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Midterms betting: GOP favourite for the House – DEM for the Senate – politicalbetting.com

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  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    Yes, I recall all that. There wasn't much evidence to back it up though - more the vague notion that wages simply have to rise when there are labour shortages. It just has to happen! A silly assumption then and a silly assumption now.
    And they have risen.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/timeseries/kac3/lms

    Deal with the reality of rising wages even if it upsets you.
    By the time of the next election average real disposable income will be less than it was when the Tories came to power in 2010.
    Its been like that for years.

    But wages are rising now.

    Not enough to keep up with price rises for many people.

    But the price rises were going to happen in any case.
    Wages rising below inflation are of very limited utility.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Cyclefree said:

    AlistairM said:

    I think we need to go onto a war-footing for energy. Two key issues to address:

    - Switch gas usage to electricity
    - Increase electricity generation and storage

    It needs to be a massive effort from everyone in the country. Side effect would be that we go net zero much more quickly! It will cost but makes a lot of sense to reduce our reliance on others for energy.

    Ideas for the first:
    - Ban gas use in new builds immediately. Electric hobs, ovens and heat pumps instead.
    - Big incentives to switch existing household gas devices (i.e. boilers and hobs) to electric
    - Incentives for UK businesses to manufacture heatpumps

    Ideas for the second:
    - Massively remove impediments to new solar and wind generation devices being setup
    - All new builds to have solar panels, battery storage and car charging ports
    - Big subsidies on domestic solar and battery installation
    - All tidal schemes to get immediate go-ahead
    - Use existing nuclear sites to setup many mini-nuclear reactors

    We can't really waste time. We need to crack on now.

    Plus we all need to do what we can to reduce our usage in the short-term.
    PB to be restricted to the hours of 11am to 1pm.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,274

    dixiedean said:

    Rather than Pinochet v Chavez I'm more interested in energy prices.

    No one cares about going cold or hungry this winter, the voters are all up in arms about Jerry Sadowitz being cancelled at the Fringe.
    Maybe I am naive but I have never heard of Jerry Sadowitz and I really could not care less
    You, me and 65 million other Britons.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762
    carnforth said:

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    This graph is rather out of date, but it appears to be a europe-wide phenomenon:



    The question is whether the real decrease in wages here is less or more than in the EU, or than if we had stayed in the EU.
    Given that the real decrease in wages is being driven by the external price shock of imported gas and oil I struggle to see why it would make any material difference either way.
  • Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    Yes, I recall all that. There wasn't much evidence to back it up though - more the vague notion that wages simply have to rise when there are labour shortages. It just has to happen! A silly assumption then and a silly assumption now.
    And they have risen.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/timeseries/kac3/lms

    Deal with the reality of rising wages even if it upsets you.
    By the time of the next election average real disposable income will be less than it was when the Tories came to power in 2010.
    Its been like that for years.

    But wages are rising now.

    Not enough to keep up with price rises for many people.

    But the price rises were going to happen in any case.
    A wage rise that is less than inflation is a fall in my book.
    Indeed, but it certainly could have been a much bigger real terms fall if wages weren't already rising thanks to Brexit. 😉
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Yeah, did Chevez and co really spend that much time on combating woke microaggressions and the like, or were just focused on extremely barmy economic policies and political repression?

    Wokism, as typified by the things you generally raise around teaching, hiring policies and the like, seems more an american thing. Indeed, weren't you focusing on how it was The West that was indulging in it? Venezuela ain't the West.

    I realise you were probably looking to spark a reaction, but this one is so wide of the mark I don't think you're getting the outrage reaction you were hoping for, rather confusion.
    You're confused because your IQ has recently dropped and you are misreading me

    I'm making a comparison between crap political choices, not saying anything about Woke. Smarten up

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez


    You can't think of any reason why people might think you were saying something about woke with that comparson and wording, eh?

    If only a professional writer could have made the distinction clearer. As a mere consumer of words I rely on the professionals to eliminate any ambiuguity.
    Well I have dumbed down and disambiguated it now, so you're all good to go, Mr Ladybird Book
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,274
    DavidL said:

    carnforth said:

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    This graph is rather out of date, but it appears to be a europe-wide phenomenon:



    The question is whether the real decrease in wages here is less or more than in the EU, or than if we had stayed in the EU.
    Given that the real decrease in wages is being driven by the external price shock of imported gas and oil I struggle to see why it would make any material difference either way.
    Real wages have been stagnant or falling since 2010.
  • Cyclefree said:

    AlistairM said:

    I think we need to go onto a war-footing for energy. Two key issues to address:

    - Switch gas usage to electricity
    - Increase electricity generation and storage

    It needs to be a massive effort from everyone in the country. Side effect would be that we go net zero much more quickly! It will cost but makes a lot of sense to reduce our reliance on others for energy.

    Ideas for the first:
    - Ban gas use in new builds immediately. Electric hobs, ovens and heat pumps instead.
    - Big incentives to switch existing household gas devices (i.e. boilers and hobs) to electric
    - Incentives for UK businesses to manufacture heatpumps

    Ideas for the second:
    - Massively remove impediments to new solar and wind generation devices being setup
    - All new builds to have solar panels, battery storage and car charging ports
    - Big subsidies on domestic solar and battery installation
    - All tidal schemes to get immediate go-ahead
    - Use existing nuclear sites to setup many mini-nuclear reactors

    We can't really waste time. We need to crack on now.

    Plus we all need to do what we can to reduce our usage in the short-term.
    And very short-term (just over four months until Christmas, folks!), usage reduction is the main thing we can do. It's worth doing anyway, but it could do with the energy and ingenuity of the first months of Covid.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Yeah, did Chevez and co really spend that much time on combating woke microaggressions and the like, or were just focused on extremely barmy economic policies and political repression?

    Wokism, as typified by the things you generally raise around teaching, hiring policies and the like, seems more an american thing. Indeed, weren't you focusing on how it was The West that was indulging in it? Venezuela ain't the West.

    I realise you were probably looking to spark a reaction, but this one is so wide of the mark I don't think you're getting the outrage reaction you were hoping for, rather confusion.
    You're confused because your IQ has recently dropped and you are misreading me

    I'm making a comparison between crap political choices, not saying anything about Woke. Smarten up

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez


    You can't think of any reason why people might think you were saying something about woke with that comparson and wording, eh?

    If only a professional writer could have made the distinction clearer. As a mere consumer of words I rely on the professionals to eliminate any ambiuguity.
    Well I have dumbed down and disambiguated it now, so you're all good to go, Mr Ladybird Book
    Thank you.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,056

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    Yes, I recall all that. There wasn't much evidence to back it up though - more the vague notion that wages simply have to rise when there are labour shortages. It just has to happen! A silly assumption then and a silly assumption now.
    And they have risen.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/timeseries/kac3/lms

    Deal with the reality of rising wages even if it upsets you.
    By the time of the next election average real disposable income will be less than it was when the Tories came to power in 2010.
    Its been like that for years.

    But wages are rising now.

    Not enough to keep up with price rises for many people.

    But the price rises were going to happen in any case.
    A wage rise that is less than inflation is a fall in my book.
    Biggest fall in real wages in decades.

    Highest inflation figure in decades to come tommorow.

    Demonstrates that it is not wage rises that are the cause of inflation, they are a much needed mitigation.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited August 2022

    dixiedean said:

    Rather than Pinochet v Chavez I'm more interested in energy prices.

    No one cares about going cold or hungry this winter, the voters are all up in arms about Jerry Sadowitz being cancelled at the Fringe.
    Maybe I am naive but I have never heard of Jerry Sadowitz and I really could not care less
    You’d love him, Big G.
    Strongly recommend you get your hands on a DVD or similar. He’s right up your street.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,274

    The choice America faces isn't Hitler vs Stalin, its more Hitler vs Harold Wilson.

    Slightly eccentric left-wingers who obsess over pronouns are not a threat to society, not like moonshit crazy traitors who want to violently overturn elections they lose.

    Well said.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    Yes, I recall all that. There wasn't much evidence to back it up though - more the vague notion that wages simply have to rise when there are labour shortages. It just has to happen! A silly assumption then and a silly assumption now.
    And they have risen.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/timeseries/kac3/lms

    Deal with the reality of rising wages even if it upsets you.
    By the time of the next election average real disposable income will be less than it was when the Tories came to power in 2010.
    Its been like that for years.

    But wages are rising now.

    Not enough to keep up with price rises for many people.

    But the price rises were going to happen in any case.
    A wage rise that is less than inflation is a fall in my book.
    @another_richard has his own set of facts, but you wouldn’t know them, they go to another school.
  • DavidL said:

    carnforth said:

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    This graph is rather out of date, but it appears to be a europe-wide phenomenon:



    The question is whether the real decrease in wages here is less or more than in the EU, or than if we had stayed in the EU.
    Given that the real decrease in wages is being driven by the external price shock of imported gas and oil I struggle to see why it would make any material difference either way.
    Real wages have been stagnant or falling since 2010.
    Because wages were unsustainably high in 2010 as the state was spending £4 for every £3 it raised in taxation.

    2010 is an artificially high benchmark. Its like maxing out your credit card until it gets taken off you (2010) at which point you start complaining that there's not as much disposable income anymore. No, because we've had to have taxes going toward paying down Brown's deficit instead of going to pay rises!
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    Number plates for cyclists is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

    Apparently Grant Shapps is behind it.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,274

    Ah, good ole August in the world of politics...

    "Cyclists may need number plates" - Daily Mail front page.

    More bloody EU madness!

    (Oh, hang on...)
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762
    Foxy said:

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    Yes, I recall all that. There wasn't much evidence to back it up though - more the vague notion that wages simply have to rise when there are labour shortages. It just has to happen! A silly assumption then and a silly assumption now.
    And they have risen.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/timeseries/kac3/lms

    Deal with the reality of rising wages even if it upsets you.
    By the time of the next election average real disposable income will be less than it was when the Tories came to power in 2010.
    Its been like that for years.

    But wages are rising now.

    Not enough to keep up with price rises for many people.

    But the price rises were going to happen in any case.
    A wage rise that is less than inflation is a fall in my book.
    Biggest fall in real wages in decades.

    Highest inflation figure in decades to come tommorow.

    Demonstrates that it is not wage rises that are the cause of inflation, they are a much needed mitigation.
    For now they are. But next year it will be about catch up from this year and inflation will persist, despite what the BoE is trying to claim.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    A significant fall in living standards is pretty much nailed on for every big country in the west, maybe the world

    We have had a global plague, now there is a huge and nasty war. This is what happens with plagues and wars
  • kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    AlistairM said:

    I think we need to go onto a war-footing for energy. Two key issues to address:

    - Switch gas usage to electricity
    - Increase electricity generation and storage

    It needs to be a massive effort from everyone in the country. Side effect would be that we go net zero much more quickly! It will cost but makes a lot of sense to reduce our reliance on others for energy.

    Ideas for the first:
    - Ban gas use in new builds immediately. Electric hobs, ovens and heat pumps instead.
    - Big incentives to switch existing household gas devices (i.e. boilers and hobs) to electric
    - Incentives for UK businesses to manufacture heatpumps

    Ideas for the second:
    - Massively remove impediments to new solar and wind generation devices being setup
    - All new builds to have solar panels, battery storage and car charging ports
    - Big subsidies on domestic solar and battery installation
    - All tidal schemes to get immediate go-ahead
    - Use existing nuclear sites to setup many mini-nuclear reactors

    We can't really waste time. We need to crack on now.

    Plus we all need to do what we can to reduce our usage in the short-term.
    PB to be restricted to the hours of 11am to 1pm.
    Would also serve Truss's objective of improving productivity . . .
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    MrEd said:



    Now, now - we can't mention that because, by doing so, we are showing our imperialistic, racist tendencies. Far better to repeat the mantra it's all the fault of the U.K. / US


    Meanwhile in China:

    China's advanced coal production capacity has been expanded by a total of 490 million tons per year since September, the National Mine Safety Administration told a press conference on Aug 5.

    The administration said 147 coal mines have attained the necessary qualifications for advanced production capacity since the beginning of this year.


    https://english.www.gov.cn/statecouncil/ministries/202208/05/content_WS62ed1ccfc6d02e533532ee7e.html

    China's coal output each MONTH is about 50% greater than the UK achieved in its peak YEAR of 1913.

    Puts our carbon emissions into perspective doesn't it.

    Per capita, and I can't think of any other fair basis of comparison, China has 50% of US emissions. UK does better than China, but as every manufactured thing I buy is made in China except my Japanese truck, and UK exports to China are negligible, it seems fair to reallocate enough of us to China to even up the score. Also, I have first world living standards, and very pleasant that is. A billion Chinese live in what I would regard as unbearable poverty. If they want to coal fire their way out of that,,I find that deeply unhelpful, but it is not easy to blame them.

    Again, the coal output comparison can only fairly be made per capita. 30m vs 1.4bn is 30/1400 so 2%. So China is outputting 18 times as much coal for a population 50 times bigger. How unreasonable really is that?
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    Still raining in the boondocks of the midlands. Been several hours now.

    Must be helping a bit with water shortages?

  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    edited August 2022
    Wtf is this story about number plates for cyclists.

    Cycling is about the most libertarian thing you can do - no tax, no registration, complete freedom to go about about your business without interference from the government. It's immensely empowering, and available to anyone with a couple of hundred quid to spare.

    There are no negative externalities, and plenty of positive ones: obesity, carbon emissions, congestion in cities - I spend my time breezing past cars stuck in traffic. This in a country with ever more cars, ever bigger cars, huge subsidies for drivers in building roads (from my tax!), and a huge chunk of car trundles are for less than 2 miles.

