A policy to unite our resident nuclear and basalt enthusiasts (you know who you are).
Nuclear Explosions for Large Scale Carbon Sequestration https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.06623 Confronting the escalating threat of climate change requires innovative and large-scale interventions. This paper presents a bold proposal to employ a buried nuclear explosion in a remote basaltic seabed for pulverizing basalt, thereby accelerating carbon sequestration through Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW). By precisely locating the explosion beneath the seabed, we aim to confine debris, radiation, and energy while ensuring rapid rock weathering at a scale substantial enough to make a meaningful dent in atmospheric carbon levels. Our analysis outlines the parameters essential for efficient carbon capture and minimal collateral effects, emphasizing that a yield on the order of gigatons is critical for global climate impact. Although this approach may appear radical, we illustrate its feasibility by examining safety factors, preservation of local ecosystems, political considerations, and financial viability. This work argues for reimagining nuclear technology not merely as a destructive force but as a potential catalyst for decarbonization, thereby inviting further exploration of pioneering solutions in the fight against climate change...
(edit) 80GT is perhaps a tad excessive.
The Tsar Bomba was the largest bomb ever detonated at 58 Megatons. The top of the mushroom cloud was above the stratosphere at 42 miles. 80 Gigatons ????????????
A policy to unite our resident nuclear and basalt enthusiasts (you know who you are).
Nuclear Explosions for Large Scale Carbon Sequestration https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.06623 Confronting the escalating threat of climate change requires innovative and large-scale interventions. This paper presents a bold proposal to employ a buried nuclear explosion in a remote basaltic seabed for pulverizing basalt, thereby accelerating carbon sequestration through Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW). By precisely locating the explosion beneath the seabed, we aim to confine debris, radiation, and energy while ensuring rapid rock weathering at a scale substantial enough to make a meaningful dent in atmospheric carbon levels. Our analysis outlines the parameters essential for efficient carbon capture and minimal collateral effects, emphasizing that a yield on the order of gigatons is critical for global climate impact. Although this approach may appear radical, we illustrate its feasibility by examining safety factors, preservation of local ecosystems, political considerations, and financial viability. This work argues for reimagining nuclear technology not merely as a destructive force but as a potential catalyst for decarbonization, thereby inviting further exploration of pioneering solutions in the fight against climate change...
(edit) 80GT is perhaps a tad excessive.
The Tsar Bomba was the largest bomb ever detonated at 58 Megatons. The top of the mushroom cloud was above the stratosphere at 42 miles. 80 Gigatons ????????????
80 gigatons…
The practical limit for yield is 6Kt per kilo
So that is nuclear weapon which weighs 13,333 tons. Probably double that.
So a bomb the size of a fair sized ship.
Containment would be impossible. Detonated miles underground, it would simply tear a huge crater and lay waste to a huge area. Most of the blast would go into space.
The Conservatives are never going to beat Reform when half the party seems happy for Reform to win. They have to fight them!
No most Conservatives want to get rid of Starmer's useless government above all.
They don't disagree with Reform anywhere near as much as they do with Labour on most issues, other than Tories are a bit more soft Brexit and Reform a bit more hard Brexit
I suspect you are channelling almost exclusively your own thoughts there. I know traditional Tory voters who utterly despise Farage and Reform, and far more than they do Starmer Labour. The Trump/ Musk connection has supercharged this view. One Nation Tories know extremist traitors when they see them.
*waves*
***Waves***
Farage’s comments about Ukraine pre-election were a disgrace, he cannot be anywhere near the levers of power.
Would you bring back Boris as leader if it's what it would take to see off the risk of Farage as PM?
How might bringing that clown back see off Farage? More than likely it would kill the Tories stone dead.
He's a proven winner, and he has the flexibility needed to reposition the Tories as an unabashed pro-business and even pro-EU party.
Thatcher was a proven winner - until she wasn't.
Which general election did she lose?
She would have lost the 1992 election, that's why the Tory Party felt it better to replace her.
On a Boris comeback, I spotted the other day that he is “the most popular” politician in the UK. He gets 39% approval, way ahead of anyone else
This confounds me and distresses me, as he is a shyster, and is very much to blame for the Boriswave that is propelling Reform towards government, nonetheless it is the case. Bet accordingly
A policy to unite our resident nuclear and basalt enthusiasts (you know who you are).
Nuclear Explosions for Large Scale Carbon Sequestration https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.06623 Confronting the escalating threat of climate change requires innovative and large-scale interventions. This paper presents a bold proposal to employ a buried nuclear explosion in a remote basaltic seabed for pulverizing basalt, thereby accelerating carbon sequestration through Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW). By precisely locating the explosion beneath the seabed, we aim to confine debris, radiation, and energy while ensuring rapid rock weathering at a scale substantial enough to make a meaningful dent in atmospheric carbon levels. Our analysis outlines the parameters essential for efficient carbon capture and minimal collateral effects, emphasizing that a yield on the order of gigatons is critical for global climate impact. Although this approach may appear radical, we illustrate its feasibility by examining safety factors, preservation of local ecosystems, political considerations, and financial viability. This work argues for reimagining nuclear technology not merely as a destructive force but as a potential catalyst for decarbonization, thereby inviting further exploration of pioneering solutions in the fight against climate change...
(edit) 80GT is perhaps a tad excessive.
The Tsar Bomba was the largest bomb ever detonated at 58 Megatons. The top of the mushroom cloud was above the stratosphere at 42 miles. 80 Gigatons ????????????
A policy to unite our resident nuclear and basalt enthusiasts (you know who you are).
Nuclear Explosions for Large Scale Carbon Sequestration https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.06623 Confronting the escalating threat of climate change requires innovative and large-scale interventions. This paper presents a bold proposal to employ a buried nuclear explosion in a remote basaltic seabed for pulverizing basalt, thereby accelerating carbon sequestration through Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW). By precisely locating the explosion beneath the seabed, we aim to confine debris, radiation, and energy while ensuring rapid rock weathering at a scale substantial enough to make a meaningful dent in atmospheric carbon levels. Our analysis outlines the parameters essential for efficient carbon capture and minimal collateral effects, emphasizing that a yield on the order of gigatons is critical for global climate impact. Although this approach may appear radical, we illustrate its feasibility by examining safety factors, preservation of local ecosystems, political considerations, and financial viability. This work argues for reimagining nuclear technology not merely as a destructive force but as a potential catalyst for decarbonization, thereby inviting further exploration of pioneering solutions in the fight against climate change...
(edit) 80GT is perhaps a tad excessive.
The Tsar Bomba was the largest bomb ever detonated at 58 Megatons. The top of the mushroom cloud was above the stratosphere at 42 miles. 80 Gigatons ????????????
Apparently that's more gigatons than the 2004 Indian Ocean quake released. It'd make a hell of a mess.
A policy to unite our resident nuclear and basalt enthusiasts (you know who you are).
Nuclear Explosions for Large Scale Carbon Sequestration https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.06623 Confronting the escalating threat of climate change requires innovative and large-scale interventions. This paper presents a bold proposal to employ a buried nuclear explosion in a remote basaltic seabed for pulverizing basalt, thereby accelerating carbon sequestration through Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW). By precisely locating the explosion beneath the seabed, we aim to confine debris, radiation, and energy while ensuring rapid rock weathering at a scale substantial enough to make a meaningful dent in atmospheric carbon levels. Our analysis outlines the parameters essential for efficient carbon capture and minimal collateral effects, emphasizing that a yield on the order of gigatons is critical for global climate impact. Although this approach may appear radical, we illustrate its feasibility by examining safety factors, preservation of local ecosystems, political considerations, and financial viability. This work argues for reimagining nuclear technology not merely as a destructive force but as a potential catalyst for decarbonization, thereby inviting further exploration of pioneering solutions in the fight against climate change...
(edit) 80GT is perhaps a tad excessive.
The Tsar Bomba was the largest bomb ever detonated at 58 Megatons. The top of the mushroom cloud was above the stratosphere at 42 miles. 80 Gigatons ????????????
A policy to unite our resident nuclear and basalt enthusiasts (you know who you are).
Nuclear Explosions for Large Scale Carbon Sequestration https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.06623 Confronting the escalating threat of climate change requires innovative and large-scale interventions. This paper presents a bold proposal to employ a buried nuclear explosion in a remote basaltic seabed for pulverizing basalt, thereby accelerating carbon sequestration through Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW). By precisely locating the explosion beneath the seabed, we aim to confine debris, radiation, and energy while ensuring rapid rock weathering at a scale substantial enough to make a meaningful dent in atmospheric carbon levels. Our analysis outlines the parameters essential for efficient carbon capture and minimal collateral effects, emphasizing that a yield on the order of gigatons is critical for global climate impact. Although this approach may appear radical, we illustrate its feasibility by examining safety factors, preservation of local ecosystems, political considerations, and financial viability. This work argues for reimagining nuclear technology not merely as a destructive force but as a potential catalyst for decarbonization, thereby inviting further exploration of pioneering solutions in the fight against climate change...
(edit) 80GT is perhaps a tad excessive.
The Tsar Bomba was the largest bomb ever detonated at 58 Megatons. The top of the mushroom cloud was above the stratosphere at 42 miles. 80 Gigatons ????????????
Also remember the crust is thinner on the seabed - and that 'basaltic' implies it's not a continental shelf either.
Can I just point out the CDU leader Merz is an idiot. Widely seen as arrogant, out of touch, thin-skinned and clumsy, he's also just rubbish at politics.
In the middle of a general election campaign, he's decided to pull a massive political stunt by putting forward rushed, unworkable legislation that has zero chance of becoming law any time soon. But it doesn't even make any sense as a political stunt, as all it achieves is to boost the AfD (unless that is his aim - I'm beginning to wonder), make the job of making a coalition after the election much more difficult, and upset lots of people in his own party.
Aiming for a coalition with the AfD rather than with more centrist parties would be the suspicion. He must have bunked off history lessons.
There's no chance of a coalition with the AfD after the next election. I've no idea what goes on in Merz's brain, but the CDU wouldn't allow it, it's a non-starter.
I get the impression that the "normal" politicians in Germany are flailing around, a bit, as here. They don't know what to do. Which is ripe for stupid decisions.
The AfD is considerably worse than Reform, I think.
Thoughts?
The AfD are composed of the people Farage is trying, with varying degrees of success, to keep out of Reform.
But while performing the complicated manoeuvre of having them still vote for him.
Agreed, but that might still be better than having them vote for something else. To my mind there is a clear divide between Farage and fascists. We need to be genuinely vigilant against the latter and call them out because they are genuinely dangerous and on the march, and it doesn't help that effort to try to tar rightwingers like Farage with the same brush.
I prefer fascist adjacent. I have no doubt that Farage would happily ‘work with’ AfD, Le Pen and whatever other horrors pop up on the political horizon. These people getting palsied fingers on the levers of power would be seen as a positive not a negative by him.
Maybe we need make gradations, far right, far far right, extreme right, nazi? For example Marine Le Pen apparently thinks AfD is to far right.
I think the final straw was when the AfD said the SS weren't that bad really
Fake news. The guy said that you have to assess guilt individually in response to a leading question:
"It depends. You have to assess blame individually. At the end of the war there were almost a million SS. Günter Grass was also in the Waffen SS," he told La Repubblica and the Financial Times, referring to the German novelist who wrote The Tin Drum.
"Before I declare someone a criminal, I want to know what he did."
Would you have joined the Waffen SS, William?
Did people have a choice, especially as the war dragged on. I went to a war cemetery for German troops in a place called Mertzwiller on the French German border when I was working out there. It surprised me how many of the troops who were killed in the later battles were 14, 15 and 16 years old.
The SS and the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) and Army (the Heer) were different institutions, like the US Navy and the US Coast Guard. The last-minute ad-hoc units you refer to were the Volkssturm, a militia thrown together in 1944. Command structure is confusing, with oversight provided by the SS and the Nazi Party, but defacto command being the Heer. The point being that the SS, the Heer, and the Volkssturm were separate entities. So if WilliamGlenn had decided to join the SS, he would not have been in the Volkssturm.
