The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
And a blue tit pair needs to catch 1,000 caterpillars a day.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
Good post. I have just been pondering this re: the CATS OF KOTOR, which are a community of semi-feral cats who are the direct descendants of ships' cats brought to Kotor by merchant sailors. They are everywhere and are effectively both feral beasts and collective pets (the Kotorians leave little bowls of food for them on their doorsteps). They do of course breed, to the point where there is a local campaign to neuter them because their population is getting out of control, meaning ever more cats are competing for the same resources. Would they prefer to be neutered or not?
As an aside, if you are ever in Kotor old town, a good game to play over a beer or three is 'spot the cat' – they are always on the scene, although not necessarily immediately obvious (like a real-life feline Where's Wally). They are also extremely cute, but I suspect that factor is lost on @Leon.
BBC News - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9d18449ye4t UK riots sentencing live: Man jailed for nine years after setting fire to asylum seeker hotel during Rotherham riot - BBC News
Given he had two of the statutory aggravating factors (relevant previous convictions, hate crime) I'm surprised it wasn't the max (10 years).
The sentence is after deduction for his guilty plea - the BBC haven't reported the sentencing but I suspect he got the full 12 years with a deduction for the plea..
Arson with intent to endanger life can get a life sentence.
A batshit bonkers place, that I endured in 30 degree heat (they had one fan). An experience, but even for a cat-lover like me, seventeen shades too many of weird.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
Another example of an often-sensible and logical commenter who falls apart on this issue
Are you honestly unable to distinguish between a wild sparrow hawk (UK population 60,000) and the domestic cat (population: 12 million)?
The former is a functioning part of the ecosystem. Its numbers are kept in balance by predators that eat its young, by the possibility of starvation, by bad weather, etc
The domestic cat is not part of this ecosystem. It is guaranteed survival by its owners. It has no pressures. It can hunt for fun
And here’s the kicker. That’s exactly what cats do. They hunt for fun even when completely fed. That’s why they are so calamitous for wildlife
We seem to have cat owning pb-ers who are unaware of this, which is quite something
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
I can't find any evidence of a reintroduction of sparrowhawks anywhere in the UK. Their revival was due to banning DDT and the re-establishment of their food chain.
The proliferation of sparrowhawks is a function of the food available to songbirds (and the number that are not taken by a cat first).
In the work I've done to track down and help prosecute estates killing protected species, I never found any that targeted sparrowhawks in particular (aside from the fact that some will shoot or trap anything that moves).
So you have experienced what I've argued has been happening directly.
Owning pets makes no more sense than horse racing or eating deep fried scorpions.
We have living things on this planet and the structure of our society means that generally we have a hierarchy of treatment with differing views at the margin (eg dog hot pot in northern China, or the "wild" animal markets in the south).
It's all illogical. No more pets = cat population plummets; no more horse racing = horse population likewise. Same for cattle and pigs. And cockapoos.
We are slightly howling at the moon by railing against it.
Tell me about it.
We have 4 goldfish. Why? Because one day my daughter (about 6 at the time) was presented with a bowl and 2 goldfish by her friend’s mother, as a gift.
So we found ourselves with 2 goldfish. The bowl was tiny so we had to go out and buy a bigger fish tank, and all the gubbins that goes in it at great expense. Plus a couple more fish to keep them company.
The fish tank looks a bit ugly and takes up valuable shelf space in the sitting room. So this year my wife decided we should build a fishpond in the garden so we can ditch the tank. 4 grand later and there it is, fountain babbling away. All thanks to a frankly odd choice of birthday present.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
I find that very difficult to believe. There are no gamekeepers in large parts of the country surely and they aren't protecting the same birds that are in gardens. The only introduced bird of prey, I believe, in my part of the world in the Red Kite and that doesn't take birds generally.
Happy to be proved wrong on this. Do you have any links (other than from the grouse-moor industry).
I think larger birds if prey will take smaller ones, on occasion, so the reintroduction of eagles etc is probably a good thing for songbirds. All in balance.
In some respects, I'm not that fussed by cats taking lots of birds, because that is a signal that the lower part of the food chain is in good condition. They are replacing other mammals that find it difficult to survive in a suburban environment.
But they’re not in “good condition”. Multiple small bird species across the UK are in grave trouble
And pet cats (and to an extent dogs) are part of the problem
The statistics on cat ownership, which I've just had a look for, are not clear. Statista switched to an online survey mechanism around 2011, causing a massive jump which they've not ironed out - subsequently numbers have shown as fairly static.
I don't think migration (which is where population growth has mainly come from) is going to result in symmetrical increases in the cat population - these people will not necessarily have the settled accommodation necessary to have a cat, and may not come from countries where cat ownership is common.
There is said to have been a lockdown increase in cat (and dog) ownership, but this was far more dogs than cats, and things seem to have levelled off since.
There’s one group of immigrants who are very pro-cat and anti-dog: Muslims. One Hadith reads:
“Five animals are vicious and harmful and are to be killed (even) inside the Sacred Precincts: the crow, the kite, the scorpion, the mouse, and the mordacious dog.”
Whereas another reads:
“Verily, cats are not impure, as they meander around you.”
Now, if someone was rabidly anti-Muslim and anti-cat, they’d probably link their two hates. Well, if they had any intelligence.
Is this an attempt to turn this into a Culture War thing?
1) Lots of people like pets 2) Cats are good as relatively self organising pets - long absences fine etc.... 3) Domestic cats kill lots of wild birds.
These are all proven facts.
@bondegezou is just embarrassed because he’s a prig who likes to see himself as on the “correct” and “progressive” side of every argument, but he owns a cat so is irrefutably not, in this case
Note how he claims his cat never takes birds. Every single cat owner says this, see @kinabalu on this very thread. It must be all the OTHER cats taking 50 million birds a year, then, not any cats actually owned by anyone, maybe they are ghost cats. Alien cats. Cats from some parallel universe teleporting into the gardens of Newent
No, it’s the Trans Gay Illegal Immigrant Alien AI cars that are killing all the birds.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
Good post. I have just been pondering this re: the CATS OF KOTOR, which are a community of semi-feral cats who are the direct descendants of ships' cats brought to Kotor by merchant sailors. They are everywhere and are effectively both feral beasts and collective pets (the Kotorians leave little bowls of food for them on their doorsteps). They do of course breed, to the point where there is a local campaign to neuter them because their population is getting out of control, meaning ever more cats are competing for the same resources. Would they prefer to be neutered or not?
As an aside, if you are ever in Kotor old town, a good game to play over a beer or three is 'spot the cat' – they are always on the scene, although not necessarily immediately obvious (like a real-life feline Where's Wally). They are also extremely cute, but I suspect that factor is lost on @Leon.
The Greek and Italian islands are also full of them. Southern Europe as a whole has vast amounts of feral cats, some of which I seem to remember apparently have been there as soon as there were advanced human civilisations around the Mediterrenean, with the Romans and Greeks apparently having domesticated and brought them in.
Looks like another Boris legacy is crumbling to dust. Although in Aus, the shortcomings of AUKUS are being laid firmly at the door of poor old Scott Morrison:
While many people should hang their heads in shame, the principal architect of this monumental folly is Scott Morrison, whose reputation will be deservedly further diminished by the revelations contained in Fowler’s carefully researched volume. One question the book does not address in detail is the abysmal quality of political leadership in this country, especially, though not exclusively, on the conservative side of politics.
Whatever the reasons for this, the end result was that
'the huge shift in Australia’s foreign policy alignment was hatched by a Christian fundamentalist former tourism marketing manager with no training in strategic or foreign affairs but a great gift for secrecy and deception.'
The shift in question was the decision to abandon an agreement to buy much cheaper, arguably far more suitable and deliverable submarines from France, with the aim of “welding Australia’s military to the United States”. In retrospect, it is hard to believe how badly the French were misled, or how shortsighted the rationale for the switch actually was.
Morrison was entirely sensible, at the end of the day who is more likely to be able to defend Australia from China, France or the USA?
This supposes that Australia needs defending from China. The ins and outs are hardly relevant anyway as AUKUS is rapidly running into financial reality. The cancelled Attack class was going to be $90bn but now AUKUS is heading toward $400bn and they are still 15 years away from having a boat at FOC.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
Another example of an often-sensible and logical commenter who falls apart on this issue
Are you honestly unable to distinguish between a wild sparrow hawk (UK population 60,000) and the domestic cat (population: 12 million)?
The former is a functioning part of the ecosystem. Its numbers are kept in balance by predators that eat its young, by the possibility of starvation, by bad weather, etc
The domestic cat is not part of this ecosystem. It is guaranteed survival by its owners. It has no pressures. It can hunt for fun
And here’s the kicker. That’s exactly what cats do. They hunt for fun even when completely fed. That’s why they are so calamitous for wildlife
We seem to have cat owning pb-ers who are unaware of this, which is quite something
Well I don't own a cat, so I have no, um, cat in this fight. However, I don’t accept either that the cat population has risen in proportion with the decline in garden birds, or that they have more than a marginal impact as predators. I do however think that responsible cat owners should take steps to minmise their cat's impact on garden birds, though I would like to see them encouraged to do so via social pressure rather than regulation. Bells being ubiquitous would help, and there are probably other things.
Owning pets makes no more sense than horse racing or eating deep fried scorpions.
We have living things on this planet and the structure of our society means that generally we have a hierarchy of treatment with differing views at the margin (eg dog hot pot in northern China, or the "wild" animal markets in the south).
It's all illogical. No more pets = cat population plummets; no more horse racing = horse population likewise. Same for cattle and pigs. And cockapoos.
We are slightly howling at the moon by railing against it.
Tell me about it.
We have 4 goldfish. Why? Because one day my daughter (about 6 at the time) was presented with a bowl and 2 goldfish by her friend’s mother, as a gift.
So we found ourselves with 2 goldfish. The bowl was tiny so we had to go out and buy a bigger fish tank, and all the gubbins that goes in it at great expense. Plus a couple more fish to keep them company.
The fish tank looks a bit ugly and takes up valuable shelf space in the sitting room. So this year my wife decided we should build a fishpond in the garden so we can ditch the tank. 4 grand later and there it is, fountain babbling away. All thanks to a frankly odd choice of birthday present.
Apparently goldfish can grow to around a foot long, given the right environment. You have the right environment, is this true?
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
And a blue tit pair needs to catch 1,000 caterpillars a day.
Yep. The collapse in winter moth populations is having a dire effect on blue tits.
Afternoon all from the land of Hellas. Talking of crumbling legacies of Boris, something has to give with the Brexit debate. As an example, even my aged Gloucestershire cousins, green wellie types who voted for Brexit, are baffled by the lack of attention paid to it, given that that most of friends are farmers, most of whom now regret their choice. The under-50's in general seem similarly baffled, and there's seems barely any support for it in ahy of the big cities. Something will have to give, such as a vote on returning to the single market, because a very large number of people are not feeling represented, in the current situation.
Funny, most of the farmers I talk to are genuinely pleased with the new ELMs systems that has ben brought in to replace the CAP. It is on eof the few good things the previous Government did post Brexit and is extremely popular with both farmers and environmentalists. The only ones who really object are the big agri-businesses who can no longer get grants based simply on acreage farmed.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
Interesting choice of language 'offer the party' - that would sort of suggest a party chairmanship role, where she would implement her party democratisation reforms, which sounds good to me. Maybe that's a reach.
JD Vance responds to the deadly shooting in Georgia by saying school shootings are just “a fact of life” and attacking common sense gun safety reform https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1831861963187519518
Harris should propose legislation to make gun owners liable for illegal use of their guns by others if they fail to secure them.
Clearly it's impossible to ban guns in the US. But it ought to be possible to make gun owners and manufacturers legally obliged to behave responsibly. Which they currently aren't.
Plus mandatory insurance (though this SC would probably rule that unconstitutional.)
Not sure happy is the right word but I am happy to know that if in the UK there was a school shooting and a UK politician response was that it was a fact of life that would be the end of the politician's career.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said that Islamist terror attacks were just “part and parcel” of living in a big city like London
Presumably his career ended after that?
More and more like Laurence Fox....... (or indeed Donald Trump Jnr)
He actually said "It is a reality I'm afraid that London, New York, other major cities around the world have got to be prepared for these sorts of things. It means being vigilant, having a police force that is in touch with communities, it means the security services being ready, but also it means exchanging ideas and best practice"
But why miss an opportunity to smear 'dem muslims' ?
Wait. YOU are the one deliberately misquoting him to make him seem better. You just omitted “part and parcel”. Why did you do that?
Khan himself admits he said “part and parcel”. See here
Why do you deliberately misquote him to make him seem better?
LOL probably to wind you up. It is quite funny that YOU of all people are complaining about somebody misquoting Khan - something you do whenever you can because you are a racist.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
And here’s the kicker. That’s exactly what cats do. They hunt for fun even when completely fed. That’s why they are so calamitous for wildlife
It's not "fun", it's instinctive, survival driven predator behaviour. Even if the cat can't manage to eat another chaffinch, it's logical to kill more if it can because the cadaver might still be there tomorrow when it is hungry.
