Mr. Sandpit, aye, a good development, and one that the media might consider when contemplating the strange mystery of why people spend more time watching Youtube than the news.
Topped with the likes of Peston's rambling opinions and regurgitated rumour-mongering and Maitlis kindly using her taxpayer-funded platform to let us know her own very important views.
I think my views on the UK MSM are already reasonably well-known.
The worrying thing is that the bosses of Peston, Kuenessburg and Rigby obviously think they've been doing a good job. Although even the BBC have had to admit that the Maitlis diatribe against the government was somewhat out of order.
As someone who works in IT and has a keen interest in aviation, almost every single MSM report on those technical fields contains many and often serious inaccuracies, yet I am somehow expected to take the rest of their content - where I am wanting them to inform me - as gospel? On subjects like epidemiology?
As I've said many times before, the government briefings should have been attended by scientific journalists, and that still holds. Having political journalists, mostly still very sore from Brexit, lead the questioning is worse than useless when it comes to actually informing the public, but does a great job for their own egos.
Even now, with the emergence from lockdown much more political by nature than going into lockdown, there's still no genuinely critical thinking going on within the media, and international comparisons are only being made as reasons to attack the government. Why is no-one asking why in the UK school reopening has become a political issue because of activist unions, whereas elsewhere in the world schools are already back open?
Watching from afar, it appears that only in the UK and USA are the media so unthinkingly critical of government in the face of a pandemic, in most other countries there is much more of a war spirit and a collective wish to get things back to normal.
Anyway, only 21 days now until the first Grand Prix of the season. Nyyooommmm!
I can agree with much of that, but you’re guilty of what you complain of in schools. The reason it’s been a horlicks is less to do with activist unions than the utterly disorganised and ill thought through guidance from government, which seems to have changed almost by the day.
I tried the same for US Presidents, French Presidents and Australian Prime Ministers - no gaps. If you try German Chancellors you don't get a list in the same format (but you do get a photo of the bad guy).
My guess is that an algorithm has overreacted. I expect they'll fix it as soon as purple start complaining and we'll never know exactly why.
What the f..., that's true. Also for international Google versions (I tried .com and .ae)
I don't think they have censored it. I inagine what's happened is that feature of Google results draws its pictures from somewhere like wikipedia or another site, and the Churchill pic has been renoved from there.
I thought that, but it linked to the list of British Prime Ministers on Wikipedia - and Churchill's photo is still there.
In the interests of full disclosure I hate Churchill for his handlling of the Tonypandy riot 'if the Welsh are hungry let them have Lead in their stomachs'.
But the way to defend the Churchill statue would have been to find 4-6 real veterans - decked out in medals and blazers - to march up to the Cenotaph and order the morons to go home and state that they were not acting in their name.
I'm very upset (and angry) about what's happening to Churchill. If it wasn't for him the world would likely have slipped into a new dark age. That would have affected everyone - worldwide.
If there's one thing likely to change my sympathies and bring me out onto the streets, it's targeting him.
Which is precisely why some are, of course.
Churchill on Mussolini:
“If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you [Mussolini] from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism."
(Speech in Rome on 20 January, 1927, praising Mussolini)
Because Churchill was such a firm fan and ally of Mussolini later on when the chips were down, wasn't he?
Idiots like you are part of the problem.
You applaud any symbol of the British state that is attacked, because you are a fanatical nationalist - regardless of who it is and excuse those who do it - because of your simplistic enemy of my enemy is my friend attitude.
You know not what you unleash. You are storing up hell for yourself for the future.
It's a very selective quote. People rarely remember what Churchill wrote to his wife in 1923:
By pure coincidence I came here to post a prediction that if some of these noisy protests continue and if institutions cave in we could end up with our first black prime minister - a conservative.
There will be some young black people who agree with the BLM, of course. Some of them have been on camera extolling it. But they don't (as the movement at large seems to think) speak for them all.
Many Afro-carribean and African people are deeply Christian.
There would be upset and offended by the BLM policy against the nuclear family and, probably, then branded as traitors to the movement accordingly.
So, yes, I can see the net move in the medium term to move a good chunk of black voters to the Conservatives - we'll have a black Conservative PM before a Labour one.
The scandalously unchecked rampage of the disease through care homes has cut deeply into the public consciousness. Everyone in politics has known for years that the care sector is fragmented and under-resourced. It could scarcely have been more at a risk. The scientific advisers on the Sage group flagged up the vulnerability of care homes as early as February. Yet the government devoted more zeal to protecting the prime minister’s rule-breaking adviser, Dominic Cummings, than it did to safeguarding the lives of the fragile elderly. A just-released report by the National Audit Office estimates that 25,000 elderly people were discharged from hospitals into homes without being tested at the height of the pandemic.
“The problem with this government is that it is led by journalists,” says one senior official. “Action this day” was one of Winston Churchill’s famous injunctions. For Boris Johnson, it has been: “An empty pledge to get me through the day.”
The scandalously unchecked rampage of the disease through care homes has cut deeply into the public consciousness. Everyone in politics has known for years that the care sector is fragmented and under-resourced. It could scarcely have been more at a risk. The scientific advisers on the Sage group flagged up the vulnerability of care homes as early as February. Yet the government devoted more zeal to protecting the prime minister’s rule-breaking adviser, Dominic Cummings, than it did to safeguarding the lives of the fragile elderly. A just-released report by the National Audit Office estimates that 25,000 elderly people were discharged from hospitals into homes without being tested at the height of the pandemic.
“The problem with this government is that it is led by journalists,” says one senior official. “Action this day” was one of Winston Churchill’s famous injunctions. For Boris Johnson, it has been: “An empty pledge to get me through the day.”
As someone who works in IT and has a keen interest in aviation, almost every single MSM report on those technical fields contains many and often serious inaccuracies, yet I am somehow expected to take the rest of their content - where I am wanting them to inform me - as gospel? On subjects like epidemiology?
A relative of mine once did something slightly newsworthy and had a small filler article about him in one of the national newspapers - admittedly gutter press.
We counted five errors in six lines.
Oh yeah, it's shocking how bad the reporting gets, even big media companies seem to outsource anything technical to the intern - and no-one up the line of editors knows the subject either so they simply check the grammar or refer back to their own previous incorrect content. Surely there's someone at the BBC or the Telegraph with a pilot's licence, who can be bought in to sense-check aviation stories?
I've seen stories about 'black boxes' on planes being black - they're bright orange, so you can find them in a crash site, pictures of planes described that are completely different models, stories about software hacking that weren't anything to do with hacking, and about some new technology or other that makes no sense whatsoever to anyone who actually understands it.
The narrative that informed commentators both on here and in the media have about the timelines in March seem completely at odds with the reality of what actually happened. Our official lockdown was the same day as Germanys, about the median lockdown date internationally, before New Zealands, and we had an unofficial lockdown that 70-80% were already following from a week earlier.
I'm very upset (and angry) about what's happening to Churchill. If it wasn't for him the world would likely have slipped into a new dark age. That would have affected everyone - worldwide.
If there's one thing likely to change my sympathies and bring me out onto the streets, it's targeting him.
Which is precisely why some are, of course.
Churchill on Mussolini:
“If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you [Mussolini] from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism."
(Speech in Rome on 20 January, 1927, praising Mussolini)
He also supported Mussolini in the annexation of Abyssinia and Japan in the invasion of Manchuria.
However, to quote Robert Blake, ‘he was right about Hitler, and that mattered more than anything else in 1940.’
Rather curiously one of the earlier excoriating critics of Churchill, nearly 20 years ago, was none other than the late Alan Clark, MP, diarist, philanderer, a tiny bit right wing, Minister and favourite of one Mrs Thatcher.
People aren't protesting against Churchill because of he was bros with Mussolini, or that he gassed Kurds or had the army shoot Welsh miners it's because he's a conspicuous symbol of the British establishment and what Mao called, The Four Olds. It's just the vibe rather than anything he did in particular.
