There seems to be a massive disconnect between these optimism forecasts and the real figures. Both growth and retail sales were good on the recent figures.
Everyone is picnicking along the alamedin river as it tumbles out of the Tien Shan. There are kids bareback on horses and smoke rising from barbecues and laughing families outside yurts with babies and beatifiul daughters
And behind them the mighty peaks rise, glittering and lordly and icy white
Exquisite. Only travel can do this
*sob*
Wrong.
Only PB can do this. Where is your experience if you didn't have us to relay it to as it happens. An article several days or weeks later isn't the same.
Happy to be here for you.
“Picnic Spot Number 3: Death Is An Illusion”
Mixed Media: Pixels on Glass, Sino-American Electronics: 2025
Why is this a surprise? Much of the Press, including the BBC have been 'doom and gloom' merchants for some time now. It's been surprisingly (to me anyway) noticeable since the election, but then I'm a Centre/Left voter who was delighted...... for the first few days anyway ....., by the election result.
Everyone is picnicking along the alamedin river as it tumbles out of the Tien Shan. There are kids bareback on horses and smoke rising from barbecues and laughing families outside yurts with babies and beatifiul daughters
And behind them the mighty peaks rise, glittering and lordly and icy white
Exquisite. Only travel can do this
*sob*
Wrong.
Only PB can do this. Where is your experience if you didn't have us to relay it to as it happens. An article several days or weeks later isn't the same.
Happy to be here for you.
“Picnic Spot Number 3: Death Is An Illusion”
Mixed Media: Pixels on Glass, Sino-American Electronics: 2025
Where's the dog? Those mountains could be three foot high for all we know.
On the EVs China vs western "luxury" manufacturers thing. How luxury are they, really? VW seriously cheapened their cars to save cost but charge the same. BMW. Mercedes. Not remotely as good as previously.
Legacy companies are still beholden to the dealer network - have to sell EVs that have to have vastly expensive servicing despite most of the parts that need fettling not existing on an EV.
I genuinely think this will be as big a problem for legacy brands as any other issue. EVs don't need that £400 interim service at the big glass dealership every 12 months, but the likes of BMW still insist on it. Not that long ago that I screenshotted the service plan offer on an i4 which had - you guessed it - oil changes and the like included.
Talking BMW, I did a double take following an i4. Why does it have the same bumper as a 4-series? Why does an EV have a bumper for quad exhaust tips - with the holes crudely plated over?
My final word on the trans debate Ed Davey making a good point .
If you’re a female to male trans are you supposed to use the female toilet? won’t that cause problems .
The Supreme Court already answered the question, so it seems Davey wasn't paying attention.
The female toilet is for biological females. Biological males and anyone who has altered themselves to be male should not use it.
The answer is no, you should use a gender-neutral alternative toilet instead.
A female to male trans is still a biological female .
Yes, and the court ruled they can be barred from female toilets as well as "trans women".
Gender-neutral alternatives, like disabled toilets which most places already have, are an alternative option.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/f89ecc90-d81e-4f92-967b-8b6309cbb65f?shareToken=89a05676716e9d9c97242f0bbde7bbd2 In fact, the judgment says that the Equality Act allows trans men (biological females) to be excluded from the women’s facilities, and trans women (biological males) to be excluded from the men’s. This might happen if, for example, a trans person looks so much like a person of the opposite biological sex that it would be disruptive to accommodate them in the single-sex service.
Undoubtedly this creates a double bind for trans people, and lawful solutions that preserve dignity and enable the full participation of trans people in public life must be found. An obvious one is to provide additional mixed-sex spaces alongside single-sex ones.
There seems to be a massive disconnect between these optimism forecasts and the real figures. Both growth and retail sales were good on the recent figures.
Certainly the shops and garden centres are busy.
It all comes down to cost of living, doesn’t it?