No pets for us. Domestic animals are an abomination.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
Another example of an often-sensible and logical commenter who falls apart on this issue
Are you honestly unable to distinguish between a wild sparrow hawk (UK population 60,000) and the domestic cat (population: 12 million)?
The former is a functioning part of the ecosystem. Its numbers are kept in balance by predators that eat its young, by the possibility of starvation, by bad weather, etc
The domestic cat is not part of this ecosystem. It is guaranteed survival by its owners. It has no pressures. It can hunt for fun
And here’s the kicker. That’s exactly what cats do. They hunt for fun even when completely fed. That’s why they are so calamitous for wildlife
We seem to have cat owning pb-ers who are unaware of this, which is quite something
Well I don't own a cat, so I have no, um, cat in this fight. However, I don’t accept either that the cat population has risen in proportion with the decline in garden birds, or that they have more than a marginal impact as predators. I do however think that responsible cat owners should take steps to minmise their cat's impact on garden birds, though I would like to see them encouraged to do so via social pressure rather than regulation. Bells being ubiquitous would help, and there are probably other things.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
Owning pets makes no more sense than horse racing or eating deep fried scorpions.
We have living things on this planet and the structure of our society means that generally we have a hierarchy of treatment with differing views at the margin (eg dog hot pot in northern China, or the "wild" animal markets in the south).
It's all illogical. No more pets = cat population plummets; no more horse racing = horse population likewise. Same for cattle and pigs. And cockapoos.
We are slightly howling at the moon by railing against it.
Tell me about it.
We have 4 goldfish. Why? Because one day my daughter (about 6 at the time) was presented with a bowl and 2 goldfish by her friend’s mother, as a gift.
So we found ourselves with 2 goldfish. The bowl was tiny so we had to go out and buy a bigger fish tank, and all the gubbins that goes in it at great expense. Plus a couple more fish to keep them company.
The fish tank looks a bit ugly and takes up valuable shelf space in the sitting room. So this year my wife decided we should build a fishpond in the garden so we can ditch the tank. 4 grand later and there it is, fountain babbling away. All thanks to a frankly odd choice of birthday present.
Apparently goldfish can grow to around a foot long, given the right environment. You have the right environment, is this true?
I do. I suspect our existing fish are too long in the tooth to put on a growth spurt now, but we’ll see.
I didn’t mention we also got a little catfish, to keep the sides of the tank clean by sucking off the gunk. That is now in the pond. They can grow to over a metre in the right environment.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
You claimed wild bird numbers were falling due to reintroductions of birds of prey. You then mentioned Sparrowhawks in support of that claim. Except, sparrowhawks were not reintroduced and their numbers have been decreaasing not increasing.
So I am afraid your claims are junk, whatever single anecdote you might push.
From the RSPB - who would suggest have at least a passing interest in seeing bird populations recover:
"Extensive research, by the RSPB and many others, into declining farmland songbirds has provided no evidence that predation by Sparrowhawks has driven population declines. Instead, a lack of different food resources and suitable breeding habitat is thought to be the main cause of songbird declines – mainly because of modern farming methods."
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
And a blue tit pair needs to catch 1,000 caterpillars a day.
Yep. The collapse in winter moth populations is having a dire effect on blue tits.
Caused at least partly, I understand, by street lighting having changed from sodium orange to whiter light in the last decade or so?
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
It might “theoretically” support 12 million feral cats but we would not tolerate it. We’d either exterminate them or at least sterilise them - precisely because of their impact on wildlife. See above. It’s only because they are “pets” they are protected
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
JD Vance responds to the deadly shooting in Georgia by saying school shootings are just “a fact of life” and attacking common sense gun safety reform https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1831861963187519518
Harris should propose legislation to make gun owners liable for illegal use of their guns by others if they fail to secure them.
Clearly it's impossible to ban guns in the US. But it ought to be possible to make gun owners and manufacturers legally obliged to behave responsibly. Which they currently aren't.
Plus mandatory insurance (though this SC would probably rule that unconstitutional.)
Not sure happy is the right word but I am happy to know that if in the UK there was a school shooting and a UK politician response was that it was a fact of life that would be the end of the politician's career.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said that Islamist terror attacks were just “part and parcel” of living in a big city like London
Presumably his career ended after that?
More and more like Laurence Fox....... (or indeed Donald Trump Jnr)
He actually said "It is a reality I'm afraid that London, New York, other major cities around the world have got to be prepared for these sorts of things. It means being vigilant, having a police force that is in touch with communities, it means the security services being ready, but also it means exchanging ideas and best practice"
But why miss an opportunity to smear 'dem muslims' ?
Wait. YOU are the one deliberately misquoting him to make him seem better. You just omitted “part and parcel”. Why did you do that?
Khan himself admits he said “part and parcel”. See here
Why do you deliberately misquote him to make him seem better?
LOL probably to wind you up. It is quite funny that YOU of all people are complaining about somebody misquoting Khan - something you do whenever you can because you are a racist.
If wild birds of prey are eating wild garden birds there's an automatic stabilisation if the birds of prey kill too many song birds - they run out of food.
This isn't the case with domestic cats who are subsidised hunters, and the science has been done monitoring domestic cats. A proportion of them are very prolific hunters and they don't bring home, or eat, most of their kills. They're sport killers, just like human game hunters, and they're capable of hunting song birds to extinction - which is not the case with a natural predator like a native bird of prey.
Afternoon all from the land of Hellas. Talking of crumbling legacies of Boris, something has to give with the Brexit debate. As an example, even my aged Gloucestershire cousins, green wellie types who voted for Brexit, are baffled by the lack of attention paid to it, given that that most of friends are farmers, most of whom now regret their choice. The under-50's in general seem similarly baffled, and there's seems barely any support for it in ahy of the big cities. Something will have to give, such as a vote on returning to the single market, because a very large number of people are not feeling represented, in the current situation.
Funny, most of the farmers I talk to are genuinely pleased with the new ELMs systems that has ben brought in to replace the CAP. It is on eof the few good things the previous Government did post Brexit and is extremely popular with both farmers and environmentalists. The only ones who really object are the big agri-businesses who can no longer get grants based simply on acreage farmed.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
Well, what we have currently, is something thar is very unpopular, and now considered a failure by the large majority ; Hard Brexit , being treated as a success by the two largest parties, and most of the political class. That won't last indefinitely, and I think Labour will eventually he dragged towards the LD position of offering a referendum on single market membership, which even the.Toriea may eventually accede to, too, once they've been through various rightwing leaders.
Isnt the US self-sufficient in oil and gas these days?
Yes, but they have enough export capacity that they still pay the global market price for oil and gas. Producers mostly aren't forced to accept a lower price in the US instead of taking a higher price abroad.
West Texas crude has been a couple of dollars lower than world price for a decade as their is a relative glut of oil in USA
Oil is at a 12 month low & all futures are a couple of $ lower
Yep. For the recent Labor Day ‘holiday weekend’ the media reports that the saving in motor fuel costs, this year compared to last, because of the fall in average price, for American motorists totalled $760,000,000.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
And here’s the kicker. That’s exactly what cats do. They hunt for fun even when completely fed. That’s why they are so calamitous for wildlife
It's not "fun", it's instinctive, survival driven predator behaviour. Even if the cat can't manage to eat another chaffinch, it's logical to kill more if it can because the cadaver might still be there tomorrow when it is hungry.
No pets for us. Domestic animals are an abomination.
Hah. A rare moment of agreement between us @Dura_Ace
They are, indeed, an abomination
I’ve seen the degradation of British wildlife in my adult lifetime. I’ve heard the dawn chorus disappear
I’ve also travelled enough all over the world and seen the same process everywhere, and also seen the few rare places where nature thrives. You can’t see all that and ignore it
Just get over it, people. You don’t need weird little slave animals. You just don’t
I've just seen some lunatic on Facebook arguing pensioners should be paid minimum wage rather than the state pension so I crunched some numbers.
12.6 million people receiving the state pension at £412 per week (36 hours at 2024 hourly minimum wage) comes out at nearly £270 billion per year.
Needless to say, this individual was a supporter of GB News - if that's the level of debate we have on the public finances, we are in big trouble.
Careful now! Some are making the NMW/NLW case as a tongue-in-cheek refutation that the triple-locked state pension of around half that is generous or unaffordable.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
I find that very difficult to believe. There are no gamekeepers in large parts of the country surely and they aren't protecting the same birds that are in gardens. The only introduced bird of prey, I believe, in my part of the world in the Red Kite and that doesn't take birds generally.
Happy to be proved wrong on this. Do you have any links (other than from the grouse-moor industry).
I think larger birds if prey will take smaller ones, on occasion, so the reintroduction of eagles etc is probably a good thing for songbirds. All in balance.
In some respects, I'm not that fussed by cats taking lots of birds, because that is a signal that the lower part of the food chain is in good condition. They are replacing other mammals that find it difficult to survive in a suburban environment.
But they’re not in “good condition”. Multiple small bird species across the UK are in grave trouble
And pet cats (and to an extent dogs) are part of the problem
The statistics on cat ownership, which I've just had a look for, are not clear. Statista switched to an online survey mechanism around 2011, causing a massive jump which they've not ironed out - subsequently numbers have shown as fairly static.
I don't think migration (which is where population growth has mainly come from) is going to result in symmetrical increases in the cat population - these people will not necessarily have the settled accommodation necessary to have a cat, and may not come from countries where cat ownership is common.
There is said to have been a lockdown increase in cat (and dog) ownership, but this was far more dogs than cats, and things seem to have levelled off since.
Because dogs need time whereas you just leave a cat to get on with it. And no-one got a free pass to be out and about during the lockdown by taking their cat out on a lead.
Numbers have levelled off but not really fallen (although prices have, significantly), but abandoned dog shelters are sadly mostly full
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Pet owners need to grow up and own the truth. If you must have a pet cat or dog, accept what these animals are doing to our wildlife
“Cats kill in excess of 50 million birds each year as well as frogs, slow worms and various small mammals. Given these facts there are a few points to consider if you are thinking of bringing a cat into an area where birdlife is thriving”
Animals kill other animals. That's just a fact of life.
But that doesn’t mean we should introduce 12 million EXTRA predators (fed and housed by us) who completely devastate the eco system, slaughtering 50 MILLION birds a year (and much else) and all because we “like” the company of cats
It is irredeemably selfish. Sorry
Yep, the issue with raptors versus cats on small bird predation is that the latter don't need to kill the birds to survive. Not a moral judgement that, but a practical one. If sparrow hawk numbers get too big and they substantially reduce the numbers of their prey in an area, then there won't be enough food and sparrow hawk population will reduce. Cats could happily kill every last bird and still go home for a nice bowl of Whiskas - the natural predator/prey equilibrium is broken.
That said, I'd back whoever said upthread that it's more about habitat removal than anything. A completely lawned garden (or worse, paved/astroturfed) offers little to support bird life.
Yes, agreed. I hate paved front lawns, too
This is a rare occasion when I am not advancing a contentious argument largely to provoke, I sincerely believe all this
It would be good if science could find a compromise for now, and devise some way of removing the predatory instinct from domestic cats. We are happy to snip their bollocks off, I imagine most “loving pet owners” will be equally happy with fucking with their predator brains
Ah, well on cats it's easy. Bell on collar saves all but the slowest/doziest prey, who probably won't last long anyway.
Apparently the bells don’t work
Ah. Well in that case just muzzle them I guess?
Maybe needs something more sophisticated. Compulsory electronic collars that constantly broadcast "danger, cat approaching" and charge up when the cat does move suddenly. Helpful side effect of making cats extremely annoying to own.
But anyway... My main beef with the many cats near us is not their occasional kills but their constant defecation in our garden.
Afternoon all from the land of Hellas. Talking of crumbling legacies of Boris, something has to give with the Brexit debate. As an example, even my aged Gloucestershire cousins, green wellie types who voted for Brexit, are baffled by the lack of attention paid to it, given that that most of friends are farmers, most of whom now regret their choice. The under-50's in general seem similarly baffled, and there's seems barely any support for it in ahy of the big cities. Something will have to give, such as a vote on returning to the single market, because a very large number of people are not feeling represented, in the current situation.
Funny, most of the farmers I talk to are genuinely pleased with the new ELMs systems that has ben brought in to replace the CAP. It is on eof the few good things the previous Government did post Brexit and is extremely popular with both farmers and environmentalists. The only ones who really object are the big agri-businesses who can no longer get grants based simply on acreage farmed.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
Well, what we have currently, is something thar is very unpopular, and now considered a failure by the large majority ; Hard Brexit , being treated as a success by the two largest parties, and most of the political class. That won't last indefinitely, and I think Labour will eventually he dragged towards the LD position of offering a referendum on single market membership, which even the.Toriea may eventually accede to, too, once they've been through various rightwing leaders.
