case of knowing 'something is risky'; it's the degree of the risk.
Before Challenger, NASA put the risks of a loss-of-crew event at 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 100,000. After Challenger, they put it at between 1 in 50 and 1 in 100. It turned out to be around 1 in 65.
People making decisions on risks need to have full information on those risks - and it's in the interest of commercial organisations to downplay those risks.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No. Nick was proposing that the Lords initiate legislation - a task for individual experts - but have no effective vote when it comes to passing it into law. So no contradiction at all, since Nick has expertise on particular subjects, on which he'd weigh in, but would have no effective vote on stuff he knew nothing about.
I don't know if I like his proposal, but it is at least consistent.
Talking about the Lords as providers of respected expertise, then justifying a request (perhaps only jokingly?) to be ennobled on the premise that you'd be loyal feels a little too close to contradiction for comfort. I know that Nick has areas of interest where he may be an expert (perhaps animal welfare? but then being interested doesn't make you an expert so I don't know). But being in the Lords affords you a lot of opportunities to vote on things that are outwith that expertise. And because expertise is, by definition, minority and niche even a body made up only of experts is, on any specific subject, non-majority expert.
To make the last point more concrete, suppose you have Lord Nick of Brox who is an animal welfare expert. He sits in the Lords and every so often his noble colleague listen to his contributions on animal welfare, sagely nodding at his thoughtful, compassionate, and witty observations. Then they go and vote loyally along party lines anyway. And the flip side, when someone chimes in on their expertise, perhaps aviation safety standards about which our hypothetical Lord Nick knows nothing and doesn't need to know anything because he's there to be "loyal". What is gained?
Fair comment under the current system. But I was considering Nick's hypothetical Lords reform, which would take away completely the ability of the Lords to delay legislation.
Which in itself suggests he'd hardly be the kind of loyalist you describe.
I've just had an absolutely lovely run. It was not too hot this morning, and mist was rising from the grass after the overnight rain. Scores of rabbits were gambolling about, and a deer nonchalantly looked up as I jogged past.
In these summer mornings, it is worth getting up early and going into the local countryside - or even a local park - just before and/or after dawn, to see nature at its freshest. One of life's free joys.
We've not had any rabbits around here for over a year now as a virus took them all out. But it is a rare walk in the woods (my knees are not really up for running these days) where I don't see a deer, mainly roe but the odd red.
Ditto here. Saw a young roe fawn in the long grass of a meadow within sight of houses the other day.
Their numbers are seriously up, they must be causing significant losses to farmers.
The Scottish government has stopped the use of a chemical for controlling bracken and, indirectly ticks. The son of friends of ours lost 2 years of his life to Lymes disease, having to defer his University place. It is a deeply pernicious disease and he is still not fully over it.
Quite righ about deer; I do my best by buying and eating local venison, woke as it is.
Ticks aren't particularly specific to bracken, though - they're quite happy to use long grass, heather, and so on as we know ourselves (even though we never wear shorts on country walks, tuck in our socks, etc). The worst problem is the small instars (immature ones) which are difficult to spot. We have a couple of cheap plastic tick extractors stashed in our rucksacks.
The idea that farmers/landowners want to control bracken and thereby ticks out of concern for walkers on their land is most entertaining. Tbf it seems to be SCons pushing this particular line. How many of them are farmers and/or landowners I couldn’t say.
In Scotland and the Lakes sheep used to mop them up and then get dipped, which of course is now (quite rightly) banned.
Gamekeepers do have problems with ticks on birds so have an incentive to control them, but I believe the bird tick species are different to the ones that attach to humans (I find mostly Ixodes ricinus).
As Carynx says though, bracken is not really the issue. Deer population seems to be the main factor.
The worst places here are on our two moors (remnant lowland mires, not hills) where there is a significant Red deer population, although the problem is not limited to just those places.
The most ticks I ever got was 36 after climbing a grassy Corbett in Perthshire. Ended up naked in the shower with my girlfriend picking them off.
Also had loads after wandering through some dunes/hinterland, which was a surprise.
I know four people with Lyme's - one was off school for a year, another had to retire early. You have to smash it with antibiotics immediately.
Also strongly recommend the card tick remover, because you never lose it if you keep in your wallet.
Adding to all this, the midges are insane this year for complex meteorological reasons.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
BiB: You say that as if human-controlled driving is risk-free.
As far as I am aware any advances in autonomous driver-assistance for driving (since we don't have autonomous driving yet and may never do so) that has been allowed in the road has rather consistently been an upgrade to safety not a downgrade.
Any crash of a Tesla etc gets masses of attention whereas a thousand crashes of Vauxhalls etc get none. Its a bit like the airplane fallacy.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
More similar to the Shuttle. Known risks, but ignored because it worked fine the first few times.
That video says the sub had never been to 4000m.
From the reports, it seems fairly likely that it failed before it reached that depth.
Quite possibly, though wasn't the issue with Challenger that they ignored warnings about cold weather conditions? This situation is that the concept was simply not tested.
I would be very surprised if *anyone* had experience of large carbon fibre pressure vessels at the sort of compressive (not tensile) pressures you get at the Titanic's depth - especially one with titanium ends (AIUI).
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
Lol, fair point. But my general view is that NOBODY is an expert on everything - I'm an expert on some things, and ignorant on others - so is everyone. One may know all about living in poverty and struggling to start a business, while being entirely unfamiliar with the fishing industry or the balance of payments or the challenges of being a single parent. So you should stuff the Lords with people with every possible kind of experience relevant to legislation (a reformed ex-prisoner, for instance).
I fully agree with the idea of using experts to help draft and improve legislation. I don't see that a House of Lords is the right medium for that, though.
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I'm not so sure about that. Humans are terrible at understanding risk. Yeah they all signed the waiver, but I doubt any of them were that concerned.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
It doesn't work for the same reasons that it fell by the wayside as an option after the referendum: - The institutional structure of the EEA isn't suitable for a large and difficult country - Neither the EU nor the existing members want us to join because it would disturb a stable arrangement - It doesn't make sense politically because you have the drawbacks (depending on perspective) of EU membership without regaining a true seat at the table
If Labour wanted to go in that direction, it would be more likely to come in the form of a renegotiated TCA based on new red lines.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
BiB: You say that as if human-controlled driving is risk-free.
As far as I am aware any advances in autonomous driver-assistance for driving (since we don't have autonomous driving yet and may never do so) that has been allowed in the road has rather consistently been an upgrade to safety not a downgrade.
Any crash of a Tesla etc gets masses of attention whereas a thousand crashes of Vauxhalls etc get none. Its a bit like the airplane fallacy.
I don't say it in that manner. The issue is that some of these companies - and especially Tesla - are being very reckless with the way they are beta-testing on a mass scale on public roads. Some are doing it in a more sane manner - e.g. Waymo.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
At the moment rejoin the EU still has less than 50% support, but rejoin the EU or rejoin the single market has nearly 60% support amongst all voters (though 70% of Remainers would rejoin the full EU).
However, amongst Leavers the median position is to stay out of the EU and single market still (hence either would be political suicide in the redwall and Leave voting Tory marginals Starmer must win to become PM). Leavers do want a closer trade and security relationship with the EU though which is Labour's current position.
If he wins back the marginals he needs to become PM then Labour can start to consider rejoining the single market if it wins a second term. If Labour won a third term some in the party might even then push to rejoin the full EU
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
This is perhaps the most interesting trend. ...While sentiment towards EU membership has shifted significantly in Britain since the referendum, a slim majority of respondents (51%) say they still think it is unlikely Britain will rejoin the EU at some future point in the future.
Again, however, that figure has been falling more or less consistently – it stood at 62% two years ago – and 29% of respondents in Britain told YouGov in April they think it is likely the country will rejoin – up from 21% in early 2021...
"Future point in the future" is pretty ugly writing, Guardian eds.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
BiB: You say that as if human-controlled driving is risk-free.
As far as I am aware any advances in autonomous driver-assistance for driving (since we don't have autonomous driving yet and may never do so) that has been allowed in the road has rather consistently been an upgrade to safety not a downgrade.
Any crash of a Tesla etc gets masses of attention whereas a thousand crashes of Vauxhalls etc get none. Its a bit like the airplane fallacy.
I don't say it in that manner. The issue is that some of these companies - and especially Tesla - are being very reckless with the way they are beta-testing on a mass scale on public roads. Some are doing it in a more sane manner - e.g. Waymo.
What evidence do you have for that recklessness? What increase in fatalities or other risks?
Do you have evidence that a Tesla* is more dangerous with driver assistance than eg a Vauxhall* without it for instance?
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I'm not so sure about that. Humans are terrible at understanding risk. Yeah they all signed the waiver, but I doubt any of them were that concerned.
I assume they assumed the level of risk was similar to say the risk James Cameron experienced on one of his Titanic dives, partly because they'd all paid a fortune. To be blunt if I'd have been offered a ride in this thing that's the sort of risk level I'd implicitly assume. It clearly was much much higher.
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I mean, I don't know what you think has been said was "left-wing" but I'd call this an almost classical tale of hubris.
Rich guy, who had literally been interviewed saying that safety is a waste and that the sub would be fine - even had it pointed out to him that people said the titanic was unsinkable - goes to view the titanic (a monument to hubris). Obviously nemesis happens and the sub implodes. All the memes and stuff? That's just catharsis. We, the audience, most of whom will never see quarter of a million in our lifetimes, find this cathartic because it is how things should be. Hubris, nemesis, catharsis.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Labour rarely sorts anything out.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
You make a good point but I was addressing the overwhelming feeling we get from the media and so on who amplify it. I recall the week we spent discussing avocado on toast.
I am not saying all elderly people are bad - but a large minority give the rest a bad name. And for them I am afraid I regret putting my life on hold.
It wasn't just older people that were killed by Covid. Yes they were disproportionately effected. The lockdowns were not designed to save the elderly, they were designed to save our healthcare system. Funnily enough, the one system in Europe that is closest to our mad NHS system had no lockdown at all (Sweden). It will be interesting to reflect on which government got it right.
Lockdown was pretty shit. But if you want to focus on the bright side by contrasting with the darkest, imagine what it must be like for those people in Ukraine at the moment, or even the parents of Russian soldiers. They really have had a lot to complain about.
Around 1,000 people in the UK died from Covid on its own, the rest died "with Covid".
