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ConHome survey has Truss 32% ahead – politicalbetting.com

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  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    The “populists”, or “deniers”, or whatever they are, didn’t get it right anyway.

    They keep talking about Sweden, instead of Denmark, for example.

    It’s possible they are forgetful, or maybe they just talk shit all day long.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    carnforth said:

    French year-ahead electricity up to 700 EUR per MWh - 14 times the historical level.

    Who is setting these prices ?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    Yeah, pretty much. It reminds me of the pre-February invasion intelligence that the Russians had deployed supplies of blood. Makes it look like they're really going to go for it.

    Wind forecast for tomorrow doesn't a seem terrible from a Russian point of view for doing so.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person

    This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
    You don’t find him repellant because you have a not very well concealed admiration for fascist types and fascist hangers-on.

    I don’t mean this to be offensive, it’s just what you do.

    I don’t want to silence Grimes, but nor will I pretend he is anything more than a snivelling creep.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    Alistair said:

    kinabalu said:

    So, should a hypothetical person with a Big Short on Trump (for both Nom and Prez) be wanting DeSantis to win or lose his governorship this Nov?

    Win. He needs the aura of a winner to take on the Loser Trump.

    If he loses the Gubanatorial election he is toast.

    I've got my big short on Desantis so I'm firmly in the MAGA column on the GOP side
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    A handy animation of the probable fall out from a disaster at the Zap Nuke Plant


    "In case a nuclear disaster at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant occurred on Aug 15-18, this is how the released airborne radioactive contaminants would probably get dispersed - Ukrainian hydrometeorological institute"

    https://twitter.com/myroslavapetsa/status/1560225360209494017?s=20&t=akzUEp2RNiQ8lvJhlbJpbQ


    If I was @cicero in Estonia, I'd be thinking about a quick flight home to Blighty. Or maybe Argentina
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person

    This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
    You don’t find him repellant because you have a not very well concealed admiration for fascist types and fascist hangers-on.

    I don’t mean this to be offensive, it’s just what you do.

    I don’t want to silence Grimes, but nor will I pretend he is anything more than a snivelling creep.
    Yes, whatevs
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742
    edited August 2022

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    Nick Griffin very anti COVID lockdown, comparing it to a concentration camp. Given his political history one might wonder whether or not he meant lockdown was a good or indeed mythical thing.

    I know Griffers has his fans on here related to his willingness to ‘speak out’.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    Given the inability of any of us, or indeed the West to do anything to stop him by tomorrow we should probably very much hope not
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    If Zaporizhzhia is taken out completely that's around one fifth of Ukraine's average electricity generation.

  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person

    This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
    You don’t find him repellant because you have a not very well concealed admiration for fascist types and fascist hangers-on.

    I don’t mean this to be offensive, it’s just what you do.

    I don’t want to silence Grimes, but nor will I pretend he is anything more than a snivelling creep.
    Yes, whatevs
    True doh.

    Anyway, I’m on the anti-lockdown, pro-lab leak theory centre-left so I don’t really fit into your stereotype.
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person

    This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations

    The same is true of our freedoms. Cyclefree went on about the iniquities of police recording non-crime hate incidents and how we should ensure this stops the other day.

    Who took up and won the court case that stopped non-crime hate incidents in England being recorded? A crusading mainstream MP? No, they wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

    It was the chairman of Reclaim Harry Miller. Yet I bet if you asked Cyclefree what she thought of Reclaim, the answer would be unprintable.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,232
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person

    This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
    Grimes's sucking up to Farage by slandering the RNLI persuaded me to donate fifty quid to it.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    I dunno, some principled left-wingers would be handy. I find it hard to imagine Tony Benn calling for a stricter lockdown.
    You what? The Left - including the Far Left - gets sexually aroused by lockdowns. All that control of society. Yummy. And masks and snitching and clapping the NHS and state surveillance, mmmm! Look at the Chinese Communist Party. Gets a hard on for quarantine

    Look at the communist b1tch on SAGE
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    According to that reasonable sounding doctor from Lancashire on YouTube, the wind direction is toward North Western Europe.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,243
    Just seen the Marin video, looks pretty tame by Finnish standards!

    The worst hangover I ever had was after an end of conference night in Tampere - started tame enough in a bar, then the locals took us to a club drinking salmari, then back at their flat drinking god knows what. Passed a car with an axe through its windscreen on the way home. Missed my train to Helsinki the next day.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Neither the right or the left have a monopoly on authoritarianism.

    It’s a different axis entirely.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841
    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    We do need them, yes, but preferably not colonizing mainstream centre right parties and whipping up bigotry to win elections and take countries out of inevitably flawed but essentially benign transnational institutions and agreements.

    Stay in your lane right wing populists!
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    Nick Griffin very anti COVID lockdown, comparing it to a concentration camp. Given his political history one might wonder whether or not he meant lockdown was a good or indeed mythical thing.

    I know Griffers has his fans on here related to his willingness to ‘speak out’.
    Everybody despises Griffin, Now that is an unpleasant individual, but it didn't stop him blowing the whistle on grooming gangs (to an astonished Gavin Esler) years before it surfaced in the mainstream.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    IshmaelZ said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    It doesn't actually, it's completely irrelevant. Not familiar with all those people but what they have in common seems to be professional contrarianism rather than populism (and you forget that the people who were more in favour of lockdown were the government and sks were the vast majority of the actual people.

    Politics is the art of the possible and there was never any way on God's green earth that a UK government was going to buck the international trend on dealing with covid. It would have held its nerve for a week and then caved.
    That's actually pretty much exactly what happened, isn't it? Boris did manage to hold out for about a week before being forced to cave to the unending scaremongering from the media and "scientists".
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    Japan seemed to defy the conventional Covid thinking for so long.
    But this looks a bit more than a blip.

    https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1560271578289475585
    Japan's BA.5 wave deaths are now higher than any previous variant and still rising sharply...
    ...Japan ranks 4th in the world for boosters, the US ranks 71st
    ...Japan's cumulative deaths per capita is 1/11th of the US
    Yet BA.5, with its very high level of immune evasion, has challenged its immunity wall...
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    From the err 'dark side'

    🇷🇺🇺🇦 The administration of the Zaporozhye region promises that tomorrow the drones will broadcast online the situation at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant - RIA Novosti.