Starmer probably won't; (trying to) Make Brexit Work (even if that means salami slicing) is both his stated plan, the only thing that's really on the table for the near future and consistent with a lawyerly not asking a question where he doesn't know the answer for sure.
The first next time it might become interesting is in the election for his successor as Labour leader- so 2028/9/30? Which might put Single Customs and a Market Union on the agenda for the 2032/3 election.
If wild birds of prey are eating wild garden birds there's an automatic stabilisation if the birds of prey kill too many song birds - they run out of food.
This isn't the case with domestic cats who are subsidised hunters, and the science has been done monitoring domestic cats. A proportion of them are very prolific hunters and they don't bring home, or eat, most of their kills. They're sport killers, just like human game hunters, and they're capable of hunting song birds to extinction - which is not the case with a natural predator like a native bird of prey.
I'm no expert but I do know that birds of prey eat animals other than songbirds.
According to BBC World at One 1 in 4 pensioners are millionaires. This was put to the leader of the Greens who said one of their first priorities was re-establishing the pensioners Winter Fuel Allowance.
Afternoon all from the land of Hellas. Talking of crumbling legacies of Boris, something has to give with the Brexit debate. As an example, even my aged Gloucestershire cousins, green wellie types who voted for Brexit, are baffled by the lack of attention paid to it, given that that most of friends are farmers, most of whom now regret their choice. The under-50's in general seem similarly baffled, and there's seems barely any support for it in ahy of the big cities. Something will have to give, such as a vote on returning to the single market, because a very large number of people are not feeling represented, in the current situation.
Funny, most of the farmers I talk to are genuinely pleased with the new ELMs systems that has ben brought in to replace the CAP. It is on eof the few good things the previous Government did post Brexit and is extremely popular with both farmers and environmentalists. The only ones who really object are the big agri-businesses who can no longer get grants based simply on acreage farmed.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
Well, what we have currently, is something thar is very unpopular, and now considered a failure by the large majority ; Hard Brexit , being treated as a success by the two largest parties, and most of the political class. That won't last indefinitely, and I think Labour will eventually he dragged towards the LD position of offering a referendum on single market membership, which even the.Toriea may eventually accede to, too, once they've been through various rightwing leaders.
Single market membership via EFTA/EEA is a great idea - and the one I proposed since long before the referendum. That is a very long way away from rejoining. Inded it would remove most of the objections that sensible people have to the current form of Brexit. But that is not tghe Lib Dem position. They made it clear in the elction campaign that they want to rejoin the EU entirely, not just the Single Market.
By the way, your shifting of the goalposts in you posting is rather poor. You had previously been talking about farmers and their views. That was the point I answered and refuted your claims. No mention of that in your follow up post. Just a general polemic on Brexit as a whole.
BBC News - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9d18449ye4t UK riots sentencing live: Man jailed for nine years after setting fire to asylum seeker hotel during Rotherham riot - BBC News
Given he had two of the statutory aggravating factors (relevant previous convictions, hate crime) I'm surprised it wasn't the max (10 years).
The sentence is after deduction for his guilty plea - the BBC haven't reported the sentencing but I suspect he got the full 12 years with a deduction for the plea..
Arson with intent to endanger life can get a life sentence.
In extreme rare cases, the maximum starting point for the offence is 8 years custody with a top range of 12 years. He would have got a third off for pleading guilty
According to BBC World at One 1 in 4 pensioners are millionaires. This was put to the leader of the Greens who said one of their first priorities was re-establishing the pensioners Winter Fuel Allowance.
As an OAP I wouldn't mind if the WFA was taxable. I don't think I know any millionaires, though, UNLESS they're including the value of peoples houses.
If wild birds of prey are eating wild garden birds there's an automatic stabilisation if the birds of prey kill too many song birds - they run out of food.
This isn't the case with domestic cats who are subsidised hunters, and the science has been done monitoring domestic cats. A proportion of them are very prolific hunters and they don't bring home, or eat, most of their kills. They're sport killers, just like human game hunters, and they're capable of hunting song birds to extinction - which is not the case with a natural predator like a native bird of prey.
I'm no expert but I do know that birds of prey eat animals other than songbirds.
True. But there would still be a reduction in availability if prey to support the bird of prey population.
To push the tax question a notch further, when Margaret Thatcher came to power, basic rate tax was 33% (which was swiftly reduced to 30%) and VAT was 7.5% (swiftly doubled to 15%).
We now have VAT at 20% but basic rate tax is also 20%. We know each 1p rise in basic rate income tax brings in about £5 billion so a 5p rise in basic tax would bring in say £25 billion.
When the thresholds were frozen by one Rishi Sunak in 2021, it was estimated the measure would bring in £14 billion by the end of 2024 with a further £8 billion by 2025 (though that probably hasn't taken into account strong wage growth which has pulled more into higher rate tax).
A 1% rise in VAT brings in about £6.5 billion increasing VAT to 25% would bring in £32.5 billion.
No one's going to do any of that of course but the only solutions I hear to reducing the deficit seem to involve sacking large numbers of civil servants - I've seen any number from 50% to 90% mentioned on here by some contributors. It seems we are no longer able to have a serious discussion about deficit reduction without everyone heading to the extremes.
Afternoon all from the land of Hellas. Talking of crumbling legacies of Boris, something has to give with the Brexit debate. As an example, even my aged Gloucestershire cousins, green wellie types who voted for Brexit, are baffled by the lack of attention paid to it, given that that most of friends are farmers, most of whom now regret their choice. The under-50's in general seem similarly baffled, and there's seems barely any support for it in ahy of the big cities. Something will have to give, such as a vote on returning to the single market, because a very large number of people are not feeling represented, in the current situation.
Funny, most of the farmers I talk to are genuinely pleased with the new ELMs systems that has ben brought in to replace the CAP. It is on eof the few good things the previous Government did post Brexit and is extremely popular with both farmers and environmentalists. The only ones who really object are the big agri-businesses who can no longer get grants based simply on acreage farmed.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
Well, what we have currently, is something thar is very unpopular, and now considered a failure by the large majority ; Hard Brexit , being treated as a success by the two largest parties, and most of the political class. That won't last indefinitely, and I think Labour will eventually he dragged towards the LD position of offering a referendum on single market membership, which even the.Toriea may eventually accede to, too, once they've been through various rightwing leaders.
Single market membership via EFTA/EEA is a great idea - and the one I proposed since long before the referendum. That is a very long way away from rejoining. Inded it would remove most of the objections that sensible people have to the current form of Brexit. But that is not tghe Lib Dem position. They made it clear in the elction campaign that they want to rejoin the EU entirely, not just the Single Market.
By the way, your shifting of the goalposts in you posting is rather poor. You had previously been talking about farmers and their views. That was the point I answered and refuted your claims. No mention of that in your follow up post. Just a general polemic on Brexit as a whole.
No they didn't. The LD manifesto committed to 'Fix the UK’s broken relationship with Europe, forge a new partnership built on cooperation, not confrontation, and move to conclude a new comprehensive agreement which removes as many barriers to trade as possible.' Not to rejoin the EU and they were the most pro EU/EEA of the 4 main UK parties https://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto
Afternoon all from the land of Hellas. Talking of crumbling legacies of Boris, something has to give with the Brexit debate. As an example, even my aged Gloucestershire cousins, green wellie types who voted for Brexit, are baffled by the lack of attention paid to it, given that that most of friends are farmers, most of whom now regret their choice. The under-50's in general seem similarly baffled, and there's seems barely any support for it in ahy of the big cities. Something will have to give, such as a vote on returning to the single market, because a very large number of people are not feeling represented, in the current situation.
Funny, most of the farmers I talk to are genuinely pleased with the new ELMs systems that has ben brought in to replace the CAP. It is on eof the few good things the previous Government did post Brexit and is extremely popular with both farmers and environmentalists. The only ones who really object are the big agri-businesses who can no longer get grants based simply on acreage farmed.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
Well, what we have currently, is something thar is very unpopular, and now considered a failure by the large majority ; Hard Brexit , being treated as a success by the two largest parties, and most of the political class. That won't last indefinitely, and I think Labour will eventually he dragged towards the LD position of offering a referendum on single market membership, which even the.Toriea may eventually accede to, too, once they've been through various rightwing leaders.
Single market membership via EFTA/EEA is a great idea - and the one I proposed since long before the referendum. That is a very long way away from rejoining. Inded it would remove most of the objections that sensible people have to the current form of Brexit. But that is not tghe Lib Dem position. They made it clear in the elction campaign that they want to rejoin the EU entirely, not just the Single Market.
By the way, your shifting of the goalposts in you posting is rather poor. You had previously been talking about farmers and their views. That was the point I answered and refuted your claims. No mention of that in your follow up post. Just a general polemic on Brexit as a whole.
I think the LibDem policy is for rejoining the EU entirely in due course, if supported by the British public, but we'll happily accept EEA membership if that's on offer.
EEA membership would have been a sensible compromise response to the close referendum result: takes us out of the EU, but keeps us close, and allows a period of stability during which British politicians and the public could have decided whether to stick with that or take some other Brexit path.
According to BBC World at One 1 in 4 pensioners are millionaires. This was put to the leader of the Greens who said one of their first priorities was re-establishing the pensioners Winter Fuel Allowance.
So 3/4 of pensioners are not millionaires, even including their house value
On topic, I hope you're right but I suspect it is down to the roasters the GOP have selected, they keep on picking utter bellends over the last few years for the senate.
Remember Roy Moore?
Kari Lake is proving to be an even bigger embarrassment in her race in Arizona, bigger than he attempt to be governor, only a moron would ever think she was impressive.
It's not true to say that all the senate candidates are MAGA. The GOP had a concerted effort this year to pick more conventional candidates and generally succeeded apart from Arizona and Ohio. For example, the Pennsylvania candidate used to work in the George W Bush administration, whilst the Montana candidate was a Navy SEAL.
The GOP’s also picked a loon for the North Carolina gubernatorial race, Mark Robinson. Holocaust denial, climate change denial, anti-abortion but paid for his girlfriend to have an abortion, porn addiction, multiple bankruptcies, said Obama wasn’t born in the U.S., said Michelle Obama was a man, racist, defended Bill Cosby, tax evasion…
What’s with this thing of arguing First Ladies are men? They’ve been doing that about Brigitte Macron too. A very odd development.
Ironically Trump may be the most moderate GOP presidential nominee for the next few election cycles, whether he wins or loses given even if he wins he can only do 1 more term. He is certainly more liberal and centrist than Vance and DeSantis. Same as Boris was more moderate than Truss and Jenrick and Badenoch and on some issues like the environment and immigration even more moderate than Rishi
According to BBC World at One 1 in 4 pensioners are millionaires. This was put to the leader of the Greens who said one of their first priorities was re-establishing the pensioners Winter Fuel Allowance.
As an OAP I wouldn't mind if the WFA was taxable. I don't think I know any millionaires, though, UNLESS they're including the value of peoples houses.
Must be housing and notional value of pensions to get to 1 in 4 I'd have thought. Plus maybe counting both members of a couple with £1M+ in such assets as millionaires, even if per person it would be <£1M.
Afternoon all from the land of Hellas. Talking of crumbling legacies of Boris, something has to give with the Brexit debate. As an example, even my aged Gloucestershire cousins, green wellie types who voted for Brexit, are baffled by the lack of attention paid to it, given that that most of friends are farmers, most of whom now regret their choice. The under-50's in general seem similarly baffled, and there's seems barely any support for it in ahy of the big cities. Something will have to give, such as a vote on returning to the single market, because a very large number of people are not feeling represented, in the current situation.
Funny, most of the farmers I talk to are genuinely pleased with the new ELMs systems that has ben brought in to replace the CAP. It is on eof the few good things the previous Government did post Brexit and is extremely popular with both farmers and environmentalists. The only ones who really object are the big agri-businesses who can no longer get grants based simply on acreage farmed.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
Well, what we have currently, is something thar is very unpopular, and now considered a failure by the large majority ; Hard Brexit , being treated as a success by the two largest parties, and most of the political class. That won't last indefinitely, and I think Labour will eventually he dragged towards the LD position of offering a referendum on single market membership, which even the.Toriea may eventually accede to, too, once they've been through various rightwing leaders.
Single market membership via EFTA/EEA is a great idea - and the one I proposed since long before the referendum. That is a very long way away from rejoining. Inded it would remove most of the objections that sensible people have to the current form of Brexit. But that is not tghe Lib Dem position. They made it clear in the elction campaign that they want to rejoin the EU entirely, not just the Single Market.
By the way, your shifting of the goalposts in you posting is rather poor. You had previously been talking about farmers and their views. That was the point I answered and refuted your claims. No mention of that in your follow up post. Just a general polemic on Brexit as a whole.
Well, I can only talk from my own experience. It seems that the Gloucestershire farmers, my family know, are more concerned about being undercut from abroad, than benefits from environmental payments.