That sounds about right. Or at least as an upper bound. I doubt there's even an official figure for this. It's not as if the state is saying the actual figure is 100,000. They don't want people to draw a distinction between "of" and "with". Probably quite a few people die "with" poor eyesight too.
Few people are aware now, if they ever were, that "Covid" used to mean the illness caused in a few cases by a type of double pneumonia induced by the SARS variant SARSCoV2. ("NCIP" as it was called - "Novel Coronavirus-Induced Pneumonia"). But never mind. Most people were led to say things like they felt a bit Covidy if they had a cold. (F*cking drama-queen malingerers, basically.) Some even showed as SARSCoV2-positive because, after all, the said SARS variant WAS going around, even if it was harmless or almost harmless for a very large majority of those infected. So some with colds were positive, just as some without colds were positive. In most cases it should have been a case of so the f*ck what. Incidentally it's long been the case that many elderly patients catch pneumonia in hospitals. What a shocker.
If someone said they'd had Covid, I always asked them how long they'd had the pneumonia for. Sometimes it's just too much strain to suffer cretins gladly.
There's even more insane bullsh*t in this area than there is in woko-trans. We live in very sick times.
So much medical ignorance in one post is rare to find outside of St Petersburg or Florida.
Tell me one single thing I said that was wrong, and try doing so without using the word "medical" or pretending it is your worldwide experience that causes you to make the geographical references that are so de rigueur among party member types in your little corner of the world.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
Lol, fair point. But my general view is that NOBODY is an expert on everything - I'm an expert on some things, and ignorant on others - so is everyone. One may know all about living in poverty and struggling to start a business, while being entirely unfamiliar with the fishing industry or the balance of payments or the challenges of being a single parent. So you should stuff the Lords with people with every possible kind of experience relevant to legislation (a reformed ex-prisoner, for instance).
I fully agree with the idea of using experts to help draft and improve legislation. I don't see that a House of Lords is the right medium for that, though.
Yes, it's a slightly odd idea to give them the power to initiate legislation, and nothing else.
Did you see Greene's very cogent explanation for this incident?
Marjorie Taylor Greene just explained to a reporter why she called Lauren Boebert a “little bitch” to her face on the House floor yesterday: “She has genuinely been a nasty little bitch to me.”
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
Good post. I’m more of a planes guy than a trains guy, but it’s notable that planes have pretty much stopped crashing too. In that industry, a focus on the cost savings of efficiency and reliability, combined with a regulatory structure that seeks primarily to learn from every incident, rather than apportion blame.
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I'm not so sure about that. Humans are terrible at understanding risk. Yeah they all signed the waiver, but I doubt any of them were that concerned.
I assume they assumed the level of risk was similar to say the risk James Cameron experienced on one of his Titanic dives, partly because they'd all paid a fortune. To be blunt if I'd have been offered a ride in this thing that's the sort of risk level I'd implicitly assume. It clearly was much much higher.
Hasn't James Cameron come out and said that his team told them not to do what they were planning because they were not making safe plans?
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
Lol, fair point. But my general view is that NOBODY is an expert on everything - I'm an expert on some things, and ignorant on others - so is everyone. One may know all about living in poverty and struggling to start a business, while being entirely unfamiliar with the fishing industry or the balance of payments or the challenges of being a single parent. So you should stuff the Lords with people with every possible kind of experience relevant to legislation (a reformed ex-prisoner, for instance).
I fully agree with the idea of using experts to help draft and improve legislation. I don't see that a House of Lords is the right medium for that, though.
Yes, it's a slightly odd idea to give them the power to initiate legislation, and nothing else.
Why?
I don't like the Lords in theory, but in practice I have to admit as a revising and initiating chamber it works to help the Commons.
But the Commons are the ultimate decision makers. The Lords can initiate a bill and say "we think this is a good idea, what do you think?" The Lords can amend a bill and say "we think this might assist what you're trying to do, what do you think?"
But the Commons should and must get the final say. The Commons can take on board the advice of the Lords and decide they want to proceed with it, or discard it entirely, that is up to the MPs we have elected.
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I'm not so sure about that. Humans are terrible at understanding risk. Yeah they all signed the waiver, but I doubt any of them were that concerned.
I assume they assumed the level of risk was similar to say the risk James Cameron experienced on one of his Titanic dives, partly because they'd all paid a fortune. To be blunt if I'd have been offered a ride in this thing that's the sort of risk level I'd implicitly assume. It clearly was much much higher.
Hasn't James Cameron come out and said that his team told them not to do what they were planning because they were not making safe plans?
Yes, I doubt that information would have been relayed to the passengers though.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
What a silly question. Of course not. What's your point?
Cars kill a lot of people every year.
The interesting question about automation is not whether automated cars will kill people. They will. But will they kill less?
IIRC there are already discussions about mandating automated emergency stop systems in new cars in EU regulations - which is a step towards self driving. A very, very small one. But from that you can see all kinds of possibilities to add further “rules” to such a system.
The sub isn’t comparable, really, to the other examples you list, by the way. The company deliberately operated the submarine to evade a regulatory environment that would have shut them down. There is specific regulation of private subs in the US and they were breaking lots of it.
This is perhaps the most interesting trend. ...While sentiment towards EU membership has shifted significantly in Britain since the referendum, a slim majority of respondents (51%) say they still think it is unlikely Britain will rejoin the EU at some future point in the future.
Again, however, that figure has been falling more or less consistently – it stood at 62% two years ago – and 29% of respondents in Britain told YouGov in April they think it is likely the country will rejoin – up from 21% in early 2021...
"Future point in the future" is pretty ugly writing, Guardian eds.
As I posted earlier when all options given, including rejoin single market, a closer EU relationship but still outside the single market, the same deal as now or minimise economic and security ties with the EU, rejoin the EU is only at 40%
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
Did you see Greene's very cogent explanation for this incident?
Marjorie Taylor Greene just explained to a reporter why she called Lauren Boebert a “little bitch” to her face on the House floor yesterday: “She has genuinely been a nasty little bitch to me.”
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
Once a bedsore develops, it can take days, months, or even years to heal. It can also become infected, causing fever and chills. An infected bedsore can take a long time to clear up. As the infection spreads through your body, it can also cause mental confusion, a fast heartbeat, and generalized weakness.
This is perhaps the most interesting trend. ...While sentiment towards EU membership has shifted significantly in Britain since the referendum, a slim majority of respondents (51%) say they still think it is unlikely Britain will rejoin the EU at some future point in the future.
Again, however, that figure has been falling more or less consistently – it stood at 62% two years ago – and 29% of respondents in Britain told YouGov in April they think it is likely the country will rejoin – up from 21% in early 2021...
"Future point in the future" is pretty ugly writing, Guardian eds.
As I posted earlier when all options given, including rejoin single market, a closer EU relationship but still outside the single market, the same deal as now or minimise economic and security ties with the EU, rejoin the EU is only at 40%
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
Good post. I’m more of a planes guy than a trains guy, but it’s notable that planes have pretty much stopped crashing too. In that industry, a focus on the cost savings of efficiency and reliability, combined with a regulatory structure that seeks primarily to learn from every incident, rather than apportion blame.
The dangers change. The 737-MAX crashes came about due to regulatory failures.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Labour rarely sorts anything out.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
You make a good point but I was addressing the overwhelming feeling we get from the media and so on who amplify it. I recall the week we spent discussing avocado on toast.
I am not saying all elderly people are bad - but a large minority give the rest a bad name. And for them I am afraid I regret putting my life on hold.
It wasn't just older people that were killed by Covid. Yes they were disproportionately effected. The lockdowns were not designed to save the elderly, they were designed to save our healthcare system. Funnily enough, the one system in Europe that is closest to our mad NHS system had no lockdown at all (Sweden). It will be interesting to reflect on which government got it right.
Lockdown was pretty shit. But if you want to focus on the bright side by contrasting with the darkest, imagine what it must be like for those people in Ukraine at the moment, or even the parents of Russian soldiers. They really have had a lot to complain about.
Around 1,000 people in the UK died from Covid on its own, the rest died "with Covid".
That sounds about right. Or at least as an upper bound. I doubt there's even an official figure for this. It's not as if the state is saying the actual figure is 100,000. They don't want people to draw a distinction between "of" and "with". Probably quite a few people die "with" poor eyesight too.
Few people are aware now, if they ever were, that "Covid" used to mean the illness caused in a few cases by a type of double pneumonia induced by the SARS variant SARSCoV2. ("NCIP" as it was called - "Novel Coronavirus-Induced Pneumonia"). But never mind. Most people were led to say things like they felt a bit Covidy if they had a cold. (F*cking drama-queen malingerers, basically.) Some even showed as SARSCoV2-positive because, after all, the said SARS variant WAS going around, even if it was harmless or almost harmless for a very large majority of those infected. So some with colds were positive, just as some without colds were positive. In most cases it should have been a case of so the f*ck what. Incidentally it's long been the case that many elderly patients catch pneumonia in hospitals. What a shocker.
If someone said they'd had Covid, I always asked them how long they'd had the pneumonia for. Sometimes it's just too much strain to suffer cretins gladly.
There's even more insane bullsh*t in this area than there is in woko-trans. We live in very sick times.
So much medical ignorance in one post is rare to find outside of St Petersburg or Florida.
Tell me one single thing I said that was wrong, and try doing so without using the word "medical" or pretending it is your worldwide experience that causes you to make the geographical references that are so de rigueur among party member types in your little corner of the world.
Are you the same Foxy who told everyone the GMC wasn't a charity?
"Loyalist" does not mean no effective vote it means voting on party political lines, which is the contradiction.
We're interpreting loyalism differently. I think of a loyalist as someone who will disagree on points of policy and fact but who won't seek to undermine the party. I voted against the party line 18 times when in Parliament and criticised our policy on dozens more occasions, but it was always "I think we've got it wrong on this" or "why don't we do X instead?" rather than "our leadership is a shambles and needs to change". In general I think collective party discipline is important for coherent government, but shouldn't exclude dissent on specifics, which is actually useful to sensible leadership.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
What a silly question. Of course not. What's your point?
Cars kill a lot of people every year.
The interesting question about automation is not whether automated cars will kill people. They will. But will they kill less?
IIRC there are already discussions about mandating automated emergency stop systems in new cars in EU regulations - which is a step towards self driving. A very, very small one. But from that you can see all kinds of possibilities to add further “rules” to such a system.