    Every time you see a cyclist, think: "That fellow has saved me space on the street, fuel in my car, and our good green Earth".

    Cycling should be something that people across the political divide should join in, like RSPB membership.

  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    Andy_JS said:

    Number plates for cyclists is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

    Apparently Grant Shapps is behind it.

    Excellent plan. Helps reduce bicycle theft, and identify rogue cyclists who spoil the scene for all the normal cyclists. They'll get me voting Tory at this rate. What seems to be the problem?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,274

    DavidL said:

    carnforth said:

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    This graph is rather out of date, but it appears to be a europe-wide phenomenon:



    The question is whether the real decrease in wages here is less or more than in the EU, or than if we had stayed in the EU.
    Given that the real decrease in wages is being driven by the external price shock of imported gas and oil I struggle to see why it would make any material difference either way.
    Real wages have been stagnant or falling since 2010.
    Because wages were unsustainably high in 2010 as the state was spending £4 for every £3 it raised in taxation.

    2010 is an artificially high benchmark. Its like maxing out your credit card until it gets taken off you (2010) at which point you start complaining that there's not as much disposable income anymore. No, because we've had to have taxes going toward paying down Brown's deficit instead of going to pay rises!
    Lol. All still Labour's fault then.

    That's going to be a hard sell for the Tories at the next GE after 14 years in power
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,274

    Still raining in the boondocks of the midlands. Been several hours now.

    Must be helping a bit with water shortages?

    You'll need weeks, if not months of rain.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    DavidL said:

    carnforth said:

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    This graph is rather out of date, but it appears to be a europe-wide phenomenon:



    The question is whether the real decrease in wages here is less or more than in the EU, or than if we had stayed in the EU.
    Given that the real decrease in wages is being driven by the external price shock of imported gas and oil I struggle to see why it would make any material difference either way.
    Real wages have been stagnant or falling since 2010.
    Because wages were unsustainably high in 2010 as the state was spending £4 for every £3 it raised in taxation.

    2010 is an artificially high benchmark. Its like maxing out your credit card until it gets taken off you (2010) at which point you start complaining that there's not as much disposable income anymore. No, because we've had to have taxes going toward paying down Brown's deficit instead of going to pay rises!
    Lol. All still Labour's fault then.

    That's going to be a hard sell for the Tories at the next GE after 14 years in power
    Barty’s contention that the size of the deficit determines real wages in the economy is a fascinating new contribution to the literature.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,274
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    A significant fall in living standards is pretty much nailed on for every big country in the west, maybe the world

    We have had a global plague, now there is a huge and nasty war. This is what happens with plagues and wars

    ... and in the 10 years before the plague, under Tory mismanagement.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    Andy_JS said:

    Number plates for cyclists is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

    Apparently Grant Shapps is behind it.

    Excellent plan. Helps reduce bicycle theft, and identify rogue cyclists who spoil the scene for all the normal cyclists. They'll get me voting Tory at this rate. What seems to be the problem?
    It is bonkers, summer madness, 'cones hotline' policy, on stilts frankly.

  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,156
    edited August 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    Silly boy.
    Remember Leon droning on about Remainers trying to overturn the EU ref result but in vomit inducing hypocrisy is backing Trump who sent a mob to storm Congress and who wanted to overturn the US election .
    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
    From a British perspective, Trump was the most benign President since Reagan, if not before.
    Where British = Russian.

    Trump undermined Britain's alliances like NATO, friends like Ukraine whom he tried to shaft by tying aid to digging up dirt on his opponents etc.

    I can see why your mate Vlad likes Trump. Britain, not so much. Worst President of my life by far from a British perspective.
    I don't think there's any empirical measure by which your argument stacks up. Trump did not oblige Britain to enter any conflicts to shed treasure (or worse, blood) in so doing. He didn't seek to chide us or interfere with our domestic politics. He didn't oblige us to sanction anyone and force our biggest companies to divest their assets. He didn't sanction the pillage our companies in the manner of Standard Chartered or BP. He even made positive noises about a trade deal. I happen to think his proposed trade deal would have been bad for us and good for America, but I can't add that to the negative pile because it never happened. It was a brief, peaceful interregnum.
    "Peace" isn't a good thing if that peace is achieved by surrender.

    Your argument is no different to the argument of Ishmael that we shouldn't have women wearing short skirts as it might provoke rape, we shouldn't publish literature as it might provoke torture etc

    You want "peace" by surrendering to Putin etc. No thank you.
    Don't be such an utterly insufferable fucking prick. Nothing I said is analogous or reduces to the short skirt point, and your utterly moronic position is that the right to free speech always and everywhere overrides the right of Jews not to be tortured to death. If you don't understand that ask a grown up to read the previous thread and confirm it to you.
    Plenty of grown ups read the previous thread and they almost all confirmed that your moral compass is broken.

    Jews should not be tortured to death and if any are that is the responsibility of the torturers and those who aid and abet them, not those who sell short skirts or publish novels.
    You are a twat. You really are. It is like dealing with self righteous, very small children. You tell them that global warming is Very Bad, and then you ask them stuff like, would it be OK for ed the eskimo to burn some coal if his solar panels had broken down and his six children would be frozen to death. Oh no, miss, they say, global warming is Really Bad. You are the same: too irretrievaby dim to recognise competing rights and competing goods, including the right not to be tortured to death.

    Really stupid. I am not saying that to goad or insult, but because it is true. Taz level stupid.

    And I can't help noticing both the Bataclan and anne Frank examples, the ethnicity of the people about whom you self rghteously give not a fuck.
    I never said to say where Anne Frank is, indeed I made a point about not abetting crimes, so the problem isn't that I'm missing the competing rights its that you're too irredeemably thick that you think you've got a good point even after its been answered.

    Abetting a crime = bad.
    Publishing a novel/cartoon etc = not bad.

    Not a single person has died due to a cartoon or novel. If they've died, they've died due to the actions of criminals, criminals who quite probably could and would have found something else objectionable if not a particular novel or cartoon. Your surrender view doesn't work until we've surrendered everything so that we're like the Taliban, and probably not even then either.
    Dem 4 by 2s, eh?

    Idiot cunnig at work: you think your chat about "abetting a crime" obscures the question of whether something causes something to happen vs not happen. You are thick first for thinking that is an argument, secondly because a reasonably bright cockroach would see what you are up to, and thirdly because you think legal technicalities are a good area for a fuckwitted layman to try to get the better of an actual lawyer.
    I'm sure that the mere fact of one's being born causes some things to happen that would not otherwise have happened. However, what interests lawyers and ethicists is the issue of proximate causes.

    The proximate cause of the murder of Jews is that a group of loons freely and voluntarily decided to murder them. It is not that a third party chose to publish a cartoon that said loons did not like. Other people might have been liable too, if they encouraged the loons to murder the Jews, or if they told the loons where they could find Jews to murder (your Anne Frank/mad axeman example). The first is incitement, the second is abetting. The cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo are guilty of neither.

    If as you imply, you are a lawyer, you ought to understand this. No court is going to hold Charlie Hebdo liable for the acts of the murderous loons.
    Oooh, "proximate cause." So fucking what? Moral responsibility asks, would this have happened but for my actions? Was it reasonably foreseeable to me? Am I therefore at fault if I went ahead and said Fuck it, I am going to publish anyway? You are doing a Bart, trying to sound clever at the cost of revealing that you are a very, very thick shit.
    would this have happened but for my actions? Was it reasonably foreseeable to me? Am I therefore at fault if I went ahead and said Fuck it, I am going to publish anyway?

    The answer is "yes", "yes" and "no".

    "Yes", Islamist terrorism would have happened without Hebdo, without Rushdie, because neither of them caused terrorism. No, publishing is not at fault since it isn't publications which are causing the terrorism. What causes terrorism is the terrorists and their sympathisers, of whom you are worryingly close to becoming one it seems.

    Young girls and women seeing Ariana Grande being blown up isn't because of Hebdo, or Rushdie, or because we allow girls out to enjoy themselves, or because of Ariana Grande - it is due to the terrorists and their vile, evil worldview that you seek to excuse and justify as the rancid pond-scum that you are.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    DavidL said:

    carnforth said:

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    This graph is rather out of date, but it appears to be a europe-wide phenomenon:



    The question is whether the real decrease in wages here is less or more than in the EU, or than if we had stayed in the EU.
    Given that the real decrease in wages is being driven by the external price shock of imported gas and oil I struggle to see why it would make any material difference either way.
    Real wages have been stagnant or falling since 2010.
    Because wages were unsustainably high in 2010 as the state was spending £4 for every £3 it raised in taxation.

    2010 is an artificially high benchmark. Its like maxing out your credit card until it gets taken off you (2010) at which point you start complaining that there's not as much disposable income anymore. No, because we've had to have taxes going toward paying down Brown's deficit instead of going to pay rises!
    Lol. All still Labour's fault then.

    That's going to be a hard sell for the Tories at the next GE after 14 years in power
    Gordon Brown was still using what, at the time, was known as the 'last Tory government' excuse, 13 years into a Labour government.

    It didn't work, but a 2010 result is still not easy to achieve. Though with the meltdown that is being experienced easier than it was.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,451
    Eabhal said:

    Wtf is this story about number plates for cyclists.

    Cycling is about the most libertarian thing you can do - no tax, no registration, complete freedom to go about about your business without interference from the government. It's immensely empowering, and available to anyone with a couple of hundred quid to spare.

    There are no negative externalities, and plenty of positive ones: obesity, carbon emissions, congestion in cities - I spend my time breezing past cars stuck in traffic. This in a country with ever more cars, ever bigger cars, huge subsidies for drivers in building roads (from my tax!), and a huge chunk of car trundle are for less than 2 miles.

    Cycling should be something that people across the political divide should join in, like RSPB membership.

    Yeah, I'm a bit of a reactionary car driver who gets annoyed by cyclists at times but this is (another) very silly policy.

    At least Boris was happy containing his silly policy input to Brexit as long he could talk about building a bridge, airport or tunnel somewhere impractical a couple of times of year. Truss seems to want to do silly across the board.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762

    DavidL said:

    carnforth said:

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    This graph is rather out of date, but it appears to be a europe-wide phenomenon:



    The question is whether the real decrease in wages here is less or more than in the EU, or than if we had stayed in the EU.
    Given that the real decrease in wages is being driven by the external price shock of imported gas and oil I struggle to see why it would make any material difference either way.
    Real wages have been stagnant or falling since 2010.
    That's a slight exaggeration: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/latest

    But it has not been great and is certainly bad right now.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781

    Andy_JS said:

    Number plates for cyclists is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

    Apparently Grant Shapps is behind it.

    Excellent plan. Helps reduce bicycle theft, and identify rogue cyclists who spoil the scene for all the normal cyclists. They'll get me voting Tory at this rate. What seems to be the problem?
    Why don't we stamp a number on everyone's forehead so we can identify them in public.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited August 2022

    Andy_JS said:

    Number plates for cyclists is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

    Apparently Grant Shapps is behind it.

    Excellent plan. Helps reduce bicycle theft, and identify rogue cyclists who spoil the scene for all the normal cyclists. They'll get me voting Tory at this rate. What seems to be the problem?
    It is bonkers, summer madness, 'cones hotline' policy, on stilts frankly.

    It’s a very shit idea, like all the other ideas emanating from this two-horse cowboy show.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    Leon said:

    A significant fall in living standards is pretty much nailed on for every big country in the west, maybe the world

    We have had a global plague, now there is a huge and nasty war. This is what happens with plagues and wars

    And the central banks were printing money like it was going out of fashion before covid never mind during.

  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    Silly boy.
    Remember Leon droning on about Remainers trying to overturn the EU ref result but in vomit inducing hypocrisy is backing Trump who sent a mob to storm Congress and who wanted to overturn the US election .
    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
    From a British perspective, Trump was the most benign President since Reagan, if not before.
    Where British = Russian.

    Trump undermined Britain's alliances like NATO, friends like Ukraine whom he tried to shaft by tying aid to digging up dirt on his opponents etc.

    I can see why your mate Vlad likes Trump. Britain, not so much. Worst President of my life by far from a British perspective.
    I don't think there's any empirical measure by which your argument stacks up. Trump did not oblige Britain to enter any conflicts to shed treasure (or worse, blood) in so doing. He didn't seek to chide us or interfere with our domestic politics. He didn't oblige us to sanction anyone and force our biggest companies to divest their assets. He didn't sanction the pillage our companies in the manner of Standard Chartered or BP. He even made positive noises about a trade deal. I happen to think his proposed trade deal would have been bad for us and good for America, but I can't add that to the negative pile because it never happened. It was a brief, peaceful interregnum.
    "Peace" isn't a good thing if that peace is achieved by surrender.

    Your argument is no different to the argument of Ishmael that we shouldn't have women wearing short skirts as it might provoke rape, we shouldn't publish literature as it might provoke torture etc

    You want "peace" by surrendering to Putin etc. No thank you.
    Don't be such an utterly insufferable fucking prick. Nothing I said is analogous or reduces to the short skirt point, and your utterly moronic position is that the right to free speech always and everywhere overrides the right of Jews not to be tortured to death. If you don't understand that ask a grown up to read the previous thread and confirm it to you.
    Plenty of grown ups read the previous thread and they almost all confirmed that your moral compass is broken.

