Speaking of coffee preparations, in Japan almost every hotel has these little paper sachets of ground coffee which you rip open and then balance over a cup with clever sticky out cardboard bits
You then pour very hot water slowly through the coffee and into the cup, takes about 2 minutes and makes a serviceable cup of ground coffee. Miles better than instant
I’ve never seen it before. It’s hardly miraculous technology; just clever. Why don’t we have them in the west?
Indeed. Very popular in Taiwan too.
Amazon has them but, as you would expect, at about three times the price they would be if mass-imported or made here:
“Our individually wrapped coffee bags are perfect for when you want real, fresh coffee without a cafetiere or coffee machine. Simply put the coffee bag in your cup, pour over freshly boiled water and wait for the coffee to brew to perfection within 2-3 minutes. The perfect fusion of flavour and simplicity in a single cup”
Are they the same tho? Hard to tell. It says you still need a cafetière?
The joy of the Japanese bags - as I’ve said - is that you literally only need the sachet. That’s it. It’s so simple and clever. Then you need a cup and hot water
Since I have nothing better to use my quota for:
That obscure creature ought to have either 6 legs or 8.
MasterChef the Professionals on now with national treasure Gregg Wallace presenting.
You can't keep a national treasure down.
I wouldn't be surprised if the show didn't get it's best audiences of late.
Its been an excellent year with a very strong group of chefs all fairly evenly balanced. Possibly their strongest ever. We are a few episodes behind but enjoying it greatly.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
Do enlighten us.
Well his ratings cratered at first but he stuck with it and ended up more popular than he'd ever been.
Doesn't tell me what Starmer’s hidden grand plan is....
I'm not privy but I'd say the main 3 things are better NHS, more houses, Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband spaffed an entire black hole's worth of money on his carbon capture plan.
What makes you a better judge than Ed Miliband on what to invest in?
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
And what precisely is he doing?
Besides hammering employers with tax rises.
The signs on housing (your big one) are moderately positive, aren't they? That's just one example. And some good stuff coming on health. And increasing investment in places. And landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. And ... well how long have you got.
Politically*, housing is a massive hole that Labour should avoid stumbling into. That article TSE posted yesterday had it way down the list of priorities - renewables were 50% higher, which is astonishing. And you have massive scope for pissing people off by murdering a badger, or not building enough primary schools to cope with the extra people.
It's all about the NHS. There are some positive noises about focusing on primary care and public health, but 1) it's not enough and 2) the gains from that almost certainly won't materialise within 5 years. Depressingly, the politically smart thing to do is keep chucking money at hospitals.
The only other option was a punted mega-budget that completely upends the entire fiscal environment in the UK (AKA the collective wisdom of PBers in one document). But that was never going to happen.
*Before people go mad, my personal priorities are almost the inverse of that polling.
The problem with that polling is almost certainly forced choice plus people answering what they think they should.
In the short term the NHS is probably easier to do something with.
In the longer term, housing is the root of many, many problems.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
Do enlighten us.
Well his ratings cratered at first but he stuck with it and ended up more popular than he'd ever been.
Doesn't tell me what Starmer’s hidden grand plan is....
I'm not privy but I'd say the main 3 things are better NHS, more houses, Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband spaffed an entire black hole's worth of money on his carbon capture plan.
What makes you a better judge than Ed Miliband on what to invest in?
Because he's a PB Tory?
Carbon capture has been a pet project of the fossil fuel industry for ages. The money would have been better spent on investments in green energy production and storage.
Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump · 1h Holy sh*t. Kari Lake is a leading contender for the nomination as Donald Trump’s ambassador to Mexico, Semafor reports.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
Do enlighten us.
Well his ratings cratered at first but he stuck with it and ended up more popular than he'd ever been.
Doesn't tell me what Starmer’s hidden grand plan is....
I'm not privy but I'd say the main 3 things are better NHS, more houses, Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband spaffed an entire black hole's worth of money on his carbon capture plan.
What makes you a better judge than Ed Miliband on what to invest in?
Because he's a PB Tory?
Carbon capture has been a pet project of the fossil fuel industry for ages. The money would have been better spent on investments in green energy production and storage.
No, you are right it is a poor choice, but then so was a moratorium on onshore windfarms, which was the policy of your lot for years.
The problem is that selfish old grey folk are angry that politicians are showering them with less money than before.
They need to remember that each of them is supported by 4 or 5 tax payers and there is a shortage of workers amongst the young because they mostly have cr*ppy minimum wage jobs with no prospects on zero hour contracts.
The old had everything as they grew up. Decent housing, health services, pension schemes, jobs, etc. Well the gravy train is slowing down...
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
Do enlighten us.
Well his ratings cratered at first but he stuck with it and ended up more popular than he'd ever been.
Doesn't tell me what Starmer’s hidden grand plan is....
I'm not privy but I'd say the main 3 things are better NHS, more houses, Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband spaffed an entire black hole's worth of money on his carbon capture plan.
What makes you a better judge than Ed Miliband on what to invest in?
Because he's a PB Tory?
Carbon capture has been a pet project of the fossil fuel industry for ages. The money would have been better spent on investments in green energy production and storage.
No, you are right it is a poor choice, but then so was a moratorium on onshore windfarms, which was the policy of your lot for years.
Ah, whataboutism. I don't think I ever said I supported that policy.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
Do enlighten us.
Well his ratings cratered at first but he stuck with it and ended up more popular than he'd ever been.
Doesn't tell me what Starmer’s hidden grand plan is....
I'm not privy but I'd say the main 3 things are better NHS, more houses, Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband spaffed an entire black hole's worth of money on his carbon capture plan.
What makes you a better judge than Ed Miliband on what to invest in?
It's not Ed Miliband per se. Any minister's decisions would be similarly dubious. He's not investing his own money, is he? Although carbon capture does seem a rather dubious way of minimising carbon dioxide. £22bn would pay for the infrastructure for a lot of mode shift, whether from ICE to EV or from car to train. Or it could have invested in non-carbon energy. And either of these would have had other benefits besides the environmental ones.
Kudos to Israel, sounds like a very smart move that will hopefully lead to improved security for them there. 👍
You approve of taking advantage of instability in a neighbouring country to seize strategic territory? How about Putin and Crimea?
One of those occasions when I agree with you, william.
There's no good justification for seizing territory in this manner. That way international chaos lies.
You can't approve it just because it's an ally.
Of course you can.
They're at war. Why can't states at war do their best to make themselves secure?
You and William are pretending Syria is some poor, defenceless, peaceful state that is being attacked unprovoked like Ukraine was, rather than a party to an ongoing war.
Is reggaeton the worst form of music ever invented? Serious question
I’m in a bar at Cartagena airport pumping out reggaeton. My god. It is possibly even worse than drill
I dont even know what it is.
You’ve probably heard it without realising
A relentless bombardment of thumping beats and degraded lyrics and autotuned garbage vocals and trashy fake brass and some fucker allegedly singing “yo yo yo yo yo yo yo” with the harmonic and rhythmic variation of an industrial Powersaw
Never mind @Shecorns88 will be along shortly to say how wonderful Starmer and Reeves are
But then 19% agree with him !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The number of Labour voters satisfied or not dissatisfied is a lot higher than I would have thought.
Labour are being blamed for 14 years of Tory failure in terms of immigration, law and order and transport.
On all of those they are already taking firm action.
You can't build prisons and sort the transport network in 5 months but people will see efforts bearing fruit.
I bet anyone now that net migration declared next December will be at least 200,000 lower than now.
The deepest unpopularity relates to WFA and Labour may well tweak this for next winter.
Farmers IHT will become a vote winner for Labour when the majority realise the sort of hooray Henry's and tossers like Clarkson will be the types caught.
Starmer is a grafter and a fixer and he will graft and fix and get things sorted.
The Tories have a complete dud as a leader so will have to change again in 2026 and the more people see if Farage and Trump and Musk, the Farage bubble will burst.
Key data will be NHS improvement and Education from cradle to work improving and in this regard Streeting and Phillipson are relatively young talents and communicators that no other Parties have.
Sat in the Shadows is the most impressive Politician in any Party right now in Darren Jones.
Labour will be pooing 35% plus by December 2026...
LMAO....25% is more likely and by the way you can't spell grifter has an I not an A as third letter
Grafter has a different meaning than grifter?
grafter = someone that works hard grifter = someone that scams hard
Confused by the US mangling where graft is specifically political corruption
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
And what precisely is he doing?
Besides hammering employers with tax rises.
The signs on housing (your big one) are moderately positive, aren't they? That's just one example. And some good stuff coming on health. And increasing investment in places. And landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. And ... well how long have you got.
Politically*, housing is a massive hole that Labour should avoid stumbling into. That article TSE posted yesterday had it way down the list of priorities - renewables were 50% higher, which is astonishing. And you have massive scope for pissing people off by murdering a badger, or not building enough primary schools to cope with the extra people.
It's all about the NHS. There are some positive noises about focusing on primary care and public health, but 1) it's not enough and 2) the gains from that almost certainly won't materialise within 5 years. Depressingly, the politically smart thing to do is keep chucking money at hospitals.
The only other option was a punted mega-budget that completely upends the entire fiscal enviroment in the UK (AKA the collective wisdom of PBers in one document). But that was never going to happen.
*Before people go mad, my personal priorities are almost the inverse of that polling.
Im mad at the everyday NIMBY public for housing being such a low priority, because its true it is. So many excuses and 'in the right place' bullshit that its practically politically toxic.
Politicians know its a problem and make baby steps, but most of the time get scared and have to pretend the public are not just selfish short sighted idiots on this topic.
There are myriad you can make an argument against it - here are some excerpts from the facebook group in the town I grew up in, and where I live now:
There isn't enough room in my local hospital as it is - no more people till we get a new one!
The university will just get more international students, so PBSA won't help with housing pressure!
80% of new houses go to immigrants!
Why should we cover our countryside in shitboxes - build flats in the cities instead!
All my wealth is tied up in the house - Labour is destroying it!
Young people waste all their money on advocado toast - they could afford houses if they stopped with the lattes!
The roads are too busy already!
Why are we building houses in the north of Scotland - our population is going down!
The political advice has to be to avoid this stuff at all costs - frankly it's difficult to argue against any of them without using a load of vague macroeconomic jargon, or coming across as a sociopath like Barty. The immigrant line is horribly toxic and effective.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
And what precisely is he doing?
