Reading a review of a new documentary about Alex Jones and his Sandy Hook conspiracy in the Guardian, contains this truly shocking line: "...one in four Americans believes Jones’s claim that the 2012 murder of 20 small children and six staff at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, never happened."
Thank you all for your feedback on the cash and TV question. Some surprising responses.
For the record, I am watching the BBC News right now on an actual tellybox, and I paid cash for a sausage bap on Saturday as that was the only available payment method.
"There is no time for sleep either – save for a three-minute power nap before the last of the five loops – which unsurprisingly led to hallucinations. “I saw quite a lot of people in black macintoshes,” she says. “They were climbing the same hill as me, always a certain distance ahead. And it was bizarre, they all had a sinister foreboding feel to them."
Something I've never encountered, but would quite like to push myself to see.
They're a well-known phenomenon. Perhaps @Leon should try this for his next hallucinatory trip?
No aerials in our house. Cash for the chinese & tradies.
Why do the takeaway and tradesmen demand cash? BACS is quicker and vastly easier to administer and account for.
I'm scratching my head as to what the reason could be!!
Lack of a paper trail
In some cases it is a tax dodge, in other cases a holdover from the not too distant past when card fees were astronomical for businesses. It used to be common for shops not to take cards below a certain amount.
Thank you all for your feedback on the cash and TV question. Some surprising responses.
For the record, I am watching the BBC News right now on an actual tellybox, and I paid cash for a sausage bap on Saturday as that was the only available payment method.
Reading a review of a new documentary about Alex Jones and his Sandy Hook conspiracy in the Guardian, contains this truly shocking line: "...one in four Americans believes Jones’s claim that the 2012 murder of 20 small children and six staff at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, never happened."
I guess if your entire country was founded on a conspiracy theory they become quite easy to swallow. I suspect such a stat if it is accurate is more a reflection on the state of critical thinking in the USA than the influence of Jones.
This Baltimore tragedy is bringing out the worst on Twitter. People reposting the video, and saying things like "See how it turns towards the bridge!", without noting the power outage(s). It's conspiracy sh*t, and ones that spread fast as people try to get the hot news. Or saying it was a cyberattack, or terrorism, etc, etc.
I appreciate that this may just be me seeing what I want to see but I have become aware of signs that men in particular are getting fed up with 'woke' ; I went out for a few beers last night and on the fourth pint, my friend was agreeing on subjects like that cancelling people had gone too far, that the kids will get fed up with the totalitarian indoctrination in schools on issues like 'gender' and 'hate speech' and rebel against it; that the woke right (ie Trump 2024) are an inevitable and predictable response to the extremes of the 'woke left', etc etc. It is only a personal anecdote but for many years this group of friends were very accepting of the zeitgeist but now I am detecting that they are changing and seeing the world differently. I've also seen this with older friends as well who start to look at the left and right and comment 'they are both as bad as each other'. Something also increasingly evident with commentators on here.
But is that just a cohort effect? As we get older, we get more distant from the zeitgeist.
GET ME THE FUCK BACK TO COLD GREY DEPRESSING LONDON
You really don't want to be here. I am in London with a fire on, 2 thick woolly layers, a snood, wrist warmers and a blanket and am still freezing as well as looking as depressed and fed up as Whistler's Mother.
Jeez. It does look pretty bad. One nice day. Otherwise perpetual late February
It should not be 10C max and sunless in early April
Five sunny days forecast, and some cloud and rain to keep the flowers happy. What are you moaning about?
The outlook is giving moo until the 5-6th of April.
It is what the kids say to describe inelegant, ugly or unappealing: e.g.: "i look like a cow today. This outfit is giving moo."
I teach undergrads so I pick up the lingeri 😆😆😆
Lingeri = lingo
My keyboard was on Danish spell check 😅
It’s fine. Everyone just assumed you’re a professor who likes to go round picking up his students’ lingerie
Nothing won’t with that. Don’t listen to the naysayers and the busybodies
Every departments got one - the academic who is just too friendly with the undergraduates. Sometimes it’s goes a bit too far. A few years ago we had an older colleague who dated and fathered a child with a PhD student (not his own). Sadly did not end well - he took his own life as lots of the brown smelly was about to hit the fan. I miss him - he was a decent sort, at heart.
But stay away from the students is very, very sound advice.
Just before Christmas I rewatched the dramatisation of 'The History Man'. Very well worth a track down if you can.
@ohnotnow, Where did you find it? I've wanted to watch it for years!
Pop me a dm and I'm sure I can pop my copy online. It does seem a bit tricky to track down
I've flicked thru it. It's hypnotic and appalling. Leaving aside the fact that everybody smokes, I was struck by how badly groomed everybody was, with poor teeth, clothing and haircuts. The sex was...there and a bit ew. The car parks were unfeasibly empty for 2020 so I assume fewer people had cars. His car was rubbish. The University (Lancaster?) was typical for the post-60s expansion and - all together now - based on a Swedish prison (allegedly). Miriam Margolyes was impossibly young. Isla Blair was the only person whose grooming would pass muster in the 2020s. Anthony Sher was weirdly dressed. Lord it was a different time...
I appreciate that this may just be me seeing what I want to see but I have become aware of signs that men in particular are getting fed up with 'woke' ; I went out for a few beers last night and on the fourth pint, my friend was agreeing on subjects like that cancelling people had gone too far, that the kids will get fed up with the totalitarian indoctrination in schools on issues like 'gender' and 'hate speech' and rebel against it; that the woke right (ie Trump 2024) are an inevitable and predictable response to the extremes of the 'woke left', etc etc. It is only a personal anecdote but for many years this group of friends were very accepting of the zeitgeist but now I am detecting that they are changing and seeing the world differently. I've also seen this with older friends as well who start to look at the left and right and comment 'they are both as bad as each other'. Something also increasingly evident with commentators on here.
Two bits from the ongoing WaPo coverage of the Baltimore bridge collapse:
1. Two people have been rescued from the water, one in serious condition, the other uninjured. There are almost certainly other people in the water, how many is unclear. 2. The firm owning the ship has had other accidents in the recent past.
(No link, since early reports are always incomplete, and often partially incorrect.)
The Tory ad is bonkers, and rubbish, and offensive in equal measure. Doesn’t surprise me they used non-London footage too. They can’t do anything right.
The party is circling the drain. If people honestly don’t think that the right might start splintering and finding a new home at the GE, it might be time to start thinking the unthinkable.
I am looking forward to all of the experts in Bridges, bridge construction and maritime navigation who are going to start appearing on Twitter and Facebook. I presume their expertise will be moving on from cancer diagnosis.
The Tory ad is bonkers, and rubbish, and offensive in equal measure. Doesn’t surprise me they used non-London footage too. They can’t do anything right.
It's obviously a get-out-the-core-vote move aimed at the brain-fucked over 65s who have been radicalised by Butcher's Apron laded memes on Facebook. On those terms, it'll probably be quite effective.
We've resisted the constant pleadings of our energy supplier to get a smart meter. So far, at least...
Likewise here, but eventually you get a letter saying your meter is coming to the end of its certified life and they need to replace. And it turns out certified life is indeed a 'thing'.
We installed a smart meter back in January. Our energy provider has been unable to bill us for electricity ever since.
Which is weird, because a) they can bill us for gas & the gas meter communicates with the system via the electricity meter and b) they’re receiving all our electrical usage because we can track our half-hourly usage on their website!
Presumably there’s some back-end plumbing that’s missing, but given these news reports it sounds like the whole thing is a clusterf*ck of epic proportions that was farmed out to the lowest bidder whilst simultaneously being run by an Ofgem committee that meets once every six months, if they can be bothered.
