So many daily tests, Excel COVID edition is taking longer to boot up?
I did break Excel and the server this morning.
I asked for a transactions report today, and instead of asking for a batched total report I accidentally asked it for every single transaction, which is 18 million transactions. Oops.
The server should have calculated the number of rows and then refused the batch. Not your fault, it's up to IT to stop the stupid users being stupid.
I am Head of Regulatory Affairs & Compliance, apparently I have unlimited power to check *everything* that goes on.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. Who regulates your affairs and compliance?
The Prudential Regulatory Authority, The Financial Conduct Authority, The Bank of England, The Securities and Exchange Commission, The European Banking Authority, The European Securities and Markets Authority, The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, and The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority
There are a few others, but they are the main ones.
Blimey, that's a lot of regulation and compliance, they must not trust anybody!
The SEC is the worst, they work from the position that everything is underhand and they can imprison you.
They are so picky that they threatened to open an investigation because a Brit signed some fillings and dated in the British/correct way of DD/MM/YY rather than the stupid American MM/DD/YY format.
Compare and contrast with EU stripping naked, putting their pants on their head, screaming into the void while setting fire to everything in site, like one of the twats that the kill the bill protests.....
------
The Indian factory churning out AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine has reportedly asked the country's government for permission to 'immediately' ship millions of doses to the UK.
Boris Johnson this week sent two officials on a mission to India to smooth tensions over the supply chain. Lord Lister and international trade adviser David Quarrey were asked to visit to the Serum Institute to negotiate letting the shipment through.
Some weeks ago, due to Pfizer production difficulties, Canada received no vaccine for a week. None. Nada.
Their response was polite concern, and a hope that things would improve.
And not just Canada; Norway, Australia, New Zealand and I am sure many others. All have had issues with supply just like the EU and the UK. It is inevitable given the extraordinary timetable involved in rolling out these vaccines.
This is what is missing from so much of the analysis. It is not the case of the UK and the EU behaving differently and this being driven by Brexit as some like to claim. It is the EU - and particularly some of its major countries - behaving like a spoiled brat whilst the rest of the world behaves like adults. It is shocking for those of us who saw the EU as a malign but clever entity to find out it is neither malign, nor clever, simply very very childish.
It’s not childishness. It’s more a religious mindset challenged by deeply problematic truths.
Put it another way, some of the EU elite reaction to the vaccine issue reminds me of ecclesiastical reaction to Darwin’s theories in the 19th century. A mixture of injured pride, ineffectual pomposity, terrible argumentation and bewildered denialism. ‘This simply cannot be true.’
Isn't Darwin cancelled these days....racist, colonialist, etc.
Martin Luther King is cancelled these days.
Why on Earth should someone be treated according to the content of their character, rather than the colour of their skin?
This wilful misunderstanding of MLK's speech is often repeated on here. What he said (among much else about racial injustice) was:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
The key words are 'dream' and 'will one day'; he makes it clear that this is an aspiration, not a reality. It's a statement of the bleeding obvious, with which only racists would disagree. But the point he is making is that the USA was a long way from achieving his dream. Despite much progress, I suspect most people would agree that skin colour still plays a part in how Americans are judged by a significant minority of their fellow citizens.
I understood the comment very well, thanks. I just don't appreciate MLK being appropriated by those of a right-wing persuasion to make a banal point. I'm pretty confident that if MLK were still with us he'd be more concerned about the structural racial injustice that still pervades the USA than about a fringe debate on what some Democrats may or may not say.
Well, you're probably right there. The fact that mainstream Republican thought appears to be more in line with MLK than mainstream Democrat thought is possibly a sideshow, since there have to be some doubts as to whether the Republicans are genuine about it or just playing games.
But the point was more that, if even the Democrats no longer aspire to that vision, then what chance it ever happening?
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour? Now you may think some of the left Democrats are going about it the wrong way, but I don't think you could argue that they don't want racial equality.
Personally, I find it much more likely that the Democrats will find a way than the Republicans, especially those of a Trumpite persuasion. But we shall see.
Sadly not. The wokeist Democrats don't want to end oppression; they want to be the ones doing the oppressing.
Ed Miliband's favourite business model is f##ked isn't it.
I'm absolutely gutted, the Sheffield one is closing, I have so many happy memories there, going back to the time they were Cole Brothers.
It is a shame as it is a good business model in terms of being a workers cooperative. Not state owned , not shareholder owned but employee owned. Who can really not want that when practical?
It's also quite worrying for Sheffield City Centre, for which it is a substantial anchor.
Yup, especially as Debenhams is two minutes walk away, that'll be gone soon.
Ed Miliband's favourite business model is f##ked isn't it.
I'm absolutely gutted, the Sheffield one is closing, I have so many happy memories there, going back to the time they were Cole Brothers.
Relieved the Nottingham branch survives. I thought that one was very much at risk.
Likewise Bainbridges (sorry John Lewis Newcastle).
And Robert Sayle (sorry, John Lewis Cambridge.) Mind you, if they couldn't make enough money in Cambridge they'd likely be done for. Surprised York's got the chop though.
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour?
No, I don't agree. I don't think the hard left Democrats want racial equality. In the same way as certain elements of the UK Labour party don't want equality, because it would restrict their ability to claim victimhood, and paint their political opponents as evil.
Banning protests, seeking to place the Government above the law, banning people from leaving the country. These are not the actions of a democratically minded open Government.
Limiting protest to protect the rights of individuals from nuisance isn't banning protest. Try Hong Kong or Burman for what that looks like.
The government will still be obliged to abide by its own laws. At least until we have clear examples of this not being the case from the Court of Appeal/SC who will be quick to say so.
Banning leaving is a temporary measure to do with death causing illness, and concerns the medical dangers of acting on your right to return.
1. It is not just limiting protest, it is giving the police such wide ranging powers that they could ban any protest if the felt like it. It is, in effect, an enabling act. There is unlikely to ever be protest march that someone does not find a nuisance, particularly when noise is one criteria. All this law does is allow the authorities to ban any protest they don't like.
2. As Cyclefree has already pointed out the Government has clearly decided it is not obliged to abide by its own laws - see 'break the law in a limited and specific way' as one example. More importantly it has decided that the courts should not be allowed to decide on points of law as to whether or not they have broken said laws.
3. Banning leaving the country is not in any way a proportionate reaction. It also sets a precedent - Governments love those things - for future, perhaps less obvious, situations. If they were that worried about people bringing disease back in they could have said people can leave but may not return until we know they are not infected. That would have been proportionate.
You are trying to defend the indefensible.
To effectively stop people entering the country with COVID you have to prevent them from leaving in the first place. Unless they can demonstrate that they have no need to return for the foreseeable future, eg emigrating or living in a second home or with family. The major cause of people entering the country is that they recently left it. You need to attack the cause, not the symptom.