The sub isn’t comparable, really, to the other examples you list, by the way. The company deliberately operated the submarine to evade a regulatory environment that would have shut them down. There is specific regulation of private subs in the US and they were breaking lots of it.
The sub is outside US territorial waters. But it was their coastguard that ended up coordinating the investigative mission. I wonder if there might be a (Perhaps coordinated with Canada) seagrab so to speak over that area giving themselves the power to stop future ad hoc sub missions there. Would other countries challenge it - can see this muddying the (international) waters..
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
Lol, fair point. But my general view is that NOBODY is an expert on everything - I'm an expert on some things, and ignorant on others - so is everyone. One may know all about living in poverty and struggling to start a business, while being entirely unfamiliar with the fishing industry or the balance of payments or the challenges of being a single parent. So you should stuff the Lords with people with every possible kind of experience relevant to legislation (a reformed ex-prisoner, for instance).
I fully agree with the idea of using experts to help draft and improve legislation. I don't see that a House of Lords is the right medium for that, though.
Yes, it's a slightly odd idea to give them the power to initiate legislation, and nothing else.
Why?
I don't like the Lords in theory, but in practice I have to admit as a revising and initiating chamber it works to help the Commons.
But the Commons are the ultimate decision makers. The Lords can initiate a bill and say "we think this is a good idea, what do you think?" The Lords can amend a bill and say "we think this might assist what you're trying to do, what do you think?"
But the Commons should and must get the final say. The Commons can take on board the advice of the Lords and decide they want to proceed with it, or discard it entirely, that is up to the MPs we have elected.
Because no government is going to hand over sole power to initiate legislation to the Lords. And if you remove their votes, and give them only a non exclusive power to initiate legislation, what is the point of them ?
If government just wants a set of experts to consult, it can consult a set of experts.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
What a silly question. Of course not. What's your point?
There's ~ 1500 road deaths a year. Far more dangerous than the trains.
Road v plane deaths was one of the subjects of psychologist Steven Pinker’s book Rationality. If you just watch the national news (in the US), you’d think that more people die on planes than on roads, and polling says that a sizeable minority agrees with this. The reality is that 100 people *per day* die on American roads. The stat for planes is 2-300 per year, most on small private planes not commercial flights. But every commercial flight that goes down, is headline news for a week.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
What a silly question. Of course not. What's your point?
Cars kill a lot of people every year.
The interesting question about automation is not whether automated cars will kill people. They will. But will they kill less?
(Snip)
Indeed, that it the question. But you also ignore my point: when it comes to Tesla, these cars are not using full systems - despite Musk's claims. They are being beta-tested in non-geofenced areas. *Interesting* safety stats are produced by the manufacturer.
This comes into the point of my original post: techbros so keen to push new stuff that safety becomes a secondary factor, not a primary one. And unlike (say) a submarine or suborbital rocket, it potentially affects all other road users.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
Good post. I’m more of a planes guy than a trains guy, but it’s notable that planes have pretty much stopped crashing too. In that industry, a focus on the cost savings of efficiency and reliability, combined with a regulatory structure that seeks primarily to learn from every incident, rather than apportion blame.
The dangers change. The 737-MAX crashes came about due to regulatory failures.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
This is all well and good, but to achieve that level of debate you don't need membership for life, political appointees, arcane rituals, and so on. The idea that expertise can only be made available to the Commons in this manner is unspoken because it's so obviously false. And in matters of expertise, given the pace at which some subject matters move, especially around some sciences and technologies, the idea of keeping some fossil on the books whose practical experience in the subject hasn't been updated since the 1980s is clearly not the right way to get up to date expert advice. On top of all that, why would you need experts kept on the books for years on end when no legislation is incoming related to that?
The whole system is ossified, anachronistic, inefficient, inherently conservative, and if I might say so, not how any of us would design it if we were setting up a constitution from scratch.
Did you see Greene's very cogent explanation for this incident?
Marjorie Taylor Greene just explained to a reporter why she called Lauren Boebert a “little bitch” to her face on the House floor yesterday: “She has genuinely been a nasty little bitch to me.”
They've got quite similar political views. Reminds me of Woolfe vs Hookem
This is perhaps the most interesting trend. ...While sentiment towards EU membership has shifted significantly in Britain since the referendum, a slim majority of respondents (51%) say they still think it is unlikely Britain will rejoin the EU at some future point in the future.
Again, however, that figure has been falling more or less consistently – it stood at 62% two years ago – and 29% of respondents in Britain told YouGov in April they think it is likely the country will rejoin – up from 21% in early 2021...
"Future point in the future" is pretty ugly writing, Guardian eds.
As I posted earlier when all options given, including rejoin single market, a closer EU relationship but still outside the single market, the same deal as now or minimise economic and security ties with the EU, rejoin the EU is only at 40%
What it it about the word trend that you don't understand ?
48% voted Remain in 2016, now only 40% back rejoin the EU when options such as rejoin the single market only, closer ties but outside the EEA, current deal, or loosen ties further are given too.
So while a clear majority want closer ties with the EU than now, support for being in the full EU is actually less than it was in 2016 on that basis
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
What a silly question. Of course not. What's your point?
Cars kill a lot of people every year.
The interesting question about automation is not whether automated cars will kill people. They will. But will they kill less?
IIRC there are already discussions about mandating automated emergency stop systems in new cars in EU regulations - which is a step towards self driving. A very, very small one. But from that you can see all kinds of possibilities to add further “rules” to such a system.
The sub isn’t comparable, really, to the other examples you list, by the way. The company deliberately operated the submarine to evade a regulatory environment that would have shut them down. There is specific regulation of private subs in the US and they were breaking lots of it.
I thought it was already the case that automated emergency stop systems were mandated in new cars? My Leaf has one - every now and then it'll warn me if I approach another car a bit quickly and a couple of times it has actually applied the brakes when it thought there was a danger of a crash.
It's funny how you get used to these things though. I've still got my old car (for the kids to learn to drive) which I still use sometimes and which obviously has no such technology. Now, when I use it, I find myself thinking, rather weirdly, drive carefully now, there's nothing to stop you crashing. Hell, I could even drive straight into that wall, and nothing would try to stop me!
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
This is all well and good, but to achieve that level of debate you don't need membership for life, political appointees, arcane rituals, and so on. The idea that expertise can only be made available to the Commons in this manner is unspoken because it's so obviously false. And in matters of expertise, given the pace at which some subject matters move, especially around some sciences and technologies, the idea of keeping some fossil on the books whose practical experience in the subject hasn't been updated since the 1980s is clearly not the right way to get up to date expert advice. On top of all that, why would you need experts kept on the books for years on end when no legislation is incoming related to that?
The whole system is ossified, anachronistic, inefficient, inherently conservative, and if I might say so, not how any of us would design it if we were setting up a constitution from scratch.
A simple and effective reform might be the introduction of term limits. Anything more fundamental would get bogged in interminable argument.
This is perhaps the most interesting trend. ...While sentiment towards EU membership has shifted significantly in Britain since the referendum, a slim majority of respondents (51%) say they still think it is unlikely Britain will rejoin the EU at some future point in the future.
Again, however, that figure has been falling more or less consistently – it stood at 62% two years ago – and 29% of respondents in Britain told YouGov in April they think it is likely the country will rejoin – up from 21% in early 2021...
"Future point in the future" is pretty ugly writing, Guardian eds.
As I posted earlier when all options given, including rejoin single market, a closer EU relationship but still outside the single market, the same deal as now or minimise economic and security ties with the EU, rejoin the EU is only at 40%
What it it about the word trend that you don't understand ?
48% voted Remain in 2016, now only 40% back rejoin the EU when options such as rejoin the single market only, closer ties but outside the EEA, current deal, or loosen ties further are given too.
So while a clear majority want closer ties with the EU than now, support for being in the full EU is actually less than it was in 2016 on that basis
What it it about the word trend that you don't understand ? Everything, apparently.
Did you see Greene's very cogent explanation for this incident?
Marjorie Taylor Greene just explained to a reporter why she called Lauren Boebert a “little bitch” to her face on the House floor yesterday: “She has genuinely been a nasty little bitch to me.”
They've got quite similar political views. Reminds me of Woolfe vs Hookem
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
Lol, fair point. But my general view is that NOBODY is an expert on everything - I'm an expert on some things, and ignorant on others - so is everyone. One may know all about living in poverty and struggling to start a business, while being entirely unfamiliar with the fishing industry or the balance of payments or the challenges of being a single parent. So you should stuff the Lords with people with every possible kind of experience relevant to legislation (a reformed ex-prisoner, for instance).
I fully agree with the idea of using experts to help draft and improve legislation. I don't see that a House of Lords is the right medium for that, though.
Yes, it's a slightly odd idea to give them the power to initiate legislation, and nothing else.
Why?
I don't like the Lords in theory, but in practice I have to admit as a revising and initiating chamber it works to help the Commons.
But the Commons are the ultimate decision makers. The Lords can initiate a bill and say "we think this is a good idea, what do you think?" The Lords can amend a bill and say "we think this might assist what you're trying to do, what do you think?"
But the Commons should and must get the final say. The Commons can take on board the advice of the Lords and decide they want to proceed with it, or discard it entirely, that is up to the MPs we have elected.
Because no government is going to hand over sole power to initiate legislation to the Lords. And if you remove their votes, and give them only a non exclusive power to initiate legislation, what is the point of them ?
If government just wants a set of experts to consult, it can consult a set of experts.
Well that's exactly what the Lords are, a set of experts [theoretically] to consult.
Of course they shouldn't have sole power to initiate legislation.
If it were up to me I wouldn't remove their voting rights, but I would remove the time threshold from the Parliament Act, so that the Commons can immediately say no to the Lords rather than after a time delay.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
This is all well and good, but to achieve that level of debate you don't need membership for life, political appointees, arcane rituals, and so on. The idea that expertise can only be made available to the Commons in this manner is unspoken because it's so obviously false. And in matters of expertise, given the pace at which some subject matters move, especially around some sciences and technologies, the idea of keeping some fossil on the books whose practical experience in the subject hasn't been updated since the 1980s is clearly not the right way to get up to date expert advice. On top of all that, why would you need experts kept on the books for years on end when no legislation is incoming related to that?
The whole system is ossified, anachronistic, inefficient, inherently conservative, and if I might say so, not how any of us would design it if we were setting up a constitution from scratch.