There seems to be a huuuge amount of whataboutery as a result of yesterday. Dont look at the nazis, whatabout those black people? Indeed. What about them?
Yesterday, following a week of nonsense about black folks wanting to censor Little Britain the proud patriotic normal people headed to town to defend our values. And what did we see? Our value defenders are: White Shaven haired / bald Drunk Stupid Leave voting Violent
We held the mirror up to England. And found out that we are scum that literally disgusts the rest of the world. So yeah, whatabout these uppity black people...
Handheld Ultrasound Devices Are Speeding Diagnosis of COVID-19 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/handheld-ultrasound-devices-are-speeding-diagnosis-of-covid-19/ When patients with a new disease called COVID-19 started pouring into his hospital, pulmonary and critical care physician Bilal Jalil found himself turning to a pocket-size device he had been using to quickly check heart function in his private practice. It was a handheld point-of-care ultrasound, or POCUS, which consists of a simple probe that can broadcast ultrasound images to a display tablet or phone. The tool proved invaluable in making critical triage choices: within minutes Jalil, who works in the intensive care unit in the Baylor Scott & White Health system in Texas, could see if someone’s lungs were affected enough to require intensive care. Many emergency care doctors around the world have begun relying on POCUS units as a first line of defense in confronting COVID-19. Blood tests sometimes take 24 hours, and CT scan rooms have long waits. But these little ultrasound gadgets can reveal lung damage on the spot, showing doctors whether individuals can breathe independently or need to be immediately put on ventilators....
Mr. Sandpit, aye, a good development, and one that the media might consider when contemplating the strange mystery of why people spend more time watching Youtube than the news.
Topped with the likes of Peston's rambling opinions and regurgitated rumour-mongering and Maitlis kindly using her taxpayer-funded platform to let us know her own very important views.
I think my views on the UK MSM are already reasonably well-known.
The worrying thing is that the bosses of Peston, Kuenessburg and Rigby obviously think they've been doing a good job. Although even the BBC have had to admit that the Maitlis diatribe against the government was somewhat out of order.
As someone who works in IT and has a keen interest in aviation, almost every single MSM report on those technical fields contains many and often serious inaccuracies, yet I am somehow expected to take the rest of their content - where I am wanting them to inform me - as gospel? On subjects like epidemiology?
As I've said many times before, the government briefings should have been attended by scientific journalists, and that still holds. Having political journalists, mostly still very sore from Brexit, lead the questioning is worse than useless when it comes to actually informing the public, but does a great job for their own egos.
Even now, with the emergence from lockdown much more political by nature than going into lockdown, there's still no genuinely critical thinking going on within the media, and international comparisons are only being made as reasons to attack the government. Why is no-one asking why in the UK school reopening has become a political issue because of activist unions, whereas elsewhere in the world schools are already back open?
Watching from afar, it appears that only in the UK and USA are the media so unthinkingly critical of government in the face of a pandemic, in most other countries there is much more of a war spirit and a collective wish to get things back to normal.
Anyway, only 21 days now until the first Grand Prix of the season. Nyyooommmm!
I can agree with much of that, but you’re guilty of what you complain of in schools. The reason it’s been a horlicks is less to do with activist unions than the utterly disorganised and ill thought through guidance from government, which seems to have changed almost by the day.
Okay, happy to disagree on that point then. My reading has been of the teaching unions 'celebrating' their 'win' over the government in keeping schools shut. This Telegraph leading article from yesterday, for example:
"One would hope that the effort to get children back to school is non-partisan and apolitical – but some union leaders are celebrating their continued closure as a victory. In a message to her members, Jo Grady, the head of the University and College Union, praised the “impressive public campaigning” of teaching unions against an attempt to reopen primary schools before September. " https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/06/11/teaching-union-leaders-back-point-scoring/
If you have a large protest - I think 100,000 was quoted for BLM when people were upset about potential virus spread - and there are ~30 police injuries then I think that is very different to a much smaller protest - say less than 1,000 - causing a similar number.
It would seem that at least 99,000 of the former were peaceful, which does seem like "largely peaceful" would be accurate.
There seems to be a huuuge amount of whataboutery as a result of yesterday. Dont look at the nazis, whatabout those black people? Indeed. What about them?
Yesterday, following a week of nonsense about black folks wanting to censor Little Britain the proud patriotic normal people headed to town to defend our values. And what did we see? Our value defenders are: White Shaven haired / bald Drunk Stupid Leave voting Violent
We held the mirror up to England. And found out that we are scum that literally disgusts the rest of the world. So yeah, whatabout these uppity black people...
A good deal of 'whataboutery' seems to me to be not desperately articulate people trying to say that it is possible to hold more than one opinion at a time as long as they are not logically contradictory. (But could I excuse both extreme left and extreme right from this explanation.)
The BBC and lots of other media ought to be better at doing this than they are at the moment. Remarkably The Sun (for which I am not an apologist) seems to me to do better than most right now.
As someone who works in IT and has a keen interest in aviation, almost every single MSM report on those technical fields contains many and often serious inaccuracies, yet I am somehow expected to take the rest of their content - where I am wanting them to inform me - as gospel? On subjects like epidemiology?
A relative of mine once did something slightly newsworthy and had a small filler article about him in one of the national newspapers - admittedly gutter press.
We counted five errors in six lines.
Oh yeah, it's shocking how bad the reporting gets, even big media companies seem to outsource anything technical to the intern - and no-one up the line of editors knows the subject either so they simply check the grammar or refer back to their own previous incorrect content. Surely there's someone at the BBC or the Telegraph with a pilot's licence, who can be bought in to sense-check aviation stories?
I've seen stories about 'black boxes' on planes being black - they're bright orange, so you can find them in a crash site, pictures of planes described that are completely different models, stories about software hacking that weren't anything to do with hacking, and about some new technology or other that makes no sense whatsoever to anyone who actually understands it.
I am (very briefly) in the Owen Wilson film 'Behind Enemy Lines'. There was so much technically incorrect with that film that it was staggering - take from the recce pod in the WSO's seat(!), etc. When we pointed out a few of the more egregious and easily fixed errors the film crew did not give the slightest fuck. The same applies in news journalism I imagine.
There seems to be a huuuge amount of whataboutery as a result of yesterday. Dont look at the nazis, whatabout those black people? Indeed. What about them?
Yesterday, following a week of nonsense about black folks wanting to censor Little Britain the proud patriotic normal people headed to town to defend our values. And what did we see? Our value defenders are: White Shaven haired / bald Drunk Stupid Leave voting Violent
We held the mirror up to England. And found out that we are scum that literally disgusts the rest of the world. So yeah, whatabout these uppity black people...
Oh don't be ridiculous, the rest of the world has been hating the English for centuries before skinheads appeared.
I tried the same for US Presidents, French Presidents and Australian Prime Ministers - no gaps. If you try German Chancellors you don't get a list in the same format (but you do get a photo of the bad guy).
My guess is that an algorithm has overreacted. I expect they'll fix it as soon as purple start complaining and we'll never know exactly why.
That sounds like a good explanation. I saw this myself on my news feed this morning and couldn't believe Google would be so dumb. Oversensitive algorithms seems a reasonable answer. The question does arise as to why Churchill triggers the algorithm but Hitler does not.
It does also reemphasise the point of not trusting the internet for anything - even the most well established sources.
Google's response to why Churchill's picture is missing - they've not done anything on their end, just an automatic part of the picture updates sometimes that happens but they'll look into it more.
There seems to be a huuuge amount of whataboutery as a result of yesterday. Dont look at the nazis, whatabout those black people? Indeed. What about them?
Yesterday, following a week of nonsense about black folks wanting to censor Little Britain the proud patriotic normal people headed to town to defend our values. And what did we see? Our value defenders are: White Shaven haired / bald Drunk Stupid Leave voting Violent
We held the mirror up to England. And found out that we are scum that literally disgusts the rest of the world. So yeah, whatabout these uppity black people...