It was never clear why the government was so keen on smart meters whose main benefit was to make meter-readers redundant.
They do enable the kind of billing that Octopus have been experimenting with & we’re probably going to need more of that stuff in the future as we shift to “greener” energy supplies.
But the implementation has been simply woeful. Worst kind of design by committee mixed with a mulish insistence on features that make no sense, unless you’re so deep inside Ofgem that you can’t conceive of things being done differently. The whole SMETS I vs II was an unforced error that was obvious from the outside & their solution to the problems of the SMETS I design appears to have been to push another layer of indirection into the system, make it even more complex internally & pretend that everything is fine.
The Tory ad is bonkers, and rubbish, and offensive in equal measure. Doesn’t surprise me they used non-London footage too. They can’t do anything right.
It's obviously a get-out-the-core-vote move aimed at the brain-fucked over 65s who have been radicalised by Butcher's Apron laded memes on Facebook. On those terms, it'll probably be quite effective.
GET ME THE FUCK BACK TO COLD GREY DEPRESSING LONDON
You really don't want to be here. I am in London with a fire on, 2 thick woolly layers, a snood, wrist warmers and a blanket and am still freezing as well as looking as depressed and fed up as Whistler's Mother.
Jeez. It does look pretty bad. One nice day. Otherwise perpetual late February
It should not be 10C max and sunless in early April
Five sunny days forecast, and some cloud and rain to keep the flowers happy. What are you moaning about?
The outlook is giving moo until the 5-6th of April.
It is what the kids say to describe inelegant, ugly or unappealing: e.g.: "i look like a cow today. This outfit is giving moo."
I teach undergrads so I pick up the lingeri 😆😆😆
Lingeri = lingo
My keyboard was on Danish spell check 😅
It’s fine. Everyone just assumed you’re a professor who likes to go round picking up his students’ lingerie
Nothing won’t with that. Don’t listen to the naysayers and the busybodies
Every departments got one - the academic who is just too friendly with the undergraduates. Sometimes it’s goes a bit too far. A few years ago we had an older colleague who dated and fathered a child with a PhD student (not his own). Sadly did not end well - he took his own life as lots of the brown smelly was about to hit the fan. I miss him - he was a decent sort, at heart.
But stay away from the students is very, very sound advice.
Just before Christmas I rewatched the dramatisation of 'The History Man'. Very well worth a track down if you can.
@ohnotnow, Where did you find it? I've wanted to watch it for years!
Pop me a dm and I'm sure I can pop my copy online. It does seem a bit tricky to track down
I've flicked thru it. It's hypnotic and appalling. Leaving aside the fact that everybody smokes, I was struck by how badly groomed everybody was, with poor teeth, clothing and haircuts. The sex was...there and a bit ew. The car parks were unfeasibly empty for 2020 so I assume fewer people had cars. His car was rubbish. The University (Lancaster?) was typical for the post-60s expansion and - all together now - based on a Swedish prison (allegedly). Miriam Margolyes was impossibly young. Isla Blair was the only person whose grooming would pass muster in the 2020s. Anthony Sher was weirdly dressed. Lord it was a different time...
The History Man is on dvd, isn't it? Or used to be, some publishers have gone bust. The ending was hugely controversial at the time.
The Con attack ad on London is just another copy of an US Republican attack line. Notable that they even 'borrowed' some US footage for it originally. Its only a matter of time until No 10 warns us that Starmer is coming to take away our guns!
Seriously, if you draw your politics from the echo chamber of twitter/social media, be that on the right or the left, you will end up only speaking to people that already agree with you. In fact your whole vocabulary and arguments will become totally unintelligible to anyone not in your own little bubble. The biggest and most obvious example is 'woke' but you also have the forest of acronyms on the left - is it BBPE or something? You end up only talking to yourself while the rest of us shake our heads slowly in pity.
Its not that we are angry with you it is just that we are very disappointed
BBC Braces for the end of the license fee. Let us all hope the end of the License fee, an iniquitious tax which disproportionately hammers the poorest, most frail and vulnerable, in society, is not replaced by taxpayer funds via some other means the BBC is forced to raise what revenue it wants for the stuff it puts out in the free market.
Given that the access method to BBC iPlayer is, currently, to have a license (softly enforced), the whole system of courts, demands, threats etc should vanish.
Do people not get this? For many of us, broadcast TV *has already ended*
We stayed at my daughter's flat in Edinburgh recently. We were surprised to discover that her TV did not actually have any channels. They used it entirely for streaming, Netflix and the like. My son is the same. I don't think he ever watches something on conventional TV. We are surely reaching the end of conventional TV schedules for everything except live events.
We haven't had any "conventional" channels for about 7-8 years. We do everything through the assorted apps on the TV. I think the only thing we've watched remotely "live" (via iPlayer) in that time are Doctor Who and election coverage.
I don't have access to an aerial so everything I watch on TV is off the internet using various apps including iPlayer.
Can we have a Venn diagram of:
People who never use cash People who never watch broadcast TV
I suspect a strong overlap.
I'm also entirely internet TV after someone accidentally cut the TV aerial cable years ago, and I couldn't be bothered to fix it.
Still use cash. A bit.
Use cash as much as possible. Have satellite dish but only watch music channels or YouTube etc, also have non functioning aerial. Personally couldn't give a rats ass what happens to the Beeb but understand some do
Almost never watch live TV, and when I do it's via internet. Use cash occasionally.
As to the BBC, in the great scheme of things its TV stuff (except news, Parliament etc at critical moments) is not of great importance, but the significance of BBC radio both UK and worldwide is, in the long run, immense.
There are some indications that live radio (whether steam powered, DAB or internet) is coming back into fashion.
Yes, firstly you can do something else when the radio is on- podcasts also work with this. However with radio the selection is both more random and much better quality than either podcasts or the equivalent on TV. Things like "In our Time" may be a bit obscure, but you come away having learned something- not true of the latest Nazis documentary that passes for history on the telly or a rather ranty podcast.
That's harsh, there are some truly excellent podcasts out there. Slate's Slow Burn series about Watergate, for example, was excellent.
I appreciate that this may just be me seeing what I want to see but I have become aware of signs that men in particular are getting fed up with 'woke' ; I went out for a few beers last night and on the fourth pint, my friend was agreeing on subjects like that cancelling people had gone too far, that the kids will get fed up with the totalitarian indoctrination in schools on issues like 'gender' and 'hate speech' and rebel against it; that the woke right (ie Trump 2024) are an inevitable and predictable response to the extremes of the 'woke left', etc etc. It is only a personal anecdote but for many years this group of friends were very accepting of the zeitgeist but now I am detecting that they are changing and seeing the world differently. I've also seen this with older friends as well who start to look at the left and right and comment 'they are both as bad as each other'. Something also increasingly evident with commentators on here.
Why is it that it is always that Trump (and the MAGA right) is a reaction to woke? Why not the other way around?
Take immigration. Under Obama, the Southern US border was essentially under control. Crossings were at a twenty year low. Trump then made a big deal of it, and the Left reacted against him.
GET ME THE FUCK BACK TO COLD GREY DEPRESSING LONDON
You really don't want to be here. I am in London with a fire on, 2 thick woolly layers, a snood, wrist warmers and a blanket and am still freezing as well as looking as depressed and fed up as Whistler's Mother.
Jeez. It does look pretty bad. One nice day. Otherwise perpetual late February
It should not be 10C max and sunless in early April
Five sunny days forecast, and some cloud and rain to keep the flowers happy. What are you moaning about?