Nope. You just make it clear that if they do leave they can't come back until it is deemed safe. Then it is their choice.
That doesn't sound viable at all. Cue endless stories in the papers about British citizens trapped abroad because their evil Government won't let them back in the country.
It doesn't matter how clear you make things; there will always be a minority who somehow manage to miss seeing the rules (possibly wilfully) or who just assume the rules don't apply to them.
Ed Miliband's favourite business model is f##ked isn't it.
I'm absolutely gutted, the Sheffield one is closing, I have so many happy memories there, going back to the time they were Cole Brothers.
Relieved the Nottingham branch survives. I thought that one was very much at risk.
Likewise Bainbridges (sorry John Lewis Newcastle).
And Robert Sayle (sorry, John Lewis Cambridge.) Mind you, if they couldn't make enough money in Cambridge they'd likely be done for. Surprised York's got the chop though.
I think it's in the wrong location - out of town on the road to Scarborough.
Ed Miliband's favourite business model is f##ked isn't it.
I'm absolutely gutted, the Sheffield one is closing, I have so many happy memories there, going back to the time they were Cole Brothers.
It is a shame as it is a good business model in terms of being a workers cooperative. Not state owned , not shareholder owned but employee owned. Who can really not want that when practical?
One of the only "proper" jobs I have had was working for a company with a similar cooperative model and there were a fantastic company to work for because of it. However they aren't in the ultra competitive retail sector. I don't really know what John Lewis can do in terms of model based upon operating massive, often THE premium stores, in a mall or city centre.
So many daily tests, Excel COVID edition is taking longer to boot up?
I did break Excel and the server this morning.
I asked for a transactions report today, and instead of asking for a batched total report I accidentally asked it for every single transaction, which is 18 million transactions. Oops.
The server should have calculated the number of rows and then refused the batch. Not your fault, it's up to IT to stop the stupid users being stupid.
I am Head of Regulatory Affairs & Compliance, apparently I have unlimited power to check *everything* that goes on.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. Who regulates your affairs and compliance?
The Prudential Regulatory Authority, The Financial Conduct Authority, The Bank of England, The Securities and Exchange Commission, The European Banking Authority, The European Securities and Markets Authority, The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, and The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority
There are a few others, but they are the main ones.
Plus The Pizza Toppings Approval Board, The Christmas Film Classification Authority, The Hannibal Memorial Trust, The Dockside Hookers' Fair Trade Association, The Turkish Conscription Bureau, The Smithson Foundation, The Directors of Yorkshire Tea, The British Republicans, and the Public Schoolboys Preservation Society.
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour?
No, I don't agree. I don't think the hard left Democrats want racial equality. In the same way as certain elements of the UK Labour party don't want equality, because it would restrict their ability to claim victimhood, and paint their political opponents as evil.
When Boris misspoke today about Douglas Ross the interesting thing he said was that there has been a referendum and this house now just wants to concentrate on covid and recovery and not with constitutional matters
If the SNP seek a section 30 agreement Boris can just put it to a free vote in the HoC knowing it would be rejected by a large cross party majority
And then how does the SNP achieve a legal referendum
Misspoke, lol! Everyone knows he's Forres Gump.
I see you've joined the HYUFD doesn't matter what Scots vote for faction, least surprising thing to happen since the SCons vonc turned out to be a pointless farce.
You can prevaricate as much as you like but the SNP need to gain approval across the HOC for a section 30 agreement
I have no problem with indyref2 as long as it is agreed legitimately
But you also have no problem with the moral vacuum that you turned in your principles for to support as pm blocking a referendum regardless of what Scots vote for.
What you have or don't have a problem with isn't really relevant.
Ed Miliband's favourite business model is f##ked isn't it.
I'm absolutely gutted, the Sheffield one is closing, I have so many happy memories there, going back to the time they were Cole Brothers.
Relieved the Nottingham branch survives. I thought that one was very much at risk.
Likewise Bainbridges (sorry John Lewis Newcastle).
And Robert Sayle (sorry, John Lewis Cambridge.) Mind you, if they couldn't make enough money in Cambridge they'd likely be done for. Surprised York's got the chop though.
In the real world Vanguard York is just a Monks Cross extension. And Monks Cross has been dying since the recession.
Compare and contrast with EU stripping naked, putting their pants on their head, screaming into the void while setting fire to everything in site, like one of the twats that the kill the bill protests.....
------
The Indian factory churning out AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine has reportedly asked the country's government for permission to 'immediately' ship millions of doses to the UK.
Boris Johnson this week sent two officials on a mission to India to smooth tensions over the supply chain. Lord Lister and international trade adviser David Quarrey were asked to visit to the Serum Institute to negotiate letting the shipment through.
Some weeks ago, due to Pfizer production difficulties, Canada received no vaccine for a week. None. Nada.
Their response was polite concern, and a hope that things would improve.
And not just Canada; Norway, Australia, New Zealand and I am sure many others. All have had issues with supply just like the EU and the UK. It is inevitable given the extraordinary timetable involved in rolling out these vaccines.
This is what is missing from so much of the analysis. It is not the case of the UK and the EU behaving differently and this being driven by Brexit as some like to claim. It is the EU - and particularly some of its major countries - behaving like a spoiled brat whilst the rest of the world behaves like adults. It is shocking for those of us who saw the EU as a malign but clever entity to find out it is neither malign, nor clever, simply very very childish.
It’s not childishness. It’s more a religious mindset challenged by deeply problematic truths.
Put it another way, some of the EU elite reaction to the vaccine issue reminds me of ecclesiastical reaction to Darwin’s theories in the 19th century. A mixture of injured pride, ineffectual pomposity, terrible argumentation and bewildered denialism. ‘This simply cannot be true.’
Isn't Darwin cancelled these days....racist, colonialist, etc.
Martin Luther King is cancelled these days.
Why on Earth should someone be treated according to the content of their character, rather than the colour of their skin?
This wilful misunderstanding of MLK's speech is often repeated on here. What he said (among much else about racial injustice) was:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
The key words are 'dream' and 'will one day'; he makes it clear that this is an aspiration, not a reality. It's a statement of the bleeding obvious, with which only racists would disagree. But the point he is making is that the USA was a long way from achieving his dream. Despite much progress, I suspect most people would agree that skin colour still plays a part in how Americans are judged by a significant minority of their fellow citizens.
I understood the comment very well, thanks. I just don't appreciate MLK being appropriated by those of a right-wing persuasion to make a banal point. I'm pretty confident that if MLK were still with us he'd be more concerned about the structural racial injustice that still pervades the USA than about a fringe debate on what some Democrats may or may not say.
