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Understanding the rise of Kamala Harris – politicalbetting.com

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  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,174
    edited August 2
    Brompton said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Big undershoot in US Non farm payrolls

    July Payrolls 114K, Exp. 175K

    Very very good news for rates.

    Calamity for market sentiment
    I've got 25 years till retirement, my remortgage window opens in a month's time :D

    Can bear the paper hit on my pension for now.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,643
    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
    It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
    He is a comedian.
    Is he just taking the piss ?
    What Frank Skinner does show is why IHT is (and was in 2009/10) a dangerous area for Labour. People simply do not understand it.

    Skinner says: I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/ (£££)

    Well, he wouldn't be, and isn't. Frank is in the same position as Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Skinner children are in the same position as the Rees-Mogg children.
    Either he’s being a comedian and trying to be ironic, or he’s seriously taking the piss. He comes across as thinking that because he came up from nothing his kids shouldn’t be subject to inheritance tax, but someone else who had a good start in life but also made money should be. Well Mr Skinner, your kids are going to start life with a nice house and likely aspire to send their kids to the private school, they’ll grow up to be just like those you now despise.

    It would be heading towards Peak Guardian if it had been in that newspaper rather than the Telegraph, but as we learned yesterday which way that newspaper is heading… https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/activity-and-adventure/uk-best-wild-swimming-spots/
    Thanks for link - going for a wild swim this afternoon once the avocado toast has settled
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,603

    Sandpit said:

    On topic: Those who want to understand Kamala Harris should read Michael Shellenberger's "Apocalypse Never", especially chapter 10, "All About the Green", in which he shows that politicians, most of them Democrats, have used contributions to "environmental" organizations from fossil fuel interests to block competition from nuclear power.

    Harris played a small part in that:
    "In office for a third and fourth term, starting in 2011, starting in 2011, [Jerry] Brown and his allies resumed the effort they began in the 1970s to shut down the state's nuclear plants. It started with a plant called the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County."

    Brown's administration made a deal with the utility that owned the plant, offering them higher rates, if they would close it. They agreed, rates and emissions both went up, as they switched to natural gas.

    And then: "In November 2014, state and federal agents raided the CPUC's offices in a joint investigation of potential criminal activities related to the permanent closure and settlement proceedings of SONGS. Kamala Harris, California's attorney general at the time, either killed or stalled the investigations. The CPUC refused to turn over sixty or more emails from Governor Brown's office."
    (pp. 215-216)

    The Brown family has had substantial financial interests in fossil fuels, for decades.

    From this, I conclude that Harris is adept at protecting key allies in the California Democratic Party.

    (There's a little more about her in Shellenberger's "San Fransicko".)

    Another book on Harris is “Amateur Hour” by Charlie Spiering.
    President Harris means NATO survives and Ukraine live to fight another day.

    President Trump means the Russian Federation can expand substantially should they so wish.
    The Russian federation expanded under Obama and Biden but not under Trump.
    You are comparing 12 years (Obama and Biden) against 4 (Trump). You also ignore that Russia's military was rebuilding its capabilities from its decline in the 1990s and 2000s, and had learned hard lessons from Ukraine 2014. They were not ready to launch an invasion before 2021 or 2022.

    In fact, thankfully events show they were not ready in 2022, either.
    Thankfully Boris Johnson was PM so someone was able to push back against Biden’s defeatism.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,213
    Eabhal said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
    It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
    He is a comedian.
    Is he just taking the piss ?
    What Frank Skinner does show is why IHT is (and was in 2009/10) a dangerous area for Labour. People simply do not understand it.

    Skinner says: I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/ (£££)

    Well, he wouldn't be, and isn't. Frank is in the same position as Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Skinner children are in the same position as the Rees-Mogg children.
    Either he’s being a comedian and trying to be ironic, or he’s seriously taking the piss. He comes across as thinking that because he came up from nothing his kids shouldn’t be subject to inheritance tax, but someone else who had a good start in life but also made money should be. Well Mr Skinner, your kids are going to start life with a nice house and likely aspire to send their kids to the private school, they’ll grow up to be just like those you now despise.

    It would be heading towards Peak Guardian if it had been in that newspaper rather than the Telegraph, but as we learned yesterday which way that newspaper is heading… https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/activity-and-adventure/uk-best-wild-swimming-spots/
    Thanks for link - going for a wild swim this afternoon once the avocado toast has settled
    Did you put pre-flaked parmesan on the avocado toast?
  • Brompton said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Big undershoot in US Non farm payrolls

    July Payrolls 114K, Exp. 175K

    Very very good news for rates.

    Calamity for market sentiment
    Nasdaq futures. (pre market) just dropped another 200 points. Down 483 now which is an awful lot for a pre trading market.

    Who on earth buys the things on these shadow markets at a time like this?

  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    Sandpit said:

    On topic: Those who want to understand Kamala Harris should read Michael Shellenberger's "Apocalypse Never", especially chapter 10, "All About the Green", in which he shows that politicians, most of them Democrats, have used contributions to "environmental" organizations from fossil fuel interests to block competition from nuclear power.

    Harris played a small part in that:
    "In office for a third and fourth term, starting in 2011, starting in 2011, [Jerry] Brown and his allies resumed the effort they began in the 1970s to shut down the state's nuclear plants. It started with a plant called the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County."

    Brown's administration made a deal with the utility that owned the plant, offering them higher rates, if they would close it. They agreed, rates and emissions both went up, as they switched to natural gas.

    And then: "In November 2014, state and federal agents raided the CPUC's offices in a joint investigation of potential criminal activities related to the permanent closure and settlement proceedings of SONGS. Kamala Harris, California's attorney general at the time, either killed or stalled the investigations. The CPUC refused to turn over sixty or more emails from Governor Brown's office."
    (pp. 215-216)

    The Brown family has had substantial financial interests in fossil fuels, for decades.

    From this, I conclude that Harris is adept at protecting key allies in the California Democratic Party.

    (There's a little more about her in Shellenberger's "San Fransicko".)

    Another book on Harris is “Amateur Hour” by Charlie Spiering.
    President Harris means NATO survives and Ukraine live to fight another day.

    President Trump means the Russian Federation can expand substantially should they so wish.
    The Russian Federation expanded under Obama and Biden but not under Trump.
    Disengaging the USA from NATO, as far as I am aware, didn't happen during Trump's last
    ride out.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,984
    theProle said:

    TimS said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    tlg86 said:

    This tweet is obviously dumb:

    https://x.com/mrmarksteel/status/1819280893539713150

    @mrmarksteel
    I think Simone Biles should be banned from women’s gymnastics as her muscles are too strong and manly. She should be replaced by Holly Willoughby.


    But it's amusing that he's now getting accused - unfairly, I suspect - of being racist.

    I haven't been following the Olympic boxer case. It is that they are like Caster Semenya, a biological outlier who is inter-sex (apologises if using the wrong terminology), or are they somebody who was born in biological normal range for a man, who has transitioned e.g. the NZ weightlifter from the Toyoko Olympics?
    I *think* Imane is a 5-ARD male, Semenya certainly is.

    To my mind 5-ARD males, whatever their passport might say should be competing in the female category.
    I've not followed it either but aiui from the Betfair forum, the boxer was born with and still has female genitalia, so if that is the test... She's also got a pretty woeful win/loss record. But if testosterone is the criterion, then she should not be there. Then there's Freddie Mills' advice to bang your opponent on the nose, which is what happened to the Italian boxer, who was sufficiently disorientated to throw in the towel. But dyor because I can't be bothered.
    I'd have the presence of any sort of testes (Both internal/external) as the dividing criterion - as that's ultimately what provides male advantage. If (s?)he's producing testosterone in some other way then best of luck to her/him.
    & No you can't chop them off to get into the female cat.
    The sad thing here is that people like her and Semenya very likely will have no viable route into international competitive sport in future. They will be too female to be capable of competing in physical disciplines with men, but deemed too male to be allowed to take part in female competition.

    And if we then create a third category, it’s going to be a. tiny and uncompetitive, b. a circus and an invitation to bigots to point and jeer or laugh.
    Whilst that's a bit sad for them, surely it's only a different application of the genetic lottery which means I (like 99.99% of the planet's population) have little chance of competing at the Olympics in anything. Which is a bit sad for me, but I'm realistic enough not to wander around shouting "that's not fair" about it.
    You may have noticed that it's not them wandering around shouting "that's not fair". Intersex athletes have tended to cut a demure and occasionally sad public figure while athletes around them regularly shout noisily that it's not fair. It's extremely hard to find anyone showing even a modicum of empathy with them.

    I do think it is very sad that someone who might be a world class athlete may end up with no meaningful forum in which to compete. And they are finding themselves, by dint of an accident of birth, thrown into a nasty trans debate that should have nothing to do with them.

    The Paralympics is an option, but then you'd get the usual suspects complaining about that too.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,603

    Sandpit said:

    On topic: Those who want to understand Kamala Harris should read Michael Shellenberger's "Apocalypse Never", especially chapter 10, "All About the Green", in which he shows that politicians, most of them Democrats, have used contributions to "environmental" organizations from fossil fuel interests to block competition from nuclear power.

    Harris played a small part in that:
    "In office for a third and fourth term, starting in 2011, starting in 2011, [Jerry] Brown and his allies resumed the effort they began in the 1970s to shut down the state's nuclear plants. It started with a plant called the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County."

    Brown's administration made a deal with the utility that owned the plant, offering them higher rates, if they would close it. They agreed, rates and emissions both went up, as they switched to natural gas.

