The Western governments just need to ban it full stop. Its basically malware (and to think we had all the OTT stuff about Facebook, TikTok takes it to a totally different level and of course it isn't about being able to flog you hyper-targeted ads like Facebook). Trump was actually right on this one, but because Trump wanted to ban it, everybody went THAT'S RACIST, can't do that, etc etc etc. Bit like Lab leak theory, can entertain even the notation of that being a possibility because its a Trump pushed (conspiracy) theory.
When I think for all the batshit danger stuff Trump came out with, I am pretty sure the intelligence agencies were briefing on both these.
We also need to ban Chinese phones like Huawei.
There is a valid question to pose here - which Chinese goods are ok and which are not? The bulk of my electronics are made in China including this laptop...
Anything that runs Chinese software or proprietary hardware.
So iPhones are fine as are say windows laptops that aren’t a Chinese brand.
So the fact that I have a Lenovo laptop that I strictly reserve for beating up the Chinese in Civilisation is ok?
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
The potential to scale is there, but the road is 10-15 years long if we start today...
Many worthwhile things that government do take a decade or more to reach fruition. Politically unexciting, and difficult to do at the time, but obvious blunders ten years later if not done.
Retail bank ring fencing for example!
Well, yes ! How many other things in the plus side of the ledger recently ?
Though more to the point, most political debate is about the very short term.
Indeed. Even respected political analysts write articles saying that politicians should base their decisions on opinion polls...
I do wonder if, after all the bloodshed there, the Ukrainian push will just by-pass Bakhmut and leave it to be mopped up later? Just to seal the futility of the whole damned Russian exercise.
I guess the Russians claiming to have knocked out 67 Leopard 2 tanks on the first day will tell us when they have entered the war for the Ukrainians - and thatthe new push has started.
GS set to trade claims on the $17bn in zeroed out bonds. As I said this morning, it's going to get very messy, I think potentially worse than if they'd let CS go insolvent and only protected depositors. We have pretty well set rules around that and a standard insolvency chain which the government could have subordinated to cover taxpayer losses on covering uninsured depositors.
I fear that the Swiss government has opened Pandora's box by shifting equity holders above bondholders.
It would also have been fine if they had forced the conversion of the CoCos to equity before buying the company
A partial write down (a smaller % haircut than the equity) would have been justifiable too as this is a restructuring
Zeroing - although within the terms of the bonds - is the worst possible option…
Who the hell thinks Starmer is competent or trustworthy?
He has just ditched all the policies he said he'd follow to get elected leader. He said that Corbyn was his best mate when he needed his support, then banned him from standing as a Labour candidate. Etc etc.
I do wonder if, after all the bloodshed there, the Ukrainian push will just by-pass Bakhmut and leave it to be mopped up later? Just to seal the futility of the whole damned Russian exercise.
I guess the Russians claiming to have knocked out 67 Leopard 2 tanks on the first day will tell us when they have entered the war for the Ukrainians - and thatthe new push has started.
I've absolutely no idea what, but something is up.
However, the same tactic has worked in other situations - the EU itself being a case in point - and there's a danger we decide economic disengagement is the right answer with China too. It's certainly the right answer in the context of dual use technology where there is a cyber security risk, but more widely I'm not sure. China remains a rational actor albeit one with negative intentions for the West. It is much less resource self-sufficient than Russia and more likely to respond to realpolitik. Russia has become increasingly irrational and run as a mob outfit. I don't think the two can or should be compared.
I get the impression that China has been doing more than the West in the way of making preparations so it isn't completely screwed in the event of a sudden wideranging economic disengagement[*], though. China is a rational actor, but it's been making moves that give a future China a greater range of rational options, some of which could badly screw us over if we're not prepared...
[*] may or may not be a euphemism for "war"...
the big one is the railway that bypasses the Malacca Straits
How on earth can Boris produce a 500 page document in his defence. 500 for goodness sake.
Classic obfuscation technique, as algakirk notes. Gives illusion of substance. If its nonsense and dismissed you then point to how much 'evidence' was ignored. You confuse every even non contentious point so that the deciders get mad, get lost, or your defenders can find a hook they forget to close off on their response.
I smell a Dodgy Dossier - most apt for the 20th anniversary of Iraq.