Besides hammering employers with tax rises.
The signs on housing (your big one) are moderately positive, aren't they? That's just one example. And some good stuff coming on health. And increasing investment in places. And landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. And ... well how long have you got.
Politically*, housing is a massive hole that Labour should avoid stumbling into. That article TSE posted yesterday had it way down the list of priorities - renewables were 50% higher, which is astonishing. And you have massive scope for pissing people off by murdering a badger, or not building enough primary schools to cope with the extra people.
It's all about the NHS. There are some positive noises about focusing on primary care and public health, but 1) it's not enough and 2) the gains from that almost certainly won't materialise within 5 years. Depressingly, the politically smart thing to do is keep chucking money at hospitals.
The only other option was a punted mega-budget that completely upends the entire fiscal enviroment in the UK (AKA the collective wisdom of PBers in one document). But that was never going to happen.
*Before people go mad, my personal priorities are almost the inverse of that polling.
Im mad at the everyday NIMBY public for housing being such a low priority, because its true it is. So many excuses and 'in the right place' bullshit that its practically politically toxic.
Politicians know its a problem and make baby steps, but most of the time get scared and have to pretend the public are not just selfish short sighted idiots on this topic.
There are myriad you can make an argument against it - here are some excerpts from the facebook group in the town I grew up in, and where I live now:
There isn't enough room in my local hospital as it is - no more people till we get a new one!
The university will just get more international students, so PBSA won't help with housing pressure!
80% of new houses go to immigrants!
Why should we cover our countryside in shitboxes - build flats in the cities instead!
All my wealth is tied up in the house - Labour is destroying it!
Young people waste all their money on advocado toast - they could afford houses if they stopped with the lattes!
The roads are too busy already!
Why are we building houses in the north of Scotland - our population is going down!
The political advice has to be to avoid this stuff at all costs - frankly it's difficult to argue against any of them without using a load of vague macroeconomic jango, or coming across as a sociopath like Barty. The immigrant line is horribly toxic and effective.
Its extremely easy to argue against all of them if you care to do the right thing.
And if you don't, you have no business running for election.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
And what precisely is he doing?
Besides hammering employers with tax rises.
The signs on housing (your big one) are moderately positive, aren't they? That's just one example. And some good stuff coming on health. And increasing investment in places. And landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. And ... well how long have you got.
Politically*, housing is a massive hole that Labour should avoid stumbling into. That article TSE posted yesterday had it way down the list of priorities - renewables were 50% higher, which is astonishing. And you have massive scope for pissing people off by murdering a badger, or not building enough primary schools to cope with the extra people.
It's all about the NHS. There are some positive noises about focusing on primary care and public health, but 1) it's not enough and 2) the gains from that almost certainly won't materialise within 5 years. Depressingly, the politically smart thing to do is keep chucking money at hospitals.
The only other option was a punted mega-budget that completely upends the entire fiscal environment in the UK (AKA the collective wisdom of PBers in one document). But that was never going to happen.
*Before people go mad, my personal priorities are almost the inverse of that polling.
Unsurprisingly I could not disagree with you more.
There are few things that affect households more than their household finances and having a household of your own is the best way to improve that.
The housing theory of everything is very true, most of the flaws in our society stem to the broken housing market and while the NHS is a fiscal black hole that needs every more money - fixing housing would actually save money not cost money.
Fix housing and there won't be a need to pay Landlords Benefit anymore. Fix housing and people won't need inflationary pay rises just to keep heads above water. Fix housing and the state can get taxes on extra economic activity.
FFS, read the proviso. You're a parody of yourself sometimes.
Labour insists on sitting between two chairs on most things. Look at their EU policy. The pro-eu crowd hate it for being too little. The reform brexitter types hate it for being too much. Nobody likes it. You cannot govern like that. And this is what they do with most of their policies 🤷♂️ bad politics - plain and simple. In a majoritarian system you cannot govern by alienating everybody in seeking a middle ground. You have to pick sides or perish. Labour is deciding to perish out of fear of alienating part of the electorate... in reality they are alienating everybody
Speaking of coffee preparations, in Japan almost every hotel has these little paper sachets of ground coffee which you rip open and then balance over a cup with clever sticky out cardboard bits
You then pour very hot water slowly through the coffee and into the cup, takes about 2 minutes and makes a serviceable cup of ground coffee. Miles better than instant
I’ve never seen it before. It’s hardly miraculous technology; just clever. Why don’t we have them in the west?
Indeed. Very popular in Taiwan too.
Amazon has them but, as you would expect, at about three times the price they would be if mass-imported or made here:
“Our individually wrapped coffee bags are perfect for when you want real, fresh coffee without a cafetiere or coffee machine. Simply put the coffee bag in your cup, pour over freshly boiled water and wait for the coffee to brew to perfection within 2-3 minutes. The perfect fusion of flavour and simplicity in a single cup”
Are they the same tho? Hard to tell. It says you still need a cafetière?
The joy of the Japanese bags - as I’ve said - is that you literally only need the sachet. That’s it. It’s so simple and clever. Then you need a cup and hot water
Speaking of coffee preparations, in Japan almost every hotel has these little paper sachets of ground coffee which you rip open and then balance over a cup with clever sticky out cardboard bits
You then pour very hot water slowly through the coffee and into the cup, takes about 2 minutes and makes a serviceable cup of ground coffee. Miles better than instant
I’ve never seen it before. It’s hardly miraculous technology; just clever. Why don’t we have them in the west?
Indeed. Very popular in Taiwan too.
Amazon has them but, as you would expect, at about three times the price they would be if mass-imported or made here:
“Our individually wrapped coffee bags are perfect for when you want real, fresh coffee without a cafetiere or coffee machine. Simply put the coffee bag in your cup, pour over freshly boiled water and wait for the coffee to brew to perfection within 2-3 minutes. The perfect fusion of flavour and simplicity in a single cup”
Are they the same tho? Hard to tell. It says you still need a cafetière?
The joy of the Japanese bags - as I’ve said - is that you literally only need the sachet. That’s it. It’s so simple and clever. Then you need a cup and hot water
Kudos to Israel, sounds like a very smart move that will hopefully lead to improved security for them there. 👍
You approve of taking advantage of instability in a neighbouring country to seize strategic territory? How about Putin and Crimea?
One of those occasions when I agree with you, william.
There's no good justification for seizing territory in this manner. That way international chaos lies.
You can't approve it just because it's an ally.
Of course you can.
They're at war. Why can't states at war do their best to make themselves secure?
You and William are pretending Syria is some poor, defenceless, peaceful state that is being attacked unprovoked like Ukraine was, rather than a party to an ongoing war.
Syria is not at war with anyone right now.
There might be justification for a temporary buffer zone given the prevailing uncertainty - but a land grab is simply illegal.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
And what precisely is he doing?
Besides hammering employers with tax rises.
The signs on housing (your big one) are moderately positive, aren't they? That's just one example. And some good stuff coming on health. And increasing investment in places. And landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. And ... well how long have you got.
Politically*, housing is a massive hole that Labour should avoid stumbling into. That article TSE posted yesterday had it way down the list of priorities - renewables were 50% higher, which is astonishing. And you have massive scope for pissing people off by murdering a badger, or not building enough primary schools to cope with the extra people.
It's all about the NHS. There are some positive noises about focusing on primary care and public health, but 1) it's not enough and 2) the gains from that almost certainly won't materialise within 5 years. Depressingly, the politically smart thing to do is keep chucking money at hospitals.
The only other option was a punted mega-budget that completely upends the entire fiscal environment in the UK (AKA the collective wisdom of PBers in one document). But that was never going to happen.
*Before people go mad, my personal priorities are almost the inverse of that polling.
Unsurprisingly I could not disagree with you more.
There are few things that affect households more than their household finances and having a household of your own is the best way to improve that.
The housing theory of everything is very true, most of the flaws in our society stem to the broken housing market and while the NHS is a fiscal black hole that needs every more money - fixing housing would actually save money not cost money.
Fix housing and there won't be a need to pay Landlords Benefit anymore. Fix housing and people won't need inflationary pay rises just to keep heads above water. Fix housing and the state can get taxes on extra economic activity.
FFS, read the proviso. You're a parody of yourself sometimes.
The proviso is bullshit.
If Labour are to fix the economy and the problems in society they need to tackle what is causing those problems, such as our broken housing market and planning system. Not just shovel taxes at the NHS.
If a few whiny brats on Facebook don't like that because they dislike immigrants and want their house-price to remain high, so what?
Kudos to Israel, sounds like a very smart move that will hopefully lead to improved security for them there. 👍
You approve of taking advantage of instability in a neighbouring country to seize strategic territory? How about Putin and Crimea?
One of those occasions when I agree with you, william.
There's no good justification for seizing territory in this manner. That way international chaos lies.
You can't approve it just because it's an ally.
Of course you can.
They're at war. Why can't states at war do their best to make themselves secure?
You and William are pretending Syria is some poor, defenceless, peaceful state that is being attacked unprovoked like Ukraine was, rather than a party to an ongoing war.
Syria is not at war with anyone right now.
There might be justification for a temporary buffer zone given the prevailing uncertainty - but a land grab is simply illegal.
Speaking of coffee preparations, in Japan almost every hotel has these little paper sachets of ground coffee which you rip open and then balance over a cup with clever sticky out cardboard bits
You then pour very hot water slowly through the coffee and into the cup, takes about 2 minutes and makes a serviceable cup of ground coffee. Miles better than instant
I’ve never seen it before. It’s hardly miraculous technology; just clever. Why don’t we have them in the west?
Indeed. Very popular in Taiwan too.
Amazon has them but, as you would expect, at about three times the price they would be if mass-imported or made here:
“Our individually wrapped coffee bags are perfect for when you want real, fresh coffee without a cafetiere or coffee machine. Simply put the coffee bag in your cup, pour over freshly boiled water and wait for the coffee to brew to perfection within 2-3 minutes. The perfect fusion of flavour and simplicity in a single cup”
Are they the same tho? Hard to tell. It says you still need a cafetière?