I think the underlying point is thar very large numbers of people are just not being listened to ; some farmers; even some fishermen ; small and large businesses ; students ; performers and musicians; the vast majority of big city Britain ; and now, it seems, about 70% of the British population, all of which group will support a return to the single market. Nature refuses a vacuum, though, so I suspect new political forces may enter to fill this gap first.
Afternoon all from the land of Hellas. Talking of crumbling legacies of Boris, something has to give with the Brexit debate. As an example, even my aged Gloucestershire cousins, green wellie types who voted for Brexit, are baffled by the lack of attention paid to it, given that that most of friends are farmers, most of whom now regret their choice. The under-50's in general seem similarly baffled, and there's seems barely any support for it in ahy of the big cities. Something will have to give, such as a vote on returning to the single market, because a very large number of people are not feeling represented, in the current situation.
Funny, most of the farmers I talk to are genuinely pleased with the new ELMs systems that has ben brought in to replace the CAP. It is on eof the few good things the previous Government did post Brexit and is extremely popular with both farmers and environmentalists. The only ones who really object are the big agri-businesses who can no longer get grants based simply on acreage farmed.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
Well, what we have currently, is something thar is very unpopular, and now considered a failure by the large majority ; Hard Brexit , being treated as a success by the two largest parties, and most of the political class. That won't last indefinitely, and I think Labour will eventually he dragged towards the LD position of offering a referendum on single market membership, which even the.Toriea may eventually accede to, too, once they've been through various rightwing leaders.
Starmer isn't going to do shit about it. His entire political career has been the path of least resistance and the fucker isn't going to change now.
According to BBC World at One 1 in 4 pensioners are millionaires. This was put to the leader of the Greens who said one of their first priorities was re-establishing the pensioners Winter Fuel Allowance.
I think the claim is "live in a millionaire household" so let's say typically in a 650000 pound house with 350000 free cash to support two people. I'd want help with the heating if that was me.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Pet owners need to grow up and own the truth. If you must have a pet cat or dog, accept what these animals are doing to our wildlife
“Cats kill in excess of 50 million birds each year as well as frogs, slow worms and various small mammals. Given these facts there are a few points to consider if you are thinking of bringing a cat into an area where birdlife is thriving”
Animals kill other animals. That's just a fact of life.
But that doesn’t mean we should introduce 12 million EXTRA predators (fed and housed by us) who completely devastate the eco system, slaughtering 50 MILLION birds a year (and much else) and all because we “like” the company of cats
It is irredeemably selfish. Sorry
Yep, the issue with raptors versus cats on small bird predation is that the latter don't need to kill the birds to survive. Not a moral judgement that, but a practical one. If sparrow hawk numbers get too big and they substantially reduce the numbers of their prey in an area, then there won't be enough food and sparrow hawk population will reduce. Cats could happily kill every last bird and still go home for a nice bowl of Whiskas - the natural predator/prey equilibrium is broken.
That said, I'd back whoever said upthread that it's more about habitat removal than anything. A completely lawned garden (or worse, paved/astroturfed) offers little to support bird life.
Yes, agreed. I hate paved front lawns, too
This is a rare occasion when I am not advancing a contentious argument largely to provoke, I sincerely believe all this
It would be good if science could find a compromise for now, and devise some way of removing the predatory instinct from domestic cats. We are happy to snip their bollocks off, I imagine most “loving pet owners” will be equally happy with fucking with their predator brains
Ah, well on cats it's easy. Bell on collar saves all but the slowest/doziest prey, who probably won't last long anyway.
Apparently the bells don’t work
Ah. Well in that case just muzzle them I guess?
Maybe needs something more sophisticated. Compulsory electronic collars that constantly broadcast "danger, cat approaching" and charge up when the cat does move suddenly. Helpful side effect of making cats extremely annoying to own.
But anyway... My main beef with the many cats near us is not their occasional kills but their constant defecation in our garden.
I remember reading the news story below and being incensed on behalf of the snake:
The pet snake was minding it's own business in it's owners garden and the cat comes in uninvited. The gall of the cat's owners to call the snake dangerous still annoys me 15 years later.
According to BBC World at One 1 in 4 pensioners are millionaires. This was put to the leader of the Greens who said one of their first priorities was re-establishing the pensioners Winter Fuel Allowance.
Presumably that is a millionaire in terms of assets and pensions not just sitting on a pot of millions.
If it includes pension wealth then that has to last their entire retirement.
On topic, I hope you're right but I suspect it is down to the roasters the GOP have selected, they keep on picking utter bellends over the last few years for the senate.
Remember Roy Moore?
Kari Lake is proving to be an even bigger embarrassment in her race in Arizona, bigger than he attempt to be governor, only a moron would ever think she was impressive.
It's not true to say that all the senate candidates are MAGA. The GOP had a concerted effort this year to pick more conventional candidates and generally succeeded apart from Arizona and Ohio. For example, the Pennsylvania candidate used to work in the George W Bush administration, whilst the Montana candidate was a Navy SEAL.
The GOP’s also picked a loon for the North Carolina gubernatorial race, Mark Robinson. Holocaust denial, climate change denial, anti-abortion but paid for his girlfriend to have an abortion, porn addiction, multiple bankruptcies, said Obama wasn’t born in the U.S., said Michelle Obama was a man, racist, defended Bill Cosby, tax evasion…
What’s with this thing of arguing First Ladies are men? They’ve been doing that about Brigitte Macron too. A very odd development.
Ironically Trump may be the most moderate GOP presidential nominee for the next few election cycles, whether he wins or loses given even if he wins he can only do 1 more term. He is certainly more liberal and centrist than DeSantis and Vance. Same as Boris was more moderate than Truss and Jenrick and Badenoch and on some issues like the environment and immigration even more moderate than Rishi
To a degree, Trump is more moderate than DeSantis and Vance on specific policy proposals, but you need to recognise that Trump is not a normal politician and doesn't offer any sort of coherent or consistent policy programme. Often, he just randomly says stuff. Is it meaningful to say he has a policy of government funding IVF when he's flip-flopped on his abortion position, hasn't remotely considered the budget implications of funding IVF and there is minimal chance he would enact such a policy?
What is particularly worrying about Trump (and, to a lesser degree, this was also true of Johnson) is his disregard for democratic and legal norms. It is in this regard that he is more extreme than some of his GOP peers. Someone who intends to rule as a king, above the law, is less moderate than someone with specific right-wing policies to lower tax, ban abortion, impose tariffs, or whatever.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
It might “theoretically” support 12 million feral cats but we would not tolerate it. We’d either exterminate them or at least sterilise them - precisely because of their impact on wildlife. See above. It’s only because they are “pets” they are protected
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
Ours don't. Well, they try, sometimes. But they are a bit feeble. We have three: mother and two kittens (grown up kittens now). Mother is a big fat lump who couldn't creep up on anything if she tried; one of the kittens is actually quite athletic, but the other one, I'm fairly sure, was the runt, and is frightened by everything. They like being outside, but only if it's above 20 degrees and without rain or wind, which is a bit limiting. They have a particular noise they make for pigeons, whom they stalk earnestly, but even the competent one never gets near them. They have been known to bring in moths (alive) and moss.
We used to have a big brute of a tom cat, who came to being a pet rather late in life. He was hard as nails but he never really hunted. Though once after a barbecue he proudly brought in a sausage he had caught.
If there were no humans, what would the 'natural' population of cats be? I reckon comfortably in the millions. They'd predate on mice and rats largely. Possibly.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
It might “theoretically” support 12 million feral cats but we would not tolerate it. We’d either exterminate them or at least sterilise them - precisely because of their impact on wildlife. See above. It’s only because they are “pets” they are protected
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
Ours don't. Well, they try, sometimes. But they are a bit feeble. We have three: mother and two kittens (grown up kittens now). Mother is a big fat lump who couldn't creep up on anything if she tried; one of the kittens is actually quite athletic, but the other one, I'm fairly sure, was the runt, and is frightened by everything. They like being outside, but only if it's above 20 degrees and without rain or wind, which is a bit limiting. They have a particular noise they make for pigeons, whom they stalk earnestly, but even the competent one never gets near them. They have been known to bring in moths (alive) and moss.
We used to have a big brute of a tom cat, who came to being a pet rather late in life. He was hard as nails but he never really hunted. Though once after a barbecue he proudly brought in a sausage he had caught.
If there were no humans, what would the 'natural' population of cats be? I reckon comfortably in the millions. They'd predate on mice and rats largely. Possibly.
It should of ofcourse above say "many", rather than "all" of the 70% now anti-Hard Brexit would support a return to tye single market.
There isn't much polling on this yet, and some will inevitably be cake-and-eatist anti-free movementists. But the general direction that public opinion is going in looks pretty clear, while the parties are moving in the other direction.
According to BBC World at One 1 in 4 pensioners are millionaires. This was put to the leader of the Greens who said one of their first priorities was re-establishing the pensioners Winter Fuel Allowance.
Bit of a dodgy stat as the vast majority of these millionaires are only that because of their house.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Pet owners need to grow up and own the truth. If you must have a pet cat or dog, accept what these animals are doing to our wildlife
“Cats kill in excess of 50 million birds each year as well as frogs, slow worms and various small mammals. Given these facts there are a few points to consider if you are thinking of bringing a cat into an area where birdlife is thriving”
Animals kill other animals. That's just a fact of life.
But that doesn’t mean we should introduce 12 million EXTRA predators (fed and housed by us) who completely devastate the eco system, slaughtering 50 MILLION birds a year (and much else) and all because we “like” the company of cats
It is irredeemably selfish. Sorry
Yep, the issue with raptors versus cats on small bird predation is that the latter don't need to kill the birds to survive. Not a moral judgement that, but a practical one. If sparrow hawk numbers get too big and they substantially reduce the numbers of their prey in an area, then there won't be enough food and sparrow hawk population will reduce. Cats could happily kill every last bird and still go home for a nice bowl of Whiskas - the natural predator/prey equilibrium is broken.
That said, I'd back whoever said upthread that it's more about habitat removal than anything. A completely lawned garden (or worse, paved/astroturfed) offers little to support bird life.
Yes, agreed. I hate paved front lawns, too
This is a rare occasion when I am not advancing a contentious argument largely to provoke, I sincerely believe all this
It would be good if science could find a compromise for now, and devise some way of removing the predatory instinct from domestic cats. We are happy to snip their bollocks off, I imagine most “loving pet owners” will be equally happy with fucking with their predator brains
Ah, well on cats it's easy. Bell on collar saves all but the slowest/doziest prey, who probably won't last long anyway.
Apparently the bells don’t work
Ah. Well in that case just muzzle them I guess?
Maybe needs something more sophisticated. Compulsory electronic collars that constantly broadcast "danger, cat approaching" and charge up when the cat does move suddenly. Helpful side effect of making cats extremely annoying to own.
But anyway... My main beef with the many cats near us is not their occasional kills but their constant defecation in our garden.
I remember reading the news story below and being incensed on behalf of the snake:
The pet snake was minding it's own business in it's owners garden and the cat comes in uninvited. The gall of the cat's owners to call the snake dangerous still annoys me 15 years later.
Pythons owners should require licenses as much as venomous snakes owners are required to have a license to keep in the UK.
They are not native species and potentially dangerous not only to neighbours pets but to humans too if not kept securely
It must be a very local factor because it's warm and bright here in north London.
Should have played at Chelmsford. I'm about 10 miles North of the city and it's a lovely afternoon.
I find its hard to believe they can't play cricket in it. It's a tad gloomy, maybe, but dry and warm, and there are floodlights. It is often said that Test cricket does itself no favours: well, indeed. I have tickets for tomorrow and now I'm fretting about it being too cloudy to play. In summer. FFS.
It must be a very local factor because it's warm and bright here in north London.
Should have played at Chelmsford. I'm about 10 miles North of the city and it's a lovely afternoon.
I find its hard to believe they can't play cricket in it. It's a tad gloomy, maybe, but dry and warm, and there are floodlights. It is often said that Test cricket does itself no favours: well, indeed. I have tickets for tomorrow and now I'm fretting about it being too cloudy to play. In summer. FFS.
It must be a very local factor because it's warm and bright here in north London.
Should have played at Chelmsford. I'm about 10 miles North of the city and it's a lovely afternoon.
I find its hard to believe they can't play cricket in it. It's a tad gloomy, maybe, but dry and warm, and there are floodlights. It is often said that Test cricket does itself no favours: well, indeed. I have tickets for tomorrow and now I'm fretting about it being too cloudy to play. In summer. FFS.
Edit: it is apparently now raining, fair enough. Hopefully the shower clears the skies a bit. But 'bad light' at noon in early September? Do me a favour.
According to BBC World at One 1 in 4 pensioners are millionaires. This was put to the leader of the Greens who said one of their first priorities was re-establishing the pensioners Winter Fuel Allowance.
As an OAP I wouldn't mind if the WFA was taxable. I don't think I know any millionaires, though, UNLESS they're including the value of peoples houses.
