I can confirm, as a Chartered Accountant, that two plus two does not necessarily equal four.
It equals whatever you want it to equal.
ICAEW, CIMA, or ACCA?
I didn’t realise accountants could get snobby and elitist.
I'm ICAEW.... and an FCA.
But I'm not a snob. My dad made cornflakes for his living (What is now Cereal Partners in Bromborough), and my mum worked at Thomas Higgins (the debt collectors in Wallasey).... as the cleaner.
I never bothered applying to Oxford or Cambridge as the applications from our state secondary got chucked in the bin unread.
Didn't matter. I went to a much better University anyway. Aberystwyth.
Did you run into OGH's daughter when you were there?
Recent Tory Home Secretary tells American audience that Britain may become first Islamist state with nuclear weapons. These people were in charge a year ago.
Braverman said: “Vice-president JD Vance said at the National Conservatism conference, at which I also spoke in the summer, that the UK was going to be the first Islamist nation with nuclear weapons. I don’t think he was joking.
“Is it an impossibility that 20 years from now it will be the UK, not China or Russia, that will emerge as the greatest strategic threat to the USA?
Regardless of whether one thinks that is a realistic outcome, which I do not, should we not have the courage to ask these questions?”
What a shithead.
Also, have none of these morons heard of Pakistan?
There are on average more than 6,000 PhDs in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) coming out of Chinese universities every month. In the US it is more like 2,000-3,000, in the UK it is 1,500.
We have a population roughly 5% that of China so turning out 20%-25% of the STEM PhDs China does every month isn’t bad is it? I mean not all of them are awarded to U.K. students but nevertheless…
But this government seems to be doing nothing while our HEIs golden goose is burning to the ground.
There's a difference between a visa factory joke institution doing 9 month "masters" degrees for African and Indian "students" and a proper university. If all of the former closed for good we'd lose nothing as a country. It's like our poultry industry, owned by foreign investors, staffed by foreign labour with little to no interaction with the real economy other than putting chicken shit into the rivers. All those unis do is inflate the immigration numbers for zero real economic gain.
The government needs to rewire higher education so that only the top 30% go to university and to allow top universities to charge more for foreign students but give them a 5 year visa post graduation for undergrads and a 3 year visa for postgrads who meet a minimum grading standard at those universities. Allowing the likes of Manchester Met and UWICC to write as many foreign student visas as they want for 1 year £10k masters "students" who get to bring their whole family with them including kids that the taxpayer needs to educate has been a disaster economically and socially for the country. We need a change and hopefully this is the start.
The Guardian is printing letters backing Cold Fusion??
Why not phlogiston?
If you think about it, none of the heat from sun reaches us directly, so we might characterise that as cold fusion.
And therefore pretty much all the power and energy on earth is the consequence of this cold fusion.
"None of the heat of the sun reaches us directly"????
Recall radiation, convection, conduction. Vacuum prevents heat transfer by convection or conduction, but radiant heat easily reaches us and day is warmer than night.
Recent Tory Home Secretary tells American audience that Britain may become first Islamist state with nuclear weapons. These people were in charge a year ago.
Braverman said: “Vice-president JD Vance said at the National Conservatism conference, at which I also spoke in the summer, that the UK was going to be the first Islamist nation with nuclear weapons. I don’t think he was joking.
“Is it an impossibility that 20 years from now it will be the UK, not China or Russia, that will emerge as the greatest strategic threat to the USA?
Regardless of whether one thinks that is a realistic outcome, which I do not, should we not have the courage to ask these questions?”
What a shithead.
Also, have none of these morons heard of Pakistan?
So she thinks it's not a realistic outcome then. That's funny because above, it seemed like she said it may happen.
Recent Tory Home Secretary tells American audience that Britain may become first Islamist state with nuclear weapons. These people were in charge a year ago.
Braverman said: “Vice-president JD Vance said at the National Conservatism conference, at which I also spoke in the summer, that the UK was going to be the first Islamist nation with nuclear weapons. I don’t think he was joking.
“Is it an impossibility that 20 years from now it will be the UK, not China or Russia, that will emerge as the greatest strategic threat to the USA?
Regardless of whether one thinks that is a realistic outcome, which I do not, should we not have the courage to ask these questions?”
What a shithead.
Also, have none of these morons heard of Pakistan?
That's completely batshit in so many different ways that it's hard to compute.
Hard to believe that she was a member of the cabinet so recently.
No matter how crap the Starmer government is, it could be so much worse.
The Guardian is printing letters backing Cold Fusion??
Why not phlogiston?
To be fair to the Graun letters editor, when you have a Nobel prize winning physicist writing in about something to do with physics you have no understanding of...
I can confirm, as a Chartered Accountant, that two plus two does not necessarily equal four.
It equals whatever you want it to equal.
ICAEW, CIMA, or ACCA?
I didn’t realise accountants could get snobby and elitist.
I'm ICAEW.... and an FCA.
But I'm not a snob. My dad made cornflakes for his living (What is now Cereal Partners in Bromborough), and my mum worked at Thomas Higgins (the debt collectors in Wallasey).... as the cleaner.
I never bothered applying to Oxford or Cambridge as the applications from our state secondary got chucked in the bin unread.
Didn't matter. I went to a much better University anyway. Aberystwyth.
Did you run into OGH's daughter when you were there?
"BREAKING: France has discussed with Denmark sending troops to Greenland in response to United States President Donald Trump's repeated threats to annex the Danish territory, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said."
It's a mad world, my masters.
Is it bad that I want a war between France and America?
Would be the first time ever, France and America have never been at war before.
The Quasi-War[a] was an undeclared war from 1798 to 1800 between the United States and the French First Republic. It was fought almost entirely at sea, primarily in the Caribbean and off the East Coast of the United States, with minor actions in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.
Operation Torch (8–16 November 1942) was an Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War
'was an undeclared war'
From the perspective of the U.S. Navy, the Quasi-War consisted of a series of ship-to-ship actions in U.S. coastal waters and the Caribbean; one of the first was the Capture of La Croyable on 7 July 1798 by Delaware outside Egg Harbor, New Jersey.[23] On 20 November, a pair of French frigates, Insurgente and Volontaire, captured the schooner USS Retaliation, commanded by Lieutenant William Bainbridge; Retaliation was recaptured on 28 June 1799.[24]
On 9 February 1799, the frigate Constellation captured the French Navy's frigate L'Insurgente. By 1 July, under the command of Decatur, USS United States had been refitted and repaired and embarked on her mission to patrol the South Atlantic coast and West Indies in search of French ships which were preying on American merchant vessels.[25]
On 1 January 1800, a convoy of American merchant ships escorted by USS Experiment fought off an attack by French-allied Haitian privateers near Hispaniola. On 1 February, Constellation severely damaged the French frigate La Vengeance off the coast of Saint Kitts. Silas Talbot led a naval expedition during the Battle of Puerto Plata Harbor in early May, capturing a Spanish army controlled coastal fort and a French corvette.[26] When French troops occupied Curaçao in July, USS Patapsco and USS Merrimack bombarded French positions on the island and landed marines to support the local Dutch troops before the French withdrew. On 12 October, the frigate Boston captured the corvette Le Berceau.[27]
On 25 October, USS Enterprise defeated the French brig Flambeau near Dominica. Enterprise also captured eight privateers and freed eleven U.S. merchant ships from captivity, while Experiment captured the French privateers Deux Amis and Diane and liberated numerous American merchant ships. Although U.S. military losses were light, the French had seized over 2,000 American merchant ships by the time the war ended.[28]
I've been on the USS Enterprise. It was a nuclear powered aircraft carrier until it was decommissioned in 2012. Hard to feel sorry for the French but that hardly seems a fair fight.
No other ship of that era could keep up with its warp speed, for sure.
I've been pondering recently. I wonder if Mr Farage knew that Brexit would be something of a let down, but that was all part of his devious plan. The feeling amongst the masses of betrayal and fury has surged since the referendum, providing the perfect hothouse for Nigel's politics to thrive. So was the actual intention of Brexit from the outset to disappoint? Did Nigel play us all like a fiddle with his eye on the long game?
Win/Win for him. If Remain had won disappointed Leavers would have flocked to him after Cameron a la the SNP boost after 2014. As Leave won he can, as you say, reap the rewards of a different disenchantment.
It was the Tories who were the foolish idiots, imagining that a referendum, whatever its outcome, would put their internal divisions to bed and kill off their UKIP problem.
