The UK-Turkey Eurofighter Typhoon Deal: A Strategic Pivot in Defence and Geopolitics
Views my own, corrections and comments welcome. My attempted précis of the Typhoon deal.
1/25 The United Kingdom and Turkey finalised a landmark defence agreement valued at up to £8 billion for the supply of 20 new Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft. This deal, signed during a visit by UK PM Sir Keir Starmer to Ankara, represents the largest British fighter jet export in nearly two decades and underscores a burgeoning strategic partnership between the two NATO allies... https://x.com/MtarfaL/status/1983235948289671388
Nobody much seems to give a fuck their democracy has been taken from them by charlatans and chancers and a bunch of weird, absolute obsessive reactionary slave owner wanting nutjobs who have spent their lives in basements in underpants.
Still, there's always shits and hoots on Facebook of cute cats or liberals covered in shit to keep the mind from doing anything stupid like wonder why the american revolution happened.
It's because opponents of Trump have outrage fatigue. Everything he does, or that is done on his behalf, is worthy of outrage, but it's pretty tiring to be angry all the time.
And for Republicans they've been convinced that their biggest enemy is the Democrats, and so as long as Trump is, "annoying all the right people," then it's secondary that he's openly corrupt, selling himself to foreign states, and generally acting as a traitor who is trashing the Constitution. He's owning the libs, so none of that matters.
What's the point of "owning" the Libs if you end up destroying everything you and your party believed in?
When I was in hospital a few months ago, I have a private room with its own en suite. The staff, from Surgeon to auxiliaries, were all excellent, good humoured and attentive. This was in a Scottish NHS hospital. Don’t tell BBC Scotland or Anas Sarwar, they won’t believe it.
Same here. When I had surgery back in the summer the experience was about as good as possible. All the staff were lovely, I had a private room, the procedure went perfectly and even the food wasn't too bad. (the hospital was the Golden Jubilee in Clydebank, for anyone interested)
But... both I and family have had horrendous experiences in other NHS hospitals, in one case a family member decided her life was actually at risk due to incompetent staff and signed herself out AMA. The staff were so offended they refused to provide a wheelchair to get her to the entrance and left her unsteadily hobbling the length of the hospital on crutches.
At its best NHS Scotland is very good, at its worst it is utterly awful and not enough is being done to fix that - my local hospital (where the above happened) is so bad, and has been for years, I would actively refuse to be admitted there.
Nobody much seems to give a fuck their democracy has been taken from them by charlatans and chancers and a bunch of weird, absolute obsessive reactionary slave owner wanting nutjobs who have spent their lives in basements in underpants.
Still, there's always shits and hoots on Facebook of cute cats or liberals covered in shit to keep the mind from doing anything stupid like wonder why the american revolution happened.
It's because opponents of Trump have outrage fatigue. Everything he does, or that is done on his behalf, is worthy of outrage, but it's pretty tiring to be angry all the time.
And for Republicans they've been convinced that their biggest enemy is the Democrats, and so as long as Trump is, "annoying all the right people," then it's secondary that he's openly corrupt, selling himself to foreign states, and generally acting as a traitor who is trashing the Constitution. He's owning the libs, so none of that matters.
What's the point of "owning" the Libs if you end up destroying everything you and your party believed in?
eg. yesterday's row about Ronald Reagan.
The enemy are the libs who are going to turn your children transgender and flood the country with illegal immigrants (who are also voting in record numbers across the country).
All that matters is the fight against the libs, and if we need to burn down the rule of law and the separation of powers to do it, then so be it.
According to the official readout of today’s cabinet meeting, the chief secretary to the prime minister told ministers this: “We have to build a new state and shut down the legacy state, with digital ID making people's experience of that new state fundamentally much better.” Blimey
Sounds very dystopian.
I would have used ruder words. The man should not be PM.
Incredibly creepy. From Darren Jones, it probably sounded even more so.
Still trying to understand how the governing party can be on 17% with one of the best pollsters 15 months after winning a 170 seat majority.
Well the rather unique nature of the majority is a starting point. Add in that they spent 14 years failing to plan for actually being in office. And the final part - country is broke, so there are no easy choices.
Nobody much seems to give a fuck their democracy has been taken from them by charlatans and chancers and a bunch of weird, absolute obsessive reactionary slave owner wanting nutjobs who have spent their lives in basements in underpants.
Still, there's always shits and hoots on Facebook of cute cats or liberals covered in shit to keep the mind from doing anything stupid like wonder why the american revolution happened.
It's because opponents of Trump have outrage fatigue. Everything he does, or that is done on his behalf, is worthy of outrage, but it's pretty tiring to be angry all the time.
And for Republicans they've been convinced that their biggest enemy is the Democrats, and so as long as Trump is, "annoying all the right people," then it's secondary that he's openly corrupt, selling himself to foreign states, and generally acting as a traitor who is trashing the Constitution. He's owning the libs, so none of that matters.
What's the point of "owning" the Libs if you end up destroying everything you and your party believed in?
eg. yesterday's row about Ronald Reagan.
The enemy are the libs who are going to turn your children transgender and flood the country with illegal immigrants (who are also voting in record numbers across the country).
All that matters is the fight against the libs, and if we need to burn down the rule of law and the separation of powers to do it, then so be it.
This is the thing. Trump is friendlier with actual enemies of the US - like Putin - than other Americans who disagree with him - like Biden or Newsom.
And to a great extent Republicans agree with him. All that rhetoric about a deep state and all the rest coming to fruition as it allows a traitor to destroy the country for their personal benefit.
The residents should be forced to pony up, at least for the debt servicing and a reasonable repayment schedule.
Otherwise you just have moral hazard. Although I do realise that local government in the UK is largely a figment of the imagination.
This Woking resident disagrees.
This has its origin in Cameron's bonfire of the quangos, when he abolished the audit commission to save money*, and there was no longer anyone checking that councils weren't taking on stupid financial risks or making poor investment decisions. Conservative-run Woking spent £millions to turn it into Manhattan gambling on borrowing short-term to pay off longterm debt and came unstuck when short-term interest rates went up. If they'd been subject to a proper audit, it would have been pointed out that a) Woking will never be Manhattan, b) their gamble was far too risky.
*reportedly it didn't even save money before the loss of an effective audit function is accounted for...
Right.
And the ratepayers of Woking should pay for electing a bunch of shysters.
Trouble is, which Woking ratepayers?
The ones who voted foolishly while their council did dumb things? Or the ones still to come over the next few decades? Even if you ignore the acturial turnover, do we persue Woking ratepayers who decide to become ratepayers in Guildford or (if they are very smart) Gosport?
OK, part of this is another manifestation of what I suspect the British problem is- we've spent decades voting for governments to keep topping up the punchbowl, and now the hangover has finally arrived and we don't like it. And at some level, I'm OK with saying "tough-hangovers aren't meant to be fun". I don't have to win an election. But when local councils screw up, it seems so trivially easy for the better-off to evade the consequences by moving house, and that doesn't seem entirely on.
(The nearest I have to an answer is that this is why councils shouldn't be able to build up risky debt, but that's closing a stable door a decade too late.)
Conservative party should have been surcharged, it was their councillors' financial mismanagement. Also their fault that there is no longer a body checking that councils aren't being financially mismanaged.
I actually have a tiny bit of sympathy for the councillors, who were trying to raise some income to pay for council services, but it was a poor financial decision.
Still trying to understand how the governing party can be on 17% with one of the best pollsters 15 months after winning a 170 seat majority.
Well the rather unique nature of the majority is a starting point. Add in that they spent 14 years failing to plan for actually being in office. And the final part - country is broke, so there are no easy choices.
I think a big part is their claim that NI, Income tax and VAT wouldn't increase and then instead of going sorry but we really need to increase taxes they changed employer NI with the consequences that's hard on employment.
Hint few people are rushing to employ people when it costs £15 an hour and a lot of prices are increasing to cover the costs of needing to pay £15 an hour.
A week after I got out of hospital, I feel ready to share my story of NHS trauma
I last reported from the hospital, not long after I'd been moved into a ward and was starting to feel better from the morphine and the antibiotics. I hadn't slept for thirty seven hours, thirty three of which had been at the hospital. This was due to not being given a bed for the first twenty and a half hours, then being moved several times over the next six hours
They'd put me in a four bed ward early in the afternoon and I tried to doze off. I may have dozed off very briefly once or twice but was instantly reawakened by the ten to fifteen guests visiting the other patients. If the patients weren't deaf, the visitors were having a shouting match
It got to dinner time and I managed to get about half of whatever horror they gave me down, and then got about ten minutes sleep before I was woken again for my drugs. I felt so awful when they woke me (heart pounding and hyper-ventilating a bit in my tiny remaining lung capacity), that I decided to keep myself awake until my final drug round at 10pm. I read PB for a couple of hours
I went for a wee just before ten, when I came out of the bathroom there were nine or ten doctors and nurse crowded around the bed next to me, and quite a bit of commotion. I waited for the pills; they eventually came at 10:45. By then my neighbour seemed to have recovered sufficiently to be screeching abuse at the staff. I think I got to asleep about eleven, nearly forty hours since my arrival at the hospital, and forty four hours awake
The next thing I knew, a bright light was being shone in my face, my things were being piled on top of me, and four foreign nurses were bellowing over me, shaking the bed because they couldn't disengage the wheel lock. When I first woke, I didn't remember where I was or why; I think my body would have reacted the same way if I were being kidnapped. It was essentially a massive adrenaline overdose - after, it turned out, a whole two hours sleep
tbc
They moved me as an extra bed into a different four bed ward, three foot from the bed of some Jabba the Hut looking figure, facing me and having explosive coughing fits every ten or so minutes, and another of the beds had a patient setting off beeping alarms almost as frequently. I dragged myself out of bed and down the corridor, looking for a member of staff who might help me out - I wanted some kind of sleeping pill. I gave up after the first six of them; they were all arrogant, rude, surly and utterly unhelpful. One response I got was "You're in a fucking hospital, what do you expect? Get back in your bed"
I tried to march indignantly off the ward, but shuffled, wheezed and coughed my way. I went outside and got some fresh air, took the deepest breaths I could, and tried to calm down. After half an hour I couldn't calm down, my heart was still pounding furiously, but I got control of my breathing and headed back to ward. The door was locked, so I had to ring the bell. The guy that came to the door angrily interrogated me "Wha' room you in", I asked how the fuck am I supposed to know, he said "You no come in, I ge' someone." He came back ten minutes later with a nurse, who refused to believe I'd been dumped on their ward. She disappeared and came back after ten more minutes with someone who bothered to fucking listen
She seemed nice, so I told why I wasn't going to be able to sleep and why I needed to. I asked if she could please find a doctor who'd prescribe me a strong sleeping pill. She promised to, and I squatted in the corridor opposite the ward. A few people came along in the hour and a half wait, ordering me to get back in my bed. I was past breaking point by then, and told each one to fuck off. I was so wired, I just squatted and stared at the wall. I think I only blinked about twenty times, and had to force myself to
The nurse eventually arrived, I took the pill and did my very best to sleep. I think I got about another two hours before they woke me up again. Once I'd again worked out where I was and why, and why I felt so fucking awful while also furious and delirious from the sleep deprivation, I decided I needed to see the Consultant to demand discharge. I told him all I wanted was the drugs I'd need, and to get the hell out of there. The arrogant prick laughed in my face
Took the useless fuckers four and a half hours to get the drugs to me, then I had to wait another hour to get picked up
Envy of the world, pt 94.