I. WAS. THERE.
Here is my "excitable" summation of what I saw
***
I spent the entire afternoon moving between the large Football Lads demo in Parliament Sq and the smaller but still sizeable BLM demo in Trafalgar Sq.
My conclusions from witnessing these riots at first hand: both sides passionately believe in their cause.
Yes there was a vile bunch of brutish hooligans with the Lads hut there was also veterans, young soldiers, old people, randoms, a few black people, sports fans in GB Oympics shirts, and some very hard silent men.
Likewise, there was a nasty hardcore of clearly aggressive agitators with BLM (mostly black but not all), but also students, hipsters, Italian girls, kids on bikes just out for a laugh, random nutters talking about God.
The trouble is the not insignificant hardcore on BOTH sides, who WERE spoiling for a fight, hopefully with each other, but failing that, fighting the cops would do.
The worst violence I saw came from BLM, who at one point were attacking solitary white people just for their skin colour - I saw this with my own eyes (and kept a fucking low profile). Very unpleasant. I did not see anything like that from the Lads but they were policed more strictly.
The main thing I have learned from all this is that, firstly, this really needs to stop very soon, because people are going to get killed, however, because both sides really do feel righteously angry that may not happen.
The second thing I learned is: Wow, British police are amazing, and we are incredibly lucky to have them,
They are calm, polite, brave, resolute, and effective without being punitive. They just stood there and took horrific and provocative abuse, missiles, shouting, from both sides, and they did it without demur, as they tried to keep both sides apart and save lives. A thankless task, but one they did superbly.
The boys in blue should take a bow. They are fucking heroes.
They absolutely are. And i kmow you were there - i read yesterdays posts.
Read my point again. These Nazi white scum think they are the values of Engerland. You call out BLM protesters for attacking a white person. That is bad. And the nazi-salutes by Churchill's statue by the patriotic white folks? You're saying the BLM protesters are racially motivated and that the other side aren't.
BLM should not be violent. But yes their protest has racial undertones because that's the entire purpose. What's the excuse for the proud patriots heading to town to stop these uppity blacks desecrating our monuments by pissing up the PC Palmer memorial.
As someone who works in IT and has a keen interest in aviation, almost every single MSM report on those technical fields contains many and often serious inaccuracies, yet I am somehow expected to take the rest of their content - where I am wanting them to inform me - as gospel? On subjects like epidemiology?
A relative of mine once did something slightly newsworthy and had a small filler article about him in one of the national newspapers - admittedly gutter press.
We counted five errors in six lines.
Oh yeah, it's shocking how bad the reporting gets, even big media companies seem to outsource anything technical to the intern - and no-one up the line of editors knows the subject either so they simply check the grammar or refer back to their own previous incorrect content. Surely there's someone at the BBC or the Telegraph with a pilot's licence, who can be bought in to sense-check aviation stories?
I've seen stories about 'black boxes' on planes being black - they're bright orange, so you can find them in a crash site, pictures of planes described that are completely different models, stories about software hacking that weren't anything to do with hacking, and about some new technology or other that makes no sense whatsoever to anyone who actually understands it.
I am (very briefly) in the Owen Wilson film 'Behind Enemy Lines'. There was so much technically incorrect with that film that it was staggering - take from the recce pod in the WSO's seat(!), etc. When we pointed out a few of the more egregious and easily fixed errors the film crew did not give the slightest fuck. The same applies in news journalism I imagine.
LOL, yes I imagine they get military stories just as wrong, although the difference between news and film is that I'm expecting (and happy with) a little 'artistic licence' in the latter.
I'm very upset (and angry) about what's happening to Churchill. If it wasn't for him the world would likely have slipped into a new dark age. That would have affected everyone - worldwide.
If there's one thing likely to change my sympathies and bring me out onto the streets, it's targeting him.
Which is precisely why some are, of course.
Churchill on Mussolini:
“If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you [Mussolini] from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism."
(Speech in Rome on 20 January, 1927, praising Mussolini)
He also supported Mussolini in the annexation of Abyssinia and Japan in the invasion of Manchuria.
However, to quote Robert Blake, ‘he was right about Hitler, and that mattered more than anything else in 1940.’
Rather curiously one of the earlier excoriating critics of Churchill, nearly 20 years ago, was none other than the late Alan Clark, MP, diarist, philanderer, a tiny bit right wing, Minister and favourite of one Mrs Thatcher.
He was a critic of all generals in the First World War. He coined the phrase ‘lions led by donkeys’ (although he claimed it was said by a French general).
Not one to let facts to get in the way of his views, either. ‘The Donkeys’ is now viewed as a novel, and an interesting example of 1960s counterculture. Which it is, of course.
The narrative that informed commentators both on here and in the media have about the timelines in March seem completely at odds with the reality of what actually happened. Our official lockdown was the same day as Germanys, about the median lockdown date internationally, before New Zealands, and we had an unofficial lockdown that 70-80% were already following from a week earlier.
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
I'm very upset (and angry) about what's happening to Churchill. If it wasn't for him the world would likely have slipped into a new dark age.
He didn't exactly do it on his own.
It was Attlees refusal to support the Tories preferred candidate Halifax that led to Churchill being PM. Defeatism was more a Tory phenomenon than a widespread one.
People aren't protesting against Churchill because of he was bros with Mussolini, or that he gassed Kurds or had the army shoot Welsh miners it's because he's a conspicuous symbol of the British establishment and what Mao called, The Four Olds. It's just the vibe rather than anything he did in particular.
You're really winning me over with talk of Mao.
Nobody is trying to win anybody over - least of all me. This is now (culture) war to the knife.
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
No.
Do you think that if in a hundred years people do look at our present day consensus with abhorrence they should be bound by decisions we have made to celebrate that which they abhor . . . or could they move our choices to museums or history books and make their own choices for themselves?
Mr. Password, by that definition beer is largely non-alcoholic.
Also, in the former case the police submitted, kneeling or running away. In the latter, they confronted the mob.
Alcohol-free beer does indeed tend to have a low alcohol content of about 0.1% so "largely non-alcoholic" would seem to be accurate for a weak as piss beer of less than 1% ABV.
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
In 100 years' time an artist will come up with this innovative new concept, for which everyone will hail him as a genius - the statue. Because all the old statues will have been pulled down and all the books referring to them burned...
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
They will be amazed we gave our personal data away so freely and cheaply to the FANGs who eventually replaced governments.
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
In 100 years' time an artist will come up with this innovative new concept, for which everyone will hail him as a genius - the statue. Because all the old statues will have been pulled down and all the books referring to them burned...
Nobody is calling for book burning, quite the opposite people are calling for education. 🙄
I tried the same for US Presidents, French Presidents and Australian Prime Ministers - no gaps. If you try German Chancellors you don't get a list in the same format (but you do get a photo of the bad guy).
My guess is that an algorithm has overreacted. I expect they'll fix it as soon as purple start complaining and we'll never know exactly why.
That sounds like a good explanation. I saw this myself on my news feed this morning and couldn't believe Google would be so dumb. Oversensitive algorithms seems a reasonable answer. The question does arise as to why Churchill triggers the algorithm but Hitler does not.
It does also reemphasise the point of not trusting the internet for anything - even the most well established sources.
My guess is that Hitler would previously have triggered the algorithm, so they've already had to adjust it manually for German Chancellors - hence why the list is in a different format.
But you'll never get Google to talk about the details of this, and they remain almost completely unaccountable.
If you have a large protest - I think 100,000 was quoted for BLM when people were upset about potential virus spread - and there are ~30 police injuries then I think that is very different to a much smaller protest - say less than 1,000 - causing a similar number.
It would seem that at least 99,000 of the former were peaceful, which does seem like "largely peaceful" would be accurate.
The violent extreme left have a history of attaching themselves to causes which are in themselves decent or arguable; the violent extreme right have less of that in their past. The media are not good at unravelling the threads of that sort of nuance.