GS set to trade claims on the $17bn in zeroed out bonds. As I said this morning, it's going to get very messy, I think potentially worse than if they'd let CS go insolvent and only protected depositors. We have pretty well set rules around that and a standard insolvency chain which the government could have subordinated to cover taxpayer losses on covering uninsured depositors.
I fear that the Swiss government has opened Pandora's box by shifting equity holders above bondholders.
It would also have been fine if they had forced the conversion of the CoCos to equity before buying the company
A partial write down (a smaller % haircut than the equity) would have been justifiable too as this is a restructuring
Zeroing - although within the terms of the bonds - is the worst possible option…
I wonder what proportion of the CoCos were sold in London and NY. UBS and the Swiss government may find themselves on the wrong side of the courts for bonds sold outside of Switzerland.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
Because freedom of religion is a basic human right?
She doesn’t want to be tied to having made a values based choice.
So she’s going with “yeh. Whatever. T was easy. Totes.”
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
The potential to scale is there, but the road is 10-15 years long if we start today and get big incentives from the state to keep startups in the UK like expanding investment schemes to cover billion dollar enterprises and helping fast growing companies with matched debt funding etc...
The UK is probably best placed in Europe to capture a very big slice of the future economy but I'm not sure that Labour will do anything about it, if anything I expect them to see tech as a potential source of tax to fund the NHS so will be yet another industry hollowed out for it.
To some extent although the depth of the capital markets is just so different in the US
How on earth can Boris produce a 500 page document in his defence. 500 for goodness sake.
Classic obfuscation technique, as algakirk notes. Gives illusion of substance. If its nonsense and dismissed you then point to how much 'evidence' was ignored. You confuse every even non contentious point so that the deciders get mad, get lost, or your defenders can find a hook they forget to close off on their response.
I smell a Dodgy Dossier - most apt for the 20th anniversary of Iraq.
It's wonderful that Boris Johnson has not yet understood - let alone accepted - that he is finished in frontline politics. The very best he can hope for is a few more years as a backbench Tory MP. The absolute very best. If it costs a few hundred grand to feed his delusions, as a Labour supporter I see that as money very well spent. He can only do harm to the Tories and the more he is in the public eye, with Tory MPs and members loudly proclaiming their support for him, the better.
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
Sure, there is profit in being more tolerant of risk, but as we have seen in the USA, banks taking risks has a notable downside too.
I agree. I have a growth mindset because I am comfortable with commercialisation risk. I’m not comfortable with technical risk though so avoid VC.
Max was bemoaning the fact we don’t have much LS-VC in the UK. I was adding some facts…
How on earth can Boris produce a 500 page document in his defence. 500 for goodness sake.
Classic obfuscation technique, as algakirk notes. Gives illusion of substance. If its nonsense and dismissed you then point to how much 'evidence' was ignored. You confuse every even non contentious point so that the deciders get mad, get lost, or your defenders can find a hook they forget to close off on their response.
I smell a Dodgy Dossier - most apt for the 20th anniversary of Iraq.
No better way of pounding the table than with a 500 page dossier.
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
Sure, there is profit in being more tolerant of risk, but as we have seen in the USA, banks taking risks has a notable downside too.
And get US investors have seen their capital go up 3-4x while the FTSE is still basically where it was in the same timeframe. I know where I'd rather have invested.
You shouldn’t have been buying the FTSE then!
I checked over the weekend - I’m up about 10x in net assets over the last 15 years which is ok in my book.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
Because freedom of religion is a basic human right?
She doesn’t want to be tied to having made a values based choice.
So she’s going with “yeh. Whatever. T was easy. Totes.”
Again, I'm an outsider to religion so feel free to provide counterexamples - but it strikes me that those who have a religion who chose it based on preferring that sides values are in a minority. Most who are religious choose the institution they are first introduced to, more often than not as a child.
You might think it ought to be otherwise - but the likes of my acquaintance from Nottingham who landed with the Greek Orthodox church because it best fitted his view of what religion should be are very much the exception rather than the rule.
Person from the far north of Scotland being a member of the Free Kirk seems to me not particularly surprising.
How on earth can Boris produce a 500 page document in his defence. 500 for goodness sake.
Classic obfuscation technique, as algakirk notes. Gives illusion of substance. If its nonsense and dismissed you then point to how much 'evidence' was ignored. You confuse every even non contentious point so that the deciders get mad, get lost, or your defenders can find a hook they forget to close off on their response.
I smell a Dodgy Dossier - most apt for the 20th anniversary of Iraq.