Yep.
We seem to have a collective delusion that our health service is some kind of shining exemplar to an otherwise benighted world.
It is not world beating overall although some very bright points etc.
I have had my own minor tale of nhs woe just in last 36 hours trying to sort out - yet again - 5th month in a row - my wife's medication and prescription which was yet again hopelessly and laugh out loud wrong.
I fucking hate Vivaldi.
A few years ago a friend of mine had a stroke. Admirably rushed to hospital by the ambulance service. Not so good was going to the hospital myself and finding him on a corridor floor with centipedes and other insects crawling over him while he was lying there inert (doped? no idea). The staff seemed quite 'business as usual' as they walked past in the corridor.
I myself have a regular old nothing special repeat prescription. And it became so unreliable that it was causing me to get twitchy and sometimes taking 2-3hrs on the phone to resolve. So I ended up just buying it privately. No idea why it seemed so random. You'd imagine it to be a fairly nailed-down process. But sometimes not posted out to the pharmacy. Sometimes posted out to a seemingly random pharmacy. Sometimes just 'oops - we forgot'.
"No idea why it seemed so random."
Me neither.
Every month some kind of random mistake. Wrong meds, some meds missing, wrong time of day on the bottle, sent to wrong pharmacy etc.
How does one go about buying it privately?
There quite a lot of online pharmacies that do private prescriptions after a cursory online consultation. Not for controlled drugs etc, things like Ozempic etc.
It was fine. A GP signs it off after you fill in a form.
Thanks.
I checked the link and they say that if need blister packs/dosettes which we do then they partner with: PillTime
Any one out there had experience of PillTime?
I'm tempted because I am sick of the fucks by local pharmacies (we are on our 4th in two years!!).
Usually I root for the little guy on the old fashioned high street battling online but I've run out of rooting powder.
Ah. It sounds like pharmacy2u can only send whole boxes of medicine out, but you need actual dispensing? Is that the difference?
I believe the plastic boxes of daily eg morning/noon/evening can be set up by any pharmacy at request of GP, so pharmacy2u will probably do that.
You would have thought.
But the reality on the ground is:
a) some pharmacies flat out refuse to do these packs. Our nearest pharmacy who we used for years said 'no way mate' when my wife's meds needed to be in packs.
b) the nhs does not pay for the extra time taken to prepare
c) hence a)
d) it is a process that seems very prone to fuck ups. hence a)
e) a robot could avoid d but we are not there yet.
f) iirc there is a debate across the care/GP/pharma industry as to whether these blister packs are actually causing more problems than solving.
I would happily pay extra to receive my medication in a bottle, rather than breaking my nails, my temper and the tablets when trying to extricate them from blister packs.
You pull rather than push? Apparently that's correct, but pushing works...
What's the point of "owning" the Libs if you end up destroying everything you and your party believed in?
The MAGA lunatics regard democracy and the rule of law as simply not as important as creating a new US that matches their vision of what it should be - ie, one without people who are black, brown, gay, trans, etc. They don't care if the attempt to do this reduces the country to rubble, provided one of their own is standing on top of the pile.
Historically this is not an unusual position, although one more usually found in physical war than politics.
I had a Palestinian Medical Student in my clinic last week. My University has temprarily accepted her as her studies in Gaza are no longer possible. Hearing her stories of how her fellow medical students were killed, and her family bombed out of their home with white phosphorous, grandparents, children and all. I know it is nothing new to see on the news or social media, but hearing her quietly describing it all first hand was heartbreaking.
It's not really reported though, only the documentary eventually shown on C4 has really mentioned it and even then they left it to the viewer to realise that they were using facial recognition to separate out the medics for detention.
There was a piece in the Guardian which really highlighted the tragedy, about 20000 children have been killed, that's roughly a school class every day for 2 years. If you've collected your children from school, watching classes exiting, happy, sad, struggling with bags and coats, looking for their parents, lining up behind their teachers, everyday there'll be another line missing.
Still trying to understand how the governing party can be on 17% with one of the best pollsters 15 months after winning a 170 seat majority.
Is it because the governing party is shyte? 😈
It's SHITE being a Labour fan! We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the Tories. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, regularly lose elections TO wankers. Can't even find a decent party to lose elections TO. We're ruled by effete arseholes. It's a SHITE state of affairs to be in, Andy, and ALL the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference!
Still trying to understand how the governing party can be on 17% with one of the best pollsters 15 months after winning a 170 seat majority.
Havde you got a sheet of foolscap.......but if you want the essentials
Labour supporters want their party to have a heart. If they showed they had one many of their problems would disappear. Specifically Mahmood seems like Farage in a frock and Starmer and Kemi are pretty indistinguishable.If he wants to ape someone he should be aping Zack.
Still trying to understand how the governing party can be on 17% with one of the best pollsters 15 months after winning a 170 seat majority.
Havde you got a sheet of foolscap.......but if you want the essentials
Labour supporters want their party to have a heart. If they showed they had one many of their problems would disappear. Specifically Mahmood seems like Farage in a frock and Starmer and Kemi are pretty indistinguishable.If he wants to ape someone he should be aping Zack.
But they won by getting former Tory voters to vote for them. Getting down to 17% must have involved alienating both camps.
Still trying to understand how the governing party can be on 17% with one of the best pollsters 15 months after winning a 170 seat majority.
Havde you got a sheet of foolscap.......but if you want the essentials
Labour supporters want their party to have a heart. If they showed they had one many of their problems would disappear. Specifically Mahmood seems like Farage in a frock and Starmer and Kemi are pretty indistinguishable.If he wants to ape someone he should be aping Zack.
But they won by getting former Tory voters to vote for them. Getting down to 17% must have involved alienating both camps.
And they sure as well won't get any former Tory voters ever again if Starmer starts aping far-left loonies like Polanski.
What Starmer actually needs to do, is deliver. They made it sound all too easy before the election, and clearly hadn't prepared, and Reeves made some of the stupidest commitments ever made by any politician. But somehow Labour actually have to deliver or come 2029 this country will be every bit as screwed as the US now clearly is, and that is not something any sensible person should want no matter whether you are on the left or the right of politics.
I don't know how I'll vote at the next general election, usually it's "least bad", and the next one it might be "last sane person standing".
@ydoethur re: earlier discussion - I guess it comes down to whether either of us is atypical. LEDs have absolutely "cured" the problem for me (with the disadvantage that if I drive halogen cars I'm even more pissed off now at oncoming LEDs). That they've appeared to do nothing for you (well technically you just said you drove a modern car but I assume you only said that because you're driving one with LED headlights) makes me wonder if there are two entirely different biological processes going on, and if that in itself is part of the problem as complainants are talking past one another...
(incidentally, I've never been flashed in the Tesla, and outside of towns I leave the lights entirely on automatic which means they're on matrix full beam all the time in the dark; I guess I could try driving around with "full" full beam on and see if I am flashed but this strikes me as the actions of a penis)
The auto setting on my lights means the full bean only comes on in low light, and when cars approach they partially dip away from them. It's quite a sophisticated system.
Still trying to understand how the governing party can be on 17% with one of the best pollsters 15 months after winning a 170 seat majority.
Havde you got a sheet of foolscap.......but if you want the essentials
Labour supporters want their party to have a heart. If they showed they had one many of their problems would disappear. Specifically Mahmood seems like Farage in a frock and Starmer and Kemi are pretty indistinguishable.If he wants to ape someone he should be aping Zack.
But they won by getting former Tory voters to vote for them. Getting down to 17% must have involved alienating both camps.
And they sure as well won't get any former Tory voters ever again if Starmer starts aping far-left loonies like Polanski.
What Starmer actually needs to do, is deliver. They made it sound all too easy before the election, and clearly hadn't prepared, and Reeves made some of the stupidest commitments ever made by any politician. But somehow Labour actually have to deliver or come 2029 this country will be every bit as screwed as the US now clearly is, and that is not something any sensible person should want no matter whether you are on the left or the right of politics.
I don't know how I'll vote at the next general election, usually it's "least bad", and the next one it might be "last sane person standing".
If you combine the current Labour and Green vote it is more than the Reform vote in most polls.
It is the Tories who really need to win back voters who voted for Boris in 2019, went Labour in 2024 and now back Reform more than Labour
Still trying to understand how the governing party can be on 17% with one of the best pollsters 15 months after winning a 170 seat majority.
Havde you got a sheet of foolscap.......but if you want the essentials
Labour supporters want their party to have a heart. If they showed they had one many of their problems would disappear. Specifically Mahmood seems like Farage in a frock and Starmer and Kemi are pretty indistinguishable.If he wants to ape someone he should be aping Zack.