They are. But I guess anyone short of heating could always go for equity release if they weren't worried about their children's inheritance.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
It might “theoretically” support 12 million feral cats but we would not tolerate it. We’d either exterminate them or at least sterilise them - precisely because of their impact on wildlife. See above. It’s only because they are “pets” they are protected
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
Ours don't. Well, they try, sometimes. But they are a bit feeble. We have three: mother and two kittens (grown up kittens now). Mother is a big fat lump who couldn't creep up on anything if she tried; one of the kittens is actually quite athletic, but the other one, I'm fairly sure, was the runt, and is frightened by everything. They like being outside, but only if it's above 20 degrees and without rain or wind, which is a bit limiting. They have a particular noise they make for pigeons, whom they stalk earnestly, but even the competent one never gets near them. They have been known to bring in moths (alive) and moss.
We used to have a big brute of a tom cat, who came to being a pet rather late in life. He was hard as nails but he never really hunted. Though once after a barbecue he proudly brought in a sausage he had caught.
If there were no humans, what would the 'natural' population of cats be? I reckon comfortably in the millions. They'd predate on mice and rats largely. Possibly.
See? That's why you see very few wild sausages these days!
Afternoon all from the land of Hellas. Talking of crumbling legacies of Boris, something has to give with the Brexit debate. As an example, even my aged Gloucestershire cousins, green wellie types who voted for Brexit, are baffled by the lack of attention paid to it, given that that most of friends are farmers, most of whom now regret their choice. The under-50's in general seem similarly baffled, and there's seems barely any support for it in ahy of the big cities. Something will have to give, such as a vote on returning to the single market, because a very large number of people are not feeling represented, in the current situation.
Funny, most of the farmers I talk to are genuinely pleased with the new ELMs systems that has ben brought in to replace the CAP. It is on eof the few good things the previous Government did post Brexit and is extremely popular with both farmers and environmentalists. The only ones who really object are the big agri-businesses who can no longer get grants based simply on acreage farmed.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
Well, what we have currently, is something thar is very unpopular, and now considered a failure by the large majority ; Hard Brexit , being treated as a success by the two largest parties, and most of the political class. That won't last indefinitely, and I think Labour will eventually he dragged towards the LD position of offering a referendum on single market membership, which even the.Toriea may eventually accede to, too, once they've been through various rightwing leaders.
Single market membership via EFTA/EEA is a great idea - and the one I proposed since long before the referendum. That is a very long way away from rejoining. Inded it would remove most of the objections that sensible people have to the current form of Brexit. But that is not tghe Lib Dem position. They made it clear in the elction campaign that they want to rejoin the EU entirely, not just the Single Market.
By the way, your shifting of the goalposts in you posting is rather poor. You had previously been talking about farmers and their views. That was the point I answered and refuted your claims. No mention of that in your follow up post. Just a general polemic on Brexit as a whole.
Well, I can only talk from my own experience. It seems that the Gloucestershire farmers, my family know, are more concerned about being undercut from abroad, than benefits from environmental payments.
I think the underlying point is thar very large numbers of people are just not being listened to ; some farmers; even some fishermen ; small and large businesses ; students ; performers and musicians; the vast majority of big city Britain ; and now, it seems, about 70% of the British population, all of which group will support a return to the single market. Nature refuses a vacuum, though, so I suspect new political forces may enter to fill this gap first.
The LDs effectively back rejoining the EEA at least so the quickest way to get that is for Labour to lose its majority in 2028/29 and the LDs to have the balance of power in a hung parliament
Talking of pensions the WASPI women are still there demanding compensation. They finally had a meeting with a pensions minister and seem optimistic of some compensation.
It must be a very local factor because it's warm and bright here in north London.
Should have played at Chelmsford. I'm about 10 miles North of the city and it's a lovely afternoon.
I find its hard to believe they can't play cricket in it. It's a tad gloomy, maybe, but dry and warm, and there are floodlights. It is often said that Test cricket does itself no favours: well, indeed. I have tickets for tomorrow and now I'm fretting about it being too cloudy to play. In summer. FFS.
Autumn.
Nope. Autumn doesn't start until 22 September, by the equinox. But let us not start this dull 'debate' again.
Here is a factsheet from the Met Office explaining this.
Usually, when we talk about the first day of autumn we are referring to the astronomical autumn which is defined by the Earth's axis and orbit around the Sun. This year autumn begins on 22 September...
They use 1 Sep for statistical convenience, so each season falls neatly into three months. This is neither the thermal season of autumn nor the astronomical one.
No wonder when we are jailing people for tweets made rather than giving them community orders and fines. Prison should be mainly for those who have killed with intent, killed while dangerous driving, committed violent crimes or serious sexual offences of assault or rape or stolen large amounts of property ie those we need to protect society from and who need a long period of rehabilitation before they are released.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
If we are considering a "no humans" scenario the rat and mouse population plummets with the loss of large stores of grain, the fox population explodes when gamekeepers stop shooting and trapping them and turns to cats as food when dustbin raids become a thing of the past. The larger newly feral dogs will have a cat too.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
It might “theoretically” support 12 million feral cats but we would not tolerate it. We’d either exterminate them or at least sterilise them - precisely because of their impact on wildlife. See above. It’s only because they are “pets” they are protected
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
Ours don't. Well, they try, sometimes. But they are a bit feeble. We have three: mother and two kittens (grown up kittens now). Mother is a big fat lump who couldn't creep up on anything if she tried; one of the kittens is actually quite athletic, but the other one, I'm fairly sure, was the runt, and is frightened by everything. They like being outside, but only if it's above 20 degrees and without rain or wind, which is a bit limiting. They have a particular noise they make for pigeons, whom they stalk earnestly, but even the competent one never gets near them. They have been known to bring in moths (alive) and moss.
We used to have a big brute of a tom cat, who came to being a pet rather late in life. He was hard as nails but he never really hunted. Though once after a barbecue he proudly brought in a sausage he had caught.
If there were no humans, what would the 'natural' population of cats be? I reckon comfortably in the millions. They'd predate on mice and rats largely. Possibly.
Every single cat owner says this. Its ridiculous
Some cats genuinely do not hunt, but owners will not see most of what their cats do kill - the figure from the study is only about 23% of kills are brought home - and so unless owners have a camera on their cat, they cannot know for sure what they are hunting.
And in this case we have a cat who is proven to be hunting (moths) and the blithe assumption is that they're not predating on other prey, winged or otherwise.
As a study in denial it is instructive.
I love cats, but I'm not going to fool myself that I wasn't contributing to mass and uncontrolled predation if I were to have one as a pet again.
On topic, I hope you're right but I suspect it is down to the roasters the GOP have selected, they keep on picking utter bellends over the last few years for the senate.
Remember Roy Moore?
Kari Lake is proving to be an even bigger embarrassment in her race in Arizona, bigger than he attempt to be governor, only a moron would ever think she was impressive.
Didn't Leon used to rate her ?
Yep. She was the next Trump and going to go all the way to the top iirc.
I spotted her when she was completely unknown, and said: she has charisma and will become a player. No one on PB had even heard of her
So it was. She lost the Arizona governor fight by a whisker
I accept she’s somewhat messed up since. For a moment she looked like a credible VP pick (maybe she still does compared to Vance)
Part of her problem is - as I noted at the time - she a bit too old. She’s an attractive women but getting on in years. If she was 15 years younger she would be this firecracker beauty with a trumpite shtick and a ready wit. Now she looks like a slightly crazy granny, TBH
LOL A bit of selective memory there. You think you spot things before other people. A bit like the pet treatment getting into rivers. It was a great revelation to you and therefore it must be to everyone else on PB whereas it wasn't to quite a few of us and you found it too incredible to be true that others were aware years before you.
Of course we could go back and check, but you have blocked us all from seeing your previous posts. Why not open them up for us to view. You can see all of mine.
I refer you to my prior reply involving the word “don’t give” and “fuck” and “tiny sperm of a”
I thought (unlike my post which really was a wind up, because I don't think you should get away with this nonsense, but your reply was fair because mine was not an argument, but just a dig for fun) that @Eabhal post was well considered and deserved a sensible reply from you.
It does feel like you have shifted since you have come back. Obviously the same style is there but @Eabhal comments seem fair. I have noticed that change also. Stuff posted out of context as @TheScreamingEagles picked up. There was the outrageous one the other day where you compared sentencing of two offenders and I thought you made a very good point re the person throwing a lump of concrete at Farage. Then we find out it was wet cement and the point collapses. That type of post is exactly what left and right wing propagandists do. Similarly you have twice in the last few days justified people doing wrong things because other people on the 'other side' do them. That is not logical and a route to anarchy.
I know you enjoy outraging us, but you didn't used to do this.
But PB has been claiming this for a decade. “Ooh you’re turning into Plato” “you’ve finally gone down the rabbit hole”. Blah blah blah it’s so fucking boring
And still you keep saying it, perhaps even more persistently. But not because I’ve changed - because PB has got ever narrower and crabbier and stupider with only a narrow range of centrist woke dad opinions deemed acceptable (plus trains and housing development regulations) so that anything outside this, from any angle, seems increasingly outrageous and unhinged
The bubble is YOU. It is YOU GUYS. Not I
Perhaps this is inevitable. PB has been around for 20+ years. We’ve all got old. Old people have narrow minds and they are boring
But you know what? I’m not going gentle into that good night. I’m still out here travelling and exploring and welcoming new ideas and new places and new people because I’d die of tedium without them
Not sure if that reply should have been to me or someone else. I certainly don't think you are turning into Plato and haven't said so.
However your posts since returning have been different to when you left and it was only about what, 2 weeks or so. Could be wrong, time does fly, so it is easy to see that difference in your posts. Not the style. That is the same, but the content.
@Leon sees himself as a self-styled 'alpha' male, a spiritual tech-bro who is superior to all of us in intellect and lifestyle. In his own mind, he is a genius who is irresistible to all women. We disagree with him only because we are jealous, because he knows he is right; even when he contradicts himself. His multiple identities on here only exist because his character is so big no one identity could contain it.
He is possibly the only person in the universe to see himself in that manner, and quite possibly many see him as exactly the opposite; but that's how he sees himself.
If you view all his posts through that perspective, it makes some sense...
I think you become what you act. (Aristotle?)
I think Leon originally acted alt-right to stir up controversy, as he like to do, because he's bored. But he's grown into the part and now believes it, unlike the rest of us.
Did the same happen to Plato the PBer?
See also the sad stories of Colditz prisoners who feigned madness as part of their escape plans.
Or someone like Calvin Robinson who seemed like palusible enough clergy material when he visited the vicar school.
It's probably the fault of liberal centrists, though. By not taking right-wingers seriously, we force them down the rabbit hole. Or something.
Calvin Robinson is one of Mansfield's more embarrassing exports, though since he was at the St Stephen's House Vicar Factory in Oxford, that makes him a graduate of the University of Oxford, I think. I don't know whether he also has the fake MA .
He's a bit cross because he applied for a Curacy in the Diocese of London, and was not deemed suitable for any of the opportunites.
Having avoided both Robinson and Paula Vennells as Bishop, I'd say that someone in London Diocese is making the correct decisions on bullet-dodging.
If Tom Butler was Bishop of Southwark, then they dodged him, too - which supports my argument .
On +Tom, I've never met him or people who dealt with him, but he was Bp of Leicester back in the 1990s, and was known for his hobby of knitting - way ahead of the fashion ! I believe he knitted a full set of vestments at one stage (I can't find a photograph - talking 1990s here).
IIRC the knitting bishop of Leicester was Richard Rutt, who also wrote the definitive history of knitting, a work which has held its value second hand. Now RIP, but ended up in RC church.
Maybe Leicester had lots of knitting bishops.
Thank-you for the correction. +Richard was the Bishop before +Tom, with changeover in 1991.
It's been interesting to read about +Richard, a very normal Bishop (for a Bishop :-) ), very self-effacing by the sound of it. 20 years in South Korea where he made a big contribution to Korean Studies, and learnt Korean and Chinese, then stood down as a Bishop there in 1973 aiming to be a parish priest because he thought the setup should be lead by Koreans.
Then a little Bishop (c Mrs Thatcher) in Truro Diocoese, where he learnt Cornish, then Bp of Leicester where he knitted and wrote a book about it, Leicester being an historic centre of knitting.
Then later became an RC priest as he did not accept the Ordination of Women.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
I think the missing item from this debate is migratory songbirds shot or caught in nets to be eaten in Southern / Eastern Europe.
According to BBC World at One 1 in 4 pensioners are millionaires. This was put to the leader of the Greens who said one of their first priorities was re-establishing the pensioners Winter Fuel Allowance.
As an OAP I wouldn't mind if the WFA was taxable. I don't think I know any millionaires, though, UNLESS they're including the value of peoples houses.
They are. But I guess anyone short of heating could always go for equity release if they weren't worried about their children's inheritance.