The outlook is giving moo until the 5-6th of April.
It is what the kids say to describe inelegant, ugly or unappealing: e.g.: "i look like a cow today. This outfit is giving moo."
I teach undergrads so I pick up the lingeri 😆😆😆
Lingeri = lingo
My keyboard was on Danish spell check 😅
It’s fine. Everyone just assumed you’re a professor who likes to go round picking up his students’ lingerie
Nothing won’t with that. Don’t listen to the naysayers and the busybodies
Every departments got one - the academic who is just too friendly with the undergraduates. Sometimes it’s goes a bit too far. A few years ago we had an older colleague who dated and fathered a child with a PhD student (not his own). Sadly did not end well - he took his own life as lots of the brown smelly was about to hit the fan. I miss him - he was a decent sort, at heart.
But stay away from the students is very, very sound advice.
Just before Christmas I rewatched the dramatisation of 'The History Man'. Very well worth a track down if you can.
@ohnotnow, Where did you find it? I've wanted to watch it for years!
Pop me a dm and I'm sure I can pop my copy online. It does seem a bit tricky to track down
I've flicked thru it. It's hypnotic and appalling. Leaving aside the fact that everybody smokes, I was struck by how badly groomed everybody was, with poor teeth, clothing and haircuts. The sex was...there and a bit ew. The car parks were unfeasibly empty for 2020 so I assume fewer people had cars. His car was rubbish. The University (Lancaster?) was typical for the post-60s expansion and - all together now - based on a Swedish prison (allegedly). Miriam Margolyes was impossibly young. Isla Blair was the only person whose grooming would pass muster in the 2020s. Anthony Sher was weirdly dressed. Lord it was a different time...
Haw! I remember watching it in my student days with a couple of female housemates who were very taken aback by the oral sex scene - I was, too ...
Thank you all for your feedback on the cash and TV question. Some surprising responses.
For the record, I am watching the BBC News right now on an actual tellybox, and I paid cash for a sausage bap on Saturday as that was the only available payment method.
I am looking forward to all of the experts in Bridges, bridge construction and maritime navigation who are going to start appearing on Twitter and Facebook. I presume their expertise will be moving on from cancer diagnosis.
@JosiasJessop perhaps you can sell him some surplus COVID experts, cheap. Bit of training, rebadging and you’re good to go.
GET ME THE FUCK BACK TO COLD GREY DEPRESSING LONDON
You really don't want to be here. I am in London with a fire on, 2 thick woolly layers, a snood, wrist warmers and a blanket and am still freezing as well as looking as depressed and fed up as Whistler's Mother.
Jeez. It does look pretty bad. One nice day. Otherwise perpetual late February
It should not be 10C max and sunless in early April
Five sunny days forecast, and some cloud and rain to keep the flowers happy. What are you moaning about?
The outlook is giving moo until the 5-6th of April.
It is what the kids say to describe inelegant, ugly or unappealing: e.g.: "i look like a cow today. This outfit is giving moo."
I teach undergrads so I pick up the lingeri 😆😆😆
Lingeri = lingo
My keyboard was on Danish spell check 😅
It’s fine. Everyone just assumed you’re a professor who likes to go round picking up his students’ lingerie
Nothing won’t with that. Don’t listen to the naysayers and the busybodies
Every departments got one - the academic who is just too friendly with the undergraduates. Sometimes it’s goes a bit too far. A few years ago we had an older colleague who dated and fathered a child with a PhD student (not his own). Sadly did not end well - he took his own life as lots of the brown smelly was about to hit the fan. I miss him - he was a decent sort, at heart.
But stay away from the students is very, very sound advice.
Just before Christmas I rewatched the dramatisation of 'The History Man'. Very well worth a track down if you can.
@ohnotnow, Where did you find it? I've wanted to watch it for years!
Pop me a dm and I'm sure I can pop my copy online. It does seem a bit tricky to track down
I've flicked thru it. It's hypnotic and appalling. Leaving aside the fact that everybody smokes, I was struck by how badly groomed everybody was, with poor teeth, clothing and haircuts. The sex was...there and a bit ew. The car parks were unfeasibly empty for 2020 so I assume fewer people had cars. His car was rubbish. The University (Lancaster?) was typical for the post-60s expansion and - all together now - based on a Swedish prison (allegedly). Miriam Margolyes was impossibly young. Isla Blair was the only person whose grooming would pass muster in the 2020s. Anthony Sher was weirdly dressed. Lord it was a different time...
The History Man is on dvd, isn't it? Or used to be, some publishers have gone bust. The ending was hugely controversial at the time.
BBC4 showed it in 2 x 100 minute episodes a few years ago. That is where my copy came from.
A few DVD publishers have gone bust including NETWORK who used to release some cracking material. Their stuff is still available on Ebay and Amazon second hand.
Mind you Tim Beddows of Network had a rather fine collection of 16mm Black and White film prints including a couple of missing Dr Who episodes. All in limbo at the moment as part of his estate. Sadly likely to be for a long time.
GET ME THE FUCK BACK TO COLD GREY DEPRESSING LONDON
You really don't want to be here. I am in London with a fire on, 2 thick woolly layers, a snood, wrist warmers and a blanket and am still freezing as well as looking as depressed and fed up as Whistler's Mother.
Jeez. It does look pretty bad. One nice day. Otherwise perpetual late February
It should not be 10C max and sunless in early April
Five sunny days forecast, and some cloud and rain to keep the flowers happy. What are you moaning about?
The outlook is giving moo until the 5-6th of April.
It is what the kids say to describe inelegant, ugly or unappealing: e.g.: "i look like a cow today. This outfit is giving moo."
I teach undergrads so I pick up the lingeri 😆😆😆
Lingeri = lingo
My keyboard was on Danish spell check 😅
It’s fine. Everyone just assumed you’re a professor who likes to go round picking up his students’ lingerie
Nothing won’t with that. Don’t listen to the naysayers and the busybodies
Every departments got one - the academic who is just too friendly with the undergraduates. Sometimes it’s goes a bit too far. A few years ago we had an older colleague who dated and fathered a child with a PhD student (not his own). Sadly did not end well - he took his own life as lots of the brown smelly was about to hit the fan. I miss him - he was a decent sort, at heart.
But stay away from the students is very, very sound advice.
Just before Christmas I rewatched the dramatisation of 'The History Man'. Very well worth a track down if you can.
@ohnotnow, Where did you find it? I've wanted to watch it for years!
Pop me a dm and I'm sure I can pop my copy online. It does seem a bit tricky to track down
I've flicked thru it. It's hypnotic and appalling. Leaving aside the fact that everybody smokes, I was struck by how badly groomed everybody was, with poor teeth, clothing and haircuts. The sex was...there and a bit ew. The car parks were unfeasibly empty for 2020 so I assume fewer people had cars. His car was rubbish. The University (Lancaster?) was typical for the post-60s expansion and - all together now - based on a Swedish prison (allegedly). Miriam Margolyes was impossibly young. Isla Blair was the only person whose grooming would pass muster in the 2020s. Anthony Sher was weirdly dressed. Lord it was a different time...
The History Man is on dvd, isn't it? Or used to be, some publishers have gone bust. The ending was hugely controversial at the time.
PS Do you mean the little notice saying that the hero voted Conservative in 1979?
Regardless of the merits of the Tory London attack ad (it has none), I think it's a rubbish strategy for them to paint modern London as some sort of apocalyptic dystopian hellhole. It is, after all, everybody in England's capital city, and many non-Londoners are proud of it, despite it having some of the problems typical of all large cities. And, of course, the Tories have been in power for 14 years, so much of what London is now is down to them, given the Mayor's limited powers. It's on a par with the Tories rubbishing another cherished institution, the BBC. Where's the patriotism?