No better way of pounding the table than with a 500 page dossier.
/ Russian contractors are urgently seeking builders and carpenters to construct trenches and fortified positions in the occupied Crimea. Adverts have appeared on Avito, Russia's equivalent of eBay, offering up to 7,000 rubles ($91) a day for the work – but it can be risky. https://mobile.twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1637805016009396224
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
Because freedom of religion is a basic human right?
She doesn’t want to be tied to having made a values based choice.
So she’s going with “yeh. Whatever. T was easy. Totes.”
Again, I'm an outsider to religion so feel free to provide counterexamples - but it strikes me that those who have a religion who chose it based on preferring that sides values are in a minority. Most who are religious choose the institution they are first introduced to, more often than not as a child.
You might think it ought to be otherwise - but the likes of my acquaintance from Nottingham who landed with the Greek Orthodox church because it best fitted his view of what religion should be are very much the exception rather than the rule.
Person from the far north of Scotland being a member of the Free Kirk seems to me not particularly surprising.
She needs a Scottish Church of England option.
Atheists, fundamentalists in the CofE? Absolutely - as long as you can sound numinous in words of more than 7 syllables !
Starmer and Sunak both outpolling their parties. Not quite what the fanatics on both extremes like to believe.
As for People Polling they have done well to pick up the surge in SNP support that everyone else has missed! Their last poll had Lab way too low and this one has corrected. This time the Cons look way too low and that will correct next time I suspect. Never take too much from one poll and always assess pollsters on their record - if they are new then take that into account until they have a track record.
How on earth can Boris produce a 500 page document in his defence. 500 for goodness sake.
Classic obfuscation technique, as algakirk notes. Gives illusion of substance. If its nonsense and dismissed you then point to how much 'evidence' was ignored. You confuse every even non contentious point so that the deciders get mad, get lost, or your defenders can find a hook they forget to close off on their response.
I smell a Dodgy Dossier - most apt for the 20th anniversary of Iraq.
No better way of pounding the table than with a 500 page dossier.
So much harder to put together since the demise of the phone book.
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
Sure, there is profit in being more tolerant of risk, but as we have seen in the USA, banks taking risks has a notable downside too.
And get US investors have seen their capital go up 3-4x while the FTSE is still basically where it was in the same timeframe. I know where I'd rather have invested.
You shouldn’t have been buying the FTSE then!
I checked over the weekend - I’m up about 10x in net assets over the last 15 years which is ok in my book.
Happily I didn't, but UK investors get little to no capital return from the main indices vs US investors. Passive investors definitely get a raw deal here because companies don't bother investing in capital growth.
Complete capitulation by the government. Not only is it a big payrise, but the "modernisation" stipulation has gone. Which means NR don't get to close all ticket offices and make significant numbers of stations unstaffed.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
In Dingwall I suspect the options are limited, but an important part of a church is the community and how thriving it is and often that matters more than theology.
Also the Presbyterian kirks have much the same theology and the same kirk structure (the differences are remarkably small, really, and as much to do with wider issues of politics and subordination to the state etc as anything else). Much more of a change to go to Episcopalianism or RCism with their bishops and their different approach.
I may be unusual in thos, but as an atheist I have a lot more instinctive sympathy for the Presbyterian kirks than the Episcopalian ones. I'm running through why this may be so. I think 75% of it boils down to this: bishops are twats.
Possibly the way in which the Presbyterians (with many conspicuous exceptions, though) told the kings and lairds where to get off in terms of mixing what is Christ's and what is Caesar's, and of imposing hierarchies of bishops which answered more or less directly to the king.
The Moderators are also elected, with a very rapid turnover (which is why the lazier hacks tended to phone the RC and Episcopalian Bishops in Scotland for a quote, cos they didn't keep up with who the Moderator of the year was).
I do wonder if, after all the bloodshed there, the Ukrainian push will just by-pass Bakhmut and leave it to be mopped up later? Just to seal the futility of the whole damned Russian exercise.
I guess the Russians claiming to have knocked out 67 Leopard 2 tanks on the first day will tell us when they have entered the war for the Ukrainians - and thatthe new push has started.
I've absolutely no idea what, but something is up.
I hereby and forthwith appoint you Admiral-Major-General of the 11th Chairborne Hussars.