    According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukrainian troops are preparing a provocation tomorrow.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    edited August 2022

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    The problem is that the plant requires a stable electricity supply to stop it from melting down, so there's a pretty high risk of a major nuclear incident if they shut it down and collapse the Ukrainian electricity grid.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    From the err 'dark side'

    🇷🇺🇺🇦 The administration of the Zaporozhye region promises that tomorrow the drones will broadcast online the situation at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant - RIA Novosti.

    According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukrainian troops are preparing a provocation tomorrow.
    Well, that's tomorrow's entertainment sorted. Fuck the cricket, I shall be watching a nuclear power plant in Ukraine every minute of every hour. While praying
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Eveyrthing is fine
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person

    This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
    Ah it's Fruity Friends S3 Ep12 - the one where "the left think good people can't do bad things".

    Is there any right wing twittersphere cliche that you don't parrot?

    Can't think of one offhand.
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594
    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    But you were like this - into people like Trump and our Lozza - before the pandemic.
    Look Trump's behaviour since he lost the presidency, well, its been pretty bad and the Jan 6 stuff was inexcusable. People call him a tyrant and an anti-democrat, personally I think its an ego thing, his vanity meant he could not accept the reality of defeat.

    But the consensus needs to be confronted. At all times.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,243
    Leon said:

    Eveyrthing is fine

    Now I'm worried!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person

    This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
    Ah it's Fruity Friends S3 Ep12 - the one where "the left think good people can't do bad things".

    Is there any right wing twittersphere cliche that you don't parrot?

    Can't think of one offhand.
    Aaaand so we get the reflexive, inert, tiny dick energy of your normal low watt middlebrow mentation

    You're like an old clock ticking in a corner. Annoying when it is noticed, but generally it is not noticed

    And I'd probably miss you if you disappeared
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815
    edited August 2022

    According to that reasonable sounding doctor from Lancashire on YouTube, the wind direction is toward North Western Europe.

    The level and breadth of contamination they were predicting had the thermal explosion happened at Chernobyl was pretty much 50 mile radius permanently uninhabitable, wipeout of Ukraine and Belarus as viable republics, with agriculture as far as parts of Western Europe fucked medium and longer term, 50 million people displaced.
    Thats just the radiation issues, the explosion would have been in the low megatons range
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841
    MISTY said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    Nick Griffin very anti COVID lockdown, comparing it to a concentration camp. Given his political history one might wonder whether or not he meant lockdown was a good or indeed mythical thing.

    I know Griffers has his fans on here related to his willingness to ‘speak out’.
    Everybody despises Griffin, Now that is an unpleasant individual, but it didn't stop him blowing the whistle on grooming gangs (to an astonished Gavin Esler) years before it surfaced in the mainstream.
    I sense that unlike the left you are savvy and sophisticated to realize that bad people can do good things.

    Would this be fair?
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    The problem is that the plant requires a stable electricity supply to stop it from melting down, so there's a pretty high risk of a major nuclear incident if they shut it down and collapse the Ukrainian electricity grid.
    Indeed.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
    Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent.
    So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,243
    Driver said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    It doesn't actually, it's completely irrelevant. Not familiar with all those people but what they have in common seems to be professional contrarianism rather than populism (and you forget that the people who were more in favour of lockdown were the government and sks were the vast majority of the actual people.

    Politics is the art of the possible and there was never any way on God's green earth that a UK government was going to buck the international trend on dealing with covid. It would have held its nerve for a week and then caved.
    That's actually pretty much exactly what happened, isn't it? Boris did manage to hold out for about a week before being forced to cave to the unending scaremongering from the media and "scientists".
    Yeah, remember that joker Ferguson? The one who predicted over 100k might die in the UK and 60% or more of the population could get Covid? Talk about scaremongering :innocent:
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Eveyrthing is fine

    Now I'm worried!
    I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant

    This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?

    Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it

  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
    Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent.
    So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
    As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal

    Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841

    Neither the right or the left have a monopoly on authoritarianism.

    It’s a different axis entirely.

    And if our Covid response is somebody's idea of "Authoritarianism" they are a precious little creature indeed.

    Handle with great care and keep in a darkened room.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815
    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Eveyrthing is fine

    Now I'm worried!
    I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant

    This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?

    Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it

    And the Russian defence ministry has today set out the circumsrances in whuch nuclear weapons may be used by Russia. (In response to a West first strike or 'in an emergency')
    Of course China have also announced they are joining a joint military exercise with the Ruskies
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Driver said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    It doesn't actually, it's completely irrelevant. Not familiar with all those people but what they have in common seems to be professional contrarianism rather than populism (and you forget that the people who were more in favour of lockdown were the government and sks were the vast majority of the actual people.

    Politics is the art of the possible and there was never any way on God's green earth that a UK government was going to buck the international trend on dealing with covid. It would have held its nerve for a week and then caved.
    That's actually pretty much exactly what happened, isn't it? Boris did manage to hold out for about a week before being forced to cave to the unending scaremongering from the media and "scientists".
    Impartially put. The "scientists" were scientists, i don't recall any predictions which were so much worse than the reality that you could call them scaremongering, but yes: in the end neither Johnson's nor any other government would have had a choice here.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Eveyrthing is fine

    Now I'm worried!
    I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant

    This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?

    Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it

    And the Russian defence ministry has today set out the circumsrances in whuch nuclear weapons may be used by Russia. (In response to a West first strike or 'in an emergency')
    Of course China have also announced they are joining a joint military exercise with the Ruskies
    Waitwhatwhere? Link?
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Eveyrthing is fine

    Now I'm worried!
    I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant

    This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?

    Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it

    And the Russian defence ministry has today set out the circumsrances in whuch nuclear weapons may be used by Russia. (In response to a West first strike or 'in an emergency')
    Of course China have also announced they are joining a joint military exercise with the Ruskies
    Waitwhatwhere? Link?
    Which bit?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,117
    edited August 2022
    Selebian said:

    Driver said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    It doesn't actually, it's completely irrelevant. Not familiar with all those people but what they have in common seems to be professional contrarianism rather than populism (and you forget that the people who were more in favour of lockdown were the government and sks were the vast majority of the actual people.

    Politics is the art of the possible and there was never any way on God's green earth that a UK government was going to buck the international trend on dealing with covid. It would have held its nerve for a week and then caved.
    That's actually pretty much exactly what happened, isn't it? Boris did manage to hold out for about a week before being forced to cave to the unending scaremongering from the media and "scientists".
    Yeah, remember that joker Ferguson? The one who predicted over 100k might die in the UK and 60% or more of the population could get Covid? Talk about scaremongering :innocent:
    Apparently totally discredited by having a bit on the side, said all the rightwingers and libertarians. Who else do we know had a bit on ther side and/or had lots of parties, come to think of it? It'll come to me if I sit down and cogitate.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,243
    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Eveyrthing is fine

    Now I'm worried!
    I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant

    This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?

    Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it

    I should have said "really worried".

    Concerned, yes. But I get really worried when people tell me everything is fine.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    evrythinng is fyne
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Eveyrthing is fine

    Now I'm worried!
    I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant

    This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?

    Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it

    And the Russian defence ministry has today set out the circumsrances in whuch nuclear weapons may be used by Russia. (In response to a West first strike or 'in an emergency')
    Of course China have also announced they are joining a joint military exercise with the Ruskies
    Waitwhatwhere? Link?
    Which bit?
    Both?
  • Betfair next prime minister
    1.07 Liz Truss 93%
    14 Rishi Sunak 7%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.07 Liz Truss 93%
    13.5 Rishi Sunak 7%

    A big move off this poll.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    19.5 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.04 Liz Truss 96%
    20 Rishi Sunak 5%
    Betfair next prime minister
    1.04 Liz Truss 96%
    21 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    20 Rishi Sunak 5%
    20 in a two-horse race is remarkable.

    This is over.
    The market is telling us Liz Truss is home and hosed. She probably is. We have not seen a 20/1 upset in a political 2-horse race since last year's Chesham and Amersham by-election when a number of us followed OGH in on the LibDems.
    And some if us emptied their Ladbrokes account betting on the Tories there.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Eveyrthing is fine

    Now I'm worried!
    I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant

    This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?

    Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it

    I should have said "really worried".

    Concerned, yes. But I get really worried when people tell me everything is fine.
    "Any potential damage to Zaporizhzhia is suicide, it must not be used as part of any military operation: UN chief"

    https://twitter.com/anadoluagency/status/1560299212784500737?s=20&t=R0YL0d5tZAYNlhTUV8sxtw

    "Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant urges world to prevent nuclear disaster that will make Chornobyl pale in comparison

    Please Follow us to help the people of Ukraine

    #ukrainewar #ukraine #war #army #military #specialforces #russia #nato #d"


    https://twitter.com/swflwarrior/status/1560299367927582722?s=20&t=R0YL0d5tZAYNlhTUV8sxtw

    No biggie. Chillax
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Eveyrthing is fine

    Now I'm worried!
    I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant

    This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?

    Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it

    And the Russian defence ministry has today set out the circumsrances in whuch nuclear weapons may be used by Russia. (In response to a West first strike or 'in an emergency')
    Of course China have also announced they are joining a joint military exercise with the Ruskies
    Waitwhatwhere? Link?
    https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1559872839351779328?t=Boo3Y7fHyvUI49Gp-CQYbQ&s=19
    https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-nuclear-weapons-use-possible-only-emergency-circumstances-2022-08-18/
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    OK

    MOSCOW, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Russia has "no need" to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, its defence minister said on Tuesday, describing media speculation that Moscow might deploy nuclear or chemical weapons in the conflict as "absolute lies".

    "No need" is clever. because indeed who needs to use nuclear weapons when they can weaponise a nuclear power plant?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Looks like the wind could take fallout South over the Western Black Sea coast tomorrow, so I guess the RAF would have to evacuate Johnson from Greece and back to Blighty.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,341

    Neither the right or the left have a monopoly on authoritarianism.

    It’s a different axis entirely.

    In this respect I look at left and right as a circle. Start at 6 o'clock, centrist space, and move towards 5 o'clock - the moderate right; move towards 7 o'clock - moderate left etc. They are like each other like centrists are (social democrats and One Nation etc). Move further and they are are more unlike - Abbott and Chope, but multi party democrats after a fashion. But move further and they meet at the authoritarian violent exclusivist back of the circle (12 o'clock) where pigs and men are indistinguishable, both groups wanting a fascistic state run by themselves.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    IshmaelZ said:

    OK

    MOSCOW, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Russia has "no need" to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, its defence minister said on Tuesday, describing media speculation that Moscow might deploy nuclear or chemical weapons in the conflict as "absolute lies".

    "No need" is clever. because indeed who needs to use nuclear weapons when they can weaponise a nuclear power plant?

    Quite. And see here


    "If a nuclear disaster occurs in Zaporizhzhia, radiation could spread as far north as Estonia and as far west as the Czech Republic.

    This fallout radius is based on Ukraine's assessment. The Russian Ministry of Defence's forecast sees radioactivity extending as far west as Germany."

    https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1560279299512381440?s=20&t=s9w2ET9jAp7OUpwwlSR7bQ

    Putin is playing the Madman Gambit. Spook the Europeans into thinking he is crazy enough to do this. Trouble is, now he has happily sacrificed the lives of 50,000 Russian young men, I am easily persuaded that he is capable of doing this

    And I am not sitting in Germany, which is directly in line to be Chernobylised, according to the Russian Defence Ministry

    It's nuclear blackmail and he's going for it
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815
    IshmaelZ said:

    OK

    MOSCOW, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Russia has "no need" to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, its defence minister said on Tuesday, describing media speculation that Moscow might deploy nuclear or chemical weapons in the conflict as "absolute lies".

    "No need" is clever. because indeed who needs to use nuclear weapons when they can weaponise a nuclear power plant?