(BTW Brexit gives the violent extreme right the opportunity to be attached to a cause which is in itself politically mainstream. Defending Churchill could be another. Depressing.)
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
No.
Do you think that if in a hundred years people do look at our present day consensus with abhorrence they should be bound by decisions we have made to celebrate that which they abhor . . . or could they move our choices to museums or history books and make their own choices for themselves?
No doubt they'll do what they want, but they shouldn't delude themselves that they do so on the basis that they've achieved an absolute and unique level of moral perfection. Or that they themselves would have behaved differently from the people they're condemning, if their views had been shaped by the same circumstances.
If you have a large protest - I think 100,000 was quoted for BLM when people were upset about potential virus spread - and there are ~30 police injuries then I think that is very different to a much smaller protest - say less than 1,000 - causing a similar number.
It would seem that at least 99,000 of the former were peaceful, which does seem like "largely peaceful" would be accurate.
That is such convoluted justification as to make you look utterly disingenuous.
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
"Anything"? Well, the AIs sure will.
That's funny. Maybe it was a Freudian slip, as I had that in mind as a possibility.
People aren't protesting against Churchill because of he was bros with Mussolini, or that he gassed Kurds or had the army shoot Welsh miners it's because he's a conspicuous symbol of the British establishment and what Mao called, The Four Olds. It's just the vibe rather than anything he did in particular.
Yes, I think there is an element of kicking against Britain's maudlin obsession with poppyism.
I'm very upset (and angry) about what's happening to Churchill. If it wasn't for him the world would likely have slipped into a new dark age.
He didn't exactly do it on his own.
It was Attlees refusal to support the Tories preferred candidate Halifax that led to Churchill being PM. Defeatism was more a Tory phenomenon than a widespread one.
Labour said they wouldn't serve under Chamberlain. But they didn't express the same opposition to Halifax, though I think they certainly would have preferred Churchill.
If you can find a video where the "Lads" do something like that, I am happy to be proven wrong
You see them doing Nazi salutes by Churchill then hurling their gammony faces at the brave cops stopping them from moving? Imagine what they would be doing had the police not stopped them.
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
In 100 years' time an artist will come up with this innovative new concept, for which everyone will hail him as a genius - the statue. Because all the old statues will have been pulled down and all the books referring to them burned...
Nobody is calling for book burning, quite the opposite people are calling for education. 🙄
Indeed there has been more discussion and education of Britain's role in the Atlantic Slave Trade in the last two weeks than I can remember in my lifetime.
I tried the same for US Presidents, French Presidents and Australian Prime Ministers - no gaps. If you try German Chancellors you don't get a list in the same format (but you do get a photo of the bad guy).
My guess is that an algorithm has overreacted. I expect they'll fix it as soon as purple start complaining and we'll never know exactly why.
That sounds like a good explanation. I saw this myself on my news feed this morning and couldn't believe Google would be so dumb. Oversensitive algorithms seems a reasonable answer. The question does arise as to why Churchill triggers the algorithm but Hitler does not.
It does also reemphasise the point of not trusting the internet for anything - even the most well established sources.
My guess is that Hitler would previously have triggered the algorithm, so they've already had to adjust it manually for German Chancellors - hence why the list is in a different format.
But you'll never get Google to talk about the details of this, and they remain almost completely unaccountable.
A smart MSM would be asking the UK CEO of Google to appear on TV this morning to explain why the image disappeared - and making a big issue of them refusing to do so, if that was their response.
I tried the same for US Presidents, French Presidents and Australian Prime Ministers - no gaps. If you try German Chancellors you don't get a list in the same format (but you do get a photo of the bad guy).
My guess is that an algorithm has overreacted. I expect they'll fix it as soon as purple start complaining and we'll never know exactly why.
That sounds like a good explanation. I saw this myself on my news feed this morning and couldn't believe Google would be so dumb. Oversensitive algorithms seems a reasonable answer. The question does arise as to why Churchill triggers the algorithm but Hitler does not.
It does also reemphasise the point of not trusting the internet for anything - even the most well established sources.
My guess is that Hitler would previously have triggered the algorithm, so they've already had to adjust it manually for German Chancellors - hence why the list is in a different format.
But you'll never get Google to talk about the details of this, and they remain almost completely unaccountable.
Google have already put out a comment on it, which I linked to.
This regularly happens, I've often noticed it in the past but then ignore it as its irrelevant at that time, its just potentially a coincidence that its happened during this furore and so people have picked up on it.
I suspect he'll get a longer sentence than the group of black blokes kicking that white man on the floor, because of course the system is totally racist.
I tried the same for US Presidents, French Presidents and Australian Prime Ministers - no gaps. If you try German Chancellors you don't get a list in the same format (but you do get a photo of the bad guy).
My guess is that an algorithm has overreacted. I expect they'll fix it as soon as purple start complaining and we'll never know exactly why.
That sounds like a good explanation. I saw this myself on my news feed this morning and couldn't believe Google would be so dumb. Oversensitive algorithms seems a reasonable answer. The question does arise as to why Churchill triggers the algorithm but Hitler does not.
It does also reemphasise the point of not trusting the internet for anything - even the most well established sources.
My guess is that Hitler would previously have triggered the algorithm, so they've already had to adjust it manually for German Chancellors - hence why the list is in a different format.
But you'll never get Google to talk about the details of this, and they remain almost completely unaccountable.
A smart MSM would be asking the UK CEO of Google to appear on TV this morning to explain why the image disappeared - and making a big issue of them refusing to do so, if that was their response.
Google is clever enough to adjust it for Chancellors of Germany without affecting PMs of the UK :-) .
If you have a large protest - I think 100,000 was quoted for BLM when people were upset about potential virus spread - and there are ~30 police injuries then I think that is very different to a much smaller protest - say less than 1,000 - causing a similar number.
It would seem that at least 99,000 of the former were peaceful, which does seem like "largely peaceful" would be accurate.
That is such convoluted justification as to make you look utterly disingenuous.
Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with it either, but I think there is a difference and while the reportage might have exaggerated the difference the two are not the same as some would like to argue.
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
In 100 years' time an artist will come up with this innovative new concept, for which everyone will hail him as a genius - the statue. Because all the old statues will have been pulled down and all the books referring to them burned...
Nobody is calling for book burning, quite the opposite people are calling for education. 🙄
I was being somewhat facetious. But the censorship train is already well underway, and it only travels in one direction...
I'm very upset (and angry) about what's happening to Churchill. If it wasn't for him the world would likely have slipped into a new dark age.
He didn't exactly do it on his own.
True, but there's only so far one can plausibly play down Churchill's role. Britain would probably have capitulated without him, and it is unlikely that this would've made the world a better place in the long run...
IF, and it's big if on purpose, the films and so on are correct Lord Halifax was the alternative choice as PM and he was for a 'negotiated peace' with Hitler. Who...... allegedly and for a while at any rate ...... wasn't that keen on invading, although the force was being readied. Whether Halifax's 'negotiated peace' would have worked we'll never know. Hitler would still have attacked Russia.
Well, the ‘films’ are correct and Halifax was the alternative. There are about three accounts of what happened, but there was simply no third figure of comparable stature at the time. The most plausible account states that Halifax himself felt it would be impossible to lead a government from the Lords.
Interestingly Halifax himself wasn’t considered an arch appeaser. He isn’t mentioned in Guilty Men, for example. He was the key driver of the guarantee to Poland. He also became Churchill’s deputy for a brief time after Chamberlain’s death. There is a suggestion that he wanted to make peace not because he was sympathetic to Hitler, whom he knew well and despised utterly* but because he believed Britain had no choice and that the war was over. In this he proved, fortunately, to be wrong, but it wasn’t a ridiculous position at the time.
*Oddly though - and it says much about him and not in a good way - he rather liked Goebbels.
Thanks for that. As I've said before my historical knowledge tends to be piecemeal; I've never had to look at such matters in a systemic way.
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
No.