But they won by getting former Tory voters to vote for them. Getting down to 17% must have involved alienating both camps.
I had a Palestinian Medical Student in my clinic last week. My University has temprarily accepted her as her studies in Gaza are no longer possible. Hearing her stories of how her fellow medical students were killed, and her family bombed out of their home with white phosphorous, grandparents, children and all. I know it is nothing new to see on the news or social media, but hearing her quietly describing it all first hand was heartbreaking.
An excellent post. It's a case of it being a far off place and therefore meaning nothing to most on here. Three or four positively wish them ill. All the Arab nations aren't the same but having worked with many the Palestinians are among the most humble.
Nobody much seems to give a fuck their democracy has been taken from them by charlatans and chancers and a bunch of weird, absolute obsessive reactionary slave owner wanting nutjobs who have spent their lives in basements in underpants.
Still, there's always shits and hoots on Facebook of cute cats or liberals covered in shit to keep the mind from doing anything stupid like wonder why the american revolution happened.
It's because opponents of Trump have outrage fatigue. Everything he does, or that is done on his behalf, is worthy of outrage, but it's pretty tiring to be angry all the time.
And for Republicans they've been convinced that their biggest enemy is the Democrats, and so as long as Trump is, "annoying all the right people," then it's secondary that he's openly corrupt, selling himself to foreign states, and generally acting as a traitor who is trashing the Constitution. He's owning the libs, so none of that matters.
What's the point of "owning" the Libs if you end up destroying everything you and your party believed in?
eg. yesterday's row about Ronald Reagan.
The enemy are the libs who are going to turn your children transgender and flood the country with illegal immigrants (who are also voting in record numbers across the country).
All that matters is the fight against the libs, and if we need to burn down the rule of law and the separation of powers to do it, then so be it.
This is the thing. Trump is friendlier with actual enemies of the US - like Putin - than other Americans who disagree with him - like Biden or Newsom.
And to a great extent Republicans agree with him. All that rhetoric about a deep state and all the rest coming to fruition as it allows a traitor to destroy the country for their personal benefit.
Indeed: just watch Trump's words at Kirk's memorial. He made it clear he hates Americans who don't think as he does. That's a dangerous place to be.
Still trying to understand how the governing party can be on 17% with one of the best pollsters 15 months after winning a 170 seat majority.
Havde you got a sheet of foolscap.......but if you want the essentials
Labour supporters want their party to have a heart. If they showed they had one many of their problems would disappear. Specifically Mahmood seems like Farage in a frock and Starmer and Kemi are pretty indistinguishable.If he wants to ape someone he should be aping Zack.
But they won by getting former Tory voters to vote for them. Getting down to 17% must have involved alienating both camps.
Did they? I thought they won because the Tory vote either sat on its hands or went to Reform.
The difference now is the Lab vote is sitting on its hands, and quite a lot of the ex-Tory vote has gone to Reform.
I've no sympathy for Starmer - he rocked up promising undeliverable bread and circuses, once elected discovered there was a shortage of both (which was obvious to everyone before he was elected) so decided to tax wheat and ban clowns instead, and is now wondering why he's seen as a failure.
The UK was in a terrible mess when he assumed office, mainly because the bill for two decades of overspending has come in because interest rates have finally normalised, alongside a nasty demographic crunch. It's just a little bit unfortunate that every single thing he's done since has been obviously guaranteed to make matters worse rather than better.
I had a Palestinian Medical Student in my clinic last week. My University has temprarily accepted her as her studies in Gaza are no longer possible. Hearing her stories of how her fellow medical students were killed, and her family bombed out of their home with white phosphorous, grandparents, children and all. I know it is nothing new to see on the news or social media, but hearing her quietly describing it all first hand was heartbreaking.
An excellent post. It's a case of it being a far off place and therefore meaning nothing to most on here. Three or four positively wish them ill. All the Arab nations aren't the same but having worked with many the Palestinians are among the most humble.
Trouble is, what does one do? Both sides are awful - I saw some heartbreaking footage on this morning of the toys of a Jewish toddler strewn abandoned, left as they were after Oct 7, plus some video of the poor kid playing happily before he was murdered. Certainly tugged at my heart strings, having a toddler of a similar age. I don't doubt that the plight of many kids in Gaza has been as tragic.
But how do you fix a problem like Gaza, where the leaders of both sides seem to just want to kill each other's people until there is none left? If I could see a solution I'd advocate for it, but I genuinely can't see a good route out of the tragedy.
@ydoethur re: earlier discussion - I guess it comes down to whether either of us is atypical. LEDs have absolutely "cured" the problem for me (with the disadvantage that if I drive halogen cars I'm even more pissed off now at oncoming LEDs). That they've appeared to do nothing for you (well technically you just said you drove a modern car but I assume you only said that because you're driving one with LED headlights) makes me wonder if there are two entirely different biological processes going on, and if that in itself is part of the problem as complainants are talking past one another...
(incidentally, I've never been flashed in the Tesla, and outside of towns I leave the lights entirely on automatic which means they're on matrix full beam all the time in the dark; I guess I could try driving around with "full" full beam on and see if I am flashed but this strikes me as the actions of a penis)
The auto setting on my lights means the full bean only comes on in low light, and when cars approach they partially dip away from them. It's quite a sophisticated system.
That's matrix lights like mine. It's absolutely fabulous as a driver. But because they are so bright when aimed correctly there's undoubtedly an effect where they can blind people on halogens, we have a few cars and one of them (E87 130i) is such a pain to drive at night now I basically don't, as the lighting is notoriously bad. But then I compare it to the MYP which is the best lit road legal car I've ever driven and in that I'm never blinded cause my eyes are happy with oncoming LEDs as they're habituated to the brighter light of my own. So my theory in the earlier thread was we just need to get everyone on LEDs. And I'm not actually persuaded I'm wrong, but he is making interesting anecdotal arguments about his own light sensitivity which works very differently to mine (and I *think* most other peoples but I could be radically wrong there) so I'd like to understand it more and whether he's an abberation or I am or what...
(Hopefully this was reasonably coherent I've been at the diplomatico)
@ydoethur re: earlier discussion - I guess it comes down to whether either of us is atypical. LEDs have absolutely "cured" the problem for me (with the disadvantage that if I drive halogen cars I'm even more pissed off now at oncoming LEDs). That they've appeared to do nothing for you (well technically you just said you drove a modern car but I assume you only said that because you're driving one with LED headlights) makes me wonder if there are two entirely different biological processes going on, and if that in itself is part of the problem as complainants are talking past one another...
(incidentally, I've never been flashed in the Tesla, and outside of towns I leave the lights entirely on automatic which means they're on matrix full beam all the time in the dark; I guess I could try driving around with "full" full beam on and see if I am flashed but this strikes me as the actions of a penis)
The auto setting on my lights means the full bean only comes on in low light, and when cars approach they partially dip away from them. It's quite a sophisticated system.
That's matrix lights like mine. It's absolutely fabulous as a driver. But because they are so bright when aimed correctly there's undoubtedly an effect where they can blind people on halogens, we have a few cars and one of them (E87 130i) is such a pain to drive at night now I basically don't, as the lighting is notoriously bad. But then I compare it to the MYP which is the best lit road legal car I've ever driven and in that I'm never blinded cause my eyes are happy with oncoming LEDs as they're habituated to the brighter light of my own. So my theory in the earlier thread was we just need to get everyone on LEDs. And I'm not actually persuaded I'm wrong, but he is making interesting anecdotal arguments about his own light sensitivity which works very differently to mine (and I *think* most other peoples but I could be radically wrong there) so I'd like to understand it more and whether he's an abberation or I am or what...
(Hopefully this was reasonably coherent I've been at the diplomatico)
You still haven't explained this point:
If it's OK to have bright lights if everyone has bright lights, why do we need to have dipper functions?
Answer - to stop dazzling people in oncoming vehicles.
Which, if your answer were correct, would not be an issue. But certainly has been ever since lights really became a thing in the 1920s.
So your answer is logically impossible.
You also said that full beam is fine in the daylight. That is also not correct, as I pointed out to you.
I do think, and have been thinking for most of the second half of this conversation, that you may be describing an eyesight problem of your own. Is it possible that your eyes are just not good enough any more to drive at night with the correct power of light? Have you had them checked recently?
And I a, also wondering if that may be because they are maladjusted due to the brightness of your Tesla's lights...
I had a Palestinian Medical Student in my clinic last week. My University has temprarily accepted her as her studies in Gaza are no longer possible. Hearing her stories of how her fellow medical students were killed, and her family bombed out of their home with white phosphorous, grandparents, children and all. I know it is nothing new to see on the news or social media, but hearing her quietly describing it all first hand was heartbreaking.
An excellent post. It's a case of it being a far off place and therefore meaning nothing to most on here. Three or four positively wish them ill. All the Arab nations aren't the same but having worked with many the Palestinians are among the most humble.
Trouble is, what does one do? Both sides are awful - I saw some heartbreaking footage on this morning of the toys of a Jewish toddler strewn abandoned, left as they were after Oct 7, plus some video of the poor kid playing happily before he was murdered. Certainly tugged at my heart strings, having a toddler of a similar age. I don't doubt that the plight of many kids in Gaza has been as tragic.
But how do you fix a problem like Gaza, where the leaders of both sides seem to just want to kill each other's people until there is none left? If I could see a solution I'd advocate for it, but I genuinely can't see a good route out of the tragedy.
The simple solution is that the residents of Gaza relocated to the West Bank, and Israel abandons its settlements there.
Sadly, that (sensible) option is off the table with the current Israeli government. Netanyahu's coalition contains a bunch of parties who represent Settler interests, and who are committed to expanding Greater Israel inside the West Bank.
So the space for Palestinians in the West Bank is inexorably shrinking, and they simultaneously see Israelis killing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
NEW: Judge Currie asks for complete grand-jury transcripts in the James Comey case so she can assess Lindsey Halligan's level of involvement (and thus the extent to which the prosecution might be tainted).
Is that essentially arguing that it is a political prosecution?