The joy of the Japanese bags - as I’ve said - is that you literally only need the sachet. That’s it. It’s so simple and clever. Then you need a cup and hot water
Since I have nothing better to use my quota for:
That obscure creature ought to have either 6 legs or 8.
But they are brilliant. Try them
Or... I could just use my nice Gaggia bean to cup machine.
Is reggaeton the worst form of music ever invented? Serious question
I’m in a bar at Cartagena airport pumping out reggaeton. My god. It is possibly even worse than drill
I dont even know what it is.
You’ve probably heard it without realising
A relentless bombardment of thumping beats and degraded lyrics and autotuned garbage vocals and trashy fake brass and some fucker allegedly singing “yo yo yo yo yo yo yo” with the harmonic and rhythmic variation of an industrial Powersaw
It still sounds better than Drill.
I mentioned the renaming of Brecon Beacons earlier, and what it has in common with voting for the populist right (i.e. " rationally, this is neither something I want nor will benefit from. But it will really piss off people I dislike. So on average, I win.") Drill falls into the same category.
Kudos to Israel, sounds like a very smart move that will hopefully lead to improved security for them there. 👍
You approve of taking advantage of instability in a neighbouring country to seize strategic territory? How about Putin and Crimea?
One of those occasions when I agree with you, william.
There's no good justification for seizing territory in this manner. That way international chaos lies.
You can't approve it just because it's an ally.
Of course you can.
They're at war. Why can't states at war do their best to make themselves secure?
You and William are pretending Syria is some poor, defenceless, peaceful state that is being attacked unprovoked like Ukraine was, rather than a party to an ongoing war.
Syria is not at war with anyone right now.
There might be justification for a temporary buffer zone given the prevailing uncertainty - but a land grab is simply illegal.
Zero debate about that.
Syria is at war with Israel right now.
Should have signed a peace treaty while they had the chance.
Kudos to Israel, sounds like a very smart move that will hopefully lead to improved security for them there. 👍
You approve of taking advantage of instability in a neighbouring country to seize strategic territory? How about Putin and Crimea?
One of those occasions when I agree with you, william.
There's no good justification for seizing territory in this manner. That way international chaos lies.
You can't approve it just because it's an ally.
Of course you can.
They're at war. Why can't states at war do their best to make themselves secure?
You and William are pretending Syria is some poor, defenceless, peaceful state that is being attacked unprovoked like Ukraine was, rather than a party to an ongoing war.
Syria is not at war with anyone right now.
There might be justification for a temporary buffer zone given the prevailing uncertainty - but a land grab is simply illegal.
Zero debate about that.
Syria is at war with Israel right now.
Should have signed a peace treaty while they had the chance.
They've only had 76 years of war to do so.
Amazed Nigel was ignorant of the fact that Israel and Syria are at war.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
And what precisely is he doing?
Besides hammering employers with tax rises.
The signs on housing (your big one) are moderately positive, aren't they? That's just one example. And some good stuff coming on health. And increasing investment in places. And landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. And ... well how long have you got.
Politically*, housing is a massive hole that Labour should avoid stumbling into. That article TSE posted yesterday had it way down the list of priorities - renewables were 50% higher, which is astonishing. And you have massive scope for pissing people off by murdering a badger, or not building enough primary schools to cope with the extra people.
It's all about the NHS. There are some positive noises about focusing on primary care and public health, but 1) it's not enough and 2) the gains from that almost certainly won't materialise within 5 years. Depressingly, the politically smart thing to do is keep chucking money at hospitals.
The only other option was a punted mega-budget that completely upends the entire fiscal environment in the UK (AKA the collective wisdom of PBers in one document). But that was never going to happen.
*Before people go mad, my personal priorities are almost the inverse of that polling.
Unsurprisingly I could not disagree with you more.
There are few things that affect households more than their household finances and having a household of your own is the best way to improve that.
The housing theory of everything is very true, most of the flaws in our society stem to the broken housing market and while the NHS is a fiscal black hole that needs every more money - fixing housing would actually save money not cost money.
Fix housing and there won't be a need to pay Landlords Benefit anymore. Fix housing and people won't need inflationary pay rises just to keep heads above water. Fix housing and the state can get taxes on extra economic activity.
FFS, read the proviso. You're a parody of yourself sometimes.
The proviso is bullshit.
If Labour are to fix the economy and the problems in society they need to tackle what is causing those problems, such as our broken housing market and planning system. Not just shovel taxes at the NHS.
If a few whiny brats on Facebook don't like that because they dislike immigrants and want their house-price to remain high, so what?
I think by the proviso Eabhal meant "the bit after the *".
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
And what precisely is he doing?
Besides hammering employers with tax rises.
The signs on housing (your big one) are moderately positive, aren't they? That's just one example. And some good stuff coming on health. And increasing investment in places. And landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. And ... well how long have you got.
Politically*, housing is a massive hole that Labour should avoid stumbling into. That article TSE posted yesterday had it way down the list of priorities - renewables were 50% higher, which is astonishing. And you have massive scope for pissing people off by murdering a badger, or not building enough primary schools to cope with the extra people.
It's all about the NHS. There are some positive noises about focusing on primary care and public health, but 1) it's not enough and 2) the gains from that almost certainly won't materialise within 5 years. Depressingly, the politically smart thing to do is keep chucking money at hospitals.
The only other option was a punted mega-budget that completely upends the entire fiscal environment in the UK (AKA the collective wisdom of PBers in one document). But that was never going to happen.
*Before people go mad, my personal priorities are almost the inverse of that polling.
Unsurprisingly I could not disagree with you more.
There are few things that affect households more than their household finances and having a household of your own is the best way to improve that.
The housing theory of everything is very true, most of the flaws in our society stem to the broken housing market and while the NHS is a fiscal black hole that needs every more money - fixing housing would actually save money not cost money.
Fix housing and there won't be a need to pay Landlords Benefit anymore. Fix housing and people won't need inflationary pay rises just to keep heads above water. Fix housing and the state can get taxes on extra economic activity.
FFS, read the proviso. You're a parody of yourself sometimes.
The proviso is bullshit.
If Labour are to fix the economy and the problems in society they need to tackle what is causing those problems, such as our broken housing market and planning system. Not just shovel taxes at the NHS.
If a few whiny brats on Facebook don't like that because they dislike immigrants and want their house-price to remain high, so what?
That won't win them the next election. Ultimately, it's the politics I am interested in, and if Reform can nibble away at Labour it will be because they are seen to be bulldozing England to house immigrants.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
Do enlighten us.
Well his ratings cratered at first but he stuck with it and ended up more popular than he'd ever been.
Doesn't tell me what Starmer’s hidden grand plan is....
I'm not privy but I'd say the main 3 things are better NHS, more houses, Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband spaffed an entire black hole's worth of money on his carbon capture plan.
What makes you a better judge than Ed Miliband on what to invest in?
It's not Ed Miliband per se. Any minister's decisions would be similarly dubious. He's not investing his own money, is he? Although carbon capture does seem a rather dubious way of minimising carbon dioxide. £22bn would pay for the infrastructure for a lot of mode shift, whether from ICE to EV or from car to train. Or it could have invested in non-carbon energy. And either of these would have had other benefits besides the environmental ones.
As I keep reminding everyone, £22 billion is just for openers. It will likely take another £30 billion to get four clusters fully implemented.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
And what precisely is he doing?
Besides hammering employers with tax rises.
The signs on housing (your big one) are moderately positive, aren't they? That's just one example. And some good stuff coming on health. And increasing investment in places. And landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. And ... well how long have you got.
Politically*, housing is a massive hole that Labour should avoid stumbling into. That article TSE posted yesterday had it way down the list of priorities - renewables were 50% higher, which is astonishing. And you have massive scope for pissing people off by murdering a badger, or not building enough primary schools to cope with the extra people.
It's all about the NHS. There are some positive noises about focusing on primary care and public health, but 1) it's not enough and 2) the gains from that almost certainly won't materialise within 5 years. Depressingly, the politically smart thing to do is keep chucking money at hospitals.
The only other option was a punted mega-budget that completely upends the entire fiscal environment in the UK (AKA the collective wisdom of PBers in one document). But that was never going to happen.
*Before people go mad, my personal priorities are almost the inverse of that polling.
Unsurprisingly I could not disagree with you more.
There are few things that affect households more than their household finances and having a household of your own is the best way to improve that.
The housing theory of everything is very true, most of the flaws in our society stem to the broken housing market and while the NHS is a fiscal black hole that needs every more money - fixing housing would actually save money not cost money.
Fix housing and there won't be a need to pay Landlords Benefit anymore. Fix housing and people won't need inflationary pay rises just to keep heads above water. Fix housing and the state can get taxes on extra economic activity.
FFS, read the proviso. You're a parody of yourself sometimes.
The proviso is bullshit.
If Labour are to fix the economy and the problems in society they need to tackle what is causing those problems, such as our broken housing market and planning system. Not just shovel taxes at the NHS.
If a few whiny brats on Facebook don't like that because they dislike immigrants and want their house-price to remain high, so what?
That won't win them the next election. Ultimately, it's the politics I am interested in, and if Reform can nibble away at Labour it will be because they are seen to be bulldozing England to house immigrants.
Pissing money at the NHS while failing to tackle the country's problems won't win them the next election either.
You can make tough decisions that lead to some unpopularity if you are reforming the country for the better, as Thatcher did. Who also helped ensure then-record amounts of people could own their own home, which again helped her win the election.
People pissed off at migrants and who want to inflate their house prices don't have any more votes to cast than those who need somewhere to live do. And they're probably already not voting Labour anyway.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
And what precisely is he doing?
Besides hammering employers with tax rises.
The signs on housing (your big one) are moderately positive, aren't they? That's just one example. And some good stuff coming on health. And increasing investment in places. And landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. And ... well how long have you got.
Politically*, housing is a massive hole that Labour should avoid stumbling into. That article TSE posted yesterday had it way down the list of priorities - renewables were 50% higher, which is astonishing. And you have massive scope for pissing people off by murdering a badger, or not building enough primary schools to cope with the extra people.
It's all about the NHS. There are some positive noises about focusing on primary care and public health, but 1) it's not enough and 2) the gains from that almost certainly won't materialise within 5 years. Depressingly, the politically smart thing to do is keep chucking money at hospitals.
The only other option was a punted mega-budget that completely upends the entire fiscal environment in the UK (AKA the collective wisdom of PBers in one document). But that was never going to happen.