At some stage, it is true, voices will start to clamour for the return of Boris.
And yes, I would expect Boris to return as “pro-EU”. Not a rejoiner of course, but with a position that Labour are failing to take the opportunity of greater integration.
He's certainly got the chutzpah to try to pull it off. And I suspect that Mayor Boris wouldn't be happy about the Brexit landing point that PM Boris ended up with.
The main problem with the idea of a comeback is his essential Borisness. He can make himself loved by everyone, right up to the moment he lets them down and then they hate him. Conservative Europhiles were just ahead of the curve on that one. And I don't think he can turn that around.
Can I just point out the CDU leader Merz is an idiot. Widely seen as arrogant, out of touch, thin-skinned and clumsy, he's also just rubbish at politics.
In the middle of a general election campaign, he's decided to pull a massive political stunt by putting forward rushed, unworkable legislation that has zero chance of becoming law any time soon. But it doesn't even make any sense as a political stunt, as all it achieves is to boost the AfD (unless that is his aim - I'm beginning to wonder), make the job of making a coalition after the election much more difficult, and upset lots of people in his own party.
Aiming for a coalition with the AfD rather than with more centrist parties would be the suspicion. He must have bunked off history lessons.
There's no chance of a coalition with the AfD after the next election. I've no idea what goes on in Merz's brain, but the CDU wouldn't allow it, it's a non-starter.
I get the impression that the "normal" politicians in Germany are flailing around, a bit, as here. They don't know what to do. Which is ripe for stupid decisions.
The AfD is considerably worse than Reform, I think.
Thoughts?
The AfD are composed of the people Farage is trying, with varying degrees of success, to keep out of Reform.
But while performing the complicated manoeuvre of having them still vote for him.
Agreed, but that might still be better than having them vote for something else. To my mind there is a clear divide between Farage and fascists. We need to be genuinely vigilant against the latter and call them out because they are genuinely dangerous and on the march, and it doesn't help that effort to try to tar rightwingers like Farage with the same brush.
I prefer fascist adjacent. I have no doubt that Farage would happily ‘work with’ AfD, Le Pen and whatever other horrors pop up on the political horizon. These people getting palsied fingers on the levers of power would be seen as a positive not a negative by him.
Maybe we need make gradations, far right, far far right, extreme right, nazi? For example Marine Le Pen apparently thinks AfD is to far right.
I think the final straw was when the AfD said the SS weren't that bad really
Fake news. The guy said that you have to assess guilt individually in response to a leading question:
"It depends. You have to assess blame individually. At the end of the war there were almost a million SS. Günter Grass was also in the Waffen SS," he told La Repubblica and the Financial Times, referring to the German novelist who wrote The Tin Drum.
"Before I declare someone a criminal, I want to know what he did."
Would you have joined the Waffen SS, William?
Did people have a choice, especially as the war dragged on. I went to a war cemetery for German troops in a place called Mertzwiller on the French German border when I was working out there. It surprised me how many of the troops who were killed in the later battles were 14, 15 and 16 years old.
The SS and the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) and Army (the Heer) were different institutions, like the US Navy and the US Coast Guard. The last-minute ad-hoc units you refer to were the Volkssturm, a militia thrown together in 1944. Command structure is confusing, with oversight provided by the SS and the Nazi Party, but defacto command being the Heer. The point being that the SS, the Heer, and the Volkssturm were separate entities. So if WilliamGlenn had decided to join the SS, he would not have been in the Volkssturm.
It worries me that I know this. Somebody ask me a Star Trek question plz to clean out mi brain.
Spock’s Brain is not only the greatest ever episode of Star Trek Trek but the greatest ever episode of television, don’t you agree?
Who was the admiral who commanded the Starfleet task force at the Battle of Wolf 359?
Can I just point out the CDU leader Merz is an idiot. Widely seen as arrogant, out of touch, thin-skinned and clumsy, he's also just rubbish at politics.
In the middle of a general election campaign, he's decided to pull a massive political stunt by putting forward rushed, unworkable legislation that has zero chance of becoming law any time soon. But it doesn't even make any sense as a political stunt, as all it achieves is to boost the AfD (unless that is his aim - I'm beginning to wonder), make the job of making a coalition after the election much more difficult, and upset lots of people in his own party.
Aiming for a coalition with the AfD rather than with more centrist parties would be the suspicion. He must have bunked off history lessons.
There's no chance of a coalition with the AfD after the next election. I've no idea what goes on in Merz's brain, but the CDU wouldn't allow it, it's a non-starter.
I get the impression that the "normal" politicians in Germany are flailing around, a bit, as here. They don't know what to do. Which is ripe for stupid decisions.
The AfD is considerably worse than Reform, I think.
Thoughts?
The AfD are composed of the people Farage is trying, with varying degrees of success, to keep out of Reform.
But while performing the complicated manoeuvre of having them still vote for him.
Agreed, but that might still be better than having them vote for something else. To my mind there is a clear divide between Farage and fascists. We need to be genuinely vigilant against the latter and call them out because they are genuinely dangerous and on the march, and it doesn't help that effort to try to tar rightwingers like Farage with the same brush.
I prefer fascist adjacent. I have no doubt that Farage would happily ‘work with’ AfD, Le Pen and whatever other horrors pop up on the political horizon. These people getting palsied fingers on the levers of power would be seen as a positive not a negative by him.
Maybe we need make gradations, far right, far far right, extreme right, nazi? For example Marine Le Pen apparently thinks AfD is to far right.
I think the final straw was when the AfD said the SS weren't that bad really
Fake news. The guy said that you have to assess guilt individually in response to a leading question:
"It depends. You have to assess blame individually. At the end of the war there were almost a million SS. Günter Grass was also in the Waffen SS," he told La Repubblica and the Financial Times, referring to the German novelist who wrote The Tin Drum.
"Before I declare someone a criminal, I want to know what he did."
Would you have joined the Waffen SS, William?
Did people have a choice, especially as the war dragged on. I went to a war cemetery for German troops in a place called Mertzwiller on the French German border when I was working out there. It surprised me how many of the troops who were killed in the later battles were 14, 15 and 16 years old.
The SS and the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) and Army (the Heer) were different institutions, like the US Navy and the US Coast Guard. The last-minute ad-hoc units you refer to were the Volkssturm, a militia thrown together in 1944. Command structure is confusing, with oversight provided by the SS and the Nazi Party, but defacto command being the Heer. The point being that the SS, the Heer, and the Volkssturm were separate entities. So if WilliamGlenn had decided to join the SS, he would not have been in the Volkssturm.
It worries me that I know this. Somebody ask me a Star Trek question plz to clean out mi brain.
Spock’s Brain is not only the greatest ever episode of Star Trek Trek but the greatest ever episode of television, don’t you agree?
Who was the admiral who commanded the Starfleet task force at the Battle of Wolf 359?
Can I just point out the CDU leader Merz is an idiot. Widely seen as arrogant, out of touch, thin-skinned and clumsy, he's also just rubbish at politics.
In the middle of a general election campaign, he's decided to pull a massive political stunt by putting forward rushed, unworkable legislation that has zero chance of becoming law any time soon. But it doesn't even make any sense as a political stunt, as all it achieves is to boost the AfD (unless that is his aim - I'm beginning to wonder), make the job of making a coalition after the election much more difficult, and upset lots of people in his own party.
Aiming for a coalition with the AfD rather than with more centrist parties would be the suspicion. He must have bunked off history lessons.
There's no chance of a coalition with the AfD after the next election. I've no idea what goes on in Merz's brain, but the CDU wouldn't allow it, it's a non-starter.
I get the impression that the "normal" politicians in Germany are flailing around, a bit, as here. They don't know what to do. Which is ripe for stupid decisions.
The AfD is considerably worse than Reform, I think.
Thoughts?
The AfD are composed of the people Farage is trying, with varying degrees of success, to keep out of Reform.
But while performing the complicated manoeuvre of having them still vote for him.
Agreed, but that might still be better than having them vote for something else. To my mind there is a clear divide between Farage and fascists. We need to be genuinely vigilant against the latter and call them out because they are genuinely dangerous and on the march, and it doesn't help that effort to try to tar rightwingers like Farage with the same brush.
I prefer fascist adjacent. I have no doubt that Farage would happily ‘work with’ AfD, Le Pen and whatever other horrors pop up on the political horizon. These people getting palsied fingers on the levers of power would be seen as a positive not a negative by him.
Maybe we need make gradations, far right, far far right, extreme right, nazi? For example Marine Le Pen apparently thinks AfD is to far right.
I think the final straw was when the AfD said the SS weren't that bad really
Fake news. The guy said that you have to assess guilt individually in response to a leading question:
"It depends. You have to assess blame individually. At the end of the war there were almost a million SS. Günter Grass was also in the Waffen SS," he told La Repubblica and the Financial Times, referring to the German novelist who wrote The Tin Drum.
"Before I declare someone a criminal, I want to know what he did."
Would you have joined the Waffen SS, William?
Did people have a choice, especially as the war dragged on. I went to a war cemetery for German troops in a place called Mertzwiller on the French German border when I was working out there. It surprised me how many of the troops who were killed in the later battles were 14, 15 and 16 years old.
The SS and the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) and Army (the Heer) were different institutions, like the US Navy and the US Coast Guard. The last-minute ad-hoc units you refer to were the Volkssturm, a militia thrown together in 1944. Command structure is confusing, with oversight provided by the SS and the Nazi Party, but defacto command being the Heer. The point being that the SS, the Heer, and the Volkssturm were separate entities. So if WilliamGlenn had decided to join the SS, he would not have been in the Volkssturm.
It worries me that I know this. Somebody ask me a Star Trek question plz to clean out mi brain.
Spock’s Brain is not only the greatest ever episode of Star Trek Trek but the greatest ever episode of television, don’t you agree?
Who was the admiral who commanded the Starfleet task force at the Battle of Wolf 359?
Did Squid Games completely pass you by?
No, the episode Spock’s Brain is more infamous than famous.
This looks interesting... "Simple Solutions to Wicked Problems: cultivating true believers of anti-vaccine conspiracies during the COVID-19 pandemic" by Baker, S.A. , McLaughlin, E. & Rojek, C. (2023). doi: 10.1177/13675494231173536
The pandemic has produced an abundance of medical misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Many of these narratives appear impervious to scientific evidence and indifferent to the authority of the state. This has resulted in ‘true believers’ being cast as paranoid and irrational. In this article, we take a different approach by exploring the cultural appeal of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories about COVID-19. Drawing on qualitative analysis of two leading figures of the anti-vaccination movement – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Joseph Mercola – we demonstrate how these influencers establish authority by staging indignation against a corrupt scientific establishment and positioning themselves as Truthers offering simple solutions to complex (wicked) problems. By conceptualising what we refer to as the Truther Playbook, we examine how anti-vaccine Truthers capitalise on existing grievances and conditions of low institutional trust to further solidify people’s troubled relationship with institutional expertise while drawing attention to the structural conditions and social inequalities that facilitate belief in conspiracy theories. We contend that conspiracy theories offer not only offer alternative facts and narratives but are predicated on identification and in-group membership, highlighting the limits of debunking as a strategy to tackle disinformation.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
Why is it so hard to buy mutton or hogget these days? They are even more tasty than lamb, if cooked correctly.
I have to go to Jesmond Dene market they hold on a bridge over the Dene to get it. It’s smashing. Not even the local farm shops stock it.
In my day that was the arts and craft market - since when did food appear on the bridge?
Mind you Quayside market isn’t what it used to be and I suspect the craft people have moved to Tynemouth
...Who was the admiral who commanded the Starfleet task force at the Battle of Wolf 359?