I think part of it is that Halligan arguably isn't validly serving in her role as interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, as Trump could only appoint an interim for 120 days before requiring confirmation by the Senate and she's also not been a Justice Department employee for 90 days.
If that argument is correct, she's got no authority and is just some herbert who the President personally sent to interfere in the process. The question then becomes whether the indictment getting through the Grand Jury stage is in fact due to someone who had no legal right to be there doing things she had no legal right to do. The judge asking for transcripts of the Grand Jury suggests she's kind of convinced Halligan wasn't entitled to be there, and the issue is then whether that in fact made the difference.
There will likely be a separate motion regarding selective prosecution - which is notoriously hard to prove. Though in this case, the evidence for that is unusually strong.
I'd see it as being not exactly a difficult case to demonstrate, as Trump himself published a Bleat on Truthsocial demanding that named people be prosecuted, which Pam Bondi then did.
There are also career prosecutors who resigned / were sacked for refusing to touch it with a bargepole on the basis that there was insufficient evidence of a crime. They could be in Court.
Though it will all depend on precise features required to be demonstrated - the example of the higher standard ("actual malice") required of a pubic figure is to prove defamation, compared to a private citizen.
The residents should be forced to pony up, at least for the debt servicing and a reasonable repayment schedule.
Otherwise you just have moral hazard. Although I do realise that local government in the UK is largely a figment of the imagination.
This Woking resident disagrees.
This has its origin in Cameron's bonfire of the quangos, when he abolished the audit commission to save money*, and there was no longer anyone checking that councils weren't taking on stupid financial risks or making poor investment decisions. Conservative-run Woking spent £millions to turn it into Manhattan gambling on borrowing short-term to pay off longterm debt and came unstuck when short-term interest rates went up. If they'd been subject to a proper audit, it would have been pointed out that a) Woking will never be Manhattan, b) their gamble was far too risky.
*reportedly it didn't even save money before the loss of an effective audit function is accounted for...
Right.
And the ratepayers of Woking should pay for electing a bunch of shysters.
Trouble is, which Woking ratepayers?
The ones who voted foolishly while their council did dumb things? Or the ones still to come over the next few decades? Even if you ignore the acturial turnover, do we persue Woking ratepayers who decide to become ratepayers in Guildford or (if they are very smart) Gosport?
OK, part of this is another manifestation of what I suspect the British problem is- we've spent decades voting for governments to keep topping up the punchbowl, and now the hangover has finally arrived and we don't like it. And at some level, I'm OK with saying "tough-hangovers aren't meant to be fun". I don't have to win an election. But when local councils screw up, it seems so trivially easy for the better-off to evade the consequences by moving house, and that doesn't seem entirely on.
(The nearest I have to an answer is that this is why councils shouldn't be able to build up risky debt, but that's closing a stable door a decade too late.)
Conservative party should have been surcharged, it was their councillors' financial mismanagement. Also their fault that there is no longer a body checking that councils aren't being financially mismanaged.
I actually have a tiny bit of sympathy for the councillors, who were trying to raise some income to pay for council services, but it was a poor financial decision.
I'd also point to Government Ministers, who gutted local Councils such that they cannot afford basic public realm maintenance and regulation of trade, planning, building etc - never mind have a competent treasury type function.
Of course those who went off the deep end will be demanding that the rest of us fill in the black hole, and Osborne & Co will be furiously sloping their shoulders.
Still trying to understand how the governing party can be on 17% with one of the best pollsters 15 months after winning a 170 seat majority.
Havde you got a sheet of foolscap.......but if you want the essentials
Labour supporters want their party to have a heart. If they showed they had one many of their problems would disappear. Specifically Mahmood seems like Farage in a frock and Starmer and Kemi are pretty indistinguishable.If he wants to ape someone he should be aping Zack.
"Having a heart" as you call it, presumably involves either wasting even more of other people's money, and there's none left, or importing yet more of the third world and dumping them in our inner cities, which would destroy what's left of our social cohesion. So both would be counter-productive politically even in the short term.
The truth is that the left-liberal path that both main parties have followed since 1997 has run out of road, We've dodged hard choices for a generation, and may be able to do so for the rest of this decade, but there's no room to make things actively worse without accelerating the reckoning.
Probably 15-17" screen. Solid state (if disk drives are still a thing.) Touch screen. Windows. Routine usage up to video editing, watching films and video calls - not gaming. The current one is about 6 years old.
Budget: I'd be happy towards £1000, but he last one was more like £399.
Still trying to understand how the governing party can be on 17% with one of the best pollsters 15 months after winning a 170 seat majority.
Havde you got a sheet of foolscap.......but if you want the essentials
Labour supporters want their party to have a heart. If they showed they had one many of their problems would disappear. Specifically Mahmood seems like Farage in a frock and Starmer and Kemi are pretty indistinguishable.If he wants to ape someone he should be aping Zack.
"Having a heart" as you call it, presumably involves either wasting even more of other people's money, and there's none left, or importing yet more of the third world and dumping them in our inner cities, which would destroy what's left of our social cohesion. So both would be counter-productive politically even in the short term.
The truth is that the left-liberal path that both main parties have followed since 1997 has run out of road, We've dodged hard choices for a generation, and may be able to do so for the rest of this decade, but there's no room to make things actively worse without accelerating the reckoning.
The sort of Labour Party that Roger wants is one that would be unelectable.
It would be anti-NATO, but pro-EU; anti-Israel, in favour of open borders, and in favour of huge increases in taxes and public spending.
Probably 15-17" screen. Solid state (if disk drives are still a thing.) Touch screen. Windows. Routine usage up to video editing, watching films and video calls - not gaming. The current one is about 6 years old.
Budget: I'd be happy towards £1000, but he last one was more like £399.
Look at Lenovo ThinkPad T14 or HP Probook series.
A good indicator is Windows 11 Pro, rather than Windows 11 Home. The pro laptops are generally better supported (3y vs 1y warranty and good parts availability, for example), and tend to come with less rubbish software pre-installed that slows it down.
Touch screen is rare and expensive these days, but they do still exist. SSDs are ubiquitous. Get 16GB of RAM at least, as a lot of modern laptops are not upgradeable in future.
If you’re doing a bit of video editing then look for a dedicated graphics card, not ‘onboard graphics’. No need for anything crazy unless editing is your job rather than an occasional hobby.
£1,000 is okay for a budget, sadly the days of half-decent £399 laptops are behind us.
Probably 15-17" screen. Solid state (if disk drives are still a thing.) Touch screen. Windows. Routine usage up to video editing, watching films and video calls - not gaming. The current one is about 6 years old.
Budget: I'd be happy towards £1000, but he last one was more like £399.
Macbook Air
And I speak as a (former) long term Windows guy, who bought a Mac Mini about six months ago. It's been an absolute revelation.
You can get a macbook Air 15 inch for that money, and it will blow you away
Probably 15-17" screen. Solid state (if disk drives are still a thing.) Touch screen. Windows. Routine usage up to video editing, watching films and video calls - not gaming. The current one is about 6 years old.
Budget: I'd be happy towards £1000, but he last one was more like £399.
Macbook Air
And I speak as a (former) long term Windows guy, who bought a Mac Mini about six months ago. It's been an absolute revelation.
You can get a macbook Air 15 inch for that money, and it will blow you away
It doesn't have a touchscreen, but the touchpad is excellent.
Nobody much seems to give a fuck their democracy has been taken from them by charlatans and chancers and a bunch of weird, absolute obsessive reactionary slave owner wanting nutjobs who have spent their lives in basements in underpants.
Still, there's always shits and hoots on Facebook of cute cats or liberals covered in shit to keep the mind from doing anything stupid like wonder why the american revolution happened.
It's because opponents of Trump have outrage fatigue. Everything he does, or that is done on his behalf, is worthy of outrage, but it's pretty tiring to be angry all the time.
And for Republicans they've been convinced that their biggest enemy is the Democrats, and so as long as Trump is, "annoying all the right people," then it's secondary that he's openly corrupt, selling himself to foreign states, and generally acting as a traitor who is trashing the Constitution. He's owning the libs, so none of that matters.
What's the point of "owning" the Libs if you end up destroying everything you and your party believed in?
eg. yesterday's row about Ronald Reagan.
The enemy are the libs who are going to turn your children transgender and flood the country with illegal immigrants (who are also voting in record numbers across the country).
All that matters is the fight against the libs, and if we need to burn down the rule of law and the separation of powers to do it, then so be it.
Not being funny, but until recently there was a contingency of "Libs" who didn't ask too many questions before referring dysmorphic kids to Tavistock and the country sort of is being flooded with illegal immigrants.
The trouble is there's a grain of truth in it, as there is in the centrist Dads who brush it all off - and thus help fuel it.
Btw, there's a very weird story doing the rounds about Senator Tom Cotton blocking a Trump proposal to make daylight saving permanent, and the White House being absolutely furious, to the extent of threatening to back a Primary challenger.
Got to ask why you need it replaced though as nothing much has changed in the past 6 years - you can still buy machines less powerful than the one you currently have
Nobody much seems to give a fuck their democracy has been taken from them by charlatans and chancers and a bunch of weird, absolute obsessive reactionary slave owner wanting nutjobs who have spent their lives in basements in underpants.
Still, there's always shits and hoots on Facebook of cute cats or liberals covered in shit to keep the mind from doing anything stupid like wonder why the american revolution happened.
It's because opponents of Trump have outrage fatigue. Everything he does, or that is done on his behalf, is worthy of outrage, but it's pretty tiring to be angry all the time.
And for Republicans they've been convinced that their biggest enemy is the Democrats, and so as long as Trump is, "annoying all the right people," then it's secondary that he's openly corrupt, selling himself to foreign states, and generally acting as a traitor who is trashing the Constitution. He's owning the libs, so none of that matters.
What's the point of "owning" the Libs if you end up destroying everything you and your party believed in?
eg. yesterday's row about Ronald Reagan.
The enemy are the libs who are going to turn your children transgender and flood the country with illegal immigrants (who are also voting in record numbers across the country).
All that matters is the fight against the libs, and if we need to burn down the rule of law and the separation of powers to do it, then so be it.