Well, you're probably right there. The fact that mainstream Republican thought appears to be more in line with MLK than mainstream Democrat thought is possibly a sideshow, since there have to be some doubts as to whether the Republicans are genuine about it or just playing games.
But the point was more that, if even the Democrats no longer aspire to that vision, then what chance it ever happening?
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour? Now you may think some of the left Democrats are going about it the wrong way, but I don't think you could argue that they don't want racial equality.
Personally, I find it much more likely that the Democrats will find a way than the Republicans, especially those of a Trumpite persuasion. But we shall see.
Banning protests, seeking to place the Government above the law, banning people from leaving the country. These are not the actions of a democratically minded open Government.
Limiting protest to protect the rights of individuals from nuisance isn't banning protest. Try Hong Kong or Burman for what that looks like.
The government will still be obliged to abide by its own laws. At least until we have clear examples of this not being the case from the Court of Appeal/SC who will be quick to say so.
Banning leaving is a temporary measure to do with death causing illness, and concerns the medical dangers of acting on your right to return.
1. It is not just limiting protest, it is giving the police such wide ranging powers that they could ban any protest if the felt like it. It is, in effect, an enabling act. There is unlikely to ever be protest march that someone does not find a nuisance, particularly when noise is one criteria. All this law does is allow the authorities to ban any protest they don't like.
2. As Cyclefree has already pointed out the Government has clearly decided it is not obliged to abide by its own laws - see 'break the law in a limited and specific way' as one example. More importantly it has decided that the courts should not be allowed to decide on points of law as to whether or not they have broken said laws.
3. Banning leaving the country is not in any way a proportionate reaction. It also sets a precedent - Governments love those things - for future, perhaps less obvious, situations. If they were that worried about people bringing disease back in they could have said people can leave but may not return until we know they are not infected. That would have been proportionate.
You are trying to defend the indefensible.
To effectively stop people entering the country with COVID you have to prevent them from leaving in the first place. Unless they can demonstrate that they have no need to return for the foreseeable future, eg emigrating or living in a second home or with family. The major cause of people entering the country is that they recently left it. You need to attack the cause, not the symptom.
Nope. You just make it clear that if they do leave they can't come back until it is deemed safe. Then it is their choice.
That doesn't sound viable at all. Cue endless stories in the papers about British citizens trapped abroad because their evil Government won't let them back in the country.
It doesn't matter how clear you make things; there will always be a minority who somehow manage to miss seeing the rules (possibly wilfully) or who just assume the rules don't apply to them.
Sadly more fool them. The alternative is simply not acceptable.
Your hourly reminder that the European export ban isn't happening and never was happening.
I really don't know why you're pushing this line so hard. If we end up agreeing to give them the vaccines they were otherwise going to export to us, what's the difference?
Meanwhile, the Italian police are running around like they're Hans Blix and have finally uncovered the WMD motherlode in Iraq.
When Boris misspoke today about Douglas Ross the interesting thing he said was that there has been a referendum and this house now just wants to concentrate on covid and recovery and not with constitutional matters
If the SNP seek a section 30 agreement Boris can just put it to a free vote in the HoC knowing it would be rejected by a large cross party majority
And then how does the SNP achieve a legal referendum
Misspoke, lol! Everyone knows he's Forres Gump.
I see you've joined the HYUFD doesn't matter what Scots vote for faction, least surprising thing to happen since the SCons vonc turned out to be a pointless farce.
You can prevaricate as much as you like but the SNP need to gain approval across the HOC for a section 30 agreement
I have no problem with indyref2 as long as it is agreed legitimately
But you also have no problem with the moral vacuum that you turned in your principles for to support as pm blocking a referendum regardless of what Scots vote for.
What you have or don't have a problem with isn't really relevant.
As Boris said this is a matter for the HOC as a whole to approve
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour?
No, I don't agree. I don't think the hard left Democrats want racial equality. In the same way as certain elements of the UK Labour party don't want equality, because it would restrict their ability to claim victimhood, and paint their political opponents as evil.
Ed Miliband's favourite business model is f##ked isn't it.
I'm absolutely gutted, the Sheffield one is closing, I have so many happy memories there, going back to the time they were Cole Brothers.
Relieved the Nottingham branch survives. I thought that one was very much at risk.
Likewise Bainbridges (sorry John Lewis Newcastle).
And Robert Sayle (sorry, John Lewis Cambridge.) Mind you, if they couldn't make enough money in Cambridge they'd likely be done for. Surprised York's got the chop though.
I think it's in the wrong location - out of town on the road to Scarborough.
You'd think that would help rather than hinder though? All that parking for Range Rovers, Lexus SUVs and sundry other light tanks. Your typical JL customer doesn't have to slog about on buses, after all. Well anyway...
The journey matters as well as the destination. If it was inevitable as a destination it makes the dicking about on the journey worse, not better.
Oh I entirely agree. As I said earlier, the EU's behaviour has been exponentially bonkers over the winter.
Indeed - but it bears repeating, because when idiots engage in brinkmanship, from whichever direction, they always claim it never matters because the main danger, that they risked, did not happen, and they want gratitude for not doing the thing they shouldn't have been doing anyway.
Look, I may have stabbed you in the hand, but why are you mad? I could have stabbed you in the neck!
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour?
No, I don't agree. I don't think the hard left Democrats want racial equality. In the same way as certain elements of the UK Labour party don't want equality, because it would restrict their ability to claim victimhood, and paint their political opponents as evil.
Looks like a distinguished career from her Wiki biography. Do you want to cancel her for something she wrote as a student in 1994 in response to the racist Bell Curve stuff?
When Boris misspoke today about Douglas Ross the interesting thing he said was that there has been a referendum and this house now just wants to concentrate on covid and recovery and not with constitutional matters
If the SNP seek a section 30 agreement Boris can just put it to a free vote in the HoC knowing it would be rejected by a large cross party majority
And then how does the SNP achieve a legal referendum
Misspoke, lol! Everyone knows he's Forres Gump.
I see you've joined the HYUFD doesn't matter what Scots vote for faction, least surprising thing to happen since the SCons vonc turned out to be a pointless farce.
You can prevaricate as much as you like but the SNP need to gain approval across the HOC for a section 30 agreement
I have no problem with indyref2 as long as it is agreed legitimately
But you also have no problem with the moral vacuum that you turned in your principles for to support as pm blocking a referendum regardless of what Scots vote for.
What you have or don't have a problem with isn't really relevant.
As Boris said this is a matter for the HOC as a whole to approve
Like it or not
Yet some lawyers who have read the Scotland Act say otherwise.
Banning protests, seeking to place the Government above the law, banning people from leaving the country. These are not the actions of a democratically minded open Government.
Limiting protest to protect the rights of individuals from nuisance isn't banning protest. Try Hong Kong or Burman for what that looks like.