Do you think that if in a hundred years people do look at our present day consensus with abhorrence they should be bound by decisions we have made to celebrate that which they abhor . . . or could they move our choices to museums or history books and make their own choices for themselves?
No doubt they'll do what they want, but they shouldn't delude themselves that they do so on the basis that they've achieved an absolute and unique level of moral perfection. Or that they themselves would have behaved differently from the people they're condemning, if their views had been shaped by the same circumstances.
I don't think anyone is claiming the present is perfect.
In fact I think the consensus of the protesters is that things need to get better in the present.
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
Loads, I hope. Here are two: Abhorrence at the gulf between the richest and the poorest nations. And, topically, disbelief that in an age of Black Lives Matter so little attention was paid to the quality of governance in the continent of Africa, so that while anger burned in the rich world about the treatment of black people, other black people were risking their lives to come and live in those countries and escape their own.
What the f..., that's true. Also for international Google versions (I tried .com and .ae)
I don't think they have censored it. I inagine what's happened is that feature of Google results draws its pictures from somewhere like wikipedia or another site, and the Churchill pic has been renoved from there.
I thought that, but it linked to the list of British Prime Ministers on Wikipedia - and Churchill's photo is still there.
Yes, but the photos on the Google feed are headshots. Wiki's Churchill is mid length, so it's obviously pulling the headshots from somewhere else.
What the f..., that's true. Also for international Google versions (I tried .com and .ae)
I don't think they have censored it. I inagine what's happened is that feature of Google results draws its pictures from somewhere like wikipedia or another site, and the Churchill pic has been renoved from there.
Agreed that will be my guess. Someone may have updated the photo and so Google's link is dead and that is the glitch that results until their algorithm fixed it. Nothing deliberate.
Doesn't explain why they have completely removed the period 1940 - 45 when apparently we had no PM.
If you have a large protest - I think 100,000 was quoted for BLM when people were upset about potential virus spread - and there are ~30 police injuries then I think that is very different to a much smaller protest - say less than 1,000 - causing a similar number.
It would seem that at least 99,000 of the former were peaceful, which does seem like "largely peaceful" would be accurate.
That is such convoluted justification as to make you look utterly disingenuous.
The 100,000 protest figure was for all the protests across the UK
Google's response to why Churchill's picture is missing - they've not done anything on their end, just an automatic part of the picture updates sometimes that happens but they'll look into it more.
Google does also acknowledge a bug in not showing the first terms of Prime Ministers (is that because American Presidents do not have non-consecutive terms in office?).
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
In 100 years' time an artist will come up with this innovative new concept, for which everyone will hail him as a genius - the statue. Because all the old statues will have been pulled down and all the books referring to them burned...
Nobody is calling for book burning, quite the opposite people are calling for education. 🙄
I was being somewhat facetious. But the censorship train is already well underway, and it only travels in one direction...
I've not seen any censorship yet. Quite the opposite, we're seeing a lot of increased communication on all sides.
You get the truth by shining a light on something not hiding it in darkness. That's what the current situation is doing, shining a light on the past that was ignored - as well as elements of the present that often get ignored.
If you have a large protest - I think 100,000 was quoted for BLM when people were upset about potential virus spread - and there are ~30 police injuries then I think that is very different to a much smaller protest - say less than 1,000 - causing a similar number.
It would seem that at least 99,000 of the former were peaceful, which does seem like "largely peaceful" would be accurate.
That is such convoluted justification as to make you look utterly disingenuous.
Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with it either, but I think there is a difference and while the reportage might have exaggerated the difference the two are not the same as some would like to argue.
As I have pointed out the 100,000 figure you used was for all the protests UK wide, not just London
What the f..., that's true. Also for international Google versions (I tried .com and .ae)
I don't think they have censored it. I inagine what's happened is that feature of Google results draws its pictures from somewhere like wikipedia or another site, and the Churchill pic has been renoved from there.
Agreed that will be my guess. Someone may have updated the photo and so Google's link is dead and that is the glitch that results until their algorithm fixed it. Nothing deliberate.
Doesn't explain why they have completely removed the period 1940 - 45 when apparently we had no PM.
As just posted elsewhere, Google does also acknowledge a bug in not showing the first terms of Prime Ministers (is that because American Presidents do not have non-consecutive terms in office?). This affects Wilson and Baldwin as well as Churchill.
I tried the same for US Presidents, French Presidents and Australian Prime Ministers - no gaps. If you try German Chancellors you don't get a list in the same format (but you do get a photo of the bad guy).
My guess is that an algorithm has overreacted. I expect they'll fix it as soon as purple start complaining and we'll never know exactly why.
That sounds like a good explanation. I saw this myself on my news feed this morning and couldn't believe Google would be so dumb. Oversensitive algorithms seems a reasonable answer. The question does arise as to why Churchill triggers the algorithm but Hitler does not.
It does also reemphasise the point of not trusting the internet for anything - even the most well established sources.
My guess is that Hitler would previously have triggered the algorithm, so they've already had to adjust it manually for German Chancellors - hence why the list is in a different format.
But you'll never get Google to talk about the details of this, and they remain almost completely unaccountable.
A smart MSM would be asking the UK CEO of Google to appear on TV this morning to explain why the image disappeared - and making a big issue of them refusing to do so, if that was their response.
I don't agree, it's a trivial issue only really worthy of a comment as it adds to the atmosphere of the times.
I do hope one conclusion of the public inquiry is that a new model of pandemic growth is built from scratch with no one from the UCL team anywhere near the work.
What the f..., that's true. Also for international Google versions (I tried .com and .ae)
I don't think they have censored it. I inagine what's happened is that feature of Google results draws its pictures from somewhere like wikipedia or another site, and the Churchill pic has been renoved from there.
Agreed that will be my guess. Someone may have updated the photo and so Google's link is dead and that is the glitch that results until their algorithm fixed it. Nothing deliberate.
Doesn't explain why they have completely removed the period 1940 - 45 when apparently we had no PM.
As just posted elsewhere, Google does also acknowledge a bug in not showing the first terms of Prime Ministers (is that because American Presidents do not have non-consecutive terms in office?). This affects Wilson and Baldwin as well as Churchill.
People aren't protesting against Churchill because of he was bros with Mussolini, or that he gassed Kurds or had the army shoot Welsh miners it's because he's a conspicuous symbol of the British establishment and what Mao called, The Four Olds. It's just the vibe rather than anything he did in particular.
Yes, I think there is an element of kicking against Britain's maudlin obsession with poppyism.
The English obsession with WW2 is truly baffling to me. The only other country that comes close in this regard in my experience is Russia.
People aren't protesting against Churchill because of he was bros with Mussolini, or that he gassed Kurds or had the army shoot Welsh miners it's because he's a conspicuous symbol of the British establishment and what Mao called, The Four Olds. It's just the vibe rather than anything he did in particular.
Yes, I think that's accurate and perceptive. Take a bow, young Ace!
It's hard to imagine the protesters as the sort of folk who would bother to read enough history to form a nuanced view of his chequered career. He's just a symbol. That'll do.
What the f..., that's true. Also for international Google versions (I tried .com and .ae)
I don't think they have censored it. I inagine what's happened is that feature of Google results draws its pictures from somewhere like wikipedia or another site, and the Churchill pic has been renoved from there.
Agreed that will be my guess. Someone may have updated the photo and so Google's link is dead and that is the glitch that results until their algorithm fixed it. Nothing deliberate.
Doesn't explain why they have completely removed the period 1940 - 45 when apparently we had no PM.
They've not, they're showing each Prime Minister - look at Wilson, Baldwin etc too.
Every single PM is only shown once by their final period of office. Its the same for all of them. Their system isn't designed to show non-continuous terms of office.
If you have a large protest - I think 100,000 was quoted for BLM when people were upset about potential virus spread - and there are ~30 police injuries then I think that is very different to a much smaller protest - say less than 1,000 - causing a similar number.