    And then: "In November 2014, state and federal agents raided the CPUC's offices in a joint investigation of potential criminal activities related to the permanent closure and settlement proceedings of SONGS. Kamala Harris, California's attorney general at the time, either killed or stalled the investigations. The CPUC refused to turn over sixty or more emails from Governor Brown's office."
    (pp. 215-216)

    The Brown family has had substantial financial interests in fossil fuels, for decades.

    From this, I conclude that Harris is adept at protecting key allies in the California Democratic Party.

    (There's a little more about her in Shellenberger's "San Fransicko".)

    Another book on Harris is “Amateur Hour” by Charlie Spiering.
    President Harris means NATO survives and Ukraine live to fight another day.

    President Trump means the Russian Federation can expand substantially should they so wish.
    The Russian Federation expanded under Obama and Biden but not under Trump.
    Disengaging the USA from NATO, as far as I am aware, didn't happen during Trump's last
    ride out.
    When he correctly warned Germany, it was characterised as disengagement from NATO.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,643

    Eabhal said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
    It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
    He is a comedian.
    Is he just taking the piss ?
    What Frank Skinner does show is why IHT is (and was in 2009/10) a dangerous area for Labour. People simply do not understand it.

    Skinner says: I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/ (£££)

    Well, he wouldn't be, and isn't. Frank is in the same position as Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Skinner children are in the same position as the Rees-Mogg children.
    Either he’s being a comedian and trying to be ironic, or he’s seriously taking the piss. He comes across as thinking that because he came up from nothing his kids shouldn’t be subject to inheritance tax, but someone else who had a good start in life but also made money should be. Well Mr Skinner, your kids are going to start life with a nice house and likely aspire to send their kids to the private school, they’ll grow up to be just like those you now despise.

    It would be heading towards Peak Guardian if it had been in that newspaper rather than the Telegraph, but as we learned yesterday which way that newspaper is heading… https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/activity-and-adventure/uk-best-wild-swimming-spots/
    Thanks for link - going for a wild swim this afternoon once the avocado toast has settled
    Did you put pre-flaked parmesan on the avocado toast?
    I'm not Leon
  • Brompton said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Big undershoot in US Non farm payrolls

    July Payrolls 114K, Exp. 175K

    Very very good news for rates.

    Calamity for market sentiment
    Nasdaq futures. (pre market) just dropped another 200 points. Down 483 now which is an awful lot for a pre trading market.

    Who on earth buys the things on these shadow markets at a time like this?

    Oh Dear, Jim Cramer has just said this:

    "Nasdaq futures dropping as if it's the end of the world; memo to all: it isn't"

    https://x.com/jimcramer/status/1819305269651779774

    BRACE, BRACE!

  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,870

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    I hope you are joking....government moderation of anything about speech leads to censorship...we do it then saudi will demand the right and russia...and iran and the GOP in america. It will cause more issues than it solves.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    Sandpit said:

    On topic: Those who want to understand Kamala Harris should read Michael Shellenberger's "Apocalypse Never", especially chapter 10, "All About the Green", in which he shows that politicians, most of them Democrats, have used contributions to "environmental" organizations from fossil fuel interests to block competition from nuclear power.

    Harris played a small part in that:
    "In office for a third and fourth term, starting in 2011, starting in 2011, [Jerry] Brown and his allies resumed the effort they began in the 1970s to shut down the state's nuclear plants. It started with a plant called the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County."

    Brown's administration made a deal with the utility that owned the plant, offering them higher rates, if they would close it. They agreed, rates and emissions both went up, as they switched to natural gas.

    And then: "In November 2014, state and federal agents raided the CPUC's offices in a joint investigation of potential criminal activities related to the permanent closure and settlement proceedings of SONGS. Kamala Harris, California's attorney general at the time, either killed or stalled the investigations. The CPUC refused to turn over sixty or more emails from Governor Brown's office."
    (pp. 215-216)

    The Brown family has had substantial financial interests in fossil fuels, for decades.

    From this, I conclude that Harris is adept at protecting key allies in the California Democratic Party.

    (There's a little more about her in Shellenberger's "San Fransicko".)

    Another book on Harris is “Amateur Hour” by Charlie Spiering.
    President Harris means NATO survives and Ukraine live to fight another day.

    President Trump means the Russian Federation can expand substantially should they so wish.
    The Russian Federation expanded under Obama and Biden but not under Trump.
    Disengaging the USA from NATO, as far as I am aware, didn't happen during Trump's last
    ride out.
    When he correctly warned Germany, it was characterised as disengagement from NATO.
    "Characterised" is doing all the work there.

    I get confused. Are you shilling for Trump, or for Putin?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,213
    Pagan2 said:

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    I hope you are joking....government moderation of anything about speech leads to censorship...we do it then saudi will demand the right and russia...and iran and the GOP in america. It will cause more issues than it solves.
    China will demand it first.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,044

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    When has it worked?

    You need a strong, truthful message to push back with.
    The police very rapidly said the attack was not linked to terrorism and that the name circulating wasn't true.

    https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9cbb/e218ed66f13cb9c588351b99cc4ab7f5015b.pdf is an example of the research showing good moderation works.
    The messaging was all over the place and had little or no detail. Which is why the fucktards got their chance.
    How was the "messaging [...] all over the place". It appeared pretty consistent.

    The problem is with (a) how disinformation is amplified on social media and (b) with the fucktards.
    Review PB for the time in question - those who were trying to calm down the bollocks were finding it hard to come up with links to the facts.
    I recall PB at the time. Someone who knew the incident had nothing to do with Islam nonetheless kept posting to claim Muslims are problematic.

    We wouldn't have to "calm down the bollocks" if social media weren't amplifying the bollocks and if people weren't rushing to agree with the bollocks.

    Musk has neutered Twitter moderation, e.g. cutting staff ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-07/elon-musk-cuts-more-twitter-staff-overseeing-content-moderation ), and there's been a big increase in far right, extremist content ( https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/did-the-musk-takeover-boost-contentious-actors-on-twitter/ https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/understanding-antisemitism-on-twitter-after-musk/ ). And we know Twitter in particular was central to the disinformation in this case.
    Twitter has instituted other changes to their algorithm that have greatly increased the spread of disinformation: see https://dfrlab.org/2023/04/21/state-controlled-media-experience-sudden-twitter-gains-after-unannounced-platform-policy-change/

    Multiple Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state media outlets on Twitter simultaneously began to gain followers after months of decline or stagnation, the DFRLab has discovered. A DFRLab assessment suggests that Twitter changed its algorithms regarding these accounts around March 29, 2023. NPR confirmed on April 21 that Twitter had made the deliberate decision to stop filtering government accounts in Russia, China, and Iran.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,576
    Andy_JS said:

    Nigelb asked: "Is it (nuclear power] particularly controversial?

    In the US, it certainly has been. It is only in recent years that a majority of Americans have come to favor it, again.
    https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/18/growing-share-of-americans-favor-more-nuclear-power/

    What do the polls on the subject in the UK say?

    This is from October 2022.

    https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/43941-britons-are-becoming-more-positive-towards-nuclear

    "Net support for nuclear energy is up 21 points since summer 2021

    New YouGov tracker data reveals that Britons are increasingly supportive of nuclear energy, even though perceptions of its safety remain unchanged.

    From late 2019 to summer 2021, Britons were divided on using nuclear power. Around four in ten over that time period supported doing so, while a similar number opposed it.

    Since then, support has been on the rise. Almost half (48%) of Britons now back the use of nuclear energy, compared to 31% who are opposed."
    Which is why the UK government should have put in the order for the first half a dozen Rolls Royce SMRs.

    The American technology candidate is already on hold thanks to a lack of orders, which now likely means the whole industry will end up with the Chinese.
  • KnightOutKnightOut Posts: 142
    theProle said:

    TimS said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    tlg86 said:

    This tweet is obviously dumb:

    https://x.com/mrmarksteel/status/1819280893539713150

    @mrmarksteel
    I think Simone Biles should be banned from women’s gymnastics as her muscles are too strong and manly. She should be replaced by Holly Willoughby.


    But it's amusing that he's now getting accused - unfairly, I suspect - of being racist.

    I haven't been following the Olympic boxer case. It is that they are like Caster Semenya, a biological outlier who is inter-sex (apologises if using the wrong terminology), or are they somebody who was born in biological normal range for a man, who has transitioned e.g. the NZ weightlifter from the Toyoko Olympics?
    I *think* Imane is a 5-ARD male, Semenya certainly is.

    To my mind 5-ARD males, whatever their passport might say should be competing in the female category.
    I've not followed it either but aiui from the Betfair forum, the boxer was born with and still has female genitalia, so if that is the test... She's also got a pretty woeful win/loss record. But if testosterone is the criterion, then she should not be there. Then there's Freddie Mills' advice to bang your opponent on the nose, which is what happened to the Italian boxer, who was sufficiently disorientated to throw in the towel. But dyor because I can't be bothered.
    I'd have the presence of any sort of testes (Both internal/external) as the dividing criterion - as that's ultimately what provides male advantage. If (s?)he's producing testosterone in some other way then best of luck to her/him.
    & No you can't chop them off to get into the female cat.
    The sad thing here is that people like her and Semenya very likely will have no viable route into international competitive sport in future. They will be too female to be capable of competing in physical disciplines with men, but deemed too male to be allowed to take part in female competition.