If it was properly conservative it would still be a Lords mainly made up of hereditary peers
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
At the moment rejoin the EU still has less than 50% support, but rejoin the EU or rejoin the single market has nearly 60% support amongst all voters (though 70% of Remainers would rejoin the full EU).
However, amongst Leavers the median position is to stay out of the EU and single market still (hence either would be political suicide in the redwall and Leave voting Tory marginals Starmer must win to become PM). Leavers do want a closer trade and security relationship with the EU though which is Labour's current position.
If he wins back the marginals he needs to become PM then Labour can start to consider rejoining the single market if it wins a second term. If Labour won a third term some in the party might even then push to rejoin the full EU
Noted. The swing opinion - the middling one of stay out of SM but get closer - is precisely the one which the Brexit deal would have achieved if it could. And it's the one involving a great deal of hand waving. No-one can tell you what it looks like. Except that it looked like a unicorn then and it does now.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
What a silly question. Of course not. What's your point?
Cars kill a lot of people every year.
The interesting question about automation is not whether automated cars will kill people. They will. But will they kill less?
IIRC there are already discussions about mandating automated emergency stop systems in new cars in EU regulations - which is a step towards self driving. A very, very small one. But from that you can see all kinds of possibilities to add further “rules” to such a system.
The sub isn’t comparable, really, to the other examples you list, by the way. The company deliberately operated the submarine to evade a regulatory environment that would have shut them down. There is specific regulation of private subs in the US and they were breaking lots of it.
I thought it was already the case that automated emergency stop systems were mandated in new cars? My Leaf has one - every now and then it'll warn me if I approach another car a bit quickly and a couple of times it has actually applied the brakes when it thought there was a danger of a crash.
It's funny how you get used to these things though. I've still got my old car (for the kids to learn to drive) which I still use sometimes and which obviously has no such technology. Now, when I use it, I find myself thinking, rather weirdly, drive carefully now, there's nothing to stop you crashing. Hell, I could even drive straight into that wall, and nothing would try to stop me!
A few years back I rented a cheap car, an Asian-spec Nissan Sunny. Turns out it had no ABS on it, which was very close to an expensive discovery on my part!
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
This is all well and good, but to achieve that level of debate you don't need membership for life, political appointees, arcane rituals, and so on. The idea that expertise can only be made available to the Commons in this manner is unspoken because it's so obviously false. And in matters of expertise, given the pace at which some subject matters move, especially around some sciences and technologies, the idea of keeping some fossil on the books whose practical experience in the subject hasn't been updated since the 1980s is clearly not the right way to get up to date expert advice. On top of all that, why would you need experts kept on the books for years on end when no legislation is incoming related to that?
The whole system is ossified, anachronistic, inefficient, inherently conservative, and if I might say so, not how any of us would design it if we were setting up a constitution from scratch.
Oh, I'm not arguing for the pre-1908 House of Lords - just for intelligent, informed debate in public life.
Nothing wrong with arcane rituals. It's the sound bite chasing that is the problem. Combined with a deep certainty that I Know the Right Solution.
Consider - if the government had subsidised/implemented filling stations for non-carbon emitting cars, in the last couple of decades, they would have been hydrogen filling stations. Official Policy was that Hydrogen should replace petrol. Because of the oil companies (who fancied their chances as hydrogen producers) - think Industrial Strategy - and because of the tax problem caused by stopping using petrol. Hard to tax leccy more. Hydrogen would be nicely controllable - in a political sense.
Despite it being clear that hydrogen has missed the boat (largely) and that EVs have won, The Official Policy dragged on and on.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
What a silly question. Of course not. What's your point?
There's ~ 1500 road deaths a year. Far more dangerous than the trains.
If you really want to stay nearly 100% safe at all times, just never get out of bed
That advice would be seriously damaging to your health and knock years off your life expectancy.
You could have a treadmill and exercise bike in your room, wfh and order food in
How are you going to use the treadmill if you never get out of bed?
Being mobile is part of being healthy. Life has risks, trying to avoid them and becoming agoraphobic has been shown to reduce not increase your life expectancy.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
I question this, as I have before.
Long serving Senators in the US upper house may stay there for a long time.
It is also the case here. In the UK upper house - the Lords - we have had plenty of people in their late 90s. The oldest current member is Lord Christopher, aged 98
You may question Matt but as someone who studied US politics, formally for a qualification, I suggest your knowledge is lacking.
There's a huge difference between Senators and Lords in the UK second chamber. Unlike the HoL, US Senators are all elected for six years terms (there's no such thing as unelected or hereditary Senators) and they work hard: on average 70 hours a week. Lords here are unelected and don't even have to attend.
This is another classic example of Brits completely failing to understand the US Constitution.
From a betting point of view, don't bet on things you don't know much about.
Another major difference is that Senators are able to introduce legislation just as freely as Congressmen. So, the Senate is not a second chamber in the sense that might normally be understood in Europe - its role is not to revise, approve or reject legislation coming from the House of Representatives. Given its vetting role, though, you could see it as the senior chamber, perhaps.
The Lords can introduce legislation as well though, no?
It's not a regular part of the system. The Lords is there primarily as a revising chamber. The US Senate is a regular source of proposed legislation.
It's not at all remarkable for Government bills to originate in the Lords. 10 of the 53 in the current session originated in the upper house. Private members bills in the House of Lords also aren't unusual.
Bottom line, though, is that a British government's entire legitimacy derives from a majority in the Commons, and the latter could if it chose abolish the Lords. So in no sense are they coequal chambers. The US House and Senate are set up as such in Article 1 of the US Constitution.
In practice, the Senate is probably the more powerful of the two, now, given its role in vetting SCOTUS appointments, and the fact that Senators are elected for six years rather than two.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
This is all well and good, but to achieve that level of debate you don't need membership for life, political appointees, arcane rituals, and so on. The idea that expertise can only be made available to the Commons in this manner is unspoken because it's so obviously false. And in matters of expertise, given the pace at which some subject matters move, especially around some sciences and technologies, the idea of keeping some fossil on the books whose practical experience in the subject hasn't been updated since the 1980s is clearly not the right way to get up to date expert advice. On top of all that, why would you need experts kept on the books for years on end when no legislation is incoming related to that?
The whole system is ossified, anachronistic, inefficient, inherently conservative, and if I might say so, not how any of us would design it if we were setting up a constitution from scratch.
Oh, I'm not arguing for the pre-1908 House of Lords - just for intelligent, informed debate in public life.
Nothing wrong with arcane rituals. It's the sound bite chasing that is the problem. Combined with a deep certainty that I Know the Right Solution.
Consider - if the government had subsidised/implemented filling stations for non-carbon emitting cars, in the last couple of decades, they would have been hydrogen filling stations. Official Policy was that Hydrogen should replace petrol. Because of the oil companies (who fancied their chances as hydrogen producers) - think Industrial Strategy - and because of the tax problem caused by stopping using petrol. Hard to tax leccy more. Hydrogen would be nicely controllable - in a political sense.
Despite it being clear that hydrogen has missed the boat (largely) and that EVs have won, The Official Policy dragged on and on.
Not to forget the risks of a hydrogen tank in a collision are a magnitude different to the risks of a battery in one.
But yes, all the Official talk was of hydrogen. It is the free market that brought us EVs instead.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
What a silly question. Of course not. What's your point?
Cars kill a lot of people every year.
The interesting question about automation is not whether automated cars will kill people. They will. But will they kill less?
IIRC there are already discussions about mandating automated emergency stop systems in new cars in EU regulations - which is a step towards self driving. A very, very small one. But from that you can see all kinds of possibilities to add further “rules” to such a system.
The sub isn’t comparable, really, to the other examples you list, by the way. The company deliberately operated the submarine to evade a regulatory environment that would have shut them down. There is specific regulation of private subs in the US and they were breaking lots of it.
The sub is outside US territorial waters. But it was their coastguard that ended up coordinating the investigative mission. I wonder if there might be a (Perhaps coordinated with Canada) seagrab so to speak over that area giving themselves the power to stop future ad hoc sub missions there. Would other countries challenge it - can see this muddying the (international) waters..
The US isn't going to claim huge chunks of international waters, just because they want to regulate. This would set off a free for all, worldwide, in which every big country would try and grab international waters. That would end in a very bad place.
The sensible approach - which is taken with rocketry, incidentally - is that regulation and responsibility can't be offshored. If I build a rocket, but launch it offshore or in another country, the original origin country is still legally responsible. And has regulatory authority.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
Did you see Greene's very cogent explanation for this incident?
Marjorie Taylor Greene just explained to a reporter why she called Lauren Boebert a “little bitch” to her face on the House floor yesterday: “She has genuinely been a nasty little bitch to me.”
They've got quite similar political views. Reminds me of Woolfe vs Hookem
I always get them confused - they seem to be off the same, hideous, production line.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
I question this, as I have before.
Long serving Senators in the US upper house may stay there for a long time.
It is also the case here. In the UK upper house - the Lords - we have had plenty of people in their late 90s. The oldest current member is Lord Christopher, aged 98
You may question Matt but as someone who studied US politics, formally for a qualification, I suggest your knowledge is lacking.
There's a huge difference between Senators and Lords in the UK second chamber. Unlike the HoL, US Senators are all elected and they work hard: on average 70 hours a week. Lords here are unelected and don't even have to attend.
This is another classic example of Brits completely failing to understand the US Constitution.
From a betting point of view, don't bet on things you don't know much about.
I question that as well. Perhaps we need to focus on what happens rather than what we imagine.
I am Matt. The US Senate is a fully elected chamber and exercises huge constitutional power. The committee process, which I mentioned below, really is a thing of wondrous accountability and the UK Parliamentary committees derived from seeing how effective the ones in the US were.
The HoL is a very different entity.
My point is that Senators elected on six years terms, not plonked there for life, are accountable to the electorate and anyone who has even the slightest comprehension of US politics will know how full-bore, and often acrimonious, Senate elections are. Some of the Senate battles are truly mesmerising.
If you're a Senator you know you face the electorate every six years. If you try to drift you will be taken down. It's all part of the intrinsically hard work ethos of the States which is so alien to the UK.
As an aside, look at work and holidays. The average US worker gets just 14 days holiday a year.
Here I agree with you, HOL is full of dross, parfty grifters and donors etc. You coudl dump teh lot and nobody woudl notice the difference other than saving a couple of million a week on their troughing.