I've been pondering recently. I wonder if Mr Farage knew that Brexit would be something of a let down, but that was all part of his devious plan. The feeling amongst the masses of betrayal and fury has surged since the referendum, providing the perfect hothouse for Nigel's politics to thrive. So was the actual intention of Brexit from the outset to disappoint? Did Nigel play us all like a fiddle with his eye on the long game?
Win/Win for him. If Remain had won disappointed Leavers would have flocked to him after Cameron a la the SNP boost after 2014. As Leave won he can, as you say, reap the rewards of a different disenchantment.
It was the Tories who were the foolish idiots, imagining that a referendum, whatever its outcome, would put their internal divisions to bed and kill off their UKIP problem.
When the Tory party dies (and it's looking pretty terminal, with no assisted dying needed) it will have Brexit on its tombstone.
A little upset to hear from my friends on Teesside. Matt Vickers and Stockton Tories doing paid adverts on Facebook groups naming councillors who “voted against a national enquiry into grooming gangs”. A staged council vote to ambush them, where at best it’s symbolic as - shockingly enough - borough councillors can’t instigate or block national enquiries.
Councillors now with angry residents banging on their doors. Being called paedos on the Tory Facebook page comments.
The stupid thing is this. Tories trying to weaponise the Labour coverup. And thus highlighting the Tory coverup. Angry people who have had this weaponised to make them angry won’t vote Tory.
They’ll vote reform
Just how stupid and dangerous are these Tories?
When Nick Griffin stood for a Euro seat, the other parties tacitly cooperated to try to keep him out. These days they'd tweet in favour of him and give him big sloppy kisses to get likes. We are not that which we were.
I've been pondering recently. I wonder if Mr Farage knew that Brexit would be something of a let down, but that was all part of his devious plan. The feeling amongst the masses of betrayal and fury has surged since the referendum, providing the perfect hothouse for Nigel's politics to thrive. So was the actual intention of Brexit from the outset to disappoint? Did Nigel play us all like a fiddle with his eye on the long game?
Win/Win for him. If Remain had won disappointed Leavers would have flocked to him after Cameron a la the SNP boost after 2014. As Leave won he can, as you say, reap the rewards of a different disenchantment.
It was the Tories who were the foolish idiots, imagining that a referendum, whatever its outcome, would put their internal divisions to bed and kill off their UKIP problem.
When the Tory party dies (and it's looking pretty terminal, with no assisted dying needed) it will have Brexit on its tombstone.
“Europe” more generally. Brexit was the attempted but botched cure.
I've been pondering recently. I wonder if Mr Farage knew that Brexit would be something of a let down, but that was all part of his devious plan. The feeling amongst the masses of betrayal and fury has surged since the referendum, providing the perfect hothouse for Nigel's politics to thrive. So was the actual intention of Brexit from the outset to disappoint? Did Nigel play us all like a fiddle with his eye on the long game?
Win/Win for him. If Remain had won disappointed Leavers would have flocked to him after Cameron a la the SNP boost after 2014. As Leave won he can, as you say, reap the rewards of a different disenchantment.
It was the Tories who were the foolish idiots, imagining that a referendum, whatever its outcome, would put their internal divisions to bed and kill off their UKIP problem.
When the Tory party dies (and it's looking pretty terminal, with no assisted dying needed) it will have Brexit on its tombstone.
Recent Tory Home Secretary tells American audience that Britain may become first Islamist state with nuclear weapons. These people were in charge a year ago.
Braverman said: “Vice-president JD Vance said at the National Conservatism conference, at which I also spoke in the summer, that the UK was going to be the first Islamist nation with nuclear weapons. I don’t think he was joking.
“Is it an impossibility that 20 years from now it will be the UK, not China or Russia, that will emerge as the greatest strategic threat to the USA?
Regardless of whether one thinks that is a realistic outcome, which I do not, should we not have the courage to ask these questions?”
What a shithead.
Also, have none of these morons heard of Pakistan?
This is the sort of thing that is encouraging the Maga morons to think that we are crying out for "emancipation" , and joining them.
Quite a few do sincerely believe, particularly following Musk, that.we can no longer govern the country, at all.
"BREAKING: France has discussed with Denmark sending troops to Greenland in response to United States President Donald Trump's repeated threats to annex the Danish territory, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said."
It's a mad world, my masters.
Is it bad that I want a war between France and America?
Would be the first time ever, France and America have never been at war before.
The Quasi-War[a] was an undeclared war from 1798 to 1800 between the United States and the French First Republic. It was fought almost entirely at sea, primarily in the Caribbean and off the East Coast of the United States, with minor actions in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.
Operation Torch (8–16 November 1942) was an Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War
'was an undeclared war'
From the perspective of the U.S. Navy, the Quasi-War consisted of a series of ship-to-ship actions in U.S. coastal waters and the Caribbean; one of the first was the Capture of La Croyable on 7 July 1798 by Delaware outside Egg Harbor, New Jersey.[23] On 20 November, a pair of French frigates, Insurgente and Volontaire, captured the schooner USS Retaliation, commanded by Lieutenant William Bainbridge; Retaliation was recaptured on 28 June 1799.[24]
On 9 February 1799, the frigate Constellation captured the French Navy's frigate L'Insurgente. By 1 July, under the command of Decatur, USS United States had been refitted and repaired and embarked on her mission to patrol the South Atlantic coast and West Indies in search of French ships which were preying on American merchant vessels.[25]
On 1 January 1800, a convoy of American merchant ships escorted by USS Experiment fought off an attack by French-allied Haitian privateers near Hispaniola. On 1 February, Constellation severely damaged the French frigate La Vengeance off the coast of Saint Kitts. Silas Talbot led a naval expedition during the Battle of Puerto Plata Harbor in early May, capturing a Spanish army controlled coastal fort and a French corvette.[26] When French troops occupied Curaçao in July, USS Patapsco and USS Merrimack bombarded French positions on the island and landed marines to support the local Dutch troops before the French withdrew. On 12 October, the frigate Boston captured the corvette Le Berceau.[27]
On 25 October, USS Enterprise defeated the French brig Flambeau near Dominica. Enterprise also captured eight privateers and freed eleven U.S. merchant ships from captivity, while Experiment captured the French privateers Deux Amis and Diane and liberated numerous American merchant ships. Although U.S. military losses were light, the French had seized over 2,000 American merchant ships by the time the war ended.[28]
I've been on the USS Enterprise. It was a nuclear powered aircraft carrier until it was decommissioned in 2012. Hard to feel sorry for the French but that hardly seems a fair fight.
No other ship of that era could keep up with its warp speed, for sure.
I've been pondering recently. I wonder if Mr Farage knew that Brexit would be something of a let down, but that was all part of his devious plan. The feeling amongst the masses of betrayal and fury has surged since the referendum, providing the perfect hothouse for Nigel's politics to thrive. So was the actual intention of Brexit from the outset to disappoint? Did Nigel play us all like a fiddle with his eye on the long game?
Win/Win for him. If Remain had won disappointed Leavers would have flocked to him after Cameron a la the SNP boost after 2014. As Leave won he can, as you say, reap the rewards of a different disenchantment.
It was the Tories who were the foolish idiots, imagining that a referendum, whatever its outcome, would put their internal divisions to bed and kill off their UKIP problem.
When the Tory party dies (and it's looking pretty terminal, with no assisted dying needed) it will have Brexit on its tombstone.
“Europe” more generally. Brexit was the attempted but botched cure.
The Guardian is printing letters backing Cold Fusion??
Why not phlogiston?
If you think about it, none of the heat from sun reaches us directly, so we might characterise that as cold fusion.
And therefore pretty much all the power and energy on earth is the consequence of this cold fusion.
"None of the heat of the sun reaches us directly"????
Recall radiation, convection, conduction. Vacuum prevents heat transfer by convection or conduction, but radiant heat easily reaches us and day is warmer than night.
I don't think the radiation from the fusion actually reaches us directly, rather the excess energy is eventually re-radiated by the outer layers of the sun.
In the third Harry Potter book, Hermione gets a time turner to enable her to do more subjects (and also so Harry can do the Petronas charm and fight off the Dementers.)
WHY DOES NO-ONE AT ANY POINT THINK: HMMMM.... THIS TIME TRAVEL LARK WOULD BE REALLY USEFUL IN THE FIGHT AGAINST VOLDEMORT???
It’s the standard fantasy fiction suspension of disbelief test. Even the good stuff (LOTR) had the ‘just send the fckng eagles to Mt Doom’ thing.
Always thought it would be virtually impossible for a fckng great big eagle to fly under the Sauron radar with a piece of jewellery that got heavier the closer it got to Mount Doom without being shot down or crashing. Just my ha’penny.