    And if we then create a third category, it’s going to be a. tiny and uncompetitive, b. a circus and an invitation to bigots to point and jeer or laugh.
    Whilst that's a bit sad for them, surely it's only a different application of the genetic lottery which means I (like 99.99% of the planet's population) have little chance of competing at the Olympics in anything. Which is a bit sad for me, but I'm realistic enough not to wander around shouting "that's not fair" about it.
    Yes. In these ultra-rare cases of intersex, biological ambiguity, dubious uncategorisable chromosome defects etc. the default thinking should be:

    'sorry, but it's not fair for these unusual people to be competing in women's sport'

    rather than

    'hooray, let's exploit this freakish biological anomaly by competing in women's sport!!!11'
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,044
    Pagan2 said:

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    I hope you are joking....government moderation of anything about speech leads to censorship...we do it then saudi will demand the right and russia...and iran and the GOP in america. It will cause more issues than it solves.
    I'm asking social media companies to moderate themselves.

    Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and the GOP in the US do what they want anyway (but I like your grouping! a new axis of evil?).
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,174
    Bhwani Shankar
    @BhwaniShankar1
    The market is now pricing in a a 69% chance that Jerome Powell and the 🇺🇸 Fed cut rates by 50 BASIS POINTS in September - CME FedWatch Tool

    Andrew Bailey will be smiling today.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,865
    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Nigelb asked: "Is it (nuclear power] particularly controversial?

    In the US, it certainly has been. It is only in recent years that a majority of Americans have come to favor it, again.
    https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/18/growing-share-of-americans-favor-more-nuclear-power/

    What do the polls on the subject in the UK say?

    This is from October 2022.

    https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/43941-britons-are-becoming-more-positive-towards-nuclear

    "Net support for nuclear energy is up 21 points since summer 2021

    New YouGov tracker data reveals that Britons are increasingly supportive of nuclear energy, even though perceptions of its safety remain unchanged.

    From late 2019 to summer 2021, Britons were divided on using nuclear power. Around four in ten over that time period supported doing so, while a similar number opposed it.

    Since then, support has been on the rise. Almost half (48%) of Britons now back the use of nuclear energy, compared to 31% who are opposed."
    Which is why the UK government should have put in the order for the first half a dozen Rolls Royce SMRs.

    The American technology candidate is already on hold thanks to a lack of orders, which now likely means the whole industry will end up with the Chinese.
    Three Mile Island ending up in China is why Americans worry about nuclear power stations.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,576

    Brompton said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Big undershoot in US Non farm payrolls

    July Payrolls 114K, Exp. 175K

    Very very good news for rates.

    Calamity for market sentiment
    Nasdaq futures. (pre market) just dropped another 200 points. Down 483 now which is an awful lot for a pre trading market.

    Who on earth buys the things on these shadow markets at a time like this?

    Have you ever worked with day traders? They’re basically making spread bets on where the market will open. It’s going to be down, the question is just how much down as all of the overnight trades settle.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,620
    Sandpit said:

    TimS said:

    Nigelb said:

    TimS said:

    Nigelb said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
    It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
    He is a comedian.
    Is he just taking the piss ?
    I don’t think he is.

    There is potentially a way to effect something with the kind of gist of what he’s arguing, without favouring inherited wealth. It would be complex to administer though.

    Deduct from the base cost of CGT disposals the value of any estate inherited by the individual disposing of the asset, net of any IHT paid. This would apply to the first CGT event unless the base cost is less than the estate value, in which case base cost goes to zero and the remainder carries forward to the next disposal.

    So if you inherited 10 million in assets that benefited from APR, and you now sell a business worth 100 million with base cost of 50m, your gain goes up from 50 to 60 million.
    That is the other tax imperative -
    Taxes should be simple to understand, and easy to collect.
    Indeed. IHT is a perfect example of a tax where the headline rate is too high and the amount collected too low, and which would benefit hugely from simplification and streamlining.

    My first base cost example was tongue in cheek, but there is a strong argument to overhaul the way IHT and CGT interact on succession.
    If you set IHT at 10% with no exceptions, it would probably raise more money.

    The only losers would be tax advisors, wealth managers, and lawyers. Always good to see the lawyers lose out.
    Tsk, that’s the politics of envy.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,986
    kjh said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Is trampolining a sport?

    Any events we win golds in, is a sport. If not, it isn't.
    We just won a Gold in Womens' lightweight double sculls, and the IOC have decreed it is no longer a sport...
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,865
    Scott_xP said:

    kjh said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Is trampolining a sport?

    Any events we win golds in, is a sport. If not, it isn't.
    We just won a Gold in Womens' lightweight double sculls, and the IOC have decreed it is no longer a sport...
    Winning the bouncy castle brings us to a pleasingly symmetric 8 golds; 8 silvers; 8 bronzes.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    Scott_xP said:

    Oh...

    @axios
    SCOOP: Trump didn't want to be fact-checked live at NABJ and was refusing to go on stage — a stalemate so prolonged that NABJ president Ken Lemon was prepping a statement to explain why Trump wouldn't show.

    As Lemon was prepping it, Trump walked on stage.

    https://x.com/axios/status/1819341448484901353

    Apart from the bit about the prepping of a statement that was reported at the time as the reason for the delayed start, so it's a half scoop at best.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    stodge said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Boris Johnson moved explicitly to take powers from Westminster and hand them to Ministers and Whitehall - key powers of scrutiny and accountability were signed away in the name of "good governance". I'll cheerfully concede I see no sign of Starmer seeking to repatriate those powers.

    You were one of those who argued rightly for the supremacy of Parliament and the repatriation of powers from Brussels after we left the EU but we can't simply take those powers and hand them over from the legislature to the executive.

    Promises of devolution to local councils and mayors came to little and have even frustrated such dangerous socialists such as Tim Oliver, leader of Surrey County Council.
    Party manifestos always talk in vague terms about giving power to localities. It rarely amounts to much, and is so vestigial in the documents I don't know why they bother (actually I think this time mostly really did not).
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,576
    edited August 2

    Sandpit said:

    TimS said:

    Nigelb said:

    TimS said:

    Nigelb said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
    It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
    He is a comedian.
    Is he just taking the piss ?
    I don’t think he is.

    There is potentially a way to effect something with the kind of gist of what he’s arguing, without favouring inherited wealth. It would be complex to administer though.

    Deduct from the base cost of CGT disposals the value of any estate inherited by the individual disposing of the asset, net of any IHT paid. This would apply to the first CGT event unless the base cost is less than the estate value, in which case base cost goes to zero and the remainder carries forward to the next disposal.

    So if you inherited 10 million in assets that benefited from APR, and you now sell a business worth 100 million with base cost of 50m, your gain goes up from 50 to 60 million.
    That is the other tax imperative -
    Taxes should be simple to understand, and easy to collect.
    Indeed. IHT is a perfect example of a tax where the headline rate is too high and the amount collected too low, and which would benefit hugely from simplification and streamlining.

    My first base cost example was tongue in cheek, but there is a strong argument to overhaul the way IHT and CGT interact on succession.
    If you set IHT at 10% with no exceptions, it would probably raise more money.

    The only losers would be tax advisors, wealth managers, and lawyers. Always good to see the lawyers lose out.
    Tsk, that’s the politics of envy.
    Not envy, just a willingness to eliminate unnecessary parasites from the affairs of the average man or woman.

    Taxes should be simple, easy to collect, and mostly collected.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061
    Scott_xP said:

    Oh...

    @axios
    SCOOP: Trump didn't want to be fact-checked live at NABJ and was refusing to go on stage — a stalemate so prolonged that NABJ president Ken Lemon was prepping a statement to explain why Trump wouldn't show.

    As Lemon was prepping it, Trump walked on stage.

    https://x.com/axios/status/1819341448484901353

    That was on Twitter at the time, so not exactly a scoop.
    It was pretty obvious that Trump's insults about the audio equipment causing the delay were just his usual bullshit.

    Everyone knows by now that he can't open his mouth without lying. His supporters are conditioned to accept and justify the lies.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,549

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    When has it worked?

    You need a strong, truthful message to push back with.
    The police very rapidly said the attack was not linked to terrorism and that the name circulating wasn't true.

    https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9cbb/e218ed66f13cb9c588351b99cc4ab7f5015b.pdf is an example of the research showing good moderation works.
    The messaging was all over the place and had little or no detail. Which is why the fucktards got their chance.
    How was the "messaging [...] all over the place". It appeared pretty consistent.

    The problem is with (a) how disinformation is amplified on social media and (b) with the fucktards.
    Review PB for the time in question - those who were trying to calm down the bollocks were finding it hard to come up with links to the facts.
    I recall PB at the time. Someone who knew the incident had nothing to do with Islam nonetheless kept posting to claim Muslims are problematic.

    We wouldn't have to "calm down the bollocks" if social media weren't amplifying the bollocks and if people weren't rushing to agree with the bollocks.

    Musk has neutered Twitter moderation, e.g. cutting staff ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-07/elon-musk-cuts-more-twitter-staff-overseeing-content-moderation ), and there's been a big increase in far right, extremist content ( https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/did-the-musk-takeover-boost-contentious-actors-on-twitter/ https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/understanding-antisemitism-on-twitter-after-musk/ ). And we know Twitter in particular was central to the disinformation in this case.
    Twitter has instituted other changes to their algorithm that have greatly increased the spread of disinformation: see https://dfrlab.org/2023/04/21/state-controlled-media-experience-sudden-twitter-gains-after-unannounced-platform-policy-change/

    Multiple Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state media outlets on Twitter simultaneously began to gain followers after months of decline or stagnation, the DFRLab has discovered. A DFRLab assessment suggests that Twitter changed its algorithms regarding these accounts around March 29, 2023. NPR confirmed on April 21 that Twitter had made the deliberate decision to stop filtering government accounts in Russia, China, and Iran.
    I'd love to know the full details of the investors who gave Musk money to buy Twitter, their nationalities and what agreements he came to in order to get the money.