This is where all the messaging about growth falls down. It’s all well and good to eke out an extra few decimal points on the overall growth figure, but people don’t see the result of that growth (or indeed, they’re not seeing it yet).
Fundamentally we are in a doom spiral (still not helped, I might add, by the Labour messaging in Summer-Autumn 2024 (this may wane with time, but was a huge mistake)). It will take a fair bit to get us out of it. If Labour can break it, or start to chip away at it at least, their chances in 2029 will immeasurably increase. That is what they are gambling on. The jury is out on if they’ll manage it.
Just for a bit of fun - a hypothetical Pan-Anglosphere Election!
According to the most recent Anglosphere election results (with Canada and Australia pending), and with a total electoral college distributed proportionally by population (unlike the present US system!), but "winner-takes-all" at State level (like the present US system):
Remember - this just for a bit of fun!
USA (50 states plus DC) 538 electors (2024), but distributed proportionally 310 Radical Right, 228 Radical Left
US Territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.) 6 Electors, ie. 5 for Puerto Rico, 1 at large for the others (2024) 5 Radical Left, 1 Radical Right
US Associated States (ie. Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau) and Australia/New Zealand "Protectorates" (ie. Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa), 1 at large Elector (2021 to 2025) 1 Radical Centrist Dad (most elected representatives are unaffiliated)
UK (4 "states", ie. the Home Nations) 109 electors (2024) 109 Radical Left (oh, well!)
UK Dependencies and Territories, 1 at large Elector (elections 2019 to 2025) 1 Radical Centrist Dad (most elected representatives are unaffiliated)
UK Commonwealth Realms (11 states), 28 Electors (elections 2020 to 2024) 20 Radical Centrist Dads/Moms, 5 Radical Right, 3 Radical Left
Canada (13 states, including Quebec) 60 electors (2021) 51 Radical Left, 9 Radical Right - of course, this will change later this week!
Australia (6 states plus Canberra, the Aus external territories are included in Canberra and WA) 42 electors (2022) 22 Radical Right, 20 Radical Left - of course, will change later in the year!
New Zealand (1 state, ie. the main islands plus the three territories) 8 electors (2023) 8 Radical Right
Ireland (1 state) 8 electors (2024) 8 Radical Right
Remember - this just for a bit of fun!
TOTAL: 801 Electoral Votes for the whole Anglosphere Federation:
416 Radical Left Lunatics (51.9%) 363 Radical Right Lunatics (45.3%) 22 Radical Centrist Dads/Moms (2.8%)
And the "Populist" Vote:
113,340,707 Radical Left Lunatics (49.6%) 107,415,728 Radical Right Lunatics (47.1%) 7,552,218 Radical Centrist Dads/Moms (3.3%)
Not surprised. The country is *fucked*. LabCon fiddling around the edges whilst we sink further into the mire, with the rise of Reform offering an exciting new era electing "why can't we do x" politicians who quickly fall into a circus of internal fights when they are told their crayon solutions aren't viable.
What Carney fairly urgently needs is some more gratuitous rudeness from Trump.
Trump has been distracted by the fact that his tariff plan is crashing the markets and driving inflation. He has also claiming to be busy agreeing all these deals with people, some of whom deny even talking to him.
As Trump's bile has been directed elsewhere Carney has slipped back in the polls to the point that a majority is starting to look a bit of an ask. It really shouldn't be too hard to wind Trump up again before election day though.
Trump is more focused on China now than Canada
That's because he now realises that China will cause the shelves to be emptied, firstly by lack of deliveries very quickly augmented by panic buying.
Everyone is picnicking along the alamedin river as it tumbles out of the Tien Shan. There are kids bareback on horses and smoke rising from barbecues and laughing families outside yurts with babies and beatifiul daughters
And behind them the mighty peaks rise, glittering and lordly and icy white
Exquisite. Only travel can do this
*sob*
Wrong.
Only PB can do this. Where is your experience if you didn't have us to relay it to as it happens. An article several days or weeks later isn't the same.