Weren’t the eagles capable of taking on a Nazgûl? In any case wasn’t Sauron’s radar only attuned to the putting on of the ring rather than it’s proximity to Barad-dûr?
Fair - but they were big ol’ birds, hard to miss with the naked eye, and there was significant peril from ground to air ordinance ie arrows. Huge risk to take. On balance I still think a ground insertion by irregular special forces was probably the sensible approach whatever the armchair elves say.
Also the eagles are sentient. Do you really want to tempt them with The Ring Of Power?
Recent Tory Home Secretary tells American audience that Britain may become first Islamist state with nuclear weapons. These people were in charge a year ago.
Braverman said: “Vice-president JD Vance said at the National Conservatism conference, at which I also spoke in the summer, that the UK was going to be the first Islamist nation with nuclear weapons. I don’t think he was joking.
“Is it an impossibility that 20 years from now it will be the UK, not China or Russia, that will emerge as the greatest strategic threat to the USA?
Regardless of whether one thinks that is a realistic outcome, which I do not, should we not have the courage to ask these questions?”
What a shithead.
Also, have none of these morons heard of Pakistan?
That's completely batshit in so many different ways that it's hard to compute.
Hard to believe that she was a member of the cabinet so recently.
No matter how crap the Starmer government is, it could be so much worse.
It's just pathetic more than anything else, to suck up so blatantly.
I can confirm, as a Chartered Accountant, that two plus two does not necessarily equal four.
It equals whatever you want it to equal.
ICAEW, CIMA, or ACCA?
I didn’t realise accountants could get snobby and elitist.
I'm ICAEW.... and an FCA.
But I'm not a snob. My dad made cornflakes for his living (What is now Cereal Partners in Bromborough), and my mum worked at Thomas Higgins (the debt collectors in Wallasey).... as the cleaner.
I never bothered applying to Oxford or Cambridge as the applications from our state secondary got chucked in the bin unread.
Didn't matter. I went to a much better University anyway. Aberystwyth.
Did you run into OGH's daughter when you were there?
I don't believe so. I was there 1996 to 1999.
She (my sister!) was there I think from 1999 to 2002. So you guys just missed each other.
In the third Harry Potter book, Hermione gets a time turner to enable her to do more subjects (and also so Harry can do the Petronas charm and fight off the Dementers.)
WHY DOES NO-ONE AT ANY POINT THINK: HMMMM.... THIS TIME TRAVEL LARK WOULD BE REALLY USEFUL IN THE FIGHT AGAINST VOLDEMORT???
It’s the standard fantasy fiction suspension of disbelief test. Even the good stuff (LOTR) had the ‘just send the fckng eagles to Mt Doom’ thing.
Always thought it would be virtually impossible for a fckng great big eagle to fly under the Sauron radar with a piece of jewellery that got heavier the closer it got to Mount Doom without being shot down or crashing. Just my ha’penny.
Weren’t the eagles capable of taking on a Nazgûl? In any case wasn’t Sauron’s radar only attuned to the putting on of the ring rather than it’s proximity to Barad-dûr?
Fair - but they were big ol’ birds, hard to miss with the naked eye, and there was significant peril from ground to air ordinance ie arrows. Huge risk to take. On balance I still think a ground insertion by irregular special forces was probably the sensible approach whatever the armchair elves say.
Indeed. I don't really know why that has become the goto example for 'why not do x?' when there are actually pretty decent reasons why doing it would not have worked. There are definitely better questions to ask, even if they would have different answers as to why they did not (why not send it to Valinor, or in the sea)
Should we charge EU visitors more to visit UK museums?
It's been a couple of years since I visited India, but at various tourist attractions, they tend to charge one rate for Indians, and a much higher rate for "non-Indians". Up to 10 times.
I've been pondering recently. I wonder if Mr Farage knew that Brexit would be something of a let down, but that was all part of his devious plan. The feeling amongst the masses of betrayal and fury has surged since the referendum, providing the perfect hothouse for Nigel's politics to thrive. So was the actual intention of Brexit from the outset to disappoint? Did Nigel play us all like a fiddle with his eye on the long game?
Win/Win for him. If Remain had won disappointed Leavers would have flocked to him after Cameron a la the SNP boost after 2014. As Leave won he can, as you say, reap the rewards of a different disenchantment.
It was the Tories who were the foolish idiots, imagining that a referendum, whatever its outcome, would put their internal divisions to bed and kill off their UKIP problem.
When the Tory party dies (and it's looking pretty terminal, with no assisted dying needed) it will have Brexit on its tombstone.
“Europe” more generally. Brexit was the attempted but botched cure.
Nope.
Brexit was a self inflicted wound.
Europe was a minor irritation. Brexit was fatal.
Fatal? Bit of a stretch. We have free trade, albeit with some sticky bits. How is that fatal?
A little upset to hear from my friends on Teesside. Matt Vickers and Stockton Tories doing paid adverts on Facebook groups naming councillors who “voted against a national enquiry into grooming gangs”. A staged council vote to ambush them, where at best it’s symbolic as - shockingly enough - borough councillors can’t instigate or block national enquiries.
Councillors now with angry residents banging on their doors. Being called paedos on the Tory Facebook page comments.
The stupid thing is this. Tories trying to weaponise the Labour coverup. And thus highlighting the Tory coverup. Angry people who have had this weaponised to make them angry won’t vote Tory.
They’ll vote reform
Just how stupid and dangerous are these Tories?
There's a lot of very unserious people standing for office. The best councillors I've known are prefectly capable of being very political, but they knew when to give it a rest and were interested in the council level problems they had to focus on.
People who just want to posture and engage in tribalism rub the serious councillors the wrong way, even when (or especially) when they are technically on the same side.
Of course in america such people are now in Congress in large numbers, whereas here there are probably only a handful like that - though several ex-MPs are revealing themselves to have been of that tendency all along.
In the third Harry Potter book, Hermione gets a time turner to enable her to do more subjects (and also so Harry can do the Petronas charm and fight off the Dementers.)
WHY DOES NO-ONE AT ANY POINT THINK: HMMMM.... THIS TIME TRAVEL LARK WOULD BE REALLY USEFUL IN THE FIGHT AGAINST VOLDEMORT???
It’s the standard fantasy fiction suspension of disbelief test. Even the good stuff (LOTR) had the ‘just send the fckng eagles to Mt Doom’ thing.
Always thought it would be virtually impossible for a fckng great big eagle to fly under the Sauron radar with a piece of jewellery that got heavier the closer it got to Mount Doom without being shot down or crashing. Just my ha’penny.
Weren’t the eagles capable of taking on a Nazgûl? In any case wasn’t Sauron’s radar only attuned to the putting on of the ring rather than it’s proximity to Barad-dûr?
Fair - but they were big ol’ birds, hard to miss with the naked eye, and there was significant peril from ground to air ordinance ie arrows. Huge risk to take. On balance I still think a ground insertion by irregular special forces was probably the sensible approach whatever the armchair elves say.
Also the eagles are sentient. Do you really want to tempt them with The Ring Of Power?
Should we charge EU visitors more to visit UK museums?
It's been a couple of years since I visited India, but at various tourist attractions, they tend to charge one rate for Indians, and a much higher rate for "non-Indians". Up to 10 times.
Do non-citizens of Indian heritage pay half the rate of non-citizens of non-Indian heritage perhaps?
Should we charge EU visitors more to visit UK museums?
It's been a couple of years since I visited India, but at various tourist attractions, they tend to charge one rate for Indians, and a much higher rate for "non-Indians". Up to 10 times.
Do non-citizens of Indian heritage pay half the rate of non-citizens of non-Indian heritage perhaps?
Unearned confidence is the sort of thing that usually erases doubts in leaders. Look at Trump, the world's most self confident man, and his fans buy every boast. Even over here not doing the 'homework' is hardly a problem most of the time.
Recent Tory Home Secretary tells American audience that Britain may become first Islamist state with nuclear weapons. These people were in charge a year ago.
Braverman said: “Vice-president JD Vance said at the National Conservatism conference, at which I also spoke in the summer, that the UK was going to be the first Islamist nation with nuclear weapons. I don’t think he was joking.
“Is it an impossibility that 20 years from now it will be the UK, not China or Russia, that will emerge as the greatest strategic threat to the USA?
Regardless of whether one thinks that is a realistic outcome, which I do not, should we not have the courage to ask these questions?”
What a shithead.
Also, have none of these morons heard of Pakistan?
This is the sort of thing that is encouraging the Maga morons to think that we are crying out for "emancipation" , and joining them.
Quite a few do sincerely believe, particularly following Musk, that.we can no longer govern the country, at all.