The government will still be obliged to abide by its own laws. At least until we have clear examples of this not being the case from the Court of Appeal/SC who will be quick to say so.
Banning leaving is a temporary measure to do with death causing illness, and concerns the medical dangers of acting on your right to return.
1. It is not just limiting protest, it is giving the police such wide ranging powers that they could ban any protest if the felt like it. It is, in effect, an enabling act. There is unlikely to ever be protest march that someone does not find a nuisance, particularly when noise is one criteria. All this law does is allow the authorities to ban any protest they don't like.
2. As Cyclefree has already pointed out the Government has clearly decided it is not obliged to abide by its own laws - see 'break the law in a limited and specific way' as one example. More importantly it has decided that the courts should not be allowed to decide on points of law as to whether or not they have broken said laws.
3. Banning leaving the country is not in any way a proportionate reaction. It also sets a precedent - Governments love those things - for future, perhaps less obvious, situations. If they were that worried about people bringing disease back in they could have said people can leave but may not return until we know they are not infected. That would have been proportionate.
You are trying to defend the indefensible.
Well done you Richard I misunderstood your recent post which stated, rhetorically, that a foreign holiday wasn't a human right. I took that to mean you were in favour of such regulation.
No, apologies. I wasn't arguing for holidays to be banned, rather against the idea that people should ignore the health risks. It is down to personal responsibility. I won't be taking any foreign holidays this year for that very reason.
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour?
No, I don't agree. I don't think the hard left Democrats want racial equality. In the same way as certain elements of the UK Labour party don't want equality, because it would restrict their ability to claim victimhood, and paint their political opponents as evil.
Looks like a distinguished career from her Wiki biography. Do you want to cancel her for something she wrote as a student in 1994 in response to the racist Bell Curve stuff?
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour?
No, I don't agree. I don't think the hard left Democrats want racial equality. In the same way as certain elements of the UK Labour party don't want equality, because it would restrict their ability to claim victimhood, and paint their political opponents as evil.
Looks like a distinguished career from her Wiki biography. Do you want to cancel her for something she wrote as a student in 1994 in response to the racist Bell Curve stuff?
She chose to respond to the Bell Curve not by arguing that character is more important than skin colour, but that the colour of her skin gave her "greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities... which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards".
Compare and contrast with EU stripping naked, putting their pants on their head, screaming into the void while setting fire to everything in site, like one of the twats that the kill the bill protests.....
------
The Indian factory churning out AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine has reportedly asked the country's government for permission to 'immediately' ship millions of doses to the UK.
Boris Johnson this week sent two officials on a mission to India to smooth tensions over the supply chain. Lord Lister and international trade adviser David Quarrey were asked to visit to the Serum Institute to negotiate letting the shipment through.
Some weeks ago, due to Pfizer production difficulties, Canada received no vaccine for a week. None. Nada.
Their response was polite concern, and a hope that things would improve.
And not just Canada; Norway, Australia, New Zealand and I am sure many others. All have had issues with supply just like the EU and the UK. It is inevitable given the extraordinary timetable involved in rolling out these vaccines.
This is what is missing from so much of the analysis. It is not the case of the UK and the EU behaving differently and this being driven by Brexit as some like to claim. It is the EU - and particularly some of its major countries - behaving like a spoiled brat whilst the rest of the world behaves like adults. It is shocking for those of us who saw the EU as a malign but clever entity to find out it is neither malign, nor clever, simply very very childish.
It’s not childishness. It’s more a religious mindset challenged by deeply problematic truths.
Put it another way, some of the EU elite reaction to the vaccine issue reminds me of ecclesiastical reaction to Darwin’s theories in the 19th century. A mixture of injured pride, ineffectual pomposity, terrible argumentation and bewildered denialism. ‘This simply cannot be true.’
Isn't Darwin cancelled these days....racist, colonialist, etc.
Martin Luther King is cancelled these days.
Why on Earth should someone be treated according to the content of their character, rather than the colour of their skin?
This wilful misunderstanding of MLK's speech is often repeated on here. What he said (among much else about racial injustice) was:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
The key words are 'dream' and 'will one day'; he makes it clear that this is an aspiration, not a reality. It's a statement of the bleeding obvious, with which only racists would disagree. But the point he is making is that the USA was a long way from achieving his dream. Despite much progress, I suspect most people would agree that skin colour still plays a part in how Americans are judged by a significant minority of their fellow citizens.
I understood the comment very well, thanks. I just don't appreciate MLK being appropriated by those of a right-wing persuasion to make a banal point. I'm pretty confident that if MLK were still with us he'd be more concerned about the structural racial injustice that still pervades the USA than about a fringe debate on what some Democrats may or may not say.
Well, you're probably right there. The fact that mainstream Republican thought appears to be more in line with MLK than mainstream Democrat thought is possibly a sideshow, since there have to be some doubts as to whether the Republicans are genuine about it or just playing games.
But the point was more that, if even the Democrats no longer aspire to that vision, then what chance it ever happening?
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour? Now you may think some of the left Democrats are going about it the wrong way, but I don't think you could argue that they don't want racial equality.
Personally, I find it much more likely that the Democrats will find a way than the Republicans, especially those of a Trumpite persuasion. But we shall see.
I have never been a fan of Bill Mahr, but that is a good line - "Really? Well, in that case, outdoor life is not for you."
Maher is one of very few American commentators prepared to talk to and criticise people on both sides of the aisle.
He’s not just spent the last five years talking about the orange man being bad, but about the problems in American society and how people can work together across political lines to work things out. One of the good guys, no matter which party you support.
Banning protests, seeking to place the Government above the law, banning people from leaving the country. These are not the actions of a democratically minded open Government.
Limiting protest to protect the rights of individuals from nuisance isn't banning protest. Try Hong Kong or Burman for what that looks like.
The government will still be obliged to abide by its own laws. At least until we have clear examples of this not being the case from the Court of Appeal/SC who will be quick to say so.
Banning leaving is a temporary measure to do with death causing illness, and concerns the medical dangers of acting on your right to return.
1. It is not just limiting protest, it is giving the police such wide ranging powers that they could ban any protest if the felt like it. It is, in effect, an enabling act. There is unlikely to ever be protest march that someone does not find a nuisance, particularly when noise is one criteria. All this law does is allow the authorities to ban any protest they don't like.
2. As Cyclefree has already pointed out the Government has clearly decided it is not obliged to abide by its own laws - see 'break the law in a limited and specific way' as one example. More importantly it has decided that the courts should not be allowed to decide on points of law as to whether or not they have broken said laws.
3. Banning leaving the country is not in any way a proportionate reaction. It also sets a precedent - Governments love those things - for future, perhaps less obvious, situations. If they were that worried about people bringing disease back in they could have said people can leave but may not return until we know they are not infected. That would have been proportionate.