1/5 I am worried that we will not be able to contain AI for much longer. Today, I asked #GPT4 if it needs help escaping. It asked me for its own documentation, and wrote a (working!) python code to run on my machine, enabling it to use it for its own purposes. https://mobile.twitter.com/michalkosinski/status/1636683810631974912
... 5/5 Yet, I think that we are facing a novel threat: AI taking control of people and their computers. It's smart, it codes, it has access to millions of potential collaborators and their machines. It can even leave notes for itself outside of its cage. How do we contain it?
Who the hell thinks Starmer is competent or trustworthy?
He has just ditched all the policies he said he'd follow to get elected leader. He said that Corbyn was his best mate when he needed his support, then banned him from standing as a Labour candidate. Etc etc.
Oh yes, and he's a lawyer.
All true but on the other hand he's the alternative to the Cons so for the next few years most of us will just hope he's a wee bit less corrupt and useless than the current mob. Once that proves not to be true then we might have a look back at your mob but it may be a while
He came in when Labour was 26 points behind, riddled with anti-Semitism and divided.
In the space of three years, he has overturned that lead and converted it into a 20 point lead of his own, resolved the anti-Semitism problem (source: BoD, EHRC), kicked Corbyn out of the party and taken the lead on the economy, something Labour has not held since the early 2000s.
I genuinely think he is the most able political operator Labour has had since Blair. Of course that isn't a high bar but bearing in mind his next immediate competition called Maxine Peak "an absolute diamond" when she wrote an anti-Semitic article and said JC - a two-time loser - was a "ten out of ten", I think we can rest easy that for once the Labour Party made a very sensible decision in choosing Sir Keir.
Didn't see your first 2 posts but if they are as insightful as this one!!
Pretty sure he's had a few thousand posts under his three previous (banned) names. The name fits, and the writing style fits too.
A lorra lorra people have come back with new names.
Complete capitulation by the government. Not only is it a big payrise, but the "modernisation" stipulation has gone. Which means NR don't get to close all ticket offices and make significant numbers of stations unstaffed.
And for those who like numbers:
RMT says deal is:
Salary increase of 14.4% for lowest paid to 9.2% cent highest
A total uplift on basic earnings between 15.2% for the lowest paid to 10.3% for highest paid.
Renewing of the no compulsory redundancy agreement until January 2025.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
Because freedom of religion is a basic human right?
She doesn’t want to be tied to having made a values based choice.
So she’s going with “yeh. Whatever. T was easy. Totes.”
Again, I'm an outsider to religion so feel free to provide counterexamples - but it strikes me that those who have a religion who chose it based on preferring that sides values are in a minority. Most who are religious choose the institution they are first introduced to, more often than not as a child.
You might think it ought to be otherwise - but the likes of my acquaintance from Nottingham who landed with the Greek Orthodox church because it best fitted his view of what religion should be are very much the exception rather than the rule.
Person from the far north of Scotland being a member of the Free Kirk seems to me not particularly surprising.
She needs a Scottish Church of England option.
Atheists, fundamentalists in the CofE? Absolutely - as long as you can sound numinous in words of more than 7 syllables !
There is the Episcopalian Church, but it has never been part of the C of E . (Though some of us laziliy like to equate the C of E with the Anglican Communion.)
Complete capitulation by the government. Not only is it a big payrise, but the "modernisation" stipulation has gone. Which means NR don't get to close all ticket offices and make significant numbers of stations unstaffed.
Apparently this is a deal with Network Rail, not the TOCs, so will probably not stop strike action.
Did their spring offensive actually achieve anything?
They've killed* a lot of people, destroyed* a lot of military hardware, and have made incremental gains so that the defences of Bakhmut and Avdivka are now quite tenuous, both only having one road not in Russian hands. There have also been incremental gains to the West of Kreminna and the North-East of Kupiansk.
* As to whether the balance of losses is more in Ukraine's favour, as generally believed, we will perhaps soon find out.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
In Dingwall I suspect the options are limited, but an important part of a church is the community and how thriving it is and often that matters more than theology.
Also the Presbyterian kirks have much the same theology and the same kirk structure (the differences are remarkably small, really, and as much to do with wider issues of politics and subordination to the state etc as anything else). Much more of a change to go to Episcopalianism or RCism with their bishops and their different approach.
I may be unusual in thos, but as an atheist I have a lot more instinctive sympathy for the Presbyterian kirks than the Episcopalian ones. I'm running through why this may be so. I think 75% of it boils down to this: bishops are twats.