    Jews should not be tortured to death and if any are that is the responsibility of the torturers and those who aid and abet them, not those who sell short skirts or publish novels.
    You are a twat. You really are. It is like dealing with self righteous, very small children. You tell them that global warming is Very Bad, and then you ask them stuff like, would it be OK for ed the eskimo to burn some coal if his solar panels had broken down and his six children would be frozen to death. Oh no, miss, they say, global warming is Really Bad. You are the same: too irretrievaby dim to recognise competing rights and competing goods, including the right not to be tortured to death.

    Really stupid. I am not saying that to goad or insult, but because it is true. Taz level stupid.

    And I can't help noticing both the Bataclan and anne Frank examples, the ethnicity of the people about whom you self rghteously give not a fuck.
    I never said to say where Anne Frank is, indeed I made a point about not abetting crimes, so the problem isn't that I'm missing the competing rights its that you're too irredeemably thick that you think you've got a good point even after its been answered.

    Abetting a crime = bad.
    Publishing a novel/cartoon etc = not bad.

    Not a single person has died due to a cartoon or novel. If they've died, they've died due to the actions of criminals, criminals who quite probably could and would have found something else objectionable if not a particular novel or cartoon. Your surrender view doesn't work until we've surrendered everything so that we're like the Taliban, and probably not even then either.
    Dem 4 by 2s, eh?

    Idiot cunnig at work: you think your chat about "abetting a crime" obscures the question of whether something causes something to happen vs not happen. You are thick first for thinking that is an argument, secondly because a reasonably bright cockroach would see what you are up to, and thirdly because you think legal technicalities are a good area for a fuckwitted layman to try to get the better of an actual lawyer.
    I'm sure that the mere fact of one's being born causes some things to happen that would not otherwise have happened. However, what interests lawyers and ethicists is the issue of proximate causes.

    The proximate cause of the murder of Jews is that a group of loons freely and voluntarily decided to murder them. It is not that a third party chose to publish a cartoon that said loons did not like. Other people might have been liable too, if they encouraged the loons to murder the Jews, or if they told the loons where they could find Jews to murder (your Anne Frank/mad axeman example). The first is incitement, the second is abetting. The cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo are guilty of neither.

    If as you imply, you are a lawyer, you ought to understand this. No court is going to hold Charlie Hebdo liable for the acts of the murderous loons.
    Oooh, "proximate cause." So fucking what? Moral responsibility asks, would this have happened but for my actions? Was it reasonably foreseeable to me? Am I therefore at fault if I went ahead and said Fuck it, I am going to publish anyway? You are doing a Bart, trying to sound clever at the cost of revealing that you are a very, very thick shit.
    Gosh what a reasoned response. Are you onto your second or third bottle yet? You really are the pub bore, ranting in the corner, revealing your complete and utter ignorance of every subject you offer an opinion on.
    Sorry, but you are thick. The moral question is, do I do something whose reasonably foreseeable consequence is the murder of an innocent third party? Neither my fondness for a glass of wine nor your parroting of quarter understood legal jargon alters the moral matrix one bit. Tough, but there it is.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,274

    DavidL said:

    carnforth said:

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    This graph is rather out of date, but it appears to be a europe-wide phenomenon:



    The question is whether the real decrease in wages here is less or more than in the EU, or than if we had stayed in the EU.
    Given that the real decrease in wages is being driven by the external price shock of imported gas and oil I struggle to see why it would make any material difference either way.
    Real wages have been stagnant or falling since 2010.
    Because wages were unsustainably high in 2010 as the state was spending £4 for every £3 it raised in taxation.

    2010 is an artificially high benchmark. Its like maxing out your credit card until it gets taken off you (2010) at which point you start complaining that there's not as much disposable income anymore. No, because we've had to have taxes going toward paying down Brown's deficit instead of going to pay rises!
    Lol. All still Labour's fault then.

    That's going to be a hard sell for the Tories at the next GE after 14 years in power
    Barty’s contention that the size of the deficit determines real wages in the economy is a fascinating new contribution to the literature.
    On that basis, real wages should be at an all time high, since the deficit is.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    Cyclefree said:

    AlistairM said:

    I think we need to go onto a war-footing for energy. Two key issues to address:

    - Switch gas usage to electricity
    - Increase electricity generation and storage

    It needs to be a massive effort from everyone in the country. Side effect would be that we go net zero much more quickly! It will cost but makes a lot of sense to reduce our reliance on others for energy.

    Ideas for the first:
    - Ban gas use in new builds immediately. Electric hobs, ovens and heat pumps instead.
    - Big incentives to switch existing household gas devices (i.e. boilers and hobs) to electric
    - Incentives for UK businesses to manufacture heatpumps

    Ideas for the second:
    - Massively remove impediments to new solar and wind generation devices being setup
    - All new builds to have solar panels, battery storage and car charging ports
    - Big subsidies on domestic solar and battery installation
    - All tidal schemes to get immediate go-ahead
    - Use existing nuclear sites to setup many mini-nuclear reactors

    We can't really waste time. We need to crack on now.

    Plus we all need to do what we can to reduce our usage in the short-term.
    Let's all cycle!
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Eabhal said:

    Wtf is this story about number plates for cyclists.

    Cycling is about the most libertarian thing you can do - no tax, no registration, complete freedom to go about about your business without interference from the government. It's immensely empowering, and available to anyone with a couple of hundred quid to spare.

    There are no negative externalities, and plenty of positive ones: obesity, carbon emissions, congestion in cities - I spend my time breezing past cars stuck in traffic. This in a country with ever more cars, ever bigger cars, huge subsidies for drivers in building roads (from my tax!), and a huge chunk of car trundle are for less than 2 miles.

    Cycling should be something that people across the political divide should join in, like RSPB membership.

    Yeah, I'm a bit of a reactionary car driver who gets annoyed by cyclists at times but this is (another) very silly policy.

    At least Boris was happy containing his silly policy input to Brexit as long he could talk about building a bridge, airport or tunnel somewhere impractical a couple of times of year. Truss seems to want to do silly across the board.
    It sounds like a very 'Whitehall' policy idea.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    carnforth said:

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    This graph is rather out of date, but it appears to be a europe-wide phenomenon:



    The question is whether the real decrease in wages here is less or more than in the EU, or than if we had stayed in the EU.
    Given that the real decrease in wages is being driven by the external price shock of imported gas and oil I struggle to see why it would make any material difference either way.
    Real wages have been stagnant or falling since 2010.
    That's a slight exaggeration: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/latest

    But it has not been great and is certainly bad right now.
    Surely some mistake, as you’ve repeatedly assured us that real wages are rising due to Brexit.

  • Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez

    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Yeah, did Chevez and co really spend that much time on combating woke microaggressions and the like, or were just focused on extremely barmy economic policies and political repression?

    Wokism, as typified by the things you generally raise around teaching, hiring policies and the like, seems more an american thing. Indeed, weren't you focusing on how it was The West that was indulging in it? Venezuela ain't the West.

    I realise you were probably looking to spark a reaction, but this one is so wide of the mark I don't think you're getting the outrage reaction you were hoping for, rather confusion.
    You're confused because your IQ has recently dropped and you are misreading me

    I'm making a comparison between crap political choices, not saying anything about Woke. Smarten up
    Have you factored in the death of Chavez in 2013 and US & EU economic sanctions against Venezuela since 2014?
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    AlistairM said:

    I think we need to go onto a war-footing for energy. Two key issues to address:

    - Switch gas usage to electricity
    - Increase electricity generation and storage

    It needs to be a massive effort from everyone in the country. Side effect would be that we go net zero much more quickly! It will cost but makes a lot of sense to reduce our reliance on others for energy.

    Ideas for the first:
    - Ban gas use in new builds immediately. Electric hobs, ovens and heat pumps instead.
    - Big incentives to switch existing household gas devices (i.e. boilers and hobs) to electric
    - Incentives for UK businesses to manufacture heatpumps

    Ideas for the second:
    - Massively remove impediments to new solar and wind generation devices being setup
    - All new builds to have solar panels, battery storage and car charging ports
    - Big subsidies on domestic solar and battery installation
    - All tidal schemes to get immediate go-ahead
    - Use existing nuclear sites to setup many mini-nuclear reactors

    We can't really waste time. We need to crack on now.

    Plus we all need to do what we can to reduce our usage in the short-term.
    PB to be restricted to the hours of 11am to 1pm.
    Would also serve Truss's objective of improving productivity . . .
    Those are sober hours for most of us, perhaps even Leon. The site would lose some of its joie de vivre surely?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Eabhal said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Number plates for cyclists is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

    Apparently Grant Shapps is behind it.

    Excellent plan. Helps reduce bicycle theft, and identify rogue cyclists who spoil the scene for all the normal cyclists. They'll get me voting Tory at this rate. What seems to be the problem?
    Why don't we stamp a number on everyone's forehead so we can identify them in public.
    I've long predicted we'll assign a phone a number and email to newborns at some point, might as well chip them whilst we do it.

    What? ID cards get pushed every few years, might as well make it futuristic at least.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781

    Eabhal said:

    Wtf is this story about number plates for cyclists.

    Cycling is about the most libertarian thing you can do - no tax, no registration, complete freedom to go about about your business without interference from the government. It's immensely empowering, and available to anyone with a couple of hundred quid to spare.

    There are no negative externalities, and plenty of positive ones: obesity, carbon emissions, congestion in cities - I spend my time breezing past cars stuck in traffic. This in a country with ever more cars, ever bigger cars, huge subsidies for drivers in building roads (from my tax!), and a huge chunk of car trundle are for less than 2 miles.

    Cycling should be something that people across the political divide should join in, like RSPB membership.

    Yeah, I'm a bit of a reactionary car driver who gets annoyed by cyclists at times but this is (another) very silly policy.

    At least Boris was happy containing his silly policy input to Brexit as long he could talk about building a bridge, airport or tunnel somewhere impractical a couple of times of year. Truss seems to want to do silly across the board.
    Don't worry, I'm a reactionary cyclist. Driving makes us all a bit aggro.

    (Though if you hit me, you get a dint and I get a broken femur)
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    kle4 said:

    Eabhal said:

    Wtf is this story about number plates for cyclists.

    Cycling is about the most libertarian thing you can do - no tax, no registration, complete freedom to go about about your business without interference from the government. It's immensely empowering, and available to anyone with a couple of hundred quid to spare.

    There are no negative externalities, and plenty of positive ones: obesity, carbon emissions, congestion in cities - I spend my time breezing past cars stuck in traffic. This in a country with ever more cars, ever bigger cars, huge subsidies for drivers in building roads (from my tax!), and a huge chunk of car trundle are for less than 2 miles.

    Cycling should be something that people across the political divide should join in, like RSPB membership.

    Yeah, I'm a bit of a reactionary car driver who gets annoyed by cyclists at times but this is (another) very silly policy.

    At least Boris was happy containing his silly policy input to Brexit as long he could talk about building a bridge, airport or tunnel somewhere impractical a couple of times of year. Truss seems to want to do silly across the board.
    It sounds like a very 'Whitehall' policy idea.
    It sounds like Whitehall trying to second-guess that fat fucker Nick Ferrari on LBC.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez
    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    Hitler v Stalin is actually quite hard

    Both are, to me, examples of pure evil

    Mao is another, likewise Pol Pot

    All brought catastrophe on their nations, and killed millions. Deliberately

    Perhaps Hitler's evil was of a uniquely Satanic kind, even worse than Stalin? But was it tho? The Holodomor was pretty out there, and the immense system of state torture under Stalin was bigger than anything Hitler did to the German people

    Tough call
    I guess Pol Pot is worst for the sheer lunacy of his government, and for the harm he did in such a short period of time (killing 25% of the population in three years).

    Hitler lost, and Stalin won. Had Hitler won, he would not have just wiped out the Jews, but about 60% of the slavs as well, save for those lucky enough either to be Germanised, or kept for slave labour.
    it is almost impossible to say. As soon as I think: Yep. Hitler was worse, I recall some barbarism by Stalin or Mao. Stalin arguably did multiple mini genocides. Moving entire nations. Hoping they would die. Mao was, at one stage, the only well fed human in China

    It is Satan versus Beelzebub versus Lucifer

    For all the horrors of the 21st century, and it is off to a rocky start, it has nothing to match Stalin. Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot

    Yet
    The 19th century had such horrors as The Heavenly King, King Leopold of the Belgians, and Ranavalona I.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,156
    edited August 2022

    DavidL said:

    carnforth said:

    Confused by the news headlines today, I am old enough to remember this governments Brexit fanboys proclaim the govts great success in ensuring wages were rising faster than ever.

    This graph is rather out of date, but it appears to be a europe-wide phenomenon:



    The question is whether the real decrease in wages here is less or more than in the EU, or than if we had stayed in the EU.
    Given that the real decrease in wages is being driven by the external price shock of imported gas and oil I struggle to see why it would make any material difference either way.
    Real wages have been stagnant or falling since 2010.
    Because wages were unsustainably high in 2010 as the state was spending £4 for every £3 it raised in taxation.

    2010 is an artificially high benchmark. Its like maxing out your credit card until it gets taken off you (2010) at which point you start complaining that there's not as much disposable income anymore. No, because we've had to have taxes going toward paying down Brown's deficit instead of going to pay rises!
    Lol. All still Labour's fault then.

    That's going to be a hard sell for the Tories at the next GE after 14 years in power
    Barty’s contention that the size of the deficit determines real wages in the economy is a fascinating new contribution to the literature.
    That the size of Government expenditure affects real wages in the economy is not a new contribution to the literature, it is as old as time. Similarly for GDP, Y = C + I + G + (X - M) you might wish to familiarise yourself with what the G stands for if you don't think Government expenditure affects macroeconomic figures.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787
    Turkey has apparently launched a military operation in Syria.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762

    Ah, good ole August in the world of politics...