    In fact, I think that information is vital. Is it public?
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,870

    Pagan2 said:

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    I hope you are joking....government moderation of anything about speech leads to censorship...we do it then saudi will demand the right and russia...and iran and the GOP in america. It will cause more issues than it solves.
    I'm asking social media companies to moderate themselves.

    Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and the GOP in the US do what they want anyway (but I like your grouping! a new axis of evil?).
    Ah you mean like facebook did by removing any reference to lab leaks for covid...now I am not convinced either way but it wasn't helpful . Facebook cant tell truth from fiction anymore than anyone else. You want to fight the crap on social media then post truth and fight it all that happens if you try to stop it being posted is more people believe its true but censored
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,870

    Pagan2 said:

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    I hope you are joking....government moderation of anything about speech leads to censorship...we do it then saudi will demand the right and russia...and iran and the GOP in america. It will cause more issues than it solves.
    China will demand it first.
    And as long as we don't do it we have the moral authority to tell china go suck a lemon...if we do the same however
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,576

    Pagan2 said:

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    I hope you are joking....government moderation of anything about speech leads to censorship...we do it then saudi will demand the right and russia...and iran and the GOP in america. It will cause more issues than it solves.
    I'm asking social media companies to moderate themselves.

    Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and the GOP in the US do what they want anyway (but I like your grouping! a new axis of evil?).
    Unfortunately the social media companies have a very poor record of moderating themselves, preferring to censor content based on ideology rather than correctness.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,620
    edited August 2
    Scott_xP said:

    kjh said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Is trampolining a sport?

    Any events we win golds in, is a sport. If not, it isn't.
    We just won a Gold in Womens' lightweight double sculls, and the IOC have decreed it is no longer a sport...
    Hello, apostrophe police?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,576
    US unemployment rate up from 4.1% to 4.3%, highest level since Oct ‘21.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/02/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-stock-sell-off-interest-rates/

    This has a horrible September 2008 vibe.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,620
    Sandpit said:

    Pagan2 said:

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    I hope you are joking....government moderation of anything about speech leads to censorship...we do it then saudi will demand the right and russia...and iran and the GOP in america. It will cause more issues than it solves.
    I'm asking social media companies to moderate themselves.

    Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and the GOP in the US do what they want anyway (but I like your grouping! a new axis of evil?).
    Unfortunately the social media companies have a very poor record of moderating themselves, preferring to censor content based on ideology rather than correctness.
    Recently I was called by a headhunter offering me a job at Meta in London.

    They like hiring people from Sheffield.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,549
    Sandpit said:

    Pagan2 said:

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    I hope you are joking....government moderation of anything about speech leads to censorship...we do it then saudi will demand the right and russia...and iran and the GOP in america. It will cause more issues than it solves.
    I'm asking social media companies to moderate themselves.

    Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and the GOP in the US do what they want anyway (but I like your grouping! a new axis of evil?).
    Unfortunately the social media companies have a very poor record of moderating themselves, preferring to censor content based on ideology rather than correctness.
    LOL. I know you're fine with what Musky Baby's doing with Twitter, but that's really not the case. It's what he *claims*, but as ever, remember that Musk will lie whenever possible.

    Besides, should censorship be done on 'correctness'? If so, half of PB's posts would be censored, including mine. IMO censorship should be done against the laws of the land, which is an issue with media that is international.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,620
    Sandpit said:

    US unemployment rate up from 4.1% to 4.3%, highest level since Oct ‘21.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/02/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-stock-sell-off-interest-rates/

    This has a horrible September 2008 vibe.

    So the Dems are going to win the presidential election?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,174
    edited August 2
    Sandpit said:

    US unemployment rate up from 4.1% to 4.3%, highest level since Oct ‘21.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/02/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-stock-sell-off-interest-rates/

    This has a horrible September 2008 vibe.

    End of mortgage March 31st, 2025. Fingers crossed !

    Will have to avoid looking at my pension pot for a while though :D

    UK 10 yr at 3.848, 5 yr at 3.615
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,870
    Sandpit said:

    Pagan2 said:

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    I hope you are joking....government moderation of anything about speech leads to censorship...we do it then saudi will demand the right and russia...and iran and the GOP in america. It will cause more issues than it solves.
    I'm asking social media companies to moderate themselves.

    Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and the GOP in the US do what they want anyway (but I like your grouping! a new axis of evil?).
    Unfortunately the social media companies have a very poor record of moderating themselves, preferring to censor content based on ideology rather than correctness.
    Apart from anything who do you trust to determine whats true....example

    Country A does something x

    People find out thing x happened....Country A denies x happened

    Social media company has no way of verifying if x happened or not and even if it did was country A responsible for x or not

    Now what should social media company do

    1) delete all posts saying x happened
    2) delete all posts saying x happened and its the fault of country a
    3) let posts stand about x happening even though its disputed but delete all posts tying x happening to country A
    4) throw up their hands and say we dont actually know the posts might be true or might not but we dont actually know for sure

    I would rather stick with 4) as the lesser evil personally
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,576

    Sandpit said:

    US unemployment rate up from 4.1% to 4.3%, highest level since Oct ‘21.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/02/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-stock-sell-off-interest-rates/

    This has a horrible September 2008 vibe.

    So the Dems are going to win the presidential election?
    So the incumbent is likely to lose?

    As has happened everywhere else this year, except for possibly Venezuela.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,620
    Hedge funds are wise, they are nearly as brilliant as lawyers, heed their words. AI is the new AOL Time Warner.

    Elliott says Nvidia is in a ‘bubble’ and AI is ‘overhyped’

    Hedge fund tells clients many supposed applications of the technology are ‘never going to actually work’


    Hedge fund Elliott Management has told investors that Nvidia is in a “bubble”, and the artificial intelligence technology driving the chipmaking giant’s share price is “overhyped”.

    The Florida-based firm, which manages about $70bn in assets, said in a recent letter to clients that the megacap technology stocks, particularly Nvidia, were in “bubble land” and it was “sceptical” that Big Tech companies would keep buying the chipmaker’s graphics processing units in such high volumes.

    AI is “overhyped with many applications not ready for prime time”, Elliott wrote in the letter sent this week and seen by the Financial Times.

    Many of AI’s supposed uses are “never going to be cost efficient, are never going to actually work right, will take up too much energy, or will prove to be untrustworthy”, it added.

    Elliott declined to comment.

    Its warning comes as chip stocks, which have enjoyed a huge rally driven by investor fervour over the potential for generative AI, take a tumble on concerns about whether big companies will continue to spend heavily on AI. Intel shares fell 20 per cent following the US market close on Thursday after the chipmaker revealed plans to cut about 15,000 jobs.


    https://www.ft.com/content/24a12be1-a973-4efe-ab4f-b981aee0cd0b
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,889
    Sandpit said:

    US unemployment rate up from 4.1% to 4.3%, highest level since Oct ‘21.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/02/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-stock-sell-off-interest-rates/

    This has a horrible September 2008 vibe.

    Not quite yet, US unemployment was 7% in October 2008 which certainly didn't help McCain-Palin
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,620
    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    US unemployment rate up from 4.1% to 4.3%, highest level since Oct ‘21.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/02/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-stock-sell-off-interest-rates/

    This has a horrible September 2008 vibe.

    End of mortgage March 31st, 2025. Fingers crossed !

    Will have to avoid looking at my pension pot for a while though :D
    My plan is to retire in 2033 when I hit 55, this could complicate things.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061
    I didn't notice Caleb Carr died; RIP.

    A big-tent, bridge-building idea for @JDVance:

    There's a little club of book writers who share the birthday of August 2. Source of inspiration: James Baldwin, born 100 years ago today. We noted the very sad loss of Caleb Carr (b. Aug 2, 1955) this summer.

    JDV has written a book. And turns 40 today. Check it out, Senator!

    https://x.com/JamesFallows/status/1819353588574925124
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,620
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    US unemployment rate up from 4.1% to 4.3%, highest level since Oct ‘21.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/02/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-stock-sell-off-interest-rates/

    This has a horrible September 2008 vibe.

    So the Dems are going to win the presidential election?
    So the incumbent is likely to lose?

    As has happened everywhere else this year, except for possibly Venezuela.
    Technically the incumbent didn’t lose as he was ineligible to stand.

    A non white Dem won.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061
    $10M cash withdrawal drove secret probe into whether Trump took money from Egypt
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/08/02/trump-campaign-egypt-investigation/

    Whether.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,889
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    US unemployment rate up from 4.1% to 4.3%, highest level since Oct ‘21.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/02/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-stock-sell-off-interest-rates/

    This has a horrible September 2008 vibe.

    So the Dems are going to win the presidential election?
    So the incumbent is likely to lose?

    As has happened everywhere else this year, except for possibly Venezuela.
    Modi was re elected in India, albeit he lost his BJP majority.

    Macron's party still has the PM in France in a hung parliament too
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    ...
    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    US unemployment rate up from 4.1% to 4.3%, highest level since Oct ‘21.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/02/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-stock-sell-off-interest-rates/

    This has a horrible September 2008 vibe.

    So the Dems are going to win the presidential election?
    So the incumbent is likely to lose?

    As has happened everywhere else this year, except for possibly Venezuela.
    Modi was re elected in India, albeit he lost his BJP majority.