Hyperbole aside, when a stranger who hasn't been acclimatised to the way 'things work' in Britain currently views the bald facts, that's exactly what it looks like.
Recent Tory Home Secretary tells American audience that Britain may become first Islamist state with nuclear weapons. These people were in charge a year ago.
Braverman said: “Vice-president JD Vance said at the National Conservatism conference, at which I also spoke in the summer, that the UK was going to be the first Islamist nation with nuclear weapons. I don’t think he was joking.
“Is it an impossibility that 20 years from now it will be the UK, not China or Russia, that will emerge as the greatest strategic threat to the USA?
Regardless of whether one thinks that is a realistic outcome, which I do not, should we not have the courage to ask these questions?”
What a shithead.
Also, have none of these morons heard of Pakistan?
This is the sort of thing that is encouraging the Maga morons to think that we are crying out for "emancipation" , and joining them.
Quite a few do sincerely believe, particularly following Musk, that.we can no longer govern the country, at all.
We have a lot of cultural cringe towards the USA, and it is getting worse.
I've been pondering recently. I wonder if Mr Farage knew that Brexit would be something of a let down, but that was all part of his devious plan. The feeling amongst the masses of betrayal and fury has surged since the referendum, providing the perfect hothouse for Nigel's politics to thrive. So was the actual intention of Brexit from the outset to disappoint? Did Nigel play us all like a fiddle with his eye on the long game?
Win/Win for him. If Remain had won disappointed Leavers would have flocked to him after Cameron a la the SNP boost after 2014. As Leave won he can, as you say, reap the rewards of a different disenchantment.
It was the Tories who were the foolish idiots, imagining that a referendum, whatever its outcome, would put their internal divisions to bed and kill off their UKIP problem.
When the Tory party dies (and it's looking pretty terminal, with no assisted dying needed) it will have Brexit on its tombstone.
“Europe” more generally. Brexit was the attempted but botched cure.
Nope.
Brexit was a self inflicted wound.
Europe was a minor irritation. Brexit was fatal.
Fatal? Bit of a stretch. We have free trade, albeit with some sticky bits. How is that fatal?
Recent Tory Home Secretary tells American audience that Britain may become first Islamist state with nuclear weapons. These people were in charge a year ago.
Braverman said: “Vice-president JD Vance said at the National Conservatism conference, at which I also spoke in the summer, that the UK was going to be the first Islamist nation with nuclear weapons. I don’t think he was joking.
“Is it an impossibility that 20 years from now it will be the UK, not China or Russia, that will emerge as the greatest strategic threat to the USA?
Regardless of whether one thinks that is a realistic outcome, which I do not, should we not have the courage to ask these questions?”
What a shithead.
Also, have none of these morons heard of Pakistan?
Only one country out of the UK and the US has any reasonable prospect of becoming a theocratic dictatorship armed with nuclear weapons. And it ain't us.
I've been pondering recently. I wonder if Mr Farage knew that Brexit would be something of a let down, but that was all part of his devious plan. The feeling amongst the masses of betrayal and fury has surged since the referendum, providing the perfect hothouse for Nigel's politics to thrive. So was the actual intention of Brexit from the outset to disappoint? Did Nigel play us all like a fiddle with his eye on the long game?
Win/Win for him. If Remain had won disappointed Leavers would have flocked to him after Cameron a la the SNP boost after 2014. As Leave won he can, as you say, reap the rewards of a different disenchantment.
It was the Tories who were the foolish idiots, imagining that a referendum, whatever its outcome, would put their internal divisions to bed and kill off their UKIP problem.
So better to continue without explicit democratic consent
I've been pondering recently. I wonder if Mr Farage knew that Brexit would be something of a let down, but that was all part of his devious plan. The feeling amongst the masses of betrayal and fury has surged since the referendum, providing the perfect hothouse for Nigel's politics to thrive. So was the actual intention of Brexit from the outset to disappoint? Did Nigel play us all like a fiddle with his eye on the long game?
Win/Win for him. If Remain had won disappointed Leavers would have flocked to him after Cameron a la the SNP boost after 2014. As Leave won he can, as you say, reap the rewards of a different disenchantment.
It was the Tories who were the foolish idiots, imagining that a referendum, whatever its outcome, would put their internal divisions to bed and kill off their UKIP problem.
When the Tory party dies (and it's looking pretty terminal, with no assisted dying needed) it will have Brexit on its tombstone.
“Europe” more generally. Brexit was the attempted but botched cure.
Nope.
Brexit was a self inflicted wound.
Europe was a minor irritation. Brexit was fatal.
Fatal? Bit of a stretch. We have free trade, albeit with some sticky bits. How is that fatal?
Read what was being replied to: fatal for the Conservative Party.
In the third Harry Potter book, Hermione gets a time turner to enable her to do more subjects (and also so Harry can do the Petronas charm and fight off the Dementers.)
WHY DOES NO-ONE AT ANY POINT THINK: HMMMM.... THIS TIME TRAVEL LARK WOULD BE REALLY USEFUL IN THE FIGHT AGAINST VOLDEMORT???
It’s the standard fantasy fiction suspension of disbelief test. Even the good stuff (LOTR) had the ‘just send the fckng eagles to Mt Doom’ thing.
Always thought it would be virtually impossible for a fckng great big eagle to fly under the Sauron radar with a piece of jewellery that got heavier the closer it got to Mount Doom without being shot down or crashing. Just my ha’penny.
Weren’t the eagles capable of taking on a Nazgûl? In any case wasn’t Sauron’s radar only attuned to the putting on of the ring rather than it’s proximity to Barad-dûr?
Fair - but they were big ol’ birds, hard to miss with the naked eye, and there was significant peril from ground to air ordinance ie arrows. Huge risk to take. On balance I still think a ground insertion by irregular special forces was probably the sensible approach whatever the armchair elves say.
Indeed. I don't really know why that has become the goto example for 'why not do x?' when there are actually pretty decent reasons why doing it would not have worked. There are definitely better questions to ask, even if they would have different answers as to why they did not (why not send it to Valinor, or in the sea)
In the sea it would have been discovered one day, as it was in the great river.
Should we charge EU visitors more to visit UK museums?
Yes, well just the French, if it's a free entrance museum normally.
Not quite sure how this would be managed. If I wear a beret, do I get in free to The Louvre? Or are they going to spend millions on a passport system to manage all entrances? Typically insular stuff from an embattled president, desperate to stop his embarrassing fall from grace and appear tough.
She has at least started to work out that banging on about immigration helps Reform not the Conservatives. She has been better in the last month than before then. She probably isn't the answer but neither are Jenrick, Cleverly, Patel or Bravermann.
I've been pondering recently. I wonder if Mr Farage knew that Brexit would be something of a let down, but that was all part of his devious plan. The feeling amongst the masses of betrayal and fury has surged since the referendum, providing the perfect hothouse for Nigel's politics to thrive. So was the actual intention of Brexit from the outset to disappoint? Did Nigel play us all like a fiddle with his eye on the long game?
Win/Win for him. If Remain had won disappointed Leavers would have flocked to him after Cameron a la the SNP boost after 2014. As Leave won he can, as you say, reap the rewards of a different disenchantment.
It was the Tories who were the foolish idiots, imagining that a referendum, whatever its outcome, would put their internal divisions to bed and kill off their UKIP problem.
When the Tory party dies (and it's looking pretty terminal, with no assisted dying needed) it will have Brexit on its tombstone.
“Europe” more generally. Brexit was the attempted but botched cure.
Nope.
Brexit was a self inflicted wound.
Europe was a minor irritation. Brexit was fatal.
Fatal? Bit of a stretch. We have free trade, albeit with some sticky bits. How is that fatal?
I've been pondering recently. I wonder if Mr Farage knew that Brexit would be something of a let down, but that was all part of his devious plan. The feeling amongst the masses of betrayal and fury has surged since the referendum, providing the perfect hothouse for Nigel's politics to thrive. So was the actual intention of Brexit from the outset to disappoint? Did Nigel play us all like a fiddle with his eye on the long game?
Win/Win for him. If Remain had won disappointed Leavers would have flocked to him after Cameron a la the SNP boost after 2014. As Leave won he can, as you say, reap the rewards of a different disenchantment.
It was the Tories who were the foolish idiots, imagining that a referendum, whatever its outcome, would put their internal divisions to bed and kill off their UKIP problem.
When the Tory party dies (and it's looking pretty terminal, with no assisted dying needed) it will have Brexit on its tombstone.
“Europe” more generally. Brexit was the attempted but botched cure.
Nope.
Brexit was a self inflicted wound.