    Or when you can try and pin an incident at the plant on Ukraine and thus a 'nuclear attack' on Mother Russia
  • MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,410
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
    Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent.
    So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
    As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal

    Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
    You have to assume he's bluffing.

    I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start.
    Literal knife-edge stuff.

    I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.


  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person

    This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
    Ah it's Fruity Friends S3 Ep12 - the one where "the left think good people can't do bad things".

    Is there any right wing twittersphere cliche that you don't parrot?

    Can't think of one offhand.
    Aaaand so we get the reflexive, inert, tiny dick energy of your normal low watt middlebrow mentation

    You're like an old clock ticking in a corner. Annoying when it is noticed, but generally it is not noticed

    And I'd probably miss you if you disappeared
    Well now you've gone all Ad Hominus. Very telling

    Cliche cliche cliche ... Trope trope trope
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594
    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    Nick Griffin very anti COVID lockdown, comparing it to a concentration camp. Given his political history one might wonder whether or not he meant lockdown was a good or indeed mythical thing.

    I know Griffers has his fans on here related to his willingness to ‘speak out’.
    Everybody despises Griffin, Now that is an unpleasant individual, but it didn't stop him blowing the whistle on grooming gangs (to an astonished Gavin Esler) years before it surfaced in the mainstream.
    I sense that unlike the left you are savvy and sophisticated to realize that bad people can do good things.

    Would this be fair?
    And vice versa. The road to hell can indeed be paved with good intentions....!
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815

    Looks like the wind could take fallout South over the Western Black Sea coast tomorrow, so I guess the RAF would have to evacuate Johnson from Greece and back to Blighty.

    I think even lazybones might head home and do some leadership if the big one went up
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
    Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent.
    So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
    As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal

    Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
    You have to assume he's bluffing.

    I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start.
    Literal knife-edge stuff.

    I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war.

    You want your family to die for Ukraine?

    I'm not sure I do. I am tempted to say: surrender. Stop the sanctions

    Give him Ukraine. Wean ourselves off his energy, build up our military, then pray that he dies

    Or we confront him and it turns out he's not bluffing and half of Europe is poisoned for 500 years....
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    My one desire before the bombs rain on New York if to find out what the Finland rumour is.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
    Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent.
    So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
    As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal

    Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
    You have to assume he's bluffing.

    I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start.
    Literal knife-edge stuff.

    I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.
    We have to convince him that there would be dire consequences if he pushes the nuclear button, these would be worse than simply losing the war, and that we aren't bluffing.

    I can see us falling short on all three.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person

    This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
    Ah it's Fruity Friends S3 Ep12 - the one where "the left think good people can't do bad things".

    Is there any right wing twittersphere cliche that you don't parrot?

    Can't think of one offhand.
    Aaaand so we get the reflexive, inert, tiny dick energy of your normal low watt middlebrow mentation

    You're like an old clock ticking in a corner. Annoying when it is noticed, but generally it is not noticed

    And I'd probably miss you if you disappeared
    Well now you've gone all Ad Hominus. Very telling

    Cliche cliche cliche ... Trope trope trope
    lol. I was nice! I said "I'd probably miss you if you disappeared"


    And I probably would. I get fond of people on PB, even if I regard their opinions as absurd and comical

    Moreover, there is a literal chance you will disappear tomorrow in a puff of radioactive dust, so I am feeling a bit emosh and sentimental about all of us
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
    Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent.
    So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
    As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal

    Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
    You have to assume he's bluffing.

    I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start.
    Literal knife-edge stuff.

    I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.


    Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    My one desire before the bombs rain on New York if to find out what the Finland rumour is.

    If we are all going to die tomorrow I promise to reveal THE FINLAND RUMOUR about 6 minutes before we vanish
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841
    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    But you were like this - into people like Trump and our Lozza - before the pandemic.
    Look Trump's behaviour since he lost the presidency, well, its been pretty bad and the Jan 6 stuff was inexcusable. People call him a tyrant and an anti-democrat, personally I think its an ego thing, his vanity meant he could not accept the reality of defeat.

    But the consensus needs to be confronted. At all times.
    Ok, thanks. I think I'm back to where I'd assessed you before - here for the Troll. Which is absolutely fine.

    As we were, sergeant.
  • MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,410
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
    Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent.
    So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
    As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal

    Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
    You have to assume he's bluffing.

    I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start.
    Literal knife-edge stuff.

    I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war.

    You want your family to die for Ukraine?

    I'm not sure I do. I am tempted to say: surrender. Stop the sanctions

    Give him Ukraine. Wean ourselves off his energy, build up our military, then pray that he dies

    Or we confront him and it turns out he's not bluffing and half of Europe is poisoned for 500 years....
    He ain't stopping at Ukraine if all it takes is nuclear blackmail. Look at the pre-war speculation. Putin's a greater Russia man.

    I'd be handing Ukraine all our military kit. Better they use it now than we need it later.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    edited August 2022
    Is @Leon one of "genius" Putin's agents of influence ? :smile:
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
    Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent.
    So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
    As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal

    Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
    You have to assume he's bluffing.

    I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start.
    Literal knife-edge stuff.

    I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.


    Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
    A mega-Chernobyl is probably worse than a tactical nuke. The terrible damage from the latter is limited, and can be predicted, to an extent
  • Selebian said:

    Driver said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    It doesn't actually, it's completely irrelevant. Not familiar with all those people but what they have in common seems to be professional contrarianism rather than populism (and you forget that the people who were more in favour of lockdown were the government and sks were the vast majority of the actual people.

    Politics is the art of the possible and there was never any way on God's green earth that a UK government was going to buck the international trend on dealing with covid. It would have held its nerve for a week and then caved.
    That's actually pretty much exactly what happened, isn't it? Boris did manage to hold out for about a week before being forced to cave to the unending scaremongering from the media and "scientists".
    Yeah, remember that joker Ferguson? The one who predicted over 100k might die in the UK and 60% or more of the population could get Covid? Talk about scaremongering :innocent:
    Whatever happened with the Oxford modelling group who thought that we'd basically all been infected in wave 1?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    It doesn't help but there is a subreddit with 42k members dedicated to the somewhat laboured joke that Finland does not exist

    https://www.reddit.com/r/finlandConspiracy/
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Also this puts a bit of a question mark over a Dash To Nuclear To Cut Down On Fossil Fuels. which is helpful at this juncture.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
    Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent.
    So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
    As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal

    Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
    You have to assume he's bluffing.