*Before people go mad, my personal priorities are almost the inverse of that polling.
Unsurprisingly I could not disagree with you more.
There are few things that affect households more than their household finances and having a household of your own is the best way to improve that.
The housing theory of everything is very true, most of the flaws in our society stem to the broken housing market and while the NHS is a fiscal black hole that needs every more money - fixing housing would actually save money not cost money.
Fix housing and there won't be a need to pay Landlords Benefit anymore. Fix housing and people won't need inflationary pay rises just to keep heads above water. Fix housing and the state can get taxes on extra economic activity.
FFS, read the proviso. You're a parody of yourself sometimes.
The proviso is bullshit.
If Labour are to fix the economy and the problems in society they need to tackle what is causing those problems, such as our broken housing market and planning system. Not just shovel taxes at the NHS.
If a few whiny brats on Facebook don't like that because they dislike immigrants and want their house-price to remain high, so what?
I think by the proviso Eabhal meant "the bit after the *".
Yes, and Eabhal has years of arguing consistently against new developments, against reform, claiming its not necessary, not the right priority etc, etc, etc - so yes I think the bit after the * is bullshit too.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
Do enlighten us.
Well his ratings cratered at first but he stuck with it and ended up more popular than he'd ever been.
Doesn't tell me what Starmer’s hidden grand plan is....
I'm not privy but I'd say the main 3 things are better NHS, more houses, Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband spaffed an entire black hole's worth of money on his carbon capture plan.
What makes you a better judge than Ed Miliband on what to invest in?
It's not Ed Miliband per se. Any minister's decisions would be similarly dubious. He's not investing his own money, is he? Although carbon capture does seem a rather dubious way of minimising carbon dioxide. £22bn would pay for the infrastructure for a lot of mode shift, whether from ICE to EV or from car to train. Or it could have invested in non-carbon energy. And either of these would have had other benefits besides the environmental ones.
As I keep reminding everyone, £22 billion is just for openers. It will likely take another £30 billion to get four clusters fully implemented.
Anyone watching Black Doves on Netflix? Good cast but very, VERY knowing, touch of the Killing Eves which started well enough but ended rubbish imo. They also seemed to have found the last half-dozen authentic pubs & caffs in London, or at least synthesised them.
Is reggaeton the worst form of music ever invented? Serious question
I’m in a bar at Cartagena airport pumping out reggaeton. My god. It is possibly even worse than drill
I dont even know what it is.
You’ve probably heard it without realising
A relentless bombardment of thumping beats and degraded lyrics and autotuned garbage vocals and trashy fake brass and some fucker allegedly singing “yo yo yo yo yo yo yo” with the harmonic and rhythmic variation of an industrial Powersaw
It's not necessarily meant for full time politicians, but you are stills upposed to contribute (and if you are too unwell or aged to take part, resign from it - you can do so and still keep the title).
Is reggaeton the worst form of music ever invented? Serious question
I’m in a bar at Cartagena airport pumping out reggaeton. My god. It is possibly even worse than drill
I dont even know what it is.
You’ve probably heard it without realising
A relentless bombardment of thumping beats and degraded lyrics and autotuned garbage vocals and trashy fake brass and some fucker allegedly singing “yo yo yo yo yo yo yo” with the harmonic and rhythmic variation of an industrial Powersaw
It still sounds better than Drill.
I mentioned the renaming of Brecon Beacons earlier, and what it has in common with voting for the populist right (i.e. " rationally, this is neither something I want nor will benefit from. But it will really piss off people I dislike. So on average, I win.") Drill falls into the same category.
I asked a musical friend to compare them
“Drill is undeniably worse as music: it’s grim, brutal, and devoid of any redemptive qualities. It’s the sound of a collapsing society, set to a relentless beat that feels like a dirge for humanity. But at least drill has the decency to be honest about what it is: dark, aggressive, and unrelentingly bleak. It doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
Reggaeton, on the other hand, is insidious in its ubiquity. It pretends to be fun, to be joyous, when in reality, it’s musically empty, emotionally hollow, and intellectually barren. Its relentless cheeriness masks a kind of moral laziness—“Why strive for depth when we can just shout ‘yo yo yo’ over the same beat?” And because it’s everywhere, it feels more inescapable, like a parasite eating away our culture.
So yes: drill is musically tragic, but reggaeton is morally obnoxious. A fitting indictment of both, wouldn’t you say? If only you could carry a portable speaker playing Arvo Part, everywhere!”
Is reggaeton the worst form of music ever invented? Serious question
I’m in a bar at Cartagena airport pumping out reggaeton. My god. It is possibly even worse than drill
I dont even know what it is.
You’ve probably heard it without realising
A relentless bombardment of thumping beats and degraded lyrics and autotuned garbage vocals and trashy fake brass and some fucker allegedly singing “yo yo yo yo yo yo yo” with the harmonic and rhythmic variation of an industrial Powersaw
Sounds like the soundtrack to my teenage years ...
Today’s gratuitous travelogue (I only have bandwidth for one post a day, pretty much):
Long morning walk through paddy fields, slightly frightening climb up a huge fromagier tree, lunch by the Casamance river, then the weird resort that is Cap Skirring: quite a squalid, chaotic town inland, more so than anything to date on this trip. But classy accommodation and very good beach restaurants facing the sea. And rock pools.
Is reggaeton the worst form of music ever invented? Serious question
I’m in a bar at Cartagena airport pumping out reggaeton. My god. It is possibly even worse than drill
I dont even know what it is.
You’ve probably heard it without realising
A relentless bombardment of thumping beats and degraded lyrics and autotuned garbage vocals and trashy fake brass and some fucker allegedly singing “yo yo yo yo yo yo yo” with the harmonic and rhythmic variation of an industrial Powersaw
It still sounds better than Drill.
I mentioned the renaming of Brecon Beacons earlier, and what it has in common with voting for the populist right (i.e. " rationally, this is neither something I want nor will benefit from. But it will really piss off people I dislike. So on average, I win.") Drill falls into the same category.
I asked a musical friend to compare them
“Drill is undeniably worse as music: it’s grim, brutal, and devoid of any redemptive qualities. It’s the sound of a collapsing society, set to a relentless beat that feels like a dirge for humanity. But at least drill has the decency to be honest about what it is: dark, aggressive, and unrelentingly bleak. It doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
Reggaeton, on the other hand, is insidious in its ubiquity. It pretends to be fun, to be joyous, when in reality, it’s musically empty, emotionally hollow, and intellectually barren. Its relentless cheeriness masks a kind of moral laziness—“Why strive for depth when we can just shout ‘yo yo yo’ over the same beat?” And because it’s everywhere, it feels more inescapable, like a parasite eating away our culture.
So yes: drill is musically tragic, but reggaeton is morally obnoxious. A fitting indictment of both, wouldn’t you say? If only you could carry a portable speaker playing Arvo Part, everywhere!”
Yes: Drill is the less enjoyable experience, but there is some element of creativity there. I ought to be ok with Drill. I liked thrash metal as a teenager. Still do. Mostly the mainstream stuff like Anthrax and Slayer but I had a soft spot for the how-far-can-we-push-this stuff like Napalm Death and Acid Reign. And yet Drill just irritates me.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
Do enlighten us.
Well his ratings cratered at first but he stuck with it and ended up more popular than he'd ever been.
Doesn't tell me what Starmer’s hidden grand plan is....
I'm not privy but I'd say the main 3 things are better NHS, more houses, Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband spaffed an entire black hole's worth of money on his carbon capture plan.
What makes you a better judge than Ed Miliband on what to invest in?
Not being Ed Miliband. He wants to spend 22bn on sucking CO2 from the air and pumping it underground. Using tech that doesn't work. It's extracting-sunbeams-from-cucumbers level stupidity. I don't think people realise how stupid that is.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
Do enlighten us.
Well his ratings cratered at first but he stuck with it and ended up more popular than he'd ever been.
Doesn't tell me what Starmer’s hidden grand plan is....
I'm not privy but I'd say the main 3 things are better NHS, more houses, Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband spaffed an entire black hole's worth of money on his carbon capture plan.
What makes you a better judge than Ed Miliband on what to invest in?
Not being Ed Miliband. He wants to spend 22bn on sucking CO2 from the air and pumping it underground. Using tech that doesn't work. It's extracting-sunbeams-from-cucumbers level stupidity. I don't think people realise how stupid that is.
In my more optimistic moments, I look on it as spending 22bn teaching young engineers why they shouldn't listen to politicians.
Is reggaeton the worst form of music ever invented? Serious question
I’m in a bar at Cartagena airport pumping out reggaeton. My god. It is possibly even worse than drill
I dont even know what it is.
You’ve probably heard it without realising
A relentless bombardment of thumping beats and degraded lyrics and autotuned garbage vocals and trashy fake brass and some fucker allegedly singing “yo yo yo yo yo yo yo” with the harmonic and rhythmic variation of an industrial Powersaw
Sounds like the soundtrack to my teenage years ...
Have you heard about this terrible new thing called (I believe!) "Rock'n'Roll"? I think the Gazette is against it.
I am not sure a UK jury would have reached the same verdict. But our definition regarding the self-defence plea is a little more robust. In the US, "I was scared so I snapped his neck/ strangled him" seems like justifiable action.
Really?
"[Kenneth] Noye fatally stabbed Detective Constable John Fordham, who was involved in the police surveillance of Noye, in the grounds of his home on 26 January 1985. Acquitted of murder on the grounds of self-defence in December of that year..."
Kenny Noye was apparently a senior freemason and the forces of freemasonry including freemason coppers saw Kenny right, over and above justice for the murdered policeman. Suffice to say the case was full of holes. Stabbing the lad some years later in a road rage incident was a step too far even for dodgy coppers.
It was more that the cowboy operation that had Fordham enter the grounds of Noye's house was an embarrassment to the Senior Management Team. So in the finest tradition of the NU10K, they chucked everyone and everything overboard to ensure that the blame stopped below a certain rank.
After all, what is letting a murder go free, against One Of Us being a bit humiliated in public?
Reading the detail, it's interesting that it Michael Mansfield QC was involved in defending Noye.