Europe was a minor irritation. Brexit was fatal.
Fatal? Bit of a stretch. We have free trade, albeit with some sticky bits. How is that fatal?
Read what was being replied to: fatal for the Conservative Party.
Ah yes. I’d suggest though that it’s a bit early to write off the Tories just yet. I’m old enough to remember the reform party of the 1980’s who were going to change everything. What happened to them?
Recent Tory Home Secretary tells American audience that Britain may become first Islamist state with nuclear weapons. These people were in charge a year ago.
Braverman said: “Vice-president JD Vance said at the National Conservatism conference, at which I also spoke in the summer, that the UK was going to be the first Islamist nation with nuclear weapons. I don’t think he was joking.
“Is it an impossibility that 20 years from now it will be the UK, not China or Russia, that will emerge as the greatest strategic threat to the USA?
Regardless of whether one thinks that is a realistic outcome, which I do not, should we not have the courage to ask these questions?”
What a shithead.
Also, have none of these morons heard of Pakistan?
This is the sort of thing that is encouraging the Maga morons to think that we are crying out for "emancipation" , and joining them.
Quite a few do sincerely believe, particularly following Musk, that.we can no longer govern the country, at all.
Hyperbole aside, when a stranger who hasn't been acclimatised to the way 'things work' in Britain currently views the bald facts, that's exactly what it looks like.
Why? Granted I can't carry a gun and I am provided with communist health care, but what other bald facts do I appear to need rescuing from?
Bloody hell the cost of Hinckley Point C is now estimated to be between £41.5bn and £46.5bn, what a mess.
Can someone explain to me why we're ploughing ahead with Sizewell C?! Give RR the contract for 5 SMRs and get moving. Let's own the next generation of nuclear energy, not spend another £60bn and 15 years building a reactor that probably won't ever turn on.
She has at least started to work out that banging on about immigration helps Reform not the Conservatives. She has been better in the last month than before then. She probably isn't the answer but neither are Jenrick, Cleverly, Patel or Bravermann.
The conservative party will be the opposition in this parliament and Kemi has time
Those suggesting the conservative party is over are the usual suspects, many traumatised by Brexit which to be fair should have been won but those like myself who voted remain have accepted the result, and anyway UK in the EU is not a prospect for years to come, but closer cooperation is sensible
Bloody hell the cost of Hinckley Point C is now estimated to be between £41.5bn and £46.5bn, what a mess.
Can someone explain to me why we're ploughing ahead with Sizewell C?! Give RR the contract for 5 SMRs and get moving. Let's own the next generation of nuclear energy, not spend another £60bn and 15 years building a reactor that probably won't ever turn on.
We could give away four or five Chagos islands for that kind of money.
Recent Tory Home Secretary tells American audience that Britain may become first Islamist state with nuclear weapons. These people were in charge a year ago.
Braverman said: “Vice-president JD Vance said at the National Conservatism conference, at which I also spoke in the summer, that the UK was going to be the first Islamist nation with nuclear weapons. I don’t think he was joking.
“Is it an impossibility that 20 years from now it will be the UK, not China or Russia, that will emerge as the greatest strategic threat to the USA?
Regardless of whether one thinks that is a realistic outcome, which I do not, should we not have the courage to ask these questions?”
What a shithead.
Also, have none of these morons heard of Pakistan?
This is the sort of thing that is encouraging the Maga morons to think that we are crying out for "emancipation" , and joining them.
Quite a few do sincerely believe, particularly following Musk, that.we can no longer govern the country, at all.
Hyperbole aside, when a stranger who hasn't been acclimatised to the way 'things work' in Britain currently views the bald facts, that's exactly what it looks like.
Why? Granted I can't carry a gun and I am provided with communist health care, but what other bald facts do I appear to need rescuing from?
Remember Trump praising the way Starmer was running Britain last week?
NEWS: Trump White House expects up to 10% of federal employees to quit in a buyout program. A government-wide email going out soon on full-time work in office will say "deferred resignation program" begins today for all federal employees and ends Feb. 6.
"If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason)," the emails says.
so these homeschool clonetank claremont institute guys thought "grants" was just shit that went to the Woke University Basketweaving College For Dyed Hair Bisexuals Who Won't Fuck Me and not the way that, like, 90% of government programs worked, huh
Bloody hell the cost of Hinckley Point C is now estimated to be between £41.5bn and £46.5bn, what a mess.
Can someone explain to me why we're ploughing ahead with Sizewell C?! Give RR the contract for 5 SMRs and get moving. Let's own the next generation of nuclear energy, not spend another £60bn and 15 years building a reactor that probably won't ever turn on.
I'd guess a) they don't actually exist outside PowerPoint b) they will take 3x longer than promised to build and c) they will cost 3x more than promised.
Maybe it wouldn't matter too much in the winter, but in summer you'd certainly want rubbish to be collected more often than every 4 weeks.
To be fair we do have a weekly collection of food waste, bottles, plastic and cardboard
In the past I’ve seen councils suggesting storing things that might attract flies such as chicken carcasses in the fridge rather than putting out in the bin. No room in my fridge most of the time for that nonsense.
Ending Reliance on Junk Science. (a) The blatant harm done to children by chemical and surgical mutilation cloaks itself in medical necessity, spurred by guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which lacks scientific integrity.
She has at least started to work out that banging on about immigration helps Reform not the Conservatives. She has been better in the last month than before then. She probably isn't the answer but neither are Jenrick, Cleverly, Patel or Bravermann.
The conservative party will be the opposition in this parliament and Kemi has time
Those suggesting the conservative party is over are the usual suspects, many traumatised by Brexit which to be fair should have been won but those like myself who voted remain have accepted the result, and anyway UK in the EU is not a prospect for years to come, but closer cooperation is sensible
The problems for the Tories are the legacy of the failure of the last government, a severe lack of talent and imagination, and a shift in much of the Tory friendly media to the Reform agenda. Those all originate partially from Brexit, but cannot be repaired by developing a better UK-EU relationship. It is going to take a lot more than that, and Badenoch has perhaps started to understand.
In the third Harry Potter book, Hermione gets a time turner to enable her to do more subjects (and also so Harry can do the Petronas charm and fight off the Dementers.)
WHY DOES NO-ONE AT ANY POINT THINK: HMMMM.... THIS TIME TRAVEL LARK WOULD BE REALLY USEFUL IN THE FIGHT AGAINST VOLDEMORT???
It’s the standard fantasy fiction suspension of disbelief test. Even the good stuff (LOTR) had the ‘just send the fckng eagles to Mt Doom’ thing.
Always thought it would be virtually impossible for a fckng great big eagle to fly under the Sauron radar with a piece of jewellery that got heavier the closer it got to Mount Doom without being shot down or crashing. Just my ha’penny.
Weren’t the eagles capable of taking on a Nazgûl? In any case wasn’t Sauron’s radar only attuned to the putting on of the ring rather than it’s proximity to Barad-dûr?
Fair - but they were big ol’ birds, hard to miss with the naked eye, and there was significant peril from ground to air ordinance ie arrows. Huge risk to take. On balance I still think a ground insertion by irregular special forces was probably the sensible approach whatever the armchair elves say.
Indeed. I don't really know why that has become the goto example for 'why not do x?' when there are actually pretty decent reasons why doing it would not have worked. There are definitely better questions to ask, even if they would have different answers as to why they did not (why not send it to Valinor, or in the sea)
In the sea it would have been discovered one day, as it was in the great river.
And Valinor was not accessible
As I said there are answers to those questions, but they are more original, and at least one requires more than just common sense to come to - whereas 'people can see giant eagles coming' is a pretty obvious reason why not to send them even with no knowledge of the lore.
Bloody hell the cost of Hinckley Point C is now estimated to be between £41.5bn and £46.5bn, what a mess.
Can someone explain to me why we're ploughing ahead with Sizewell C?! Give RR the contract for 5 SMRs and get moving. Let's own the next generation of nuclear energy, not spend another £60bn and 15 years building a reactor that probably won't ever turn on.
I'd guess a) they don't actually exist outside PowerPoint b) they will take 3x longer than promised to build and c) they will cost 3x more than promised.
📢Heads-up people, the "I accidentally reported you" phishing scam has arrived on X. You get a DM saying someone accidentally reported you & you must follow an X employee to sort it. That person asks for details to confirm the account. Block & report both accounts & ignore
NEWS: Trump White House expects up to 10% of federal employees to quit in a buyout program. A government-wide email going out soon on full-time work in office will say "deferred resignation program" begins today for all federal employees and ends Feb. 6.
"If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason)," the emails says.