    Macron's party still has the PM in France in a hung parliament too
    Don't forget RefCon smashed Labour out of the park.*

    * I am being impish!
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,747
    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Oh...

    @axios
    SCOOP: Trump didn't want to be fact-checked live at NABJ and was refusing to go on stage — a stalemate so prolonged that NABJ president Ken Lemon was prepping a statement to explain why Trump wouldn't show.

    As Lemon was prepping it, Trump walked on stage.

    https://x.com/axios/status/1819341448484901353

    That was on Twitter at the time, so not exactly a scoop.
    It was pretty obvious that Trump's insults about the audio equipment causing the delay were just his usual bullshit.

    Everyone knows by now that he can't open his mouth without lying. His supporters are conditioned to accept and justify the lies.
    His core supporters, I suppose. It would be interesting to see some polling along the lines of "If your favoured candidate tells a demonstrable lie, would you still pretend s/he was telling the truth?"
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,620
    A lawyer who was stabbed while trying to stop the attacker in Southport is recovering in hospital.

    John Hayes, the managing director of Calculus Cost Legal, heard screams from his office next door and attempted to intervene and disarm the teenage assailant.

    The costs lawyer’s wife told The Telegraph that he was stabbed in the leg after running to the dance studio where children were at a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class, and put himself between the attacker and the children.

    “Our office is in the same building as the dance studio, he heard screams and went outside, saw the attacker, saw that he had hurt a child and tried to take the knife off him and got stabbed in the leg”, she said.

    “I’ve been with him all afternoon at the hospital. He’s very upset that he wasn’t able to be more help. Physically he will be OK, mentally I don’t know.”


    https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/costs-lawyer-stabbed-intervening-southport-tragedy
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,889
    edited August 2

    Nigelb said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
    It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
    He is a comedian.
    Is he just taking the piss ?
    What Frank Skinner does show is why IHT is (and was in 2009/10) a dangerous area for Labour. People simply do not understand it.

    Skinner says: I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/ (£££)

    Well, he wouldn't be, and isn't. Frank is in the same position as Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Skinner children are in the same position as the Rees-Mogg children.
    Rees Mogg's maternal grandfather was at one point a lorry driver and car salesman, his wife is posher than he is.

    Rees Mogg acts uber posh but has some working class blood and in the early 19th century the Revd John Rees Mogg was a vicar not a wealthy merchant (albeit with a big Rectory)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholwell,_Cameley
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,001
    Sandpit said:

    dixiedean said:

    Cookie said:

    Andy_JS said:

    O/T

    Cricket is a sport where men and women can play against each other without it being too one-sided. For example this is the England women's team playing against the Royal Air Force senior team in 2012.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ21w_jGI78

    Hm - probably not at elite level though. Women bowl significantly less fast and hit significantly less hard. Finger in the air, but I'd say Lancashire Second XI would comfortably beat the women's England team.

    OTOH, at a social level, absolutely, and no-one's going to be put at any risk in the way that they would in other sports.
    I reckon if I cloned myself 10 times and my 12 year old daughter 10 times and had a dads vs daughters match it would be pretty close, whereas the dads team would still win in more physical sports like football.
    Youngest's cricket club has two ladies teams who play on Sunday.
    The Men's sides, who play Saturday, each have two or three females at Second to Fourth XI levels.
    That’s very cool. I’d never have put cricket up there with long-distance running, as an event in which high-level women can compete with club-level men.
    At club level, fencing is similar. Which surprised me when I started fencing. I don't know if it's still the same, but it was reasonably common for competitions to have mixed categories.

    But then speed, distance control, and precision are extremely important in most fencing disciplines; anyone who tries going for strength is in for a painful awakening.

    That thought did give me some consolation when being beaten up at sabre by a little old lady.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,576
    Nigelb said:

    I didn't notice Caleb Carr died; RIP.

    A big-tent, bridge-building idea for @JDVance:

    There's a little club of book writers who share the birthday of August 2. Source of inspiration: James Baldwin, born 100 years ago today. We noted the very sad loss of Caleb Carr (b. Aug 2, 1955) this summer.

    JDV has written a book. And turns 40 today. Check it out, Senator!

    https://x.com/JamesFallows/status/1819353588574925124

    Available free as an audiobook:

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hillbilly-Elegy-Memoir-Family-Culture/dp/B01LT8O96W/
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,889

    ...

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    US unemployment rate up from 4.1% to 4.3%, highest level since Oct ‘21.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/02/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-stock-sell-off-interest-rates/

    This has a horrible September 2008 vibe.

    So the Dems are going to win the presidential election?
    So the incumbent is likely to lose?

    As has happened everywhere else this year, except for possibly Venezuela.
    Modi was re elected in India, albeit he lost his BJP majority.

    Macron's party still has the PM in France in a hung parliament too
    Don't forget RefCon smashed Labour out of the park.*

    * I am being impish!
    Though even then only Con were incumbents
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061
    Why didn't the Fed meet next Monday rather than this Wednesday ?
    Seems perverse.

    This jobs report is bad news for the Fed: Worries that they're behind the curve are really going to skyrocket.
    - 4.3% unemployment
    - slowing employment gains (114K)
    - slowing wage growth (0.2%/3.6% yearly)

    https://x.com/jeannasmialek/status/1819350579954565424
  • WildernessPt2WildernessPt2 Posts: 715
    kle4 said:

    stodge said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Boris Johnson moved explicitly to take powers from Westminster and hand them to Ministers and Whitehall - key powers of scrutiny and accountability were signed away in the name of "good governance". I'll cheerfully concede I see no sign of Starmer seeking to repatriate those powers.

    You were one of those who argued rightly for the supremacy of Parliament and the repatriation of powers from Brussels after we left the EU but we can't simply take those powers and hand them over from the legislature to the executive.

    Promises of devolution to local councils and mayors came to little and have even frustrated such dangerous socialists such as Tim Oliver, leader of Surrey County Council.
    Party manifestos always talk in vague terms about giving power to localities. It rarely amounts to much, and is so vestigial in the documents I don't know why they bother (actually I think this time mostly really did not).
    The Osborne devolution stuff is a big deal, whether manchester the Tees or in the midlands. Big potential engines of growth. The risk is rolling it out everywhere when many local authorities just dont have the skills to absorb new powers.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128
    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    Sounds like Skinner thinks there should be two types of money. That's an idea that will end well — not.
    It's a bonkers argument he's making - he has made lots of money personally; by definition inheritance tax is.... inherited - so the idea his children/descendants should be treated differently to any other is quite mad no matter your views on the rights or wrongs of inheritance.
    He is a comedian.
    Is he just taking the piss ?
    What Frank Skinner does show is why IHT is (and was in 2009/10) a dangerous area for Labour. People simply do not understand it.

    Skinner says: I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/ (£££)

    Well, he wouldn't be, and isn't. Frank is in the same position as Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Skinner children are in the same position as the Rees-Mogg children.
    Rees Mogg's maternal grandfather was at one point a lorry driver and car salesman, his wife is posher than he is.

    Rees Mogg acts uber posh but has some working class blood and in the early 19th century the Revd John Rees Mogg was a vicar not a wealthy merchant (albeit with a big Rectory)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholwell,_Cameley
    Yes but the vicarage would only be accommodation with the job.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,889
    edited August 2

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    If Labour go for property with wealth value taxes and inheritance taxes they could get absolutely creamed at the next election by Jenrick.

    Brits fucking hate it if you touch their houses.
    Yes, even in Wandsworth and Kensington, Chelsea, Fulham and Hampstead (all with Labour MPs now) if Labour imposed big wealth taxes and increased inheritance tax you would get many property owners and their kids telling their left liberal friends they were voting Labour or Green at dinner parties but in private they would vote Tory in the privacy of the ballot box (unless the Tory leader was Priti Patel in which case they would likely go LD).

    Seats Labour won across the South and East and in wealthy bits of the Midlands, Wales and North and Cheshire like Rushcliffe, Monmouth and Macclesfield would also swing back blue
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,871
    Sandpit said:

    US unemployment rate up from 4.1% to 4.3%, highest level since Oct ‘21.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/02/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-stock-sell-off-interest-rates/

    This has a horrible September 2008 vibe.

    Mrs Stodge and I were in Las Vegas in October 2008, staying in the Palazzo as it happens and I have a distinct memory of the DJIA hitting 8500. I remember saying to Mrs Stodge "if I could open a spread betting account and buy the DJIA at $100 a point, I'll be a rich man in 20 years". 31,000 points at $100 per point - yeah.

    Needed to be brave, the DJIA nearly went below 7000 in early 2009....
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,576

    kle4 said:

    stodge said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Boris Johnson moved explicitly to take powers from Westminster and hand them to Ministers and Whitehall - key powers of scrutiny and accountability were signed away in the name of "good governance". I'll cheerfully concede I see no sign of Starmer seeking to repatriate those powers.

    You were one of those who argued rightly for the supremacy of Parliament and the repatriation of powers from Brussels after we left the EU but we can't simply take those powers and hand them over from the legislature to the executive.

    Promises of devolution to local councils and mayors came to little and have even frustrated such dangerous socialists such as Tim Oliver, leader of Surrey County Council.
    Party manifestos always talk in vague terms about giving power to localities. It rarely amounts to much, and is so vestigial in the documents I don't know why they bother (actually I think this time mostly really did not).
    The Osborne devolution stuff is a big deal, whether manchester the Tees or in the midlands. Big potential engines of growth. The risk is rolling it out everywhere when many local authorities just dont have the skills to absorb new powers.
    There needs to be much more devolution, and the people need to pay more attention to who is being elected to local offices.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    HYUFD said:

    ...