    I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start.
    Literal knife-edge stuff.

    I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.


    Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
    A mega-Chernobyl is probably worse than a tactical nuke. The terrible damage from the latter is limited, and can be predicted, to an extent
    We live in uncertain times im afraid
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    IshmaelZ said:

    It doesn't help but there is a subreddit with 42k members dedicated to the somewhat laboured joke that Finland does not exist

    https://www.reddit.com/r/finlandConspiracy/

    They will stop at nothing to keep the rumour from becoming public knowledge.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
    Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent.
    So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
    As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal

    Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
    You have to assume he's bluffing.

    I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start.
    Literal knife-edge stuff.

    I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.


    Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
    A mega-Chernobyl is probably worse than a tactical nuke. The terrible damage from the latter is limited, and can be predicted, to an extent
    We live in uncertain times im afraid
    Can I just say I love your work with litotes


    "Rumored footage from Zaporizhzhia NPP shows a large amount of Russian military hardware parked inside."

    https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1560303702912733186?s=20&t=VwuDDnV3ojEs1zCchUJ-Rw


    BANG!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    I'm glad I held back on booking that Austrian skiing holiday, given that Austria will be a smoking heap of toxic and deadly ruins, patrolled only by freakishly malformed rats, come next January
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person

    This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
    Ah it's Fruity Friends S3 Ep12 - the one where "the left think good people can't do bad things".

    Is there any right wing twittersphere cliche that you don't parrot?

    Can't think of one offhand.
    Aaaand so we get the reflexive, inert, tiny dick energy of your normal low watt middlebrow mentation

    You're like an old clock ticking in a corner. Annoying when it is noticed, but generally it is not noticed

    And I'd probably miss you if you disappeared
    Well now you've gone all Ad Hominus. Very telling

    Cliche cliche cliche ... Trope trope trope
    lol. I was nice! I said "I'd probably miss you if you disappeared"

    And I probably would. I get fond of people on PB, even if I regard their opinions as absurd and comical

    Moreover, there is a literal chance you will disappear tomorrow in a puff of radioactive dust, so I am feeling a bit emosh and sentimental about all of us
    Nope - "old clock" was not respectful at all.

    Anyway, look, I'm onto you - I totally am - but I don't have the energy or the tools to prosecute to a conviction. So at the end of the day you're probably going to get away with it.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    I still have property assets in the UK, but I’m confident that even after a nuclear apocalypse the Tories will make sure they retain their value .
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    edited August 2022
    Netherlands responds to Finland rumours.
    https://twitter.com/LamyaeA/status/1560202380146352128
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594

    ....Pound and Euro getting flayed as European gas contract settles at record high.....
  • EPGEPG Posts: 5,996
    I agree that in the moment, MPs are better placed than members to choose a leader, but if nowadays members have a smaller and smaller say in who is selected as MP, leadership franchise is one of the few reasons to be a member at all.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    I don't find Grimes remotely repellent. The fact you do says so much. You hate the opinions so you hate the person

    This really is a big flaw in the modern left. They don't just disagree, they loathe and dismiss and try to silence anyone who differs. And the loathing allows them to emotionally justify the cancellations
    Ah it's Fruity Friends S3 Ep12 - the one where "the left think good people can't do bad things".

    Is there any right wing twittersphere cliche that you don't parrot?

    Can't think of one offhand.
    Aaaand so we get the reflexive, inert, tiny dick energy of your normal low watt middlebrow mentation

    You're like an old clock ticking in a corner. Annoying when it is noticed, but generally it is not noticed

    And I'd probably miss you if you disappeared
    Well now you've gone all Ad Hominus. Very telling

    Cliche cliche cliche ... Trope trope trope
    lol. I was nice! I said "I'd probably miss you if you disappeared"

    And I probably would. I get fond of people on PB, even if I regard their opinions as absurd and comical

    Moreover, there is a literal chance you will disappear tomorrow in a puff of radioactive dust, so I am feeling a bit emosh and sentimental about all of us
    Nope - "old clock" was not respectful at all....
    He's just winding you up ?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    I still have property assets in the UK, but I’m confident that even after a nuclear apocalypse the Tories will make sure they retain their value .

    I may have to revise my opinion that life in Europe is mostly superior to life in America when most Europeans lose their teeth, hair, and eyeballs, and are subsisting on boiled lichen
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    1/ The Russian Ministry of Defense announced today that it might shut down the fifth and sixth power units of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, allegedly due to the "threat of shelling from Ukraine"


    2/Conclusion of Enerhoatom: After disconnecting the generators of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant from the energy system of Ukraine, they cannot be used to cool nuclear fuel in case the plant is de-energized,which will bring a possible scenario of a radiation disaster closer



    https://twitter.com/Lyla_lilas/status/1560305227433218051?s=20&t=VwuDDnV3ojEs1zCchUJ-Rw
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,182
    kinabalu said:

    Neither the right or the left have a monopoly on authoritarianism.

    It’s a different axis entirely.

    And if our Covid response is somebody's idea of "Authoritarianism" they are a precious little creature indeed.

    Handle with great care and keep in a darkened room.
    Really?
    The covid response included:
    - suspension of the right of freedom of movement within the UK
    - suspension of the right of freedom of association
    - mass use of advertising of an 'obey the state' nature
    - freedom of speech? well, I suppose you were allowed to criticise the covid response as a wee bit over the top but it didn't go well for those who did.

    You might think (and I don't think you did, if I recall correctly) that this was justified. But If you don't view this as authoritarianism it's hard to imagine what you would call authoritarianism.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,841
    edited August 2022
    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    Nick Griffin very anti COVID lockdown, comparing it to a concentration camp. Given his political history one might wonder whether or not he meant lockdown was a good or indeed mythical thing.