Without googling I can't remember the name, but he was the one with the line "the fight does not go well, Enterprise." A pudgy, hard-bitten actor with a barrel chest and a receding grey hairline, he had a good voice. The scene was just before Enterprise arrives at Wolf359 and Shelby started listing off the hulks, including the "Melbourne" which Riker would have died on had he accepted the promotion. That scene reinforces the interpretation that the two-parter is actually about Riker, with the "best of both worlds" referring to Riker being promoted without leaving the Enterprise.
Leon, You often boast that you are good at multi-tasking hence how you are able to make so many posts here, yet get on with your life. Specifically in one conversation with me you listed out about half a dozen tasks you were doing simultaneously. I was envious when you said that because I am useless at it.
Anyway a few weeks ago I was listening to a newspaper review on Radio 4 and they read out the headline from the Daily or Sunday Star. It was:
'Multitasking turns you into a Halfwit'
Now, much as I respect the accuracy of the Star (Double Decker bus spotted on the moon and all that) I thought I would check and the internet is full of stuff confirming this. Just take Wikipedia as one of hundreds of articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_multitasking
Terms like:
Prone to errors, frequently inaccurate, worse at learning new information, inaccurate self perception at being good at it, difficult if not impossible to learn new information while multi tasking, predisposed to errors, etc.
...Who was the admiral who commanded the Starfleet task force at the Battle of Wolf 359?
Without googling I can't remember the name, but he was the one with the line "the fight does not go well, Enterprise." A pudgy, hard-bitten actor with a barrel chest and a receding grey hairline, he had a good voice. The scene was just before Enterprise arrives at Wolf359 and Shelby started listing off the hulks, including the "Melbourne" which Riker would have died on had he accepted the promotion. That scene reinforces the interpretation that the two-parter is actually about Riker, with the "best of both worlds" referring to Riker being promoted without leaving the Enterprise.
Ah, feel a bit better now...
Admiral J.P. Hanson, played by George Murdock who also played ‘God’ in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
I'm impatient for another Tory leadership contest. Kemi's already been in more than six months now, so that means it's time for another. I'll.even buy some premium peanut butter to make sandwiches, and watch all the letters going in to the 1922 committee again and as usual, etc. Also, I would like to see more of the fragrant.Penny.
Leon, You often boast that you are good at multi-tasking hence how you are able to make so many posts here, yet get on with your life. Specifically in one conversation with me you listed out about half a dozen tasks you were doing simultaneously. I was envious when you said that because I am useless at it.
Anyway a few weeks ago I was listening to a newspaper review on Radio 4 and they read out the headline from the Daily or Sunday Star. It was:
'Multitasking turns you into a Halfwit'
Now, much as I respect the accuracy of the Star (Double Decker bus spotted on the moon and all that) I thought I would check and the internet is full of stuff confirming this. Just take Wikipedia as one of hundreds of articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_multitasking
Terms like:
Prone to errors, frequently inaccurate, worse at learning new information, inaccurate self perception at being good at it, difficult if not impossible to learn new information while multi tasking, predisposed to errors, etc.
Leon, You often boast that you are good at multi-tasking hence how you are able to make so many posts here, yet get on with your life. Specifically in one conversation with me you listed out about half a dozen tasks you were doing simultaneously. I was envious when you said that because I am useless at it.
Anyway a few weeks ago I was listening to a newspaper review on Radio 4 and they read out the headline from the Daily or Sunday Star. It was:
'Multitasking turns you into a Halfwit'
Now, much as I respect the accuracy of the Star (Double Decker bus spotted on the moon and all that) I thought I would check and the internet is full of stuff confirming this. Just take Wikipedia as one of hundreds of articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_multitasking
Terms like:
Prone to errors, frequently inaccurate, worse at learning new information, inaccurate self perception at being good at it, difficult if not impossible to learn new information while multi tasking, predisposed to errors, etc.
Will somebody please explain to me why Richard Murphy is bad? Preferably using short words and a moderate tone? People tried the other day but it was basically "he smells of poo".
I know MMT won't work (because fiat currency depends on consensus confidence), but are there other arguments against him? I think (for example) that his statement that the BoE are engineering a recession thru quantitative tightening is correct. So which of his arguments are wrong and why? Which of his underlying assumptions are wrong?
I've been aware of Murphy since 2007.
He fails on basic logic much of the time ... and gets some of the most basic calculations around his neck. I think the first that really stuck out for me was a miscalcultion of bank profits before he had a dig.
And he has predicted 27 out of the last 1 recessions, so a bit of a stopped clock.
Plus he has a nasty attitude - silencing, hectoring and banning those who argue different viewpoints.
That for me is enough never to listen to him very much.
I have occasionally viewed him through the Tim Worstall lens, which admittedly does not help !
Leon, You often boast that you are good at multi-tasking hence how you are able to make so many posts here, yet get on with your life. Specifically in one conversation with me you listed out about half a dozen tasks you were doing simultaneously. I was envious when you said that because I am useless at it.
Anyway a few weeks ago I was listening to a newspaper review on Radio 4 and they read out the headline from the Daily or Sunday Star. It was:
'Multitasking turns you into a Halfwit'
Now, much as I respect the accuracy of the Star (Double Decker bus spotted on the moon and all that) I thought I would check and the internet is full of stuff confirming this. Just take Wikipedia as one of hundreds of articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_multitasking
Terms like:
Prone to errors, frequently inaccurate, worse at learning new information, inaccurate self perception at being good at it, difficult if not impossible to learn new information while multi tasking, predisposed to errors, etc.
They were being quite rude about that one on Ukraine the Latest, presumably yesterday.
Along the lines of "the mind boggles".
If this happens then Putin will have plucked an unlikely victory from the jaws of geopolitical defeat.
A war of aggression should not be rewarded with territorial concessions, but it’s understandable that if people really want it to stop, they may have to accept the status quo for a while. But the status quo also includes Russia being locked out of Western energy markets.
Utterly brain dead to suggest doing something that will simply fund military rebuilding and hasten the next Russian invasion in Eastern Europe.
It is, however, worth remembering that Nord Stream no longer exists.
Until a couple of weeks ago Russian gas was being pumped through Ukraine, and Ukraine was quite happy to take the fees
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
So each mimunim wage worker brings an average of 1.7 dependents with them?
The old folk can wipe their own bums I guess.
More than 80% of the "bum wipers" are of UK origin.
Precisely. That's why the UK has made the collective decision to pay the costs associated with the 20% who aren't rather than paying all of them more to attract more UK workers to the sector. You can say it's a rather cynical strategy, even short sighted perhaps, but we all know the accute fiscal pressures associated with an ageing society. The one thing we shouldn't do is act like these people are some kind of hostile invasion force. We have asked them to come here, to do jobs we won't pay much for, and we are lucky they said yes.
Correct. But if they have, on average, 0.7 dependent children (annual schooling cost £7500 * 0.7) wouldn't it be better just to start paying properly? It would be interesting to see the sums.
Minimum wage is a £24k annual salary. Assume unit supply elasticity so pay 25% more to get 25% more domestic workers, that's £6k for every care worker vs 20%x0.7x£7.5k=£1k for extra schooling per care worker. People have done these calculations I'm sure. Immigration is not a conspiracy, it's a reasonable response to an ageing society that's struggling to pay its bills.
Why are children being counted as a negative? Do they all leave again once educated? I don't understand the calculation.
Will somebody please explain to me why Richard Murphy is bad? Preferably using short words and a moderate tone? People tried the other day but it was basically "he smells of poo".
I know MMT won't work (because fiat currency depends on consensus confidence), but are there other arguments against him? I think (for example) that his statement that the BoE are engineering a recession thru quantitative tightening is correct. So which of his arguments are wrong and why? Which of his underlying assumptions are wrong?
I've been aware of Murphy since 2007.
He fails on basic logic much of the time ... and gets some of the most basic calculations around his neck. I think the first that really stuck out for me was a miscalcultion of bank profits before he had a dig.
And he has predicted 27 out of the last 1 recessions, so a bit of a stopped clock.
Plus he has a nasty attitude - silencing, hectoring and banning those who argue different viewpoints.
That for me is enough never to listen to him very much.
I have occasionally viewed him through the Tim Worstall lens, which admittedly does not help !
Reflecting slightly further, he tends to alight on a dot or tittle and then go full Witchfinder General about anyone who does not share the tic.
An example a couple of years ago was when he has declaiming that the Bank of England was in no way independent because of one particular (last resort iirc) sub clause in the relevant act. He could not see the difference between independent in practice 99.9% of the time, and not independent at all.
Can I just point out the CDU leader Merz is an idiot. Widely seen as arrogant, out of touch, thin-skinned and clumsy, he's also just rubbish at politics.
In the middle of a general election campaign, he's decided to pull a massive political stunt by putting forward rushed, unworkable legislation that has zero chance of becoming law any time soon. But it doesn't even make any sense as a political stunt, as all it achieves is to boost the AfD (unless that is his aim - I'm beginning to wonder), make the job of making a coalition after the election much more difficult, and upset lots of people in his own party.
Aiming for a coalition with the AfD rather than with more centrist parties would be the suspicion. He must have bunked off history lessons.
There's no chance of a coalition with the AfD after the next election. I've no idea what goes on in Merz's brain, but the CDU wouldn't allow it, it's a non-starter.
I get the impression that the "normal" politicians in Germany are flailing around, a bit, as here. They don't know what to do. Which is ripe for stupid decisions.
The AfD is considerably worse than Reform, I think.
Thoughts?
The AfD are composed of the people Farage is trying, with varying degrees of success, to keep out of Reform.
But while performing the complicated manoeuvre of having them still vote for him.
Agreed, but that might still be better than having them vote for something else. To my mind there is a clear divide between Farage and fascists. We need to be genuinely vigilant against the latter and call them out because they are genuinely dangerous and on the march, and it doesn't help that effort to try to tar rightwingers like Farage with the same brush.
I prefer fascist adjacent. I have no doubt that Farage would happily ‘work with’ AfD, Le Pen and whatever other horrors pop up on the political horizon. These people getting palsied fingers on the levers of power would be seen as a positive not a negative by him.
Maybe we need make gradations, far right, far far right, extreme right, nazi? For example Marine Le Pen apparently thinks AfD is to far right.
I think the final straw was when the AfD said the SS weren't that bad really
Fake news. The guy said that you have to assess guilt individually in response to a leading question:
"It depends. You have to assess blame individually. At the end of the war there were almost a million SS. Günter Grass was also in the Waffen SS," he told La Repubblica and the Financial Times, referring to the German novelist who wrote The Tin Drum.
"Before I declare someone a criminal, I want to know what he did."
Would you have joined the Waffen SS, William?
Did people have a choice, especially as the war dragged on. I went to a war cemetery for German troops in a place called Mertzwiller on the French German border when I was working out there. It surprised me how many of the troops who were killed in the later battles were 14, 15 and 16 years old.
The SS and the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) and Army (the Heer) were different institutions, like the US Navy and the US Coast Guard. The last-minute ad-hoc units you refer to were the Volkssturm, a militia thrown together in 1944. Command structure is confusing, with oversight provided by the SS and the Nazi Party, but defacto command being the Heer. The point being that the SS, the Heer, and the Volkssturm were separate entities. So if WilliamGlenn had decided to join the SS, he would not have been in the Volkssturm.
It worries me that I know this. Somebody ask me a Star Trek question plz to clean out mi brain.
Spock’s Brain is not only the greatest ever episode of Star Trek Trek but the greatest ever episode of television, don’t you agree?
Who was the admiral who commanded the Starfleet task force at the Battle of Wolf 359?
Season 3 of the original run is fantastic and Spocks Brain is so bad it’s awesome. Love it.
I'm impatient for another Tory leadership contest. Kemi's already been in more than six months now, so that means it's time for another. I'll.even buy some premium peanut butter to make sandwiches, and watch all the letters going in to the 1922 committee again and as usual, etc. Also, I would like to see more of the fragrant.Penny.
Checks calendar, only 3 months. So best put it on your Xmas wishlist.
