When I see events like those in Leeds, I sometimes wonder if Judge Dredd isn’t the right answer after all. Crack some heads and teach the buggers a lesson.
In my plans for my UnDictatorship, the traffic wardens will be reworked into a paramilitary outfit. Tanks, armoured cars, attack helicopters, vegan nuclear weapons - that kind of stuff.
Think MVD crossed with the CRS.
All ranks will be issued with Gods Own Rifle, with the wooden furniture. Squad level will have anti tank rifles (for the e-scooters with the limiters removed) and tactical nuclear weapons will be held at company level.
In contrast, the police will be armed with really sharp pieces of fruit.
Reckon that Liz Truss would be the show's preferred recruit. Or maybe SRJ-M?
There’s no way Liz Truss signs up to do that much work for that little money, when she can make millions on the US speaking circuit and get adoration from the many Stateside conservative conferences.
These reality TV shows are for people who need to raise their profile, not for those who have moved on in life. She’s done with UK politics for at least the next five years.
Liz Truss shows no sign of disappearing into well deserved obscurity. On the one hand Strictly indicates an end of being a serious politician. On the other it is a good way of raising your profile, which Truss loves. Could go either way I think.
The second one in particular is worth a read. Big picture, the Tories were fine relying on older people, provided that their losses to the cemetery were balanced by people getting more Tory as they aged. This latter has stopped happening; result: big problem.
As an aside, Labour has a chance to rescue them, by solving the housing crisis for them!
I also liked this bit:
For many, Brexit is a shorthand for the bad judgement of Conservative politicians. It is seen as a commonplace that Brexit was a bad idea executed badly. Yet in the medium term Conservative politicians are likely to trumpet as an article of faith whenever the government looks like being pally with Brussels that it was the finest British moment of the 21st century and should not be jeopardised. They will look crackers.
Many of those who still support Brexit will discard the gateway drug that is the Conservative party and go straight for the opioid that is Reform. After all, weren’t they the ones that betrayed Brexit by failing to implement it with true purity?
Put another way, the Conservatives face the same challenge that M&S clothing faced, where consumers decided that the designer clothes were nicer and one-wear fashion was cheaper, meaning that the middle ground was the worst of both worlds.
People still get more Tory. The problem is they dont like the Party and the direction it took... and tgat they became more interested in themselves than the people they served.
The evidence suggests otherwise? The age/support graph used to rise steadily for the Tories with age, crossing over with Labour in middle age. Now it stays almost flat at 20% until the 50s, only makes 25% for the 60s, and then rises sharply as the end approacheth. The "missing" chunk compared to decades past is the cadre of people in their 40s to early 60s who used to be solidly Tory - hence the loss of all those 'safe' Home Counties seats.
Yes, while historically it was true that people became more Tory as they aged, that is decreasing so.
The challenge for the Tories is to find out if that is due to economic factors such as housing, or down to cultural effects, with the Gen X cohort having formed their politics when the Tories were the Nasty Party.
Off topic: What is it about big corporate purchasing departments? Kit is specced by people who will never use them. Or meet the people who do use them!
Big client requires that I use one of their machines to access SAP which the current phase of the project I’m working on requires. So they ship me a laptop. From Spain. With a Spanish language keyboard.
Had to present a slide deck to corporate team so will use the thing (diplomacy - otherwise it’s purely for SAP and my company’s MacBook does the heavy lifting).
We’ll say nothing about the crippled Windows build they have installed on it. And poke a finger at a matte screen with about 5 nits of brightness. Which doesn’t matter if it’s docked. As they are in Madrid or Lyon. But less useful in the field. Which anywhere not in an office is…
I've been a Mac user for 35 years. Windows has, indirectly, made me a small fortune. I recall the agony of a fellow commuter when he opened his PC to add the finishing touches to an important presentation, only for Bill Gates to brick his laptop for the entire journey by installing an obligatory upgrade.