Do you believe in a second chamber in general? I wonder if some of the Scottish Government's legal problems wouldn't have materialised if Holyrood had one.
At least it acts as a deterrent against pushing through political legislation that doesn't really work.
A modest proposal for HoL reform that needs no legislation is that an outgoing PM invites nominations from bodies whose knowledge and experience could enhance the Upper House and appoint them.
I’m thinking the Royal Colleges (eg Nursing), trade bodies, unions, certain charities etc etc. If Sunak or Starmer said that is what they would do on departure it could (emphasis could) set a precedent successors would find hard to abandon.
Parliament is already much too susceptible to lobbying from special interest groups, with obvious stakes in stopping reform in their industries, ossifying working practices and frustrating competition generally, unless of course it enriches them. Entrenching them further in our politics would increase yet further the difficulty of reforms that the country desperately needs.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
What a silly question. Of course not. What's your point?
Cars kill a lot of people every year.
The interesting question about automation is not whether automated cars will kill people. They will. But will they kill less?
IIRC there are already discussions about mandating automated emergency stop systems in new cars in EU regulations - which is a step towards self driving. A very, very small one. But from that you can see all kinds of possibilities to add further “rules” to such a system.
The sub isn’t comparable, really, to the other examples you list, by the way. The company deliberately operated the submarine to evade a regulatory environment that would have shut them down. There is specific regulation of private subs in the US and they were breaking lots of it.
The sub is outside US territorial waters. But it was their coastguard that ended up coordinating the investigative mission. I wonder if there might be a (Perhaps coordinated with Canada) seagrab so to speak over that area giving themselves the power to stop future ad hoc sub missions there. Would other countries challenge it - can see this muddying the (international) waters..
The US isn't going to claim huge chunks of international waters, just because they want to regulate. This would set off a free for all, worldwide, in which every big country would try and grab international waters. That would end in a very bad place.
The sensible approach - which is taken with rocketry, incidentally - is that regulation and responsibility can't be offshored. If I build a rocket, but launch it offshore or in another country, the original origin country is still legally responsible. And has regulatory authority.
That's not the way it works with shipping, and we'll probably sadly end up with a flags-of-convenience style scheme. Want to avoid all those costly regulations? Fly your rocketship out of Bermuda! Sail your submarine out of Vanuatu!
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
What a silly question. Of course not. What's your point?
Cars kill a lot of people every year.
The interesting question about automation is not whether automated cars will kill people. They will. But will they kill less?
IIRC there are already discussions about mandating automated emergency stop systems in new cars in EU regulations - which is a step towards self driving. A very, very small one. But from that you can see all kinds of possibilities to add further “rules” to such a system.
The sub isn’t comparable, really, to the other examples you list, by the way. The company deliberately operated the submarine to evade a regulatory environment that would have shut them down. There is specific regulation of private subs in the US and they were breaking lots of it.
The sub is outside US territorial waters. But it was their coastguard that ended up coordinating the investigative mission. I wonder if there might be a (Perhaps coordinated with Canada) seagrab so to speak over that area giving themselves the power to stop future ad hoc sub missions there. Would other countries challenge it - can see this muddying the (international) waters..
The US isn't going to claim huge chunks of international waters, just because they want to regulate. This would set off a free for all, worldwide, in which every big country would try and grab international waters. That would end in a very bad place.
The sensible approach - which is taken with rocketry, incidentally - is that regulation and responsibility can't be offshored. If I build a rocket, but launch it offshore or in another country, the original origin country is still legally responsible. And has regulatory authority.
The cruise industry lobbyists would spend millions to stop that happening. They very much like the status quo, of huge ships registered in Nassau and staffed with Filipinos.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
This is all well and good, but to achieve that level of debate you don't need membership for life, political appointees, arcane rituals, and so on. The idea that expertise can only be made available to the Commons in this manner is unspoken because it's so obviously false. And in matters of expertise, given the pace at which some subject matters move, especially around some sciences and technologies, the idea of keeping some fossil on the books whose practical experience in the subject hasn't been updated since the 1980s is clearly not the right way to get up to date expert advice. On top of all that, why would you need experts kept on the books for years on end when no legislation is incoming related to that?
The whole system is ossified, anachronistic, inefficient, inherently conservative, and if I might say so, not how any of us would design it if we were setting up a constitution from scratch.
If it was properly conservative it would still be a Lords mainly made up of hereditary peers
I don't think anybody really takes your idea of "properly conservative" seriously
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
This is all well and good, but to achieve that level of debate you don't need membership for life, political appointees, arcane rituals, and so on. The idea that expertise can only be made available to the Commons in this manner is unspoken because it's so obviously false. And in matters of expertise, given the pace at which some subject matters move, especially around some sciences and technologies, the idea of keeping some fossil on the books whose practical experience in the subject hasn't been updated since the 1980s is clearly not the right way to get up to date expert advice. On top of all that, why would you need experts kept on the books for years on end when no legislation is incoming related to that?
The whole system is ossified, anachronistic, inefficient, inherently conservative, and if I might say so, not how any of us would design it if we were setting up a constitution from scratch.
If it was properly conservative it would still be a Lords mainly made up of hereditary peers
I don't think anybody really takes your idea of "properly conservative" seriously
Because there are few real Tories now, even on here many Conservatives are really just centre right liberals or Brexit supporters
Obama is getting pilloried by Ukrainians for suggesting that a Ukrainian national identity separate from Russia only emerged after the annexation of Crimea, which didn't require an armed invasion because of all the Russian speakers.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
What a silly question. Of course not. What's your point?
Cars kill a lot of people every year.
The interesting question about automation is not whether automated cars will kill people. They will. But will they kill less?
IIRC there are already discussions about mandating automated emergency stop systems in new cars in EU regulations - which is a step towards self driving. A very, very small one. But from that you can see all kinds of possibilities to add further “rules” to such a system.
The sub isn’t comparable, really, to the other examples you list, by the way. The company deliberately operated the submarine to evade a regulatory environment that would have shut them down. There is specific regulation of private subs in the US and they were breaking lots of it.
The sub is outside US territorial waters. But it was their coastguard that ended up coordinating the investigative mission. I wonder if there might be a (Perhaps coordinated with Canada) seagrab so to speak over that area giving themselves the power to stop future ad hoc sub missions there. Would other countries challenge it - can see this muddying the (international) waters..
The US isn't going to claim huge chunks of international waters, just because they want to regulate. This would set off a free for all, worldwide, in which every big country would try and grab international waters. That would end in a very bad place.
The sensible approach - which is taken with rocketry, incidentally - is that regulation and responsibility can't be offshored. If I build a rocket, but launch it offshore or in another country, the original origin country is still legally responsible. And has regulatory authority.
That's not the way it works with shipping, and we'll probably sadly end up with a flags-of-convenience style scheme. Want to avoid all those costly regulations? Fly your rocketship out of Bermuda! Sail your submarine out of Vanuatu!
(I detest flags of convenience...)
The rocket/missile thing is settled international law - multiple treaties based on it. So, you can fly your rocket out of Bermuda, but in law, the originating country is responsible for it and has regulatory rights.
Hence Rocket Lab needing US approval for launches in New Zealand.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
This is all well and good, but to achieve that level of debate you don't need membership for life, political appointees, arcane rituals, and so on. The idea that expertise can only be made available to the Commons in this manner is unspoken because it's so obviously false. And in matters of expertise, given the pace at which some subject matters move, especially around some sciences and technologies, the idea of keeping some fossil on the books whose practical experience in the subject hasn't been updated since the 1980s is clearly not the right way to get up to date expert advice. On top of all that, why would you need experts kept on the books for years on end when no legislation is incoming related to that?
The whole system is ossified, anachronistic, inefficient, inherently conservative, and if I might say so, not how any of us would design it if we were setting up a constitution from scratch.
Oh, I'm not arguing for the pre-1908 House of Lords - just for intelligent, informed debate in public life.
Nothing wrong with arcane rituals. It's the sound bite chasing that is the problem. Combined with a deep certainty that I Know the Right Solution.
Consider - if the government had subsidised/implemented filling stations for non-carbon emitting cars, in the last couple of decades, they would have been hydrogen filling stations. Official Policy was that Hydrogen should replace petrol. Because of the oil companies (who fancied their chances as hydrogen producers) - think Industrial Strategy - and because of the tax problem caused by stopping using petrol. Hard to tax leccy more. Hydrogen would be nicely controllable - in a political sense.
Despite it being clear that hydrogen has missed the boat (largely) and that EVs have won, The Official Policy dragged on and on.
Not to forget the risks of a hydrogen tank in a collision are a magnitude different to the risks of a battery in one.
But yes, all the Official talk was of hydrogen. It is the free market that brought us EVs instead.
There are also nutters who drive round at 70mph+ sat on tanks full of petrol, you know!
Obama is getting pilloried by Ukrainians for suggesting that a Ukrainian national identity separate from Russia only emerged after the annexation of Crimea, which didn't require an armed invasion because of all the Russian speakers.
The main utility of that's going to be preventing crashes at about 5 MPH in slow moving stop go traffic tbh.
Which is extremely useful. That is a not insignificant proportion of accidents.
My only time I've had to pay out on my insurance was an accident like that. Roundabout off a motorway, we'd stopped but now the roundabout was completely clear and the van ahead of me went to pull onto the roundabout, I went to follow, then for no reason at all the van stopped, and as I was looking more at the roundabout to see it was still clear I nudged into him before I stopped too. No other vehicles on the roundabout still.
No visible damage at all on his vehicle, he immediately came out cursing and saying "look you broke the back door" and grabbed the handle but the door was working just fine and there was no visible damage not even to either of our bumpers. Exchanged insurance details but thought wouldn't hear anything of it again since neither of our vehicles had sustained any damage at all.
Then came the claim. Whiplash and his sex life was affected apparently. And my insurance company paid out and took my excess on that. 🤦♂️
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
At the moment rejoin the EU still has less than 50% support, but rejoin the EU or rejoin the single market has nearly 60% support amongst all voters (though 70% of Remainers would rejoin the full EU).
However, amongst Leavers the median position is to stay out of the EU and single market still (hence either would be political suicide in the redwall and Leave voting Tory marginals Starmer must win to become PM). Leavers do want a closer trade and security relationship with the EU though which is Labour's current position.