'All' employees? There's an awful lot of them, but surely there are at least some people who would take up such an offer who they will in fact miss.
so these homeschool clonetank claremont institute guys thought "grants" was just shit that went to the Woke University Basketweaving College For Dyed Hair Bisexuals Who Won't Fuck Me and not the way that, like, 90% of government programs worked, huh
In the third Harry Potter book, Hermione gets a time turner to enable her to do more subjects (and also so Harry can do the Petronas charm and fight off the Dementers.)
WHY DOES NO-ONE AT ANY POINT THINK: HMMMM.... THIS TIME TRAVEL LARK WOULD BE REALLY USEFUL IN THE FIGHT AGAINST VOLDEMORT???
It’s the standard fantasy fiction suspension of disbelief test. Even the good stuff (LOTR) had the ‘just send the fckng eagles to Mt Doom’ thing.
Always thought it would be virtually impossible for a fckng great big eagle to fly under the Sauron radar with a piece of jewellery that got heavier the closer it got to Mount Doom without being shot down or crashing. Just my ha’penny.
Weren’t the eagles capable of taking on a Nazgûl? In any case wasn’t Sauron’s radar only attuned to the putting on of the ring rather than it’s proximity to Barad-dûr?
Fair - but they were big ol’ birds, hard to miss with the naked eye, and there was significant peril from ground to air ordinance ie arrows. Huge risk to take. On balance I still think a ground insertion by irregular special forces was probably the sensible approach whatever the armchair elves say.
Indeed. I don't really know why that has become the goto example for 'why not do x?' when there are actually pretty decent reasons why doing it would not have worked. There are definitely better questions to ask, even if they would have different answers as to why they did not (why not send it to Valinor, or in the sea)
Sending it to Valinor was mentioned at the council. Elrond was pretty clear that it would not be accepted - it's a Middle Earth problem, and why would the angels want a chunk of the Devil's assistants soul?
Dumping it in the sea - again mentioned at the council. It was pointed out that seas and lands change, and that the point was to deal with this issue. The unspoken subtext was that Sauron would win with the ring lost. Destroying it was the only way to defeat him.
Bloody hell the cost of Hinckley Point C is now estimated to be between £41.5bn and £46.5bn, what a mess.
Can someone explain to me why we're ploughing ahead with Sizewell C?! Give RR the contract for 5 SMRs and get moving. Let's own the next generation of nuclear energy, not spend another £60bn and 15 years building a reactor that probably won't ever turn on.
I'd guess a) they don't actually exist outside PowerPoint b) they will take 3x longer than promised to build and c) they will cost 3x more than promised.
Still going to be cheaper than reinventing the wheel at Hinckley C because our inspectors want to feel like they have a purpose..
Sorry but your purpose seems to be adding hassle and cost for zero benefit. We really should just ask the South Koreans to get on with it..
I've been pondering recently. I wonder if Mr Farage knew that Brexit would be something of a let down, but that was all part of his devious plan. The feeling amongst the masses of betrayal and fury has surged since the referendum, providing the perfect hothouse for Nigel's politics to thrive. So was the actual intention of Brexit from the outset to disappoint? Did Nigel play us all like a fiddle with his eye on the long game?
Win/Win for him. If Remain had won disappointed Leavers would have flocked to him after Cameron a la the SNP boost after 2014. As Leave won he can, as you say, reap the rewards of a different disenchantment.
It was the Tories who were the foolish idiots, imagining that a referendum, whatever its outcome, would put their internal divisions to bed and kill off their UKIP problem.
When the Tory party dies (and it's looking pretty terminal, with no assisted dying needed) it will have Brexit on its tombstone.
“Europe” more generally. Brexit was the attempted but botched cure.
Nope.
Brexit was a self inflicted wound.
Europe was a minor irritation. Brexit was fatal.
Fatal? Bit of a stretch. We have free trade, albeit with some sticky bits. How is that fatal?
Read what was being replied to: fatal for the Conservative Party.
Ah yes. I’d suggest though that it’s a bit early to write off the Tories just yet. I’m old enough to remember the reform party of the 1980’s who were going to change everything. What happened to them?
(SDP liberal alliance for those too young).
In Wiltshire someone a few elections ago tried to start up a local party as a NOTA option, and I believe they were even called Reform. Putting cart before horse somewhat the idea was to form up and only then figure out what they stood for, with grand plans to stand in all seats. In the end I think only 1 person did, as no one was interested. Ahead of their time I guess.
Bloody hell the cost of Hinckley Point C is now estimated to be between £41.5bn and £46.5bn, what a mess.
Can someone explain to me why we're ploughing ahead with Sizewell C?! Give RR the contract for 5 SMRs and get moving. Let's own the next generation of nuclear energy, not spend another £60bn and 15 years building a reactor that probably won't ever turn on.
Yes, I posted about that a week ago: rumours have been swirling for some time.
Now, worth remembering that the British government is not actually spending the money, but we are about to get an attempt to up the strike price on the electricity. We should avoid that at all cost.
For Rolls Royce, guarantee an output price for electricity from the SMR, and if RR can deliver them such that a private company would take a flyer, great. You could even bonus the strike price if said reactors can achieve a certain amount of uptime.
In the third Harry Potter book, Hermione gets a time turner to enable her to do more subjects (and also so Harry can do the Petronas charm and fight off the Dementers.)
WHY DOES NO-ONE AT ANY POINT THINK: HMMMM.... THIS TIME TRAVEL LARK WOULD BE REALLY USEFUL IN THE FIGHT AGAINST VOLDEMORT???
It’s the standard fantasy fiction suspension of disbelief test. Even the good stuff (LOTR) had the ‘just send the fckng eagles to Mt Doom’ thing.
Always thought it would be virtually impossible for a fckng great big eagle to fly under the Sauron radar with a piece of jewellery that got heavier the closer it got to Mount Doom without being shot down or crashing. Just my ha’penny.
Weren’t the eagles capable of taking on a Nazgûl? In any case wasn’t Sauron’s radar only attuned to the putting on of the ring rather than it’s proximity to Barad-dûr?
Fair - but they were big ol’ birds, hard to miss with the naked eye, and there was significant peril from ground to air ordinance ie arrows. Huge risk to take. On balance I still think a ground insertion by irregular special forces was probably the sensible approach whatever the armchair elves say.
Indeed. I don't really know why that has become the goto example for 'why not do x?' when there are actually pretty decent reasons why doing it would not have worked. There are definitely better questions to ask, even if they would have different answers as to why they did not (why not send it to Valinor, or in the sea)
Sending it to Valinor was mentioned at the council. Elrond was pretty clear that it would not be accepted - it's a Middle Earth problem, and why would the angels want a chunk of the Devil's assistants soul?
Dumping it in the sea - again mentioned at the council. It was pointed out that seas and lands change, and that the point was to deal with this issue. The unspoken subtext was that Sauron would win with the ring lost. Destroying it was the only way to defeat him.
As I noted above there are answers to those questions, but the question about the eagles usually come from people who have only watched the films where less was said at the council, and so it would make more sense for them to ask those kind of questions (maybe not the Valinor one, since they're unlikely to have grasped what it was, I'm not sure if the word is even mentioned directly), especially the eagle question is treated as a genuine plot hole, when I really don't think it is one.
Whereas as someone with less knowledge of Harry Potter the lack of use of the time travel thing seems at first glance a better one, unless there's a decent explanation.
NEWS: Trump White House expects up to 10% of federal employees to quit in a buyout program. A government-wide email going out soon on full-time work in office will say "deferred resignation program" begins today for all federal employees and ends Feb. 6.
"If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason)," the emails says.
'All' employees? There's an awful lot of them, but surely there are at least some people who would take up such an offer who they will in fact miss.
I believe there’s a weird legal situation with some federal government employees deemed to have property rights in their job so this is presumably aimed at getting rid of that.
@JenniferJJacobs The voluntary buyout program won't be available to personnel in the military, Postal Service, immigration enforcement or national security, Trump admin email says. Those who take the deferred resignation would be exempt from any “return to office” requirements and would get their current pay and benefits until their final resignation date, which can be no later than Sept 30. Employees have to agree to a "smooth transition" during their remaining time in govt, the emails says.
A little upset to hear from my friends on Teesside. Matt Vickers and Stockton Tories doing paid adverts on Facebook groups naming councillors who “voted against a national enquiry into grooming gangs”. A staged council vote to ambush them, where at best it’s symbolic as - shockingly enough - borough councillors can’t instigate or block national enquiries.
Councillors now with angry residents banging on their doors. Being called paedos on the Tory Facebook page comments.