Yes, corporate Windows is very good at booting me out of sessions with no option to delay.
I genuinely don’t get Windows. Then again I’ve been increasingly of that mindset for years
The choice is mandatory inconvenient reboots, or ransomware !!
Perfectly possible to have convenient, scheduled reboots instead.
If its mandatory, inconvenient ones the issue is the administrator not Windows.
On a properly-managed corporate Windows, yes in theory. The problems generally come when there’s a bunch of conflicting settings, say your laptop is told to reboot at 1am but it’s always hibernated at 1am, and regularly not actually rebooted for weeks at a time. Perhaps also people regularly work from home but their laptop is configured with an office profile. Eventually Windows gets fed up with this and just randomly reboots to install the updates.
It’s actually quite difficult to manage if the users do things in a different way to what MS expects. The best way to do it, it do have a ‘Windows patch week’ every six months, and tell everyone with a laptop to reboot it when connected to the network.
Would really not want something connected to the internet only being updated once a month. Last client gave you a 4 day window to manually reboot when you want to and that worked reasonably OK (was a great excuse to avoid a 9am scrum meeting if you didn't want to attend).
Yes the problem comes when you have an ‘urgent’ patch which can’t wait months.
When I see events like those in Leeds, I sometimes wonder if Judge Dredd isn’t the right answer after all. Crack some heads and teach the buggers a lesson.
In my plans for my UnDictatorship, the traffic wardens will be reworked into a paramilitary outfit. Tanks, armoured cars, attack helicopters, vegan nuclear weapons - that kind of stuff.
Think MVD crossed with the CRS.
All ranks will be issued with Gods Own Rifle, with the wooden furniture. Squad level will have anti tank rifles (for the e-scooters with the limiters removed) and tactical nuclear weapons will be held at company level.
In contrast, the police will be armed with really sharp pieces of fruit.
Tell that to the people who missed hosptial cancer appointments/couldnt pick their kids up/lost work that they use to feed their kids.
There was violence it jsut didnt appear in plain sight. They are the worst sort of hypocrities hiding behind the 'its' a non violent protest' when quite plainly their actions have violent effects on peoples lives.
They should consider themselves lucky not to have been on Terrorism charges.
I seem to recall you proposing the extra-judicial killing of unarmed civilians when it came to people coming over on small boats. Blocking a road doesn’t really compare to shooting people in cold blood.
Handed in my notice. Came to the conclusion (it hasn't been sudden), that I'm violating the principle of ahimsa. I'm helping make a totally immoral system function, and merely mitigating its failings. And have been deceiving myself that, because I'm extremely good at it, and therefore any conceived alternative person would be worse, then that is "helping". That's the slippery moral slope that can lead to genocide.
Have you considered a career in finance?
But seriously - well done for getting out before it breaks you.
Extraordinary levels of muppetry with that one. Not sure where to start.
It's not really a cycling debate though - plenty of videos of drivers doing stupid stuff at level crossings.
Sorry, but it is a cycling debate as much as a motoring debate. And a pedestrian debate. The fact others are also muppets does not excuse cyclists, who are not immune to being hit by a train.
Tell that to the people who missed hosptial cancer appointments/couldnt pick their kids up/lost work that they use to feed their kids.
There was violence it jsut didnt appear in plain sight. They are the worst sort of hypocrities hiding behind the 'its' a non violent protest' when quite plainly their actions have violent effects on peoples lives.
They should consider themselves lucky not to have been on Terrorism charges.
He's a 58 year old professional protester moving from one protest to another. Some flimsier than others. This latest one costing over £3,000,000. If there were no consequences his status as an outlaw would be seriously impaired
The leader of the eco-fascists has been found guilty numerous times and given a suspended sentence each time. He finally ran out of road.
And the other four?
I haven't tracked the other four, but the five are the organisers recruiting foot soldiers to do the protests. So analogous to the people co-ordinating people trafficking, but recruiting and organising not carrying out the crimes.