Equity release is terrible value though. The interest rates have been historically punitive compared to std mortgage rates.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
It might “theoretically” support 12 million feral cats but we would not tolerate it. We’d either exterminate them or at least sterilise them - precisely because of their impact on wildlife. See above. It’s only because they are “pets” they are protected
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
Ours don't. Well, they try, sometimes. But they are a bit feeble. We have three: mother and two kittens (grown up kittens now). Mother is a big fat lump who couldn't creep up on anything if she tried; one of the kittens is actually quite athletic, but the other one, I'm fairly sure, was the runt, and is frightened by everything. They like being outside, but only if it's above 20 degrees and without rain or wind, which is a bit limiting. They have a particular noise they make for pigeons, whom they stalk earnestly, but even the competent one never gets near them. They have been known to bring in moths (alive) and moss.
We used to have a big brute of a tom cat, who came to being a pet rather late in life. He was hard as nails but he never really hunted. Though once after a barbecue he proudly brought in a sausage he had caught.
If there were no humans, what would the 'natural' population of cats be? I reckon comfortably in the millions. They'd predate on mice and rats largely. Possibly.
Every single cat owner says this. Its ridiculous
Some cats genuinely do not hunt, but owners will not see most of what their cats do kill - the figure from the study is only about 23% of kills are brought home - and so unless owners have a camera on their cat, they cannot know for sure what they are hunting.
And in this case we have a cat who is proven to be hunting (moths) and the blithe assumption is that they're not predating on other prey, winged or otherwise.
As a study in denial it is instructive.
I love cats, but I'm not going to fool myself that I wasn't contributing to mass and uncontrolled predation if I were to have one as a pet again.
All my family is the same. They are all cat owners but every single one says “oh our cats don’t hunt”
When they blatantly do
Btw I don’t lecture them I just occasionally ask whether it worries them. The power of this denial is too great and I don’t want to distress them with cognitive dissonance. I do that here
I'm on the train back from Brighton. Bye, bye, Brighton. It was a bit mediocre to be honest, with most of the buildings crumbling or badly finished. A lot of the South Coast seaside towns are like that, tbh: Bournemouth, Bognor Regis, etc. Still, next year is Edinburgh, the best city/town in Scotland.
Afternoon all from the land of Hellas. Talking of crumbling legacies of Boris, something has to give with the Brexit debate. As an example, even my aged Gloucestershire cousins, green wellie types who voted for Brexit, are baffled by the lack of attention paid to it, given that that most of friends are farmers, most of whom now regret their choice. The under-50's in general seem similarly baffled, and there's seems barely any support for it in ahy of the big cities. Something will have to give, such as a vote on returning to the single market, because a very large number of people are not feeling represented, in the current situation.
Funny, most of the farmers I talk to are genuinely pleased with the new ELMs systems that has ben brought in to replace the CAP. It is on eof the few good things the previous Government did post Brexit and is extremely popular with both farmers and environmentalists. The only ones who really object are the big agri-businesses who can no longer get grants based simply on acreage farmed.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
Well, what we have currently, is something thar is very unpopular, and now considered a failure by the large majority ; Hard Brexit , being treated as a success by the two largest parties, and most of the political class. That won't last indefinitely, and I think Labour will eventually he dragged towards the LD position of offering a referendum on single market membership, which even the.Toriea may eventually accede to, too, once they've been through various rightwing leaders.
It is still hugely unpopular. They had an Any Questions last week and asked about the winter fuel allowance wind farms speed limits and the only subject that got whoops of approval was Starmer going for a full rejoin. The polls are showing about 60/30
My guess is that when Starmer and Labour finally become unpopular this is the policy he'll bring out of his back pocket to save the day.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
If keeping other species as pets is just like slavery, is eating them akin to cannibalism?
lol drole and touché
I saw an article about lab grown meat the other day - salmon, I think - which said it is close to being acceptable. Soon we will be able to synthesise delicious meat in vast factories, and - thank God - the era of industrial livestock farming will come to an end
My guess is that we will look back on the era of battery hens and pigs in boxes with utter horror, and regard ourselves as total barbarians
And I speak as a happy meat eater (albeit with greater care, these days), so yes I am a hypocrite
Ditto. I think sometime in the future eating meat will be viewed in the same way as hunting and I also say that as someone who enjoys all sorts of meat.
I believe factory farming will be seen with far MORE disapproval than hunting
How bad is hunting? A few foxes, some shot pheasants? You can argue that the foxes are vermin and the pheasant are consumed
Compare that to billions of sentient mammals - some extremely intelligent, like pigs - which we breed and keep in squalid conditions, solely so they can be brutally slaughtered and eaten
It ain’t pretty. Speed the day when we can end it
You conflate hunting to eat and hunting for fun and seem woefully ignorant of the shooting industry.
Have you ever been on a driven shoot ? I'd say a quarter of birds are wounded rather than killed. The lucky ones will fall so at least might be despatched with a whack to the head.
Shoots are overstocked with birds that are raised in factory like conditions. These birds don't even enjoy the pitiful basic welfare standards that factory farmed chickens have as game birds for shooting are exempt. They are then released on to monoculture moors where predators have been eliminated, with snares inevitably catching hares as well as foxes or stoats.
Pheasants aren't even native to the UK
Then they are shot. The majority aren't eaten by humans, some are, but the majority are simple buried or incinerated. Lead shot is still used so you may get a nice fragment of lead with you game meat.
I've absolutely no problem with killing animals to eat them, but that's at best a by-product of the shooting industry, not the purpose.
JD Vance responds to the deadly shooting in Georgia by saying school shootings are just “a fact of life” and attacking common sense gun safety reform https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1831861963187519518
Harris should propose legislation to make gun owners liable for illegal use of their guns by others if they fail to secure them.
Clearly it's impossible to ban guns in the US. But it ought to be possible to make gun owners and manufacturers legally obliged to behave responsibly. Which they currently aren't.
Plus mandatory insurance (though this SC would probably rule that unconstitutional.)
Not sure happy is the right word but I am happy to know that if in the UK there was a school shooting and a UK politician response was that it was a fact of life that would be the end of the politician's career.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said that Islamist terror attacks were just “part and parcel” of living in a big city like London
Presumably his career ended after that?
Actual Khan quote:
“Party and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police doing an incredibly hard job, you got to support the security services.”
What Vance said:
The Ohio senator was asked by a journalist what can be done to stop school shootings. He said further restricting access to guns, as many Democrats advocate, won’t end them, noting they happen in states with both lax and strict gun laws. He touted efforts in Congress to give schools more money for security.
“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”
How reasonable Vance sounds depends how reasonable you think opposing checking whether someone is a known 'psycho' with eg a criminal record before handing them a gun is.
The phrase “part and parcel” was grotesquely complacent - vis a vis brutal murderous terror attacks. It doesn’t really matter what he said afterwards (tho in fact what he said afterward doesn’t truly exonerate him)
Let’s switch it up so you and @TSE and the other slow learners can see what I mean
“Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for racist murders of black children, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police doing an incredibly hard job, you got to support the security services.”
See?
If a right wing mayor said that you’d be screaming for her resignation within an hour. But because it was odious lefty gnome Khan, it’s all good
Leon, you're toying with the rabbit hole. We're used to (and enjoy) the endless stream of frenetic excitement, and appreciate you're testing ideas out before using them in more considered writing.
But since the riots you have been regularly regurgitating far-right memes and falsehoods, particularly over the sentencing over some very nasty people. What Khan said is perfectly reasonable, and it is normal for people living in a city of 8 million to assist the police in keeping everyone safe. I would expect you to do the same, whether it's a drunk man getting into a car, a suspicious bag left on a train, or a friend with mental health issues making ugly threats about Muslims.
The alternative is a police state.
Leon is the new Plato. It's a tale we have seen before.
Plato, the lady who was the canary in the coal mine in 2016, that Plato?
Her final 2016 prediction was that Clinton would win..
It's a long time ago, but wasnt everyone convinced that Plato was actually the less well known wife of Mr E Balls?
JD Vance responds to the deadly shooting in Georgia by saying school shootings are just “a fact of life” and attacking common sense gun safety reform https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1831861963187519518
Harris should propose legislation to make gun owners liable for illegal use of their guns by others if they fail to secure them.
Clearly it's impossible to ban guns in the US. But it ought to be possible to make gun owners and manufacturers legally obliged to behave responsibly. Which they currently aren't.
Plus mandatory insurance (though this SC would probably rule that unconstitutional.)
Not sure happy is the right word but I am happy to know that if in the UK there was a school shooting and a UK politician response was that it was a fact of life that would be the end of the politician's career.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said that Islamist terror attacks were just “part and parcel” of living in a big city like London
Presumably his career ended after that?
Actual Khan quote:
“Party and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police doing an incredibly hard job, you got to support the security services.”
What Vance said:
The Ohio senator was asked by a journalist what can be done to stop school shootings. He said further restricting access to guns, as many Democrats advocate, won’t end them, noting they happen in states with both lax and strict gun laws. He touted efforts in Congress to give schools more money for security.
“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”
How reasonable Vance sounds depends how reasonable you think opposing checking whether someone is a known 'psycho' with eg a criminal record before handing them a gun is.
The phrase “part and parcel” was grotesquely complacent - vis a vis brutal murderous terror attacks. It doesn’t really matter what he said afterwards (tho in fact what he said afterward doesn’t truly exonerate him)
Let’s switch it up so you and @TSE and the other slow learners can see what I mean
“Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for racist murders of black children, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police doing an incredibly hard job, you got to support the security services.”
See?
If a right wing mayor said that you’d be screaming for her resignation within an hour. But because it was odious lefty gnome Khan, it’s all good
Leon, you're toying with the rabbit hole. We're used to (and enjoy) the endless stream of frenetic excitement, and appreciate you're testing ideas out before using them in more considered writing.
But since the riots you have been regularly regurgitating far-right memes and falsehoods, particularly over the sentencing over some very nasty people. What Khan said is perfectly reasonable, and it is normal for people living in a city of 8 million to assist the police in keeping everyone safe. I would expect you to do the same, whether it's a drunk man getting into a car, a suspicious bag left on a train, or a friend with mental health issues making ugly threats about Muslims.
The alternative is a police state.
Leon is the new Plato. It's a tale we have seen before.
Plato, the lady who was the canary in the coal mine in 2016, that Plato?
Her final 2016 prediction was that Clinton would win..
It's a long time ago, but wasnt everyone convinced that Plato was actually the less well known wife of Mr E Balls?
No, that was Snowflake.
'Snowflake' she wasn't!
In all my many years on this Site I have been involved in a few fistfights but none more vitriolic than the one I had with her on the popular subject of Surplus Advance Corporation Tax. It was my job at the time to understand and advise on it so when I offered a few comments on Gordon Brown's attempts at legislating its difficulties away I expected a certain amount of respect. Instead i got blasted by Ms S in a way that indicated that her ignorance of the subject was matched only by her defiant certainty that she was right.
Apopletic? My computer nearly melted.
There seems to be something about politicians that makes it difficult for them to accept palpable error. Maybe the ability to concede gracefully which is considered a virtue in normal life is deemed a weakness in politics.
She was of course an excellent contributor and it would be good to have her back, but my God was she stubborn.
It must be a very local factor because it's warm and bright here in north London.
Should have played at Chelmsford. I'm about 10 miles North of the city and it's a lovely afternoon.
I find its hard to believe they can't play cricket in it. It's a tad gloomy, maybe, but dry and warm, and there are floodlights. It is often said that Test cricket does itself no favours: well, indeed. I have tickets for tomorrow and now I'm fretting about it being too cloudy to play. In summer. FFS.
Autumn.
Nope. Autumn doesn't start until 22 September, by the equinox. But let us not start this dull 'debate' again.
Here is a factsheet from the Met Office explaining this.
Usually, when we talk about the first day of autumn we are referring to the astronomical autumn which is defined by the Earth's axis and orbit around the Sun. This year autumn begins on 22 September...
They use 1 Sep for statistical convenience, so each season falls neatly into three months. This is neither the thermal season of autumn nor the astronomical one.
I dunno what's "usually" about astronomical autumn. Seeing as they go onto say that meteorological autumn is the one to do with seasons and weather which presumably is the usual one for...erm... the meteorological office.
The resistance by pet owners to the reality of pets’ impact on wildlife is one of the most interesting mental syndromes I have encountered in recent years
People simply refuse to hear it, and won’t accept it, even the most rational. We are so in love with these animals we contort ourselves to justify it and blot out the truth
I wonder if slavery was the same. How many otherwise humane, civilised people must have twisted themselves into all kinds of shapes to justify keeping and selling chained men and women as chattels? They weren’t all Nazis who gloated and exulted
Hm. Cats kill birds and mice. But surely cat owners reduce the amount of wildlife killed? My cats would have been alive anyway. But they would have been fending for themselves, and therefore reliant on what they could kill. And if they were successful they would have bred and made more cats. Whereas they're all neutered.