I'm impatient for another Tory leadership contest. Kemi's already been in more than six months now, so that means it's time for another. I'll.even buy some premium peanut butter to make sandwiches, and watch all the letters going in to the 1922 committee again and as usual, etc. Also, I would like to see more of the fragrant.Penny.
Think she'd walk the leadership if a suitable by-election came up. Her defeat in Portsmouth was quite consequential.
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
Why is it so hard to buy mutton or hogget these days? They are even more tasty than lamb, if cooked correctly.
I have to go to Jesmond Dene market they hold on a bridge over the Dene to get it. It’s smashing. Not even the local farm shops stock it.
In my day that was the arts and craft market - since when did food appear on the bridge?
Mind you Quayside market isn’t what it used to be and I suspect the craft people have moved to Tynemouth
How long ago was your day ? Food and drink, as well as fast food stalls, have been there ever since I’ve been going there. So at least 7 years. Some usual suspects, Geordie Bangers lot and some, like the Hoggett/Mutton sellers and fruit and veg stall not. Still has a few arts and crafts too.
Quayside Sunday market has not been the same since Covid and before that had been in decline since I first moved up in 2001.
Tynemouth certainly had more of that craft and also hobbyist stuff when I last went. By hobbyist stuff like vinyl records, modelling, sci fi stuff etc etc.
I don’t think there’s been sufficient discussion of the Patel intervention.
Is it now Tory policy that the Boriswave was one of their proudest achievements? If so, we can really dispense with the idea that the Tories have any viable electoral future.
RIP Tories, 1834-202?
We're moving from Brexit being the defining issue to the Boriswave being the defining issue.
The leader of the anti-Boriswave faction is obviously Farage, with Starmer and Jenrick trying hard to follow in his wake.
Who will be the leader of the pro-Boriswave faction? Perhaps Patel senses an opportunity to be Britain's Kamala Harris, representing the liberal conscience of the UK.
Surely there's a more obvious leader for the pro BORIS wave faction?
That's it! You've solved the central riddle of British politics in 2025: who can stop Nigel Farage? It has to be him, doesn't it?
As a Labour supporter this excites me.
The problem is that Labour will be left trailing as the two titans battle it out. Boris vs Farage wouldn't leave much room for Starmer.
Well it will leave that section of the country that has its head screwed on.
I don’t think there’s been sufficient discussion of the Patel intervention.
Is it now Tory policy that the Boriswave was one of their proudest achievements? If so, we can really dispense with the idea that the Tories have any viable electoral future.
RIP Tories, 1834-202?
We're moving from Brexit being the defining issue to the Boriswave being the defining issue.
The leader of the anti-Boriswave faction is obviously Farage, with Starmer and Jenrick trying hard to follow in his wake.
Who will be the leader of the pro-Boriswave faction? Perhaps Patel senses an opportunity to be Britain's Kamala Harris, representing the liberal conscience of the UK.
Surely there's a more obvious leader for the pro BORIS wave faction?
That's it! You've solved the central riddle of British politics in 2025: who can stop Nigel Farage? It has to be him, doesn't it?
As a Labour supporter this excites me.
The problem is that Labour will be left trailing as the two titans battle it out. Boris vs Farage wouldn't leave much room for Starmer.
Well it will leave that section of the country that has its head screwed on.
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend like that, who would spam WhatsApp with similar stats.
Also every bonkers theory going, 5G and smart meters caused Covid etc.
The Conservatives are never going to beat Reform when half the party seems happy for Reform to win. They have to fight them!
No most Conservatives want to get rid of Starmer's useless government above all.
They don't disagree with Reform anywhere near as much as they do with Labour on most issues, other than Tories are a bit more soft Brexit and Reform a bit more hard Brexit
I suspect you are channelling almost exclusively your own thoughts there. I know traditional Tory voters who utterly despise Farage and Reform, and far more than they do Starmer Labour. The Trump/ Musk connection has supercharged this view. One Nation Tories know extremist traitors when they see them.
*waves*
***Waves***
Farage’s comments about Ukraine pre-election were a disgrace, he cannot be anywhere near the levers of power.
Would you bring back Boris as leader if it's what it would take to see off the risk of Farage as PM?
How might bringing that clown back see off Farage? More than likely it would kill the Tories stone dead.
Hugely risky, but it would be an enormous story and suck the oxygen away from Farage/Reform. But, obvs, hands the election to Labour/LibDems, even if it puts the Reform bandwagon into reverse.
Only worth it if Tories facing existential threat - which they may be facing but not obvious enough (yet) for them to smash the glass case. This is all v unlikely but no doubt Boris will be dreaming of his own Trump moment. Even Macmillan in his 80's was thinking he might be recalled - politicians are just like that, think they are indispensible.
The Conservatives are never going to beat Reform when half the party seems happy for Reform to win. They have to fight them!
No most Conservatives want to get rid of Starmer's useless government above all.
They don't disagree with Reform anywhere near as much as they do with Labour on most issues, other than Tories are a bit more soft Brexit and Reform a bit more hard Brexit
I suspect you are channelling almost exclusively your own thoughts there. I know traditional Tory voters who utterly despise Farage and Reform, and far more than they do Starmer Labour. The Trump/ Musk connection has supercharged this view. One Nation Tories know extremist traitors when they see them.
*waves*
***Waves***
Farage’s comments about Ukraine pre-election were a disgrace, he cannot be anywhere near the levers of power.
I agree, there's nobody to beat a Tory wet on expertise in extremist treachery.
Will somebody please explain to me why Richard Murphy is bad? Preferably using short words and a moderate tone? People tried the other day but it was basically "he smells of poo".
I know MMT won't work (because fiat currency depends on consensus confidence), but are there other arguments against him? I think (for example) that his statement that the BoE are engineering a recession thru quantitative tightening is correct. So which of his arguments are wrong and why? Which of his underlying assumptions are wrong?
I've been aware of Murphy since 2007.
He fails on basic logic much of the time ... and gets some of the most basic calculations around his neck. I think the first that really stuck out for me was a miscalcultion of bank profits before he had a dig.
And he has predicted 27 out of the last 1 recessions, so a bit of a stopped clock.
Plus he has a nasty attitude - silencing, hectoring and banning those who argue different viewpoints.
That for me is enough never to listen to him very much.
I have occasionally viewed him through the Tim Worstall lens, which admittedly does not help !
Reflecting slightly further, he tends to alight on a dot or tittle and then go full Witchfinder General about anyone who does not share the tic.
An example a couple of years ago was when he has declaiming that the Bank of England was in no way independent because of one particular (last resort iirc) sub clause in the relevant act. He could not see the difference between independent in practice 99.9% of the time, and not independent at all.
There’s a misguided criticism of MMT that people sometimes trot out that our system isn’t well described by MMT because central banks are independent of government. But the central bank is a part of the State: it doesn’t matter whether the executive arm of government does or doesn’t have direct control of it for the central tenets of MMT to be true. Indeed, a central bank with a mandate to use interest rates to control inflation is perfectly suited to a government that wishes to spend money without raising taxes in the times when that is the right thing to do economically, since those are precisely the times when the central bank will keep interest rates low regardless of government expenditure. (See the entirety of the post 2008 period, by way of concrete example).
Weirdo MMT enthusiast tend to go overboard finding ways in which the government can or does actually control the central bank in order to counter this criticism. Said weirdo MMT enthusiasts also seem to be the ones that think that the government can just spend money without negative consequences though, so maybe it’s for the best that they don’t get much traction.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
Why is it so hard to buy mutton or hogget these days? They are even more tasty than lamb, if cooked correctly.
I have to go to Jesmond Dene market they hold on a bridge over the Dene to get it. It’s smashing. Not even the local farm shops stock it.
Do they sell it at Hexham Farmers’ Market, do you know?
I'm impatient for another Tory leadership contest. Kemi's already been in more than six months now, so that means it's time for another. I'll.even buy some premium peanut butter to make sandwiches, and watch all the letters going in to the 1922 committee again and as usual, etc. Also, I would like to see more of the fragrant.Penny.
Think she'd walk the leadership if a suitable by-election came up. Her defeat in Portsmouth was quite consequential.
Will somebody please explain to me why Richard Murphy is bad? Preferably using short words and a moderate tone? People tried the other day but it was basically "he smells of poo".
I know MMT won't work (because fiat currency depends on consensus confidence), but are there other arguments against him? I think (for example) that his statement that the BoE are engineering a recession thru quantitative tightening is correct. So which of his arguments are wrong and why? Which of his underlying assumptions are wrong?
I've been aware of Murphy since 2007.
He fails on basic logic much of the time ... and gets some of the most basic calculations around his neck. I think the first that really stuck out for me was a miscalcultion of bank profits before he had a dig.
And he has predicted 27 out of the last 1 recessions, so a bit of a stopped clock.
Plus he has a nasty attitude - silencing, hectoring and banning those who argue different viewpoints.
That for me is enough never to listen to him very much.
I have occasionally viewed him through the Tim Worstall lens, which admittedly does not help !
Reflecting slightly further, he tends to alight on a dot or tittle and then go full Witchfinder General about anyone who does not share the tic.
An example a couple of years ago was when he has declaiming that the Bank of England was in no way independent because of one particular (last resort iirc) sub clause in the relevant act. He could not see the difference between independent in practice 99.9% of the time, and not independent at all.
There’s a misguided criticism of MMT that people sometimes trot out that our system isn’t well described by MMT because central banks are independent of government. But the central bank is a part of the State: it doesn’t matter whether the executive arm of government does or doesn’t have direct control of it for the central tenets of MMT to be true. Indeed, a central bank with a mandate to use interest rates to control inflation is perfectly suited to a government that wishes to spend money without raising taxes in the times when that is the right thing to do economically, since those are precisely the times when the central bank will keep interest rates low regardless of government expenditure. (See the entirety of the post 2008 period, by way of concrete example).
Weirdo MMT enthusiast tend to go overboard finding ways in which the government can or does actually control the central bank in order to counter this criticism. Said weirdo MMT enthusiasts also seem to be the ones that think that the government can just spend money without negative consequences though, so maybe it’s for the best that they don’t get much traction.
If you’re gonna be in Bangers in a fortnight drop me a line
I know some nice places
NO NOT LIKE THAT, MRS SMITHSON
@Leon I'm planning a trip to Bangkok with Mrs S. ATM looking at The Athenee.
Good choice? I prioritise location above everything.
Edit: I should clarify. Mrs S refers to Mrs Stocky, not Mrs Smithson.
Very much depends what you want
Sightseeing, temples, markets, history - go for one of the posh hotels on the river, around the mandarin oriental
Shopping, restaurants, nightlife, bars - go for Sukhumvit Road and the lower sois - that’s where the Athenee is. Looks like a good choice for fun (I don’t know it as a hotel)
Bangkok is more about fun and hedonism than history and culture so I approve
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
Will somebody please explain to me why Richard Murphy is bad? Preferably using short words and a moderate tone? People tried the other day but it was basically "he smells of poo".
I know MMT won't work (because fiat currency depends on consensus confidence), but are there other arguments against him? I think (for example) that his statement that the BoE are engineering a recession thru quantitative tightening is correct. So which of his arguments are wrong and why? Which of his underlying assumptions are wrong?
Basically because he's one of several self-promoting activists or 'experts' who have made careers for themselves online by overselling their credentials and expertise telling people what they want to hear.
In Murphy's case, most of his arguments are based around his longstanding claim that there are vast sums of tax lost through avoidance, left uncollected, that the government of the day could easily collect if they wanted to - much larger than any other estimates. I believe (acc to HMRC) as Murphy's estimates have included tax that is currently unpaid at any one time but will be paid at a later date, and reliefs on headline rates that are used legitimately as intended by parliament. There's also the point that say, cash in hand payments contribute to a 'tax gap', but you're simply vanishingly unlikely to collect it at volume (you're not collaring every painter and decorator or babysitter who's taken £50 for a few hours work and not declared it).