We'll know they've completely lost the plot when the Tories start rubbishing the Royal Family, cricket, the woke England football team, beer and village greens.
The Tory ad is bonkers, and rubbish, and offensive in equal measure. Doesn’t surprise me they used non-London footage too. They can’t do anything right.
The party is circling the drain. If people honestly don’t think that the right might start splintering and finding a new home at the GE, it might be time to start thinking the unthinkable.
They are screwed.
Maybe I'm giving the Tories too much credit, but I do wonder if they put that scene from America in deliberately, knowing it would be noticed and so draw more attention to it
Not sure there was much of theological significance in that statement per se other than the suggestion not to quote religious scriptures selectively for partisan purposes. However it is usually good advice not to selectively quote any material out of context in support of particular points of view, the same applies to cropping images or clipping sound or videos to such ends.
The Singapore Govt have borrowed a lobotomised AI-bot from the Tory party.
Let's hope they give him back in time to present his next budget.
I've withdrawn that and officially apologised to Singapore.
Regardless of the merits of the Tory London attack ad (it has none), I think it's a rubbish strategy for them to paint modern London as some sort of apocalyptic dystopian hellhole. It is, after all, everybody in England's capital city, and many non-Londoners are proud of it, despite it having some of the problems typical of all large cities. And, of course, the Tories have been in power for 14 years, so much of what London is now is down to them, given the Mayor's limited powers. It's on a par with the Tories rubbishing another cherished institution, the BBC. Where's the patriotism?
We'll know they've completely lost the plot when the Tories start rubbishing the Royal Family, cricket, the woke England football team, beer and village greens.
I am looking forward to all of the experts in Bridges, bridge construction and maritime navigation who are going to start appearing on Twitter and Facebook. I presume their expertise will be moving on from cancer diagnosis.
And before that viruses, virology and public health.
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
Off topic: It's good to see the US and UK working together on this problem:
"The Justice Department on Monday unsealed an indictment charging seven Chinese state-sponsored hackers with a broad 14-year campaign to target U.S. and foreign critics, businesses and political officials to advance Beijing’s economic espionage and political spying goals. In tandem, the Treasury Department announced sanctions on two of the hackers and a front company for their roles in breaching U.S. critical infrastructure, including in the defense and energy sectors.
The British government joined the Biden administration on Monday in sanctioning the hackers and company for targeting parliamentarians and U.K. electoral commission systems between 2021 and 2022. The government also summoned the Chinese ambassador to Britain, officials in London said." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/25/china-hack-apt31-sanctions-indictment/
(Full disclosure: For some time, I have been avoiding products made in China, wherever possible. I suspect i am not alone in that indivdual response to their spying and interference.)
I am looking forward to all of the experts in Bridges, bridge construction and maritime navigation who are going to start appearing on Twitter and Facebook. I presume their expertise will be moving on from cancer diagnosis.
And before that viruses, virology and public health.
Indeed, as well as military strategy. It is truly a wonder to behold.
Not sure there was much of theological significance in that statement per se other than the suggestion not to quote religious scriptures selectively for partisan purposes. However it is usually good advice not to selectively quote any material out of context in support of particular points of view, the same applies to cropping images or clipping sound or videos to such ends.
Theologians would at least know whether it's true and or whether it's being willfully misinterpreted. The Singaporian minister doesn't answer those questions.
A crushing response by the Minister.
I think that on this one knowledge of the religious of Singapore (and how it has changed) is helpful.
It's a real melange of religion, and the more committed value the level of tolerance most:
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
We could rename Trump the BUFOFF as an acceptable euphemism.
The chief executive of Ferguson Marine, where the two delayed and over-budget CalMac ferries are being built, has been sacked after telling ministers further delays were “likely”.
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
Yes that could work. I would like to nominate myself to write the default Trump condemnation. I'd make a solid job of it and would enjoy it too.
GET ME THE FUCK BACK TO COLD GREY DEPRESSING LONDON
You really don't want to be here. I am in London with a fire on, 2 thick woolly layers, a snood, wrist warmers and a blanket and am still freezing as well as looking as depressed and fed up as Whistler's Mother.
Jeez. It does look pretty bad. One nice day. Otherwise perpetual late February
It should not be 10C max and sunless in early April
Five sunny days forecast, and some cloud and rain to keep the flowers happy. What are you moaning about?
The outlook is giving moo until the 5-6th of April.
It is what the kids say to describe inelegant, ugly or unappealing: e.g.: "i look like a cow today. This outfit is giving moo."
I teach undergrads so I pick up the lingeri 😆😆😆
Lingeri = lingo
My keyboard was on Danish spell check 😅
It’s fine. Everyone just assumed you’re a professor who likes to go round picking up his students’ lingerie
Nothing won’t with that. Don’t listen to the naysayers and the busybodies
Every departments got one - the academic who is just too friendly with the undergraduates. Sometimes it’s goes a bit too far. A few years ago we had an older colleague who dated and fathered a child with a PhD student (not his own). Sadly did not end well - he took his own life as lots of the brown smelly was about to hit the fan. I miss him - he was a decent sort, at heart.
But stay away from the students is very, very sound advice.
Just before Christmas I rewatched the dramatisation of 'The History Man'. Very well worth a track down if you can.
@ohnotnow, Where did you find it? I've wanted to watch it for years!
Pop me a dm and I'm sure I can pop my copy online. It does seem a bit tricky to track down
I've flicked thru it. It's hypnotic and appalling. Leaving aside the fact that everybody smokes, I was struck by how badly groomed everybody was, with poor teeth, clothing and haircuts. The sex was...there and a bit ew. The car parks were unfeasibly empty for 2020 so I assume fewer people had cars. His car was rubbish. The University (Lancaster?) was typical for the post-60s expansion and - all together now - based on a Swedish prison (allegedly). Miriam Margolyes was impossibly young. Isla Blair was the only person whose grooming would pass muster in the 2020s. Anthony Sher was weirdly dressed. Lord it was a different time...
The History Man is on dvd, isn't it? Or used to be, some publishers have gone bust. The ending was hugely controversial at the time.
PS Do you mean the little notice saying that the hero voted Conservative in 1979?
Yes, the now-Professor Kirk voted Conservative in 1979. I'd have posted the screenshot but instead have found another reason I need to get around to sorting my DVDs into alphabetical order, or any order.
I am looking forward to all of the experts in Bridges, bridge construction and maritime navigation who are going to start appearing on Twitter and Facebook. I presume their expertise will be moving on from cancer diagnosis.
And before that viruses, virology and public health.
Indeed, as well as military strategy. It is truly a wonder to behold.
In fairness democracy requires people to have opinions on things well beyond their limits of comprehension or expertise.
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
Or it could just be that you don't like to be reminded.
The chief executive of Ferguson Marine, where the two delayed and over-budget CalMac ferries are being built, has been sacked after telling ministers further delays were “likely”.
So if he wanted to keep his job, he should have lied and said that everything was fine.
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
We could rename Trump the BUFOFF as an acceptable euphemism.
Big Ugly Fat Orange Fucking Failure.
My bank manager would appreciate it if I attracted a bit of Trump's failure.
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
Yes that could work. I would like to nominate myself to write the default Trump condemnation. I'd make a solid job of it and would enjoy it too.
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
We could rename Trump the BUFOFF as an acceptable euphemism.
Big Ugly Fat Orange Fucking Failure.
My bank manager would appreciate it if I attracted a bit of Trump's failure.