    "Cyclists may need number plates" - Daily Mail front page.


    And restricted to 20 mph
    And taken out by snipers when they drive 2 or more abreast on the carriageway.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez
    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    Hitler v Stalin is actually quite hard

    Both are, to me, examples of pure evil

    Mao is another, likewise Pol Pot

    All brought catastrophe on their nations, and killed millions. Deliberately

    Perhaps Hitler's evil was of a uniquely Satanic kind, even worse than Stalin? But was it tho? The Holodomor was pretty out there, and the immense system of state torture under Stalin was bigger than anything Hitler did to the German people

    Tough call
    I guess Pol Pot is worst for the sheer lunacy of his government, and for the harm he did in such a short period of time (killing 25% of the population in three years).

    Hitler lost, and Stalin won. Had Hitler won, he would not have just wiped out the Jews, but about 60% of the slavs as well, save for those lucky enough either to be Germanised, or kept for slave labour.
    it is almost impossible to say. As soon as I think: Yep. Hitler was worse, I recall some barbarism by Stalin or Mao. Stalin arguably did multiple mini genocides. Moving entire nations. Hoping they would die. Mao was, at one stage, the only well fed human in China

    It is Satan versus Beelzebub versus Lucifer

    For all the horrors of the 21st century, and it is off to a rocky start, it has nothing to match Stalin. Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot

    Yet
    The 19th century had such horrors as The Heavenly King, King Leopold of the Belgians, and Ranavalona I.
    Sounds like a charmer.

    The combination of regular warfare, disease, difficult forced labor and harsh trials by ordeal using a poisonous nut from the Tangena shrub resulted in a high mortality rate among both soldiers and civilians during her 33-year reign, with Madagascar's population reducing from 5 million in 1833 to 2.5 million in 1839

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranavalona_I
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    Turkey has apparently launched a military operation in Syria.

    What are they planning to do? Collect all the rubble and bones?
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    DavidL said:

    Ah, good ole August in the world of politics...

    "Cyclists may need number plates" - Daily Mail front page.


    And restricted to 20 mph
    And taken out by snipers when they drive 2 or more abreast on the carriageway.
    I always stop at red lights. Means I can hold up more traffic.
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 926

    Andy_JS said:

    Number plates for cyclists is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

    Apparently Grant Shapps is behind it.

    Excellent plan. Helps reduce bicycle theft, and identify rogue cyclists who spoil the scene for all the normal cyclists. They'll get me voting Tory at this rate. What seems to be the problem?
    The problem I think is that any (even minor) obstacle to people cycling means in practice fewer people getting a bit of exercise, more traffic congestion, and more car pollution. Plus it's going to cost civil service and government time to set up, money to implement, money to enforce, and it doesn't really get you much of a payback to justify that.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    Silly boy.
    Remember Leon droning on about Remainers trying to overturn the EU ref result but in vomit inducing hypocrisy is backing Trump who sent a mob to storm Congress and who wanted to overturn the US election .
    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
    From a British perspective, Trump was the most benign President since Reagan, if not before.
    Where British = Russian.

    Trump undermined Britain's alliances like NATO, friends like Ukraine whom he tried to shaft by tying aid to digging up dirt on his opponents etc.

    I can see why your mate Vlad likes Trump. Britain, not so much. Worst President of my life by far from a British perspective.
    I don't think there's any empirical measure by which your argument stacks up. Trump did not oblige Britain to enter any conflicts to shed treasure (or worse, blood) in so doing. He didn't seek to chide us or interfere with our domestic politics. He didn't oblige us to sanction anyone and force our biggest companies to divest their assets. He didn't sanction the pillage our companies in the manner of Standard Chartered or BP. He even made positive noises about a trade deal. I happen to think his proposed trade deal would have been bad for us and good for America, but I can't add that to the negative pile because it never happened. It was a brief, peaceful interregnum.
    "Peace" isn't a good thing if that peace is achieved by surrender.

    Your argument is no different to the argument of Ishmael that we shouldn't have women wearing short skirts as it might provoke rape, we shouldn't publish literature as it might provoke torture etc

    You want "peace" by surrendering to Putin etc. No thank you.
    Don't be such an utterly insufferable fucking prick. Nothing I said is analogous or reduces to the short skirt point, and your utterly moronic position is that the right to free speech always and everywhere overrides the right of Jews not to be tortured to death. If you don't understand that ask a grown up to read the previous thread and confirm it to you.
    Plenty of grown ups read the previous thread and they almost all confirmed that your moral compass is broken.

    Jews should not be tortured to death and if any are that is the responsibility of the torturers and those who aid and abet them, not those who sell short skirts or publish novels.
    You are a twat. You really are. It is like dealing with self righteous, very small children. You tell them that global warming is Very Bad, and then you ask them stuff like, would it be OK for ed the eskimo to burn some coal if his solar panels had broken down and his six children would be frozen to death. Oh no, miss, they say, global warming is Really Bad. You are the same: too irretrievaby dim to recognise competing rights and competing goods, including the right not to be tortured to death.

    Really stupid. I am not saying that to goad or insult, but because it is true. Taz level stupid.

    And I can't help noticing both the Bataclan and anne Frank examples, the ethnicity of the people about whom you self rghteously give not a fuck.
    I never said to say where Anne Frank is, indeed I made a point about not abetting crimes, so the problem isn't that I'm missing the competing rights its that you're too irredeemably thick that you think you've got a good point even after its been answered.

    Abetting a crime = bad.
    Publishing a novel/cartoon etc = not bad.

    Not a single person has died due to a cartoon or novel. If they've died, they've died due to the actions of criminals, criminals who quite probably could and would have found something else objectionable if not a particular novel or cartoon. Your surrender view doesn't work until we've surrendered everything so that we're like the Taliban, and probably not even then either.
    Dem 4 by 2s, eh?

    Idiot cunnig at work: you think your chat about "abetting a crime" obscures the question of whether something causes something to happen vs not happen. You are thick first for thinking that is an argument, secondly because a reasonably bright cockroach would see what you are up to, and thirdly because you think legal technicalities are a good area for a fuckwitted layman to try to get the better of an actual lawyer.
    I'm sure that the mere fact of one's being born causes some things to happen that would not otherwise have happened. However, what interests lawyers and ethicists is the issue of proximate causes.

    The proximate cause of the murder of Jews is that a group of loons freely and voluntarily decided to murder them. It is not that a third party chose to publish a cartoon that said loons did not like. Other people might have been liable too, if they encouraged the loons to murder the Jews, or if they told the loons where they could find Jews to murder (your Anne Frank/mad axeman example). The first is incitement, the second is abetting. The cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo are guilty of neither.

    If as you imply, you are a lawyer, you ought to understand this. No court is going to hold Charlie Hebdo liable for the acts of the murderous loons.
    Oooh, "proximate cause." So fucking what? Moral responsibility asks, would this have happened but for my actions? Was it reasonably foreseeable to me? Am I therefore at fault if I went ahead and said Fuck it, I am going to publish anyway? You are doing a Bart, trying to sound clever at the cost of revealing that you are a very, very thick shit.
    Gosh what a reasoned response. Are you onto your second or third bottle yet? You really are the pub bore, ranting in the corner, revealing your complete and utter ignorance of every subject you offer an opinion on.
    Sorry, but you are thick. The moral question is, do I do something whose reasonably foreseeable consequence is the murder of an innocent third party? Neither my fondness for a glass of wine nor your parroting of quarter understood legal jargon alters the moral matrix one bit. Tough, but there it is.
    You still don't understand what the word consequence means.

    Not a single person has ever died as a consequence of a cartoon to the best of my knowledge.

    Murderers killing will seize any excuse, whether it be anger at cartoons, or the decadence of young girls being able to enjoy themselves as a concert, or anything else. If the publishers didn't publish, the violence would still be there, so no causal link.

    You're acting as if we just pulled our heads in and stopped provoking the terrorists then the terrorism would go away. No, the terrorism would remain until it was permanently institutionalised by a Taliban government ruling the country.
  • dixiedean said:

    Rather than Pinochet v Chavez I'm more interested in energy prices.

    No one cares about going cold or hungry this winter, the voters are all up in arms about Jerry Sadowitz being cancelled at the Fringe.
    Maybe I am naive but I have never heard of Jerry Sadowitz and I really could not care less
    You’d love him, Big G.
    Strongly recommend you get your hands on a DVD or similar. He’s right up your street.
    I just could not be bothered nor interested
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    IshmaelZ said:

    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    Silly boy.
    Remember Leon droning on about Remainers trying to overturn the EU ref result but in vomit inducing hypocrisy is backing Trump who sent a mob to storm Congress and who wanted to overturn the US election .
    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
    From a British perspective, Trump was the most benign President since Reagan, if not before.
    Where British = Russian.

    Trump undermined Britain's alliances like NATO, friends like Ukraine whom he tried to shaft by tying aid to digging up dirt on his opponents etc.

    I can see why your mate Vlad likes Trump. Britain, not so much. Worst President of my life by far from a British perspective.
    I don't think there's any empirical measure by which your argument stacks up. Trump did not oblige Britain to enter any conflicts to shed treasure (or worse, blood) in so doing. He didn't seek to chide us or interfere with our domestic politics. He didn't oblige us to sanction anyone and force our biggest companies to divest their assets. He didn't sanction the pillage our companies in the manner of Standard Chartered or BP. He even made positive noises about a trade deal. I happen to think his proposed trade deal would have been bad for us and good for America, but I can't add that to the negative pile because it never happened. It was a brief, peaceful interregnum.
    "Peace" isn't a good thing if that peace is achieved by surrender.

    Your argument is no different to the argument of Ishmael that we shouldn't have women wearing short skirts as it might provoke rape, we shouldn't publish literature as it might provoke torture etc

    You want "peace" by surrendering to Putin etc. No thank you.
    Don't be such an utterly insufferable fucking prick. Nothing I said is analogous or reduces to the short skirt point, and your utterly moronic position is that the right to free speech always and everywhere overrides the right of Jews not to be tortured to death. If you don't understand that ask a grown up to read the previous thread and confirm it to you.
    Plenty of grown ups read the previous thread and they almost all confirmed that your moral compass is broken.

    Jews should not be tortured to death and if any are that is the responsibility of the torturers and those who aid and abet them, not those who sell short skirts or publish novels.
    You are a twat. You really are. It is like dealing with self righteous, very small children. You tell them that global warming is Very Bad, and then you ask them stuff like, would it be OK for ed the eskimo to burn some coal if his solar panels had broken down and his six children would be frozen to death. Oh no, miss, they say, global warming is Really Bad. You are the same: too irretrievaby dim to recognise competing rights and competing goods, including the right not to be tortured to death.

    Really stupid. I am not saying that to goad or insult, but because it is true. Taz level stupid.

    And I can't help noticing both the Bataclan and anne Frank examples, the ethnicity of the people about whom you self rghteously give not a fuck.
    I never said to say where Anne Frank is, indeed I made a point about not abetting crimes, so the problem isn't that I'm missing the competing rights its that you're too irredeemably thick that you think you've got a good point even after its been answered.

    Abetting a crime = bad.
    Publishing a novel/cartoon etc = not bad.

    Not a single person has died due to a cartoon or novel. If they've died, they've died due to the actions of criminals, criminals who quite probably could and would have found something else objectionable if not a particular novel or cartoon. Your surrender view doesn't work until we've surrendered everything so that we're like the Taliban, and probably not even then either.
    Dem 4 by 2s, eh?

    Idiot cunnig at work: you think your chat about "abetting a crime" obscures the question of whether something causes something to happen vs not happen. You are thick first for thinking that is an argument, secondly because a reasonably bright cockroach would see what you are up to, and thirdly because you think legal technicalities are a good area for a fuckwitted layman to try to get the better of an actual lawyer.
    I'm sure that the mere fact of one's being born causes some things to happen that would not otherwise have happened. However, what interests lawyers and ethicists is the issue of proximate causes.

    The proximate cause of the murder of Jews is that a group of loons freely and voluntarily decided to murder them. It is not that a third party chose to publish a cartoon that said loons did not like. Other people might have been liable too, if they encouraged the loons to murder the Jews, or if they told the loons where they could find Jews to murder (your Anne Frank/mad axeman example). The first is incitement, the second is abetting. The cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo are guilty of neither.

    If as you imply, you are a lawyer, you ought to understand this. No court is going to hold Charlie Hebdo liable for the acts of the murderous loons.
    Oooh, "proximate cause." So fucking what? Moral responsibility asks, would this have happened but for my actions? Was it reasonably foreseeable to me? Am I therefore at fault if I went ahead and said Fuck it, I am going to publish anyway? You are doing a Bart, trying to sound clever at the cost of revealing that you are a very, very thick shit.
    Gosh what a reasoned response. Are you onto your second or third bottle yet? You really are the pub bore, ranting in the corner, revealing your complete and utter ignorance of every subject you offer an opinion on.
    Sorry, but you are thick. The moral question is, do I do something whose reasonably foreseeable consequence is the murder of an innocent third party? Neither my fondness for a glass of wine nor your parroting of quarter understood legal jargon alters the moral matrix one bit. Tough, but there it is.
    But, you just don't understand moral philosophy, or law. Perhaps you should try reading up on those subjects before opining on them.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781

    Ah, good ole August in the world of politics...