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    US unemployment rate up from 4.1% to 4.3%, highest level since Oct ‘21.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/02/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-stock-sell-off-interest-rates/

    This has a horrible September 2008 vibe.

    So the Dems are going to win the presidential election?
    So the incumbent is likely to lose?

    As has happened everywhere else this year, except for possibly Venezuela.
    Modi was re elected in India, albeit he lost his BJP majority.

    Macron's party still has the PM in France in a hung parliament too
    Don't forget RefCon smashed Labour out of the park.*

    * I am being impish!
    Though even then only Con were incumbents
    Fake News. 20% of Refuk MPs were Government MPs.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061

    Hedge funds are wise, they are nearly as brilliant as lawyers, heed their words. AI is the new AOL Time Warner.

    Elliott says Nvidia is in a ‘bubble’ and AI is ‘overhyped’

    Hedge fund tells clients many supposed applications of the technology are ‘never going to actually work’


    Hedge fund Elliott Management has told investors that Nvidia is in a “bubble”, and the artificial intelligence technology driving the chipmaking giant’s share price is “overhyped”.

    The Florida-based firm, which manages about $70bn in assets, said in a recent letter to clients that the megacap technology stocks, particularly Nvidia, were in “bubble land” and it was “sceptical” that Big Tech companies would keep buying the chipmaker’s graphics processing units in such high volumes.

    AI is “overhyped with many applications not ready for prime time”, Elliott wrote in the letter sent this week and seen by the Financial Times.

    Many of AI’s supposed uses are “never going to be cost efficient, are never going to actually work right, will take up too much energy, or will prove to be untrustworthy”, it added.

    Elliott declined to comment.

    Its warning comes as chip stocks, which have enjoyed a huge rally driven by investor fervour over the potential for generative AI, take a tumble on concerns about whether big companies will continue to spend heavily on AI. Intel shares fell 20 per cent following the US market close on Thursday after the chipmaker revealed plans to cut about 15,000 jobs.


    https://www.ft.com/content/24a12be1-a973-4efe-ab4f-b981aee0cd0b

    AI is the new Dotcom.
    It's a bubble that will probably burst quite soon; but it will also very likely transform the word economy over time.

    China is probably now grateful that US sanctions prevented them from forking out many billions of dollars on bleeding edge chips, which will probably drop in price by an order of magnitude within the next couple of years.

    Intel's woes are something of a separate issue. And they are probably a buy at somewhere around current levels; replicating their fab assets would probably cost at least a couple of times what the stockmarket says they're currently worth.

    Our government should put in a bid.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,549

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    If Labour go for property with wealth value taxes and inheritance taxes they could get absolutely creamed at the next election by Jenrick.

    Brits fucking hate it if you touch their houses.
    The problem is a large percentage of people don't own a house.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061
    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    I didn't notice Caleb Carr died; RIP.

    A big-tent, bridge-building idea for @JDVance:

    There's a little club of book writers who share the birthday of August 2. Source of inspiration: James Baldwin, born 100 years ago today. We noted the very sad loss of Caleb Carr (b. Aug 2, 1955) this summer.

    JDV has written a book. And turns 40 today. Check it out, Senator!

    https://x.com/JamesFallows/status/1819353588574925124

    Available free as an audiobook:

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hillbilly-Elegy-Memoir-Family-Culture/dp/B01LT8O96W/
    I tend not to read much fiction these days.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061
    Nigelb said:

    $10M cash withdrawal drove secret probe into whether Trump took money from Egypt
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/08/02/trump-campaign-egypt-investigation/

    "Whether".

    Barr, of course, shut the investigation down.
    https://x.com/CarolLeonnig/status/1819315673102770329
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    HYUFD said:

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    If Labour go for property with wealth value taxes and inheritance taxes they could get absolutely creamed at the next election by Jenrick.

    Brits fucking hate it if you touch their houses.
    Yes, even in Wandsworth and Kensington, Chelsea, Fulham and Hampstead (all with Labour MPs now) if Labour imposed big wealth taxes and increased inheritance tax you would get many property owners and their kids telling their left liberal friends they were voting Labour or Green at dinner parties but in private they would vote Tory in the privacy of the ballot box (unless the Tory leader was Priti Patel in which case they would likely go LD).

    Seats Labour won across the South and East and in wealthy bits of the Midlands and North and Cheshire like Rushcliffe and Macclesfield would also swing back blue
    If, and it's a big if, the economy is bangin' and public services are running like clockwork Labour might retain the BlueWall and get a second term.

    Although I do admire your optimism.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,576
    Andy_JS said:

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    If Labour go for property with wealth value taxes and inheritance taxes they could get absolutely creamed at the next election by Jenrick.

    Brits fucking hate it if you touch their houses.
    The problem is a large percentage of people don't own a house.
    But if you annoy all those who do, you’re totally screwed electorally.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,213

    A lawyer who was stabbed while trying to stop the attacker in Southport is recovering in hospital.

    John Hayes, the managing director of Calculus Cost Legal, heard screams from his office next door and attempted to intervene and disarm the teenage assailant.

    The costs lawyer’s wife told The Telegraph that he was stabbed in the leg after running to the dance studio where children were at a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class, and put himself between the attacker and the children.

    “Our office is in the same building as the dance studio, he heard screams and went outside, saw the attacker, saw that he had hurt a child and tried to take the knife off him and got stabbed in the leg”, she said.

    “I’ve been with him all afternoon at the hospital. He’s very upset that he wasn’t able to be more help. Physically he will be OK, mentally I don’t know.”


    https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/costs-lawyer-stabbed-intervening-southport-tragedy

    Possible George Medal?

    Bernard Carter-Kenny comes to mind
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,889
    edited August 2

    HYUFD said:

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    If Labour go for property with wealth value taxes and inheritance taxes they could get absolutely creamed at the next election by Jenrick.

    Brits fucking hate it if you touch their houses.
    Yes, even in Wandsworth and Kensington, Chelsea, Fulham and Hampstead (all with Labour MPs now) if Labour imposed big wealth taxes and increased inheritance tax you would get many property owners and their kids telling their left liberal friends they were voting Labour or Green at dinner parties but in private they would vote Tory in the privacy of the ballot box (unless the Tory leader was Priti Patel in which case they would likely go LD).

    Seats Labour won across the South and East and in wealthy bits of the Midlands and North and Cheshire like Rushcliffe and Macclesfield would also swing back blue
    If, and it's a big if, the economy is bangin' and public services are running like clockwork Labour might retain the BlueWall and get a second term.

    Although I do admire your optimism.
    Most of the wealthy property owners in London and the Home counties do not work in the public sector and their biggest asset by far is their house, which their kids want to inherit too.

    Ask Theresa May how coming after voters houses went for her with swing voters in 2017?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    If Labour go for property with wealth value taxes and inheritance taxes they could get absolutely creamed at the next election by Jenrick.

    Brits fucking hate it if you touch their houses.
    Yes, even in Wandsworth and Kensington, Chelsea, Fulham and Hampstead (all with Labour MPs now) if Labour imposed big wealth taxes and increased inheritance tax you would get many property owners and their kids telling their left liberal friends they were voting Labour or Green at dinner parties but in private they would vote Tory in the privacy of the ballot box (unless the Tory leader was Priti Patel in which case they would likely go LD).

    Seats Labour won across the South and East and in wealthy bits of the Midlands and North and Cheshire like Rushcliffe and Macclesfield would also swing back blue
    If, and it's a big if, the economy is bangin' and public services are running like clockwork Labour might retain the BlueWall and get a second term.

    Although I do admire your optimism.
    Most of the wealthy property owners in London and the Home counties do not work in the public sector and their biggest asset by far is their house, which their kids want to inherit too.

    Ask Theresa May how coming after voters houses went for her with swing voters in 2017?
    Oh, so Thatcher-sold council houses don't count?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,865
    Nigelb said:

    Hedge funds are wise, they are nearly as brilliant as lawyers, heed their words. AI is the new AOL Time Warner.

    Elliott says Nvidia is in a ‘bubble’ and AI is ‘overhyped’

    Hedge fund tells clients many supposed applications of the technology are ‘never going to actually work’


    Hedge fund Elliott Management has told investors that Nvidia is in a “bubble”, and the artificial intelligence technology driving the chipmaking giant’s share price is “overhyped”.

    The Florida-based firm, which manages about $70bn in assets, said in a recent letter to clients that the megacap technology stocks, particularly Nvidia, were in “bubble land” and it was “sceptical” that Big Tech companies would keep buying the chipmaker’s graphics processing units in such high volumes.

    AI is “overhyped with many applications not ready for prime time”, Elliott wrote in the letter sent this week and seen by the Financial Times.

    Many of AI’s supposed uses are “never going to be cost efficient, are never going to actually work right, will take up too much energy, or will prove to be untrustworthy”, it added.

    Elliott declined to comment.

    Its warning comes as chip stocks, which have enjoyed a huge rally driven by investor fervour over the potential for generative AI, take a tumble on concerns about whether big companies will continue to spend heavily on AI. Intel shares fell 20 per cent following the US market close on Thursday after the chipmaker revealed plans to cut about 15,000 jobs.


    https://www.ft.com/content/24a12be1-a973-4efe-ab4f-b981aee0cd0b

    AI is the new Dotcom.
    It's a bubble that will probably burst quite soon; but it will also very likely transform the word economy over time.

    China is probably now grateful that US sanctions prevented them from forking out many billions of dollars on bleeding edge chips, which will probably drop in price by an order of magnitude within the next couple of years.