If he wins back the marginals he needs to become PM then Labour can start to consider rejoining the single market if it wins a second term. If Labour won a third term some in the party might even then push to rejoin the full EU
Noted. The swing opinion - the middling one of stay out of SM but get closer - is precisely the one which the Brexit deal would have achieved if it could. And it's the one involving a great deal of hand waving. No-one can tell you what it looks like. Except that it looked like a unicorn then and it does now.
Good morning
Sunak needs to spring a huge surprise early next year and announce he will take us back into the singe market
As a Remainer here’s a list of things I want Labour to bring in if it can get agreement with the EU .
Youth/student mobility scheme. 6 month stays in the EU not the current 90 in a 180 days . Return to Erasmus . Relax rules on the creative industries . Vetinerary agreement to help farming and fisheries .
There are others but I really don’t see why any of the above should be controversial.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
This is all well and good, but to achieve that level of debate you don't need membership for life, political appointees, arcane rituals, and so on. The idea that expertise can only be made available to the Commons in this manner is unspoken because it's so obviously false. And in matters of expertise, given the pace at which some subject matters move, especially around some sciences and technologies, the idea of keeping some fossil on the books whose practical experience in the subject hasn't been updated since the 1980s is clearly not the right way to get up to date expert advice. On top of all that, why would you need experts kept on the books for years on end when no legislation is incoming related to that?
The whole system is ossified, anachronistic, inefficient, inherently conservative, and if I might say so, not how any of us would design it if we were setting up a constitution from scratch.
Oh, I'm not arguing for the pre-1908 House of Lords - just for intelligent, informed debate in public life.
Nothing wrong with arcane rituals. It's the sound bite chasing that is the problem. Combined with a deep certainty that I Know the Right Solution.
Consider - if the government had subsidised/implemented filling stations for non-carbon emitting cars, in the last couple of decades, they would have been hydrogen filling stations. Official Policy was that Hydrogen should replace petrol. Because of the oil companies (who fancied their chances as hydrogen producers) - think Industrial Strategy - and because of the tax problem caused by stopping using petrol. Hard to tax leccy more. Hydrogen would be nicely controllable - in a political sense.
Despite it being clear that hydrogen has missed the boat (largely) and that EVs have won, The Official Policy dragged on and on.
Not to forget the risks of a hydrogen tank in a collision are a magnitude different to the risks of a battery in one.
But yes, all the Official talk was of hydrogen. It is the free market that brought us EVs instead.
There are also nutters who drive round at 70mph+ sat on tanks full of petrol, you know!
We used to say, when I worked in the oil business, that if you invented petrol today, you wouldn't be allowed to sell it to the general public.
It's inflammable, explosive, toxic, carcinogenic - and those are just the basic hazards.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
This is all well and good, but to achieve that level of debate you don't need membership for life, political appointees, arcane rituals, and so on. The idea that expertise can only be made available to the Commons in this manner is unspoken because it's so obviously false. And in matters of expertise, given the pace at which some subject matters move, especially around some sciences and technologies, the idea of keeping some fossil on the books whose practical experience in the subject hasn't been updated since the 1980s is clearly not the right way to get up to date expert advice. On top of all that, why would you need experts kept on the books for years on end when no legislation is incoming related to that?
The whole system is ossified, anachronistic, inefficient, inherently conservative, and if I might say so, not how any of us would design it if we were setting up a constitution from scratch.
Oh, I'm not arguing for the pre-1908 House of Lords - just for intelligent, informed debate in public life.
Nothing wrong with arcane rituals. It's the sound bite chasing that is the problem. Combined with a deep certainty that I Know the Right Solution.
Consider - if the government had subsidised/implemented filling stations for non-carbon emitting cars, in the last couple of decades, they would have been hydrogen filling stations. Official Policy was that Hydrogen should replace petrol. Because of the oil companies (who fancied their chances as hydrogen producers) - think Industrial Strategy - and because of the tax problem caused by stopping using petrol. Hard to tax leccy more. Hydrogen would be nicely controllable - in a political sense.
Despite it being clear that hydrogen has missed the boat (largely) and that EVs have won, The Official Policy dragged on and on.
I should note that some oil companies are still chasing hydrogen as a power source with various exploration projects in recent years. Not necessarily with a view to making hydrogen cars a thing any more, but as an industrial or domestic fuel I think there is still some belief in hydrogen.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
Obama is getting pilloried by Ukrainians for suggesting that a Ukrainian national identity separate from Russia only emerged after the annexation of Crimea, which didn't require an armed invasion because of all the Russian speakers.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
At the moment rejoin the EU still has less than 50% support, but rejoin the EU or rejoin the single market has nearly 60% support amongst all voters (though 70% of Remainers would rejoin the full EU).
However, amongst Leavers the median position is to stay out of the EU and single market still (hence either would be political suicide in the redwall and Leave voting Tory marginals Starmer must win to become PM). Leavers do want a closer trade and security relationship with the EU though which is Labour's current position.
If he wins back the marginals he needs to become PM then Labour can start to consider rejoining the single market if it wins a second term. If Labour won a third term some in the party might even then push to rejoin the full EU
Noted. The swing opinion - the middling one of stay out of SM but get closer - is precisely the one which the Brexit deal would have achieved if it could. And it's the one involving a great deal of hand waving. No-one can tell you what it looks like. Except that it looked like a unicorn then and it does now.
Good morning
Sunak needs to spring a huge surprise early next year and announce he will take us back into the singe market
Now that would be a game changer
Yes, it means free movement and RefUK would probably replace the Tories as the main opposition while Starmer Labour would sweep every seat in the Redwall and with RefUK take a number of Tory Leave seats Cameron and May won.
The LDs would switch to Rejoin EU and take many more Remain seats and so the Tories could even end up 4th or even 5th behind the SNP too
As a Remainer here’s a list of things I want Labour to bring in if it can get agreement with the EU .
Youth/student mobility scheme. 6 month stays in the EU not the current 90 in a 180 days . Return to Erasmus . Relax rules on the creative industries . Vetinerary agreement to help farming and fisheries .
There are others but I really don’t see why any of the above should be controversial.
It seems Sunak has already indicated he is working with UVDL on most of those
I've just had an absolutely lovely run. It was not too hot this morning, and mist was rising from the grass after the overnight rain. Scores of rabbits were gambolling about, and a deer nonchalantly looked up as I jogged past.
In these summer mornings, it is worth getting up early and going into the local countryside - or even a local park - just before and/or after dawn, to see nature at its freshest. One of life's free joys.
We've not had any rabbits around here for over a year now as a virus took them all out. But it is a rare walk in the woods (my knees are not really up for running these days) where I don't see a deer, mainly roe but the odd red.
Ditto here. Saw a young roe fawn in the long grass of a meadow within sight of houses the other day.
Their numbers are seriously up, they must be causing significant losses to farmers.
The Scottish government has stopped the use of a chemical for controlling bracken and, indirectly ticks. The son of friends of ours lost 2 years of his life to Lymes disease, having to defer his University place. It is a deeply pernicious disease and he is still not fully over it.
Quite righ about deer; I do my best by buying and eating local venison, woke as it is.
Ticks aren't particularly specific to bracken, though - they're quite happy to use long grass, heather, and so on as we know ourselves (even though we never wear shorts on country walks, tuck in our socks, etc). The worst problem is the small instars (immature ones) which are difficult to spot. We have a couple of cheap plastic tick extractors stashed in our rucksacks.
The idea that farmers/landowners want to control bracken and thereby ticks out of concern for walkers on their land is most entertaining. Tbf it seems to be SCons pushing this particular line. How many of them are farmers and/or landowners I couldn’t say.
The control of deer is also politically interesting - though ISTR it's species based. Lots of Red Deer = Good in Toryland, becauyse of hunting estates (and fuck the vegetation). It's usually the (real) ecologists who want a lower, and more realistic, population density - the problem being that deer move between landowners' parcels.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
This is all well and good, but to achieve that level of debate you don't need membership for life, political appointees, arcane rituals, and so on. The idea that expertise can only be made available to the Commons in this manner is unspoken because it's so obviously false. And in matters of expertise, given the pace at which some subject matters move, especially around some sciences and technologies, the idea of keeping some fossil on the books whose practical experience in the subject hasn't been updated since the 1980s is clearly not the right way to get up to date expert advice. On top of all that, why would you need experts kept on the books for years on end when no legislation is incoming related to that?
The whole system is ossified, anachronistic, inefficient, inherently conservative, and if I might say so, not how any of us would design it if we were setting up a constitution from scratch.
If it was properly conservative it would still be a Lords mainly made up of hereditary peers
I don't think anybody really takes your idea of "properly conservative" seriously
Jacob Rees Mogg thinks that HYUFD takes it a bit far.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
Strom Thurmond was an extraordinary politician. He switched from Democrat to Republican. He conducted the longest ever single filibuster by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length. He was also a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
That may be true for a few super rich and elite politician Americans, the average American certainly wants to retire by mid 60s
That's a slightly different point. "I want to retire before I'm old" is not incompatible with "I rdespect and will vote for people willing to carry on indefinitely".
I think we overdo the ageism a bit in British politics. Speaking personally I'd be delighted to have another term and immodestly think I'd be better than some, but it's really unlikely to happen at age 73 so I'm not even trying. (Being CLP chair and on the Borough exec is a compromise.)
Anecdotally, when I was one of Corbyn's constituents and had half an hour with him talking about diverse topics, I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords. He looked suitably nonplussed and we hastily moved on.
As an MP, I was well aware that there were plenty of subjects about which I knew nothing... An opinion/recommendation from respected experts in the Lords would have been useful.
I said I wouldn't be a bad hard-working loyalist if he wanted to stick me in the Lords
Anyone else see a contradiction here?
No, absolutely none.
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
This is all well and good, but to achieve that level of debate you don't need membership for life, political appointees, arcane rituals, and so on. The idea that expertise can only be made available to the Commons in this manner is unspoken because it's so obviously false. And in matters of expertise, given the pace at which some subject matters move, especially around some sciences and technologies, the idea of keeping some fossil on the books whose practical experience in the subject hasn't been updated since the 1980s is clearly not the right way to get up to date expert advice. On top of all that, why would you need experts kept on the books for years on end when no legislation is incoming related to that?
The whole system is ossified, anachronistic, inefficient, inherently conservative, and if I might say so, not how any of us would design it if we were setting up a constitution from scratch.