    I know Griffers has his fans on here related to his willingness to ‘speak out’.
    Everybody despises Griffin, Now that is an unpleasant individual, but it didn't stop him blowing the whistle on grooming gangs (to an astonished Gavin Esler) years before it surfaced in the mainstream.
    I sense that unlike the left you are savvy and sophisticated to realize that bad people can do good things.

    Would this be fair?
    And vice versa. The road to hell can indeed be paved with good intentions....!
    Ha yes! :smile:

    We can do a bit of 'duelling banjos' knockabout again now I've (re)sussed you're never serious but here for the Troll.

    Missed that.
  • pingping Posts: 3,724
    edited August 2022
    I wonder what China is thinking right now?

    I imagine strategic thinking is split between;

    - It’s all bluff and will blow over. Putin is a rational actor. Stay out of it. Chinas short/medium term economic/energy interests and long term strategic interests are served by having the west and Russia bogged down in a non-nuclear stand off. China can play off both sides, to its benefit.

    - Putin is a mad man, but zaphorizia is far away. A somewhat regionalised nuclear catastrophe has only a small/moderate economic impact on China.

    - This shit is serious and china needs to step up as the adult in the room. Impose a peace. This is their time.

    Hmm.

    As I said at the beginning of this;

    Watch China.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
    Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent.
    So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
    As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal

    Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
    You have to assume he's bluffing.

    I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start.
    Literal knife-edge stuff.

    I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.


    Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
    A mega-Chernobyl is probably worse than a tactical nuke. The terrible damage from the latter is limited, and can be predicted, to an extent
    We live in uncertain times im afraid
    Can I just say I love your work with litotes


    "Rumored footage from Zaporizhzhia NPP shows a large amount of Russian military hardware parked inside."

    https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1560303702912733186?s=20&t=VwuDDnV3ojEs1zCchUJ-Rw


    BANG!
    I become more sedate and wry as apocalypses progress. When post nuclear attack regional command are handing out the 1000 calorie daily ration for infirm bastards like me i dont want to be wasting calories on being alarmed and such.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
    Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent.
    So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
    As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal

    Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
    You have to assume he's bluffing.

    I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start.
    Literal knife-edge stuff.

    I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.


    Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
    A mega-Chernobyl is probably worse than a tactical nuke. The terrible damage from the latter is limited, and can be predicted, to an extent
    We live in uncertain times im afraid
    Can I just say I love your work with litotes


    "Rumored footage from Zaporizhzhia NPP shows a large amount of Russian military hardware parked inside."

    https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1560303702912733186?s=20&t=VwuDDnV3ojEs1zCchUJ-Rw


    BANG!
    I become more sedate and wry as apocalypses progress. When post nuclear attack regional command are handing out the daily 1000 calorie daily ration for infirm bastards like me i dont want to be wasting calories on being alarmed and such.
    Look at the brightside.

    Type 2 Diabetes rates will really plummet.
    It’s been a massive problem for the NHS.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    edited August 2022
    No idea if this is legit, or even what it means. What is "Ukraine" here? Russian occupied Ukraine?


    "Ukraine is preparing for a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster at the Russian occupied Zaporozhye nuclear power plant amid fears of a Radiation leak.

    Hazmat suits and gas mask clad emergency servicemen were seen working in the city of Zaporizhzhia.
    #UkraineRussiaWar #Ukraine"

    https://twitter.com/W_W_3_2022/status/1560306372230598659?s=20&t=xbh5jTvPcxteeEksbV-4Yw

    Whatever the case, Russian media want us to BELIEVE that Putin is prepared to go totally postal
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815
    edited August 2022
    ping said:

    I wonder what China is thinking right now?

    I imagine strategic thinking is split between;

    - It’s all bluff and will blow over. Putin is a rational actor. Stay out of it. Chinas short/medium term economic/energy interests and long term strategic interests are served by having the west and Russia bogged down in a non-nuclear stand off. China can play off both sides, to its benefit.

    - Putin is a mad man, but zaphorizia is far away. A somewhat regionalised nuclear catastrophe has only a small/moderate economic impact on China.

    - This shit is serious and china needs to step up as the adult in the room. Impose a peace. This is their time.

    Hmm.

    As I said at the beginning of this;

    Watch China.

    China is sending troops to Russia for joint military exercises
  • pingping Posts: 3,724

    ping said:

    I wonder what China is thinking right now?

    I imagine strategic thinking is split between;

    - It’s all bluff and will blow over. Putin is a rational actor. Stay out of it. Chinas short/medium term economic/energy interests and long term strategic interests are served by having the west and Russia bogged down in a non-nuclear stand off. China can play off both sides, to its benefit.

    - Putin is a mad man, but zaphorizia is far away. A somewhat regionalised nuclear catastrophe has only a small/moderate economic impact on China.

    - This shit is serious and china needs to step up as the adult in the room. Impose a peace. This is their time.

    Hmm.

    As I said at the beginning of this;

    Watch China.

    China is sending troops to Russia for joint military exercises
    Really?

    Fuck, I’m out of the loop…

  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    Leon said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    MISTY said:

    tlg86 said:

    What's the point of paying for a thumb on the scales if you don't get a thumb on the scales?


    Well, some of us pointed out at the time that using estimated grades was a cheat's charter.

    But curious that sixth-form colleges tended to not fiddle. Perhaps the teachers at those don't have quite the same pressures on them, but not sure.

    Grammars being best of the rest is presumably because they tend to get a lot of As anyway, so less scope to cheat.
    If affluent middle class people can't get their children into top academic institutions they will create their own top academic institutions or send their kids to other countries' top academic institutions.

    They will also start to question paying their taxes into to a system that does not work for them, as many are starting to do with the NHS.

    Hint: 30% of the taxes come from the top 1%.
    Hint: People who suggest 30% of the taxes come from the top 1% are either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading (the combination is possible as well of course).
    https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/ for MISTY.
    OK I left out the word income. In that article it suggests that the top 10% per cent probably pay not far short of 30% of all the indirect taxes as well as the direct ones.