    "Cyclists may need number plates" - Daily Mail front page.


    And restricted to 20 mph
    If I slow down to 20 (the speed limit) in Edinburgh I get overtaken by cars doing 40mph.

  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781

    dixiedean said:

    Rather than Pinochet v Chavez I'm more interested in energy prices.

    No one cares about going cold or hungry this winter, the voters are all up in arms about Jerry Sadowitz being cancelled at the Fringe.
    Maybe I am naive but I have never heard of Jerry Sadowitz and I really could not care less
    You’d love him, Big G.
    Strongly recommend you get your hands on a DVD or similar. He’s right up your street.
    I just could not be bothered nor interested
    Don't, they are taking the piss.

    It's an interesting free speech case though.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    How nice that we're a fine democracy who only ally with good guys...

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/16/saudi-woman-given-34-year-prison-sentence-for-using-twitter
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    DavidL said:

    Ah, good ole August in the world of politics...

    "Cyclists may need number plates" - Daily Mail front page.


    And restricted to 20 mph
    And taken out by snipers when they drive 2 or more abreast on the carriageway.
    On a serious note, this is actually safer. It forces cars to use the whole opposite lane and, crucially, gives them more forward space to complete the overtake.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez
    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    Hitler v Stalin is actually quite hard

    Both are, to me, examples of pure evil

    Mao is another, likewise Pol Pot

    All brought catastrophe on their nations, and killed millions. Deliberately

    Perhaps Hitler's evil was of a uniquely Satanic kind, even worse than Stalin? But was it tho? The Holodomor was pretty out there, and the immense system of state torture under Stalin was bigger than anything Hitler did to the German people

    Tough call
    I guess Pol Pot is worst for the sheer lunacy of his government, and for the harm he did in such a short period of time (killing 25% of the population in three years).

    Hitler lost, and Stalin won. Had Hitler won, he would not have just wiped out the Jews, but about 60% of the slavs as well, save for those lucky enough either to be Germanised, or kept for slave labour.
    it is almost impossible to say. As soon as I think: Yep. Hitler was worse, I recall some barbarism by Stalin or Mao. Stalin arguably did multiple mini genocides. Moving entire nations. Hoping they would die. Mao was, at one stage, the only well fed human in China

    It is Satan versus Beelzebub versus Lucifer

    For all the horrors of the 21st century, and it is off to a rocky start, it has nothing to match Stalin. Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot

    Yet
    The 19th century had such horrors as The Heavenly King, King Leopold of the Belgians, and Ranavalona I.
    Ranavalona is one of my favourite historical personages EVER


    Sure she was a batcrap crazy Mrs Caligula on Ket, but she used to choose the most handsome black African manservant in her palace and then get him to publicly trim her pubic hair WITH HIS TEETH

    Also she asked her aides to design a huge pair of three mile wide scissors that could cut enemy armies in two,

    Madagascar is full of mad shit like this. Fantastic country. Horribly poor. Lemurs are tremendously cool
  • Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    Ah, good ole August in the world of politics...

    "Cyclists may need number plates" - Daily Mail front page.


    And restricted to 20 mph
    And taken out by snipers when they drive 2 or more abreast on the carriageway.
    On a serious note, this is actually safer. It forces cars to use the whole opposite lane and, crucially, gives them more forward space to complete the overtake.
    And it gets them off the pavement.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    pm215 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Number plates for cyclists is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

    Apparently Grant Shapps is behind it.

    Excellent plan. Helps reduce bicycle theft, and identify rogue cyclists who spoil the scene for all the normal cyclists. They'll get me voting Tory at this rate. What seems to be the problem?
    The problem I think is that any (even minor) obstacle to people cycling means in practice fewer people getting a bit of exercise, more traffic congestion, and more car pollution. Plus it's going to cost civil service and government time to set up, money to implement, money to enforce, and it doesn't really get you much of a payback to justify that.
    Yes, looking at the time and expenses for the purported gain, versus the likely impact even of minor obstacles as you say, is it really worthy it? Dr Palmer's view is very...government in seeing an ideal scheme outcome, when let's face it the track record of implementing additional bureaucracies?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,768
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    But they're not Woke, they're led by Sleepy Joe.
    OMG they really are Woke, and even when they are not they are like @kinabalu or @Foxy - they are too myopic and complacent to stop Wokeness, because they still naively think it is the same game of social justice that was played in the 80 and 90s, it just occasionally goes "a bit far into silliness"

    Woke is really not silly. It is cultural Marxism turned into an eerie new religion. It is powerful and growing. It is destroying America from the inside out, beginning with the universities but now infesting everything over time. It is a species of rot. It will be the end of the West and the Enlightenment if it is not checked

    I get that most people on here completely disagree with me, but this is my honest appraisal. I fear for us all
    There is something destroying America from the inside out:
    Guns having more rights than women
    Cletus the Fetus having more rights than the mother. Until its born. Then it has no rights
    Women heading towards a travel ban in case they are trying to obtain an out-of-Gilead abortion
    Elections still legal for Demtards and non-American races but with only one polling both for half a million people who cares as their votes either won't be cast or counted
    Etc etc etc.

    Shitkicker states in America are turning into Gilead right before our eyes. And seemingly you'd rather have that than north of the Mason-Dixon-Sanity line because "woke".

    You really need to drink more.
    As I said the other day, America faces a truly terrible choice between the religious freaks on the right, and the Cultural Marxists on the left

    I'D RATHER NOT HAVE THAT CHOICE, PERSONALLY

    But if forced, I'd go for the freaks as I think there is a better chance of a potent, credible, coherent America emerging from the inevitable rubble. It's a bit like Chile probably benefiting from Pinochet if the alternative is/was a form of Chavez

    The most rightwing people I know are Venezuelans
    Credible.
    Unless you are a woman
    Unless you are gay
    Unless you are non-white
    Unless you don't fly the (Confederate) flag

    Nothing about the theocratic women-hating hell that is developing in southern America is credible. And as a man with your own womenfolk, I'm surprised you are cheering on the people who think that should your daughters live within their ministrations should have less rights than a rifle.

    Woke is not saying that women should let the man rape them. And then deny them abortion. And then deny them rights to basic human freedoms. Yet if you listen to these fundamentalist GOPper shitkickers thats all they talk about needing to introduce.
    I think the overturning of Roe v Wade is ugly and foolish at best, and appalling at worst - ie if it leads to blanket bans on all abortions across multiple states. That way lies human misery for many

    However, I can see the religious reasons for opposing abortion, and I recognise that they are sincere. And often espoused by women, let it be noted. Moreover, I don't yet see evidence that this decision (much as I dislike it) is "turning America into Gilead"

    It's interesting how you don't extend the same courtesy of sincerity to Islamic fundamentalists.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    ....


  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    Silly boy.
    Remember Leon droning on about Remainers trying to overturn the EU ref result but in vomit inducing hypocrisy is backing Trump who sent a mob to storm Congress and who wanted to overturn the US election .
    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
    From a British perspective, Trump was the most benign President since Reagan, if not before.
    Where British = Russian.

    Trump undermined Britain's alliances like NATO, friends like Ukraine whom he tried to shaft by tying aid to digging up dirt on his opponents etc.

    I can see why your mate Vlad likes Trump. Britain, not so much. Worst President of my life by far from a British perspective.
    I don't think there's any empirical measure by which your argument stacks up. Trump did not oblige Britain to enter any conflicts to shed treasure (or worse, blood) in so doing. He didn't seek to chide us or interfere with our domestic politics. He didn't oblige us to sanction anyone and force our biggest companies to divest their assets. He didn't sanction the pillage our companies in the manner of Standard Chartered or BP. He even made positive noises about a trade deal. I happen to think his proposed trade deal would have been bad for us and good for America, but I can't add that to the negative pile because it never happened. It was a brief, peaceful interregnum.
    "Peace" isn't a good thing if that peace is achieved by surrender.

    Your argument is no different to the argument of Ishmael that we shouldn't have women wearing short skirts as it might provoke rape, we shouldn't publish literature as it might provoke torture etc

    You want "peace" by surrendering to Putin etc. No thank you.
    Don't be such an utterly insufferable fucking prick. Nothing I said is analogous or reduces to the short skirt point, and your utterly moronic position is that the right to free speech always and everywhere overrides the right of Jews not to be tortured to death. If you don't understand that ask a grown up to read the previous thread and confirm it to you.
    Plenty of grown ups read the previous thread and they almost all confirmed that your moral compass is broken.

    Jews should not be tortured to death and if any are that is the responsibility of the torturers and those who aid and abet them, not those who sell short skirts or publish novels.
    You are a twat. You really are. It is like dealing with self righteous, very small children. You tell them that global warming is Very Bad, and then you ask them stuff like, would it be OK for ed the eskimo to burn some coal if his solar panels had broken down and his six children would be frozen to death. Oh no, miss, they say, global warming is Really Bad. You are the same: too irretrievaby dim to recognise competing rights and competing goods, including the right not to be tortured to death.

    Really stupid. I am not saying that to goad or insult, but because it is true. Taz level stupid.

    And I can't help noticing both the Bataclan and anne Frank examples, the ethnicity of the people about whom you self rghteously give not a fuck.
    I never said to say where Anne Frank is, indeed I made a point about not abetting crimes, so the problem isn't that I'm missing the competing rights its that you're too irredeemably thick that you think you've got a good point even after its been answered.

    Abetting a crime = bad.
    Publishing a novel/cartoon etc = not bad.

    Not a single person has died due to a cartoon or novel. If they've died, they've died due to the actions of criminals, criminals who quite probably could and would have found something else objectionable if not a particular novel or cartoon. Your surrender view doesn't work until we've surrendered everything so that we're like the Taliban, and probably not even then either.
    Dem 4 by 2s, eh?

    Idiot cunnig at work: you think your chat about "abetting a crime" obscures the question of whether something causes something to happen vs not happen. You are thick first for thinking that is an argument, secondly because a reasonably bright cockroach would see what you are up to, and thirdly because you think legal technicalities are a good area for a fuckwitted layman to try to get the better of an actual lawyer.
    I'm sure that the mere fact of one's being born causes some things to happen that would not otherwise have happened. However, what interests lawyers and ethicists is the issue of proximate causes.

    The proximate cause of the murder of Jews is that a group of loons freely and voluntarily decided to murder them. It is not that a third party chose to publish a cartoon that said loons did not like. Other people might have been liable too, if they encouraged the loons to murder the Jews, or if they told the loons where they could find Jews to murder (your Anne Frank/mad axeman example). The first is incitement, the second is abetting. The cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo are guilty of neither.

    If as you imply, you are a lawyer, you ought to understand this. No court is going to hold Charlie Hebdo liable for the acts of the murderous loons.
    Oooh, "proximate cause." So fucking what? Moral responsibility asks, would this have happened but for my actions? Was it reasonably foreseeable to me? Am I therefore at fault if I went ahead and said Fuck it, I am going to publish anyway? You are doing a Bart, trying to sound clever at the cost of revealing that you are a very, very thick shit.
    Gosh what a reasoned response. Are you onto your second or third bottle yet? You really are the pub bore, ranting in the corner, revealing your complete and utter ignorance of every subject you offer an opinion on.
    Sorry, but you are thick. The moral question is, do I do something whose reasonably foreseeable consequence is the murder of an innocent third party? Neither my fondness for a glass of wine nor your parroting of quarter understood legal jargon alters the moral matrix one bit. Tough, but there it is.
    But, you just don't understand moral philosophy, or law. Perhaps you should try reading up on those subjects before opining on them.
    Utter fail. You don't even understand the difference between the two if you think one reduces to the other, and that Should I do this? and Would a court convict me of this? are the same question. And I have a first from Oxford in one, and an entry on the roll of solicitors for the other. I wouldn't normally advance either of those facts as evidence of anything, but as you are incapable of grasping the underlying arguments we gotta go meta here.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,768

    ping said:

    https://twitter.com/1goodtern/status/1559519407742885890?s=21&t=uPXQpSpBFEv1ODJGoJO6Nw

    I'm a trustee of a charity whose electricity bill will rise from
    £8k in 2019
    to
    £50k in 2023.

    We're screwed.
    This country, I mean.

    You know what this means for businesses, charities, homeowners, industry, hospitals, schools?

    Everything will *collapse*.

    It’s gonna be bad.
    Resilience. Britain has largely chosen not to have it.

    And a bit like Johnson with Covid, Truss gives the impression of not wanting to intervene. Even if that's a good instinct, it runs the risk of delaying necessary action, so it ends up worse than it needs to be.
    Clegg said in 2010 that there is no point building new nuke capacity in UK as it would not be available until 2022.

    And then Facebook made him the company's No 2.

    Sell Facebook.

    Clegg is not the number two at Facebook.
  • pm215 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Number plates for cyclists is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

    Apparently Grant Shapps is behind it.

    Excellent plan. Helps reduce bicycle theft, and identify rogue cyclists who spoil the scene for all the normal cyclists. They'll get me voting Tory at this rate. What seems to be the problem?
    The problem I think is that any (even minor) obstacle to people cycling means in practice fewer people getting a bit of exercise, more traffic congestion, and more car pollution. Plus it's going to cost civil service and government time to set up, money to implement, money to enforce, and it doesn't really get you much of a payback to justify that.
    As the government recently said;
    https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/585474

    The Government considers that the costs of a formal registration system for cycle ownership would outweigh the benefits. The safety case for such a system is not as strong as that for drivers since, by contrast with motorised vehicles, cycles involved in collisions on the highway are highly unlikely to cause serious injury to other road users.