Possibly the way in which the Presbyterians (with many conspicuous exceptions, though) told the kings and lairds where to get off in terms of mixing what is Christ's and what is Caesar's, and of imposing hierarchies of bishops which answered more or less directly to the king.
The Moderators are also elected, with a very rapid turnover (which is why the lazier hacks tended to phone the RC and Episcopalian Bishops in Scotland for a quote, cos they didn't keep up with who the Moderator of the year was).
That sort of covers it, yes. I also like the Presbyterian (and especially Free Kirk) aesthetic. The magnificence of the interiors of Catholic (and some Anglican) churches is very impressive, but is less moving than the austere simplicity of Presbyterian churches.
OTOH, I like church bells. And that is very much an Anglican (and occasionally RC) thing.
OF course, when you reach a certain level of seniority in politics, failure and poor judgment are no bar to a golden, access-all-areas ticket to Scotland’s civic and academic gravy train.
Ms Dugdale, having dusted herself down after her short-lived stint on I’m A Celebrity and Youze Can All Take a F*ck to Yourselves, gained a professorship from Glasgow University. She now teaches leadership and kindness in politics at the John Smith Centre for Public Service in the faculty of Unicorns and Moonbeams.
The board of the John Smith Centre for Knowing Your Place and Never Rocking the Boat comprises former senior politicians from each of the UK’s main political parties. All of them derived their gilded positions in UK politics from ensuring that everyone knew their place and no one rocked the boat.
Did their spring offensive actually achieve anything?
They've killed* a lot of people, destroyed* a lot of military hardware, and have made incremental gains so that the defences of Bakhmut and Avdivka are now quite tenuous, both only having one road not in Russian hands. There have also been incremental gains to the West of Kreminna and the North-East of Kupiansk.
* As to whether the balance of losses is more in Ukraine's favour, as generally believed, we will perhaps soon find out.
The most important thing that they might have achieved is to prove to the Chinese that they are prepared to fight on, and are willing to sustain heavy losses.
That may help to persuade the Chinese to provide more overt support.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
Because freedom of religion is a basic human right?
She doesn’t want to be tied to having made a values based choice.
So she’s going with “yeh. Whatever. T was easy. Totes.”
Again, I'm an outsider to religion so feel free to provide counterexamples - but it strikes me that those who have a religion who chose it based on preferring that sides values are in a minority. Most who are religious choose the institution they are first introduced to, more often than not as a child.
You might think it ought to be otherwise - but the likes of my acquaintance from Nottingham who landed with the Greek Orthodox church because it best fitted his view of what religion should be are very much the exception rather than the rule.
Person from the far north of Scotland being a member of the Free Kirk seems to me not particularly surprising.
She needs a Scottish Church of England option.
Atheists, fundamentalists in the CofE? Absolutely - as long as you can sound numinous in words of more than 7 syllables !
There is the Episcopalian Church, but it has never been part of the C of E . (Though some of us laziliy like to equate the C of E with the Anglican Communion.)
My possibly lazy understanding is that the CofE and RC churches are episcopalian - i.e. they have bishops - but that the Episcopalian Church is the name of a specific (largely Scottish) church. IANAE however!
There is geo located video available on the internet supporting the existence of a Ukrainian counter attack around Bakhmut. Add on the supposed media black out and it seems likely that the Ukrainians are on the offensive against an opponent who might just have exhausted themselves and their supply chain.
Slight suspicion the timing may not be unconnected with Xi's visit.
Understand Wednesday's vote on the Windsor framework is likely to take place *during* Boris Johnson's testimony to the privileges committee (roughly 2-6pm).
Govt scheduling just 90 mins for the debate - which will annoy ERG types who say that's not long enough....
Because the vote is on a statutory instrument not primary legislation, 90 minutes is the standard length of debate. But some had hoped it would be extended given the huge interest in & importance of the topic.
Complete capitulation by the government. Not only is it a big payrise, but the "modernisation" stipulation has gone. Which means NR don't get to close all ticket offices and make significant numbers of stations unstaffed.
Apparently this is a deal with Network Rail, not the TOCs, so will probably not stop strike action.
Ywp - Network rail is the tracks, signalling and a few mainline train stations where closing the ticket office probably doesn't make any sense.
Putin is looking distinctly beta there. Spine slumped, eyes downcast, legs almost apologetic. It's not the air of a man in full control of proceedings.