If it was properly conservative it would still be a Lords mainly made up of hereditary peers
I don't think anybody really takes your idea of "properly conservative" seriously
Because there are few real Tories now, even on here many Conservatives are really just centre right liberals or Brexit supporters
A real Tory is surely someone who was on the side of the King and Church in the political struggles of the Exclusion Crisis of the 1670s and of the Stuarts against the Hanoverians. Are you still siding with that bunch of losers?
Or are you defining real Tories as people who agree with you all the time?
I've just had an absolutely lovely run. It was not too hot this morning, and mist was rising from the grass after the overnight rain. Scores of rabbits were gambolling about, and a deer nonchalantly looked up as I jogged past.
In these summer mornings, it is worth getting up early and going into the local countryside - or even a local park - just before and/or after dawn, to see nature at its freshest. One of life's free joys.
We've not had any rabbits around here for over a year now as a virus took them all out. But it is a rare walk in the woods (my knees are not really up for running these days) where I don't see a deer, mainly roe but the odd red.
Ditto here. Saw a young roe fawn in the long grass of a meadow within sight of houses the other day.
Their numbers are seriously up, they must be causing significant losses to farmers.
The Scottish government has stopped the use of a chemical for controlling bracken and, indirectly ticks. The son of friends of ours lost 2 years of his life to Lymes disease, having to defer his University place. It is a deeply pernicious disease and he is still not fully over it.
Quite righ about deer; I do my best by buying and eating local venison, woke as it is.
Ticks aren't particularly specific to bracken, though - they're quite happy to use long grass, heather, and so on as we know ourselves (even though we never wear shorts on country walks, tuck in our socks, etc). The worst problem is the small instars (immature ones) which are difficult to spot. We have a couple of cheap plastic tick extractors stashed in our rucksacks.
Mrs Flatlander had Lyme a few years ago despite us always taking precautions. She had trouble persuading the local GP to give her the correct (3 week) dosage of antibiotics but we got there in the end and she's been OK.
I've had 3 ticks so far this year - and that's just walking round innocuous local nature reserves in the Flatlands - wearing long trousers and gaiters - and not just western Scotland where they've always been a pain.
Admittedly we tend to go off path through vegetation when surveying, but something has changed.
I don't think it is climate but is likely to be a big increase in deer population.
Could be climate - fewer hard winters killing off fewer tick instars and deer hosts. But just to add a turd to the punchbowl mix -
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
At the moment rejoin the EU still has less than 50% support, but rejoin the EU or rejoin the single market has nearly 60% support amongst all voters (though 70% of Remainers would rejoin the full EU).
However, amongst Leavers the median position is to stay out of the EU and single market still (hence either would be political suicide in the redwall and Leave voting Tory marginals Starmer must win to become PM). Leavers do want a closer trade and security relationship with the EU though which is Labour's current position.
If he wins back the marginals he needs to become PM then Labour can start to consider rejoining the single market if it wins a second term. If Labour won a third term some in the party might even then push to rejoin the full EU
Noted. The swing opinion - the middling one of stay out of SM but get closer - is precisely the one which the Brexit deal would have achieved if it could. And it's the one involving a great deal of hand waving. No-one can tell you what it looks like. Except that it looked like a unicorn then and it does now.
Good morning
Sunak needs to spring a huge surprise early next year and announce he will take us back into the singe market
Now that would be a game changer
Yes, it means free movement and RefUK would probably replace the Tories as the main opposition while Starmer Labour would sweep every seat in the Redwall
Why don't you just join RefUK as you act as a de facto supporter
You seem to have this quaint idea RefUK with approx 5% support are going to become some dynamic force in UK politics
As far as the red wall is concerned it is lost anyway
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I mean, I don't know what you think has been said was "left-wing" but I'd call this an almost classical tale of hubris.
Rich guy, who had literally been interviewed saying that safety is a waste and that the sub would be fine - even had it pointed out to him that people said the titanic was unsinkable - goes to view the titanic (a monument to hubris). Obviously nemesis happens and the sub implodes. All the memes and stuff? That's just catharsis. We, the audience, most of whom will never see quarter of a million in our lifetimes, find this cathartic because it is how things should be. Hubris, nemesis, catharsis.
You may be right, but your understanding of Aristotles theory of tragedy is, ahem, defective. The catharsis is meant to result from release from the pity and fear we feel for/on behalf of the victims, not from a sort of class based spite.
On topic. I agree with Mike. A Trump/Biden rerun is far from nailed on. Biden is more likely to make it than Trump but I can easily see neither being on the ballot. It's more likely than both of them featuring imo. I rate the 4 possible scenarios as below:
Biden v Trump: 15% Other Dem v Trump: 10% Biden v Other GOP: 50% Other v Other: 25%
Touch of false precision there but you get the idea.
Age is not of itself a bar, especially in the US where the work hard ethos is part of the American dream and I think @MikeSmithson is misreading the cultural differences.
In the US hard work is part of the American Dream. If you're fit and able you work on, and on. As I've posted before, there have been several nonagenarian elected Senators, and there are currently two serving senators who are over 89 years old. The oldest serving senator was Strom Thurmond who crossed the 100 mark whilst still in office. This is something unthinkable in the UK and alien to our culture where 'retirement' is the dream, as opposed to working hard and making your way until the end. For a fictional portrayal of this point, see Brian Cox's character in Succession.
And guess who delivered the eulogy at both Strom Thurmond's funeral and burial plot? Yep ... one Joe Biden.
So I wouldn't bank any of your money on Joe standing down. If he remains sufficiently agile mentally and physically then he will erm ... run.
I question this, as I have before.
Long serving Senators in the US upper house may stay there for a long time.
It is also the case here. In the UK upper house - the Lords - we have had plenty of people in their late 90s. The oldest current member is Lord Christopher, aged 98
You may question Matt but as someone who studied US politics, formally for a qualification, I suggest your knowledge is lacking.
There's a huge difference between Senators and Lords in the UK second chamber. Unlike the HoL, US Senators are all elected for six years terms (there's no such thing as unelected or hereditary Senators) and they work hard: on average 70 hours a week. Lords here are unelected and don't even have to attend.
This is another classic example of Brits completely failing to understand the US Constitution.
From a betting point of view, don't bet on things you don't know much about.
Another major difference is that Senators are able to introduce legislation just as freely as Congressmen. So, the Senate is not a second chamber in the sense that might normally be understood in Europe - its role is not to revise, approve or reject legislation coming from the House of Representatives. Given its vetting role, though, you could see it as the senior chamber, perhaps.
The Lords can introduce legislation as well though, no?
It's not a regular part of the system. The Lords is there primarily as a revising chamber. The US Senate is a regular source of proposed legislation.
It's not at all remarkable for Government bills to originate in the Lords. 10 of the 53 in the current session originated in the upper house. Private members bills in the House of Lords also aren't unusual.
Bottom line, though, is that a British government's entire legitimacy derives from a majority in the Commons, and the latter could if it chose abolish the Lords. So in no sense are they coequal chambers. The US House and Senate are set up as such in Article 1 of the US Constitution.
In practice, the Senate is probably the more powerful of the two, now, given its role in vetting SCOTUS appointments, and the fact that Senators are elected for six years rather than two.
Practice changes, though. As I expect we'll see, perhaps in the next few years, with the currently over assertive Supreme Court.
The reality is that the powers of the branches of government are largely defined by Constitution, and while the Supreme Court has played fast and loose with its role in adjudicating the interpretation of the Constitution, it does so on the sufferance of Congress.
Far to say that an individual Senator has far more influence than a Congressperson, but conversely the House has a better claim to democratic legitimacy in representing the voice of the people.
Comments
And I can see why an ex-MP (especially 1 living in London) would love to be in the Lords (even ignoring the daily fees)...
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
Gamekeepers do have problems with ticks on birds so have an incentive to control them, but I believe the bird tick species are different to the ones that attach to humans (I find mostly Ixodes ricinus).
As Carynx says though, bracken is not really the issue. Deer population seems to be the main factor.
The worst places here are on our two moors (remnant lowland mires, not hills) where there is a significant Red deer population, although the problem is not limited to just those places.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
The techbros need tackling on this.
Sometimes regulation *is* good.
(1): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lathen_train_collision
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/23/britons-who-want-to-rejoin-eu-at-highest-since-2016-survey-finds
Small storage sites - up to a 10 or 12MWh - don’t need the full power station planning permission thing. So no enquiry lasting decades.
So at EV charging sites, add in a couple of shipping containers of batteries - no planning and very little anyone can do to stop you. This will provide time shifting to arbitrage cheap leccy - and excess capacity can be used for grid storage.
Yes, expensive - but avoiding a decade of planning will make this the cheap option.
I know that Nick has areas of interest where he may be an expert (perhaps animal welfare? but then being interested doesn't make you an expert so I don't know). But being in the Lords affords you a lot of opportunities to vote on things that are outwith that expertise. And because expertise is, by definition, minority and niche even a body made up only of experts is, on any specific subject, non-majority expert.
To make the last point more concrete, suppose you have Lord Nick of Brox who is an animal welfare expert. He sits in the Lords and every so often his noble colleague listen to his contributions on animal welfare, sagely nodding at his thoughtful, compassionate, and witty observations.
Then they go and vote loyally along party lines anyway.
And the flip side, when someone chimes in on their expertise, perhaps aviation safety standards about which our hypothetical Lord Nick knows nothing and doesn't need to know anything because he's there to be "loyal". What is gained?
Unless being a Negative Nancy is an Old White Guy thing?
Rather than a hopeful, optimistic wokist?
Before Challenger, NASA put the risks of a loss-of-crew event at 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 100,000. After Challenger, they put it at between 1 in 50 and 1 in 100. It turned out to be around 1 in 65.
People making decisions on risks need to have full information on those risks - and it's in the interest of commercial organisations to downplay those risks.
Witness also Virgin Galactic.
But I was considering Nick's hypothetical Lords reform, which would take away completely the ability of the Lords to delay legislation.
Which in itself suggests he'd hardly be the kind of loyalist you describe.
Also had loads after wandering through some dunes/hinterland, which was a surprise.
I know four people with Lyme's - one was off school for a year, another had to retire early. You have to smash it with antibiotics immediately.
Also strongly recommend the card tick remover, because you never lose it if you keep in your wallet.
Adding to all this, the midges are insane this year for complex meteorological reasons.