Is reggaeton the worst form of music ever invented? Serious question
I’m in a bar at Cartagena airport pumping out reggaeton. My god. It is possibly even worse than drill
I dont even know what it is.
You’ve probably heard it without realising
A relentless bombardment of thumping beats and degraded lyrics and autotuned garbage vocals and trashy fake brass and some fucker allegedly singing “yo yo yo yo yo yo yo” with the harmonic and rhythmic variation of an industrial Powersaw
It still sounds better than Drill.
I mentioned the renaming of Brecon Beacons earlier, and what it has in common with voting for the populist right (i.e. " rationally, this is neither something I want nor will benefit from. But it will really piss off people I dislike. So on average, I win.") Drill falls into the same category.
I asked a musical friend to compare them
“Drill is undeniably worse as music: it’s grim, brutal, and devoid of any redemptive qualities. It’s the sound of a collapsing society, set to a relentless beat that feels like a dirge for humanity. But at least drill has the decency to be honest about what it is: dark, aggressive, and unrelentingly bleak. It doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
Reggaeton, on the other hand, is insidious in its ubiquity. It pretends to be fun, to be joyous, when in reality, it’s musically empty, emotionally hollow, and intellectually barren. Its relentless cheeriness masks a kind of moral laziness—“Why strive for depth when we can just shout ‘yo yo yo’ over the same beat?” And because it’s everywhere, it feels more inescapable, like a parasite eating away our culture.
So yes: drill is musically tragic, but reggaeton is morally obnoxious. A fitting indictment of both, wouldn’t you say? If only you could carry a portable speaker playing Arvo Part, everywhere!”
Yes: Drill is the less enjoyable experience, but there is some element of creativity there. I ought to be ok with Drill. I liked thrash metal as a teenager. Still do. Mostly the mainstream stuff like Anthrax and Slayer but I had a soft spot for the how-far-can-we-push-this stuff like Napalm Death and Acid Reign. And yet Drill just irritates me.
Yes, at a push I can see a shred of artistry in drill. It is a soundtrack of pathetic low-intelligence adolescent nihilism - but there is *something* human being expressed. Even if the emotions are childish
It’s like a kids’ drawing of guns
Reggaeton is industrialised hip hop married to production line regggae, it is music turned into manufactured pap and there is no emotion expressed at all
It is a drawing made by a machine that does 40,000 drawings a day, and not a machine that thinks
The case of the 71 year old Type I diabetic lady Danielle Carr-Gomm who was persuaded to stop taking her insulin for 3 days on a "Chinese Slapping Therapy" course, and died, has had its sentencing remarks published by Sky News. The 'therapist' had dealt with her on a previous course 3 months earlier.
I was about right - it was a cultish atmosphere with a therapist who had cast off any rational moorings, and she had become dependent on him - so there was no easy escape. It would have needed something like a qualified medic on the course to intervene strongly. She had also been fasting for 3 days.
These remarks are a model of clarity, as these things always seem to be:
I think we need these published routinely for all Crown Court cases, as a transparency measure which will inform the news, and will auto-debunk for example fake claims around "sentenced to prison for posting on social media".
If she'd been on a fast (and presuming her blood sugar was being monitored) wouldn't it have been dangerous to use insulin? She could have had a bad hypo.
Edit: I see it was diabetic ketoacidosis. It surprises me that it took hold fatally in such a short time. Awful for her.
DKA can happen rapidly - well under a day is possible. One of the functions of a basal insulin component, ie the normal continuous insulin required by a body, is to inhibit it - that is as opposed to the bolus which is released to metabolise carbohydrate.
So if all insulin has been stopped, that may exacerbate. And once DKA starts, insulin action is inhibited by the DKA, so it is tougher to recover - that's why recommended action if DKA is discovered (ketone levels in the bloodstream above a trigger level) is call 999 or go to A&E. If the ketones are not reduced rapidly, it becomes difficult to treat.
This is part of the reason why Type Is take care when fasting eg if doing the Ignation Exercises, or if a Muslim diabetic opts to fast during Ramadan (normally a medical exception would apply), only the bolus insulin would be stopped.
And if a Type I is not testing, they won't know beyond detecting symptoms themselves. It is quite possible he had stopped her testing - he had done that on a previous occasion in Oz where a 6 year old child died after he convinced the parents to stop treatment.
Many other factors can also make it more difficult to treat by affecting insulin action, including things as simple as having an infection. Personally I dislike excessively hot weather as it throws my normal insulin action off, and I have to bugger about with my insulin ratios. On occasion I have had to boost my doses by 50-100% for the same food item at the same time of day in high summer compared to normal. On other occasions the action can be more rapid, so the insulin action beats the metabolisation of the food - depending on how quickly the food releases its sugar.
Kudos to Israel, sounds like a very smart move that will hopefully lead to improved security for them there. 👍
You approve of taking advantage of instability in a neighbouring country to seize strategic territory? How about Putin and Crimea?
One of those occasions when I agree with you, william.
There's no good justification for seizing territory in this manner. That way international chaos lies.
You can't approve it just because it's an ally.
Of course you can.
They're at war. Why can't states at war do their best to make themselves secure?
You and William are pretending Syria is some poor, defenceless, peaceful state that is being attacked unprovoked like Ukraine was, rather than a party to an ongoing war.
Syria is not at war with anyone right now.
There might be justification for a temporary buffer zone given the prevailing uncertainty - but a land grab is simply illegal.
Zero debate about that.
Syria is at war with Israel right now.
Should have signed a peace treaty while they had the chance.
They've only had 76 years of war to do so.
Amazed Nigel was ignorant of the fact that Israel and Syria are at war.
Right now that simply isn't the case. The Syrian regime has been overthrown.
If Israel tries to permanently seize territory, then it's quits likely we'll see another war some time in the next few years.
If Israel don't want be part the western liberal democracies, and just another set of Middle East warlords, that will have consequences.
I didn't get formally taught about conditional probability (Bayes' Theorem) until Uni
Luckily I'd learnt about it a few weeks before my Oxford interview from the Racing Post's sports betting pages
They'd explained the three door problem well enough for me to understand and blag my way (rather briefly) into Christ Church
I remember asking my maths teacher about such things, plus 3D trig, normalising vectors, painters algorithm, etc. He told me, with a growl, "You don't do that until University".
At which point I kinda tuned out of Mathematics at school.
Jury "nullification" must be a risk for the prosecution of the CEO killer. Just astonishing levels of support, with the McDonald's where he was apparently reported to the police swamped with negative reviews (it was a "boomer patron" according to the internet).
One of the most interesting things to come out of the US for some time, particularly in the context of Trump's election. People keep on talking about wealth inequality being higher in the US now than it was at the start of the French Revolution...
The case of the 71 year old Type I diabetic lady Danielle Carr-Gomm who was persuaded to stop taking her insulin for 3 days on a "Chinese Slapping Therapy" course, and died, has had its sentencing remarks published by Sky News. The 'therapist' had dealt with her on a previous course 3 months earlier.
I was about right - it was a cultish atmosphere with a therapist who had cast off any rational moorings, and she had become dependent on him - so there was no easy escape. It would have needed something like a qualified medic on the course to intervene strongly. She had also been fasting for 3 days.
These remarks are a model of clarity, as these things always seem to be:
I think we need these published routinely for all Crown Court cases, as a transparency measure which will inform the news, and will auto-debunk for example fake claims around "sentenced to prison for posting on social media".
If she'd been on a fast (and presuming her blood sugar was being monitored) wouldn't it have been dangerous to use insulin? She could have had a bad hypo.
Edit: I see it was diabetic ketoacidosis. It surprises me that it took hold fatally in such a short time. Awful for her.
DKA can happen rapidly - well under a day is possible. One of the functions of a basal insulin component, ie the normal continuous insulin required by a body, is to inhibit it - that is as opposed to the bolus which is released to metabolise carbohydrate.
So if all insulin has been stopped, that may exacerbate. And once DKA starts, insulin action is inhibited by the DKA, so it is tougher to recover - that's why recommended action if DKA is discovered (ketone levels in the bloodstream above a trigger level) is call 999 or go to A&E. If the ketones are not reduced rapidly, it becomes difficult to treat.
This is part of the reason why Type Is take care when fasting eg if doing the Ignation Exercises, or if a Muslim diabetic opts to fast during Ramadan (normally a medical exception would apply), only the bolus insulin would be stopped.
And if a Type I is not testing, they won't know beyond detecting symptoms themselves. It is quite possible he had stopped her testing - he had done that on a previous occasion in Oz where a 6 year old child died after he convinced the parents to stop treatment.
Many other factors can also make it more difficult to treat by affecting insulin action, including things as simple as having an infection. Personally I dislike excessively hot weather as it throws my normal insulin action off, and I have to bugger about with my insulin ratios. On occasion I have had to boost my doses by 50-100% for the same food item at the same time of day in high summer compared to normal. On other occasions the action can be more rapid, so the insulin action beats the metabolisation of the food - depending on how quickly the food releases its sugar.
Kudos to Israel, sounds like a very smart move that will hopefully lead to improved security for them there. 👍
You approve of taking advantage of instability in a neighbouring country to seize strategic territory? How about Putin and Crimea?
One of those occasions when I agree with you, william.
There's no good justification for seizing territory in this manner. That way international chaos lies.
You can't approve it just because it's an ally.
Of course you can.
They're at war. Why can't states at war do their best to make themselves secure?
You and William are pretending Syria is some poor, defenceless, peaceful state that is being attacked unprovoked like Ukraine was, rather than a party to an ongoing war.
Syria is not at war with anyone right now.
There might be justification for a temporary buffer zone given the prevailing uncertainty - but a land grab is simply illegal.
Zero debate about that.
Syria is at war with Israel right now.
Should have signed a peace treaty while they had the chance.
They've only had 76 years of war to do so.
Amazed Nigel was ignorant of the fact that Israel and Syria are at war.
Right now that simply isn't the case. The Syrian regime has been overthrown. .
Without weighing in whether Israel's actions are justified or not, I would think states do not regard obligations/hostilities from other states to have concluded just because the previous regime is overthrown (it didn't when the last one was?). I expect that's essentially part of 'negotiations' as to what their future relations will be.
Eg, will you uphold agreements with the last regime regarding our naval base? Will you acknowledge this debt the regime had with us? Will you, ahem, ignore the debt we owed the regime? Are we still at war? Well, depends how you react to us taking this bit of territory or not etc.