I do have some qualms about the latter - pets have a hugely more comfortable and secure life than feral cats, but are unable to pass on their genes - I'm genuinely not sure whether I'm doing them a favour by giving them a home - but there's a net positive to wildlife to having them non-dependent on catching food to stay alive.
If pet owners did not exist there would be no pets. The UK would not naturally support 12 million feral cats. Eventually they would starve or we would exterminate them - precisely because of their threat to wildlife
I nearly always agree with you @Cookie but this is an example of what I’m saying. Pet owners contort themselves into ridiculous illogic to defend the indefensible
I think it would support 12 million feral cats quite comfortably. Feral cats in Britain do quite well - certainly in rural areas. I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
If we are considering a "no humans" scenario the rat and mouse population plummets with the loss of large stores of grain, the fox population explodes when gamekeepers stop shooting and trapping them and turns to cats as food when dustbin raids become a thing of the past. The larger newly feral dogs will have a cat too.
Not many gamekeepers shooting and trapping the foxes round here. There are regularly 3 in my back garden, taking turns with the grey squirrels to chew anything plastic left on the lawn.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
I think the missing item from this debate is migratory songbirds shot or caught in nets to be eaten in Southern / Eastern Europe.
I think the biggest cause of bird population declines is the collapse in insect populations.
Last couple of springs in central France have been eerily silent, but the summers have also been pleasantly yet unnervingly free of insects.
I'm on the train back from Brighton. Bye, bye, Brighton. It was a bit mediocre to be honest, with most of the buildings crumbling or badly finished. A lot of the South Coast seaside towns are like that, tbh: Bournemouth, Bognor Regis, etc. Still, next year is Edinburgh, the best city/town in Scotland.
On topic, I hope you're right but I suspect it is down to the roasters the GOP have selected, they keep on picking utter bellends over the last few years for the senate.
Remember Roy Moore?
Kari Lake is proving to be an even bigger embarrassment in her race in Arizona, bigger than he attempt to be governor, only a moron would ever think she was impressive.
Didn't Leon used to rate her ?
Yep. She was the next Trump and going to go all the way to the top iirc.
I spotted her when she was completely unknown, and said: she has charisma and will become a player. No one on PB had even heard of her
So it was. She lost the Arizona governor fight by a whisker
I accept she’s somewhat messed up since. For a moment she looked like a credible VP pick (maybe she still does compared to Vance)
Part of her problem is - as I noted at the time - she a bit too old. She’s an attractive women but getting on in years. If she was 15 years younger she would be this firecracker beauty with a trumpite shtick and a ready wit. Now she looks like a slightly crazy granny, TBH
LOL A bit of selective memory there. You think you spot things before other people. A bit like the pet treatment getting into rivers. It was a great revelation to you and therefore it must be to everyone else on PB whereas it wasn't to quite a few of us and you found it too incredible to be true that others were aware years before you.
Of course we could go back and check, but you have blocked us all from seeing your previous posts. Why not open them up for us to view. You can see all of mine.
I refer you to my prior reply involving the word “don’t give” and “fuck” and “tiny sperm of a”
I thought (unlike my post which really was a wind up, because I don't think you should get away with this nonsense, but your reply was fair because mine was not an argument, but just a dig for fun) that @Eabhal post was well considered and deserved a sensible reply from you.
It does feel like you have shifted since you have come back. Obviously the same style is there but @Eabhal comments seem fair. I have noticed that change also. Stuff posted out of context as @TheScreamingEagles picked up. There was the outrageous one the other day where you compared sentencing of two offenders and I thought you made a very good point re the person throwing a lump of concrete at Farage. Then we find out it was wet cement and the point collapses. That type of post is exactly what left and right wing propagandists do. Similarly you have twice in the last few days justified people doing wrong things because other people on the 'other side' do them. That is not logical and a route to anarchy.
I know you enjoy outraging us, but you didn't used to do this.
But PB has been claiming this for a decade. “Ooh you’re turning into Plato” “you’ve finally gone down the rabbit hole”. Blah blah blah it’s so fucking boring
And still you keep saying it, perhaps even more persistently. But not because I’ve changed - because PB has got ever narrower and crabbier and stupider with only a narrow range of centrist woke dad opinions deemed acceptable (plus trains and housing development regulations) so that anything outside this, from any angle, seems increasingly outrageous and unhinged
The bubble is YOU. It is YOU GUYS. Not I
Perhaps this is inevitable. PB has been around for 20+ years. We’ve all got old. Old people have narrow minds and they are boring
But you know what? I’m not going gentle into that good night. I’m still out here travelling and exploring and welcoming new ideas and new places and new people because I’d die of tedium without them
Not sure if that reply should have been to me or someone else. I certainly don't think you are turning into Plato and haven't said so.
However your posts since returning have been different to when you left and it was only about what, 2 weeks or so. Could be wrong, time does fly, so it is easy to see that difference in your posts. Not the style. That is the same, but the content.
@Leon sees himself as a self-styled 'alpha' male, a spiritual tech-bro who is superior to all of us in intellect and lifestyle. In his own mind, he is a genius who is irresistible to all women. We disagree with him only because we are jealous, because he knows he is right; even when he contradicts himself. His multiple identities on here only exist because his character is so big no one identity could contain it.
He is possibly the only person in the universe to see himself in that manner, and quite possibly many see him as exactly the opposite; but that's how he sees himself.
If you view all his posts through that perspective, it makes some sense...
I think you become what you act. (Aristotle?)
I think Leon originally acted alt-right to stir up controversy, as he like to do, because he's bored. But he's grown into the part and now believes it, unlike the rest of us.
Did the same happen to Plato the PBer?
See also the sad stories of Colditz prisoners who feigned madness as part of their escape plans.
Or someone like Calvin Robinson who seemed like palusible enough clergy material when he visited the vicar school.
It's probably the fault of liberal centrists, though. By not taking right-wingers seriously, we force them down the rabbit hole. Or something.
Calvin Robinson is one of Mansfield's more embarrassing exports, though since he was at the St Stephen's House Vicar Factory in Oxford, that makes him a graduate of the University of Oxford, I think. I don't know whether he also has the fake MA .
He's a bit cross because he applied for a Curacy in the Diocese of London, and was not deemed suitable for any of the opportunites.
Having avoided both Robinson and Paula Vennells as Bishop, I'd say that someone in London Diocese is making the correct decisions on bullet-dodging.
If Tom Butler was Bishop of Southwark, then they dodged him, too - which supports my argument .
On +Tom, I've never met him or people who dealt with him, but he was Bp of Leicester back in the 1990s, and was known for his hobby of knitting - way ahead of the fashion ! I believe he knitted a full set of vestments at one stage (I can't find a photograph - talking 1990s here).
IIRC the knitting bishop of Leicester was Richard Rutt, who also wrote the definitive history of knitting, a work which has held its value second hand. Now RIP, but ended up in RC church.
Maybe Leicester had lots of knitting bishops.
Thank-you for the correction. +Richard was the Bishop before +Tom, with changeover in 1991.
It's been interesting to read about +Richard, a very normal Bishop (for a Bishop :-) ), very self-effacing by the sound of it. 20 years in South Korea where he made a big contribution to Korean Studies, and learnt Korean and Chinese, then stood down as a Bishop there in 1973 aiming to be a parish priest because he thought the setup should be lead by Koreans.
Then a little Bishop (c Mrs Thatcher) in Truro Diocoese, where he learnt Cornish, then Bp of Leicester where he knitted and wrote a book about it, Leicester being an historic centre of knitting.
Then later became an RC priest as he did not accept the Ordination of Women.
The German ambassador has confirmed that even if they decide to use Rwanda this will be for processing . This will not be a send them there and leave them there UK policy .
Thought so. A key difference.
lol. Do you think the average British voter is going to think “Ah, yes, the clever Germans have a different policy of sending them to Rwanda compared to our policy of sending them to Rwanda. That’s why theirs has worked and Starmer was right to get rid of ours”
If the Germans really do this (I have doubts, they might even need EU agreement I think) and it actually works, that will be disastrous for Starmer. The boats will still be coming, because he scrapped Rwanda
***
Actually quite a nice photo. Painterly
I’m afraid I have become even more anti-cat however. If I have gone down any rabbit hole it is in my sincere loathing for domesticated predators
I was recently in a lovely “eco-camp” on the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It’s an Edenic place, beautiful river, great canoeing, it’s where I nearly died in the rapids, good beer
But their gorgeous al fresco riverside bar and bistro was haunted by about 10 young stray cats, sort of fed and cared for by the staff. A few years ago I would have found them endearing, now I have read the science I kept thinking: fuck, how many tiny birds and wild mammals are these cats devouring. Probably dozens a week, slowly depleting the beautiful forests of all their wildlife
it’s tragic. Once you have the petophobophany, and you understand this, you don’t come back. We need to get rid of all pets, and people that keep pets are - generally, not always - selfish wankers
Cats have been a fact of British life (thanks J D Vance), for good or ill, for centuries. The recent decline in garden birds has far more to do with the reintroduction of birds of prey, with clampdowns on what gamekeepers can do to eliminate them.
Aye, White-tailed Eagles have been munching on Blue Tits. Avian popcorn.
What do you think Sparrowhawks eat numnuts - fish finger sandwiches?
Except Sparrowhawk numbers have not been increasing since the mid 1990s and have actually dropped slightly. Red Kites are carrion birds not hunters.
The idea that the decline of bit=rds garden birds is due to birds of prey is simply not supported by the evidence.
Crows are far more firmly designated as carrion than Red Kite, and it doesn't stop them pecking out the eyes of baby lambs if given half the chance.
I am afraid that birds of prey are a cause celebre, and as such they can do no wrong.
This is someone's actual experience of a Sparrowhawk:
Sparrowhawk decimates bird population Jan 22/11/2010 21:56 I fully sympathise with anyone who suffers from sparrowhawks. I get very angry at the comment that it is an indication of a "healthy bird population." Up until about 2 months ago we would see a sparrowhawk briefly about once a month. I do not deny that it is an impressive sight. However, the sparrowhawk then started visiting on a daily basis, on some days up to 5 times. We used to be the envy of our friends and neighbours as our garden was a haven for all types of birds. At times we would have up to 30 birds feeding in the garden, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, green finches, wrens, robins, willow tits, blackbirds, thrushes, and so the list goes on. I used to spend at least £30 a month on bird food. However, once the sparrowhawk made his regular "food collection" visits to our garden, the bird population was decimated. We have lived in our house for 28 years and this is the first time that we have not had a "healthy bird population". It would be truer to say that the constant presence of a sparrowhawk is a signal that the local bird population is about to be wiped out. We haven't seen a sparrowhawk for over a week now. But then that is not surprising because there are no birds! Can't remember when I last bought bird food. What an extremely sad situation.
Of course there is also a selection of other commentors chiding the woman for not being grateful that she doesn't get garden birds any more, because 'nature'. The same sorts of common or garden nutters that want wolves brought back.
A cat on the other hand does not decimate bird populations because they take the occasional garden bird - as others have said, they are fully fed and are just indulging a hunting instinct. If a cat brought in more than two birds a week it would be a big issue and the owner would probably take steps.
12 million cats take 4-5 birds a year. They’ve done the science
That’s 50 million birds
The sparrowhawk in the quoted example was visiting 5 times A DAY.
I think the missing item from this debate is migratory songbirds shot or caught in nets to be eaten in Southern / Eastern Europe.
I think the biggest cause of bird population declines is the collapse in insect populations.
Last couple of springs in central France have been eerily silent, but the summers have also been pleasantly yet unnervingly free of insects.
I’ve noticed this around the world. The crash in insects
I doubt there are many people on the planet who travel as widely and globally as me. Insect populations are notably, palpably in decline. Everywhere
It must be a very local factor because it's warm and bright here in north London.
Should have played at Chelmsford. I'm about 10 miles North of the city and it's a lovely afternoon.
I find its hard to believe they can't play cricket in it. It's a tad gloomy, maybe, but dry and warm, and there are floodlights. It is often said that Test cricket does itself no favours: well, indeed. I have tickets for tomorrow and now I'm fretting about it being too cloudy to play. In summer. FFS.
Autumn.
Nope. Autumn doesn't start until 22 September, by the equinox. But let us not start this dull 'debate' again.
Here is a factsheet from the Met Office explaining this.
Usually, when we talk about the first day of autumn we are referring to the astronomical autumn which is defined by the Earth's axis and orbit around the Sun. This year autumn begins on 22 September...
They use 1 Sep for statistical convenience, so each season falls neatly into three months. This is neither the thermal season of autumn nor the astronomical one.
I dunno what's "usually" about astronomical autumn. Seeing as they go onto say that meteorological autumn is the one to do with seasons and weather which presumably is the usual one for...erm... the meteorological office.
I mean they are pretty clear about it: "Solstices and equinoxes are considered to be the astronomical transition points between the seasons and mark key stages in the astronomical cycle of the Earth. In a year there are two equinoxes (spring and autumn) and two solstices (summer and winter)."