As we have seen with the case of farmers and inheritance tax, there maybe an argument for changing reliefs - but that's not the same thing as a tax gap and can present political difficulties.
From there he tends to annoy the right who think he's a flat out idiot due to presenting heroically vast numbers that could in theory be spent if only he was listened to, but also those on the left who don't share his assumptions. Who he paints as betraying principles because they don't buy there's this huge pot of money sitting there that can bring about lots of lovely socialism with little cost. Whereas, say, the current government are keen to stress that are making tough choices and that we need additional growth to boost tax receipts.
It all leads him to have a bit of a reductive mirror of the populist right in the assumption that politicians have vast pots of cash to spend if only they wanted to (for Reform-types these vast pots come from unspecified 'efficiencies'), which is very irritating if you think it's wrong, but attracts fans online because it is a "one neat trick" that can solve most problems if only it were true.
If you’re gonna be in Bangers in a fortnight drop me a line
I know some nice places
NO NOT LIKE THAT, MRS SMITHSON
@Leon I'm planning a trip to Bangkok with Mrs S. ATM looking at The Athenee.
Good choice? I prioritise location above everything.
Edit: I should clarify. Mrs S refers to Mrs Stocky, not Mrs Smithson.
Very much depends what you want
Sightseeing, temples, markets, history - go for one of the posh hotels on the river, around the mandarin oriental
Shopping, restaurants, nightlife, bars - go for Sukhumvit Road and the lower sois - that’s where the Athenee is. Looks like a good choice for fun (I don’t know it as a hotel)
Bangkok is more about fun and hedonism than history and culture so I approve
Most definitely nightlife and bars are priority, plus street food and the general ambiance. Many thanks.
What exactly *is* the immigration legislation being proposed by Merz?
It's a five point plan:
- Permanent border checks - The rejection of all asylum applications lodged by migrants who arrive in Germany using irregular means - Detention of all foreigners who have exhausted their appeals against deportation - More support and funds to be made available to Laender for deportations - Tightening of laws against criminal foreigners or those deemed to be a risk to society
I don’t think there’s been sufficient discussion of the Patel intervention.
Is it now Tory policy that the Boriswave was one of their proudest achievements? If so, we can really dispense with the idea that the Tories have any viable electoral future.
RIP Tories, 1834-202?
We're moving from Brexit being the defining issue to the Boriswave being the defining issue.
The leader of the anti-Boriswave faction is obviously Farage, with Starmer and Jenrick trying hard to follow in his wake.
Who will be the leader of the pro-Boriswave faction? Perhaps Patel senses an opportunity to be Britain's Kamala Harris, representing the liberal conscience of the UK.
Surely there's a more obvious leader for the pro BORIS wave faction?
That's it! You've solved the central riddle of British politics in 2025: who can stop Nigel Farage? It has to be him, doesn't it?
As a Labour supporter this excites me.
The problem is that Labour will be left trailing as the two titans battle it out. Boris vs Farage wouldn't leave much room for Starmer.
Well it will leave that section of the country that has its head screwed on.
Is that not big enough to win these days?
USA suggests, sadly, no.
Yes that is very true. The biggest take out from Nov 5th in fact.
What exactly *is* the immigration legislation being proposed by Merz?
It's a five point plan:
- Permanent border checks - The rejection of all asylum applications lodged by migrants who arrive in Germany using irregular means - Detention of all foreigners who have exhausted their appeals against deportation - More support and funds to be made available to Laender for deportations - Tightening of laws against criminal foreigners or those deemed to be a risk to society
Interesting - Historic Scotland want opinions on the proposed A-listing of the Bar-L Ranch. I certainly don't doubt its significance historically and architecturally, and I don't suppose it's going to be redundant in a hurry, both (some woudl say) in contrast to the Brutalist seminary at Cardross which tends to be waved around by architecturally minded folk up here. Wonder what past customers would think?
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
This is also a great (awful?) example of how facts don’t work to counter radicalisation: People who have been radicalised don’t care about the actual facts - anything you say or external source you quote only ends up defining in their minds whether you’re on their side or against them.
Sorry to hear you lost a friend to this madness, that must have been tough.
Will somebody please explain to me why Richard Murphy is bad? Preferably using short words and a moderate tone? People tried the other day but it was basically "he smells of poo".
I know MMT won't work (because fiat currency depends on consensus confidence), but are there other arguments against him? I think (for example) that his statement that the BoE are engineering a recession thru quantitative tightening is correct. So which of his arguments are wrong and why? Which of his underlying assumptions are wrong?
I've been aware of Murphy since 2007.
He fails on basic logic much of the time ... and gets some of the most basic calculations around his neck. I think the first that really stuck out for me was a miscalcultion of bank profits before he had a dig.
And he has predicted 27 out of the last 1 recessions, so a bit of a stopped clock.
Plus he has a nasty attitude - silencing, hectoring and banning those who argue different viewpoints.
That for me is enough never to listen to him very much.
I have occasionally viewed him through the Tim Worstall lens, which admittedly does not help !
Reflecting slightly further, he tends to alight on a dot or tittle and then go full Witchfinder General about anyone who does not share the tic.
An example a couple of years ago was when he has declaiming that the Bank of England was in no way independent because of one particular (last resort iirc) sub clause in the relevant act. He could not see the difference between independent in practice 99.9% of the time, and not independent at all.
There’s a misguided criticism of MMT that people sometimes trot out that our system isn’t well described by MMT because central banks are independent of government. But the central bank is a part of the State: it doesn’t matter whether the executive arm of government does or doesn’t have direct control of it for the central tenets of MMT to be true. Indeed, a central bank with a mandate to use interest rates to control inflation is perfectly suited to a government that wishes to spend money without raising taxes in the times when that is the right thing to do economically, since those are precisely the times when the central bank will keep interest rates low regardless of government expenditure. (See the entirety of the post 2008 period, by way of concrete example).
Weirdo MMT enthusiast tend to go overboard finding ways in which the government can or does actually control the central bank in order to counter this criticism. Said weirdo MMT enthusiasts also seem to be the ones that think that the government can just spend money without negative consequences though, so maybe it’s for the best that they don’t get much traction.
MMT sounds like snake oil.
That's because it is snake oil.
Although, like most successful snake oil, it works because it has a grain of truth in it.
Will somebody please explain to me why Richard Murphy is bad? Preferably using short words and a moderate tone? People tried the other day but it was basically "he smells of poo".
I know MMT won't work (because fiat currency depends on consensus confidence), but are there other arguments against him? I think (for example) that his statement that the BoE are engineering a recession thru quantitative tightening is correct. So which of his arguments are wrong and why? Which of his underlying assumptions are wrong?
I've been aware of Murphy since 2007.
He fails on basic logic much of the time ... and gets some of the most basic calculations around his neck. I think the first that really stuck out for me was a miscalcultion of bank profits before he had a dig.
And he has predicted 27 out of the last 1 recessions, so a bit of a stopped clock.
Plus he has a nasty attitude - silencing, hectoring and banning those who argue different viewpoints.
That for me is enough never to listen to him very much.
I have occasionally viewed him through the Tim Worstall lens, which admittedly does not help !
Reflecting slightly further, he tends to alight on a dot or tittle and then go full Witchfinder General about anyone who does not share the tic.
An example a couple of years ago was when he has declaiming that the Bank of England was in no way independent because of one particular (last resort iirc) sub clause in the relevant act. He could not see the difference between independent in practice 99.9% of the time, and not independent at all.
There’s a misguided criticism of MMT that people sometimes trot out that our system isn’t well described by MMT because central banks are independent of government. But the central bank is a part of the State: it doesn’t matter whether the executive arm of government does or doesn’t have direct control of it for the central tenets of MMT to be true. Indeed, a central bank with a mandate to use interest rates to control inflation is perfectly suited to a government that wishes to spend money without raising taxes in the times when that is the right thing to do economically, since those are precisely the times when the central bank will keep interest rates low regardless of government expenditure. (See the entirety of the post 2008 period, by way of concrete example).
Weirdo MMT enthusiast tend to go overboard finding ways in which the government can or does actually control the central bank in order to counter this criticism. Said weirdo MMT enthusiasts also seem to be the ones that think that the government can just spend money without negative consequences though, so maybe it’s for the best that they don’t get much traction.
MMT sounds like snake oil.
It’s just neo-Keynesian economics with some of the accounting identities made explicit in a fiat currency, credit money based economy.
Which is to say: the central thesis is essentially correct, even if the conclusions that MMT weirdos draw from them may not be.
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
I think it's those chips inserted by Soros and Gates that made a section of the population go loopy over Covid etc
I don’t think there’s been sufficient discussion of the Patel intervention.
Is it now Tory policy that the Boriswave was one of their proudest achievements? If so, we can really dispense with the idea that the Tories have any viable electoral future.
RIP Tories, 1834-202?
We're moving from Brexit being the defining issue to the Boriswave being the defining issue.
The leader of the anti-Boriswave faction is obviously Farage, with Starmer and Jenrick trying hard to follow in his wake.
Who will be the leader of the pro-Boriswave faction? Perhaps Patel senses an opportunity to be Britain's Kamala Harris, representing the liberal conscience of the UK.
Surely there's a more obvious leader for the pro BORIS wave faction?
That's it! You've solved the central riddle of British politics in 2025: who can stop Nigel Farage? It has to be him, doesn't it?
As a Labour supporter this excites me.
The problem is that Labour will be left trailing as the two titans battle it out. Boris vs Farage wouldn't leave much room for Starmer.
Well it will leave that section of the country that has its head screwed on.
Is that not big enough to win these days?
USA suggests, sadly, no.
This is a very different and far more plural political system than that of the United States. Under FPTP, Reform is uncompetitive, and the Conservatives only marginally more so, in most of London, all the other urban cores with substantial ethnic minority populations, and Scotland. It has insufficient appeal anywhere that's wealthy, let alone in the tract of Southern England seized by the Liberal Democrats, and the closer the Tories are seen to creep towards Reform friendly positions, the more dominoes risk toppling over in their traditional heartland.
Reform is too Marmite, and it's support too evenly spread, for it to get remotely close to power. 50 seats, maybe, 100 at a stretch, but it won't pass the Tories. The Tories also can't get remotely close to power whilst the Liberal Democrats are well dug in in the South, and there's no indication that they're in the position to seize that territory back.
After the next election, the Lib Dems, non-Tory Scotland, and the odds and sods (Northern Ireland, Plaid, the Greens and independents) are likely to sum up to somewhere in the ballpark of 150 seats. To arrive at the most likely right-wing administration - a weak Tory minority limping along by the permission of Farage - Labour in England and Wales would therefore need to go down to well short of 200. Anything is possible, but likely? No. There are too many voters out there who remember how dire the last Conservative Government was, and won't be longing for it's return in 2028 or 2029 any more than they do now.
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
I have a cousin who spends hours every day with his head in Fox News, with predictable effects. It's a real shame (for me) because he was a close and important cousin once. When I was 18 he gave me a velvet jacket and used to drive me around the chilterns too fast in his jag. Also introduced me to Wings and Steely Dan. I have to avoid him now. These things have real life consequences.
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
This is also a great (awful?) example of how facts don’t work to counter radicalisation: People who have been radicalised don’t care about the actual facts - anything you say or external source you quote only ends up defining in their minds whether you’re on their side or against them.
Sorry to hear you lost a friend to this madness, that must have been tough.
I have a sister who swallowed the anti Vax conspiracy theory hook line and sinker. I found it very difficult to talk to her and to my shame I stopped discussing it with her. I'm not sure whether this is connected but she is is Refuk and refuses to pay the TV licence, hence no BBC or Itv news, only Facebook crap.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
Why is it so hard to buy mutton or hogget these days? They are even more tasty than lamb, if cooked correctly.
I have to go to Jesmond Dene market they hold on a bridge over the Dene to get it. It’s smashing. Not even the local farm shops stock it.