Really? His doesn't seem so keen judging by the fun and games he's had raising bonds.
Incidentally it seems it's not just in America that Putin's agents get generous treatment from the legal system. Assange given another three weeks for the Americans to pinky swear he won't get the death penalty.
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
Yes that could work. I would like to nominate myself to write the default Trump condemnation. I'd make a solid job of it and would enjoy it too.
Can I have 500 words?
I was hoping for more like 50.
Assuming TSE hasn't changed the policy on c bombs, perhaps we could go for MVMM - Max Verstappen Mini-Me?
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
We could rename Trump the BUFOFF as an acceptable euphemism.
Big Ugly Fat Orange Fucking Failure.
My bank manager would appreciate it if I attracted a bit of Trump's failure.
Really? His doesn't seem so keen judging by the fun and games he's had raising bonds.
Can cryptic lineages tell us anything about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 (SC2)?
The answer may surprise you, it surprised the hell out of me...
(Lots & lots of technical stuff)
...Takehome message:
SARS-CoV-2 is not just a normal bat Sarbecovirus with a furin-cleave site added.
The changes are not ‘random’. This virus seemingly had significantly aclimated to a non-GI environment in ways that I believe could only occur through natural selection.
The simplest explanation (to me) is that SC2 circulated in a non-human host in a non-GI compartment for several years before it crossed into humans. This gives me hope that the SC2 progenitor might still be found one day.
Even if you believe that the FCS was engineered into SC2 (starting from an unknown virus), the virus would have had to have been cultured in a ‘non-gut’ environment with almost no immune pressure for a long time (probably years) before it passed to human...
Incidentally it seems it's not just in America that Putin's agents get generous treatment from the legal system. Assange given another three weeks for the Americans to pinky swear he won't get the death penalty.
The orange starburst will pardon him in return for vengeance dirt on everyone (by which I mean selected everyones) Or Biden wins and the security cameras malfunction and he cannae take it no more One or t'other
‘Can my partner give me his rental income so his salary is under £100k and we can claim benefits?’
That is from the Telegraph's advice column reflecting a common issue, and meanwhile at the bottom of the income scale, workers are having to give up salary sacrifice benefits where these take them below the new minimum wage levels. Leaving aside questions of morality (do people on £100k need benefits? Should companies increase pay rather than remove benefits from its lowest-paid workers?) it is remarkable the government has ballsed up both ends.
GET ME THE FUCK BACK TO COLD GREY DEPRESSING LONDON
You really don't want to be here. I am in London with a fire on, 2 thick woolly layers, a snood, wrist warmers and a blanket and am still freezing as well as looking as depressed and fed up as Whistler's Mother.
Jeez. It does look pretty bad. One nice day. Otherwise perpetual late February
It should not be 10C max and sunless in early April
Five sunny days forecast, and some cloud and rain to keep the flowers happy. What are you moaning about?
The outlook is giving moo until the 5-6th of April.
It is what the kids say to describe inelegant, ugly or unappealing: e.g.: "i look like a cow today. This outfit is giving moo."
I teach undergrads so I pick up the lingeri 😆😆😆
Lingeri = lingo
My keyboard was on Danish spell check 😅
It’s fine. Everyone just assumed you’re a professor who likes to go round picking up his students’ lingerie
Nothing won’t with that. Don’t listen to the naysayers and the busybodies
Every departments got one - the academic who is just too friendly with the undergraduates. Sometimes it’s goes a bit too far. A few years ago we had an older colleague who dated and fathered a child with a PhD student (not his own). Sadly did not end well - he took his own life as lots of the brown smelly was about to hit the fan. I miss him - he was a decent sort, at heart.
But stay away from the students is very, very sound advice.
Just before Christmas I rewatched the dramatisation of 'The History Man'. Very well worth a track down if you can.
@ohnotnow, Where did you find it? I've wanted to watch it for years!
Pop me a dm and I'm sure I can pop my copy online. It does seem a bit tricky to track down
I've flicked thru it. It's hypnotic and appalling. Leaving aside the fact that everybody smokes, I was struck by how badly groomed everybody was, with poor teeth, clothing and haircuts. The sex was...there and a bit ew. The car parks were unfeasibly empty for 2020 so I assume fewer people had cars. His car was rubbish. The University (Lancaster?) was typical for the post-60s expansion and - all together now - based on a Swedish prison (allegedly). Miriam Margolyes was impossibly young. Isla Blair was the only person whose grooming would pass muster in the 2020s. Anthony Sher was weirdly dressed. Lord it was a different time...
The History Man is on dvd, isn't it? Or used to be, some publishers have gone bust. The ending was hugely controversial at the time.
PS Do you mean the little notice saying that the hero voted Conservative in 1979?
Yes, the now-Professor Kirk voted Conservative in 1979. I'd have posted the screenshot but instead have found another reason I need to get around to sorting my DVDs into alphabetical order, or any order.
Reminds me of the time Mrs C saw me sorting my DVDs by (a) whether I had watched them yet and (b) by auteur, and when she came back assumed I had got bored and shoved them back into the bookcase at random, and helpfully sorted them into order by title ...
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
We could rename Trump the BUFOFF as an acceptable euphemism.
Big Ugly Fat Orange Fucking Failure.
My bank manager would appreciate it if I attracted a bit of Trump's failure.
Really? His doesn't seem so keen judging by the fun and games he's had raising bonds.
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
We could rename Trump the BUFOFF as an acceptable euphemism.
Big Ugly Fat Orange Fucking Failure.
My bank manager would appreciate it if I attracted a bit of Trump's failure.
Really? His doesn't seem so keen judging by the fun and games he's had raising bonds.
I appreciate that this may just be me seeing what I want to see but I have become aware of signs that men in particular are getting fed up with 'woke' ; I went out for a few beers last night and on the fourth pint, my friend was agreeing on subjects like that cancelling people had gone too far, that the kids will get fed up with the totalitarian indoctrination in schools on issues like 'gender' and 'hate speech' and rebel against it; that the woke right (ie Trump 2024) are an inevitable and predictable response to the extremes of the 'woke left', etc etc. It is only a personal anecdote but for many years this group of friends were very accepting of the zeitgeist but now I am detecting that they are changing and seeing the world differently. I've also seen this with older friends as well who start to look at the left and right and comment 'they are both as bad as each other'. Something also increasingly evident with commentators on here.
Doing the polar opposite of a problem doesn’t represent a solution but a further species of problem. In the same way setting up a broadcaster to preach, patronise and condescend to a different demographic doesn’t solve any problems real or imagined with broadcasting.
In terms of the current iteration of the culture wars, the woke/anti-woke movements it’s basically two sides who think the world can be perfected if everyone falls in step with their ideology. They are both based on the same wrong premise; the world cannot be perfected there are just an infinite series of trade offs.
I think this viewpoint is similar to my own but I have been tired with the apparent acceptance of the extremes of the left over the past decade or so.
The 'right woke' are a necessary antithesis. It is only because characters like Laurence Fox and Lee Anderson come on to the scene that the left can no longer do all the running. No longer is a free pass given to the statue topplers and pro hamas demonstraters, nor the gender totalitarians. I am not joining the 'right woke' but I concede absolutely that they are necessary to move things forward a bit.
Can cryptic lineages tell us anything about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 (SC2)?
The answer may surprise you, it surprised the hell out of me...
(Lots & lots of technical stuff)
...Takehome message:
SARS-CoV-2 is not just a normal bat Sarbecovirus with a furin-cleave site added.