The stupid thing is this. Tories trying to weaponise the Labour coverup. And thus highlighting the Tory coverup. Angry people who have had this weaponised to make them angry won’t vote Tory.
They’ll vote reform
Just how stupid and dangerous are these Tories?
I notice the Glasgow gang rape gang elicited a surprisingly low level of PB comment. Fact is. CSA is everywhere. Always has been. The only way to avoid it is not to look for it. Which was the way for millenia.
In the third Harry Potter book, Hermione gets a time turner to enable her to do more subjects (and also so Harry can do the Petronas charm and fight off the Dementers.)
WHY DOES NO-ONE AT ANY POINT THINK: HMMMM.... THIS TIME TRAVEL LARK WOULD BE REALLY USEFUL IN THE FIGHT AGAINST VOLDEMORT???
It’s the standard fantasy fiction suspension of disbelief test. Even the good stuff (LOTR) had the ‘just send the fckng eagles to Mt Doom’ thing.
Always thought it would be virtually impossible for a fckng great big eagle to fly under the Sauron radar with a piece of jewellery that got heavier the closer it got to Mount Doom without being shot down or crashing. Just my ha’penny.
Weren’t the eagles capable of taking on a Nazgûl? In any case wasn’t Sauron’s radar only attuned to the putting on of the ring rather than it’s proximity to Barad-dûr?
Fair - but they were big ol’ birds, hard to miss with the naked eye, and there was significant peril from ground to air ordinance ie arrows. Huge risk to take. On balance I still think a ground insertion by irregular special forces was probably the sensible approach whatever the armchair elves say.
Indeed. I don't really know why that has become the goto example for 'why not do x?' when there are actually pretty decent reasons why doing it would not have worked. There are definitely better questions to ask, even if they would have different answers as to why they did not (why not send it to Valinor, or in the sea)
Sending it to Valinor was mentioned at the council. Elrond was pretty clear that it would not be accepted - it's a Middle Earth problem, and why would the angels want a chunk of the Devil's assistants soul?
Dumping it in the sea - again mentioned at the council. It was pointed out that seas and lands change, and that the point was to deal with this issue. The unspoken subtext was that Sauron would win with the ring lost. Destroying it was the only way to defeat him.
As I noted above there are answers to those questions, but the question about the eagles usually come from people who have only watched the films where less was said at the council, and so it would make more sense for them to ask those kind of questions (maybe not the Valinor one, since they're unlikely to have grasped what it was, I'm not sure if the word is even mentioned directly), especially the eagle question is treated as a genuine plot hole, when I really don't think it is one.
Whereas as someone with less knowledge of Harry Potter the lack of use of the time travel thing seems at first glance a better one, unless there's a decent explanation.
In time travel fiction you can’t change the past, or if you do there are consequences. I’d imagine something similar and hand wavy like that would suffice. Or perhaps time turners are limited to an hour or some such. It’s no great plot hole.
A little upset to hear from my friends on Teesside. Matt Vickers and Stockton Tories doing paid adverts on Facebook groups naming councillors who “voted against a national enquiry into grooming gangs”. A staged council vote to ambush them, where at best it’s symbolic as - shockingly enough - borough councillors can’t instigate or block national enquiries.
Councillors now with angry residents banging on their doors. Being called paedos on the Tory Facebook page comments.
The stupid thing is this. Tories trying to weaponise the Labour coverup. And thus highlighting the Tory coverup. Angry people who have had this weaponised to make them angry won’t vote Tory.
They’ll vote reform
Just how stupid and dangerous are these Tories?
I notice the Glasgow gang rape gang elicited a surprisingly low level of PB comment. Fact is. CSA is everywhere. Always has been. The only way to avoid it is not to look for it. Which was the way for millenia.
It was mentioned and also pointed out that the subject is banned on PB. Hence no discussion.
Maybe it wouldn't matter too much in the winter, but in summer you'd certainly want rubbish to be collected more often than every 4 weeks.
It's precisely the sort of thing that corrodes public confidence in and respect for local government. It's blindingly obvious that it's nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with desperate penny pinching - which is understandable given the situation that councils find themselves in, but it makes Mr & Mrs Average wonder just what and who they are meant to be for..
Regular bin collections and well maintained roads are what most people expect first and foremost from the local authority, but the vast bulk of revenues now go on very expensive services for various kinds of disabled people, young and old, and scrabbling around to find housing for destitute families. That's not the bulk of the population. If you're not in the bracket needing this stuff then the council is just this malign entity that bleeds you white for the privilege of receiving an increasingly sparse list of deteriorating services. A useless organisation, presiding over a landscape of autistic kids being ferried around in hugely expensive taxis that bump and rattle over farm track grade roads. It is a sub-optimal situation to put it mildly.
Bloody hell the cost of Hinckley Point C is now estimated to be between £41.5bn and £46.5bn, what a mess.
Can someone explain to me why we're ploughing ahead with Sizewell C?! Give RR the contract for 5 SMRs and get moving. Let's own the next generation of nuclear energy, not spend another £60bn and 15 years building a reactor that probably won't ever turn on.
We could give away four or five Chagos islands for that kind of money.
We apparently have 14 overseas territories, several of which are barren rocks or ice, so hopefully we'd have to pay less for giving up those.
Gibraltar apparently has the motto no 'enemy' shall expel us, which leaves too much of a loophole for me.
He went the full Rowling on day 1, when he issued EO "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government". She and he both hold the belief that it is impossible for a male to become a female and vice versa. She's been very clear about that since her first essay on the subject.
Maybe it wouldn't matter too much in the winter, but in summer you'd certainly want rubbish to be collected more often than every 4 weeks.
It's precisely the sort of thing that corrodes public confidence in and respect for local government. It's blindingly obvious that it's nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with desperate penny pinching - which is understandable given the situation that councils find themselves in, but it makes Mr & Mrs Average wonder just what and who they are meant to be for..
Regular bin collections and well maintained roads are what most people expect first and foremost from the local authority, but the vast bulk of revenues now go on very expensive services for various kinds of disabled people, young and old, and scrabbling around to find housing for destitute families. That's not the bulk of the population. If you're not in the bracket needing this stuff then the council is just this malign entity that bleeds you white for the privilege of receiving an increasingly sparse list of deteriorating services. A useless organisation, presiding over a landscape of autistic kids being ferried around in hugely expensive taxis that bump and rattle over farm track grade roads. It is a sub-optimal situation to put it mildly.
Yes, and people didn't exactly like local government in the first place. And plonking a bunch of distant 'mayors' across swathes of barely connected rural England is not exactly going to help with that, but the bigger issues have been pushed back as it is not as politcally grabbing.
A little upset to hear from my friends on Teesside. Matt Vickers and Stockton Tories doing paid adverts on Facebook groups naming councillors who “voted against a national enquiry into grooming gangs”. A staged council vote to ambush them, where at best it’s symbolic as - shockingly enough - borough councillors can’t instigate or block national enquiries.
Councillors now with angry residents banging on their doors. Being called paedos on the Tory Facebook page comments.
The stupid thing is this. Tories trying to weaponise the Labour coverup. And thus highlighting the Tory coverup. Angry people who have had this weaponised to make them angry won’t vote Tory.
They’ll vote reform
Just how stupid and dangerous are these Tories?
I notice the Glasgow gang rape gang elicited a surprisingly low level of PB comment. Fact is. CSA is everywhere. Always has been. The only way to avoid it is not to look for it. Which was the way for millenia.
Facebook took me surprise on that one. Lot's of sarcastic "DEPORT" and "Where's Tommeh now?" comments. The far-right are as vulnerable to ridicule as anyone else.
A little upset to hear from my friends on Teesside. Matt Vickers and Stockton Tories doing paid adverts on Facebook groups naming councillors who “voted against a national enquiry into grooming gangs”. A staged council vote to ambush them, where at best it’s symbolic as - shockingly enough - borough councillors can’t instigate or block national enquiries.
Councillors now with angry residents banging on their doors. Being called paedos on the Tory Facebook page comments.
The stupid thing is this. Tories trying to weaponise the Labour coverup. And thus highlighting the Tory coverup. Angry people who have had this weaponised to make them angry won’t vote Tory.
They’ll vote reform
Just how stupid and dangerous are these Tories?
I notice the Glasgow gang rape gang elicited a surprisingly low level of PB comment. Fact is. CSA is everywhere. Always has been. The only way to avoid it is not to look for it. Which was the way for millenia.
Facebook took me surprise on that one. Lot's of sarcastic "DEPORT" and "Where's Tommeh now?" comments. The far-right are as vulnerable to ridicule as anyone else.
