I am having a drink this evening with a friend in a Chiswick pub. Two policemen have just come into the pub and asked me to step outside. I have stepped outside and they have threatened me because I tweeted about a councillor banning seating outside pubs in Chiswick. They admit on video (watch it!) that I did not break the law at all. .
This is his own stupid fault for meekly complying. He should have just told them to fuck off.
I am having a drink this evening with a friend in a Chiswick pub. Two policemen have just come into the pub and asked me to step outside. I have stepped outside and they have threatened me because I tweeted about a councillor banning seating outside pubs in Chiswick. They admit on video (watch it!) that I did not break the law at all. .
This is his own stupid fault for meekly complying. He should have just told them to fuck off.
I hope I would at least have told them to talk to me in the pub, in front of everyone. But perhaps I would have folded too.
'Burnham set to ditch Palantir from NHS Left-wing critics have called for deal to be axed over US tech giant’s work with Israeli Defense Forces and US immigration'
As ever, Harrington makes good points, some of which may be true and/or I agree with. Let's go thru them
1: the disciplinary and control models She makes a good point: pre-21st century oppression took the form of discipline - if you do not obey I will hurt you - wheras 21st century takes the form of control - if you do not obey I will change things so you stop. The former requires treating individuals as units (or sub-units of a group), the latter requires or enables treating characteristics of individuals, not the individuals as individuals per se. I'm not sure I agree with this and put forward religious wars or slavery as counter-examples.
2: the importance of borders I agree with her but I would point out that i) this requires a re-adoption of nationalism - if you have borders, then they have to bound something - and ii) that the importance of borders is a subset of the importance of thresholds. Which brings me to...
3: the boundary between “child” and “adult” At last somebody else has pointed this out. I have been saying for years on PB that we need a bright line between "this person is a child" and "this person is a adult". Everybody disagrees with me, but blurring the line results in adultised children and infantilised adults and makes the country stupid.
4: doctor-worship In my assisted suicide article, I pointed out that you solve moral problems with judges, not doctors. But British doctor-worship results in doctors coercing outcomes against patient consent, which is exactly wrong. And her example was...
5: the draft conversion bill This bill contains a clause permitting coerced conversion if the person is a medic working in healthcare [section 1 subsection (3)]. Gender-critical people object to this because it permits doctors but not parents to convert children. Trans people object to this because it permits doctors to convert children. I object to this because everybody has forgotten that gay conversion therapy used to be permitted medical policy and this clause would have permitted Alan Turing's conversion therapy. Harrington is OK with the trans conversion but is correct with the doctor-worship bit...
Where does it say "doctors" ? All I can see is this: .. is not a conversion practice unless the person acts in a way that falls far below the standards reasonably expected of a person in their position...
Which is so broad that I'm not sure what the point of the legislation is at all.
Sorry. i took the fragment "is carried out in the course of providing health care services" [section 1 subsection (3) part (b)] to refer to doctors, but yes in theory it could be anybody in healthcare: doctors, nurses, receptionists, porters, cleaners, the cleaner's dog called Colin, carrier pigeon called Speckled Jim, etc.
"The agency has identified 270 people linked to forums where footage of coordinated sexual abuse is shared online - crimes which echo the case of Gisèle Pelicot, a French woman who was repeatedly drugged by her husband and attacked by dozens of men.
The NCA said the abuse is usually perpetrated by a long-term partner, with offending "often taking place over decades".
The forums encourage men to drug and rape women.
Hopefully, the people in question will be able to be identified and prosecuted. But (a subset of) men being complete shits is not new news, sadly.
This subset - how large a subset is the interesting question rather than the usual "0h, it's only a minority" which smacks of "I hope this is true because otherwise some very uncomfortable questions would need to be asked about the behaviour of the male sex" - includes the long-term partners of the women ie husbands and often the fathers of their children.
The breach of trust is grotesque. We should not accept this by shaking our heads saying that some men are "complete shits, sadly". We should be furious and we should be acting to try and stop this. Instead - and I make no apologies for saying this AGAIN - men's demands are treated like holy writ, any restraints on their behaviour are seen as somehow a breach of their human right to behave like complete shits and women are ethically invisible.
It should not be like this.
Err, surely the point of the investigation is to not "accept this"? The whole point is to identify and prosecute.
'Burnham set to ditch Palantir from NHS Left-wing critics have called for deal to be axed over US tech giant’s work with Israeli Defense Forces and US immigration'
Good. Not because of any IDF or US immigration work, and not because Peter Thiel is a psychopath who would burn down the world if he could make a buck from it, but simply because Palantir is not British. I am tired of the UK government treating UK assets as something to be sold off to any passing foreigner with a big chequebook and fashionable nostrums. "Buy AI or the Singularity will get you! Give me billions!" Just bugger off and try to grow your eyebrows back, you sweaty T-1000.
'Burnham set to ditch Palantir from NHS Left-wing critics have called for deal to be axed over US tech giant’s work with Israeli Defense Forces and US immigration'
'Burnham set to ditch Palantir from NHS Left-wing critics have called for deal to be axed over US tech giant’s work with Israeli Defense Forces and US immigration'
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6snGqZnBGo
https://bsky.app/profile/mikegalsworthy.bsky.social/post/3mplybewva22j
Quite right too. We should not expand the anti-democratic power of the Broligarchy.
https://bsky.app/profile/mikegalsworthy.bsky.social/post/3mplybewva22j
Quite right too. We should not expand the anti-democratic power of the Broligarchy.