Not being funny, but until recently there was a contingency of "Libs" who didn't ask too many questions before referring dysmorphic kids to Tavistock and the country sort of is being flooded with illegal immigrants.
The trouble is there's a grain of truth in it, as there is in the centrist Dads who brush it all off - and thus help fuel it.
Yes.
There are some very stupid things proposed by people.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, some equally stupid things were enacted, like a 98% tax on unearned income.
Really incredibly dumb things.
But fortunately, no matter how terrible for the British economy Wilson and Callaghan were, they also believed in democracy and the rule of law, and they were kicked out, and we got Mrs Thatcher.
Stupid things come. Stupid things go.
So long as democracy and the rule of law prevails, then things will correct.
Once you let that go, because there's some particular things you find irksome, then you are fucked.
Probably 15-17" screen. Solid state (if disk drives are still a thing.) Touch screen. Windows. Routine usage up to video editing, watching films and video calls - not gaming. The current one is about 6 years old.
Budget: I'd be happy towards £1000, but he last one was more like £399.
Macbook Air
And I speak as a (former) long term Windows guy, who bought a Mac Mini about six months ago. It's been an absolute revelation.
You can get a macbook Air 15 inch for that money, and it will blow you away
Yes if I were buying for myself I’d take the MBA too, but the OP did mention he wanted Windows.
The residents should be forced to pony up, at least for the debt servicing and a reasonable repayment schedule.
Otherwise you just have moral hazard. Although I do realise that local government in the UK is largely a figment of the imagination.
This Woking resident disagrees.
This has its origin in Cameron's bonfire of the quangos, when he abolished the audit commission to save money*, and there was no longer anyone checking that councils weren't taking on stupid financial risks or making poor investment decisions. Conservative-run Woking spent £millions to turn it into Manhattan gambling on borrowing short-term to pay off longterm debt and came unstuck when short-term interest rates went up. If they'd been subject to a proper audit, it would have been pointed out that a) Woking will never be Manhattan, b) their gamble was far too risky.
*reportedly it didn't even save money before the loss of an effective audit function is accounted for...
Right.
And the ratepayers of Woking should pay for electing a bunch of shysters.
Trouble is, which Woking ratepayers?
The ones who voted foolishly while their council did dumb things? Or the ones still to come over the next few decades? Even if you ignore the acturial turnover, do we persue Woking ratepayers who decide to become ratepayers in Guildford or (if they are very smart) Gosport?
OK, part of this is another manifestation of what I suspect the British problem is- we've spent decades voting for governments to keep topping up the punchbowl, and now the hangover has finally arrived and we don't like it. And at some level, I'm OK with saying "tough-hangovers aren't meant to be fun". I don't have to win an election. But when local councils screw up, it seems so trivially easy for the better-off to evade the consequences by moving house, and that doesn't seem entirely on.
(The nearest I have to an answer is that this is why councils shouldn't be able to build up risky debt, but that's closing a stable door a decade too late.)
Conservative party should have been surcharged, it was their councillors' financial mismanagement. Also their fault that there is no longer a body checking that councils aren't being financially mismanaged.
I actually have a tiny bit of sympathy for the councillors, who were trying to raise some income to pay for council services, but it was a poor financial decision.
I have zero sympathy for the councillors. They were way off mission investing in shopping centres
There’s disturbingly little news about Jamaica. It appears that most of the island has no power or internet, there is extensive flooding, and that damage assesments might take days.
Hope that aid resources in the region are starting to make their way, there are believed to be a number of ships that were keeping a safe distance, and there’s at least a couple of US aircraft carriers in the region.
Melissa is heading for Cuba next, albeit now downgraded to Cat 3.
Btw, there's a very weird story doing the rounds about Senator Tom Cotton blocking a Trump proposal to make daylight saving permanent, and the White House being absolutely furious, to the extent of threatening to back a Primary challenger.
I had a Palestinian Medical Student in my clinic last week. My University has temprarily accepted her as her studies in Gaza are no longer possible. Hearing her stories of how her fellow medical students were killed, and her family bombed out of their home with white phosphorous, grandparents, children and all. I know it is nothing new to see on the news or social media, but hearing her quietly describing it all first hand was heartbreaking.
An excellent post. It's a case of it being a far off place and therefore meaning nothing to most on here. Three or four positively wish them ill. All the Arab nations aren't the same but having worked with many the Palestinians are among the most humble.
Trouble is, what does one do? Both sides are awful - I saw some heartbreaking footage on this morning of the toys of a Jewish toddler strewn abandoned, left as they were after Oct 7, plus some video of the poor kid playing happily before he was murdered. Certainly tugged at my heart strings, having a toddler of a similar age. I don't doubt that the plight of many kids in Gaza has been as tragic.
But how do you fix a problem like Gaza, where the leaders of both sides seem to just want to kill each other's people until there is none left? If I could see a solution I'd advocate for it, but I genuinely can't see a good route out of the tragedy.
The simple solution is that the residents of Gaza relocated to the West Bank, and Israel abandons its settlements there.
Sadly, that (sensible) option is off the table with the current Israeli government. Netanyahu's coalition contains a bunch of parties who represent Settler interests, and who are committed to expanding Greater Israel inside the West Bank.
So the space for Palestinians in the West Bank is inexorably shrinking, and they simultaneously see Israelis killing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Ethnically cleansing Gaza is not a sensible option. The sensible option is to stop leaders who favour ethnic cleansing and expansionism.
Probably 15-17" screen. Solid state (if disk drives are still a thing.) Touch screen. Windows. Routine usage up to video editing, watching films and video calls - not gaming. The current one is about 6 years old.
Budget: I'd be happy towards £1000, but he last one was more like £399.
I'm very happy with my One Plus Chromebook. Don't miss Windows at all.
Probably 15-17" screen. Solid state (if disk drives are still a thing.) Touch screen. Windows. Routine usage up to video editing, watching films and video calls - not gaming. The current one is about 6 years old.
Budget: I'd be happy towards £1000, but he last one was more like £399.
I'm very happy with my One Plus Chromebook. Don't miss Windows at all.
I ran a £700 Chromebook for 18 months. Managed at first, increasingly incapable of doing what I needed. Had to switch to Windows for a client project, hated it, went Mac, won't go back.
The residents should be forced to pony up, at least for the debt servicing and a reasonable repayment schedule.
Otherwise you just have moral hazard. Although I do realise that local government in the UK is largely a figment of the imagination.
This Woking resident disagrees.
This has its origin in Cameron's bonfire of the quangos, when he abolished the audit commission to save money*, and there was no longer anyone checking that councils weren't taking on stupid financial risks or making poor investment decisions. Conservative-run Woking spent £millions to turn it into Manhattan gambling on borrowing short-term to pay off longterm debt and came unstuck when short-term interest rates went up. If they'd been subject to a proper audit, it would have been pointed out that a) Woking will never be Manhattan, b) their gamble was far too risky.
*reportedly it didn't even save money before the loss of an effective audit function is accounted for...
Right.
And the ratepayers of Woking should pay for electing a bunch of shysters.
Trouble is, which Woking ratepayers?
The ones who voted foolishly while their council did dumb things? Or the ones still to come over the next few decades? Even if you ignore the acturial turnover, do we persue Woking ratepayers who decide to become ratepayers in Guildford or (if they are very smart) Gosport?
OK, part of this is another manifestation of what I suspect the British problem is- we've spent decades voting for governments to keep topping up the punchbowl, and now the hangover has finally arrived and we don't like it. And at some level, I'm OK with saying "tough-hangovers aren't meant to be fun". I don't have to win an election. But when local councils screw up, it seems so trivially easy for the better-off to evade the consequences by moving house, and that doesn't seem entirely on.
(The nearest I have to an answer is that this is why councils shouldn't be able to build up risky debt, but that's closing a stable door a decade too late.)
Conservative party should have been surcharged, it was their councillors' financial mismanagement. Also their fault that there is no longer a body checking that councils aren't being financially mismanaged.
I actually have a tiny bit of sympathy for the councillors, who were trying to raise some income to pay for council services, but it was a poor financial decision.
I have zero sympathy for the councillors. They were way off mission investing in shopping centres
Is there all the data collated anywhere?
Locally here, the best that I know is that Mansfield invested in a hotel in Edinburgh, and I think escaped without burnt fingers, whilst I'm not aware that Ashfield did anything in that line.
But that's just stuff I know about, and I have no complete data.
Not Roger, but this looks like the state doing its job effectively.
Clearly there was an omnishambles last Friday. But since then, this guy has been tracked down and deported, and a process introduced which should reduce the chances of a repeat. An inherited problem fixed.
Boring competence and incremental improvement, in other words. Repeat it a few thousand times and we might start to be getting somewhere.
Got to ask why you need it replaced though as nothing much has changed in the past 6 years - you can still buy machines less powerful than the one you currently have
My current machine is a Lenovo YOGA 530-14ARR (ie AMD chip) - which I think is technically some variety of "not a full laptop" but has done what I need adequately, and various things have occasionally complained about compatibility. It's basically wearing out - I've already replaced the keyboard once.
Not Roger, but this looks like the state doing its job effectively.
Clearly there was an omnishambles last Friday. But since then, this guy has been tracked down and deported, and a process introduced which should reduce the chances of a repeat. An inherited problem fixed.
Boring competence and incremental improvement, in other words. Repeat it a few thousand times and we might start to be getting somewhere.
He wasn't actually tracked down. The MET didn't have a scooby where he was. A member of the public found him hanging around in a park. And incorrect releases are up under this government.
I had a Palestinian Medical Student in my clinic last week. My University has temprarily accepted her as her studies in Gaza are no longer possible. Hearing her stories of how her fellow medical students were killed, and her family bombed out of their home with white phosphorous, grandparents, children and all. I know it is nothing new to see on the news or social media, but hearing her quietly describing it all first hand was heartbreaking.
An excellent post. It's a case of it being a far off place and therefore meaning nothing to most on here. Three or four positively wish them ill. All the Arab nations aren't the same but having worked with many the Palestinians are among the most humble.