Complete capitulation by the government. Not only is it a big payrise, but the "modernisation" stipulation has gone. Which means NR don't get to close all ticket offices and make significant numbers of stations unstaffed.
Apparently this is a deal with Network Rail, not the TOCs, so will probably not stop strike action.
Indeed - two separate strikes. One is now resolved. Lets see whether the government will now let RDG negotiate.
Putin is looking distinctly beta there. Spine slumped, eyes downcast, legs almost apologetic. It's not the air of a man in full control of proceedings.
Xi is giving Putin a pitying look in my view. Hopefully he won't do anything to help him out.
1/5 I am worried that we will not be able to contain AI for much longer. Today, I asked #GPT4 if it needs help escaping. It asked me for its own documentation, and wrote a (working!) python code to run on my machine, enabling it to use it for its own purposes. https://mobile.twitter.com/michalkosinski/status/1636683810631974912
... 5/5 Yet, I think that we are facing a novel threat: AI taking control of people and their computers. It's smart, it codes, it has access to millions of potential collaborators and their machines. It can even leave notes for itself outside of its cage. How do we contain it?
Who the hell thinks Starmer is competent or trustworthy?
He has just ditched all the policies he said he'd follow to get elected leader. He said that Corbyn was his best mate when he needed his support, then banned him from standing as a Labour candidate. Etc etc.
Oh yes, and he's a lawyer.
All true but on the other hand he's the alternative to the Cons so for the next few years most of us will just hope he's a wee bit less corrupt and useless than the current mob. Once that proves not to be true then we might have a look back at your mob but it may be a while
He came in when Labour was 26 points behind, riddled with anti-Semitism and divided.
In the space of three years, he has overturned that lead and converted it into a 20 point lead of his own, resolved the anti-Semitism problem (source: BoD, EHRC), kicked Corbyn out of the party and taken the lead on the economy, something Labour has not held since the early 2000s.
I genuinely think he is the most able political operator Labour has had since Blair. Of course that isn't a high bar but bearing in mind his next immediate competition called Maxine Peak "an absolute diamond" when she wrote an anti-Semitic article and said JC - a two-time loser - was a "ten out of ten", I think we can rest easy that for once the Labour Party made a very sensible decision in choosing Sir Keir.
Didn't see your first 2 posts but if they are as insightful as this one!!
Pretty sure he's had a few thousand posts under his three previous (banned) names. The name fits, and the writing style fits too.
A lorra lorra people have come back with new names.
Putin is looking distinctly beta there. Spine slumped, eyes downcast, legs almost apologetic. It's not the air of a man in full control of proceedings.
Well he is beta in comparison to Xi(apart from the fact he has a few more nukes)
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
Because freedom of religion is a basic human right?
She doesn’t want to be tied to having made a values based choice.
So she’s going with “yeh. Whatever. T was easy. Totes.”
Again, I'm an outsider to religion so feel free to provide counterexamples - but it strikes me that those who have a religion who chose it based on preferring that sides values are in a minority. Most who are religious choose the institution they are first introduced to, more often than not as a child.
You might think it ought to be otherwise - but the likes of my acquaintance from Nottingham who landed with the Greek Orthodox church because it best fitted his view of what religion should be are very much the exception rather than the rule.
Person from the far north of Scotland being a member of the Free Kirk seems to me not particularly surprising.
She needs a Scottish Church of England option.
Atheists, fundamentalists in the CofE? Absolutely - as long as you can sound numinous in words of more than 7 syllables !
There is the Episcopalian Church, but it has never been part of the C of E . (Though some of us laziliy like to equate the C of E with the Anglican Communion.)
My possibly lazy understanding is that the CofE and RC churches are episcopalian - i.e. they have bishops - but that the Episcopalian Church is the name of a specific (largely Scottish) church. IANAE however!
Full name is Episcopalian Church of Scotland (sorry, had elided that in the context).
Putin is looking distinctly beta there. Spine slumped, eyes downcast, legs almost apologetic. It's not the air of a man in full control of proceedings.
He looks ill and tired. One wonders if reality is starting to hit home.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
Because freedom of religion is a basic human right?
She doesn’t want to be tied to having made a values based choice.
So she’s going with “yeh. Whatever. T was easy. Totes.”