The case of the 71 year old Type I diabetic lady Danielle Carr-Gomm who was persuaded to stop taking her insulin for 3 days on a "Chinese Slapping Therapy" course, and died, has had its sentencing remarks published by Sky News. The 'therapist' had dealt with her on a previous course 3 months earlier.
I was about right - it was a cultish atmosphere with a therapist who had cast off any rational moorings, and she had become dependent on him - so there was no easy escape. It would have needed something like a qualified medic on the course to intervene strongly. She had also been fasting for 3 days.
These remarks are a model of clarity, as these things always seem to be:
I think we need these published routinely for all Crown Court cases, as a transparency measure which will inform the news, and will auto-debunk for example fake claims around "sentenced to prison for posting on social media".
If she'd been on a fast (and presuming her blood sugar was being monitored) wouldn't it have been dangerous to use insulin? She could have had a bad hypo.
Edit: I see it was diabetic ketoacidosis. It surprises me that it took hold fatally in such a short time. Awful for her.
DKA can happen rapidly - well under a day is possible. One of the functions of a basal insulin component, ie the normal continuous insulin required by a body, is to inhibit it - that is as opposed to the bolus which is released to metabolise carbohydrate.
So if all insulin has been stopped, that may exacerbate. And once DKA starts, insulin action is inhibited by the DKA, so it is tougher to recover - that's why recommended action if DKA is discovered (ketone levels in the bloodstream above a trigger level) is call 999 or go to A&E. If the ketones are not reduced rapidly, it becomes difficult to treat.
This is part of the reason why Type Is take care when fasting eg if doing the Ignation Exercises, or if a Muslim diabetic opts to fast during Ramadan (normally a medical exception would apply), only the bolus insulin would be stopped.
And if a Type I is not testing, they won't know beyond detecting symptoms themselves. It is quite possible he had stopped her testing - he had done that on a previous occasion in Oz where a 6 year old child died after he convinced the parents to stop treatment.
Many other factors can also make it more difficult to treat by affecting insulin action, including things as simple as having an infection. Personally I dislike excessively hot weather as it throws my normal insulin action off, and I have to bugger about with my insulin ratios. On occasion I have had to boost my doses by 50-100% for the same food item at the same time of day in high summer compared to normal. On other occasions the action can be more rapid, so the insulin action beats the metabolisation of the food - depending on how quickly the food releases its sugar.
Jury "nullification" must be a risk for the prosecution of the CEO killer. Just astonishing levels of support, with the McDonald's where he was apparently reported to the police swamped with negative reviews (it was a "boomer patron" according to the internet).
One of the most interesting things to come out of the US for some time, particularly in the context of Trump's election. People keep on talking about wealth inequality being higher in the US now than it was at the start of the French Revolution...
The waters have been muddied by it turning out that he came from a more privileged background than the person he killed and obviously had some issues in recent months.
Kudos to Israel, sounds like a very smart move that will hopefully lead to improved security for them there. 👍
You approve of taking advantage of instability in a neighbouring country to seize strategic territory? How about Putin and Crimea?
One of those occasions when I agree with you, william.
There's no good justification for seizing territory in this manner. That way international chaos lies.
You can't approve it just because it's an ally.
Of course you can.
They're at war. Why can't states at war do their best to make themselves secure?
You and William are pretending Syria is some poor, defenceless, peaceful state that is being attacked unprovoked like Ukraine was, rather than a party to an ongoing war.
Syria is not at war with anyone right now.
There might be justification for a temporary buffer zone given the prevailing uncertainty - but a land grab is simply illegal.
Zero debate about that.
Syria is at war with Israel right now.
Should have signed a peace treaty while they had the chance.
They've only had 76 years of war to do so.
Amazed Nigel was ignorant of the fact that Israel and Syria are at war.
Right now that simply isn't the case. The Syrian regime has been overthrown.
If Israel tries to permanently seize territory, then it's quits likely we'll see another war some time in the next few years.
If Israel don't want be part the western liberal democracies, and just another set of Middle East warlords, that will have consequences.
Right now it simply is the case.
Israel has been at war with Syria for 76 years and counting, predating the Assad regime.
You pretend the war is not real, but for Israel it absolutely is. If the new Syrian government wishes to sue for peace, then great, but if it does not then Israel is well within her rights to persecute the war within the confines of the law and that doesn't prevent taking action against states you are currently at war with.
We are a tea and coffee household. Two staples of civil society.
But these figures are remarkable. People actually buy instant coffee? Nearly a billion pounds a year? What on earth do they do with it?
And SFAICS the average household will spend only about £10 per entire year on ground/bean coffee.
The sort of figures you would expect in the dark ages or rural Sumerian society around 3000BCE.
The cheap quick-brewing black tea favoured by the Brits and Irish is not much higher, objectively, on the tea quality scale than instant coffee is on the coffee quality scale.
Subjectively, cheap tea is much more acceptable than instant coffee.
I remember when a friend started at uni and bought a huge catering pack of the cheapest instant coffee he could find, to last him all term.
It was amazing how many virulent brown flushes it took to get rid of the lot down the bog, a few days later.
Personally I'm not very keen on coffee, but I prefer instant, because it produces the desired (meh) result faster. Mainly, though, I can't stand people who think that their taste is somehow superior. Chacun a son gout...
True.
I would, however, *suggest* that you try a mocha pot for the stove. Get one in stainless steel - they last forever. It makes coffee about as fast as you can boil the kettle (well, a little slower). Because you are only boiling exactly the amount of water you need for your coffee, you are saving the planet.
If it's for coffee, I note that De Longhi have several of their machines reduced by 50% currently. This is their marketing strategy - a couple of machines are half list price or below every month so you just wait for the right one to come around. It makes the price of the machine acceptable rather than OMG !
It's not a relabelled kettle, but I have had a Dynamica for several years, and it makes superb coffee - including beautifully auto-frothed * milk.
Jury "nullification" must be a risk for the prosecution of the CEO killer. Just astonishing levels of support, with the McDonald's where he was apparently reported to the police swamped with negative reviews (it was a "boomer patron" according to the internet).
One of the most interesting things to come out of the US for some time, particularly in the context of Trump's election. People keep on talking about wealth inequality being higher in the US now than it was at the start of the French Revolution...
So you're saying now would be a good time to invest in a Guillotine company?
Kudos to Israel, sounds like a very smart move that will hopefully lead to improved security for them there. 👍
You approve of taking advantage of instability in a neighbouring country to seize strategic territory? How about Putin and Crimea?
One of those occasions when I agree with you, william.
There's no good justification for seizing territory in this manner. That way international chaos lies.
You can't approve it just because it's an ally.
Of course you can.
They're at war. Why can't states at war do their best to make themselves secure?
You and William are pretending Syria is some poor, defenceless, peaceful state that is being attacked unprovoked like Ukraine was, rather than a party to an ongoing war.
Syria is not at war with anyone right now.
There might be justification for a temporary buffer zone given the prevailing uncertainty - but a land grab is simply illegal.
Zero debate about that.
Syria is at war with Israel right now.
Should have signed a peace treaty while they had the chance.
They've only had 76 years of war to do so.
Amazed Nigel was ignorant of the fact that Israel and Syria are at war.
Right now that simply isn't the case. The Syrian regime has been overthrown.
If Israel tries to permanently seize territory, then it's quits likely we'll see another war some time in the next few years.
If Israel don't want be part the western liberal democracies, and just another set of Middle East warlords, that will have consequences.
Don’t wars exist between states, not governments? I’d bet that they will still technically be at war a year from now.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
Do enlighten us.
Well his ratings cratered at first but he stuck with it and ended up more popular than he'd ever been.
Doesn't tell me what Starmer’s hidden grand plan is....
I'm not privy but I'd say the main 3 things are better NHS, more houses, Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband spaffed an entire black hole's worth of money on his carbon capture plan.
What makes you a better judge than Ed Miliband on what to invest in?
Well I am certainly more qualified than Ed Miliband on this, having been part of a team that spent many years looking at CCS possibilities and coming to the conclusion that it was completely impractical. Which was a great shame as it would have meant a huge amount of well paid work for us.
Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump · 1h Holy sh*t. Kari Lake is a leading contender for the nomination as Donald Trump’s ambassador to Mexico, Semafor reports.
That two time loser? Even as a trolling appointment he has better options I'm sure, she's cost the party two winnable races already by being a screw up, no need to have her mess up as an ambassador.
Speaking of coffee preparations, in Japan almost every hotel has these little paper sachets of ground coffee which you rip open and then balance over a cup with clever sticky out cardboard bits
You then pour very hot water slowly through the coffee and into the cup, takes about 2 minutes and makes a serviceable cup of ground coffee. Miles better than instant
I’ve never seen it before. It’s hardly miraculous technology; just clever. Why don’t we have them in the west?
Indeed. Very popular in Taiwan too.
Amazon has them but, as you would expect, at about three times the price they would be if mass-imported or made here:
“Our individually wrapped coffee bags are perfect for when you want real, fresh coffee without a cafetiere or coffee machine. Simply put the coffee bag in your cup, pour over freshly boiled water and wait for the coffee to brew to perfection within 2-3 minutes. The perfect fusion of flavour and simplicity in a single cup”
Are they the same tho? Hard to tell. It says you still need a cafetière?
The joy of the Japanese bags - as I’ve said - is that you literally only need the sachet. That’s it. It’s so simple and clever. Then you need a cup and hot water
Jury "nullification" must be a risk for the prosecution of the CEO killer. Just astonishing levels of support, with the McDonald's where he was apparently reported to the police swamped with negative reviews (it was a "boomer patron" according to the internet).
One of the most interesting things to come out of the US for some time, particularly in the context of Trump's election. People keep on talking about wealth inequality being higher in the US now than it was at the start of the French Revolution...
Very disturbing that so many people appear to support the worse crime that anyone can commit.
The polling that shows the youngest are the most likely to be pleased with the budget and it scales up to disappointment the older you get, suggests that the Budget has pleased the right people socially speaking, as in the people that actually work.
But politically I can’t conclude it hasn’t been a disaster as few of these people vote.
I don't really know why Israel needs a buffer zone within Syria when The Golan heights are already a buffer zone within Syria.