It would seem that at least 99,000 of the former were peaceful, which does seem like "largely peaceful" would be accurate.
That is such convoluted justification as to make you look utterly disingenuous.
Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with it either, but I think there is a difference and while the reportage might have exaggerated the difference the two are not the same as some would like to argue.
As I have pointed out the 100,000 figure you used was for all the protests UK wide, not just London
Yes, I saw that and thought the point was interesting but not interesting enough to respond to.
Don't harass me by making the same point repeatedly.
I tried the same for US Presidents, French Presidents and Australian Prime Ministers - no gaps. If you try German Chancellors you don't get a list in the same format (but you do get a photo of the bad guy).
My guess is that an algorithm has overreacted. I expect they'll fix it as soon as purple start complaining and we'll never know exactly why.
That sounds like a good explanation. I saw this myself on my news feed this morning and couldn't believe Google would be so dumb. Oversensitive algorithms seems a reasonable answer. The question does arise as to why Churchill triggers the algorithm but Hitler does not.
It does also reemphasise the point of not trusting the internet for anything - even the most well established sources.
My guess is that Hitler would previously have triggered the algorithm, so they've already had to adjust it manually for German Chancellors - hence why the list is in a different format.
But you'll never get Google to talk about the details of this, and they remain almost completely unaccountable.
Algorithms making controversial and unaccountable decisions is one of the biggest threats to humanity, liberty and democracy. Even in the medium term, say next 25-50 years, far more so than a few scuffles between extremists which are admittedly an immediate problem.
I'm very upset (and angry) about what's happening to Churchill. If it wasn't for him the world would likely have slipped into a new dark age.
He didn't exactly do it on his own.
It was Attlees refusal to support the Tories preferred candidate Halifax that led to Churchill being PM. Defeatism was more a Tory phenomenon than a widespread one.
No. Attlee had nothing to do with the choice of PM. He said he could not carry his party into a coalition led by Chamberlain, but he wasn’t dogmatic about his successor.
While there is little doubt that Attlee would have preferred Churchill (he described Halifax as ‘a queer bird - very humorous, all hunting and Holy Communion’) there were others in Labour who felt differently. Dalton, for example, hated Churchill for his anti-union role stretching right back to Tonypandy.
But ultimately, even if Halifax had wanted the job - which he didn’t - there was a general agreement that even if he were the nominal PM, Churchill would be the leader in the Commons and therefore would be in effective command of the government. So it was a decision that made itself.
What the f..., that's true. Also for international Google versions (I tried .com and .ae)
I don't think they have censored it. I inagine what's happened is that feature of Google results draws its pictures from somewhere like wikipedia or another site, and the Churchill pic has been renoved from there.
Agreed that will be my guess. Someone may have updated the photo and so Google's link is dead and that is the glitch that results until their algorithm fixed it. Nothing deliberate.
Doesn't explain why they have completely removed the period 1940 - 45 when apparently we had no PM.
They've also missed out us having a PM between 1964 and 1970.
I think it is a glitch when a PM has two non consecutive periods of power.
I do hope one conclusion of the public inquiry is that a new model of pandemic growth is built from scratch with no one from the UCL team anywhere near the work.
Imperial? Anyway what surprised me was that once the code quality issues were known, HMG did not immediately commission several firms to clean up the code (not rewrite it in another language, which is most programmers' response to any request in my experience).
What the f..., that's true. Also for international Google versions (I tried .com and .ae)
I don't think they have censored it. I inagine what's happened is that feature of Google results draws its pictures from somewhere like wikipedia or another site, and the Churchill pic has been renoved from there.
Agreed that will be my guess. Someone may have updated the photo and so Google's link is dead and that is the glitch that results until their algorithm fixed it. Nothing deliberate.
Doesn't explain why they have completely removed the period 1940 - 45 when apparently we had no PM.
As just posted elsewhere, Google does also acknowledge a bug in not showing the first terms of Prime Ministers (is that because American Presidents do not have non-consecutive terms in office?). This affects Wilson and Baldwin as well as Churchill.
Grover Cleveland says hello.
The 22nd and 24th President of the USA.
And Google refers to him as President from 1897-1901
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
No.
Do you think that if in a hundred years people do look at our present day consensus with abhorrence they should be bound by decisions we have made to celebrate that which they abhor . . . or could they move our choices to museums or history books and make their own choices for themselves?
No doubt they'll do what they want, but they shouldn't delude themselves that they do so on the basis that they've achieved an absolute and unique level of moral perfection. Or that they themselves would have behaved differently from the people they're condemning, if their views had been shaped by the same circumstances.
I don't think anyone is claiming the present is perfect.
In fact I think the consensus of the protesters is that things need to get better in the present.
People aren't protesting against Churchill because of he was bros with Mussolini, or that he gassed Kurds or had the army shoot Welsh miners it's because he's a conspicuous symbol of the British establishment and what Mao called, The Four Olds. It's just the vibe rather than anything he did in particular.
Yes, I think there is an element of kicking against Britain's maudlin obsession with poppyism.
The English obsession with WW2 is truly baffling to me. The only other country that comes close in this regard in my experience is Russia.
NA BERLIN!!!!
The Greeks are still going on about the time they saved Europe in the Persian Wars 2500 years ago, so I think our bragging rights have a long way to run yet...
Mr. Sandpit, aye, a good development, and one that the media might consider when contemplating the strange mystery of why people spend more time watching Youtube than the news.
Topped with the likes of Peston's rambling opinions and regurgitated rumour-mongering and Maitlis kindly using her taxpayer-funded platform to let us know her own very important views.
I think my views on the UK MSM are already reasonably well-known.
The worrying thing is that the bosses of Peston, Kuenessburg and Rigby obviously think they've been doing a good job. Although even the BBC have had to admit that the Maitlis diatribe against the government was somewhat out of order.
As someone who works in IT and has a keen interest in aviation, almost every single MSM report on those technical fields contains many and often serious inaccuracies, yet I am somehow expected to take the rest of their content - where I am wanting them to inform me - as gospel? On subjects like epidemiology?
As I've said many times before, the government briefings should have been attended by scientific journalists, and that still holds. Having political journalists, mostly still very sore from Brexit, lead the questioning is worse than useless when it comes to actually informing the public, but does a great job for their own egos.
Even now, with the emergence from lockdown much more political by nature than going into lockdown, there's still no genuinely critical thinking going on within the media, and international comparisons are only being made as reasons to attack the government. Why is no-one asking why in the UK school reopening has become a political issue because of activist unions, whereas elsewhere in the world schools are already back open?
Watching from afar, it appears that only in the UK and USA are the media so unthinkingly critical of government in the face of a pandemic, in most other countries there is much more of a war spirit and a collective wish to get things back to normal.
Anyway, only 21 days now until the first Grand Prix of the season. Nyyooommmm!
I can agree with much of that, but you’re guilty of what you complain of in schools. The reason it’s been a horlicks is less to do with activist unions than the utterly disorganised and ill thought through guidance from government, which seems to have changed almost by the day.
Okay, happy to disagree on that point then. My reading has been of the teaching unions 'celebrating' their 'win' over the government in keeping schools shut. This Telegraph leading article from yesterday, for example:
"One would hope that the effort to get children back to school is non-partisan and apolitical – but some union leaders are celebrating their continued closure as a victory. In a message to her members, Jo Grady, the head of the University and College Union, praised the “impressive public campaigning” of teaching unions against an attempt to reopen primary schools before September. " https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/06/11/teaching-union-leaders-back-point-scoring/
Eldest Grandson, a primary school teacher, visited us yesterday. His school, he says, is fortunate; they have playing field space on which they could site marquees to increase classroom space. Others in his 'Academy group' do not. They do not, however, have the staff, nor do they have expectation that they could get more teachers to staff extra classrooms. Nor do they have money for either more teachers or more classroom assistants. The use of the latter, of course, although helpful is by no means ideal for children learning.