    But hey, nitpick. Its better than trying to counter my argument, right?
    Your argument appears to be we should bias educational achievement to the benefit of the rich in case they stop paying taxes here…? I don’t think that’s going to be an electorally popular position.

    The reason the top 10% pay that much of the total tax base is because of wealth inequality. If we had an economy that more fairly distributed wealth, this would be less of an issue. I support moves to decrease inequality.
    No my argument is that candidates should be selected for university places based merit and not discriminated against because they have wealthy parents. Almost everybody is on board with that, I would have thought.

    I get it that you don't like middle class people, but the fact is they pay the bills. They always have, they always will. So snort it up.
    "merit" - lol.

    This exchange for me nails the essence of the populist right politics you support. The one and only time it sides with 'ordinary people' is when it panders to and seeks to infame and electorally benefit from the bigotry that some of them are sometimes prone to.

    It's poison. Sorry but it really is.
    I don't think that the slogan 'don't vote for populists who are exploiting your stupidity and racism!' is an election winner somehow.

    I could be wrong.
    Lack of disagreement on the substance duly noted.

    Question is, WHY do you like this type of politics? - this I am genuinely curious about.
    Who was most against lockdown as it wore on? who was most against restrictions?

    'Populists' like JHB, Darren Grimes, Richard Tice, Laurence Fox, Claire Fox and Steve Baker. Talk Radio was a lone voice in the wilderness at least questioning what was going on, whereas the rest of media simply asked why restrictions weren't tougher.

    Who was most in favour of lockdown? Who thought that it should have gone on longer than it did, be more severe than it was, and that coming out of it was 'reckless'

    Sir Keir Starmer.

    Quite apart from the economic effects (which as we see are horrendous), evidence of the collateral damage of lockdown grows greater every day. Nobody with half a brain is ever contemplating it again.

    I hope that answers your question.
    You make very good points

    This is just one reason we need populist rightwingers. The lefty liberal consensus is not just deadening, it can be actually deadly
    The problem is that Tice, Grimes, etc are so repellant as individuals that they actively push more people away than they might attract.

    The Lib Dems were also against unending lockdowns, it’s just that nobody noticed.
    Nick Griffin very anti COVID lockdown, comparing it to a concentration camp. Given his political history one might wonder whether or not he meant lockdown was a good or indeed mythical thing.

    I know Griffers has his fans on here related to his willingness to ‘speak out’.
    Everybody despises Griffin, Now that is an unpleasant individual, but it didn't stop him blowing the whistle on grooming gangs (to an astonished Gavin Esler) years before it surfaced in the mainstream.
    I sense that unlike the left you are savvy and sophisticated to realize that bad people can do good things.

    Would this be fair?
    And vice versa. The road to hell can indeed be paved with good intentions....!
    Ha yes! :smile:

    We can do a bit of 'duelling banjos' knockabout again now I've (re)sussed you're never serious but here for the Troll.

    Missed that.
    I think what freaks you out is people with genuine opinions and convictions whereas you have none.

    Hangover from your "journey" I have no doubt; it's left you in limbo.

    But all the lines you write on PB are impeccable if that cheers you up.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,154
    edited August 2022

    The “populists”, or “deniers”, or whatever they are, didn’t get it right anyway.

    They keep talking about Sweden, instead of Denmark, for example.

    It’s possible they are forgetful, or maybe they just talk shit all day long.

    Because Sweden did better at maintaining civil liberties than Denmark did.

    The yeahbutDenmark crowd want to use Denmark to justify restrictions. Why would someone who opposes restrictions advocate a Danish solution which was in hindsight worse based upon my priorities?
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Eveyrthing is fine

    Now I'm worried!
    I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant

    This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?

    Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it

    I should have said "really worried".

    Concerned, yes. But I get really worried when people tell me everything is fine.
    "Any potential damage to Zaporizhzhia is suicide, it must not be used as part of any military operation: UN chief"

    https://twitter.com/anadoluagency/status/1560299212784500737?s=20&t=R0YL0d5tZAYNlhTUV8sxtw

    "Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant urges world to prevent nuclear disaster that will make Chornobyl pale in comparison

    Please Follow us to help the people of Ukraine

    #ukrainewar #ukraine #war #army #military #specialforces #russia #nato #d"


    https://twitter.com/swflwarrior/status/1560299367927582722?s=20&t=R0YL0d5tZAYNlhTUV8sxtw

    No biggie. Chillax
    I have just dug off my shelf a book I read many years ago called The Weather Factor by Erik Durschmeid. I did so because I remembered a short chapter in it about the issues the Russians would have with the use of battlefield or tactical nuclear weapons along the western border of Warsaw Pact.

    "Nuclear experts in both camps were fully aware that any Soviet nuclear strike on Central Europe would result in Russia’s collective suicide. Not due to the West’s nuclear retaliation, which would be unavoidable, but because of the permanently prevailing weather pattern. The wind factor. The dominant wind direction—west to east—in combination with the Earth’s rotation, would have it that the radioactive cloud from a two-megaton bomb, if exploded over France’s nuclear arsenal in the mountains of Provence, would rapidly extend to Kiev in the Ukraine. Or that a similar nuclear device, dropped on a NATO troop concentration at Germany’s Fulda Gap, would irradiate Moscow within twenty-four hours.2 Such was the equalising justice of the weather."

    I am nor sure exactly how accurate this is but it put an interesting spin on Soviet threats to use nukes in Western Europe.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    ping said:

    I wonder what China is thinking right now?

    I imagine strategic thinking is split between;

    - It’s all bluff and will blow over. Putin is a rational actor. Stay out of it. Chinas short/medium term economic/energy interests and long term strategic interests are served by having the west and Russia bogged down in a non-nuclear stand off. China can play off both sides, to its benefit.

    - Putin is a mad man, but zaphorizia is far away. A somewhat regionalised nuclear catastrophe has only a small/moderate economic impact on China.

    - This shit is serious and china needs to step up as the adult in the room. Impose a peace. This is their time.

    Hmm.

    As I said at the beginning of this;

    Watch China.

    EU is China's biggest market, eur 500bn odd. It has an interest in all those customers not being nuked till they glow.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,815

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Uh-oh...