I've suggested on Twitter that a prison sentence is warranted, whilst saying that I expect it to be appealed and modestly reduced. Little bit of blow back given my circles - some deep believing / apocalyptic green types don't like being challenged on methods.
I've been saying that general aims of bunging up key infra of society are not OK, based on my personal experience of a respiratory arrest very soon after reaching a hospital once. I've been a critic of XR and JSO on that since they started more or less.
Comparisons with Suffragettes and other similars are made, which I have little sympathy for since some suffragettes who embraced terrorist methods are whitewashed. "But suffragettes" is always a lazy excuse imo.
Lots of excuses around "they were just discussing carrying out a peaceful protest".
The most interesting comments back have been comparisons with petrol protests blocking the motorways, which were not dealt with harshly and given police escorts for go slow protests on major points. That is a very telling point, which also relates to particular causes being portrayed as justified or 'acceptable' by particular audiences, and where the moral high ground is believed to lie.
I think that what both XR have done, similarly to the "war on cars" brigade as expressed by anti-LTN types shading over into conspiracy theories and camera-vandals, is that they have both judged it wrong and risk losing their general audience.
Extraordinary levels of muppetry with that one. Not sure where to start.
It's not really a cycling debate though - plenty of videos of drivers doing stupid stuff at level crossings.
Sorry, but it is a cycling debate as much as a motoring debate. And a pedestrian debate. The fact others are also muppets does not excuse cyclists, who are not immune to being hit by a train.
It's both, and needs to be considered on evidence and in proportion. But I can't see it as Ediz blocked me some time ago.
IMO on Twitter Ediz is essentially an anti-cycling troll, though, who's habit is to inject off-topic compilations of eg a few videos of delivery cyclists going through red lights with a 'what about THIS', type of comment.
As if the utility cyclist or mum who had just had a dangerous close pass was exactly the same as the young, racing delivery riders on piece work, or the hooded up youths doing drug delivery or because hoodies are fashionable.
He works in the bus industry, and is associated with a strange group called Social and Environmental Justice run by a guy called John Stewart. They are trying to be respectable but imo can't quite pull it off. They seem to me to be oppositionalist.
Washington Post reporting Obama has said Biden should stand aside. Other reports say Biden may announce he is doing so at the weekend.
Strangely enough it might be the assassination attempt on Trump that has been the final straw that means Biden has to go.
Biden and Trump are roughly the same age, and Trump is madder than Biden, but as despicable as he is the imagery of him with blood on his face fist raised contrasted with doddery, frail Biden . . . its not a good look for Biden.
Totally agree.
The current US media narrative is all about what a second Trump presidency will bring not whether he will win the election. That is now a given. The only way to change the narrative is to change the facts on the ground - and that means a new Democratic candidate. I also think that the triumphalism at the GOP Convention, the cultism and the unequivocal embrace of MAGA will worry a lot of Independents, women especially. There are things to exploit for a Trump opponent who is not Biden.
If the Democrats replace Biden with Harris that is it, Trump will win comfortably and the GOP will win Congress too. There might be a case to replace Biden with a rust belt governor like Shapiro but Harris would be political suicide.
She is an elitist coastal liberal who combines the ideology of Dukakis and Kerry with the common touch of Hillary Clinton and entitlement of Al Gore. She encapsulates all the losers who were Democratic presidential candidates in the last few decades in one
Even if that's true, replacing Biden with anyone else than Harris will surely infuriate the identity-obsessed Democrat base. Unless they have another black woman handy?
Far from being an elitist with the ideology of Dukakis, she lost in the nomination race last week by being too pro-Police and anti-crime at a time when the Democrats were concerned about Police brutality and on the side of Black Lives Matter etc
HYUFD totally gets Harris wrong.