You are trying to defend the indefensible.
Well done you Richard I misunderstood your recent post which stated, rhetorically, that a foreign holiday wasn't a human right. I took that to mean you were in favour of such regulation.
No, apologies. I wasn't arguing for holidays to be banned, rather against the idea that people should ignore the health risks. It is down to personal responsibility. I won't be taking any foreign holidays this year for that very reason.
A hugely sensible approach.
Someone above said "but people don't understand the risks..."
So we have the government step in to manager our risks for us? No thanks.
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour?
No, I don't agree. I don't think the hard left Democrats want racial equality. In the same way as certain elements of the UK Labour party don't want equality, because it would restrict their ability to claim victimhood, and paint their political opponents as evil.
Compare and contrast with EU stripping naked, putting their pants on their head, screaming into the void while setting fire to everything in site, like one of the twats that the kill the bill protests.....
------
The Indian factory churning out AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine has reportedly asked the country's government for permission to 'immediately' ship millions of doses to the UK.
Boris Johnson this week sent two officials on a mission to India to smooth tensions over the supply chain. Lord Lister and international trade adviser David Quarrey were asked to visit to the Serum Institute to negotiate letting the shipment through.
Some weeks ago, due to Pfizer production difficulties, Canada received no vaccine for a week. None. Nada.
Their response was polite concern, and a hope that things would improve.
And not just Canada; Norway, Australia, New Zealand and I am sure many others. All have had issues with supply just like the EU and the UK. It is inevitable given the extraordinary timetable involved in rolling out these vaccines.
This is what is missing from so much of the analysis. It is not the case of the UK and the EU behaving differently and this being driven by Brexit as some like to claim. It is the EU - and particularly some of its major countries - behaving like a spoiled brat whilst the rest of the world behaves like adults. It is shocking for those of us who saw the EU as a malign but clever entity to find out it is neither malign, nor clever, simply very very childish.
It’s not childishness. It’s more a religious mindset challenged by deeply problematic truths.
Put it another way, some of the EU elite reaction to the vaccine issue reminds me of ecclesiastical reaction to Darwin’s theories in the 19th century. A mixture of injured pride, ineffectual pomposity, terrible argumentation and bewildered denialism. ‘This simply cannot be true.’
Isn't Darwin cancelled these days....racist, colonialist, etc.
Martin Luther King is cancelled these days.
Why on Earth should someone be treated according to the content of their character, rather than the colour of their skin?
This wilful misunderstanding of MLK's speech is often repeated on here. What he said (among much else about racial injustice) was:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
The key words are 'dream' and 'will one day'; he makes it clear that this is an aspiration, not a reality. It's a statement of the bleeding obvious, with which only racists would disagree. But the point he is making is that the USA was a long way from achieving his dream. Despite much progress, I suspect most people would agree that skin colour still plays a part in how Americans are judged by a significant minority of their fellow citizens.
I understood the comment very well, thanks. I just don't appreciate MLK being appropriated by those of a right-wing persuasion to make a banal point. I'm pretty confident that if MLK were still with us he'd be more concerned about the structural racial injustice that still pervades the USA than about a fringe debate on what some Democrats may or may not say.
Well, you're probably right there. The fact that mainstream Republican thought appears to be more in line with MLK than mainstream Democrat thought is possibly a sideshow, since there have to be some doubts as to whether the Republicans are genuine about it or just playing games.
But the point was more that, if even the Democrats no longer aspire to that vision, then what chance it ever happening?
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour? Now you may think some of the left Democrats are going about it the wrong way, but I don't think you could argue that they don't want racial equality.
Personally, I find it much more likely that the Democrats will find a way than the Republicans, especially those of a Trumpite persuasion. But we shall see.
I have never been a fan of Bill Mahr, but that is a good line - "Really? Well, in that case, outdoor life is not for you."
Maher is one of very few American commentators prepared to talk to and criticise people on both sides of the aisle.
He’s not just spent the last five years talking about the orange man being bad, but about the problems in American society and how people can work together across political lines to work things out. One of the good guys, no matter which party you support.
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour?
No, I don't agree. I don't think the hard left Democrats want racial equality. In the same way as certain elements of the UK Labour party don't want equality, because it would restrict their ability to claim victimhood, and paint their political opponents as evil.
Looks like a distinguished career from her Wiki biography. Do you want to cancel her for something she wrote as a student in 1994 in response to the racist Bell Curve stuff?
She chose to respond to the Bell Curve not by arguing that character is more important than skin colour, but that the colour of her skin gave her "greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities... which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards".
I'm sure that's what Martin Luther King meant really...
Banning protests, seeking to place the Government above the law, banning people from leaving the country. These are not the actions of a democratically minded open Government.
Limiting protest to protect the rights of individuals from nuisance isn't banning protest. Try Hong Kong or Burman for what that looks like.
The government will still be obliged to abide by its own laws. At least until we have clear examples of this not being the case from the Court of Appeal/SC who will be quick to say so.
Banning leaving is a temporary measure to do with death causing illness, and concerns the medical dangers of acting on your right to return.
1. It is not just limiting protest, it is giving the police such wide ranging powers that they could ban any protest if the felt like it. It is, in effect, an enabling act. There is unlikely to ever be protest march that someone does not find a nuisance, particularly when noise is one criteria. All this law does is allow the authorities to ban any protest they don't like.
2. As Cyclefree has already pointed out the Government has clearly decided it is not obliged to abide by its own laws - see 'break the law in a limited and specific way' as one example. More importantly it has decided that the courts should not be allowed to decide on points of law as to whether or not they have broken said laws.
3. Banning leaving the country is not in any way a proportionate reaction. It also sets a precedent - Governments love those things - for future, perhaps less obvious, situations. If they were that worried about people bringing disease back in they could have said people can leave but may not return until we know they are not infected. That would have been proportionate.
You are trying to defend the indefensible.
Well done you Richard I misunderstood your recent post which stated, rhetorically, that a foreign holiday wasn't a human right. I took that to mean you were in favour of such regulation.
No, apologies. I wasn't arguing for holidays to be banned, rather against the idea that people should ignore the health risks. It is down to personal responsibility. I won't be taking any foreign holidays this year for that very reason.
It is not down to personal responsibility, because the risk of importing a new variant from somewhere affects the individual responsible far less than those around them.
I'm all for empowering citizens to manage their own risks and balance them properly with the personal reward, eg on smoking. I am absolutely not in favour of letting them do things that make total sense in isolation, but have potentially large knock-on effects to wider society.
Once again consistent and within margin of error for Con 42, Lab 35/36; this is the only result consistent with all recent results, and so may well be right!