Happy to be here for you.
“Picnic Spot Number 3: Death Is An Illusion”
Mixed Media: Pixels on Glass, Sino-American Electronics: 2025
I mean fine. But it's some landscape. Big deal. People are much more interesting.
Meanwhile why is everyone wittering on about effing Canada when, for all its complications and controversy we witnessed a fight of the age last night.
Boxing glorifies violence against the person. Disappointed to see so many PBers jizzing themselves into a frenzy over two blokes beating the crap out of each other.
It takes decades to build a high end car brand though, look at how long Hyundai have been plugging away at it with Genesis.
Nobody who is considering a Taycan is going to buy a Xiaomi just because it's a lot cheaper. I could see them slaughtering weaker commodity brands though. What exactly is the point of Vauxhall, Fiat and Peugeot?
You bought a Renault.
Chortle.
Didn't you buy a Jaguar?
...
Yeah. And that's 1,000 times more cool and less gay than a Renault.
A Jeg as Clarkson era Top Gear called them.
Nowt wrong with a bit of gayness in design, though..
Parker's been on the phone - Lady Penelpoe wants her car back.
What Carney fairly urgently needs is some more gratuitous rudeness from Trump.
Trump has been distracted by the fact that his tariff plan is crashing the markets and driving inflation. He has also claiming to be busy agreeing all these deals with people, some of whom deny even talking to him.
As Trump's bile has been directed elsewhere Carney has slipped back in the polls to the point that a majority is starting to look a bit of an ask. It really shouldn't be too hard to wind Trump up again before election day though.
Trump is more focused on China now than Canada
That's because he now realises that China will cause the shelves to be emptied, firstly by lack of deliveries very quickly augmented by panic buying.
China doesn't seem to worry about this, for now.
Isn't a fair bit of that emptying already baked in, given the time it takes container ships to cross the Pacific?
Why is this a surprise? Much of the Press, including the BBC have been 'doom and gloom' merchants for some time now. It's been surprisingly (to me anyway) noticeable since the election, but then I'm a Centre/Left voter who was delighted...... for the first few days anyway ....., by the election result.
Everyone is picnicking along the alamedin river as it tumbles out of the Tien Shan. There are kids bareback on horses and smoke rising from barbecues and laughing families outside yurts with babies and beatifiul daughters
And behind them the mighty peaks rise, glittering and lordly and icy white
Exquisite. Only travel can do this
*sob*
Wrong.
Only PB can do this. Where is your experience if you didn't have us to relay it to as it happens. An article several days or weeks later isn't the same.
Happy to be here for you.
“Picnic Spot Number 3: Death Is An Illusion”
Mixed Media: Pixels on Glass, Sino-American Electronics: 2025
Where's the dog? Those mountains could be three foot high for all we know.
The Kyrgyz Tien Shan reach higher than any mountain range in Europe - except the Caucasus (if they count - I say no)
So that mountain on the left is quite possibly higher than Mont Blanc
Because they are judged more loudly by progressives who are also more established and influential.
50 years ago, it would have been the other way round.
It’s not entirely a passive phenomenon.
Conservatives, of all stripes, have long used “toughness” and callous language about certain groups in society to build what they’ve seen as a reputation for effective government. It’s part of the brand DNA.
Strivers vs skivers, work-shy benefits scroungers, lazy kids benefiting from grade inflation etc etc.
If they talk like that then they’re going to get a reputation as cold bastards, and it’s a strategy they’ve embraced and evidently see as being successful. So much so that Labour now seems to want to emulate it.
It's also why the Conservatives shat the bed so thoroughly. A cruel but competent government gets support, but a cruel and incompetent government has very few friends, and the incompetence isn't easily forgotten.
The loss of their 'trusted with the economy' rep is IMO easily their biggest problem. Until they regain this they are not winning another general election.
Do you see an opportunity for this?