The Israeli guy explains in the thread I posted. It allows them to control the highest point in the region so they have full radar visibility of everything, so it's more strategic than just a buffer zone.
Is reggaeton the worst form of music ever invented? Serious question
I’m in a bar at Cartagena airport pumping out reggaeton. My god. It is possibly even worse than drill
I dont even know what it is.
You’ve probably heard it without realising
A relentless bombardment of thumping beats and degraded lyrics and autotuned garbage vocals and trashy fake brass and some fucker allegedly singing “yo yo yo yo yo yo yo” with the harmonic and rhythmic variation of an industrial Powersaw
It still sounds better than Drill.
I mentioned the renaming of Brecon Beacons earlier, and what it has in common with voting for the populist right (i.e. " rationally, this is neither something I want nor will benefit from. But it will really piss off people I dislike. So on average, I win.") Drill falls into the same category.
I asked a musical friend to compare them
“Drill is undeniably worse as music: it’s grim, brutal, and devoid of any redemptive qualities. It’s the sound of a collapsing society, set to a relentless beat that feels like a dirge for humanity. But at least drill has the decency to be honest about what it is: dark, aggressive, and unrelentingly bleak. It doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
Reggaeton, on the other hand, is insidious in its ubiquity. It pretends to be fun, to be joyous, when in reality, it’s musically empty, emotionally hollow, and intellectually barren. Its relentless cheeriness masks a kind of moral laziness—“Why strive for depth when we can just shout ‘yo yo yo’ over the same beat?” And because it’s everywhere, it feels more inescapable, like a parasite eating away our culture.
So yes: drill is musically tragic, but reggaeton is morally obnoxious. A fitting indictment of both, wouldn’t you say? If only you could carry a portable speaker playing Arvo Part, everywhere!”
Yes: Drill is the less enjoyable experience, but there is some element of creativity there. I ought to be ok with Drill. I liked thrash metal as a teenager. Still do. Mostly the mainstream stuff like Anthrax and Slayer but I had a soft spot for the how-far-can-we-push-this stuff like Napalm Death and Acid Reign. And yet Drill just irritates me.
The case of the 71 year old Type I diabetic lady Danielle Carr-Gomm who was persuaded to stop taking her insulin for 3 days on a "Chinese Slapping Therapy" course, and died, has had its sentencing remarks published by Sky News. The 'therapist' had dealt with her on a previous course 3 months earlier.
I was about right - it was a cultish atmosphere with a therapist who had cast off any rational moorings, and she had become dependent on him - so there was no easy escape. It would have needed something like a qualified medic on the course to intervene strongly. She had also been fasting for 3 days.
These remarks are a model of clarity, as these things always seem to be:
I think we need these published routinely for all Crown Court cases, as a transparency measure which will inform the news, and will auto-debunk for example fake claims around "sentenced to prison for posting on social media".
If she'd been on a fast (and presuming her blood sugar was being monitored) wouldn't it have been dangerous to use insulin? She could have had a bad hypo.
Edit: I see it was diabetic ketoacidosis. It surprises me that it took hold fatally in such a short time. Awful for her.
DKA can happen rapidly - well under a day is possible. One of the functions of a basal insulin component, ie the normal continuous insulin required by a body, is to inhibit it - that is as opposed to the bolus which is released to metabolise carbohydrate.
So if all insulin has been stopped, that may exacerbate. And once DKA starts, insulin action is inhibited by the DKA, so it is tougher to recover - that's why recommended action if DKA is discovered (ketone levels in the bloodstream above a trigger level) is call 999 or go to A&E. If the ketones are not reduced rapidly, it becomes difficult to treat.
This is part of the reason why Type Is take care when fasting eg if doing the Ignation Exercises, or if a Muslim diabetic opts to fast during Ramadan (normally a medical exception would apply), only the bolus insulin would be stopped.
And if a Type I is not testing, they won't know beyond detecting symptoms themselves. It is quite possible he had stopped her testing - he had done that on a previous occasion in Oz where a 6 year old child died after he convinced the parents to stop treatment.
Many other factors can also make it more difficult to treat by affecting insulin action, including things as simple as having an infection. Personally I dislike excessively hot weather as it throws my normal insulin action off, and I have to bugger about with my insulin ratios. On occasion I have had to boost my doses by 50-100% for the same food item at the same time of day in high summer compared to normal. On other occasions the action can be more rapid, so the insulin action beats the metabolisation of the food - depending on how quickly the food releases its sugar.
Jury "nullification" must be a risk for the prosecution of the CEO killer. Just astonishing levels of support, with the McDonald's where he was apparently reported to the police swamped with negative reviews (it was a "boomer patron" according to the internet).
One of the most interesting things to come out of the US for some time, particularly in the context of Trump's election. People keep on talking about wealth inequality being higher in the US now than it was at the start of the French Revolution...
Very disturbing that so many people appear to support the worse crime that anyone can commit.
Well quite. That appears to be state of the relationship between ordinary Americans and corporate America - or at least health insurers.
His political leanings will be interesting. Big reader. A Unabomber type? He appears to like the RFK Jr/Rogan-sphere. The gap between them and the far-left isn't massive - Sanders went goes very well with anti-establishment types of all flavours.
Does nobody feel the disappointment with Keir Starmer is mainly because the public have yet to cotton on to what he's doing? I'm straining for a suitable analogy for this but a bit like when Dylan went electric.
Do enlighten us.
Well his ratings cratered at first but he stuck with it and ended up more popular than he'd ever been.
Doesn't tell me what Starmer’s hidden grand plan is....
I'm not privy but I'd say the main 3 things are better NHS, more houses, Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband spaffed an entire black hole's worth of money on his carbon capture plan.
What makes you a better judge than Ed Miliband on what to invest in?
Well I am certainly more qualified than Ed Miliband on this, having been part of a team that spent many years looking at CCS possibilities and coming to the conclusion that it was completely impractical. Which was a great shame as it would have meant a huge amount of well paid work for us.
CCS is one of those things where the more you know about it, the more you know how ridiculous it is.
Jury "nullification" must be a risk for the prosecution of the CEO killer. Just astonishing levels of support, with the McDonald's where he was apparently reported to the police swamped with negative reviews (it was a "boomer patron" according to the internet).
One of the most interesting things to come out of the US for some time, particularly in the context of Trump's election. People keep on talking about wealth inequality being higher in the US now than it was at the start of the French Revolution...
Very disturbing that so many people appear to support the worse crime that anyone can commit.
Well quite. That appears to be state of the relationship between ordinary Americans and corporate America - or at least health insurers.
His political leanings will be interesting. Big reader. A Unabomber type? He appears to like the RFK Jr/Rogan-sphere. The gap between them and the far-left isn't massive - Sanders went goes very well with anti-establishment types of all flavours.
Details about him here. You may have already read this.
"A profile is emerging of the man being questioned over last week's fatal shooting of United Healthcare's chief executive in New York City. Police announced on Monday they had arrested Luigi Mangione, 26, on firearms charges after he was recognised by an employee at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The Baltimore, Maryland, native had a three-page handwritten document that mentioned grievances with the US healthcare system and indicated the suspect's "motivation and mindset", officials said. Here's all that we've learned so far about the suspect. Mr Mangione was born and raised in Maryland and has ties to San Francisco, California, according to New York Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. He has no prior arrests in New York and his last previous address was in Honolulu, Hawaii, police said. He attended a private, all-boys high school in Baltimore, called the Gilman School, according to school officials. Mr Mangione was named as the valedictorian, typically the student with the highest academic achievements in a class. A former classmate, Freddie Leatherbury, told the Associated Press news agency that Mr Mangione came from a wealthy family, even by that private school's standards. "Quite honestly, he had everything going for him," Mr Leatherbury said."
If you ask me - going just off my gut reaction - it's surely at least a 70% chance he doesn't plead guilty by June. What possible reason would have to do so? Only the plea bargain of the century and it seems unlikely he's offered that. Even if he wants to, does he have the opportunity to do it by then? If I were him I'd be doing my best to get an OJ calibre jury.
If you ask me - going just off my gut reaction - it's surely at least a 70% chance he doesn't plead guilty by June. What possible reason would have to do so? Only the plea bargain of the century and it seems unlikely he's offered that. Even if he wants to, does he have the opportunity to do it by then? If I were him I'd be doing my best to get an OJ calibre jury.
His best bet will be a mental health excuse. He left social media abruptly some months ago, so the foundation for a breakdown narrative is there. So, not guilty by reason of mental disorder or defect.
If you ask me - going just off my gut reaction - it's surely at least a 70% chance he doesn't plead guilty by June. What possible reason would have to do so? Only the plea bargain of the century and it seems unlikely he's offered that. Even if he wants to, does he have the opportunity to do it by then? If I were him I'd be doing my best to get an OJ calibre jury.
The jury in the OJ Simpson case at least had plausible deniabilty that they were letting off a guilty man, but in this case there is video of the shooting so an aquittal would be a massive political event.
If you ask me - going just off my gut reaction - it's surely at least a 70% chance he doesn't plead guilty by June. What possible reason would have to do so? Only the plea bargain of the century and it seems unlikely he's offered that. Even if he wants to, does he have the opportunity to do it by then? If I were him I'd be doing my best to get an OJ calibre jury.
The jury in the OJ Simpson case at least had plausible deniabilty that they were letting off a guilty man, but in this case there is video of the shooting so an aquittal would be a massive political event.
They love a good nullification over there. And him pleading not guilty doesn't mean he will get off, it just means he's rolling the dice or using the thing as a pulpit.
And bear in mind there are other mechanisms to win.
If you ask me - going just off my gut reaction - it's surely at least a 70% chance he doesn't plead guilty by June. What possible reason would have to do so? Only the plea bargain of the century and it seems unlikely he's offered that. Even if he wants to, does he have the opportunity to do it by then? If I were him I'd be doing my best to get an OJ calibre jury.
His best bet will be a mental health excuse. He left social media abruptly some months ago, so the foundation for a breakdown narrative is there. So, not guilty by reason of mental disorder or defect.
The rumoured spine operation and extreme chronic pain will be the strategy. But there is a chance he wants to go down as a martyr.