Banning protests, seeking to place the Government above the law, banning people from leaving the country. These are not the actions of a democratically minded open Government.
Limiting protest to protect the rights of individuals from nuisance isn't banning protest. Try Hong Kong or Burman for what that looks like.
The government will still be obliged to abide by its own laws. At least until we have clear examples of this not being the case from the Court of Appeal/SC who will be quick to say so.
Banning leaving is a temporary measure to do with death causing illness, and concerns the medical dangers of acting on your right to return.
1. It is not just limiting protest, it is giving the police such wide ranging powers that they could ban any protest if the felt like it. It is, in effect, an enabling act. There is unlikely to ever be protest march that someone does not find a nuisance, particularly when noise is one criteria. All this law does is allow the authorities to ban any protest they don't like.
2. As Cyclefree has already pointed out the Government has clearly decided it is not obliged to abide by its own laws - see 'break the law in a limited and specific way' as one example. More importantly it has decided that the courts should not be allowed to decide on points of law as to whether or not they have broken said laws.
3. Banning leaving the country is not in any way a proportionate reaction. It also sets a precedent - Governments love those things - for future, perhaps less obvious, situations. If they were that worried about people bringing disease back in they could have said people can leave but may not return until we know they are not infected. That would have been proportionate.
You are trying to defend the indefensible.
Well done you Richard I misunderstood your recent post which stated, rhetorically, that a foreign holiday wasn't a human right. I took that to mean you were in favour of such regulation.
No, apologies. I wasn't arguing for holidays to be banned, rather against the idea that people should ignore the health risks. It is down to personal responsibility. I won't be taking any foreign holidays this year for that very reason.
It is not down to personal responsibility, because the risk of importing a new variant from somewhere affects the individual responsible far less than those around them.
I'm all for empowering citizens to manage their own risks and balance them properly with the personal reward, eg on smoking. I am absolutely not in favour of letting them do things that make total sense in isolation, but have potentially large knock-on effects to wider society.
So ensure that they prove they are no longer a risk to society before re-entering it.
But as we now know, variants can spring up all over the place. Unless you pre-empt everyone always as in some kind of pre-crime screening, at some point you are just going to have to let society do its thing.
Banning protests, seeking to place the Government above the law, banning people from leaving the country. These are not the actions of a democratically minded open Government.
Limiting protest to protect the rights of individuals from nuisance isn't banning protest. Try Hong Kong or Burman for what that looks like.
The government will still be obliged to abide by its own laws. At least until we have clear examples of this not being the case from the Court of Appeal/SC who will be quick to say so.
Banning leaving is a temporary measure to do with death causing illness, and concerns the medical dangers of acting on your right to return.
1. It is not just limiting protest, it is giving the police such wide ranging powers that they could ban any protest if the felt like it. It is, in effect, an enabling act. There is unlikely to ever be protest march that someone does not find a nuisance, particularly when noise is one criteria. All this law does is allow the authorities to ban any protest they don't like.
2. As Cyclefree has already pointed out the Government has clearly decided it is not obliged to abide by its own laws - see 'break the law in a limited and specific way' as one example. More importantly it has decided that the courts should not be allowed to decide on points of law as to whether or not they have broken said laws.
3. Banning leaving the country is not in any way a proportionate reaction. It also sets a precedent - Governments love those things - for future, perhaps less obvious, situations. If they were that worried about people bringing disease back in they could have said people can leave but may not return until we know they are not infected. That would have been proportionate.
You are trying to defend the indefensible.
Well done you Richard I misunderstood your recent post which stated, rhetorically, that a foreign holiday wasn't a human right. I took that to mean you were in favour of such regulation.
No, apologies. I wasn't arguing for holidays to be banned, rather against the idea that people should ignore the health risks. It is down to personal responsibility. I won't be taking any foreign holidays this year for that very reason.
A hugely sensible approach.
Someone above said "but people don't understand the risks..."
So we have the government step in to manager our risks for us? No thanks.
Do you support the abolition of all speed limits?
The two things are similar, you claim you are managing your own risk and drive at 120mph in a built up area. However you managing your own risk is increasing the risk to others.
You go abroad when a lot of abroad is covid ridden is managing your own risk but then increase the risk to others if you bring back a new variant that vaccines are not useful against.
Quite rightly as soon as the risk isn't yours alone but is also a risk to others then the rest of us have a right to say sorry we are putting a limit on that risk.
The idea that if you go abroad you need to quarantine for 2 weeks on return is good. However hands up who here that believes it would be enforced and that left to their own devices people won't just ignore it.
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour?
No, I don't agree. I don't think the hard left Democrats want racial equality. In the same way as certain elements of the UK Labour party don't want equality, because it would restrict their ability to claim victimhood, and paint their political opponents as evil.
Looks like a distinguished career from her Wiki biography. Do you want to cancel her for something she wrote as a student in 1994 in response to the racist Bell Curve stuff?
She chose to respond to the Bell Curve not by arguing that character is more important than skin colour, but that the colour of her skin gave her "greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities... which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards".
But that cuts both ways: are you saying that anyone who says anything that might be considered as supportive of "The Bell Curve" should be banned from any government job?
According to the Covid dashboard there's currently spare capacity for about half-a-million PCR tests per day. Will that be enough for whatever fraction of the unvaccinated 40% of the adult population (roughly 21 million people) wants to go to a pub or restaurant to get its negative test status updated every 72 hours? But then again, the over 50s will be pretty well all done by the point that question has to be asked, so why should Gove give a flying fuck?
At some point in the future the surviving young are going to turn on the elderly and start hunting them down and shooting them. Probably immediately after I retire, knowing my luck.
Compare and contrast with EU stripping naked, putting their pants on their head, screaming into the void while setting fire to everything in site, like one of the twats that the kill the bill protests.....
------
The Indian factory churning out AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine has reportedly asked the country's government for permission to 'immediately' ship millions of doses to the UK.
Boris Johnson this week sent two officials on a mission to India to smooth tensions over the supply chain. Lord Lister and international trade adviser David Quarrey were asked to visit to the Serum Institute to negotiate letting the shipment through.
Some weeks ago, due to Pfizer production difficulties, Canada received no vaccine for a week. None. Nada.
Their response was polite concern, and a hope that things would improve.
And not just Canada; Norway, Australia, New Zealand and I am sure many others. All have had issues with supply just like the EU and the UK. It is inevitable given the extraordinary timetable involved in rolling out these vaccines.
This is what is missing from so much of the analysis. It is not the case of the UK and the EU behaving differently and this being driven by Brexit as some like to claim. It is the EU - and particularly some of its major countries - behaving like a spoiled brat whilst the rest of the world behaves like adults. It is shocking for those of us who saw the EU as a malign but clever entity to find out it is neither malign, nor clever, simply very very childish.