They will only get to "have a go" when they are the last option available, or if the electorate makes a mistake - the evidence base that they have submitted for a verdict says they will make a dog's breakfast of it, and will place party firmly before country.
And there is no way to create an alternative evidence base whilst they have exiled themselves from power.
I agree. It will be a while before we see another Tory PM. I think we can manage though. There's no rush.
Everyone is picnicking along the alamedin river as it tumbles out of the Tien Shan. There are kids bareback on horses and smoke rising from barbecues and laughing families outside yurts with babies and beatifiul daughters
And behind them the mighty peaks rise, glittering and lordly and icy white
Exquisite. Only travel can do this
*sob*
Wrong.
Only PB can do this. Where is your experience if you didn't have us to relay it to as it happens. An article several days or weeks later isn't the same.
Happy to be here for you.
“Picnic Spot Number 3: Death Is An Illusion”
Mixed Media: Pixels on Glass, Sino-American Electronics: 2025
Where's the dog? Those mountains could be three foot high for all we know.
The Kyrgyz Tien Shan reach higher than any mountain range in Europe - except the Caucasus (if they count - I say no)
So that mountain on the left is quite possibly higher than Mont Blanc
"that mountain is quite possibly higher than Mont Blanc"
There seems to be a massive disconnect between these optimism forecasts and the real figures. Both growth and retail sales were good on the recent figures.
Certainly the shops and garden centres are busy.
It all comes down to cost of living, doesn’t it?
This is where all the messaging about growth falls down. It’s all well and good to eke out an extra few decimal points on the overall growth figure, but people don’t see the result of that growth (or indeed, they’re not seeing it yet).
Fundamentally we are in a doom spiral (still not helped, I might add, by the Labour messaging in Summer-Autumn 2024 (this may wane with time, but was a huge mistake)). It will take a fair bit to get us out of it. If Labour can break it, or start to chip away at it at least, their chances in 2029 will immeasurably increase. That is what they are gambling on. The jury is out on if they’ll manage it.
This. You can spend more than a tenner on a basic lunch now and a hundred quid on a family meal out.
* Donald Trump is increasingly seen as an unreliable ally in Downing Street. Starmer said to believe UK's overwhelming national interest lies in closer alignment with EU
* New deal with EU will be unveiled on May 19 in summit at Lancaster House - will cover security, goods, agriculture, fishing. It will be far more substantive that any US deal
* The new internal deadline for the US deal is May 19. Concern is that EU deal and visuals of summit could infuriate Donald Trump and undermine deal
* Desire for deal with EU has influenced negotiations from US from off. On day one of negotiations UK made clear agricultural standards was red line because alignment with EU seen as greater priority
* YouGov polling for Times suggests 55% of voters want a closer relationship with EU, compared to 21% who think UK should have a closer relationship with the US
Why is this a surprise? Much of the Press, including the BBC have been 'doom and gloom' merchants for some time now. It's been surprisingly (to me anyway) noticeable since the election, but then I'm a Centre/Left voter who was delighted...... for the first few days anyway ....., by the election result.
This reinforces my consumer boom point.
If ever there were a time where “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” were true, it’s now. Consumers across the West, and most large businesses, and especially of course PE and AIFs, have stronger balance sheets than we’ve seen in at least 2 decades. There is the dry tinder needed for an huge upswing in economic activity all over the place.
But fear and uncertainty are holding it back. And if you leave dry tinder too long, it rains, and the tinder composts into soil, and it’s harder to get the fire going.
Still, global GDP has tended to follow the inverse of the oil price pretty directly over the decades, so if it can stay down for a while we’re in a good place.
There seems to be a massive disconnect between these optimism forecasts and the real figures. Both growth and retail sales were good on the recent figures.
Certainly the shops and garden centres are busy.
It all comes down to cost of living, doesn’t it?
This is where all the messaging about growth falls down. It’s all well and good to eke out an extra few decimal points on the overall growth figure, but people don’t see the result of that growth (or indeed, they’re not seeing it yet).