Trouble is, what does one do? Both sides are awful - I saw some heartbreaking footage on this morning of the toys of a Jewish toddler strewn abandoned, left as they were after Oct 7, plus some video of the poor kid playing happily before he was murdered. Certainly tugged at my heart strings, having a toddler of a similar age. I don't doubt that the plight of many kids in Gaza has been as tragic.
But how do you fix a problem like Gaza, where the leaders of both sides seem to just want to kill each other's people until there is none left? If I could see a solution I'd advocate for it, but I genuinely can't see a good route out of the tragedy.
The simple solution is that the residents of Gaza relocated to the West Bank, and Israel abandons its settlements there.
Sadly, that (sensible) option is off the table with the current Israeli government. Netanyahu's coalition contains a bunch of parties who represent Settler interests, and who are committed to expanding Greater Israel inside the West Bank.
So the space for Palestinians in the West Bank is inexorably shrinking, and they simultaneously see Israelis killing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
I don't think it's shuffling people around between different pieces of land that is the issue.
The issue is that Israel isn't willing to allow an independent Palestinian state to exist, with the sovereign freedom to trade with other countries free of Israeli control, to have its own army and so on.
From the Israeli pint of view, allowing such a state to be created would be tantamount to training your own executioner.
Not Roger, but this looks like the state doing its job effectively.
Clearly there was an omnishambles last Friday. But since then, this guy has been tracked down and deported, and a process introduced which should reduce the chances of a repeat. An inherited problem fixed.
Boring competence and incremental improvement, in other words. Repeat it a few thousand times and we might start to be getting somewhere.
"An inherited problem fixed". You really don't think that there will not be another mistaken release within the next 10 days? It is utterly inevitable with such an overwhelmed system being operated by relatively low paid staff and an ever changing discount regime trying to keep the lid on the prison population. The Home Secretary has been able to act decisively in relation to this case and is due credit for that but "fixed" borders on delusional.
Probably 15-17" screen. Solid state (if disk drives are still a thing.) Touch screen. Windows. Routine usage up to video editing, watching films and video calls - not gaming. The current one is about 6 years old.
Budget: I'd be happy towards £1000, but he last one was more like £399.
I'm very happy with my One Plus Chromebook. Don't miss Windows at all.
I ran a £700 Chromebook for 18 months. Managed at first, increasingly incapable of doing what I needed. Had to switch to Windows for a client project, hated it, went Mac, won't go back.
Chromebook is worth considering if all the following hold for you:
1. Your main communication device is an Android phone 2. You mostly use a browser for your activities 3. You don't need specific Windows applications - most likely Office 4. You don't need to link it to a corporate network.
The advantages it gives over Windows are a less resource hungry operating system (although this is less of an issue than before); you avoid the Windows upgrade pain; you automatically share data between phone apps and desktop. Chromebook can be clunky sometimes, which may put people off.
Macs at twice the price of Windows machines and Chromebooks are normally only worth it if you also run an iPhone, for the same reason as Chromebook and Android. For everyone else, it's Windows.
Btw, there's a very weird story doing the rounds about Senator Tom Cotton blocking a Trump proposal to make daylight saving permanent, and the White House being absolutely furious, to the extent of threatening to back a Primary challenger.
It’s about power. Trump doesn’t like being defied.
But the legislation is awful. It doesn’t abolish daily light savings time. It lets the States individually decide whether they want to apply it or not. It’s bad enough TN and IN being split with pockets of EST surrounded by CST without having to manage DST as well!
Nobody much seems to give a fuck their democracy has been taken from them by charlatans and chancers and a bunch of weird, absolute obsessive reactionary slave owner wanting nutjobs who have spent their lives in basements in underpants.
Still, there's always shits and hoots on Facebook of cute cats or liberals covered in shit to keep the mind from doing anything stupid like wonder why the american revolution happened.
It's because opponents of Trump have outrage fatigue. Everything he does, or that is done on his behalf, is worthy of outrage, but it's pretty tiring to be angry all the time.
And for Republicans they've been convinced that their biggest enemy is the Democrats, and so as long as Trump is, "annoying all the right people," then it's secondary that he's openly corrupt, selling himself to foreign states, and generally acting as a traitor who is trashing the Constitution. He's owning the libs, so none of that matters.
What's the point of "owning" the Libs if you end up destroying everything you and your party believed in?
eg. yesterday's row about Ronald Reagan.
The enemy are the libs who are going to turn your children transgender and flood the country with illegal immigrants (who are also voting in record numbers across the country).
All that matters is the fight against the libs, and if we need to burn down the rule of law and the separation of powers to do it, then so be it.
Not being funny, but until recently there was a contingency of "Libs" who didn't ask too many questions before referring dysmorphic kids to Tavistock and the country sort of is being flooded with illegal immigrants.
The trouble is there's a grain of truth in it, as there is in the centrist Dads who brush it all off - and thus help fuel it.
There's a difference between being wrong and being the enemy.
From my point of view, Tories are [mostly] wrong, Russia is the enemy.
Trump, and to a lesser extent Farage, are big on treating people in their country they disagree with as the enemy. It's the sort of thing that people have done for rhetorical purposes in the past, but not really meant it, but these days, with Trump really meaning it, we should be making a special effort to step away from it.
Probably 15-17" screen. Solid state (if disk drives are still a thing.) Touch screen. Windows. Routine usage up to video editing, watching films and video calls - not gaming. The current one is about 6 years old.
Budget: I'd be happy towards £1000, but he last one was more like £399.
I'm very happy with my One Plus Chromebook. Don't miss Windows at all.
I ran a £700 Chromebook for 18 months. Managed at first, increasingly incapable of doing what I needed. Had to switch to Windows for a client project, hated it, went Mac, won't go back.
Chromebook is worth considering if all the following hold for you:
1. Your main communication device is an Android phone 2. You mostly use a browser for your activities 3. You don't need specific Windows applications - most likely Office 4. You don't need to link it to a corporate network.
The advantages it gives over Windows are a less resource hungry operating system (although this is less of an issue than before); you avoid the Windows upgrade pain; you automatically share data between phone apps and desktop. Chromebook can be clunky sometimes, which may put people off.
Macs at twice the price of Windows machines and Chromebooks are normally only worth it if you also run an iPhone, for the same reason as Chromebook and Android. For everyone else, it's Windows.
You should not that the most technically literate people on here are all saying - get a Mac.
Heck my client’s laptop has adverts on it and that’s running Windows 11 Enterprise - it’s shittification in action
Nobody much seems to give a fuck their democracy has been taken from them by charlatans and chancers and a bunch of weird, absolute obsessive reactionary slave owner wanting nutjobs who have spent their lives in basements in underpants.
Still, there's always shits and hoots on Facebook of cute cats or liberals covered in shit to keep the mind from doing anything stupid like wonder why the american revolution happened.
It's because opponents of Trump have outrage fatigue. Everything he does, or that is done on his behalf, is worthy of outrage, but it's pretty tiring to be angry all the time.
And for Republicans they've been convinced that their biggest enemy is the Democrats, and so as long as Trump is, "annoying all the right people," then it's secondary that he's openly corrupt, selling himself to foreign states, and generally acting as a traitor who is trashing the Constitution. He's owning the libs, so none of that matters.
What's the point of "owning" the Libs if you end up destroying everything you and your party believed in?
eg. yesterday's row about Ronald Reagan.
The enemy are the libs who are going to turn your children transgender and flood the country with illegal immigrants (who are also voting in record numbers across the country).
All that matters is the fight against the libs, and if we need to burn down the rule of law and the separation of powers to do it, then so be it.
Not being funny, but until recently there was a contingency of "Libs" who didn't ask too many questions before referring dysmorphic kids to Tavistock and the country sort of is being flooded with illegal immigrants.
The trouble is there's a grain of truth in it, as there is in the centrist Dads who brush it all off - and thus help fuel it.
Yes.
There are some very stupid things proposed by people.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, some equally stupid things were enacted, like a 98% tax on unearned income.
Really incredibly dumb things.
But fortunately, no matter how terrible for the British economy Wilson and Callaghan were, they also believed in democracy and the rule of law, and they were kicked out, and we got Mrs Thatcher.
Stupid things come. Stupid things go.
So long as democracy and the rule of law prevails, then things will correct.
Once you let that go, because there's some particular things you find irksome, then you are fucked.
Indeed, but that's a bit squirrel, and not the point I was making.
Democracy and the rule of law will prevail provided it can flex to accommodate the electorate's concerns.
Brexit was an example of a big red button being pushed because it didn't, and the ECHR and UN treaties on refugees is potentially another.
It's no good saying, "Tough luck, we can't change it" because then people will lose confidence in the whole system and will vote for whoever promises they can.
Probably 15-17" screen. Solid state (if disk drives are still a thing.) Touch screen. Windows. Routine usage up to video editing, watching films and video calls - not gaming. The current one is about 6 years old.
Budget: I'd be happy towards £1000, but he last one was more like £399.
I'm very happy with my One Plus Chromebook. Don't miss Windows at all.
I ran a £700 Chromebook for 18 months. Managed at first, increasingly incapable of doing what I needed. Had to switch to Windows for a client project, hated it, went Mac, won't go back.
Chromebook is worth considering if all the following hold for you:
1. Your main communication device is an Android phone 2. You mostly use a browser for your activities 3. You don't need specific Windows applications - most likely Office 4. You don't need to link it to a corporate network.
The advantages it gives over Windows are a less resource hungry operating system (although this is less of an issue than before); you avoid the Windows upgrade pain; you automatically share data between phone apps and desktop. Chromebook can be clunky sometimes, which may put people off.
Macs at twice the price of Windows machines and Chromebooks are normally only worth it if you also run an iPhone, for the same reason as Chromebook and Android. For everyone else, it's Windows.
You should not that the most technically literate people on here are all saying - get a Mac.
Heck my client’s laptop has adverts on it and that’s running Windows 11 Enterprise - it’s shittification in action
Adverts ? What from Windows Enterprise ?
How does that work ?
I’m running windows 7 but just using my PC to load up my strap on hard drives.