The argument (such that it is an argument outside the weird realms of PB) could be easily solved by officially running the seasons 15th to the 15th (e.g. 15 June to 15 Sep to 15 Dec to 15 Mar to 15 Jun and so on) these would then be at, or close to, the actual thermal seasons so it would be near impossible to argue against them (although some on here would no doubt try).
Comments
As an aside, if you are ever in Kotor old town, a good game to play over a beer or three is 'spot the cat' – they are always on the scene, although not necessarily immediately obvious (like a real-life feline Where's Wally). They are also extremely cute, but I suspect that factor is lost on @Leon.
Are you honestly unable to distinguish between a wild sparrow hawk (UK population 60,000) and the domestic cat (population: 12 million)?
The former is a functioning part of the ecosystem. Its numbers are kept in balance by predators that eat its young, by the possibility of starvation, by bad weather, etc
The domestic cat is not part of this ecosystem. It is guaranteed survival by its owners. It has no pressures. It can hunt for fun
And here’s the kicker. That’s exactly what cats do. They hunt for fun even when completely fed. That’s why they are so calamitous for wildlife
We seem to have cat owning pb-ers who are unaware of this, which is quite something
We have 4 goldfish. Why? Because one day my daughter (about 6 at the time) was presented with a bowl and 2 goldfish by her friend’s mother, as a gift.
So we found ourselves with 2 goldfish. The bowl was tiny so we had to go out and buy a bigger fish tank, and all the gubbins that goes in it at great expense. Plus a couple more fish to keep them company.
The fish tank looks a bit ugly and takes up valuable shelf space in the sitting room. So this year my wife decided we should build a fishpond in the garden so we can ditch the tank. 4 grand later and there it is, fountain babbling away. All thanks to a frankly odd choice of birthday present.
Southern Europe as a whole has vast amounts of feral cats, some of which I seem to remember apparently have been there as soon as there were advanced human civilisations around the Mediterrenean, with the Romans and Greeks apparently having domesticated and brought them in.
Robert Jenrick woos Priti Patel
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/06/politics-latest-news-yvette-cooper-migrants-winter-fuel/
Popbitch would call that a gruesome twosome.
Nothing has to 'give'. There will be a slow convergence in many areas but the idea that Starmer is going to risk his Premiership revisiting the Brexit debate is pie in the sky.
No pets for us. Domestic animals are an abomination.
Cats kill 50 million birds a year
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/14/cats-kill-birds-wildlife-keep-indoors
Total UK bird population: 170 million
https://britishbirds.co.uk/journal/article/population-estimates-birds-great-britain-and-united-kingdom-1
I don't know if you've ever had cats, but cat ownership isn't like dog ownership. Apart from a few exceptions, cats aren't bred to be pets. Most cats I know were born feral (or at least to a feral mother), and their adoption as pets reduces the future breeding population of cats.
I didn’t mention we also got a little catfish, to keep the sides of the tank clean by sucking off the gunk. That is now in the pond. They can grow to over a metre in the right environment.
So I am afraid your claims are junk, whatever single anecdote you might push.
From the RSPB - who would suggest have at least a passing interest in seeing bird populations recover:
"Extensive research, by the RSPB and many others, into declining farmland songbirds has provided no evidence that predation by Sparrowhawks has driven population declines. Instead, a lack of different food resources and suitable breeding habitat is thought to be the main cause of songbird declines – mainly because of modern farming methods."
Cat sated after eating her millionth bird of the year.
(Why is she lying on some fake grass? Because she likes lying on frass. I don't know why she does, just that she does.)
Also, you seem to think that because you feed your cats they don’t hunt. Of course they do
We used to have cats. They hunted all the time then proudly brought the carcasses home
This isn't the case with domestic cats who are subsidised hunters, and the science has been done monitoring domestic cats. A proportion of them are very prolific hunters and they don't bring home, or eat, most of their kills. They're sport killers, just like human game hunters, and they're capable of hunting song birds to extinction - which is not the case with a natural predator like a native bird of prey.
That won't last indefinitely, and I think Labour will eventually he dragged towards the LD position of offering a referendum on single market membership, which even the.Toriea may eventually accede to, too, once they've been through various rightwing leaders.
https://ig.ft.com/us-elections/2024/polls/
I've just seen some lunatic on Facebook arguing pensioners should be paid minimum wage rather than the state pension so I crunched some numbers.
12.6 million people receiving the state pension at £412 per week (36 hours at 2024 hourly minimum wage) comes out at nearly £270 billion per year.
Needless to say, this individual was a supporter of GB News - if that's the level of debate we have on the public finances, we are in big trouble.
They are, indeed, an abomination
I’ve seen the degradation of British wildlife in my adult lifetime. I’ve heard the dawn chorus disappear
I’ve also travelled enough all over the world and seen the same process everywhere, and also seen the few rare places where nature thrives. You can’t see all that and ignore it
Just get over it, people. You don’t need weird little slave animals. You just don’t
Problem? What problem?
Numbers have levelled off but not really fallen (although prices have, significantly), but abandoned dog shelters are sadly mostly full
Maybe needs something more sophisticated. Compulsory electronic collars that constantly broadcast "danger, cat approaching" and charge up when the cat does move suddenly. Helpful side effect of making cats extremely annoying to own.
But anyway... My main beef with the many cats near us is not their occasional kills but their constant defecation in our garden.
The first next time it might become interesting is in the election for his successor as Labour leader- so 2028/9/30? Which might put Single Customs and a Market Union on the agenda for the 2032/3 election.
He successfully hijacked the thread by ACTIVATING THE LEON
.....
By the way, your shifting of the goalposts in you posting is rather poor. You had previously been talking about farmers and their views. That was the point I answered and refuted your claims. No mention of that in your follow up post. Just a general polemic on Brexit as a whole.
As an OAP I wouldn't mind if the WFA was taxable. I don't think I know any millionaires, though, UNLESS they're including the value of peoples houses.
We now have VAT at 20% but basic rate tax is also 20%. We know each 1p rise in basic rate income tax brings in about £5 billion so a 5p rise in basic tax would bring in say £25 billion.
When the thresholds were frozen by one Rishi Sunak in 2021, it was estimated the measure would bring in £14 billion by the end of 2024 with a further £8 billion by 2025 (though that probably hasn't taken into account strong wage growth which has pulled more into higher rate tax).
A 1% rise in VAT brings in about £6.5 billion increasing VAT to 25% would bring in £32.5 billion.
No one's going to do any of that of course but the only solutions I hear to reducing the deficit seem to involve sacking large numbers of civil servants - I've seen any number from 50% to 90% mentioned on here by some contributors. It seems we are no longer able to have a serious discussion about deficit reduction without everyone heading to the extremes.
https://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto
EEA membership would have been a sensible compromise response to the close referendum result: takes us out of the EU, but keeps us close, and allows a period of stability during which British politicians and the public could have decided whether to stick with that or take some other Brexit path.
I think the underlying point is thar very large numbers of people are just not being listened to ; some farmers; even some fishermen ; small and large businesses ; students ; performers and musicians; the vast majority of big city Britain ; and now, it seems, about 70% of the British population, all of which group will support a return to the single market. Nature refuses a vacuum, though, so I suspect new political forces may enter to fill this gap first.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/8191355.stm
The pet snake was minding it's own business in it's owners garden and the cat comes in uninvited. The gall of the cat's owners to call the snake dangerous still annoys me 15 years later.
If it includes pension wealth then that has to last their entire retirement.
“Immigration (purple line) is now tied with the economy (red line) as the most important issue facing the country… (3/3)”
https://x.com/malverniankarl/status/1832043299948871969?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
“Meanwhile a record 40% say immigration has mostly been bad for Britain, and barely a fifth mostly good… (2/3)”
So my extreme position is actually the most popular position on this issue, and in line with the plurality of the nation
What is particularly worrying about Trump (and, to a lesser degree, this was also true of Johnson) is his disregard for democratic and legal norms. It is in this regard that he is more extreme than some of his GOP peers. Someone who intends to rule as a king, above the law, is less moderate than someone with specific right-wing policies to lower tax, ban abortion, impose tariffs, or whatever.
They like being outside, but only if it's above 20 degrees and without rain or wind, which is a bit limiting. They have a particular noise they make for pigeons, whom they stalk earnestly, but even the competent one never gets near them.
They have been known to bring in moths (alive) and moss.
We used to have a big brute of a tom cat, who came to being a pet rather late in life. He was hard as nails but he never really hunted. Though once after a barbecue he proudly brought in a sausage he had caught.
If there were no humans, what would the 'natural' population of cats be? I reckon comfortably in the millions. They'd predate on mice and rats largely. Possibly.
There isn't much polling on this yet, and some will inevitably be cake-and-eatist anti-free movementists. But the general direction that public opinion is going in looks pretty clear, while the parties are moving in the other direction.
They are not native species and potentially dangerous not only to neighbours pets but to humans too if not kept securely
I wonder what labour will give them ?
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/money/waspi-compensation-meeting-pensions-minister-33611367
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxl8p115gxo
Here is a factsheet from the Met Office explaining this.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/seasons/autumn/when-does-autumn-start
Usually, when we talk about the first day of autumn we are referring to the astronomical autumn which is defined by the Earth's axis and orbit around the Sun. This year autumn begins on 22 September...
They use 1 Sep for statistical convenience, so each season falls neatly into three months. This is neither the thermal season of autumn nor the astronomical one.
And in this case we have a cat who is proven to be hunting (moths) and the blithe assumption is that they're not predating on other prey, winged or otherwise.
As a study in denial it is instructive.
I love cats, but I'm not going to fool myself that I wasn't contributing to mass and uncontrolled predation if I were to have one as a pet again.
It's been interesting to read about +Richard, a very normal Bishop (for a Bishop :-) ), very self-effacing by the sound of it. 20 years in South Korea where he made a big contribution to Korean Studies, and learnt Korean and Chinese, then stood down as a Bishop there in 1973 aiming to be a parish priest because he thought the setup should be lead by Koreans.
Then a little Bishop (c Mrs Thatcher) in Truro Diocoese, where he learnt Cornish, then Bp of Leicester where he knitted and wrote a book about it, Leicester being an historic centre of knitting.
Then later became an RC priest as he did not accept the Ordination of Women.
An interesting life.
Obituary: https://archive.ph/EFH3d
When they blatantly do
Btw I don’t lecture them I just occasionally ask whether it worries them. The power of this denial is too great and I don’t want to distress them with cognitive dissonance. I do that here
My guess is that when Starmer and Labour finally become unpopular this is the policy he'll bring out of his back pocket to save the day.
Have you ever been on a driven shoot ?
I'd say a quarter of birds are wounded rather than killed. The lucky ones will fall so at least might be despatched with a whack to the head.
Shoots are overstocked with birds that are raised in factory like conditions.
These birds don't even enjoy the pitiful basic welfare standards that factory farmed chickens have as game birds for shooting are exempt.
They are then released on to monoculture moors where predators have been eliminated, with snares inevitably catching hares as well as foxes or stoats.
Pheasants aren't even native to the UK
Then they are shot.
The majority aren't eaten by humans, some are, but the majority are simple buried or incinerated. Lead shot is still used so you may get a nice fragment of lead with you game meat.
I've absolutely no problem with killing animals to eat them, but that's at best a by-product of the shooting industry, not the purpose.
Apopletic? My computer nearly melted.
There seems to be something about politicians that makes it difficult for them to accept palpable error. Maybe the ability to concede gracefully which is considered a virtue in normal life is deemed a weakness in politics.
She was of course an excellent contributor and it would be good to have her back, but my God was she stubborn.
Anyone know what she's doing now?
But don't forget that a lot of people do not get full state pension.
Last couple of springs in central France have been eerily silent, but the summers have also been pleasantly yet unnervingly free of insects.
I doubt there are many people on the planet who travel as widely and globally as me. Insect populations are notably, palpably in decline. Everywhere
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdx6771gyqzo
Oops. The IDF has killed a card-carrying American.
"The Treasury was clearly not expecting the furore"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/05/labours-decision-to-cut-winter-fuel-payments-is-mean-and-politically-inept
As I have said it has been a really poor start from Reeves. Why could she not see how this would land?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/sep/06/england-green-belt-at-risk-amid-pressure-to-meet-housing-targets
Labour lied and they are going to concrete over the Green Belt, all to accommodate overpopulation caused entirely by mass migration
This government is like a car speeding into a wall, already
China 74 gold medals
Dear Old Blighty 39
USA 27
NL 22
France & Italy 17 each
Slava Ukraini 16
The argument (such that it is an argument outside the weird realms of PB) could be easily solved by officially running the seasons 15th to the 15th (e.g. 15 June to 15 Sep to 15 Dec to 15 Mar to 15 Jun and so on) these would then be at, or close to, the actual thermal seasons so it would be near impossible to argue against them (although some on here would no doubt try).