    Intel's woes are something of a separate issue. And they are probably a buy at somewhere around current levels; replicating their fab assets would probably cost at least a couple of times what the stockmarket says they're currently worth.

    Our government should put in a bid.
    Intel's woes are not due to AI or even missing the whole GPU boom but because their latest chips are reported to be slow and crash-prone. The problem with AI is it's very clever but how do the big tech firms monetise it? I can now ask ChatGPT questions via Bing and maybe even replace my human clickbait writers but Microsoft is not getting rich off that.
  • IcarusIcarus Posts: 993
    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Frank Skinner: Labour’s rhetoric on inheritance tax ‘made me feel guilty’

    “When I hear Labour talking about people who earn this [much] ... I think, but I had nothing, I worked really hard,” he told the BBC’s The Today Podcast.

    “I thought you’d like me. I thought I’d be a poster boy … [showing] working class people can actually get on and compete and can do well, but now you’re lumping me with all those people who inherited a load of money.”

    Skinner added: “I just think when it’s things like inheritance tax and stuff like that, you should be in a special section if you crawled up from nothing. I shouldn’t be in the same section as the Rees-Mogg children.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/01/frank-skinner-labour-inheritance-tax-threats-rachel-reeves/

    Its always fine if its somebody else paying....Also didn't Rees Mogg make most of his own money before politics, his Dad was editor of the Times, so not that different from Frank current position in the media.

    If Labour go for property with wealth value taxes and inheritance taxes they could get absolutely creamed at the next election by Jenrick.

    Brits fucking hate it if you touch their houses.
    The problem is a large percentage of people don't own a house.
    But if you annoy all those who do, you’re totally screwed electorally.
    Would the owner of the house pay the charge rather than the tenant? I accept that the rent would include the cost to the landlord but would help stop landlords keeping properties empty.
  • FossFoss Posts: 1,019
    The biggest winners from Labour upsetting the middle classes are likely to be the Liberals and the Greens - not the Tories…
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,782
    edited August 2
    kjh said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Is trampolining a sport?

    Any events we win golds in, is a sport. If not, it isn't.
    There you see. Show jumping. A proper sport :blush:
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,576

    A lawyer who was stabbed while trying to stop the attacker in Southport is recovering in hospital.

    John Hayes, the managing director of Calculus Cost Legal, heard screams from his office next door and attempted to intervene and disarm the teenage assailant.

    The costs lawyer’s wife told The Telegraph that he was stabbed in the leg after running to the dance studio where children were at a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class, and put himself between the attacker and the children.

    “Our office is in the same building as the dance studio, he heard screams and went outside, saw the attacker, saw that he had hurt a child and tried to take the knife off him and got stabbed in the leg”, she said.

    “I’ve been with him all afternoon at the hospital. He’s very upset that he wasn’t able to be more help. Physically he will be OK, mentally I don’t know.”


    https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/costs-lawyer-stabbed-intervening-southport-tragedy

    Possible George Medal?

    Bernard Carter-Kenny comes to mind
    Definitely sounds worthy of a formal recognition, if that account can be co-oberated.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,068

    viewcode said:

    Phil said:

    Tres said:

    My friend's grandfather has decided to skip Friday prayers at his mosque today as he doesn't feel safe. Meanwhile Elon Musk is retweeting Tommy Robinson.

    What is it with Musk? I'm full of admiration for his business and technological achievements, but he can be such a dick.
    Ive just had a look at his last 3 days post and Musk is tweeting about Transgender, Venezuala where he seems to have challenged the president to a duel and various techhie things. No Yaxley-Lennon though.

    So is this fake news?
    https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1819062565395439767



    If Trump loses then I give it a year before Musk follows in Henry Ford’s footsteps & sets up his own weird quasi-fascist political party that will crash & burn to the great amusement of everyone else.
    At the risk of diverting the conversation into something serious

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-launches-new-clamp-down-on-criminal-and-violent-disorder

    "It will also consider how we can deploy facial recognition technology, which is already used by some forces, more widely across the country. This will mean criminals can be targeted, found and brought to justice quickly."

    There are serious concerns about using such technology - especially in relation to minority groups.

    Hence - https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/08/usa-nypd-black-lives-matter-protests-surveilliance/
    https://aulawreview.org/blog/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

    etc
    In the 20th century, the idea that the state could track your individual position from moment to moment with a camera constantly focussed on you would have been horrifying. In the 2020s it's not even passionately discussed
    And it’s not being used by Harold Finch.

    It being used by people of moral calibre of Post Office management.
    Rather sadly, I didn't have to look that reference up. It was science fiction then. It's a Silicon Valley IPO now. :(
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,865
    Robert Jenrick leadership bid launch downstreamed live at 3pm
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDV7RsYj1b4
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,576

    Robert Jenrick leadership bid launch downstreamed live at 3pm
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDV7RsYj1b4

    Spread bet on the number of live viewers?
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,549
    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    Phil said:

    Tres said:

    My friend's grandfather has decided to skip Friday prayers at his mosque today as he doesn't feel safe. Meanwhile Elon Musk is retweeting Tommy Robinson.

    What is it with Musk? I'm full of admiration for his business and technological achievements, but he can be such a dick.
    Ive just had a look at his last 3 days post and Musk is tweeting about Transgender, Venezuala where he seems to have challenged the president to a duel and various techhie things. No Yaxley-Lennon though.

    So is this fake news?
    https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1819062565395439767



    If Trump loses then I give it a year before Musk follows in Henry Ford’s footsteps & sets up his own weird quasi-fascist political party that will crash & burn to the great amusement of everyone else.
    At the risk of diverting the conversation into something serious

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-launches-new-clamp-down-on-criminal-and-violent-disorder

    "It will also consider how we can deploy facial recognition technology, which is already used by some forces, more widely across the country. This will mean criminals can be targeted, found and brought to justice quickly."

    There are serious concerns about using such technology - especially in relation to minority groups.

    Hence - https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/08/usa-nypd-black-lives-matter-protests-surveilliance/
    https://aulawreview.org/blog/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

    etc
    In the 20th century, the idea that the state could track your individual position from moment to moment with a camera constantly focussed on you would have been horrifying. In the 2020s it's not even passionately discussed
    And it’s not being used by Harold Finch.

    It being used by people of moral calibre of Post Office management.
    Rather sadly, I didn't have to look that reference up. It was science fiction then. It's a Silicon Valley IPO now. :(
    Nah, current AI capabilities are nowhere near that of the Machine or Samaritan. The hypers try to make it seem as though it is, but it is not.

    In fact, I'd argue the current systems in no way show 'intelligence'.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,044

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    When has it worked?

    You need a strong, truthful message to push back with.
    The police very rapidly said the attack was not linked to terrorism and that the name circulating wasn't true.

    https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9cbb/e218ed66f13cb9c588351b99cc4ab7f5015b.pdf is an example of the research showing good moderation works.
    The messaging was all over the place and had little or no detail. Which is why the fucktards got their chance.
    How was the "messaging [...] all over the place". It appeared pretty consistent.

    The problem is with (a) how disinformation is amplified on social media and (b) with the fucktards.
    Review PB for the time in question - those who were trying to calm down the bollocks were finding it hard to come up with links to the facts.
    I recall PB at the time. Someone who knew the incident had nothing to do with Islam nonetheless kept posting to claim Muslims are problematic.

    We wouldn't have to "calm down the bollocks" if social media weren't amplifying the bollocks and if people weren't rushing to agree with the bollocks.

    Musk has neutered Twitter moderation, e.g. cutting staff ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-07/elon-musk-cuts-more-twitter-staff-overseeing-content-moderation ), and there's been a big increase in far right, extremist content ( https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/did-the-musk-takeover-boost-contentious-actors-on-twitter/ https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/understanding-antisemitism-on-twitter-after-musk/ ). And we know Twitter in particular was central to the disinformation in this case.
    Twitter has instituted other changes to their algorithm that have greatly increased the spread of disinformation: see https://dfrlab.org/2023/04/21/state-controlled-media-experience-sudden-twitter-gains-after-unannounced-platform-policy-change/

    Multiple Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state media outlets on Twitter simultaneously began to gain followers after months of decline or stagnation, the DFRLab has discovered. A DFRLab assessment suggests that Twitter changed its algorithms regarding these accounts around March 29, 2023. NPR confirmed on April 21 that Twitter had made the deliberate decision to stop filtering government accounts in Russia, China, and Iran.
    I'd love to know the full details of the investors who gave Musk money to buy Twitter, their nationalities and what agreements he came to in order to get the money.

    In fact, I think that information is vital. Is it public?
    I don't know if we have full details, but it was reported at the time to include "Oracle Corporation co-founder Larry Ellison, Saudi prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, as well as sovereign wealth fund Qatar Holding."
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,549
    "Juror swears oath on river in legal first"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c25l5zldgv9o
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,549
    GB third in the medal table. :)
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,986
    kjh said:

    kjh said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Is trampolining a sport?

    Any events we win golds in, is a sport. If not, it isn't.
    There you see. Show jumping. A proper sport :blush:
    Sitting down...
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,986

    GB third in the medal table. :)

    GB above France in the medal table... :)
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,865
    Sandpit said:

    A lawyer who was stabbed while trying to stop the attacker in Southport is recovering in hospital.

    John Hayes, the managing director of Calculus Cost Legal, heard screams from his office next door and attempted to intervene and disarm the teenage assailant.

    The costs lawyer’s wife told The Telegraph that he was stabbed in the leg after running to the dance studio where children were at a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class, and put himself between the attacker and the children.