The changes are not ‘random’. This virus seemingly had significantly aclimated to a non-GI environment in ways that I believe could only occur through natural selection.
The simplest explanation (to me) is that SC2 circulated in a non-human host in a non-GI compartment for several years before it crossed into humans. This gives me hope that the SC2 progenitor might still be found one day.
Even if you believe that the FCS was engineered into SC2 (starting from an unknown virus), the virus would have had to have been cultured in a ‘non-gut’ environment with almost no immune pressure for a long time (probably years) before it passed to human...
Any reference to the paper please?
Though nothing would surprise me, after learning many years ago that the cholera bacterium is primarily an inhabitant of the carapace of shrimps etc. and that any affinity with the human gut is presumably accidental, so the effects on humans are secondary (unless of course it is a dispersal mechanism to other waters, but it's not possible to go all Aristotelean on natural selection anyway ...).
‘Can my partner give me his rental income so his salary is under £100k and we can claim benefits?’
That is from the Telegraph's advice column reflecting a common issue, and meanwhile at the bottom of the income scale, workers are having to give up salary sacrifice benefits where these take them below the new minimum wage levels. Leaving aside questions of morality (do people on £100k need benefits? Should companies increase pay rather than remove benefits from its lowest-paid workers?) it is remarkable the government has ballsed up both ends.
And yet it's people on the lowest benefit incomes that get the shit thrown at them by the 'scroungers' crowd
I appreciate that this may just be me seeing what I want to see but I have become aware of signs that men in particular are getting fed up with 'woke' ; I went out for a few beers last night and on the fourth pint, my friend was agreeing on subjects like that cancelling people had gone too far, that the kids will get fed up with the totalitarian indoctrination in schools on issues like 'gender' and 'hate speech' and rebel against it; that the woke right (ie Trump 2024) are an inevitable and predictable response to the extremes of the 'woke left', etc etc. It is only a personal anecdote but for many years this group of friends were very accepting of the zeitgeist but now I am detecting that they are changing and seeing the world differently. I've also seen this with older friends as well who start to look at the left and right and comment 'they are both as bad as each other'. Something also increasingly evident with commentators on here.
Why is it that it is always that Trump (and the MAGA right) is a reaction to woke? Why not the other way around?
Take immigration. Under Obama, the Southern US border was essentially under control. Crossings were at a twenty year low. Trump then made a big deal of it, and the Left reacted against him.
There is a lot in this @rcs1000. See also Brexit in the UK- in many ways 'woke' was an evolution of 'remain', responding in turn to the obsession with a hard Brexit, which itself was a response to the approach to EU integration pursued by the political establishment.
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
Yes that could work. I would like to nominate myself to write the default Trump condemnation. I'd make a solid job of it and would enjoy it too.
Can I have 500 words?
I was hoping for more like 50.
Ooo no. Brevity is all very well but you must do a subject justice. Donald Trump's ghastliness is multi-faceted and spans both the personal and the political. It can't be nailed in a skimpy couple of sentences.
I am looking forward to all of the experts in Bridges, bridge construction and maritime navigation who are going to start appearing on Twitter and Facebook. I presume their expertise will be moving on from cancer diagnosis.
And before that viruses, virology and public health.
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
Yes that could work. I would like to nominate myself to write the default Trump condemnation. I'd make a solid job of it and would enjoy it too.
Can I have 500 words?
I was hoping for more like 50.
Ooo no. Brevity is all very well but you must do a subject justice. Donald Trump's ghastliness is multi-faceted and spans both the personal and the political. It can't be nailed in a skimpy couple of sentences.
I appreciate that this may just be me seeing what I want to see but I have become aware of signs that men in particular are getting fed up with 'woke' ; I went out for a few beers last night and on the fourth pint, my friend was agreeing on subjects like that cancelling people had gone too far, that the kids will get fed up with the totalitarian indoctrination in schools on issues like 'gender' and 'hate speech' and rebel against it; that the woke right (ie Trump 2024) are an inevitable and predictable response to the extremes of the 'woke left', etc etc. It is only a personal anecdote but for many years this group of friends were very accepting of the zeitgeist but now I am detecting that they are changing and seeing the world differently. I've also seen this with older friends as well who start to look at the left and right and comment 'they are both as bad as each other'. Something also increasingly evident with commentators on here.
Doing the polar opposite of a problem doesn’t represent a solution but a further species of problem. In the same way setting up a broadcaster to preach, patronise and condescend to a different demographic doesn’t solve any problems real or imagined with broadcasting.
In terms of the current iteration of the culture wars, the woke/anti-woke movements it’s basically two sides who think the world can be perfected if everyone falls in step with their ideology. They are both based on the same wrong premise; the world cannot be perfected there are just an infinite series of trade offs.
I think this viewpoint is similar to my own but I have been tired with the apparent acceptance of the extremes of the left over the past decade or so.
The 'right woke' are a necessary antithesis. It is only because characters like Laurence Fox and Lee Anderson come on to the scene that the left can no longer do all the running. No longer is a free pass given to the statue topplers and pro hamas demonstraters, nor the gender totalitarians. I am not joining the 'right woke' but I concede absolutely that they are necessary to move things forward a bit.
The problem is that by defining a position in antithesis to x you make it easier for x to confirm their position in antithesis to you. Instead of anything moving forward everyone just digs in and takes the WWI Generals approach of doing the same thing just with bigger artillery and more shells. The danger of this approach to politics is that actually the slow retreat to the extremes gets embedded and eventually the moderates leave the field and you don’t need a doctorate in mid 20th century history to know the outcome of that sort of process.
I appreciate that this may just be me seeing what I want to see but I have become aware of signs that men in particular are getting fed up with 'woke' ; I went out for a few beers last night and on the fourth pint, my friend was agreeing on subjects like that cancelling people had gone too far, that the kids will get fed up with the totalitarian indoctrination in schools on issues like 'gender' and 'hate speech' and rebel against it; that the woke right (ie Trump 2024) are an inevitable and predictable response to the extremes of the 'woke left', etc etc. It is only a personal anecdote but for many years this group of friends were very accepting of the zeitgeist but now I am detecting that they are changing and seeing the world differently. I've also seen this with older friends as well who start to look at the left and right and comment 'they are both as bad as each other'. Something also increasingly evident with commentators on here.
Doing the polar opposite of a problem doesn’t represent a solution but a further species of problem. In the same way setting up a broadcaster to preach, patronise and condescend to a different demographic doesn’t solve any problems real or imagined with broadcasting.
In terms of the current iteration of the culture wars, the woke/anti-woke movements it’s basically two sides who think the world can be perfected if everyone falls in step with their ideology. They are both based on the same wrong premise; the world cannot be perfected there are just an infinite series of trade offs.
I think this viewpoint is similar to my own but I have been tired with the apparent acceptance of the extremes of the left over the past decade or so.
The 'right woke' are a necessary antithesis. It is only because characters like Laurence Fox and Lee Anderson come on to the scene that the left can no longer do all the running. No longer is a free pass given to the statue topplers and pro hamas demonstraters, nor the gender totalitarians. I am not joining the 'right woke' but I concede absolutely that they are necessary to move things forward a bit.
A United Nations expert told the global body's Human Rights Council on Tuesday that she believed that Israel's military campaign in Gaza since Oct. 7 amounted to genocide and called on countries to immediately impose sanctions and an arms embargo.
Susan Hall reacts to the Tory ad with a "wasn't me, guv".
CCHQ is renowned for being wetter than wet, which makes the video a very odd choice. There's one reading of it that looks like sabotage of the Hall campaign; it will be a bit embarrassing if a 'hard right' Tory of Hall's type does better than national Tory polling under Sunak.