It’s not childishness. It’s more a religious mindset challenged by deeply problematic truths.
Put it another way, some of the EU elite reaction to the vaccine issue reminds me of ecclesiastical reaction to Darwin’s theories in the 19th century. A mixture of injured pride, ineffectual pomposity, terrible argumentation and bewildered denialism. ‘This simply cannot be true.’
Isn't Darwin cancelled these days....racist, colonialist, etc.
Martin Luther King is cancelled these days.
Why on Earth should someone be treated according to the content of their character, rather than the colour of their skin?
This wilful misunderstanding of MLK's speech is often repeated on here. What he said (among much else about racial injustice) was:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
The key words are 'dream' and 'will one day'; he makes it clear that this is an aspiration, not a reality. It's a statement of the bleeding obvious, with which only racists would disagree. But the point he is making is that the USA was a long way from achieving his dream. Despite much progress, I suspect most people would agree that skin colour still plays a part in how Americans are judged by a significant minority of their fellow citizens.
I understood the comment very well, thanks. I just don't appreciate MLK being appropriated by those of a right-wing persuasion to make a banal point. I'm pretty confident that if MLK were still with us he'd be more concerned about the structural racial injustice that still pervades the USA than about a fringe debate on what some Democrats may or may not say.
Well, you're probably right there. The fact that mainstream Republican thought appears to be more in line with MLK than mainstream Democrat thought is possibly a sideshow, since there have to be some doubts as to whether the Republicans are genuine about it or just playing games.
But the point was more that, if even the Democrats no longer aspire to that vision, then what chance it ever happening?
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour? Now you may think some of the left Democrats are going about it the wrong way, but I don't think you could argue that they don't want racial equality.
Personally, I find it much more likely that the Democrats will find a way than the Republicans, especially those of a Trumpite persuasion. But we shall see.
No, I don't agree. I don't think the hard left Democrats want racial equality. In the same way as certain elements of the UK Labour party don't want equality, because it would restrict their ability to claim victimhood, and paint their political opponents as evil.
There is an open question as to whether they really represent the "mainstream" of their particular movements. Certainly, in the UK's case, the grownups on the left are back in charge, although it is unclear how much control they really have over the activist base and fringe elements among their MPs. But in the US, the signs - admittedly from a distance - are much less positive.
Wishing to propagate racial injustice in order to score political debating points would make for a bad person. I don't think it's widespread on the left. It's usually a bad faith argument to assume bad faith in those you are arguing with.
But such dark and devious urges do exist in life. It would be naive not to realize this. The trick is to spot it not assume it.
To take a red hot topical example. Most Leavers - even the most ardent - are not wallowing in the EU's vaccine shambles like pigs in shit even though it provides so much ammo for their views on Brexit.
Banning protests, seeking to place the Government above the law, banning people from leaving the country. These are not the actions of a democratically minded open Government.
Limiting protest to protect the rights of individuals from nuisance isn't banning protest. Try Hong Kong or Burman for what that looks like.
The government will still be obliged to abide by its own laws. At least until we have clear examples of this not being the case from the Court of Appeal/SC who will be quick to say so.
Banning leaving is a temporary measure to do with death causing illness, and concerns the medical dangers of acting on your right to return.
1. It is not just limiting protest, it is giving the police such wide ranging powers that they could ban any protest if the felt like it. It is, in effect, an enabling act. There is unlikely to ever be protest march that someone does not find a nuisance, particularly when noise is one criteria. All this law does is allow the authorities to ban any protest they don't like.
2. As Cyclefree has already pointed out the Government has clearly decided it is not obliged to abide by its own laws - see 'break the law in a limited and specific way' as one example. More importantly it has decided that the courts should not be allowed to decide on points of law as to whether or not they have broken said laws.
3. Banning leaving the country is not in any way a proportionate reaction. It also sets a precedent - Governments love those things - for future, perhaps less obvious, situations. If they were that worried about people bringing disease back in they could have said people can leave but may not return until we know they are not infected. That would have been proportionate.
You are trying to defend the indefensible.
Well done you Richard I misunderstood your recent post which stated, rhetorically, that a foreign holiday wasn't a human right. I took that to mean you were in favour of such regulation.
No, apologies. I wasn't arguing for holidays to be banned, rather against the idea that people should ignore the health risks. It is down to personal responsibility. I won't be taking any foreign holidays this year for that very reason.
A hugely sensible approach.
Someone above said "but people don't understand the risks..."
So we have the government step in to manager our risks for us? No thanks.
Do you support the abolition of all speed limits?
The two things are similar, you claim you are managing your own risk and drive at 120mph in a built up area. However you managing your own risk is increasing the risk to others.
You go abroad when a lot of abroad is covid ridden is managing your own risk but then increase the risk to others if you bring back a new variant that vaccines are not useful against.
Quite rightly as soon as the risk isn't yours alone but is also a risk to others then the rest of us have a right to say sorry we are putting a limit on that risk.
The idea that if you go abroad you need to quarantine for 2 weeks on return is good. However hands up who here that believes it would be enforced and that left to their own devices people won't just ignore it.
Well enforce it then. Inform people of the situation and ensure that it is enforced.
And sadly (or happily) there will always be people who drive like idiots and/or flout the rules. As I said, with "new variants" there will always be a risk. A society can't live in the shadow of such risks forever because that is no kind of society.
Not the only fanbase to have awkward questions to face. LDs have lost 28% of their support in just over a week!
(I know it's margin of error stuff but 5% is as low as I recall seeing them)
Meanwhile, there's a Green surge.
New thread?
Yes - very interesting to see if they continue to rise. If they had two sensible policies to rub together they might. They just trade on their name so far as I can see. Lucas is ok-ish, I don't like her at all, but she's not a total fool. So far as I can see the rest of them are though - the Australian lady who lead them in 2010 was appalling.
The Green agenda more generally is clearly a huge theme, but I think (and actually I hope) that the mainstream parties have nicked their clothes while they weren't looking.
PS. It'd be interesting to have a Green political thread - not sure I recall one.
Where else are the young Corbynites turned off by Sir Keir;'s new management going to go?
Just a random question - I hope you'll forgive me as a regular to pb.
Does anyone have any advice on situational judgement tests - particularly in relation to the civil service. I keep failing them and it's doing my nut in!
This wouldn't have happened if Labour hadn't given up India.
Bloody Attlee, he has more blood on his hands than Blair.
I mean seriously I literally had this conversation with one of my daughters earlier today.
I told her the main reason why the vaccines were going to be delayed was that India were not sending as many AZ as promised as they needed it for their own population
I reckon its all down to Brexit she said Europe is trying to punish us.
I went to make her a Coffee (from Columbia) are they in the EU?