Fundamentally we are in a doom spiral (still not helped, I might add, by the Labour messaging in Summer-Autumn 2024 (this may wane with time, but was a huge mistake)). It will take a fair bit to get us out of it. If Labour can break it, or start to chip away at it at least, their chances in 2029 will immeasurably increase. That is what they are gambling on. The jury is out on if they’ll manage it.
Two obvious places to start - the cost of energy and the cost of housing.
Energy 1) decouple electricity prices from that of gas which we simply don't import in vast scales any more. The European pricing market isn't indicative of our needs / uses. Spain decoupled and prices fell. 2) Whilst we're at it, bin Net Zero. Not the policy, the name. Rebrand it "Energy Independence". We're going to get rich by making our own electricity and no longer be the guy pushed around by Putin and foreign markets 3) Whilst we're at it, reconfigure national grid pricing so that we're not making renewable energy generated for pennies more expensive than any other power costing pounds. Charging vast transmission fees is a choice. Make a different choice. 4) By cutting the price of power you cut the price of everything. Britain is a poor place to manufacture with such grotesquely high energy prices, but we can change that by slashing them
Housing 1) Remove the NIMBY row by starting work on a new town. RAF Burn and surrounding land looks perfect. Direct access to the East Coast Mainline, the M62, the forthcoming eastwest rail linking Liverpool Manchester Leeds and Hull etc. Identify other similarly opportune empty spaces 2) We can't build houses because we won't make enough bricks. Fix it. Don't train enough builders and craftsmen. Fix it. Make construction patriotic - equip colleges to train people on generous packages to work in a career that's Bob the Builder cool 3) Transform house prices by empowering Housing Associations to Build Build Build. Houses that people actually want at rents they can afford because they're social not market. These properties have a "not for sale" guarantee written in law, but if it crashes the parasite landlord sector then even better - a flood of property comes onto the market at competitive pricing due to the volume
Neither of these will happen because the Tories are corrupt and Labour are frit. Which is why we need to comprehensively rewrite the politics of our country so that it is fit for purpose...
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
What Carney fairly urgently needs is some more gratuitous rudeness from Trump.
Trump has been distracted by the fact that his tariff plan is crashing the markets and driving inflation. He has also claiming to be busy agreeing all these deals with people, some of whom deny even talking to him.
As Trump's bile has been directed elsewhere Carney has slipped back in the polls to the point that a majority is starting to look a bit of an ask. It really shouldn't be too hard to wind Trump up again before election day though.
Trump is more focused on China now than Canada
That's because he now realises that China will cause the shelves to be emptied, firstly by lack of deliveries very quickly augmented by panic buying.
China doesn't seem to worry about this, for now.
Isn't a fair bit of that emptying already baked in, given the time it takes container ships to cross the Pacific?
Rather different politics if the message from Trump to America is "Calm down, calm down, the stuff is on its way", or "Um......."
Because they are judged more loudly by progressives who are also more established and influential.
50 years ago, it would have been the other way round.
It’s not entirely a passive phenomenon.
Conservatives, of all stripes, have long used “toughness” and callous language about certain groups in society to build what they’ve seen as a reputation for effective government. It’s part of the brand DNA.
Strivers vs skivers, work-shy benefits scroungers, lazy kids benefiting from grade inflation etc etc.
If they talk like that then they’re going to get a reputation as cold bastards, and it’s a strategy they’ve embraced and evidently see as being successful. So much so that Labour now seems to want to emulate it.
Never forget Peter Lilley and the blue rinses 'I have a little list...'
There have been a few articles like this recently. Perhaps it is dawning on the Tory commentariat that cluttering up the party with yet another deposed leader might not be a panacea. Or are they just waiting for their own preferred candidates like JRM and Boris to return to Westminster?