And cry about it too. As big snowflakes as you can find on the left.
Bishop of Liverpool denies sex assault allegations
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg4dw5nnvxo The Bishop of Liverpool has denied allegations of sexual assault outlined in a Channel 4 News investigation. The Right Reverend Doctor John Perumbalath has been accused of assaulting two women, the programme said. It said one woman was allegedly assaulted in the diocese of Chelmsford in Essex, where he was Bishop of Bradwell, on separate occasions between 2019 and 2023. A female bishop also told Channel 4 News she was sexually harassed by him. In a statement, Bishop John said he had "consistently denied" the allegations, adding police had investigated them but taken no further action. Channel 4 News said Bishop John, who was enthroned Bishop of Liverpool in 2023, was interviewed voluntarily under caution by police in March last year...
a= 2 a = b a2 = ab a2-b2 = ab-b2 (a+b)(a-b) = b(a-b) a+b =b 4 = 2
a2-b2 does not equal (a+b)(a-b). But a^2 - b^2 does.
Tangentially related - I've been working on a project to 'harden' science degree work against LLM's of late (which I thought was doomed at the outset, but there we go).
I had a few runs of our 'hardest' final year exams and coursework against the recent models (including a sneaky o3 via a friend) and they aced them all within a couple of minutes.
But I think the thing that really got me was the perfection of their LaTeX output.
One of my modules is assessed by an essay (they have to right a research protocol). A student used ChatGPT. They got 36%.
I expect if they'd used ChatGPT better they could've got a better mark though.
Comments
Braverman said: “Vice-president JD Vance said at the National Conservatism conference, at which I also spoke in the summer, that the UK was going to be the first Islamist nation with nuclear weapons. I don’t think he was joking.
“Is it an impossibility that 20 years from now it will be the UK, not China or Russia, that will emerge as the greatest strategic threat to the USA?
Regardless of whether one thinks that is a realistic outcome, which I do not, should we not have the courage to ask these questions?”
What a shithead.
Also, have none of these morons heard of Pakistan?
The government needs to rewire higher education so that only the top 30% go to university and to allow top universities to charge more for foreign students but give them a 5 year visa post graduation for undergrads and a 3 year visa for postgrads who meet a minimum grading standard at those universities. Allowing the likes of Manchester Met and UWICC to write as many foreign student visas as they want for 1 year £10k masters "students" who get to bring their whole family with them including kids that the taxpayer needs to educate has been a disaster economically and socially for the country. We need a change and hopefully this is the start.
Recall radiation, convection, conduction. Vacuum prevents heat transfer by convection or conduction, but radiant heat easily reaches us and day is warmer than night.
Hard to believe that she was a member of the cabinet so recently.
No matter how crap the Starmer government is, it could be so much worse.
Quite a few do sincerely believe, particularly following Musk, that.we can no longer govern the country, at all.
If you think that is cold - what the hell do you set the thermostat to?
Brexit was a self inflicted wound.
Europe was a minor irritation. Brexit was fatal.
But whatever the sun is, cold is not it.
The Conservative leader too often displays confidence without homework.
By Rachel Cunliffe"
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/conservatives/2025/01/why-doubts-are-growing-over-kemi-badenoch
People who just want to posture and engage in tribalism rub the serious councillors the wrong way, even when (or especially) when they are technically on the same side.
Of course in america such people are now in Congress in large numbers, whereas here there are probably only a handful like that - though several ex-MPs are revealing themselves to have been of that tendency all along.
https://x.com/disclosetv/status/1884365240713752642?s=46
CDU/CSU 224
AfD 151
SPD 119
Grn 103
Left 0
FDP 0
BSW 0
https://www.economist.com/interactive/2025-german-election-polls-prediction-forecast
And Valinor was not accessible
Not quite sure how this would be managed. If I wear a beret, do I get in free to The Louvre? Or are they going to spend millions on a passport system to manage all entrances? Typically insular stuff from an embattled president, desperate to stop his embarrassing fall from grace and appear tough.
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1884278534064972265?t=USzLgCZEVu5LECMv0fgRnQ&s=19
(SDP liberal alliance for those too young).
Can someone explain to me why we're ploughing ahead with Sizewell C?! Give RR the contract for 5 SMRs and get moving. Let's own the next generation of nuclear energy, not spend another £60bn and 15 years building a reactor that probably won't ever turn on.
Those suggesting the conservative party is over are the usual suspects, many traumatised by Brexit which to be fair should have been won but those like myself who voted remain have accepted the result, and anyway UK in the EU is not a prospect for years to come, but closer cooperation is sensible
NEWS: Trump White House expects up to 10% of federal employees to quit in a buyout program. A government-wide email going out soon on full-time work in office will say "deferred resignation program" begins today for all federal employees and ends Feb. 6.
"If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason)," the emails says.
@swolecialism.bsky.social
so these homeschool clonetank claremont institute guys thought "grants" was just shit that went to the Woke University Basketweaving College For Dyed Hair Bisexuals Who Won't Fuck Me and not the way that, like, 90% of government programs worked, huh
https://bsky.app/profile/swolecialism.bsky.social/post/3lgtfwtuius2g
When the shitstorm landed, they tried to lie their way out of it
@lionel_trolling
the first trump administration was said to be "malevolence tempered by incompetence," so far this one is "malevolence sharpened by incompetence"
https://x.com/lionel_trolling/status/1884320800926552204
Now this...
@chrisgeidner.bsky.social
BREAKING: U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan temporarily blocks OMB's effort to stop funding of current federal grant contracts.
She orders an administrative stay of OMB's pause on open awards — set to go into effect now — until 5p. Monday, Feb. 3.
There will be briefing this week; hearing Monday.
https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgeidner.bsky.social/post/3lgthg2zipc2a
https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1884368598577172820
https://x.com/HJoyceGender/status/1884306908208939325
Dumping it in the sea - again mentioned at the council. It was pointed out that seas and lands change, and that the point was to deal with this issue. The unspoken subtext was that Sauron would win with the ring lost. Destroying it was the only way to defeat him.
Sorry but your purpose seems to be adding hassle and cost for zero benefit. We really should just ask the South Koreans to get on with it..
Now, worth remembering that the British government is not actually spending the money, but we are about to get an attempt to up the strike price on the electricity. We should avoid that at all cost.
For Rolls Royce, guarantee an output price for electricity from the SMR, and if RR can deliver them such that a private company would take a flyer, great. You could even bonus the strike price if said reactors can achieve a certain amount of uptime.
Whereas as someone with less knowledge of Harry Potter the lack of use of the time travel thing seems at first glance a better one, unless there's a decent explanation.
The voluntary buyout program won't be available to personnel in the military, Postal Service, immigration enforcement or national security, Trump admin email says.
Those who take the deferred resignation would be exempt from any “return to office” requirements and would get their current pay and benefits until their final resignation date, which can be no later than Sept 30.
Employees have to agree to a "smooth transition" during their remaining time in govt, the emails says.
Fact is. CSA is everywhere. Always has been. The only way to avoid it is not to look for it.
Which was the way for millenia.
It’s no great plot hole.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14334289/texas-father-uses-baby-wipe-snow-car-video.html
Regular bin collections and well maintained roads are what most people expect first and foremost from the local authority, but the vast bulk of revenues now go on very expensive services for various kinds of disabled people, young and old, and scrabbling around to find housing for destitute families. That's not the bulk of the population. If you're not in the bracket needing this stuff then the council is just this malign entity that bleeds you white for the privilege of receiving an increasingly sparse list of deteriorating services. A useless organisation, presiding over a landscape of autistic kids being ferried around in hugely expensive taxis that bump and rattle over farm track grade roads. It is a sub-optimal situation to put it mildly.
Gibraltar apparently has the motto no 'enemy' shall expel us, which leaves too much of a loophole for me.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_executive_orders_in_the_second_presidency_of_Donald_Trump
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/28/85-of-greenlanders-do-not-want-to-join-us-says-new-poll
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg4dw5nnvxo
The Bishop of Liverpool has denied allegations of sexual assault outlined in a Channel 4 News investigation.
The Right Reverend Doctor John Perumbalath has been accused of assaulting two women, the programme said.
It said one woman was allegedly assaulted in the diocese of Chelmsford in Essex, where he was Bishop of Bradwell, on separate occasions between 2019 and 2023. A female bishop also told Channel 4 News she was sexually harassed by him.
In a statement, Bishop John said he had "consistently denied" the allegations, adding police had investigated them but taken no further action.
Channel 4 News said Bishop John, who was enthroned Bishop of Liverpool in 2023, was interviewed voluntarily under caution by police in March last year...