I'm going for an attempted shitpost though. After all we're all discussing it now.
PB comments about Trump are, as a genre, crashingly boring, however clever those making them might be. It's a bit like comments about Putin, because everyone feels the need to fall over themselves to condemn these awful people, the comments keep coming and the likers keep liking. It's all such a chore - it's where satire comes to die. We should just ban talking about these two. Or just have a button containing an instant condemnation of Trump, Putin, and all their works that we can add like quote tags.
We could rename Trump the BUFOFF as an acceptable euphemism.
Big Ugly Fat Orange Fucking Failure.
My bank manager would appreciate it if I attracted a bit of Trump's failure.
He probably wouldn’t because you’d be leveraged up the bahookie and too big to fail.
I appreciate that this may just be me seeing what I want to see but I have become aware of signs that men in particular are getting fed up with 'woke' ; I went out for a few beers last night and on the fourth pint, my friend was agreeing on subjects like that cancelling people had gone too far, that the kids will get fed up with the totalitarian indoctrination in schools on issues like 'gender' and 'hate speech' and rebel against it; that the woke right (ie Trump 2024) are an inevitable and predictable response to the extremes of the 'woke left', etc etc. It is only a personal anecdote but for many years this group of friends were very accepting of the zeitgeist but now I am detecting that they are changing and seeing the world differently. I've also seen this with older friends as well who start to look at the left and right and comment 'they are both as bad as each other'. Something also increasingly evident with commentators on here.
Why is it that it is always that Trump (and the MAGA right) is a reaction to woke? Why not the other way around?
Take immigration. Under Obama, the Southern US border was essentially under control. Crossings were at a twenty year low. Trump then made a big deal of it, and the Left reacted against him.
There is a lot in this @rcs1000. See also Brexit in the UK- in many ways 'woke' was an evolution of 'remain', responding in turn to the obsession with a hard Brexit, which itself was a response to the approach to EU integration pursued by the political establishment.
"Woke" seems to me to be a catch-all term of division like "blob" or "establishment" or "deep state" not to mention "enemies of the people." It is designed to encourage fragmentation of society by persuading people that their interests are being undermined by malevolent forces conspiring against them.
Can cryptic lineages tell us anything about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 (SC2)?
The answer may surprise you, it surprised the hell out of me...
(Lots & lots of technical stuff)
...Takehome message:
SARS-CoV-2 is not just a normal bat Sarbecovirus with a furin-cleave site added.
The changes are not ‘random’. This virus seemingly had significantly aclimated to a non-GI environment in ways that I believe could only occur through natural selection.
The simplest explanation (to me) is that SC2 circulated in a non-human host in a non-GI compartment for several years before it crossed into humans. This gives me hope that the SC2 progenitor might still be found one day.
Even if you believe that the FCS was engineered into SC2 (starting from an unknown virus), the virus would have had to have been cultured in a ‘non-gut’ environment with almost no immune pressure for a long time (probably years) before it passed to human...
Any reference to the paper please?
Though nothing would surprise me, after learning many years ago that the cholera bacterium is primarily an inhabitant of the carapace of shrimps etc. and that any affinity with the human gut is presumably accidental, so the effects on humans are secondary (unless of course it is a dispersal mechanism to other waters, but it's not possible to go all Aristotelean on natural selection anyway ...).
No - it's a twitter thread by a virologist. Several papers referenced, but the reasoning/finding is recent (and came as a surprise to him) and is not yet published elsewhere.
I appreciate that this may just be me seeing what I want to see but I have become aware of signs that men in particular are getting fed up with 'woke' ; I went out for a few beers last night and on the fourth pint, my friend was agreeing on subjects like that cancelling people had gone too far, that the kids will get fed up with the totalitarian indoctrination in schools on issues like 'gender' and 'hate speech' and rebel against it; that the woke right (ie Trump 2024) are an inevitable and predictable response to the extremes of the 'woke left', etc etc. It is only a personal anecdote but for many years this group of friends were very accepting of the zeitgeist but now I am detecting that they are changing and seeing the world differently. I've also seen this with older friends as well who start to look at the left and right and comment 'they are both as bad as each other'. Something also increasingly evident with commentators on here.
Why is it that it is always that Trump (and the MAGA right) is a reaction to woke? Why not the other way around?
Take immigration. Under Obama, the Southern US border was essentially under control. Crossings were at a twenty year low. Trump then made a big deal of it, and the Left reacted against him.
There is a lot in this @rcs1000. See also Brexit in the UK- in many ways 'woke' was an evolution of 'remain', responding in turn to the obsession with a hard Brexit, which itself was a response to the approach to EU integration pursued by the political establishment.
"Woke" seems to me to be a catch-all term of division like "blob" or "establishment" or "deep state" not to mention "enemies of the people." It is designed to encourage fragmentation of society by persuading people that their interests are being undermined by malevolent forces conspiring against them.
In the case of some, it is a matter of public record that the adoption of woke policies is against their interests. It is also the case that many woke trailblazers have made statements about their own motivations that could be read as malevolent.
I appreciate that this may just be me seeing what I want to see but I have become aware of signs that men in particular are getting fed up with 'woke' ; I went out for a few beers last night and on the fourth pint, my friend was agreeing on subjects like that cancelling people had gone too far, that the kids will get fed up with the totalitarian indoctrination in schools on issues like 'gender' and 'hate speech' and rebel against it; that the woke right (ie Trump 2024) are an inevitable and predictable response to the extremes of the 'woke left', etc etc. It is only a personal anecdote but for many years this group of friends were very accepting of the zeitgeist but now I am detecting that they are changing and seeing the world differently. I've also seen this with older friends as well who start to look at the left and right and comment 'they are both as bad as each other'. Something also increasingly evident with commentators on here.
Why is it that it is always that Trump (and the MAGA right) is a reaction to woke? Why not the other way around?
Take immigration. Under Obama, the Southern US border was essentially under control. Crossings were at a twenty year low. Trump then made a big deal of it, and the Left reacted against him.
There is a lot in this @rcs1000. See also Brexit in the UK- in many ways 'woke' was an evolution of 'remain', responding in turn to the obsession with a hard Brexit, which itself was a response to the approach to EU integration pursued by the political establishment.
"Woke" seems to me to be a catch-all term of division like "blob" or "establishment" or "deep state" not to mention "enemies of the people." It is designed to encourage fragmentation of society by persuading people that their interests are being undermined by malevolent forces conspiring against them.
In the case of some, it is a matter of public record that the adoption of woke policies is against their interests. It is also the case that many woke trailblazers have made statements about their own motivations that could be read as malevolent.
Of course, "non-woke" policies also makes people act against their interests, such as keeping large amounts of cash when interest rates are high.
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/mar/25/jasmin-paris-interview-barkley-marathons-ultramarathon-history
For the record, I am watching the BBC News right now on an actual tellybox, and I paid cash for a sausage bap on Saturday as that was the only available payment method.
"There is no time for sleep either – save for a three-minute power nap before the last of the five loops – which unsurprisingly led to hallucinations. “I saw quite a lot of people in black macintoshes,” she says. “They were climbing the same hill as me, always a certain distance ahead. And it was bizarre, they all had a sinister foreboding feel to them."
Something I've never encountered, but would quite like to push myself to see.
They're a well-known phenomenon. Perhaps @Leon should try this for his next hallucinatory trip?
The point of propaganda in a totalitarian country is to get rid of objective fact.
There doesn't need to be an alternative 'truth' - indeed that would be counterproductive - rather, you just have to make everyone doubt everything.