    “Our office is in the same building as the dance studio, he heard screams and went outside, saw the attacker, saw that he had hurt a child and tried to take the knife off him and got stabbed in the leg”, she said.

    “I’ve been with him all afternoon at the hospital. He’s very upset that he wasn’t able to be more help. Physically he will be OK, mentally I don’t know.”


    https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/costs-lawyer-stabbed-intervening-southport-tragedy

    Possible George Medal?

    Bernard Carter-Kenny comes to mind
    Definitely sounds worthy of a formal recognition, if that account can be co-oberated.
    It is one thing to hand out gongs to lawyers but what about the window cleaner who also jumped the killer? Surely below the salt.
    https://news.sky.com/video/man-describes-coming-face-to-face-with-southport-knife-attacker-13187561
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,354
    Andy_JS said:

    "Juror swears oath on river in legal first"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c25l5zldgv9o

    Was he saying he was full of shit?
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,782
    Scott_xP said:

    kjh said:

    kjh said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Is trampolining a sport?

    Any events we win golds in, is a sport. If not, it isn't.
    There you see. Show jumping. A proper sport :blush:
    Sitting down...
    If we can't have sitting down ones we are pretty much stuffed. All our best stuff - Rowing, sailing (ish), cycling, horse riding
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,213

    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    Phil said:

    Tres said:

    My friend's grandfather has decided to skip Friday prayers at his mosque today as he doesn't feel safe. Meanwhile Elon Musk is retweeting Tommy Robinson.

    What is it with Musk? I'm full of admiration for his business and technological achievements, but he can be such a dick.
    Ive just had a look at his last 3 days post and Musk is tweeting about Transgender, Venezuala where he seems to have challenged the president to a duel and various techhie things. No Yaxley-Lennon though.

    So is this fake news?
    https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1819062565395439767



    If Trump loses then I give it a year before Musk follows in Henry Ford’s footsteps & sets up his own weird quasi-fascist political party that will crash & burn to the great amusement of everyone else.
    At the risk of diverting the conversation into something serious

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-launches-new-clamp-down-on-criminal-and-violent-disorder

    "It will also consider how we can deploy facial recognition technology, which is already used by some forces, more widely across the country. This will mean criminals can be targeted, found and brought to justice quickly."

    There are serious concerns about using such technology - especially in relation to minority groups.

    Hence - https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/08/usa-nypd-black-lives-matter-protests-surveilliance/
    https://aulawreview.org/blog/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

    etc
    In the 20th century, the idea that the state could track your individual position from moment to moment with a camera constantly focussed on you would have been horrifying. In the 2020s it's not even passionately discussed
    And it’s not being used by Harold Finch.

    It being used by people of moral calibre of Post Office management.
    Rather sadly, I didn't have to look that reference up. It was science fiction then. It's a Silicon Valley IPO now. :(
    Nah, current AI capabilities are nowhere near that of the Machine or Samaritan. The hypers try to make it seem as though it is, but it is not.

    In fact, I'd argue the current systems in no way show 'intelligence'.
    We have the data feeds.

    Combine that with biometric recognition (face, gait) and you will have a somewhat crapulent 24/7 surveillance of everyone. At least in terms of location.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,865
    Scott_xP said:

    GB third in the medal table. :)

    GB above France in the medal table... :)
    Is that true in France? Do the French order the table by number of golds, as we do, or by total medals like the Americans?
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,044
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    I hope you are joking....government moderation of anything about speech leads to censorship...we do it then saudi will demand the right and russia...and iran and the GOP in america. It will cause more issues than it solves.
    I'm asking social media companies to moderate themselves.

    Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and the GOP in the US do what they want anyway (but I like your grouping! a new axis of evil?).
    Ah you mean like facebook did by removing any reference to lab leaks for covid...now I am not convinced either way but it wasn't helpful . Facebook cant tell truth from fiction anymore than anyone else. You want to fight the crap on social media then post truth and fight it all that happens if you try to stop it being posted is more people believe its true but censored
    The evidence suggests that if you stop it being posted, people don't see it and no-one believes it. The idea that "more believe its true but censored" is a nice story that anti-censorship people tell themselves, but I don't see the evidence that it's true.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,782

    Scott_xP said:

    GB third in the medal table. :)

    GB above France in the medal table... :)
    Is that true in France? Do the French order the table by number of golds, as we do, or by total medals like the Americans?
    Always number of Golds, unless we have less Golds and more medals, then it is the other way around.
  • FossFoss Posts: 1,019
    edited August 2
    Andy_JS said:

    "Juror swears oath on river in legal first"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c25l5zldgv9o

    Good for him. There’s no reason why swearing on what sounds like a form of low Animism is any more or less silly than swearing on the concept a personal saviour.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,870

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    I hope you are joking....government moderation of anything about speech leads to censorship...we do it then saudi will demand the right and russia...and iran and the GOP in america. It will cause more issues than it solves.
    I'm asking social media companies to moderate themselves.

    Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and the GOP in the US do what they want anyway (but I like your grouping! a new axis of evil?).
    Ah you mean like facebook did by removing any reference to lab leaks for covid...now I am not convinced either way but it wasn't helpful . Facebook cant tell truth from fiction anymore than anyone else. You want to fight the crap on social media then post truth and fight it all that happens if you try to stop it being posted is more people believe its true but censored
    The evidence suggests that if you stop it being posted, people don't see it and no-one believes it. The idea that "more believe its true but censored" is a nice story that anti-censorship people tell themselves, but I don't see the evidence that it's true.
    points at QAnon
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,576
    .

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    .

    .

    moonshine said:

    Thought was interesting how fast Starmer has pushed for expanded use of facial recognition. Labour party have historically been somewhere between very wary and absolutely against use of this technology, suggesting its a bit like stop and search, where issues with racial profiling etc.

    Not really: Labour loves authoritarianism.

    It's quite clear what we'll get from this administration, and it's similar to the last one: State, State and State.
    Seems easier for some people here to throw the fascist card at Elon Musk than actually engage with the (pretty fascist) Labour policy proposal he is calling out.
    I'll put my cards on the table: Tommy Robinson is a thug, and so are the motley crew that follow him, but one can't simply put every bit of disorder or protest that follows this as being down to the "far right" and then argue for massive increase in authoritarianism (which clearly Starmer gets off on) as a solution. That's just a cop out.

    This happened because people suspected another cover-up was in play - no-one believed the " under 18 so anonymous" bullshit - and people are sick of being taken for fools and for "anti racism" and "community relations" (which only work one-way, bear in mind) being a bigger priority for the powers that be than the very real social and cultural problems brewing in some communities.

    They should learn from it. In reality, they'll play the same old tune, only harder and stronger.
    If the Rwandan 17 year old had turned out to be a Muslim, would ‘people’ have been justified in burning police vans and attacking mosques?

    One of the sadder recent spectacles is conservatism/Conservatism abandoning a belief in personal responsibility for one’s actions. Perhaps it was always inclined that way and I just haven’t noticed.
    That’s rather close to whataboutry

    The simple fact is that the official statements on the matter inflamed an ugly situation.

    The cure is to come up with better official statements to take the wind out of the sails of the EDL and other thugs.

    As someone else on this thread has pointed out - the far right is small and splintered. Without useful idiots attaching themselves to such mobs, Yarxley-Lennon and chums will be outnumbered by the police.
    I don’t have as much faith that “better official statements” will help. Robinson/Yaxley-Lennon was in the UK recently showing a film that he has been banned from doing so because it’s been found to be libellous. He knows it’s all lies, but he still showed it.

    As with Trump and MAGA, they will believe what they want to believe. Robinson’s supporters were already agitating before the stabbing and they would have invented some other reason without it.

    Musk’s Twitter doesn’t care about what’s true. It would have spread lies, however good you made the official statements.

    We had people on PB who knew that the attack had nothing to do with Islam who still felt this was a great time to claim Muslims are problematic.

    Sure, look at how official statements are made and think whether that could be improved, but the main problems here are poorly moderated social media and a far right, Islamophobic/anti-immigration movement. The cure is better moderation of social media, strong police action against perpetrators, and not excusing racism.
    Moderation is of no use, when the message you want to project is feeble or non-existent.

    Simply giving up the social media field to the scum is giving them a victory by default.

    Get out, ahead of them, with the truth. Then push and amplify the truth.

    Moderation of online disinformation generally works very well to reduce the spread of disinformation. This is not giving up the social media field to the scum: it is taking back the social media filed from the scum.
    I hope you are joking....government moderation of anything about speech leads to censorship...we do it then saudi will demand the right and russia...and iran and the GOP in america. It will cause more issues than it solves.
    I'm asking social media companies to moderate themselves.

    Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and the GOP in the US do what they want anyway (but I like your grouping! a new axis of evil?).
    Ah you mean like facebook did by removing any reference to lab leaks for covid...now I am not convinced either way but it wasn't helpful . Facebook cant tell truth from fiction anymore than anyone else. You want to fight the crap on social media then post truth and fight it all that happens if you try to stop it being posted is more people believe its true but censored
    The evidence suggests that if you stop it being posted, people don't see it and no-one believes it. The idea that "more believe its true but censored" is a nice story that anti-censorship people tell themselves, but I don't see the evidence that it's true.
    ipsos custodes quis custodiet?

    If your censors are all 20-somethings from California, don’t be surprised if there’s something of a bias to their censorship.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,986

    Scott_xP said:

    GB third in the medal table. :)

    GB above France in the medal table... :)
    Is that true in France?
    Who cares ? :)
This discussion has been closed.