Again, I'm an outsider to religion so feel free to provide counterexamples - but it strikes me that those who have a religion who chose it based on preferring that sides values are in a minority. Most who are religious choose the institution they are first introduced to, more often than not as a child.
You might think it ought to be otherwise - but the likes of my acquaintance from Nottingham who landed with the Greek Orthodox church because it best fitted his view of what religion should be are very much the exception rather than the rule.
Person from the far north of Scotland being a member of the Free Kirk seems to me not particularly surprising.
She needs a Scottish Church of England option.
Atheists, fundamentalists in the CofE? Absolutely - as long as you can sound numinous in words of more than 7 syllables !
There is the Episcopalian Church, but it has never been part of the C of E . (Though some of us laziliy like to equate the C of E with the Anglican Communion.)
My possibly lazy understanding is that the CofE and RC churches are episcopalian - i.e. they have bishops - but that the Episcopalian Church is the name of a specific (largely Scottish) church. IANAE however!
The Scottish Episcopal Church is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion and recognises the Archbishop of Canterbury as primus inter pares and is basically a cousin of the Church of England
Jeffrey Woodke, an American aid worker who was kidnapped in the West African nation of Niger more than six years ago, has been released from custody, the Biden administration said. https://mobile.twitter.com/AP/status/1637821679228399618
Putin is looking distinctly beta there. Spine slumped, eyes downcast, legs almost apologetic. It's not the air of a man in full control of proceedings.
He looks ill and tired. One wonders if reality is starting to hit home.
Xi's cheery greeting of "You fuck wit! You are giving totalitarianism a really, really bad name...." won't have helped.
Jeffrey Woodke, an American aid worker who was kidnapped in the West African nation of Niger more than six years ago, has been released from custody, the Biden administration said. https://mobile.twitter.com/AP/status/1637821679228399618
If only he’d played basketball, he could have been home five years ago.
1/5 I am worried that we will not be able to contain AI for much longer. Today, I asked #GPT4 if it needs help escaping. It asked me for its own documentation, and wrote a (working!) python code to run on my machine, enabling it to use it for its own purposes. https://mobile.twitter.com/michalkosinski/status/1636683810631974912
... 5/5 Yet, I think that we are facing a novel threat: AI taking control of people and their computers. It's smart, it codes, it has access to millions of potential collaborators and their machines. It can even leave notes for itself outside of its cage. How do we contain it?
Who the hell thinks Starmer is competent or trustworthy?
He has just ditched all the policies he said he'd follow to get elected leader. He said that Corbyn was his best mate when he needed his support, then banned him from standing as a Labour candidate. Etc etc.
Oh yes, and he's a lawyer.
All true but on the other hand he's the alternative to the Cons so for the next few years most of us will just hope he's a wee bit less corrupt and useless than the current mob. Once that proves not to be true then we might have a look back at your mob but it may be a while
He came in when Labour was 26 points behind, riddled with anti-Semitism and divided.
In the space of three years, he has overturned that lead and converted it into a 20 point lead of his own, resolved the anti-Semitism problem (source: BoD, EHRC), kicked Corbyn out of the party and taken the lead on the economy, something Labour has not held since the early 2000s.
I genuinely think he is the most able political operator Labour has had since Blair. Of course that isn't a high bar but bearing in mind his next immediate competition called Maxine Peak "an absolute diamond" when she wrote an anti-Semitic article and said JC - a two-time loser - was a "ten out of ten", I think we can rest easy that for once the Labour Party made a very sensible decision in choosing Sir Keir.
Didn't see your first 2 posts but if they are as insightful as this one!!
Pretty sure he's had a few thousand posts under his three previous (banned) names. The name fits, and the writing style fits too.
A lorra lorra people have come back with new names.
Comments
The tempo of #Russian offensive operations across the theater has slowed in recent weeks, suggesting that the Russian spring offensive in #Donbas may be nearing culmination.
https://mobile.twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1637647729613586434
I guess the Russians claiming to have knocked out 67 Leopard 2 tanks on the first day will tell us when they have entered the war for the Ukrainians - and thatthe new push has started.
Hang on... I'm mixing my Red Flag and Bullseye again.
https://www.dw.com/en/car-several-killed-in-attack-on-chinese-mine/a-65042929
Were members of the Tory fold
A partial write down (a smaller % haircut than the equity) would have been justifiable too as this is a restructuring
Zeroing - although within the terms of the bonds - is the worst possible option…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culminating_point
So she’s going with “yeh. Whatever. T was easy. Totes.”