The residents should be forced to pony up, at least for the debt servicing and a reasonable repayment schedule.
Otherwise you just have moral hazard. Although I do realise that local government in the UK is largely a figment of the imagination.
This Woking resident disagrees.
This has its origin in Cameron's bonfire of the quangos, when he abolished the audit commission to save money*, and there was no longer anyone checking that councils weren't taking on stupid financial risks or making poor investment decisions. Conservative-run Woking spent £millions to turn it into Manhattan gambling on borrowing short-term to pay off longterm debt and came unstuck when short-term interest rates went up. If they'd been subject to a proper audit, it would have been pointed out that a) Woking will never be Manhattan, b) their gamble was far too risky.
*reportedly it didn't even save money before the loss of an effective audit function is accounted for...
Right.
And the ratepayers of Woking should pay for electing a bunch of shysters.
Trouble is, which Woking ratepayers?
The ones who voted foolishly while their council did dumb things? Or the ones still to come over the next few decades? Even if you ignore the acturial turnover, do we persue Woking ratepayers who decide to become ratepayers in Guildford or (if they are very smart) Gosport?
OK, part of this is another manifestation of what I suspect the British problem is- we've spent decades voting for governments to keep topping up the punchbowl, and now the hangover has finally arrived and we don't like it. And at some level, I'm OK with saying "tough-hangovers aren't meant to be fun". I don't have to win an election. But when local councils screw up, it seems so trivially easy for the better-off to evade the consequences by moving house, and that doesn't seem entirely on.
(The nearest I have to an answer is that this is why councils shouldn't be able to build up risky debt, but that's closing a stable door a decade too late.)
Conservative party should have been surcharged, it was their councillors' financial mismanagement. Also their fault that there is no longer a body checking that councils aren't being financially mismanaged.
I actually have a tiny bit of sympathy for the councillors, who were trying to raise some income to pay for council services, but it was a poor financial decision.
I have zero sympathy for the councillors. They were way off mission investing in shopping centres
Is there all the data collated anywhere?
Locally here, the best that I know is that Mansfield invested in a hotel in Edinburgh, and I think escaped without burnt fingers, whilst I'm not aware that Ashfield did anything in that line.
But that's just stuff I know about, and I have no complete data.
I doubt there is data on the individual investments collected centrally.
But why don’t you start with the public works loans body that ends central government money to local councils at concessionary rates. It won’t capture bank lending but (assuming they publish a list of their loans) it would help you identify the big borrowers among councils
I had a Palestinian Medical Student in my clinic last week. My University has temprarily accepted her as her studies in Gaza are no longer possible. Hearing her stories of how her fellow medical students were killed, and her family bombed out of their home with white phosphorous, grandparents, children and all. I know it is nothing new to see on the news or social media, but hearing her quietly describing it all first hand was heartbreaking.
An excellent post. It's a case of it being a far off place and therefore meaning nothing to most on here. Three or four positively wish them ill. All the Arab nations aren't the same but having worked with many the Palestinians are among the most humble.
Trouble is, what does one do? Both sides are awful - I saw some heartbreaking footage on this morning of the toys of a Jewish toddler strewn abandoned, left as they were after Oct 7, plus some video of the poor kid playing happily before he was murdered. Certainly tugged at my heart strings, having a toddler of a similar age. I don't doubt that the plight of many kids in Gaza has been as tragic.
But how do you fix a problem like Gaza, where the leaders of both sides seem to just want to kill each other's people until there is none left? If I could see a solution I'd advocate for it, but I genuinely can't see a good route out of the tragedy.
The simple solution is that the residents of Gaza relocated to the West Bank, and Israel abandons its settlements there.
Sadly, that (sensible) option is off the table with the current Israeli government. Netanyahu's coalition contains a bunch of parties who represent Settler interests, and who are committed to expanding Greater Israel inside the West Bank.
So the space for Palestinians in the West Bank is inexorably shrinking, and they simultaneously see Israelis killing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
I don't think it's shuffling people around between different pieces of land that is the issue.
The issue is that Israel isn't willing to allow an independent Palestinian state to exist, with the sovereign freedom to trade with other countries free of Israeli control, to have its own army and so on.
From the Israeli pint of view, allowing such a state to be created would be tantamount to training your own executioner.
It's the one state solution. Whether that is by enfranchising the Palestinians or ethnic cleansing seems to be the choice. Since the preferred choice for Israel is a version* of the latter then the two state solution stays until there is a shift towards that.
(*'cleansing' by having the right of return for one group but not others)
One a side note, have a look at how permanent the yellow line will become in Gaza and how it will mirror the carve up of the West Bank.
Is it just me, but I wasn’t impressed by Mahmood saying she “pulled all the levers” to get him deported.
It should have been ordinary course and not required the involvement of the home secretary at all
Given only 40 small boat people have been sent back to France in 2 months, I think it gives an indication of how much a big deal actually deporting somebody is....they probably have to have an afternoon worth of listening circles to get over the trauma....
They are also boasting about having caught record number of illegal works (8000) and 1000, yes 1000, have been deported in the last year. Apparently this is some sort of record. While on a sunny Saturday, 1000 will arrive on small boats.
Nobody much seems to give a fuck their democracy has been taken from them by charlatans and chancers and a bunch of weird, absolute obsessive reactionary slave owner wanting nutjobs who have spent their lives in basements in underpants.
Still, there's always shits and hoots on Facebook of cute cats or liberals covered in shit to keep the mind from doing anything stupid like wonder why the american revolution happened.
It's because opponents of Trump have outrage fatigue. Everything he does, or that is done on his behalf, is worthy of outrage, but it's pretty tiring to be angry all the time.
And for Republicans they've been convinced that their biggest enemy is the Democrats, and so as long as Trump is, "annoying all the right people," then it's secondary that he's openly corrupt, selling himself to foreign states, and generally acting as a traitor who is trashing the Constitution. He's owning the libs, so none of that matters.
What's the point of "owning" the Libs if you end up destroying everything you and your party believed in?
eg. yesterday's row about Ronald Reagan.
The enemy are the libs who are going to turn your children transgender and flood the country with illegal immigrants (who are also voting in record numbers across the country).
All that matters is the fight against the libs, and if we need to burn down the rule of law and the separation of powers to do it, then so be it.
Not being funny, but until recently there was a contingency of "Libs" who didn't ask too many questions before referring dysmorphic kids to Tavistock and the country sort of is being flooded with illegal immigrants.
The trouble is there's a grain of truth in it, as there is in the centrist Dads who brush it all off - and thus help fuel it.
There's a difference between being wrong and being the enemy.
From my point of view, Tories are [mostly] wrong, Russia is the enemy.
Trump, and to a lesser extent Farage, are big on treating people in their country they disagree with as the enemy. It's the sort of thing that people have done for rhetorical purposes in the past, but not really meant it, but these days, with Trump really meaning it, we should be making a special effort to step away from it.
I saw Thatcher do the same - I didn't agree with it, btw - and I think there are plenty on the radical Left who do so as well, just look at the celebrations of the death of Charlie Kirk. I also don't think Farage is anything like Trump in that regard.
However, I agree: we shouldn't dehumanise our opponents. I like how John McCain handled it.
Comments
The UK-Turkey Eurofighter Typhoon Deal: A Strategic Pivot in Defence and Geopolitics
Views my own, corrections and comments welcome. My attempted précis of the Typhoon deal.
1/25 The United Kingdom and Turkey finalised a landmark defence agreement valued at up to £8 billion for the supply of 20 new Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft. This deal, signed during a visit by UK PM Sir Keir Starmer to Ankara, represents the largest British fighter jet export in nearly two decades and underscores a burgeoning strategic partnership between the two NATO allies...
https://x.com/MtarfaL/status/1983235948289671388
eg. yesterday's row about Ronald Reagan.
But... both I and family have had horrendous experiences in other NHS hospitals, in one case a family member decided her life was actually at risk due to incompetent staff and signed herself out AMA. The staff were so offended they refused to provide a wheelchair to get her to the entrance and left her unsteadily hobbling the length of the hospital on crutches.
At its best NHS Scotland is very good, at its worst it is utterly awful and not enough is being done to fix that - my local hospital (where the above happened) is so bad, and has been for years, I would actively refuse to be admitted there.
All that matters is the fight against the libs, and if we need to burn down the rule of law and the separation of powers to do it, then so be it.
And to a great extent Republicans agree with him. All that rhetoric about a deep state and all the rest coming to fruition as it allows a traitor to destroy the country for their personal benefit.
Also their fault that there is no longer a body checking that councils aren't being financially mismanaged.
I actually have a tiny bit of sympathy for the councillors, who were trying to raise some income to pay for council services, but it was a poor financial decision.
Hint few people are rushing to employ people when it costs £15 an hour and a lot of prices are increasing to cover the costs of needing to pay £15 an hour.
Historically this is not an unusual position, although one more usually found in physical war than politics.
There was a piece in the Guardian which really highlighted the tragedy, about 20000 children have been killed, that's roughly a school class every day for 2 years. If you've collected your children from school, watching classes exiting, happy, sad, struggling with bags and coats, looking for their parents, lining up behind their teachers, everyday there'll be another line missing.
Labour supporters want their party to have a heart. If they showed they had one many of their problems would disappear. Specifically Mahmood seems like Farage in a frock and Starmer and Kemi are pretty indistinguishable.If he wants to ape someone he should be aping Zack.
What Starmer actually needs to do, is deliver. They made it sound all too easy before the election, and clearly hadn't prepared, and Reeves made some of the stupidest commitments ever made by any politician. But somehow Labour actually have to deliver or come 2029 this country will be every bit as screwed as the US now clearly is, and that is not something any sensible person should want no matter whether you are on the left or the right of politics.
I don't know how I'll vote at the next general election, usually it's "least bad", and the next one it might be "last sane person standing".
It is the Tories who really need to win back voters who voted for Boris in 2019, went Labour in 2024 and now back Reform more than Labour
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49978-how-britain-voted-in-the-2024-general-election
The difference now is the Lab vote is sitting on its hands, and quite a lot of the ex-Tory vote has gone to Reform.