Kerry was a prosecutor too, fat lot of good it did him. Harris has also been firmly woke as VP in her agenda. She would be the worst Democrat nominee since Kerry, maybe even Dukakis. Trump would easily beat her in the rustbelt
Kerry was a decent candidate who ran Bush very close, despite Bush having had record popularity in recent times post-9/11.
Name anything "woke" or "Dukakis" like about Harris. You're just spewing your own bile.
Harris has backed reparations for slavery, transgender bathrooms, you name it
And most importantly, abortion.
If she can get women voting by that she will win.
That's my hope. Women stop him winning. A suitable fate for a misogynist.
This was the presumption prior to his dementia. The revocation of Roe vs Wade led to a lot of pro-choice people voting against Trump and that and his crimes led to a lot of independents voting against Trump. Those factors were big and would have made Biden a shoo-in in 2024. But his dementia has broken all that and if he remains in place Biden will lose. I think that even given Harris's known deficiencies she would reattract the prochoice and independents and bring herself back into play.
Such a terrible thing to allow elected legislatures to decide the matter rather than unelected judges creatively interpreting a clause in a 200 year old constitution written by puritans with religious views much like the DUP who intended the clause in the constitution to offer no such right and would have been outraged to the level of apoplexy at the mere suggestion of it.
Whilst I take your point, it was orthogonal to the point I was making, which was "The revocation of Roe vs Wade led to a lot of pro-choice people voting against Trump and that and his crimes led to a lot of independents voting against Trump."
Comments
Think MVD crossed with the CRS.
All ranks will be issued with Gods Own Rifle, with the wooden furniture. Squad level will have anti tank rifles (for the e-scooters with the limiters removed) and tactical nuclear weapons will be held at company level.
In contrast, the police will be armed with really sharp pieces of fruit.
The challenge for the Tories is to find out if that is due to economic factors such as housing, or down to cultural effects, with the Gen X cohort having formed their politics when the Tories were the Nasty Party.
It's not really a cycling debate though - plenty of videos of drivers doing stupid stuff at level crossings.
NEW THREAD
(Blue Screen of Death)
But seriously - well done for getting out before it breaks you.
I've suggested on Twitter that a prison sentence is warranted, whilst saying that I expect it to be appealed and modestly reduced. Little bit of blow back given my circles - some deep believing / apocalyptic green types don't like being challenged on methods.
I've been saying that general aims of bunging up key infra of society are not OK, based on my personal experience of a respiratory arrest very soon after reaching a hospital once. I've been a critic of XR and JSO on that since they started more or less.
Comparisons with Suffragettes and other similars are made, which I have little sympathy for since some suffragettes who embraced terrorist methods are whitewashed. "But suffragettes" is always a lazy excuse imo.
Lots of excuses around "they were just discussing carrying out a peaceful protest".
The most interesting comments back have been comparisons with petrol protests blocking the motorways, which were not dealt with harshly and given police escorts for go slow protests on major points. That is a very telling point, which also relates to particular causes being portrayed as justified or 'acceptable' by particular audiences, and where the moral high ground is believed to lie.
I think that what both XR have done, similarly to the "war on cars" brigade as expressed by anti-LTN types shading over into conspiracy theories and camera-vandals, is that they have both judged it wrong and risk losing their general audience.
IMO on Twitter Ediz is essentially an anti-cycling troll, though, who's habit is to inject off-topic compilations of eg a few videos of delivery cyclists going through red lights with a 'what about THIS', type of comment.
As if the utility cyclist or mum who had just had a dangerous close pass was exactly the same as the young, racing delivery riders on piece work, or the hooded up youths doing drug delivery or because hoodies are fashionable.
He works in the bus industry, and is associated with a strange group called Social and Environmental Justice run by a guy called John Stewart. They are trying to be respectable but imo can't quite pull it off. They seem to me to be oppositionalist.
Here is their media page featuring Ediz, which also gives an idea of the type of things they oppose.
https://www.socialenvironmentaljustice.co.uk/IntheNews