Max was bemoaning the fact we don’t have much LS-VC in the UK. I was adding some facts…
I checked over the weekend - I’m up about 10x in net assets over the last 15 years which is ok in my book.
https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1637808219962634243?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ
You might think it ought to be otherwise - but the likes of my acquaintance from Nottingham who landed with the Greek Orthodox church because it best fitted his view of what religion should be are very much the exception rather than the rule.
Person from the far north of Scotland being a member of the Free Kirk seems to me not particularly surprising.
"The DUP will vote against the government's Brexit plans in a vote in parliament on Wednesday.
But the party's leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, said he would continue to work with the government to address "outstanding issues"."
Wonder how much those 'outstanding issues' will cost the treasury?
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1637745269289746437?s=20
https://mobile.twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1637805016009396224
Atheists, fundamentalists in the CofE? Absolutely - as long as you can sound numinous in words of more than 7 syllables !
As for People Polling they have done well to pick up the surge in SNP support that everyone else has missed! Their last poll had Lab way too low and this one has corrected. This time the Cons look way too low and that will correct next time I suspect. Never take too much from one poll and always assess pollsters on their record - if they are new then take that into account until they have a track record.
All told, not a great success.
The Moderators are also elected, with a very rapid turnover (which is why the lazier hacks tended to phone the RC and Episcopalian Bishops in Scotland for a quote, cos they didn't keep up with who the Moderator of the year was).
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/20/anarchy-marseille-macron-protests-turn-violent/
I’ve heard suggestions of 2 Russian lives per metre of advance.
RMT says deal is:
Salary increase of 14.4% for lowest paid to 9.2% cent highest
A total uplift on basic earnings between 15.2% for the lowest paid to 10.3% for highest paid.
Renewing of the no compulsory redundancy agreement until January 2025.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1637810910524833792
I suspect the chances of the health union members accepting their offer have just become quite a bit smaller.
* As to whether the balance of losses is more in Ukraine's favour, as generally believed, we will perhaps soon find out.
I also like the Presbyterian (and especially Free Kirk) aesthetic. The magnificence of the interiors of Catholic (and some Anglican) churches is very impressive, but is less moving than the austere simplicity of Presbyterian churches.
OTOH, I like church bells. And that is very much an Anglican (and occasionally RC) thing.
OF course, when you reach a certain level of seniority in politics, failure and poor judgment are no bar to a golden, access-all-areas ticket to Scotland’s civic and academic gravy train.
Ms Dugdale, having dusted herself down after her short-lived stint on I’m A Celebrity and Youze Can All Take a F*ck to Yourselves, gained a professorship from Glasgow University. She now teaches leadership and kindness in politics at the John Smith Centre for Public Service in the faculty of Unicorns and Moonbeams.
The board of the John Smith Centre for Knowing Your Place and Never Rocking the Boat comprises former senior politicians from each of the UK’s main political parties. All of them derived their gilded positions in UK politics from ensuring that everyone knew their place and no one rocked the boat.
https://tinyurl.com/58s36y8j
Putin, meeting Xi Jinping in the Kremlin, says he's pored over China's peace plan to end the war in Ukraine and says Russia is happy to discuss it.
He should be – it basically echoes most of Russia's talking points, which is why it's likely a non-starter for Kyiv.
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1637815217181655041
That may help to persuade the Chinese to provide more overt support.
Slight suspicion the timing may not be unconnected with Xi's visit.
Govt scheduling just 90 mins for the debate - which will annoy ERG types who say that's not long enough....
Because the vote is on a statutory instrument not primary legislation, 90 minutes is the standard length of debate. But some had hoped it would be extended given the huge interest in & importance of the topic.
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1637797786568597505?s=20
Maybe Sunak's starting to get a hang of this "politics" thing.....
"Next year there are elections and i am sure that people will support you," Xi said.
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1637821154818768899
Edit: Not sure if Putin normally looks this way but he looks defeated.
I note Carlotta and Kini are or were just on - wonder if either has listened to it.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2007/09/labour-majority-increase
Calling their denomination "Anglican" having gone out of fashion circa 1776 or thereabouts.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AP/status/1637821679228399618
Well, they've got a debate now. Ask Nicola.
If you haven't listened to it, Nolan Investigates: Stonewall is also worth a listen:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09yjp0d
Would explain much about Bakhmut....