    Josh Lederman
    @JoshNBCNews
    NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells
    @NBCNews
    that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow


    https://mobile.twitter.com/JoshNBCNews/status/1560278407954321416

    On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad news, where 1 is good news, and 10 is bad news, that's about 17, isn't it?
    It is certainly sub opttimal. Winds set to turn easterly tomorrow too i believe.........
    Yes, I just checked the wind forecast for that area of Uke. Winds will be blowing from the north east to southwest from tomorrow, ie the perfect direction, away from Russia, if you have a big radioactive spill near Russia

    Jesus F Christ. Putin can't be that insane, can he?
    I suspect hes going to just shut it down though, amplify the energy crisis
    A nuclear disaster would be a disaster for Russia along with everyone else. I don't see how it possibly benefits Putin to poison, and render uninhabitable, the Ukraine he has just spent 50,000 Russian lives to capture

    So I agree it will be a shutdown, if anything. But that's still scary and destabilising. Perfect time to do it as well, just as summer ends. Press the boot on the throat of European energy supplies

    And of course it ramps up fear and European willingness to surrender - esp if you add in the 1% chance he might just blow the fucker up
    Russian military strategy since WWII has been predicated on the belief that they can withstand any kind of hardship better than can any opponent.
    So I wouldn't automatically assume anything.
    As I said, there is a 1% chance he will go totally postal

    Moreover, as I said since, the THREAT of this is a genius piece of blackmail. I am not sure if we are capable of resisting. Who is willing to risk the irradiition of half of Europe for Ukraine?
    You have to assume he's bluffing.

    I mean what other option works? You let him exploit the power station, then the other demands start.
    Literal knife-edge stuff.

    I doubt we've been closer to nuclear war. Even the Cuban crisis, at least we were talking to each other.


    Closer than the younger generation have even ever considered. Theres no 4 minute warning system in place any more either.
    A mega-Chernobyl is probably worse than a tactical nuke. The terrible damage from the latter is limited, and can be predicted, to an extent
    We live in uncertain times im afraid
    Can I just say I love your work with litotes


    "Rumored footage from Zaporizhzhia NPP shows a large amount of Russian military hardware parked inside."

    https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1560303702912733186?s=20&t=VwuDDnV3ojEs1zCchUJ-Rw


    BANG!
    I become more sedate and wry as apocalypses progress. When post nuclear attack regional command are handing out the daily 1000 calorie daily ration for infirm bastards like me i dont want to be wasting calories on being alarmed and such.
    Look at the brightside.

    Type 2 Diabetes rates will really plummet.
    It’s been a massive problem for the NHS.
    Once i run out of beta blockers im going postal. I want to be a legendary character when humanity resets into hunter gatherer mode and beyond.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    While everyone's having a panic attack, this is a great article on pollen.

    https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-diamond-of-the-plant-world-helped-land-plants-evolve-20220719/
    ...The main strategy that plants employ to protect that DNA is to encase it in a specialized shell of sporopollenin, which is impervious to the elements and among the toughest materials produced by any living thing. It has been found intact in half-billion-year-old rocks. A 2016 paper found that because of the robustness of sporopollenin, spores maintained their stability in diamond anvils at pressures of 10 gigapascals, or 725 tons per square inch....

    ...Li compared sporopollenin to lignin, the plant polymer that strengthens wood and bark. After woody plants first evolved about 360 million years ago, the geological record shows an abundance of fossilized lignin in strata for tens of millions of years. Then suddenly about 300 million years ago, the lignin vanishes. Its disappearance marks the moment when a fungus called white rot evolved enzymes capable of degrading lignin and ate much of it before it could fossilize.
    Sporopollenin, Li reasoned, must also have a fungus or other microbe capable of breaking it down. Otherwise we’d be drowning in the stuff...
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Eveyrthing is fine

    Now I'm worried!
    I think we are allowed to be a tad concerned. A mad despot who has already killed 150,000 people in six months in a pointless terrible war is now openly menacing a nuclear power plant

    This is a genius move by Putin. He will threaten us with nuclear annihliation via a defunct power station. So it's not actually war but it's as good as. How do you fight back against that? Nuke him?

    Stop the sanctions or the power plant gets it

    I should have said "really worried".

    Concerned, yes. But I get really worried when people tell me everything is fine.
    "Any potential damage to Zaporizhzhia is suicide, it must not be used as part of any military operation: UN chief"

    https://twitter.com/anadoluagency/status/1560299212784500737?s=20&t=R0YL0d5tZAYNlhTUV8sxtw

    "Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant urges world to prevent nuclear disaster that will make Chornobyl pale in comparison

    Please Follow us to help the people of Ukraine

    #ukrainewar #ukraine #war #army #military #specialforces #russia #nato #d"


    https://twitter.com/swflwarrior/status/1560299367927582722?s=20&t=R0YL0d5tZAYNlhTUV8sxtw

    No biggie. Chillax
    I have just dug off my shelf a book I read many years ago called The Weather Factor by Erik Durschmeid. I did so because I remembered a short chapter in it about the issues the Russians would have with the use of battlefield or tactical nuclear weapons along the western border of Warsaw Pact.

    "Nuclear experts in both camps were fully aware that any Soviet nuclear strike on Central Europe would result in Russia’s collective suicide. Not due to the West’s nuclear retaliation, which would be unavoidable, but because of the permanently prevailing weather pattern. The wind factor. The dominant wind direction—west to east—in combination with the Earth’s rotation, would have it that the radioactive cloud from a two-megaton bomb, if exploded over France’s nuclear arsenal in the mountains of Provence, would rapidly extend to Kiev in the Ukraine. Or that a similar nuclear device, dropped on a NATO troop concentration at Germany’s Fulda Gap, would irradiate Moscow within twenty-four hours.2 Such was the equalising justice of the weather."

    I am nor sure exactly how accurate this is but it put an interesting spin on Soviet threats to use nukes in Western Europe.
    So how was the equation of affection for the book, distress (perhaps) at it's condition, and the entusiasm for the the text?
This discussion has been closed.