I've no sympathy for Starmer - he rocked up promising undeliverable bread and circuses, once elected discovered there was a shortage of both (which was obvious to everyone before he was elected) so decided to tax wheat and ban clowns instead, and is now wondering why he's seen as a failure.
The UK was in a terrible mess when he assumed office, mainly because the bill for two decades of overspending has come in because interest rates have finally normalised, alongside a nasty demographic crunch. It's just a little bit unfortunate that every single thing he's done since has been obviously guaranteed to make matters worse rather than better.
But how do you fix a problem like Gaza, where the leaders of both sides seem to just want to kill each other's people until there is none left? If I could see a solution I'd advocate for it, but I genuinely can't see a good route out of the tragedy.
(Hopefully this was reasonably coherent I've been at the diplomatico)
If it's OK to have bright lights if everyone has bright lights, why do we need to have dipper functions?
Answer - to stop dazzling people in oncoming vehicles.
Which, if your answer were correct, would not be an issue. But certainly has been ever since lights really became a thing in the 1920s.
So your answer is logically impossible.
You also said that full beam is fine in the daylight. That is also not correct, as I pointed out to you.
I do think, and have been thinking for most of the second half of this conversation, that you may be describing an eyesight problem of your own. Is it possible that your eyes are just not good enough any more to drive at night with the correct power of light? Have you had them checked recently?
And I a, also wondering if that may be because they are maladjusted due to the brightness of your Tesla's lights...
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/england-in-new-zealand-2025-26-1491677/new-zealand-vs-england-2nd-odi-1491721/full-scorecard
And let's remember, as this lineup doesn't have Zak Crawley in it, it's quite a bit stronger than the one that will be heading out in Oz.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cql9ez5grpqo
You can defy them to the downside....
Sadly, that (sensible) option is off the table with the current Israeli government. Netanyahu's coalition contains a bunch of parties who represent Settler interests, and who are committed to expanding Greater Israel inside the West Bank.
So the space for Palestinians in the West Bank is inexorably shrinking, and they simultaneously see Israelis killing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
There are also career prosecutors who resigned / were sacked for refusing to touch it with a bargepole on the basis that there was insufficient evidence of a crime. They could be in Court.
Though it will all depend on precise features required to be demonstrated - the example of the higher standard ("actual malice") required of a pubic figure is to prove defamation, compared to a private citizen.
Time will tell.
Of course those who went off the deep end will be demanding that the rest of us fill in the black hole, and Osborne & Co will be furiously sloping their shoulders.
Where is the feedstock?
https://x.com/maks_nafo_fella/status/1983230364400107527
The Russian oil refinery fires continue.
https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/1983310744524599557
The truth is that the left-liberal path that both main parties have followed since 1997 has run out of road, We've dodged hard choices for a generation, and may be able to do so for the rest of this decade, but there's no room to make things actively worse without accelerating the reckoning.
"Definitely," says Joe Root, making the review sign.
They'll take a look.
Nothing on the bat.
Joe Root, GOAT England batsman, Review specialist, rock bottom.
Honestly, this lot.
I wonder who will be replacing McCullum as coach for the summer after we lose this series (again) and at least three tests in Oz?
First rule of limited overs cricket, you have to use all the overs.
I'm after a new laptop PC. Can anyone recommend?
Criteria:
Probably 15-17" screen.
Solid state (if disk drives are still a thing.)
Touch screen.
Windows.
Routine usage up to video editing, watching films and video calls - not gaming.
The current one is about 6 years old.
Budget: I'd be happy towards £1000, but he last one was more like £399.
The Conservatives have lost 38 councillors, and Labour 28, in October alone.
It would be anti-NATO, but pro-EU; anti-Israel, in favour of open borders, and in favour of huge increases in taxes and public spending.
A good indicator is Windows 11 Pro, rather than Windows 11 Home. The pro laptops are generally better supported (3y vs 1y warranty and good parts availability, for example), and tend to come with less rubbish software pre-installed that slows it down.
Touch screen is rare and expensive these days, but they do still exist. SSDs are ubiquitous. Get 16GB of RAM at least, as a lot of modern laptops are not upgradeable in future.
If you’re doing a bit of video editing then look for a dedicated graphics card, not ‘onboard graphics’. No need for anything crazy unless editing is your job rather than an occasional hobby.
£1,000 is okay for a budget, sadly the days of half-decent £399 laptops are behind us.
And I speak as a (former) long term Windows guy, who bought a Mac Mini about six months ago. It's been an absolute revelation.
You can get a macbook Air 15 inch for that money, and it will blow you away
The trouble is there's a grain of truth in it, as there is in the centrist Dads who brush it all off - and thus help fuel it.
If not my advice has always been buy Dell from their outlet - you need minimum 16gb of memory but that’s it. https://outlet.euro.dell.com/GDOOnline/Online/InventorySearch?brandId=2828&c=uk&cs=ukdfb1&l=en&s=dfb&pFilter=eyJGYW1pbHlOYW1lIjpbIjM0OTQiLCIzNDkzIl0sIk1lbW9yeSI6WyIyMzAwMDEiXSwiU3RvcmFnZVNpemUiOlsiMzYxMDEyIl19
Got to ask why you need it replaced though as nothing much has changed in the past 6 years - you can still buy machines less powerful than the one you currently have
It’s definitely no Rudy’s (which is far nicer btw).
There are some very stupid things proposed by people.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, some equally stupid things were enacted, like a 98% tax on unearned income.
Really incredibly dumb things.
But fortunately, no matter how terrible for the British economy Wilson and Callaghan were, they also believed in democracy and the rule of law, and they were kicked out, and we got Mrs Thatcher.
Stupid things come. Stupid things go.
So long as democracy and the rule of law prevails, then things will correct.
Once you let that go, because there's some particular things you find irksome, then you are fucked.
"We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it's been laced by the IDF."
https://x.com/mazemoore/status/1982974662175752646
The day after he admited that the story he told last week about his aunt being afraid to travel on the subway in her hijab after 9/11 was untrue.
Hope that aid resources in the region are starting to make their way, there are believed to be a number of ships that were keeping a safe distance, and there’s at least a couple of US aircraft carriers in the region.
Melissa is heading for Cuba next, albeit now downgraded to Cat 3.
Some pictures from reputable sources - there will also be plenty of pictures that aren’t from reputable sources circulating from past disasters or AI.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/10/29/hurricane-melissa-jamaica-cuba-damage-latest-news/
It’s only the Aussies waiting at the next stop on tour, what could possibly go wrong there?
And we need totals for context.
Lab have 6k Councillors, so lost 0.7%. Con have 4.3k, so lost 0.9%.
We need more data, and to understand what is a big number in the general run of things.
Also, wearing my data hat, their dates are date logged, not date of change - which tbh will be good enough for PB purposes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly9rxlvp85o
I wonder what Roger now thinks ?
Locally here, the best that I know is that Mansfield invested in a hotel in Edinburgh, and I think escaped without burnt fingers, whilst I'm not aware that Ashfield did anything in that line.
But that's just stuff I know about, and I have no complete data.
Clearly there was an omnishambles last Friday. But since then, this guy has been tracked down and deported, and a process introduced which should reduce the chances of a repeat. An inherited problem fixed.
Boring competence and incremental improvement, in other words. Repeat it a few thousand times and we might start to be getting somewhere.
The issue is that Israel isn't willing to allow an independent Palestinian state to exist, with the sovereign freedom to trade with other countries free of Israeli control, to have its own army and so on.
From the Israeli pint of view, allowing such a state to be created would be tantamount to training your own executioner.
1. Your main communication device is an Android phone
2. You mostly use a browser for your activities
3. You don't need specific Windows applications - most likely Office
4. You don't need to link it to a corporate network.
The advantages it gives over Windows are a less resource hungry operating system (although this is less of an issue than before); you avoid the Windows upgrade pain; you automatically share data between phone apps and desktop. Chromebook can be clunky sometimes, which may put people off.
Macs at twice the price of Windows machines and Chromebooks are normally only worth it if you also run an iPhone, for the same reason as Chromebook and Android. For everyone else, it's Windows.
But the legislation is awful. It doesn’t abolish daily light savings time. It lets the States individually decide whether they want to apply it or not. It’s bad enough TN and IN being split with pockets of EST surrounded by CST without having to manage DST as well!
It should have been ordinary course and not required the involvement of the home secretary at all
From my point of view, Tories are [mostly] wrong, Russia is the enemy.
Trump, and to a lesser extent Farage, are big on treating people in their country they disagree with as the enemy. It's the sort of thing that people have done for rhetorical purposes in the past, but not really meant it, but these days, with Trump really meaning it, we should be making a special effort to step away from it.
Heck my client’s laptop has adverts on it and that’s running Windows 11 Enterprise - it’s shittification in action
Democracy and the rule of law will prevail provided it can flex to accommodate the electorate's concerns.
Brexit was an example of a big red button being pushed because it didn't, and the ECHR and UN treaties on refugees is potentially another.
It's no good saying, "Tough luck, we can't change it" because then people will lose confidence in the whole system and will vote for whoever promises they can.
How does that work ?
I’m running windows 7 but just using my PC to load up my strap on hard drives.
There's far too much of the stuff around, and it's pretty bad for you.
But why don’t you start with the public works loans body that ends central government money to local councils at concessionary rates. It won’t capture bank lending but (assuming they publish a list of their loans) it would help you identify the big borrowers among councils
https://www.dmo.gov.uk/responsibilities/local-authority-lending/about-pwlb-lending/
(*'cleansing' by having the right of return for one group but not others)
One a side note, have a look at how permanent the yellow line will become in Gaza and how it will mirror the carve up of the West Bank.
They are also boasting about having caught record number of illegal works (8000) and 1000, yes 1000, have been deported in the last year. Apparently this is some sort of record. While on a sunny Saturday, 1000 will arrive on small boats.
However, I agree: we shouldn't dehumanise our opponents. I like how John McCain handled it.
And will he find his way back here inside 6 months, only for this to start all over again?
You job seems to be to be a punchbag for decisions you have no real control over, except at a very tactical level.