Do they sell it at Hexham Farmers’ Market, do you know?
They certainly sell it in the Lothian/Tweeddale area, though it's such a small scale (at least our supplier) that it depends what's had the chop over the past week or two whether there is any.
Just updated a delivery date with FedEx (I'm recipient). Requested to have it delivered one day later than planned, when I'll be in. They've confirmed that by email, the followed up with another email apologising that they've had to change my delivery date to a day later than originally planned (i.e. to the date I just requested). I guess I'll let them off!
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
This is also a great (awful?) example of how facts don’t work to counter radicalisation: People who have been radicalised don’t care about the actual facts - anything you say or external source you quote only ends up defining in their minds whether you’re on their side or against them.
Sorry to hear you lost a friend to this madness, that must have been tough.
Yes, there's no point in arguing; they just tend to get even more defensive. I seem to remember reading that a better approach is to gently ask them to explain particular aspects of their beliefs while showing genuine interest, but querying the bits that don't hang together and suggesting alternative (i.e. more realistic) explanations.
I'm impatient for another Tory leadership contest. Kemi's already been in more than six months now, so that means it's time for another. I'll.even buy some premium peanut butter to make sandwiches, and watch all the letters going in to the 1922 committee again and as usual, etc. Also, I would like to see more of the fragrant.Penny.
Think she'd walk the leadership if a suitable by-election came up. Her defeat in Portsmouth was quite consequential.
She should stand in Runcorn.
She won't but, actually, perhaps she should?
It would make the by-election a really big story and she would have the chance of going head-to-head with Reform.
She wouldn't win (Tories a distant third last time) but could do pretty well. Roy Jenkins lost the Warrington by-election shortly after the SDP was formed but it did him and the party a world of good. Showed he was a fighter.
Will somebody please explain to me why Richard Murphy is bad? Preferably using short words and a moderate tone? People tried the other day but it was basically "he smells of poo".
I know MMT won't work (because fiat currency depends on consensus confidence), but are there other arguments against him? I think (for example) that his statement that the BoE are engineering a recession thru quantitative tightening is correct. So which of his arguments are wrong and why? Which of his underlying assumptions are wrong?
I've been aware of Murphy since 2007.
He fails on basic logic much of the time ... and gets some of the most basic calculations around his neck. I think the first that really stuck out for me was a miscalcultion of bank profits before he had a dig.
And he has predicted 27 out of the last 1 recessions, so a bit of a stopped clock.
Plus he has a nasty attitude - silencing, hectoring and banning those who argue different viewpoints.
That for me is enough never to listen to him very much.
I have occasionally viewed him through the Tim Worstall lens, which admittedly does not help !
Reflecting slightly further, he tends to alight on a dot or tittle and then go full Witchfinder General about anyone who does not share the tic.
An example a couple of years ago was when he has declaiming that the Bank of England was in no way independent because of one particular (last resort iirc) sub clause in the relevant act. He could not see the difference between independent in practice 99.9% of the time, and not independent at all.
There’s a misguided criticism of MMT that people sometimes trot out that our system isn’t well described by MMT because central banks are independent of government. But the central bank is a part of the State: it doesn’t matter whether the executive arm of government does or doesn’t have direct control of it for the central tenets of MMT to be true. Indeed, a central bank with a mandate to use interest rates to control inflation is perfectly suited to a government that wishes to spend money without raising taxes in the times when that is the right thing to do economically, since those are precisely the times when the central bank will keep interest rates low regardless of government expenditure. (See the entirety of the post 2008 period, by way of concrete example).
Weirdo MMT enthusiast tend to go overboard finding ways in which the government can or does actually control the central bank in order to counter this criticism. Said weirdo MMT enthusiasts also seem to be the ones that think that the government can just spend money without negative consequences though, so maybe it’s for the best that they don’t get much traction.
MMT sounds like snake oil.
It’s just neo-Keynesian economics with some of the accounting identities made explicit in a fiat currency, credit money based economy.
Which is to say: the central thesis is essentially correct, even if the conclusions that MMT weirdos draw from them may not be.
It's often presented as governments being able to spend whatever they like because they can create the money rather than borrow it. The second assertion is true but it doesn't mean the first is.
What exactly *is* the immigration legislation being proposed by Merz?
It's a five point plan:
- Permanent border checks - The rejection of all asylum applications lodged by migrants who arrive in Germany using irregular means - Detention of all foreigners who have exhausted their appeals against deportation - More support and funds to be made available to Laender for deportations - Tightening of laws against criminal foreigners or those deemed to be a risk to society
A policy to unite our resident nuclear and basalt enthusiasts (you know who you are).
Nuclear Explosions for Large Scale Carbon Sequestration https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.06623 Confronting the escalating threat of climate change requires innovative and large-scale interventions. This paper presents a bold proposal to employ a buried nuclear explosion in a remote basaltic seabed for pulverizing basalt, thereby accelerating carbon sequestration through Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW). By precisely locating the explosion beneath the seabed, we aim to confine debris, radiation, and energy while ensuring rapid rock weathering at a scale substantial enough to make a meaningful dent in atmospheric carbon levels. Our analysis outlines the parameters essential for efficient carbon capture and minimal collateral effects, emphasizing that a yield on the order of gigatons is critical for global climate impact. Although this approach may appear radical, we illustrate its feasibility by examining safety factors, preservation of local ecosystems, political considerations, and financial viability. This work argues for reimagining nuclear technology not merely as a destructive force but as a potential catalyst for decarbonization, thereby inviting further exploration of pioneering solutions in the fight against climate change...
(edit) 80GT is perhaps a tad excessive.
The Tsar Bomba was the largest bomb ever detonated at 58 Megatons. The top of the mushroom cloud was above the stratosphere at 42 miles. 80 Gigatons ????????????
80 gigatons…
The practical limit for yield is 6Kt per kilo
So that is nuclear weapon which weighs 13,333 tons. Probably double that.
So a bomb the size of a fair sized ship.
Containment would be impossible. Detonated miles underground, it would simply tear a huge crater and lay waste to a huge area. Most of the blast would go into space.
Subsea.
Admittedly, there might be some technical problems to be solved.
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
I have a cousin who spends hours every day with his head in Fox News, with predictable effects. It's a real shame (for me) because he was a close and important cousin once. When I was 18 he gave me a velvet jacket and used to drive me around the chilterns too fast in his jag. Also introduced me to Wings and Steely Dan. I have to avoid him now. These things have real life consequences.
It is quite possible he started avoiding you, first
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
Asking him to correct his earlier post was probably a mistake. People hate being made to look foolish. It would perhaps have been better to have stopped after indicating his mistake, and just letting him think about it.
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
This is also a great (awful?) example of how facts don’t work to counter radicalisation: People who have been radicalised don’t care about the actual facts - anything you say or external source you quote only ends up defining in their minds whether you’re on their side or against them.
Sorry to hear you lost a friend to this madness, that must have been tough.
Yes, there's no point in arguing; they just tend to get even more defensive. I seem to remember reading that a better approach is to gently ask them to explain particular aspects of their beliefs while showing genuine interest, but querying the bits that don't hang together and suggesting alternative (i.e. more realistic) explanations.
Yes, countering radicalisation is essentially the same process as cult deprogramming & just as time consuming, difficult and uncertain.
A policy to unite our resident nuclear and basalt enthusiasts (you know who you are).
Nuclear Explosions for Large Scale Carbon Sequestration https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.06623 Confronting the escalating threat of climate change requires innovative and large-scale interventions. This paper presents a bold proposal to employ a buried nuclear explosion in a remote basaltic seabed for pulverizing basalt, thereby accelerating carbon sequestration through Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW). By precisely locating the explosion beneath the seabed, we aim to confine debris, radiation, and energy while ensuring rapid rock weathering at a scale substantial enough to make a meaningful dent in atmospheric carbon levels. Our analysis outlines the parameters essential for efficient carbon capture and minimal collateral effects, emphasizing that a yield on the order of gigatons is critical for global climate impact. Although this approach may appear radical, we illustrate its feasibility by examining safety factors, preservation of local ecosystems, political considerations, and financial viability. This work argues for reimagining nuclear technology not merely as a destructive force but as a potential catalyst for decarbonization, thereby inviting further exploration of pioneering solutions in the fight against climate change...
(edit) 80GT is perhaps a tad excessive.
The Tsar Bomba was the largest bomb ever detonated at 58 Megatons. The top of the mushroom cloud was above the stratosphere at 42 miles. 80 Gigatons ????????????
80 gigatons…
The practical limit for yield is 6Kt per kilo
So that is nuclear weapon which weighs 13,333 tons. Probably double that.
So a bomb the size of a fair sized ship.
Containment would be impossible. Detonated miles underground, it would simply tear a huge crater and lay waste to a huge area. Most of the blast would go into space.
Subsea.
Admittedly, there might be some technical problems to be solved.
A few miles of water are pretty much the same for this as a few miles of rock.
See some fun calculations by Edward Teller. Who actually investigated nuclear devices of this size.
What exactly *is* the immigration legislation being proposed by Merz?
It's a five point plan:
- Permanent border checks - The rejection of all asylum applications lodged by migrants who arrive in Germany using irregular means - Detention of all foreigners who have exhausted their appeals against deportation - More support and funds to be made available to Laender for deportations - Tightening of laws against criminal foreigners or those deemed to be a risk to society
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
I have a cousin who spends hours every day with his head in Fox News, with predictable effects. It's a real shame (for me) because he was a close and important cousin once. When I was 18 he gave me a velvet jacket and used to drive me around the chilterns too fast in his jag. Also introduced me to Wings and Steely Dan. I have to avoid him now. These things have real life consequences.
I think we will see similar with GBN, tbh. It's an exclude-the-rest funnel.
Many of my acquaintances around here are either not properly working class, have broadened their horizons, have their feet on the ground or are aware what they are doing and make the compromise (eg no one but Lee Anderson can help them.)
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
I have a cousin who spends hours every day with his head in Fox News, with predictable effects. It's a real shame (for me) because he was a close and important cousin once. When I was 18 he gave me a velvet jacket and used to drive me around the chilterns too fast in his jag. Also introduced me to Wings and Steely Dan. I have to avoid him now. These things have real life consequences.
It is quite possible he started avoiding you, first
Lol, no I'd have noticed.
You'd probably get on with him. He's head over heels for the Donald.
If you’re gonna be in Bangers in a fortnight drop me a line
I know some nice places
NO NOT LIKE THAT, MRS SMITHSON
@Leon I'm planning a trip to Bangkok with Mrs S. ATM looking at The Athenee.
Good choice? I prioritise location above everything.
Edit: I should clarify. Mrs S refers to Mrs Stocky, not Mrs Smithson.
Very much depends what you want
Sightseeing, temples, markets, history - go for one of the posh hotels on the river, around the mandarin oriental
Shopping, restaurants, nightlife, bars - go for Sukhumvit Road and the lower sois - that’s where the Athenee is. Looks like a good choice for fun (I don’t know it as a hotel)
Bangkok is more about fun and hedonism than history and culture so I approve
Most definitely nightlife and bars are priority, plus street food and the general ambiance. Many thanks.
Very sensible!
Tbh Bangkok is quite crap for culture, art, history. There are a few boring temples. Emerald Buddhas. Yawn
And I love a bit of history and culture, me. And Indochina has superb places to see to this end. Angkor Wat, Tuol Sleng, Luang Prabang, Hanoi, Hoi An, Chiang Mai
Bangkok, however, is gravely lacking in this department. But who cares. You don’t come here for that. Just as no one goes to LA to see the churches
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
I have a cousin who spends hours every day with his head in Fox News, with predictable effects. It's a real shame (for me) because he was a close and important cousin once. When I was 18 he gave me a velvet jacket and used to drive me around the chilterns too fast in his jag. Also introduced me to Wings and Steely Dan. I have to avoid him now. These things have real life consequences.
It is quite possible he started avoiding you, first
Lol, no I'd have noticed.