As every software company moves to be more like Google (the industry term is "Agile"), how many times do we have to see the scandal at the Post Office before we realise that this doesn't work in the best interests of the general public?
I have said many times before that the next few months is going to be an absolute sh!t-show of fake news and doctored content - with Facebook, Google and Twitter in the middle making money from both sides in the new media civil war. The one and only thing likely to command cross-party support in the US next year is the taking-down of 'social' media.
People aren't protesting against Churchill because of he was bros with Mussolini, or that he gassed Kurds or had the army shoot Welsh miners it's because he's a conspicuous symbol of the British establishment and what Mao called, The Four Olds. It's just the vibe rather than anything he did in particular.
You're really winning me over with talk of Mao.
Nobody is trying to win anybody over - least of all me. This is now (culture) war to the knife.
Oh joy, you've now invented an official reason to be a misanthropic turd, rather than it just being an unfortunate personality trait.
I do hope one conclusion of the public inquiry is that a new model of pandemic growth is built from scratch with no one from the UCL team anywhere near the work.
Despite the non stop attempts to blame Boris the written evidence in Sage minutes clearly shows Boris, Sturgeon and others were following Sage advice which seems obviously wrong in it's analysis
These scientists will have nowhere to hide post the public enquiry and I expect many of them will be very worried. In my previous business life I always trained my staff into 'if it is not written, it is not said' and on Sage it absolutely is written
Indeed it should be compulsory for everyone commenting on covid to have read all the published minutes
And at the risk of Scott imploding, it does look as if Cummings did intervene to bring forward lockdown
I do hope one conclusion of the public inquiry is that a new model of pandemic growth is built from scratch with no one from the UCL team anywhere near the work.
Imperial? Anyway what surprised me was that once the code quality issues were known, HMG did not immediately commission several firms to clean up the code (not rewrite it in another language, which is most programmers' response to any request in my experience).
Didn't Imperial tell the Guardian that up to 200m people could die from bird flu in 2005, when only a couple of hundred did. And that 50k people could die from BSE when only a couple of hundred did.
The question is, why does anybody still listen to those publicity-seeking clowns?
People aren't protesting against Churchill because of he was bros with Mussolini, or that he gassed Kurds or had the army shoot Welsh miners it's because he's a conspicuous symbol of the British establishment and what Mao called, The Four Olds. It's just the vibe rather than anything he did in particular.
You're really winning me over with talk of Mao.
Nobody is trying to win anybody over - least of all me. This is now (culture) war to the knife.
That's what you wanted, and you admitted as much on here.
If you have a large protest - I think 100,000 was quoted for BLM when people were upset about potential virus spread - and there are ~30 police injuries then I think that is very different to a much smaller protest - say less than 1,000 - causing a similar number.
It would seem that at least 99,000 of the former were peaceful, which does seem like "largely peaceful" would be accurate.
That is such convoluted justification as to make you look utterly disingenuous.
Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with it either, but I think there is a difference and while the reportage might have exaggerated the difference the two are not the same as some would like to argue.
As I have pointed out the 100,000 figure you used was for all the protests UK wide, not just London
Yes, I saw that and thought the point was interesting but not interesting enough to respond to.
Don't harass me by making the same point repeatedly.
I tried the same for US Presidents, French Presidents and Australian Prime Ministers - no gaps. If you try German Chancellors you don't get a list in the same format (but you do get a photo of the bad guy).
My guess is that an algorithm has overreacted. I expect they'll fix it as soon as purple start complaining and we'll never know exactly why.
That sounds like a good explanation. I saw this myself on my news feed this morning and couldn't believe Google would be so dumb. Oversensitive algorithms seems a reasonable answer. The question does arise as to why Churchill triggers the algorithm but Hitler does not.
It does also reemphasise the point of not trusting the internet for anything - even the most well established sources.
My guess is that Hitler would previously have triggered the algorithm, so they've already had to adjust it manually for German Chancellors - hence why the list is in a different format.
But you'll never get Google to talk about the details of this, and they remain almost completely unaccountable.
Algorithms making controversial and unaccountable decisions is one of the biggest threats to humanity, liberty and democracy. Even in the medium term, say next 25-50 years, far more so than a few scuffles between extremists which are admittedly an immediate problem.
ˆˆˆTHIS.
Tech CEO's should never be allowed to hide behind algorithms, they need to explain themselves in public and be held accountable for the actions of their organisations.
As every software company moves to be more like Google (the industry term is "Agile"), how many times do we have to see the scandal at the Post Office before we realise that this doesn't work in the best interests of the general public?
I have said many times before that the next few months is going to be an absolute sh!t-show of fake news and doctored content - with Facebook, Google and Twitter in the middle making money from both sides in the new media civil war. The one and only thing likely to command cross-party support in the US next year is the taking-down of 'social' media.
I will take Google at their word.
This time.
I'm still suspicious but I will give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
People aren't protesting against Churchill because of he was bros with Mussolini, or that he gassed Kurds or had the army shoot Welsh miners it's because he's a conspicuous symbol of the British establishment and what Mao called, The Four Olds. It's just the vibe rather than anything he did in particular.
Yes, I think there is an element of kicking against Britain's maudlin obsession with poppyism.
The English obsession with WW2 is truly baffling to me. The only other country that comes close in this regard in my experience is Russia.
NA BERLIN!!!!
Both countries won, is a fairly easy explanation. Their stories are heroic. They like to tell them.
Tho I am not sure it is true, anyway. Germany and France are equally obsessed with the war, but for them the narrative is more depressing. Poland is neurotic about it. Italy schizo.
The Japanese constitution is still shaped by it, and their psyche is still moulded by Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
A Polish friend's grandparents were occupied by the Germans and then the Russians. They much preferred the former. The Russians were so poorly edicated that they would do things like pulling out taps because they wanted to take the water with them. Not a great advertisement for Communism.
Does anything think that in a hundred years' time there won't be any aspects of our present-day moral consensus and way of life that will be looked on with abhorrence and perhaps disbelief?
No.
Do you think that if in a hundred years people do look at our present day consensus with abhorrence they should be bound by decisions we have made to celebrate that which they abhor . . . or could they move our choices to museums or history books and make their own choices for themselves?
No doubt they'll do what they want, but they shouldn't delude themselves that they do so on the basis that they've achieved an absolute and unique level of moral perfection. Or that they themselves would have behaved differently from the people they're condemning, if their views had been shaped by the same circumstances.
I don't think anyone is claiming the present is perfect.
In fact I think the consensus of the protesters is that things need to get better in the present.
This straw man really puzzles me.
If you really can't grasp it, better not worry.
I grasp it. Time's change. We want them to change too.
I tried the same for US Presidents, French Presidents and Australian Prime Ministers - no gaps. If you try German Chancellors you don't get a list in the same format (but you do get a photo of the bad guy).
My guess is that an algorithm has overreacted. I expect they'll fix it as soon as purple start complaining and we'll never know exactly why.
That sounds like a good explanation. I saw this myself on my news feed this morning and couldn't believe Google would be so dumb. Oversensitive algorithms seems a reasonable answer. The question does arise as to why Churchill triggers the algorithm but Hitler does not.
It does also reemphasise the point of not trusting the internet for anything - even the most well established sources.
My guess is that Hitler would previously have triggered the algorithm, so they've already had to adjust it manually for German Chancellors - hence why the list is in a different format.
But you'll never get Google to talk about the details of this, and they remain almost completely unaccountable.
Algorithms making controversial and unaccountable decisions is one of the biggest threats to humanity, liberty and democracy. Even in the medium term, say next 25-50 years, far more so than a few scuffles between extremists which are admittedly an immediate problem.
ˆˆˆTHIS.
Tech CEO's should never be allowed to hide behind algorithms, they need to explain themselves in public and be held accountable for the actions of their organisations.
I normally agree with you, but surely the algorithm absolutely can be the explanation?
If the explanation is that images go missing during updates sometimes and this is all automated and what has happened here then what more of an explanation do you expect than that?