But the excellent "What is Going on With Shipping?" channel has some sanity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZbUXewlQDk
Is Sunak not content with destroying the party? Does he want to trample it into the gutter just to make sure?
Whilst, in reality, it is more Eeyore: "Thanks for noticing me."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13239843/David-Cameron-Tories-Foreign-Secretary-PM-Rishi-Sunak.html
If Rishi has handed control to his lordship, it isn't working.
For rough, unstable terrain, particularly downhill, this just seems incredible.
19th cent. Russia. A Jewish man is sitting outside his one room shack on the Shtetl, reading. In the distance a village is burning, after a pogrom.
A neighbour comes by, glances at what he is reading. It is the hate rag of the anti-Semites.
“Isaac, why are you releasing this rubbish?”
“With things this bad, I like to hear how powerful I really am.”
1. Two people have been rescued from the water, one in serious condition, the other uninjured. There are almost certainly other people in the water, how many is unclear.
2. The firm owning the ship has had other accidents in the recent past.
(No link, since early reports are always incomplete, and often partially incorrect.)
The party is circling the drain. If people honestly don’t think that the right might start splintering and finding a new home at the GE, it might be time to start thinking the unthinkable.
They are screwed.
I also suspect that a lot of the successes were the work of Osborne.
But the implementation has been simply woeful. Worst kind of design by committee mixed with a mulish insistence on features that make no sense, unless you’re so deep inside Ofgem that you can’t conceive of things being done differently. The whole SMETS I vs II was an unforced error that was obvious from the outside & their solution to the problems of the SMETS I design appears to have been to push another layer of indirection into the system, make it even more complex internally & pretend that everything is fine.
Seriously, if you draw your politics from the echo chamber of twitter/social media, be that on the right or the left, you will end up only speaking to people that already agree with you. In fact your whole vocabulary and arguments will become totally unintelligible to anyone not in your own little bubble. The biggest and most obvious example is 'woke' but you also have the forest of acronyms on the left - is it BBPE or something? You end up only talking to yourself while the rest of us shake our heads slowly in pity.
Its not that we are angry with you it is just that we are very disappointed
Take immigration. Under Obama, the Southern US border was essentially under control. Crossings were at a twenty year low. Trump then made a big deal of it, and the Left reacted against him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo0t-yRvEoI
A few DVD publishers have gone bust including NETWORK who used to release some cracking material. Their stuff is still available on Ebay and Amazon second hand.
Mind you Tim Beddows of Network had a rather fine collection of 16mm Black and White film prints including a couple of missing Dr Who episodes. All in limbo at the moment as part of his estate. Sadly likely to be for a long time.
We'll know they've completely lost the plot when the Tories start rubbishing the Royal Family, cricket, the woke England football team, beer and village greens.
Spelunking through PB too rapidly.
I took a different approach - avulsed both patella tendons (one in 2009, one in 2019). Your leg doesn't work without that one...
Cricket - look at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-the-tories-weaponised-woke-jlmwh0p36
Beer - https://www.culturematters.org.uk/index.php/culture/dining/item/4309-from-protest-to-policy-camra-the-tories-and-the-great-british-beer-festival
Village greens - banning 15 minute towns; and the 2013 change in the law: https://campaignerkate.wordpress.com/2019/10/31/a-rare-chance-to-thank-a-judge/
"The Justice Department on Monday unsealed an indictment charging seven Chinese state-sponsored hackers with a broad 14-year campaign to target U.S. and foreign critics, businesses and political officials to advance Beijing’s economic espionage and political spying goals.
In tandem, the Treasury Department announced sanctions on two of the hackers and a front company for their roles in breaching U.S. critical infrastructure, including in the defense and energy sectors.
The British government joined the Biden administration on Monday in sanctioning the hackers and company for targeting parliamentarians and U.K. electoral commission systems between 2021 and 2022. The government also summoned the Chinese ambassador to Britain, officials in London said."
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/25/china-hack-apt31-sanctions-indictment/
(Full disclosure: For some time, I have been avoiding products made in China, wherever possible. I suspect i am not alone in that indivdual response to their spying and interference.)
Big Ugly Fat Orange Fucking Failure.
The chief executive of Ferguson Marine, where the two delayed and over-budget CalMac ferries are being built, has been sacked after telling ministers further delays were “likely”.
Can I have 500 words?
Sorry, but I'll keep on boring you.
Sounds like we could be in for a mini reshuffle, following James Heappey's resignation as armed forces minister...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/were-watching-trumps-7th-bankruptcy-unfold-171903858.html
Do we have any specialists in viral evolution to comment ?
https://twitter.com/SolidEvidence/status/1772329032287404326
This is amazing.
Can cryptic lineages tell us anything about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 (SC2)?
The answer may surprise you, it surprised the hell out of me...
(Lots & lots of technical stuff)
...Takehome message:
SARS-CoV-2 is not just a normal bat Sarbecovirus with a furin-cleave site added.
The changes are not ‘random’. This virus seemingly had significantly aclimated to a non-GI environment in ways that I believe could only occur through natural selection.
The simplest explanation (to me) is that SC2 circulated in a non-human host in a non-GI compartment for several years before it crossed into humans. This gives me hope that the SC2 progenitor might still be found one day.
Even if you believe that the FCS was engineered into SC2 (starting from an unknown virus), the virus would have had to have been cultured in a ‘non-gut’ environment with almost no immune pressure for a long time (probably years) before it passed to human...
Or Biden wins and the security cameras malfunction and he cannae take it no more
One or t'other
That is from the Telegraph's advice column reflecting a common issue, and meanwhile at the bottom of the income scale, workers are having to give up salary sacrifice benefits where these take them below the new minimum wage levels. Leaving aside questions of morality (do people on £100k need benefits? Should companies increase pay rather than remove benefits from its lowest-paid workers?) it is remarkable the government has ballsed up both ends.
The 'right woke' are a necessary antithesis. It is only because characters like Laurence Fox and Lee Anderson come on to the scene that the left can no longer do all the running. No longer is a free pass given to the statue topplers and pro hamas demonstraters, nor the gender totalitarians. I am not joining the 'right woke' but I concede absolutely that they are necessary to move things forward a bit.
Though nothing would surprise me, after learning many years ago that the cholera bacterium is primarily an inhabitant of the carapace of shrimps etc. and that any affinity with the human gut is presumably accidental, so the effects on humans are secondary (unless of course it is a dispersal mechanism to other waters, but it's not possible to go all Aristotelean on natural selection anyway ...).
Guy did a quick once-over and said “meh, no worries, all good”
I guess if you live in a country where half a decade ago 10 trillion people were murdered every Thursday a somewhat overdue rental car is pretty minor
I love Colombia. I want to come back!
See also Brexit in the UK- in many ways 'woke' was an evolution of 'remain', responding in turn to the obsession with a hard Brexit, which itself was a response to the approach to EU integration pursued by the political establishment.
Weather here betterer today
Susan Hall reacts to the Tory ad with a "wasn't me, guv".
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/u-n-expert-says-israel-has-committed-genocide-in-gaza-calls-for-arms-embargo/ar-BB1kyYRb?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=7732c51b90004469b5b5a15ca780bb68&ei=16
It's always HQ's fault!
I'm going for an attempted shitpost though. After all we're all discussing it now.
NEW THREAD
Several papers referenced, but the reasoning/finding is recent (and came as a surprise to him) and is not yet published elsewhere.
You'll have to read it.
References include:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666524723003725?via=ihub
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-40706-y#MOESM1
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf9302
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28246-3
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.14.23295379v1
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04532-4
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-021-00600-y
New Thread