You'd probably get on with him. He's head over heels for the Donald.
You don’t strike me as a noticer; whereas he sounds like fun
Maybe he decided to quietly avoid his priggish, uptight, humourless, disapproving, narrow minded retired-accountant lefty cousin in Hampstead? Just a thought
What exactly *is* the immigration legislation being proposed by Merz?
It's a five point plan:
- Permanent border checks - The rejection of all asylum applications lodged by migrants who arrive in Germany using irregular means - Detention of all foreigners who have exhausted their appeals against deportation - More support and funds to be made available to Laender for deportations - Tightening of laws against criminal foreigners or those deemed to be a risk to society
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
This is also a great (awful?) example of how facts don’t work to counter radicalisation: People who have been radicalised don’t care about the actual facts - anything you say or external source you quote only ends up defining in their minds whether you’re on their side or against them.
Sorry to hear you lost a friend to this madness, that must have been tough.
I have a sister who swallowed the anti Vax conspiracy theory hook line and sinker. I found it very difficult to talk to her and to my shame I stopped discussing it with her. I'm not sure whether this is connected but she is is Refuk and refuses to pay the TV licence, hence no BBC or Itv news, only Facebook crap.
Not a close friend by any means, but someone I have a few drinks with now again told me, at our last meeting that now now given up on BBC and ITN news and now relied upon GB News "because they told the truth". There were three of us in the conversation and when he left the two who remained just shook our heads sadly. Not sure if we'll seek his company again.
What exactly *is* the immigration legislation being proposed by Merz?
It's a five point plan:
- Permanent border checks - The rejection of all asylum applications lodged by migrants who arrive in Germany using irregular means - Detention of all foreigners who have exhausted their appeals against deportation - More support and funds to be made available to Laender for deportations - Tightening of laws against criminal foreigners or those deemed to be a risk to society
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
I have a cousin who spends hours every day with his head in Fox News, with predictable effects. It's a real shame (for me) because he was a close and important cousin once. When I was 18 he gave me a velvet jacket and used to drive me around the chilterns too fast in his jag. Also introduced me to Wings and Steely Dan. I have to avoid him now. These things have real life consequences.
I think we will see similar with GBN, tbh. It's an exclude-the-rest funnel.
Many of my acquaintances around here are either not properly working class, have broadened their horizons, have their feet on the ground or are aware what they are doing and make the compromise (eg no one but Lee Anderson can help them.)
But there a few who will go that way imo.
I truly hope not. American things often come over here but not always.
48% of us voted Remain remember. That's a good buffer of decency and strong brain chemistry to fall back on.
Leon, You often boast that you are good at multi-tasking hence how you are able to make so many posts here, yet get on with your life. Specifically in one conversation with me you listed out about half a dozen tasks you were doing simultaneously. I was envious when you said that because I am useless at it.
Anyway a few weeks ago I was listening to a newspaper review on Radio 4 and they read out the headline from the Daily or Sunday Star. It was:
'Multitasking turns you into a Halfwit'
Now, much as I respect the accuracy of the Star (Double Decker bus spotted on the moon and all that) I thought I would check and the internet is full of stuff confirming this. Just take Wikipedia as one of hundreds of articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_multitasking
Terms like:
Prone to errors, frequently inaccurate, worse at learning new information, inaccurate self perception at being good at it, difficult if not impossible to learn new information while multi tasking, predisposed to errors, etc.
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
This is also a great (awful?) example of how facts don’t work to counter radicalisation: People who have been radicalised don’t care about the actual facts - anything you say or external source you quote only ends up defining in their minds whether you’re on their side or against them.
Sorry to hear you lost a friend to this madness, that must have been tough.
I have a sister who swallowed the anti Vax conspiracy theory hook line and sinker. I found it very difficult to talk to her and to my shame I stopped discussing it with her. I'm not sure whether this is connected but she is is Refuk and refuses to pay the TV licence, hence no BBC or Itv news, only Facebook crap.
Not a close friend by any means, but someone I have a few drinks with now again told me, at our last meeting that now now given up on BBC and ITN news and now relied upon GB News "because they told the truth". There were three of us in the conversation and when he left the two who remained just shook our heads sadly. Not sure if we'll seek his company again.
Yes, it can be difficult but you have to be ruthless.
Merz loses vote on immigration bill 350 - 338 with 5 abstaining, despite support from AfD. Don't expect he'll still be 1/12 for next Chancellor on the markets having insisted on the vote going ahead, relying on the support of the far right and then losing... Said it could be a good trading lay, if only it had been on the exchanges.
What exactly *is* the immigration legislation being proposed by Merz?
It's a five point plan:
- Permanent border checks - The rejection of all asylum applications lodged by migrants who arrive in Germany using irregular means - Detention of all foreigners who have exhausted their appeals against deportation - More support and funds to be made available to Laender for deportations - Tightening of laws against criminal foreigners or those deemed to be a risk to society
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
This is also a great (awful?) example of how facts don’t work to counter radicalisation: People who have been radicalised don’t care about the actual facts - anything you say or external source you quote only ends up defining in their minds whether you’re on their side or against them.
Sorry to hear you lost a friend to this madness, that must have been tough.
I have a sister who swallowed the anti Vax conspiracy theory hook line and sinker. I found it very difficult to talk to her and to my shame I stopped discussing it with her. I'm not sure whether this is connected but she is is Refuk and refuses to pay the TV licence, hence no BBC or Itv news, only Facebook crap.
Not a close friend by any means, but someone I have a few drinks with now again told me, at our last meeting that now now given up on BBC and ITN news and now relied upon GB News "because they told the truth". There were three of us in the conversation and when he left the two who remained just shook our heads sadly. Not sure if we'll seek his company again.
Yes, it can be difficult but you have to be ruthless.
A pity. Phil makes a good point downthread about deprogramming. The craziness of tge last ten years of both left and right has been brought about by too much time interacting online and not enough time in real life. I don't want to deligitimise the odder views people have, but they would find it harder to gain traction in a world in which we spent more time in human company. I give this place a partial exemption from that criticism because so much effort goes into challenging views expressed (though would note while we have a wide range of views represented here we're not really wholly representative).
I referenced yesterday that my wife is producing a biopic about Marianne Faithfull. As well as getting an actress who can portray the various facets of Marianne, the biggest question she was asked is: "how the hell do you get your Mick Jagger?"
I've just watched a nine-minute edit of a "guerilla shoot", done a couple of weekends back. And it is extraordinary. Watching Mick teach Marianne "As tears go by" is like documentary footage. Uncanny doesn't remotely do it justice. Him actually playing and singing "Wild Horses" is jaw-dropping. (It helps that the actor has his own band. But man, he moves like Jagger.)
If the teaser gets released for Berlin, I'll post a link.
What exactly *is* the immigration legislation being proposed by Merz?
It's a five point plan:
- Permanent border checks - The rejection of all asylum applications lodged by migrants who arrive in Germany using irregular means - Detention of all foreigners who have exhausted their appeals against deportation - More support and funds to be made available to Laender for deportations - Tightening of laws against criminal foreigners or those deemed to be a risk to society
It seems it was rejected because enough CDU representatives had an issue with allying themselves with actual fascists
They all voted for the motion on Wednesday. I'm not that surprised that some voted against, there seems to be quite a few people within the CDU who are very uncomfortable with Merz's tactics here. I have a friend here in NRW who is a local CDU politician (admittedly he was never a big Merz fan), who was privately extremely unhappy with having a vote passed with AfD votes. Perhaps the rebels were emboldened by Merkel's statement.
But I'm surprised that Merz didn't take the off-ramp provided when the FDP this morning suggested they would vote to send it back to committee (in the end they didn't blaming the SPD and Greens), you'd have thought he might have known there were enough rebels to sink it. Anyway the guy is still an idiot, he's just provoked a very bad-tempered political row with people he needs to negotiate a coalition with later, split his own party, given a massive boost to the AfD, made the election all about the AfD and immigration (which also boosts the AfD), and ended up looking like a complete fool.
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
This is also a great (awful?) example of how facts don’t work to counter radicalisation: People who have been radicalised don’t care about the actual facts - anything you say or external source you quote only ends up defining in their minds whether you’re on their side or against them.
Sorry to hear you lost a friend to this madness, that must have been tough.
I have a sister who swallowed the anti Vax conspiracy theory hook line and sinker. I found it very difficult to talk to her and to my shame I stopped discussing it with her. I'm not sure whether this is connected but she is is Refuk and refuses to pay the TV licence, hence no BBC or Itv news, only Facebook crap.
Not a close friend by any means, but someone I have a few drinks with now again told me, at our last meeting that now now given up on BBC and ITN news and now relied upon GB News "because they told the truth". There were three of us in the conversation and when he left the two who remained just shook our heads sadly. Not sure if we'll seek his company again.
Yes, it can be difficult but you have to be ruthless.
I think we might well give it one more go. Keep him talking about cars.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
Why is it so hard to buy mutton or hogget these days? They are even more tasty than lamb, if cooked correctly.
I have to go to Jesmond Dene market they hold on a bridge over the Dene to get it. It’s smashing. Not even the local farm shops stock it.
In my day that was the arts and craft market - since when did food appear on the bridge?
Mind you Quayside market isn’t what it used to be and I suspect the craft people have moved to Tynemouth
How long ago was your day ? Food and drink, as well as fast food stalls, have been there ever since I’ve been going there. So at least 7 years. Some usual suspects, Geordie Bangers lot and some, like the Hoggett/Mutton sellers and fruit and veg stall not. Still has a few arts and crafts too.
Quayside Sunday market has not been the same since Covid and before that had been in decline since I first moved up in 2001.
Tynemouth certainly had more of that craft and also hobbyist stuff when I last went. By hobbyist stuff like vinyl records, modelling, sci fi stuff etc etc.
When I was a student and living in Jesmond (with Mrs Eek’s best friend as she needed a flatmate).
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
I have a cousin who spends hours every day with his head in Fox News, with predictable effects. It's a real shame (for me) because he was a close and important cousin once. When I was 18 he gave me a velvet jacket and used to drive me around the chilterns too fast in his jag. Also introduced me to Wings and Steely Dan. I have to avoid him now. These things have real life consequences.
It is quite possible he started avoiding you, first
Lol, no I'd have noticed.
You'd probably get on with him. He's head over heels for the Donald.
You don’t strike me as a noticer; whereas he sounds like fun
Maybe he decided to quietly avoid his priggish, uptight, humourless, disapproving, narrow minded retired-accountant lefty cousin in Hampstead? Just a thought
I notice more than is good for me. Gift cum curse. He lives 400 miles away as it happens. And he's knocking on now. Although aren't we all.
The pandemic showed just how few people understand data/statistics.
My brother fell into the rabbit hole, and started posting rubbish about how 60% of the hospitalised with covid had already had the vaccine and it was therefore proof that the vaccine was ineffective (and indeed, made covid worse).
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad. I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
I had a friend who did similar: he posted a link on Facebook to WHO death rates by country, and pointed out that there was no increase in death rates for 2020 and that proved Covid didn't really happen. "The evidence is always out there if you look", he stated.
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
This is also a great (awful?) example of how facts don’t work to counter radicalisation: People who have been radicalised don’t care about the actual facts - anything you say or external source you quote only ends up defining in their minds whether you’re on their side or against them.
Sorry to hear you lost a friend to this madness, that must have been tough.
I have a sister who swallowed the anti Vax conspiracy theory hook line and sinker. I found it very difficult to talk to her and to my shame I stopped discussing it with her. I'm not sure whether this is connected but she is is Refuk and refuses to pay the TV licence, hence no BBC or Itv news, only Facebook crap.
Not a close friend by any means, but someone I have a few drinks with now again told me, at our last meeting that now now given up on BBC and ITN news and now relied upon GB News "because they told the truth". There were three of us in the conversation and when he left the two who remained just shook our heads sadly. Not sure if we'll seek his company again.