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour?
No, I don't agree. I don't think the hard left Democrats want racial equality. In the same way as certain elements of the UK Labour party don't want equality, because it would restrict their ability to claim victimhood, and paint their political opponents as evil.
Looks like a distinguished career from her Wiki biography. Do you want to cancel her for something she wrote as a student in 1994 in response to the racist Bell Curve stuff?
She chose to respond to the Bell Curve not by arguing that character is more important than skin colour, but that the colour of her skin gave her "greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities... which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards".
But that cuts both ways: are you saying that anyone who says anything that might be considered as supportive of "The Bell Curve" should be banned from any government job?
They key thing surely is whether people can back up their positions with credible science and data?
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour?
No, I don't agree. I don't think the hard left Democrats want racial equality. In the same way as certain elements of the UK Labour party don't want equality, because it would restrict their ability to claim victimhood, and paint their political opponents as evil.
Looks like a distinguished career from her Wiki biography. Do you want to cancel her for something she wrote as a student in 1994 in response to the racist Bell Curve stuff?
She chose to respond to the Bell Curve not by arguing that character is more important than skin colour, but that the colour of her skin gave her "greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities... which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards".
But that cuts both ways: are you saying that anyone who says anything that might be considered as supportive of "The Bell Curve" should be banned from any government job?
Where did I suggest she should be banned from anything? My point was that MLK's speech wouldn't have had quite the same impression if his Dream had been that humanity should acknowledge how white people's calcified pineal glands made them culturally different to blacks.
But Democrats do aspire to MLK's vision. The current arguments are not about the ends, but the means: how do you achieve a society in which character is always more important than skin colour?
No, I don't agree. I don't think the hard left Democrats want racial equality. In the same way as certain elements of the UK Labour party don't want equality, because it would restrict their ability to claim victimhood, and paint their political opponents as evil.
Looks like a distinguished career from her Wiki biography. Do you want to cancel her for something she wrote as a student in 1994 in response to the racist Bell Curve stuff?
Touch of the old 'White Fragility' on display here today. Like most days.☺
I understand all of those words, individually. But together they make no sense to me. Can anyone translate?
If you replace 'pat' with 'firm' it kinda makes sense.
Very sensible of the UK regulators. Why on earth would we do otherwise? It's entirely the EU's stupid fault if they want to impose arbitrary and irrational restrictions on whether their banks can access the dominant European financial market; we don't have to match their stupidity.
While we're on the subject, why on earth are UK high street banks restricting whether EU residents can hold accounts here and closing ex-pat accounts? OK, the EU might not like us offering services to EU residents, but who cares what they like? It's none of their business.
Yougov is consistently showing higher Green vote shares than other pollsters - clearly to Labour's detriment. Yesterday's Yougov Wales Westminster poll also had Plaid on 17% - which appears very unlikely. Plaid would do well to reach 12%.
Comments
They are so picky that they threatened to open an investigation because a Brit signed some fillings and dated in the British/correct way of DD/MM/YY rather than the stupid American MM/DD/YY format.
https://twitter.com/garius/status/1374758666390360079
I thank you.
https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1374764535756812292
For anyone betting on the 2024 election think of the person who will be front and center as all that money is spent.
As I said let's wait for the detail
It doesn't matter how clear you make things; there will always be a minority who somehow manage to miss seeing the rules (possibly wilfully) or who just assume the rules don't apply to them.
Labour longlist
1 Man, right wing, Brexiteer
2. There is no 2
What you have or don't have a problem with isn't really relevant.
Meanwhile, the Italian police are running around like they're Hans Blix and have finally uncovered the WMD motherlode in Iraq.
Like it or not
https://twitter.com/HSJEditor/status/1374768941491453952
Look, I may have stabbed you in the hand, but why are you mad? I could have stabbed you in the neck!
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/01/25/best-of-three-what-of-a-fresh-scottish-independence-referendum/
Bloody Attlee, he has more blood on his hands than Blair.
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1374755752666095619?s=20
He’s not just spent the last five years talking about the orange man being bad, but about the problems in American society and how people can work together across political lines to work things out. One of the good guys, no matter which party you support.
Someone above said "but people don't understand the risks..."
So we have the government step in to manager our risks for us? No thanks.
https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1374757686101872646?s=20
I'm all for empowering citizens to manage their own risks and balance them properly with the personal reward, eg on smoking. I am absolutely not in favour of letting them do things that make total sense in isolation, but have potentially large knock-on effects to wider society.
Probably be refing the 6 nations next year.
Once again consistent and within margin of error for Con 42, Lab 35/36; this is the only result consistent with all recent results, and so may well be right!
But as we now know, variants can spring up all over the place. Unless you pre-empt everyone always as in some kind of pre-crime screening, at some point you are just going to have to let society do its thing.
The two things are similar, you claim you are managing your own risk and drive at 120mph in a built up area. However you managing your own risk is increasing the risk to others.
You go abroad when a lot of abroad is covid ridden is managing your own risk but then increase the risk to others if you bring back a new variant that vaccines are not useful against.
Quite rightly as soon as the risk isn't yours alone but is also a risk to others then the rest of us have a right to say sorry we are putting a limit on that risk.
The idea that if you go abroad you need to quarantine for 2 weeks on return is good. However hands up who here that believes it would be enforced and that left to their own devices people won't just ignore it.
At some point in the future the surviving young are going to turn on the elderly and start hunting them down and shooting them. Probably immediately after I retire, knowing my luck.
But such dark and devious urges do exist in life. It would be naive not to realize this. The trick is to spot it not assume it.
To take a red hot topical example. Most Leavers - even the most ardent - are not wallowing in the EU's vaccine shambles like pigs in shit even though it provides so much ammo for their views on Brexit.
But some undeniably are.
You know what I mean?
And sadly (or happily) there will always be people who drive like idiots and/or flout the rules. As I said, with "new variants" there will always be a risk. A society can't live in the shadow of such risks forever because that is no kind of society.
Does anyone have any advice on situational judgement tests - particularly in relation to the civil service. I keep failing them and it's doing my nut in!
EU: London you must stop doing euro swaps, they are only allowed to be done in the EU
London: No
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1374781495336927235
I told her the main reason why the vaccines were going to be delayed was that India were not sending as many AZ as promised as they needed it for their own population
I reckon its all down to Brexit she said Europe is trying to punish us.
I went to make her a Coffee (from Columbia) are they in the EU?
Tut.
I have been clear what I mean. I even apologised to Leon earlier for my previous lack of clarity.
While we're on the subject, why on earth are UK high street banks restricting whether EU residents can hold accounts here and closing ex-pat accounts? OK, the EU might not like us offering services to EU residents, but who cares what they like? It's none of their business.
from case data
from hospitalisations