If you ask me - going just off my gut reaction - it's surely at least a 70% chance he doesn't plead guilty by June. What possible reason would have to do so? Only the plea bargain of the century and it seems unlikely he's offered that. Even if he wants to, does he have the opportunity to do it by then? If I were him I'd be doing my best to get an OJ calibre jury.
His best bet will be a mental health excuse. He left social media abruptly some months ago, so the foundation for a breakdown narrative is there. So, not guilty by reason of mental disorder or defect.
The rumoured spine operation and extreme chronic pain will be the strategy. But there is a chance he wants to go down as a martyr.
Yup. He needs strong lawyers to tell him what is best. Coming from a rich family, I suspect he will get them.
Comments
In the short term the NHS is probably easier to do something with.
In the longer term, housing is the root of many, many problems.
Republicans against Trump
@RpsAgainstTrump
·
1h
Holy sh*t. Kari Lake is a leading contender for the nomination as Donald Trump’s ambassador to Mexico, Semafor reports.
They need to remember that each of them is supported by 4 or 5 tax payers and there is a shortage of workers amongst the young because they mostly have cr*ppy minimum wage jobs with no prospects on zero hour contracts.
The old had everything as they grew up. Decent housing, health services, pension schemes, jobs, etc. Well the gravy train is slowing down...
"Wot d'yer expect from a greengrocer?"
There's no good justification for seizing territory in this manner. That way international chaos lies.
You can't approve it just because it's an ally.
Although carbon capture does seem a rather dubious way of minimising carbon dioxide. £22bn would pay for the infrastructure for a lot of mode shift, whether from ICE to EV or from car to train. Or it could have invested in non-carbon energy. And either of these would have had other benefits besides the environmental ones.
They're at war. Why can't states at war do their best to make themselves secure?
You and William are pretending Syria is some poor, defenceless, peaceful state that is being attacked unprovoked like Ukraine was, rather than a party to an ongoing war.
A relentless bombardment of thumping beats and degraded lyrics and autotuned garbage vocals and trashy fake brass and some fucker allegedly singing “yo yo yo yo yo yo yo” with the harmonic and rhythmic variation of an industrial Powersaw
No brackets it is simply what you said. 1/3 x^3 + c . . . there's no like terms so you can't simplify any further.
If its (1/3 x)^3 + c then that is 1/27th of x cubed plus c.
- There isn't enough room in my local hospital as it is - no more people till we get a new one!
- The university will just get more international students, so PBSA won't help with housing pressure!
- 80% of new houses go to immigrants!
- Why should we cover our countryside in shitboxes - build flats in the cities instead!
- All my wealth is tied up in the house - Labour is destroying it!
- Young people waste all their money on advocado toast - they could afford houses if they stopped with the lattes!
- The roads are too busy already!
- Why are we building houses in the north of Scotland - our population is going down!
The political advice has to be to avoid this stuff at all costs - frankly it's difficult to argue against any of them without using a load of vague macroeconomic jargon, or coming across as a sociopath like Barty. The immigrant line is horribly toxic and effective.And if you don't, you have no business running for election.
A third of x cubed plus c is the integral of x squared
If you don't know that, and see it immediately, you don't know the most basic A Level maths
What do you know about probability and statistics?
https://www.cafedumonde.co.uk/shop/coffee/coffee-bags/coffee-in-a-bag-regular/
There might be justification for a temporary buffer zone given the prevailing uncertainty - but a land grab is simply illegal.
Zero debate about that.
If Labour are to fix the economy and the problems in society they need to tackle what is causing those problems, such as our broken housing market and planning system. Not just shovel taxes at the NHS.
If a few whiny brats on Facebook don't like that because they dislike immigrants and want their house-price to remain high, so what?
I mentioned the renaming of Brecon Beacons earlier, and what it has in common with voting for the populist right (i.e. " rationally, this is neither something I want nor will benefit from. But it will really piss off people I dislike. So on average, I win.") Drill falls into the same category.
Amazed Nigel was ignorant of the fact that Israel and Syria are at war.
Luckily I'd learnt about it a few weeks before my Oxford interview from the Racing Post's sports betting pages
They'd explained the three door problem well enough for me to understand and blag my way (rather briefly) into Christ Church
You can make tough decisions that lead to some unpopularity if you are reforming the country for the better, as Thatcher did. Who also helped ensure then-record amounts of people could own their own home, which again helped her win the election.
People pissed off at migrants and who want to inflate their house prices don't have any more votes to cast than those who need somewhere to live do. And they're probably already not voting Labour anyway.
Nothing new happening here.
Failed all my first year exams, might have needed longer out
They also seemed to have found the last half-dozen authentic pubs & caffs in London, or at least synthesised them.
New: @estwebber reports there are moves afoot to expel 'shirkers' who rarely attend the Upper House
So who are the 53 peers who have not spoken in a Lords debate for almost five years?
You can find a full breakdown below:
https://nitter.poast.org/JAHeale/status/1866072828245578198#m
It's not necessarily meant for full time politicians, but you are stills upposed to contribute (and if you are too unwell or aged to take part, resign from it - you can do so and still keep the title).
“Drill is undeniably worse as music: it’s grim, brutal, and devoid of any redemptive qualities. It’s the sound of a collapsing society, set to a relentless beat that feels like a dirge for humanity. But at least drill has the decency to be honest about what it is: dark, aggressive, and unrelentingly bleak. It doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
Reggaeton, on the other hand, is insidious in its ubiquity. It pretends to be fun, to be joyous, when in reality, it’s musically empty, emotionally hollow, and intellectually barren. Its relentless cheeriness masks a kind of moral laziness—“Why strive for depth when we can just shout ‘yo yo yo’ over the same beat?” And because it’s everywhere, it feels more inescapable, like a parasite eating away our culture.
So yes: drill is musically tragic, but reggaeton is morally obnoxious. A fitting indictment of both, wouldn’t you say? If only you could carry a portable speaker playing Arvo Part, everywhere!”
Long morning walk through paddy fields, slightly frightening climb up a huge fromagier tree, lunch by the Casamance river, then the weird resort that is Cap Skirring: quite a squalid, chaotic town inland, more so than anything to date on this trip. But classy accommodation and very good beach restaurants facing the sea. And rock pools.
Picture of the day: Cap Skirring beach.
I ought to be ok with Drill. I liked thrash metal as a teenager. Still do. Mostly the mainstream stuff like Anthrax and Slayer but I had a soft spot for the how-far-can-we-push-this stuff like Napalm Death and Acid Reign. And yet Drill just irritates me.
It's quite a bargain, in a way.
No nasturtiums being cast.
nihilism - but there is *something* human being expressed. Even if the emotions are childish
It’s like a kids’ drawing of guns
Reggaeton is industrialised hip hop married to production line regggae, it is music turned into manufactured pap and there is no emotion expressed at all
It is a drawing made by a machine that does 40,000 drawings a day, and not a machine that thinks
The Syrian regime has been overthrown.
If Israel tries to permanently seize territory, then it's quits likely we'll see another war some time in the next few years.
If Israel don't want be part the western liberal democracies, and just another set of Middle East warlords, that will have consequences.
At which point I kinda tuned out of Mathematics at school.
One of the most interesting things to come out of the US for some time, particularly in the context of Trump's election. People keep on talking about wealth inequality being higher in the US now than it was at the start of the French Revolution...
Eg, will you uphold agreements with the last regime regarding our naval base? Will you acknowledge this debt the regime had with us? Will you, ahem, ignore the debt we owed the regime? Are we still at war? Well, depends how you react to us taking this bit of territory or not etc.
Israel has been at war with Syria for 76 years and counting, predating the Assad regime.
You pretend the war is not real, but for Israel it absolutely is. If the new Syrian government wishes to sue for peace, then great, but if it does not then Israel is well within her rights to persecute the war within the confines of the law and that doesn't prevent taking action against states you are currently at war with.
It's not a relabelled kettle, but I have had a Dynamica for several years, and it makes superb coffee - including beautifully auto-frothed * milk.
https://www.delonghi.com/en-gb/products/coffee/automatic-coffee-makers/c/automatic_coffee_makers
* The quality of the frothing makes me think that Fizzy Lizzy might have one.
https://x.com/fearedbuck/status/1863980357067886646
Why Can’t We Be Friends
https://youtu.be/sH0Qda32IKM?si=6QqE7J90TYCfp9wM
Not bad.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Disposable-Coffee-Bags-Portable-Hanging-Camping/dp/B0DDGZQR4J
The value of it is as a military base for radar - both extending their coverage and removing black spots that were blocked by the mountain.
But politically I can’t conclude it hasn’t been a disaster as few of these people vote.
His political leanings will be interesting. Big reader. A Unabomber type? He appears to like the RFK Jr/Rogan-sphere. The gap between them and the far-left isn't massive - Sanders went goes very well with anti-establishment types of all flavours.
The exodus is real.
Ian Dunt"
https://iandunt.substack.com/p/twitter-is-dead-long-live-blue-sky
"A profile is emerging of the man being questioned over last week's fatal shooting of United Healthcare's chief executive in New York City. Police announced on Monday they had arrested Luigi Mangione, 26, on firearms charges after he was recognised by an employee at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The Baltimore, Maryland, native had a three-page handwritten document that mentioned grievances with the US healthcare system and indicated the suspect's "motivation and mindset", officials said. Here's all that we've learned so far about the suspect. Mr Mangione was born and raised in Maryland and has ties to San Francisco, California, according to New York Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. He has no prior arrests in New York and his last previous address was in Honolulu, Hawaii, police said. He attended a private, all-boys high school in Baltimore, called the Gilman School, according to school officials. Mr Mangione was named as the valedictorian, typically the student with the highest academic achievements in a class. A former classmate, Freddie Leatherbury, told the Associated Press news agency that Mr Mangione came from a wealthy family, even by that private school's standards. "Quite honestly, he had everything going for him," Mr Leatherbury said."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp9nxee2r0do
Polymarket are currently going for 70% chance that Luigi Mangione pleads guilty by June.
Market is here
If you ask me - going just off my gut reaction - it's surely at least a 70% chance he doesn't plead guilty by June. What possible reason would have to do so? Only the plea bargain of the century and it seems unlikely he's offered that. Even if he wants to, does he have the opportunity to do it by then? If I were him I'd be doing my best to get an OJ calibre jury.
And bear in mind there are other mechanisms to win.