Yes, it can be difficult but you have to be ruthless.
You have more patience than I have - I would have made my excuses and left
Comments
The practical limit for yield is 6Kt per kilo
So that is nuclear weapon which weighs 13,333 tons. Probably double that.
So a bomb the size of a fair sized ship.
Containment would be impossible. Detonated miles underground, it would simply tear a huge crater and lay waste to a huge area. Most of the blast would go into space.
This confounds me and distresses me, as he is a shyster, and is very much to blame for the Boriswave that is propelling Reform towards government, nonetheless it is the case. Bet accordingly
No, too little energy for that.
I know some nice places
NO NOT LIKE THAT, MRS SMITHSON
"Germany's Last Ditch 1945 Units", The Armchair Historian, YouTube, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz9HhLSxt8c
It worries me that I know this. Somebody ask me a Star Trek question plz to clean out mi brain.
The main problem with the idea of a comeback is his essential Borisness. He can make himself loved by everyone, right up to the moment he lets them down and then they hate him. Conservative Europhiles were just ahead of the curve on that one. And I don't think he can turn that around.
Besides, he is old and his hair is falling out.
Who was the admiral who commanded the Starfleet task force at the Battle of Wolf 359?
Mind you Quayside market isn’t what it used to be and I suspect the craft people have moved to Tynemouth
Ah, feel a bit better now...
Leon, You often boast that you are good at multi-tasking hence how you are able to make so many posts here, yet get on with your life. Specifically in one conversation with me you listed out about half a dozen tasks you were doing simultaneously. I was envious when you said that because I am useless at it.
Anyway a few weeks ago I was listening to a newspaper review on Radio 4 and they read out the headline from the Daily or Sunday Star. It was:
'Multitasking turns you into a Halfwit'
Now, much as I respect the accuracy of the Star (Double Decker bus spotted on the moon and all that) I thought I would check and the internet is full of stuff confirming this. Just take Wikipedia as one of hundreds of articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_multitasking
Terms like:
Prone to errors, frequently inaccurate, worse at learning new information, inaccurate self perception at being good at it, difficult if not impossible to learn new information while multi tasking, predisposed to errors, etc.
Does this explain @leon's posts I wonder?
I'm impatient for another Tory leadership contest. Kemi's already been in more than six months now, so that means it's time for another. I'll.even buy some premium peanut butter to make sandwiches, and watch all the letters going in to the 1922 committee again and as usual, etc. Also, I would like to see more of the fragrant.Penny.
He fails on basic logic much of the time ... and gets some of the most basic calculations around his neck. I think the first that really stuck out for me was a miscalcultion of bank profits before he had a dig.
And he has predicted 27 out of the last 1 recessions, so a bit of a stopped clock.
Plus he has a nasty attitude - silencing, hectoring and banning those who argue different viewpoints.
That for me is enough never to listen to him very much.
I have occasionally viewed him through the Tim Worstall lens, which admittedly does not help !
An example a couple of years ago was when he has declaiming that the Bank of England was in no way independent because of one particular (last resort iirc) sub clause in the relevant act. He could not see the difference between independent in practice 99.9% of the time, and not independent at all.
Good choice? I prioritise location above everything.
Edit: I should clarify. Mrs S refers to Mrs Stocky, not Mrs Smithson.
In his head, it was 50:50, so if the stat was > 50%, it must be bad.
I explained that with 95% of the UK population now vaccinated, far from proving that the vaccine didn't work, it proved it did.
I set out his stats in real numbers (100 people in hospital out of 1000 population meant 60 out of 950 against 40 out of 50). He called me names, blocked me and continued his rant until Facebook banned him (they wouldn't now I suppose).
Quayside Sunday market has not been the same since Covid and before that had been in decline since I first moved up in 2001.
Tynemouth certainly had more of that craft and also hobbyist stuff when I last went. By hobbyist stuff like vinyl records, modelling, sci fi stuff etc etc.
Is that not big enough to win these days?
Also every bonkers theory going, 5G and smart meters caused Covid etc.
Only worth it if Tories facing existential threat - which they may be facing but not obvious enough (yet) for them to smash the glass case. This is all v unlikely but no doubt Boris will be dreaming of his own Trump moment. Even Macmillan in his 80's was thinking he might be recalled - politicians are just like that, think they are indispensible.
Another Reeves problem
BBC News - AstraZeneca ditches £450m investment in UK plant
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1we943zez9o
Weirdo MMT enthusiast tend to go overboard finding ways in which the government can or does actually control the central bank in order to counter this criticism. Said weirdo MMT enthusiasts also seem to be the ones that think that the government can just spend money without negative consequences though, so maybe it’s for the best that they don’t get much traction.
And he was an idiot. Should've listened to Shelby's warning about Picard.
Sightseeing, temples, markets, history - go for one of the posh hotels on the river, around the mandarin oriental
Shopping, restaurants, nightlife, bars - go for Sukhumvit Road and the lower sois - that’s where the Athenee is. Looks like a good choice for fun (I don’t know it as a hotel)
Bangkok is more about fun and hedonism than history and culture so I approve
I pointed out that he'd shared the 2019 WHO report, which contained forecasts for 2020, and that we shouldn't be surprised it didn't include Covid (indeed, we should probably be relieved that it didn't include it!). I then passed him the correct report, which showed meaningful upticks in death rates, and asked him to share it and/or correct his earlier post.
He blocked me.
This was a guy I'd know for 15 years, and -while not a super close friend- I personally liked very much.
It's scary how "the rabbit hole" fucks you up.
How the eff am I supposed to keep a straight face with players with names like Harshit and Arshdeep?
In Murphy's case, most of his arguments are based around his longstanding claim that there are vast sums of tax lost through avoidance, left uncollected, that the government of the day could easily collect if they wanted to - much larger than any other estimates. I believe (acc to HMRC) as Murphy's estimates have included tax that is currently unpaid at any one time but will be paid at a later date, and reliefs on headline rates that are used legitimately as intended by parliament. There's also the point that say, cash in hand payments contribute to a 'tax gap', but you're simply vanishingly unlikely to collect it at volume (you're not collaring every painter and decorator or babysitter who's taken £50 for a few hours work and not declared it).
As we have seen with the case of farmers and inheritance tax, there maybe an argument for changing reliefs - but that's not the same thing as a tax gap and can present political difficulties.
From there he tends to annoy the right who think he's a flat out idiot due to presenting heroically vast numbers that could in theory be spent if only he was listened to, but also those on the left who don't share his assumptions. Who he paints as betraying principles because they don't buy there's this huge pot of money sitting there that can bring about lots of lovely socialism with little cost. Whereas, say, the current government are keen to stress that are making tough choices and that we need additional growth to boost tax receipts.
It all leads him to have a bit of a reductive mirror of the populist right in the assumption that politicians have vast pots of cash to spend if only they wanted to (for Reform-types these vast pots come from unspecified 'efficiencies'), which is very irritating if you think it's wrong, but attracts fans online because it is a "one neat trick" that can solve most problems if only it were true.
- Permanent border checks
- The rejection of all asylum applications lodged by migrants who arrive in Germany using irregular means
- Detention of all foreigners who have exhausted their appeals against deportation
- More support and funds to be made available to Laender for deportations
- Tightening of laws against criminal foreigners or those deemed to be a risk to society
https://haveyoursay.historicenvironment.scot/heritage/hmp-barlinnie/
Edit: it *is* closing. Had missed that.
https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/news-and-articles/exploring-hmp-barlinnie
Sorry to hear you lost a friend to this madness, that must have been tough.
Although, like most successful snake oil, it works because it has a grain of truth in it.
Which is to say: the central thesis is essentially correct, even if the conclusions that MMT weirdos draw from them may not be.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1we943zez9o
Reform is too Marmite, and it's support too evenly spread, for it to get remotely close to power. 50 seats, maybe, 100 at a stretch, but it won't pass the Tories. The Tories also can't get remotely close to power whilst the Liberal Democrats are well dug in in the South, and there's no indication that they're in the position to seize that territory back.
After the next election, the Lib Dems, non-Tory Scotland, and the odds and sods (Northern Ireland, Plaid, the Greens and independents) are likely to sum up to somewhere in the ballpark of 150 seats. To arrive at the most likely right-wing administration - a weak Tory minority limping along by the permission of Farage - Labour in England and Wales would therefore need to go down to well short of 200. Anything is possible, but likely? No. There are too many voters out there who remember how dire the last Conservative Government was, and won't be longing for it's return in 2028 or 2029 any more than they do now.
It would make the by-election a really big story and she would have the chance of going head-to-head with Reform.
She wouldn't win (Tories a distant third last time) but could do pretty well. Roy Jenkins lost the Warrington by-election shortly after the SDP was formed but it did him and the party a world of good. Showed he was a fighter.
But, as I say, she won't.
1 - The Day Trump Became Unpresident (The Atlantic)
https://archive.is/20250131033852/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/01/trump-airplane-crash/681521/
2 - The programme during Trump's first term from April 2019 to encourage disabled people to become Air Traffic Controllers:
Archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240118211942/https://faa.gov/newsroom/faa-provides-aviation-careers-people-disabilities
(Seems to have vanished from the FAA website.)
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-conservatives-immigration-legal-issues/a-71444511
Admittedly, there might be some technical problems to be solved.
See some fun calculations by Edward Teller. Who actually investigated nuclear devices of this size.
Many of my acquaintances around here are either not properly working class, have broadened their horizons, have their feet on the ground or are aware what they are doing and make the compromise (eg no one but Lee Anderson can help them.)
But there a few who will go that way imo.
You'd probably get on with him. He's head over heels for the Donald.
Tbh Bangkok is quite crap for culture, art, history. There are a few boring temples. Emerald Buddhas. Yawn
And I love a bit of history and culture, me. And Indochina has superb places to see to this end. Angkor Wat, Tuol Sleng, Luang Prabang, Hanoi, Hoi An, Chiang Mai
Bangkok, however, is gravely lacking in this department. But who cares. You don’t come here for that. Just as no one goes to LA to see the churches
It’s a city of sensual pleasure. Enjoy
Maybe he decided to quietly avoid his priggish, uptight, humourless, disapproving, narrow minded retired-accountant lefty cousin in Hampstead? Just a thought
There were three of us in the conversation and when he left the two who remained just shook our heads sadly. Not sure if we'll seek his company again.
This is actually quite calamitous for the left in Germany
48% of us voted Remain remember. That's a good buffer of decency and strong brain chemistry to fall back on.
Don't expect he'll still be 1/12 for next Chancellor on the markets having insisted on the vote going ahead, relying on the support of the far right and then losing...
Said it could be a good trading lay, if only it had been on the exchanges.
Phil makes a good point downthread about deprogramming. The craziness of tge last ten years of both left and right has been brought about by too much time interacting online and not enough time in real life. I don't want to deligitimise the odder views people have, but they would find it harder to gain traction in a world in which we spent more time in human company.
I give this place a partial exemption from that criticism because so much effort goes into challenging views expressed (though would note while we have a wide range of views represented here we're not really wholly representative).
I've just watched a nine-minute edit of a "guerilla shoot", done a couple of weekends back. And it is extraordinary. Watching Mick teach Marianne "As tears go by" is like documentary footage. Uncanny doesn't remotely do it justice. Him actually playing and singing "Wild Horses" is jaw-dropping. (It helps that the actor has his own band. But man, he moves like Jagger.)
If the teaser gets released for Berlin, I'll post a link.
But I'm surprised that Merz didn't take the off-ramp provided when the FDP this morning suggested they would vote to send it back to committee (in the end they didn't blaming the SPD and Greens), you'd have thought he might have known there were enough rebels to sink it. Anyway the guy is still an idiot, he's just provoked a very bad-tempered political row with people he needs to negotiate a coalition with later, split his own party, given a massive boost to the AfD, made the election all about the AfD and immigration (which also boosts the AfD), and ended up looking like a complete fool.