    Cycling provides clear benefits, both for those cycling (particularly in terms of health) and for wider society (tackling congestion, reducing CO2 emissions and improved air quality). The introduction of a licensing system would significantly reduce these benefits, especially over the short term. Over the long term, it would deny children and young adults from enjoying the mobility and health benefits cycling brings until they were old enough to pass a formal test.


    But Boris didn't really carry the party with him when he tried to do stuff for cycling/walking/scooting. Not what Proper Tories do, and it annoys drivers in general and taxi drivers in particular.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    carnforth said:

    Number plates for pedestrians. Shifty lot, need to root out the bad ones. A number plate on every bum!

    I assume to prevent people forgetting it will need to be physically imprinted. Won't that require everyone to wear assless chaps?

    Some of us are already prepared, but even so.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    But they're not Woke, they're led by Sleepy Joe.
    OMG they really are Woke, and even when they are not they are like @kinabalu or @Foxy - they are too myopic and complacent to stop Wokeness, because they still naively think it is the same game of social justice that was played in the 80 and 90s, it just occasionally goes "a bit far into silliness"

    Woke is really not silly. It is cultural Marxism turned into an eerie new religion. It is powerful and growing. It is destroying America from the inside out, beginning with the universities but now infesting everything over time. It is a species of rot. It will be the end of the West and the Enlightenment if it is not checked

    I get that most people on here completely disagree with me, but this is my honest appraisal. I fear for us all
    There is something destroying America from the inside out:
    Guns having more rights than women
    Cletus the Fetus having more rights than the mother. Until its born. Then it has no rights
    Women heading towards a travel ban in case they are trying to obtain an out-of-Gilead abortion
    Elections still legal for Demtards and non-American races but with only one polling both for half a million people who cares as their votes either won't be cast or counted
    Etc etc etc.

    Shitkicker states in America are turning into Gilead right before our eyes. And seemingly you'd rather have that than north of the Mason-Dixon-Sanity line because "woke".

    You really need to drink more.
    As I said the other day, America faces a truly terrible choice between the religious freaks on the right, and the Cultural Marxists on the left

    I'D RATHER NOT HAVE THAT CHOICE, PERSONALLY

    But if forced, I'd go for the freaks as I think there is a better chance of a potent, credible, coherent America emerging from the inevitable rubble. It's a bit like Chile probably benefiting from Pinochet if the alternative is/was a form of Chavez

    The most rightwing people I know are Venezuelans
    Credible.
    Unless you are a woman
    Unless you are gay
    Unless you are non-white
    Unless you don't fly the (Confederate) flag

    Nothing about the theocratic women-hating hell that is developing in southern America is credible. And as a man with your own womenfolk, I'm surprised you are cheering on the people who think that should your daughters live within their ministrations should have less rights than a rifle.

    Woke is not saying that women should let the man rape them. And then deny them abortion. And then deny them rights to basic human freedoms. Yet if you listen to these fundamentalist GOPper shitkickers thats all they talk about needing to introduce.
    I think the overturning of Roe v Wade is ugly and foolish at best, and appalling at worst - ie if it leads to blanket bans on all abortions across multiple states. That way lies human misery for many

    However, I can see the religious reasons for opposing abortion, and I recognise that they are sincere. And often espoused by women, let it be noted. Moreover, I don't yet see evidence that this decision (much as I dislike it) is "turning America into Gilead"

    It's interesting how you don't extend the same courtesy of sincerity to Islamic fundamentalists.
    In most of the Middle East and North Africa abortion is already prohibited with a few exceptions
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 3,054
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez
    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    Hitler v Stalin is actually quite hard

    Both are, to me, examples of pure evil

    Mao is another, likewise Pol Pot

    All brought catastrophe on their nations, and killed millions. Deliberately

    Perhaps Hitler's evil was of a uniquely Satanic kind, even worse than Stalin? But was it tho? The Holodomor was pretty out there, and the immense system of state torture under Stalin was bigger than anything Hitler did to the German people

    Tough call
    I guess Pol Pot is worst for the sheer lunacy of his government, and for the harm he did in such a short period of time (killing 25% of the population in three years).

    Hitler lost, and Stalin won. Had Hitler won, he would not have just wiped out the Jews, but about 60% of the slavs as well, save for those lucky enough either to be Germanised, or kept for slave labour.
    it is almost impossible to say. As soon as I think: Yep. Hitler was worse, I recall some barbarism by Stalin or Mao. Stalin arguably did multiple mini genocides. Moving entire nations. Hoping they would die. Mao was, at one stage, the only well fed human in China

    It is Satan versus Beelzebub versus Lucifer

    For all the horrors of the 21st century, and it is off to a rocky start, it has nothing to match Stalin. Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot

    Yet
    The 19th century had such horrors as The Heavenly King, King Leopold of the Belgians, and Ranavalona I.
    Ranavalona is one of my favourite historical personages EVER


    Sure she was a batcrap crazy Mrs Caligula on Ket, but she used to choose the most handsome black African manservant in her palace and then get him to publicly trim her pubic hair WITH HIS TEETH

    Also she asked her aides to design a huge pair of three mile wide scissors that could cut enemy armies in two,

    Madagascar is full of mad shit like this. Fantastic country. Horribly poor. Lemurs are tremendously cool
    Cyril Connolly was obsessed with Lemurs. His book of aphorisms, The Unquiet Grave, is sprinkled throughout with entirely out-of-place pet lemur observations.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    pm215 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Number plates for cyclists is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

    Apparently Grant Shapps is behind it.

    Excellent plan. Helps reduce bicycle theft, and identify rogue cyclists who spoil the scene for all the normal cyclists. They'll get me voting Tory at this rate. What seems to be the problem?
    The problem I think is that any (even minor) obstacle to people cycling means in practice fewer people getting a bit of exercise, more traffic congestion, and more car pollution. Plus it's going to cost civil service and government time to set up, money to implement, money to enforce, and it doesn't really get you much of a payback to justify that.
    As the government recently said;
    https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/585474

    The Government considers that the costs of a formal registration system for cycle ownership would outweigh the benefits. The safety case for such a system is not as strong as that for drivers since, by contrast with motorised vehicles, cycles involved in collisions on the highway are highly unlikely to cause serious injury to other road users.

    Cycling provides clear benefits, both for those cycling (particularly in terms of health) and for wider society (tackling congestion, reducing CO2 emissions and improved air quality). The introduction of a licensing system would significantly reduce these benefits, especially over the short term. Over the long term, it would deny children and young adults from enjoying the mobility and health benefits cycling brings until they were old enough to pass a formal test.


    But Boris didn't really carry the party with him when he tried to do stuff for cycling/walking/scooting. Not what Proper Tories do, and it annoys drivers in general and taxi drivers in particular.
    Oh god, we're already seeing an area where Boris would have been better?!
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,768

    ydoethur said:

    https://twitter.com/1goodtern/status/1559519407742885890?s=21&t=uPXQpSpBFEv1ODJGoJO6Nw

    I'm a trustee of a charity whose electricity bill will rise from
    £8k in 2019
    to
    £50k in 2023.

    We're screwed.
    This country, I mean.

    You know what this means for businesses, charities, homeowners, industry, hospitals, schools?

    Everything will *collapse*.

    Whose idiotic idea was the 'dash for gas?'
    If we were self-sufficient or a net exporter of gas as we were until 2003 we'd be in a fantastic position right now.

    Whose idiotic idea was it to stop dashing for gas before we had alternatives in place?
    1. We burnt the easy to extract North Sea Reserves
    2. We didn't really profit as a nation as the Norwegians did because a big capitalist Investment Fund is obvious communism vs giving the rights away for a quick profit now
    3. We had alternatives in place. Pipe it from the middle east (sodding Taliban turncoats screwed that up), or from Russia (sodding Putin), or from dunno
    We burnt the easiest to extract Reserves but there's still viable reserves which end up tied up in planning problems and held up for years by eco-zealots that seem to think that burning Putin's gas is better than burning our own.
    Weren't a number of the eco-zealots funded from Russia? A good investment by Gazprom.
    Yes: Russian policy has been to fund politicians and special interest groups opposed to fracking. They have successfully managed to get fracking bans in half a dozen countries in Europe, including some with very attractive tight gas formations.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Foxy said:

    Sean_F said:

    The age of the enlightenment was also a time of some terrible abuses in British working practices. Four and five-year-old children were working in the mills and in the mines; working in conditions which threatened their lives.

    It was. The point is, things gradually got better, both then and subsequently.

    Without the Enlightenment, we'd be living in a world where about 5% of the population could vote, few would see anything problematic with child labour, and where our idea of fun would be popping down to Bedlam to torment the lunatics, visiting the local child brothel, or watching someone getting hanged, drawn and quartered.
    Yes, being Woke is just the Enlightenment continuing.
    Messy though. The screeching of so many foghorn entitled male white voices as they cling to privilege is quite painful on the ears.
    Strange how it takes one, it’s mainly a high pitched whine for me.
    Surprised you can hear anything above the endless, infantile mewling of the Scot Nits for their precious 2nd referendum, which they are never getting
    Oh they are getting it. It might be 2 years or it might be 20 years, but it will happen even if it is once in a generation. However the more stubborn and offensive to Scotland the UK government is the more likely the Nats will win which is why the Tories attitude is so stupid because it drive Scotland away.
    No, if you give the Nats an indyref every 5 minutes when they demand one then that is what eventually will see them get their way
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    carnforth said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez
    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    Hitler v Stalin is actually quite hard

    Both are, to me, examples of pure evil

    Mao is another, likewise Pol Pot

    All brought catastrophe on their nations, and killed millions. Deliberately

    Perhaps Hitler's evil was of a uniquely Satanic kind, even worse than Stalin? But was it tho? The Holodomor was pretty out there, and the immense system of state torture under Stalin was bigger than anything Hitler did to the German people

    Tough call
    I guess Pol Pot is worst for the sheer lunacy of his government, and for the harm he did in such a short period of time (killing 25% of the population in three years).

    Hitler lost, and Stalin won. Had Hitler won, he would not have just wiped out the Jews, but about 60% of the slavs as well, save for those lucky enough either to be Germanised, or kept for slave labour.
    it is almost impossible to say. As soon as I think: Yep. Hitler was worse, I recall some barbarism by Stalin or Mao. Stalin arguably did multiple mini genocides. Moving entire nations. Hoping they would die. Mao was, at one stage, the only well fed human in China

    It is Satan versus Beelzebub versus Lucifer

    For all the horrors of the 21st century, and it is off to a rocky start, it has nothing to match Stalin. Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot

    Yet
    The 19th century had such horrors as The Heavenly King, King Leopold of the Belgians, and Ranavalona I.
    Ranavalona is one of my favourite historical personages EVER


    Sure she was a batcrap crazy Mrs Caligula on Ket, but she used to choose the most handsome black African manservant in her palace and then get him to publicly trim her pubic hair WITH HIS TEETH

    Also she asked her aides to design a huge pair of three mile wide scissors that could cut enemy armies in two,

    Madagascar is full of mad shit like this. Fantastic country. Horribly poor. Lemurs are tremendously cool
    Cyril Connolly was obsessed with Lemurs. His book of aphorisms, The Unquiet Grave, is sprinkled throughout with entirely out-of-place pet lemur observations.
    In fairness have you ever attempted to keep you lemur observations in place? Opportunities are few and far between.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    But they're not Woke, they're led by Sleepy Joe.
    OMG they really are Woke, and even when they are not they are like @kinabalu or @Foxy - they are too myopic and complacent to stop Wokeness, because they still naively think it is the same game of social justice that was played in the 80 and 90s, it just occasionally goes "a bit far into silliness"

    Woke is really not silly. It is cultural Marxism turned into an eerie new religion. It is powerful and growing. It is destroying America from the inside out, beginning with the universities but now infesting everything over time. It is a species of rot. It will be the end of the West and the Enlightenment if it is not checked

    I get that most people on here completely disagree with me, but this is my honest appraisal. I fear for us all
    There is something destroying America from the inside out:
    Guns having more rights than women
    Cletus the Fetus having more rights than the mother. Until its born. Then it has no rights
    Women heading towards a travel ban in case they are trying to obtain an out-of-Gilead abortion
    Elections still legal for Demtards and non-American races but with only one polling both for half a million people who cares as their votes either won't be cast or counted
    Etc etc etc.

    Shitkicker states in America are turning into Gilead right before our eyes. And seemingly you'd rather have that than north of the Mason-Dixon-Sanity line because "woke".

    You really need to drink more.
    As I said the other day, America faces a truly terrible choice between the religious freaks on the right, and the Cultural Marxists on the left

    I'D RATHER NOT HAVE THAT CHOICE, PERSONALLY

    But if forced, I'd go for the freaks as I think there is a better chance of a potent, credible, coherent America emerging from the inevitable rubble. It's a bit like Chile probably benefiting from Pinochet if the alternative is/was a form of Chavez

    The most rightwing people I know are Venezuelans
    Credible.
    Unless you are a woman
    Unless you are gay
    Unless you are non-white
    Unless you don't fly the (Confederate) flag

    Nothing about the theocratic women-hating hell that is developing in southern America is credible. And as a man with your own womenfolk, I'm surprised you are cheering on the people who think that should your daughters live within their ministrations should have less rights than a rifle.