As far as I am aware any advances in autonomous driver-assistance for driving (since we don't have autonomous driving yet and may never do so) that has been allowed in the road has rather consistently been an upgrade to safety not a downgrade.
Any crash of a Tesla etc gets masses of attention whereas a thousand crashes of Vauxhalls etc get none. Its a bit like the airplane fallacy.
- The institutional structure of the EEA isn't suitable for a large and difficult country
- Neither the EU nor the existing members want us to join because it would disturb a stable arrangement
- It doesn't make sense politically because you have the drawbacks (depending on perspective) of EU membership without regaining a true seat at the table
If Labour wanted to go in that direction, it would be more likely to come in the form of a renegotiated TCA based on new red lines.
However, amongst Leavers the median position is to stay out of the EU and single market still (hence either would be political suicide in the redwall and Leave voting Tory marginals Starmer must win to become PM). Leavers do want a closer trade and security relationship with the EU though which is Labour's current position.
If he wins back the marginals he needs to become PM then Labour can start to consider rejoining the single market if it wins a second term. If Labour won a third term some in the party might even then push to rejoin the full EU
https://twitter.com/DavidGauke/status/1671933402784710678?s=20
Some years back, I was reading through some old debates in Parliament and the Lords.
One struck me - it was a discussion, in the Lords, about the introduction of the famous Lee-Enfield No.4 rifle. The one carried by British soldiers in both world wars.
The depth of debate was fascinating - as usual on such things, there was a group who wanted the most accurate rifle possible be a group who wanted reliability. But both groups acknowledge their biases. They discussed possible flaws in their own thinking, suggested ways to test if the rifle actually met their concerns. There were a number of shooting experts and former soldiers in the debate of course.
The whole thing was a group of obviously intelligent people trying to buy the best all round option - both for the public purse, but also for the Army.
One comment stood out. Something like “I thank the Noble Lord for his response to my comment. I hadn’t considered X. It is a very good point and in consequence I withdraw my comment.”
People who can publicly admit they are mistaken in a discussion…
Data showed 58% would vote to re-enter bloc, while more respondents said they trusted the European Commission more than the UK government
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/23/britons-who-want-to-rejoin-eu-at-highest-since-2016-survey-finds
This is perhaps the most interesting trend.
...While sentiment towards EU membership has shifted significantly in Britain since the referendum, a slim majority of respondents (51%) say they still think it is unlikely Britain will rejoin the EU at some future point in the future.
Again, however, that figure has been falling more or less consistently – it stood at 62% two years ago – and 29% of respondents in Britain told YouGov in April they think it is likely the country will rejoin – up from 21% in early 2021...
"Future point in the future" is pretty ugly writing, Guardian eds.
Do you have evidence that a Tesla* is more dangerous with driver assistance than eg a Vauxhall* without it for instance?
* Other makes are available.
Rich guy, who had literally been interviewed saying that safety is a waste and that the sub would be fine - even had it pointed out to him that people said the titanic was unsinkable - goes to view the titanic (a monument to hubris). Obviously nemesis happens and the sub implodes. All the memes and stuff? That's just catharsis. We, the audience, most of whom will never see quarter of a million in our lifetimes, find this cathartic because it is how things should be. Hubris, nemesis, catharsis.
Marjorie Taylor Greene just explained to a reporter why she called Lauren Boebert a “little bitch” to her face on the House floor yesterday: “She has genuinely been a nasty little bitch to me.”
I don't like the Lords in theory, but in practice I have to admit as a revising and initiating chamber it works to help the Commons.
But the Commons are the ultimate decision makers. The Lords can initiate a bill and say "we think this is a good idea, what do you think?" The Lords can amend a bill and say "we think this might assist what you're trying to do, what do you think?"
But the Commons should and must get the final say. The Commons can take on board the advice of the Lords and decide they want to proceed with it, or discard it entirely, that is up to the MPs we have elected.
The interesting question about automation is not whether automated cars will kill people. They will. But will they kill less?
IIRC there are already discussions about mandating automated emergency stop systems in new cars in EU regulations - which is a step towards self driving. A very, very small one. But from that you can see all kinds of possibilities to add further “rules” to such a system.
The sub isn’t comparable, really, to the other examples you list, by the way. The company deliberately operated the submarine to evade a regulatory environment that would have shut them down. There is specific regulation of private subs in the US and they were breaking lots of it.
https://twitter.com/DavidGauke/status/1671933402784710678?s=20
Once a bedsore develops, it can take days, months, or even years to heal. It can also become infected, causing fever and chills. An infected bedsore can take a long time to clear up. As the infection spreads through your body, it can also cause mental confusion, a fast heartbeat, and generalized weakness.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4166793/#Comment_4166793
And if you remove their votes, and give them only a non exclusive power to initiate legislation, what is the point of them ?
If government just wants a set of experts to consult, it can consult a set of experts.
This comes into the point of my original post: techbros so keen to push new stuff that safety becomes a secondary factor, not a primary one. And unlike (say) a submarine or suborbital rocket, it potentially affects all other road users.
Let me ask you a question: why do you trust them?
The idea that expertise can only be made available to the Commons in this manner is unspoken because it's so obviously false. And in matters of expertise, given the pace at which some subject matters move, especially around some sciences and technologies, the idea of keeping some fossil on the books whose practical experience in the subject hasn't been updated since the 1980s is clearly not the right way to get up to date expert advice. On top of all that, why would you need experts kept on the books for years on end when no legislation is incoming related to that?
The whole system is ossified, anachronistic, inefficient, inherently conservative, and if I might say so, not how any of us would design it if we were setting up a constitution from scratch.
So while a clear majority want closer ties with the EU than now, support for being in the full EU is actually less than it was in 2016 on that basis
It's funny how you get used to these things though. I've still got my old car (for the kids to learn to drive) which I still use sometimes and which obviously has no such technology. Now, when I use it, I find myself thinking, rather weirdly, drive carefully now, there's nothing to stop you crashing. Hell, I could even drive straight into that wall, and nothing would try to stop me!
Anything more fundamental would get bogged in interminable argument.
Everything, apparently.
Of course they shouldn't have sole power to initiate legislation.
If it were up to me I wouldn't remove their voting rights, but I would remove the time threshold from the Parliament Act, so that the Commons can immediately say no to the Lords rather than after a time delay.
Ukrainians are using American shells from the M110 howitzer for their 2S7 Pions.
https://twitter.com/ItsArtoir/status/1672000776774754304
Obsolete, but still in use here and there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M110_howitzer
Nothing wrong with arcane rituals. It's the sound bite chasing that is the problem. Combined with a deep certainty that I Know the Right Solution.
Consider - if the government had subsidised/implemented filling stations for non-carbon emitting cars, in the last couple of decades, they would have been hydrogen filling stations. Official Policy was that Hydrogen should replace petrol. Because of the oil companies (who fancied their chances as hydrogen producers) - think Industrial Strategy - and because of the tax problem caused by stopping using petrol. Hard to tax leccy more. Hydrogen would be nicely controllable - in a political sense.
Despite it being clear that hydrogen has missed the boat (largely) and that EVs have won, The Official Policy dragged on and on.
Being mobile is part of being healthy. Life has risks, trying to avoid them and becoming agoraphobic has been shown to reduce not increase your life expectancy.
But yes, all the Official talk was of hydrogen. It is the free market that brought us EVs instead.
The sensible approach - which is taken with rocketry, incidentally - is that regulation and responsibility can't be offshored. If I build a rocket, but launch it offshore or in another country, the original origin country is still legally responsible. And has regulatory authority.
Lima’s Central restaurant named world’s best in boost for Peruvian cuisine
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/23/limas-central-restaurant-named-worlds-best-in-boost-for-peruvian-cuisine
The main utility of that's going to be preventing crashes at about 5 MPH in slow moving stop go traffic tbh.
(I detest flags of convenience...)
https://twitter.com/amanpour/status/1672069416060702721
Hence Rocket Lab needing US approval for launches in New Zealand.
My only time I've had to pay out on my insurance was an accident like that. Roundabout off a motorway, we'd stopped but now the roundabout was completely clear and the van ahead of me went to pull onto the roundabout, I went to follow, then for no reason at all the van stopped, and as I was looking more at the roundabout to see it was still clear I nudged into him before I stopped too. No other vehicles on the roundabout still.
No visible damage at all on his vehicle, he immediately came out cursing and saying "look you broke the back door" and grabbed the handle but the door was working just fine and there was no visible damage not even to either of our bumpers. Exchanged insurance details but thought wouldn't hear anything of it again since neither of our vehicles had sustained any damage at all.
Then came the claim. Whiplash and his sex life was affected apparently. And my insurance company paid out and took my excess on that. 🤦♂️
Sunak needs to spring a huge surprise early next year and announce he will take us back into the singe market
Now that would be a game changer
Youth/student mobility scheme.
6 month stays in the EU not the current 90 in a 180 days .
Return to Erasmus .
Relax rules on the creative industries .
Vetinerary agreement to help farming and fisheries .
There are others but I really don’t see why any of the above should be controversial.
It's inflammable, explosive, toxic, carcinogenic - and those are just the basic hazards.
Not necessarily with a view to making hydrogen cars a thing any more, but as an industrial or domestic fuel I think there is still some belief in hydrogen.
https://twitter.com/LadyDoctorSays/status/1671700989429297152?t=c9hs6TmTTqh_4vpw3HcN4w&s=19
And evidently a degree of historical ignorance.
The LDs would switch to Rejoin EU and take many more Remain seats and so the Tories could even end up 4th or even 5th behind the SNP too
Or are you defining real Tories as people who agree with you all the time?
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2352060-lyme-disease-may-spread-further-by-helping-ticks-survive-cold-winters/
You seem to have this quaint idea RefUK with approx 5% support are going to become some dynamic force in UK politics
As far as the red wall is concerned it is lost anyway
Biden v Trump: 15%
Other Dem v Trump: 10%
Biden v Other GOP: 50%
Other v Other: 25%
Touch of false precision there but you get the idea.
As I expect we'll see, perhaps in the next few years, with the currently over assertive Supreme Court.
The reality is that the powers of the branches of government are largely defined by Constitution, and while the Supreme Court has played fast and loose with its role in adjudicating the interpretation of the Constitution, it does so on the sufferance of Congress.
Far to say that an individual Senator has far more influence than a Congressperson, but conversely the House has a better claim to democratic legitimacy in representing the voice of the people.