They've said too they'll look into it. What more can be said at this time realistically?
Comments
I tried the same for US Presidents, French Presidents and Australian Prime Ministers - no gaps. If you try German Chancellors you don't get a list in the same format (but you do get a photo of the bad guy).
My guess is that an algorithm has overreacted. I expect they'll fix it as soon as purple start complaining and we'll never know exactly why.
But the way to defend the Churchill statue would have been to find 4-6 real veterans - decked out in medals and blazers - to march up to the Cenotaph and order the morons to go home and state that they were not acting in their name.
"What a swine this Mussolini is".
Many Afro-carribean and African people are deeply Christian.
There would be upset and offended by the BLM policy against the nuclear family and, probably, then branded as traitors to the movement accordingly.
So, yes, I can see the net move in the medium term to move a good chunk of black voters to the Conservatives - we'll have a black Conservative PM before a Labour one.
“The problem with this government is that it is led by journalists,” says one senior official. “Action this day” was one of Winston Churchill’s famous injunctions. For Boris Johnson, it has been: “An empty pledge to get me through the day.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/14/even-tories-increasingly-fear-they-have-inflicted-the-worst-of-all-worlds-on-britain
I've seen stories about 'black boxes' on planes being black - they're bright orange, so you can find them in a crash site, pictures of planes described that are completely different models, stories about software hacking that weren't anything to do with hacking, and about some new technology or other that makes no sense whatsoever to anyone who actually understands it.
Based on Mike's warning on Friday about insulting behaviour to one another, I thought it best to avoid posting any rebuttals.
It got to the point yesterday evening when even lurking became painful. Not PBs finest hour.
Rather curiously one of the earlier excoriating critics of Churchill, nearly 20 years ago, was none other than the late Alan Clark, MP, diarist, philanderer, a tiny bit right wing, Minister and favourite of one Mrs Thatcher.
Yesterday, following a week of nonsense about black folks wanting to censor Little Britain the proud patriotic normal people headed to town to defend our values. And what did we see? Our value defenders are:
White
Shaven haired / bald
Drunk
Stupid
Leave voting
Violent
We held the mirror up to England. And found out that we are scum that literally disgusts the rest of the world. So yeah, whatabout these uppity black people...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/handheld-ultrasound-devices-are-speeding-diagnosis-of-covid-19/
When patients with a new disease called COVID-19 started pouring into his hospital, pulmonary and critical care physician Bilal Jalil found himself turning to a pocket-size device he had been using to quickly check heart function in his private practice. It was a handheld point-of-care ultrasound, or POCUS, which consists of a simple probe that can broadcast ultrasound images to a display tablet or phone. The tool proved invaluable in making critical triage choices: within minutes Jalil, who works in the intensive care unit in the Baylor Scott & White Health system in Texas, could see if someone’s lungs were affected enough to require intensive care.
Many emergency care doctors around the world have begun relying on POCUS units as a first line of defense in confronting COVID-19. Blood tests sometimes take 24 hours, and CT scan rooms have long waits. But these little ultrasound gadgets can reveal lung damage on the spot, showing doctors whether individuals can breathe independently or need to be immediately put on ventilators....
Only $2000 a pop; that’s cheap.
"One would hope that the effort to get children back to school is non-partisan and apolitical – but some union leaders are celebrating their continued closure as a victory. In a message to her members, Jo Grady, the head of the University and College Union, praised the “impressive public campaigning” of teaching unions against an attempt to reopen primary schools before September. "
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/06/11/teaching-union-leaders-back-point-scoring/
It would seem that at least 99,000 of the former were peaceful, which does seem like "largely peaceful" would be accurate.
Also, in the former case the police submitted, kneeling or running away. In the latter, they confronted the mob.
The BBC and lots of other media ought to be better at doing this than they are at the moment. Remarkably The Sun (for which I am not an apologist) seems to me to do better than most right now.
It does also reemphasise the point of not trusting the internet for anything - even the most well established sources.
Google's response to why Churchill's picture is missing - they've not done anything on their end, just an automatic part of the picture updates sometimes that happens but they'll look into it more.
Read my point again. These Nazi white scum think they are the values of Engerland. You call out BLM protesters for attacking a white person. That is bad. And the nazi-salutes by Churchill's statue by the patriotic white folks? You're saying the BLM protesters are racially motivated and that the other side aren't.
BLM should not be violent. But yes their protest has racial undertones because that's the entire purpose. What's the excuse for the proud patriots heading to town to stop these uppity blacks desecrating our monuments by pissing up the PC Palmer memorial.
Not one to let facts to get in the way of his views, either. ‘The Donkeys’ is now viewed as a novel, and an interesting example of 1960s counterculture. Which it is, of course.
Do you think that if in a hundred years people do look at our present day consensus with abhorrence they should be bound by decisions we have made to celebrate that which they abhor . . . or could they move our choices to museums or history books and make their own choices for themselves?
But you'll never get Google to talk about the details of this, and they remain almost completely unaccountable.
(BTW Brexit gives the violent extreme right the opportunity to be attached to a cause which is in itself politically mainstream. Defending Churchill could be another. Depressing.)
This regularly happens, I've often noticed it in the past but then ignore it as its irrelevant at that time, its just potentially a coincidence that its happened during this furore and so people have picked up on it.
Coincidences do happen.
In fact I think the consensus of the protesters is that things need to get better in the present.
This straw man really puzzles me.
You get the truth by shining a light on something not hiding it in darkness. That's what the current situation is doing, shining a light on the past that was ignored - as well as elements of the present that often get ignored.
I do hope one conclusion of the public inquiry is that a new model of pandemic growth is built from scratch with no one from the UCL team anywhere near the work.
The 22nd and 24th President of the USA.
NA BERLIN!!!!
It's hard to imagine the protesters as the sort of folk who would bother to read enough history to form a nuanced view of his chequered career. He's just a symbol. That'll do.
Every single PM is only shown once by their final period of office. Its the same for all of them. Their system isn't designed to show non-continuous terms of office.
Don't harass me by making the same point repeatedly.
While there is little doubt that Attlee would have preferred Churchill (he described Halifax as ‘a queer bird - very humorous, all hunting and Holy Communion’) there were others in Labour who felt differently. Dalton, for example, hated Churchill for his anti-union role stretching right back to Tonypandy.
But ultimately, even if Halifax had wanted the job - which he didn’t - there was a general agreement that even if he were the nominal PM, Churchill would be the leader in the Commons and therefore would be in effective command of the government. So it was a decision that made itself.
I think it is a glitch when a PM has two non consecutive periods of power.
They do not, however, have the staff, nor do they have expectation that they could get more teachers to staff extra classrooms. Nor do they have money for either more teachers or more classroom assistants. The use of the latter, of course, although helpful is by no means ideal for children learning.
As every software company moves to be more like Google (the industry term is "Agile"), how many times do we have to see the scandal at the Post Office before we realise that this doesn't work in the best interests of the general public?
I have said many times before that the next few months is going to be an absolute sh!t-show of fake news and doctored content - with Facebook, Google and Twitter in the middle making money from both sides in the new media civil war. The one and only thing likely to command cross-party support in the US next year is the taking-down of 'social' media.
These scientists will have nowhere to hide post the public enquiry and I expect many of them will be very worried. In my previous business life I always trained my staff into 'if it is not written, it is not said' and on Sage it absolutely is written
Indeed it should be compulsory for everyone commenting on covid to have read all the published minutes
And at the risk of Scott imploding, it does look as if Cummings did intervene to bring forward lockdown
The question is, why does anybody still listen to those publicity-seeking clowns?
Tech CEO's should never be allowed to hide behind algorithms, they need to explain themselves in public and be held accountable for the actions of their organisations.
This time.
I'm still suspicious but I will give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
Do you?
Quelle surprise.
If the explanation is that images go missing during updates sometimes and this is all automated and what has happened here then what more of an explanation do you expect than that?
They've said too they'll look into it. What more can be said at this time realistically?