    Woke is not saying that women should let the man rape them. And then deny them abortion. And then deny them rights to basic human freedoms. Yet if you listen to these fundamentalist GOPper shitkickers thats all they talk about needing to introduce.
    I think the overturning of Roe v Wade is ugly and foolish at best, and appalling at worst - ie if it leads to blanket bans on all abortions across multiple states. That way lies human misery for many

    However, I can see the religious reasons for opposing abortion, and I recognise that they are sincere. And often espoused by women, let it be noted. Moreover, I don't yet see evidence that this decision (much as I dislike it) is "turning America into Gilead"

    It's interesting how you don't extend the same courtesy of sincerity to Islamic fundamentalists.
    Probs because the American religious nuts are not actively trying to kill me, as a kaffir westerner
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    kle4 said:

    pm215 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Number plates for cyclists is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

    Apparently Grant Shapps is behind it.

    Excellent plan. Helps reduce bicycle theft, and identify rogue cyclists who spoil the scene for all the normal cyclists. They'll get me voting Tory at this rate. What seems to be the problem?
    The problem I think is that any (even minor) obstacle to people cycling means in practice fewer people getting a bit of exercise, more traffic congestion, and more car pollution. Plus it's going to cost civil service and government time to set up, money to implement, money to enforce, and it doesn't really get you much of a payback to justify that.
    As the government recently said;
    https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/585474

    The Government considers that the costs of a formal registration system for cycle ownership would outweigh the benefits. The safety case for such a system is not as strong as that for drivers since, by contrast with motorised vehicles, cycles involved in collisions on the highway are highly unlikely to cause serious injury to other road users.

    Cycling provides clear benefits, both for those cycling (particularly in terms of health) and for wider society (tackling congestion, reducing CO2 emissions and improved air quality). The introduction of a licensing system would significantly reduce these benefits, especially over the short term. Over the long term, it would deny children and young adults from enjoying the mobility and health benefits cycling brings until they were old enough to pass a formal test.


    But Boris didn't really carry the party with him when he tried to do stuff for cycling/walking/scooting. Not what Proper Tories do, and it annoys drivers in general and taxi drivers in particular.
    Oh god, we're already seeing an area where Boris would have been better?!
    Oh no.

    Yup, I'd prefer Boris back.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    But they're not Woke, they're led by Sleepy Joe.
    OMG they really are Woke, and even when they are not they are like @kinabalu or @Foxy - they are too myopic and complacent to stop Wokeness, because they still naively think it is the same game of social justice that was played in the 80 and 90s, it just occasionally goes "a bit far into silliness"

    Woke is really not silly. It is cultural Marxism turned into an eerie new religion. It is powerful and growing. It is destroying America from the inside out, beginning with the universities but now infesting everything over time. It is a species of rot. It will be the end of the West and the Enlightenment if it is not checked

    I get that most people on here completely disagree with me, but this is my honest appraisal. I fear for us all
    There is something destroying America from the inside out:
    Guns having more rights than women
    Cletus the Fetus having more rights than the mother. Until its born. Then it has no rights
    Women heading towards a travel ban in case they are trying to obtain an out-of-Gilead abortion
    Elections still legal for Demtards and non-American races but with only one polling both for half a million people who cares as their votes either won't be cast or counted
    Etc etc etc.

    Shitkicker states in America are turning into Gilead right before our eyes. And seemingly you'd rather have that than north of the Mason-Dixon-Sanity line because "woke".

    You really need to drink more.
    As I said the other day, America faces a truly terrible choice between the religious freaks on the right, and the Cultural Marxists on the left

    I'D RATHER NOT HAVE THAT CHOICE, PERSONALLY

    But if forced, I'd go for the freaks as I think there is a better chance of a potent, credible, coherent America emerging from the inevitable rubble. It's a bit like Chile probably benefiting from Pinochet if the alternative is/was a form of Chavez

    The most rightwing people I know are Venezuelans
    Credible.
    Unless you are a woman
    Unless you are gay
    Unless you are non-white
    Unless you don't fly the (Confederate) flag

    Nothing about the theocratic women-hating hell that is developing in southern America is credible. And as a man with your own womenfolk, I'm surprised you are cheering on the people who think that should your daughters live within their ministrations should have less rights than a rifle.

    Woke is not saying that women should let the man rape them. And then deny them abortion. And then deny them rights to basic human freedoms. Yet if you listen to these fundamentalist GOPper shitkickers thats all they talk about needing to introduce.
    I think the overturning of Roe v Wade is ugly and foolish at best, and appalling at worst - ie if it leads to blanket bans on all abortions across multiple states. That way lies human misery for many

    However, I can see the religious reasons for opposing abortion, and I recognise that they are sincere. And often espoused by women, let it be noted. Moreover, I don't yet see evidence that this decision (much as I dislike it) is "turning America into Gilead"

    It's interesting how you don't extend the same courtesy of sincerity to Islamic fundamentalists.
    Probs because the American religious nuts are not actively trying to kill me, as a kaffir westerner
    They are coming for others though, if not as widely as Islamic fundamentalists.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    Pippa Crerar has hit the ground running in new job of Guardian pol ed.

  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092

    Turkey has apparently launched a military operation in Syria.

    Is it another special one?

  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    edited August 2022
    Interesting thing with James Cook being called a traitor outside the Tory hustings.

    There have always been a few blood and soil nationalists hovering around (indeed, we have a migratory visitor ourselves here on PB), but with the rather sensible, reasonable Sturgeon at the helm, they don't really matter.

    It's critically important Sturgeon fills the indy hole though, cos these guys will start to infest the indy narrative if she doesn't.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,768
    Nigelb said:

    Little Marco….

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3603940-demings-up-by-4-points-in-challenge-to-rubio-poll/
    …Rep. Val Demings (D) leads Sen. Marco Rubio (R) by 4 percentage points in Florida’s Senate race, according to a poll released Tuesday.
    The poll, released by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab, shows Demings with the support of 48 percent of surveyed registered voters who said they would vote in the midterms.
    Rubio, in comparison, received 44 percent support, while 7 percent said they would choose someone else...

    There are an awful lot of "long shots" for the Dems this time around.

    Republicans have three realistic potential pick-ups:

    - Georgia
    - Arizona
    - Nevada

    And one and a half long-shots:

    - New Hampshire
    - Colorado

    But they are at risk in:

    - Pennsylvania
    - Ohio
    - Wisconsin
    - North Carolina
    and maybe even
    - Florida

    (And maybe Utah, albeit not to the Dems.)

    If Arizona is safe for the Dems (and Kelly is running up ten point leads), and Pennsylvania is a Dem gain, then there's a pretty narrow path to a Senate majority for the Republicans. They basically have to flip both Georgia and Nevada, and win everywhere else.
  • pm215 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Number plates for cyclists is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

    Apparently Grant Shapps is behind it.

    Excellent plan. Helps reduce bicycle theft, and identify rogue cyclists who spoil the scene for all the normal cyclists. They'll get me voting Tory at this rate. What seems to be the problem?
    The problem I think is that any (even minor) obstacle to people cycling means in practice fewer people getting a bit of exercise, more traffic congestion, and more car pollution. Plus it's going to cost civil service and government time to set up, money to implement, money to enforce, and it doesn't really get you much of a payback to justify that.
    As the government recently said;
    https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/585474

    The Government considers that the costs of a formal registration system for cycle ownership would outweigh the benefits. The safety case for such a system is not as strong as that for drivers since, by contrast with motorised vehicles, cycles involved in collisions on the highway are highly unlikely to cause serious injury to other road users.

    Cycling provides clear benefits, both for those cycling (particularly in terms of health) and for wider society (tackling congestion, reducing CO2 emissions and improved air quality). The introduction of a licensing system would significantly reduce these benefits, especially over the short term. Over the long term, it would deny children and young adults from enjoying the mobility and health benefits cycling brings until they were old enough to pass a formal test.


    But Boris didn't really carry the party with him when he tried to do stuff for cycling/walking/scooting. Not what Proper Tories do, and it annoys drivers in general and taxi drivers in particular.
    A quick google shows that the only countries that require registration of cycles are Japan and Switzerland. And there it for prevention (or detection) of theft rather than road safety reasons. It does seem rather OTT to me.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    But they're not Woke, they're led by Sleepy Joe.
    OMG they really are Woke, and even when they are not they are like @kinabalu or @Foxy - they are too myopic and complacent to stop Wokeness, because they still naively think it is the same game of social justice that was played in the 80 and 90s, it just occasionally goes "a bit far into silliness"

    Woke is really not silly. It is cultural Marxism turned into an eerie new religion. It is powerful and growing. It is destroying America from the inside out, beginning with the universities but now infesting everything over time. It is a species of rot. It will be the end of the West and the Enlightenment if it is not checked

    I get that most people on here completely disagree with me, but this is my honest appraisal. I fear for us all
    There is something destroying America from the inside out:
    Guns having more rights than women
    Cletus the Fetus having more rights than the mother. Until its born. Then it has no rights
    Women heading towards a travel ban in case they are trying to obtain an out-of-Gilead abortion
    Elections still legal for Demtards and non-American races but with only one polling both for half a million people who cares as their votes either won't be cast or counted
    Etc etc etc.

    Shitkicker states in America are turning into Gilead right before our eyes. And seemingly you'd rather have that than north of the Mason-Dixon-Sanity line because "woke".

    You really need to drink more.
    As I said the other day, America faces a truly terrible choice between the religious freaks on the right, and the Cultural Marxists on the left

    I'D RATHER NOT HAVE THAT CHOICE, PERSONALLY

    But if forced, I'd go for the freaks as I think there is a better chance of a potent, credible, coherent America emerging from the inevitable rubble. It's a bit like Chile probably benefiting from Pinochet if the alternative is/was a form of Chavez

    The most rightwing people I know are Venezuelans
    Credible.
    Unless you are a woman
    Unless you are gay
    Unless you are non-white
    Unless you don't fly the (Confederate) flag

    Nothing about the theocratic women-hating hell that is developing in southern America is credible. And as a man with your own womenfolk, I'm surprised you are cheering on the people who think that should your daughters live within their ministrations should have less rights than a rifle.

    Woke is not saying that women should let the man rape them. And then deny them abortion. And then deny them rights to basic human freedoms. Yet if you listen to these fundamentalist GOPper shitkickers thats all they talk about needing to introduce.
    I think the overturning of Roe v Wade is ugly and foolish at best, and appalling at worst - ie if it leads to blanket bans on all abortions across multiple states. That way lies human misery for many

    However, I can see the religious reasons for opposing abortion, and I recognise that they are sincere. And often espoused by women, let it be noted. Moreover, I don't yet see evidence that this decision (much as I dislike it) is "turning America into Gilead"

    It's interesting how you don't extend the same courtesy of sincerity to Islamic fundamentalists.
    Probs because the American religious nuts are not actively trying to kill me, as a kaffir westerner
    They are coming for others though, if not as widely as Islamic fundamentalists.
    Both are trying to convert, evangelicals to Christ, Islamic fundamentalists to Muhammad
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet but I wonder if those claiming Rushdie and the Charlie Hebdo team were culpable in their own deaths would extend that claim to the current death threats against JK Rowling for having the temerity to have an opinion on something contentious. If someone does decide to have a go at her life will they be equally sure that she bore some responsibility for the actions of her attacker in the way they claim for Rushdie?

    Who has made any such claim? it would be so outrageous that I think you need to link specifically to it.

    also is dear old Salman technically actually dead?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    carnforth said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez
    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    Hitler v Stalin is actually quite hard

    Both are, to me, examples of pure evil

    Mao is another, likewise Pol Pot

    All brought catastrophe on their nations, and killed millions. Deliberately

    Perhaps Hitler's evil was of a uniquely Satanic kind, even worse than Stalin? But was it tho? The Holodomor was pretty out there, and the immense system of state torture under Stalin was bigger than anything Hitler did to the German people

    Tough call
    I guess Pol Pot is worst for the sheer lunacy of his government, and for the harm he did in such a short period of time (killing 25% of the population in three years).

    Hitler lost, and Stalin won. Had Hitler won, he would not have just wiped out the Jews, but about 60% of the slavs as well, save for those lucky enough either to be Germanised, or kept for slave labour.
    it is almost impossible to say. As soon as I think: Yep. Hitler was worse, I recall some barbarism by Stalin or Mao. Stalin arguably did multiple mini genocides. Moving entire nations. Hoping they would die. Mao was, at one stage, the only well fed human in China

    It is Satan versus Beelzebub versus Lucifer

    For all the horrors of the 21st century, and it is off to a rocky start, it has nothing to match Stalin. Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot

    Yet
    The 19th century had such horrors as The Heavenly King, King Leopold of the Belgians, and Ranavalona I.
    Ranavalona is one of my favourite historical personages EVER


    Sure she was a batcrap crazy Mrs Caligula on Ket, but she used to choose the most handsome black African manservant in her palace and then get him to publicly trim her pubic hair WITH HIS TEETH

    Also she asked her aides to design a huge pair of three mile wide scissors that could cut enemy armies in two,

    Madagascar is full of mad shit like this. Fantastic country. Horribly poor. Lemurs are tremendously cool
    Cyril Connolly was obsessed with Lemurs. His book of aphorisms, The Unquiet Grave, is sprinkled throughout with entirely out-of-place pet lemur observations.
    In the wild in Madagascar they are superbly entertaining. In the southwest on a night safari I saw the smallest in the world


    "The pygmy mouse lemur is the smallest primate in the world. Its head and body are less than two and a half inches long, though its tail is a bit more than twice that length. These threatened nocturnal lemurs live in the dry forests of western Madagascar and rarely leave the forests' trees. Little is known of these rare primates."

    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/mouse-lemurs
  • rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    https://twitter.com/1goodtern/status/1559519407742885890?s=21&t=uPXQpSpBFEv1ODJGoJO6Nw

    I'm a trustee of a charity whose electricity bill will rise from
    £8k in 2019
    to
    £50k in 2023.

    We're screwed.
    This country, I mean.

    You know what this means for businesses, charities, homeowners, industry, hospitals, schools?

    Everything will *collapse*.

    It’s gonna be bad.
    Resilience. Britain has largely chosen not to have it.

    And a bit like Johnson with Covid, Truss gives the impression of not wanting to intervene. Even if that's a good instinct, it runs the risk of delaying necessary action, so it ends up worse than it needs to be.
    Clegg said in 2010 that there is no point building new nuke capacity in UK as it would not be available until 2022.

    And then Facebook made him the company's No 2.

    Sell Facebook.

    Clegg is not the number two at Facebook.
    But he is a shit.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet but I wonder if those claiming Rushdie and the Charlie Hebdo team were culpable in their own deaths would extend that claim to the current death threats against JK Rowling for having the temerity to have an opinion on something contentious. If someone does decide to have a go at her life will they be equally sure that she bore some responsibility for the actions of her attacker in the way they claim for Rushdie?

    Who has made any such claim? it would be so outrageous that I think you need to link specifically to it.

    also is dear old Salman technically actually dead?
    You have spent all day trying to claim the bore some culpability. It is to late to try and wriggle out of it now. Though you do have history of trying to rewrite what you have already stated.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,913
    edited August 2022
    (Late) Evening all!

    Just got back from riding the new Birmingham tram (ie. West Midlands Metro) extension to Edgbaston - via a return journey incorporating the rarely used rail route from Chesterfield to Sheffield via Barrow Hill and Woodhouse. Tipping it down when I got to Chesterfield at around 18.15 (12 minutes late, due to some flooding between there and Derby), but the rare train was only five minutes late (18.53 advertised), enabling me to get back to London on the 19.37 from Sheffield. Didn't get back to London until 21.40, and home until an hour ago!
  • OT. Sad to see Wolfgang Petersen has died. I was watching Das Boot only last night and Perfect Storm a couple of nights ago. RIP.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited August 2022
    538 is predicting the Democrats to win 50.3 seats (including the independents). Not much margin of error for the party.

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-forecast/senate
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787
    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    https://twitter.com/1goodtern/status/1559519407742885890?s=21&t=uPXQpSpBFEv1ODJGoJO6Nw

    I'm a trustee of a charity whose electricity bill will rise from
    £8k in 2019
    to
    £50k in 2023.

    We're screwed.
    This country, I mean.

    You know what this means for businesses, charities, homeowners, industry, hospitals, schools?

    Everything will *collapse*.

    It’s gonna be bad.
    Resilience. Britain has largely chosen not to have it.

    And a bit like Johnson with Covid, Truss gives the impression of not wanting to intervene. Even if that's a good instinct, it runs the risk of delaying necessary action, so it ends up worse than it needs to be.
    Clegg said in 2010 that there is no point building new nuke capacity in UK as it would not be available until 2022.

    And then Facebook made him the company's No 2.

    Sell Facebook.

    Clegg is not the number two at Facebook.
    Who is then? His promotion was presented by Zuckerberg as putting him on the same level as himself and Sheryl Sandberg, and now she's on the way out.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Little Marco….

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3603940-demings-up-by-4-points-in-challenge-to-rubio-poll/
    …Rep. Val Demings (D) leads Sen. Marco Rubio (R) by 4 percentage points in Florida’s Senate race, according to a poll released Tuesday.
    The poll, released by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab, shows Demings with the support of 48 percent of surveyed registered voters who said they would vote in the midterms.
    Rubio, in comparison, received 44 percent support, while 7 percent said they would choose someone else...

    There are an awful lot of "long shots" for the Dems this time around.

    Republicans have three realistic potential pick-ups:

    - Georgia
    - Arizona
    - Nevada

    And one and a half long-shots:

    - New Hampshire
    - Colorado

    But they are at risk in:

    - Pennsylvania
    - Ohio
    - Wisconsin
    - North Carolina
    and maybe even
    - Florida

    (And maybe Utah, albeit not to the Dems.)

    If Arizona is safe for the Dems (and Kelly is running up ten point leads), and Pennsylvania is a Dem gain, then there's a pretty narrow path to a Senate majority for the Republicans. They basically have to flip both Georgia and Nevada, and win everywhere else.
    Arizona is really not safe for the Dems

    "Arizona Governor Polls: Kari Lake Narrows the Lead, Trails Katie Hobbs By 1%"

    Lake is a genius, and I want to spank her. She has a pretty good chance

    https://crowdwisdom.live/us-politics/arizona-governor-race-2022-polls/
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    https://twitter.com/1goodtern/status/1559519407742885890?s=21&t=uPXQpSpBFEv1ODJGoJO6Nw

    I'm a trustee of a charity whose electricity bill will rise from
    £8k in 2019
    to
    £50k in 2023.

    We're screwed.
    This country, I mean.

    You know what this means for businesses, charities, homeowners, industry, hospitals, schools?

    Everything will *collapse*.

    It’s gonna be bad.
    Resilience. Britain has largely chosen not to have it.

    And a bit like Johnson with Covid, Truss gives the impression of not wanting to intervene. Even if that's a good instinct, it runs the risk of delaying necessary action, so it ends up worse than it needs to be.
    Clegg said in 2010 that there is no point building new nuke capacity in UK as it would not be available until 2022.

    And then Facebook made him the company's No 2.

    Sell Facebook.

    Clegg is not the number two at Facebook.
    But he is a shit.
    "Clegg is not the number two at Facebook."

    Oh, my mistake. It seems on the corporate website he is listed as third.

    I shall purge myself with some pineapple.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited August 2022
    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    ydoethur said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    But they're not Woke, they're led by Sleepy Joe.
    OMG they really are Woke, and even when they are not they are like @kinabalu or @Foxy - they are too myopic and complacent to stop Wokeness, because they still naively think it is the same game of social justice that was played in the 80 and 90s, it just occasionally goes "a bit far into silliness"

    Woke is really not silly. It is cultural Marxism turned into an eerie new religion. It is powerful and growing. It is destroying America from the inside out, beginning with the universities but now infesting everything over time. It is a species of rot. It will be the end of the West and the Enlightenment if it is not checked

    I get that most people on here completely disagree with me, but this is my honest appraisal. I fear for us all
    There is something destroying America from the inside out:
    Guns having more rights than women
    Cletus the Fetus having more rights than the mother. Until its born. Then it has no rights
    Women heading towards a travel ban in case they are trying to obtain an out-of-Gilead abortion
    Elections still legal for Demtards and non-American races but with only one polling both for half a million people who cares as their votes either won't be cast or counted
    Etc etc etc.

    Shitkicker states in America are turning into Gilead right before our eyes. And seemingly you'd rather have that than north of the Mason-Dixon-Sanity line because "woke".

    You really need to drink more.
    As I said the other day, America faces a truly terrible choice between the religious freaks on the right, and the Cultural Marxists on the left

    I'D RATHER NOT HAVE THAT CHOICE, PERSONALLY

    But if forced, I'd go for the freaks as I think there is a better chance of a potent, credible, coherent America emerging from the inevitable rubble. It's a bit like Chile probably benefiting from Pinochet if the alternative is/was a form of Chavez

    The most rightwing people I know are Venezuelans
    Credible.
    Unless you are a woman
    Unless you are gay
    Unless you are non-white
    Unless you don't fly the (Confederate) flag

    Nothing about the theocratic women-hating hell that is developing in southern America is credible. And as a man with your own womenfolk, I'm surprised you are cheering on the people who think that should your daughters live within their ministrations should have less rights than a rifle.

    Woke is not saying that women should let the man rape them. And then deny them abortion. And then deny them rights to basic human freedoms. Yet if you listen to these fundamentalist GOPper shitkickers thats all they talk about needing to introduce.
    I think the overturning of Roe v Wade is ugly and foolish at best, and appalling at worst - ie if it leads to blanket bans on all abortions across multiple states. That way lies human misery for many

    However, I can see the religious reasons for opposing abortion, and I recognise that they are sincere. And often espoused by women, let it be noted. Moreover, I don't yet see evidence that this decision (much as I dislike it) is "turning America into Gilead"

    It's interesting how you don't extend the same courtesy of sincerity to Islamic fundamentalists.
    Probs because the American religious nuts are not actively trying to kill me, as a kaffir westerner
    They are coming for others though, if not as widely as Islamic fundamentalists.
    Both are trying to convert, evangelicals to Christ, Islamic fundamentalists to Muhammad
    It was not the conversion part I had concerns about. Proselytising is secondary to imposing values.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,768
    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    Silly boy.
    Remember Leon droning on about Remainers trying to overturn the EU ref result but in vomit inducing hypocrisy is backing Trump who sent a mob to storm Congress and who wanted to overturn the US election .
    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
    Okay but you did say Trump 24 . Anyway good luck trying to find a non-religious -freak Republican.
    Yes, that is an issue

    De Santis is probably the best bet for Reps. Not obviously insane, and not entirely crazed about abortion

    https://eu.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2022/07/02/florida-governor-desantis-post-roe-abortion-debate-roe-v-wade/7770054001/
    DeSantis has been trying to walk a narrow path: he has to be crazy enough to appeal to Trump's base... but he also has to win the Governorship again.

    And Florida is that rare thing: a purple state where abortion rights are a big deal. And where the Republican legislature has passed a fairly blanket abortion ban.

    DeSantis courted the anti-abortion lobby, and is now trying to walk it back. As @HYUFD has pointed out, it is far from impossible that he loses in Florida in November... and if so, should he really be second favourite for the Republican nomination.
  • kle4 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Just trying to work out if it is better to have Trump or the Woke, sorry, Pinochet or Chavez
    So I had a look at Venezuela's economy. OMFG. I had no idea

    Their GDP per capita went from around $12,000 in 2010 to $1,900 now


    https://www.statista.com/statistics/371876/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-venezuela/


    It is better to have Pinochet than Chavez

    Just trying to work out whether it is better to have Hitler or Stalin.

    Answer: choose FDR or Churchill.
    Hitler v Stalin is the choice between a sadistic savage and a mafia boss. The latter is slightly preferable to the former. Like choosing between Morgoth and Sauron.
    Hitler v Stalin is actually quite hard

    Both are, to me, examples of pure evil

    Mao is another, likewise Pol Pot

    All brought catastrophe on their nations, and killed millions. Deliberately

    Perhaps Hitler's evil was of a uniquely Satanic kind, even worse than Stalin? But was it tho? The Holodomor was pretty out there, and the immense system of state torture under Stalin was bigger than anything Hitler did to the German people

    Tough call
    I guess Pol Pot is worst for the sheer lunacy of his government, and for the harm he did in such a short period of time (killing 25% of the population in three years).

    Hitler lost, and Stalin won. Had Hitler won, he would not have just wiped out the Jews, but about 60% of the slavs as well, save for those lucky enough either to be Germanised, or kept for slave labour.
    it is almost impossible to say. As soon as I think: Yep. Hitler was worse, I recall some barbarism by Stalin or Mao. Stalin arguably did multiple mini genocides. Moving entire nations. Hoping they would die. Mao was, at one stage, the only well fed human in China

    It is Satan versus Beelzebub versus Lucifer

    For all the horrors of the 21st century, and it is off to a rocky start, it has nothing to match Stalin. Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot

    Yet
    The 19th century had such horrors as The Heavenly King, King Leopold of the Belgians, and Ranavalona I.
    Sounds like a charmer.

    The combination of regular warfare, disease, difficult forced labor and harsh trials by ordeal using a poisonous nut from the Tangena shrub resulted in a high mortality rate among both soldiers and civilians during her 33-year reign, with Madagascar's population reducing from 5 million in 1833 to 2.5 million in 1839

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranavalona_I
    Paraguay eat your heart out!
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    The Woke Dems need to be destroyed. Trump for '24

    Silly boy.
    Remember Leon droning on about Remainers trying to overturn the EU ref result but in vomit inducing hypocrisy is backing Trump who sent a mob to storm Congress and who wanted to overturn the US election .
    I'm not backing Trump. My comment was a Situationist provocation to get the new thread off to a cracking start

    I'd not be - shall we say - *overly unhappy* if Trump dropped dead tomorrow. I'd mourn the passing of a human soul for a nanosecond then crack open several bottles of English fizz

    My ideal is for a non-religious-freak Republican to get the nomination, and thrash the Woke Dems
    Okay but you did say Trump 24 . Anyway good luck trying to find a non-religious -freak Republican.
    Yes, that is an issue

    De Santis is probably the best bet for Reps. Not obviously insane, and not entirely crazed about abortion

    https://eu.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2022/07/02/florida-governor-desantis-post-roe-abortion-debate-roe-v-wade/7770054001/
    DeSantis has been trying to walk a narrow path: he has to be crazy enough to appeal to Trump's base... but he also has to win the Governorship again.

    And Florida is that rare thing: a purple state where abortion rights are a big deal. And where the Republican legislature has passed a fairly blanket abortion ban.

    DeSantis courted the anti-abortion lobby, and is now trying to walk it back. As @HYUFD has pointed out, it is far from impossible that he loses in Florida in November... and if so, should he really be second favourite for the Republican nomination.
    Kari Lake is hedging her bets between DeSantis and Trump, saying they both have BDE.

    https://www.twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1559126126760443905
This discussion has been closed.