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
* Donald Trump is increasingly seen as an unreliable ally in Downing Street. Starmer said to believe UK's overwhelming national interest lies in closer alignment with EU
* New deal with EU will be unveiled on May 19 in summit at Lancaster House - will cover security, goods, agriculture, fishing. It will be far more substantive that any US deal
* The new internal deadline for the US deal is May 19. Concern is that EU deal and visuals of summit could infuriate Donald Trump and undermine deal
* Desire for deal with EU has influenced negotiations from US from off. On day one of negotiations UK made clear agricultural standards was red line because alignment with EU seen as greater priority
* YouGov polling for Times suggests 55% of voters want a closer relationship with EU, compared to 21% who think UK should have a closer relationship with the US
It doesn't mention a couple of areas that I think are strategic - one is full access to EU run infra like Galileo and policing systems, and also full recognition of the City of London for trading.
It looks like certain successes in KS paying short term prices for long term benefits, which UK Governments always seem to get the wrong way round. We have a couple of years of extension of existing fishing access arrangements to UK waters.
I'm not sure he's got it as right as I would like, but he does not have the preternatural ability of our previous succession of governments of getting EVERYTHING wrong, ALL the time, whilst gutting the country.
As I see it, we need the EU (and Canada, and others) deals as being with stable trading partners, and we need what we can get from the USA - recognising that the USA is an unstable partner lead by a deranged psychopath on a random walk.
A modest amount of tactical Trump-fluffing may deliver great benefits, or it may not. That is the swing-prize.
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
There seems to be a massive disconnect between these optimism forecasts and the real figures. Both growth and retail sales were good on the recent figures.
Certainly the shops and garden centres are busy.
Some parts of the building trade are in recession, already.
People and business are walking away from new projects in several sectors.
Unless something changes, this will filter through to the consumer economy in a couple of months.
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
True and these SUVs can do terrible damage . I suppose in places with more guns freely available you get people resorting to that .
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
True and these SUVs can do terrible damage . I suppose in places with more guns freely available you get people resorting to that .
And it’s basically impossible to prevent unless you fence off any crowd of people with tank traps and armed cops - or both - which makes everywhere ugly and menacing and unfeasibly expensive
It’s another quite serious reason to welcome self driving e-cars and the end of the human driven motor. These attacks will become history
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
Mrs C has relatives in Vancouver. Don't think they're near the attack but one couple have adopted one Thai orphan and are in the process of adopting another. Another couple has fostered Chinese children. Never heard of any suggestion of anti-immigrant feeling. It's a while since we were there, but I didn't get the impression there was much, if any, anti-non-white immigration.
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
Was the first one in Europe not in Marseille in 2016 (84 dead)? The first in the UK I can recall was Westminster Bridge in 2017.
Security perimeters around UK cities started iirc with the Ring of Steel in London in the early 1990s - though that was the IRA and bombs, following on from the Mortar Attack on Downing Street. But there was a recommendation in the 2010s about bollard perimeters now in place in places like York and Cambridge, where inept design / installation causes controversy around denial of access to Blue Badge parking, and also mobility aids.
They became advised by Al-Queda when it became harder to smuggle bombs in.
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
True and these SUVs can do terrible damage . I suppose in places with more guns freely available you get people resorting to that .
And it’s basically impossible to prevent unless you fence off any crowd of people with tank traps and armed cops - or both - which makes everywhere ugly and menacing and unfeasibly expensive
It’s another quite serious reason to welcome self driving e-cars and the end of the human driven motor. These attacks will become history
It’s actually fairly trivial to sink deep mounted posts with a decorative top (fake cannon-stuck-in-the-ground etc).
God knows why places like Edinburgh persist with the “temporary” concrete blocks. Probably because the NIMBY types won’t agree to *anything*….
* Donald Trump is increasingly seen as an unreliable ally in Downing Street. Starmer said to believe UK's overwhelming national interest lies in closer alignment with EU
* New deal with EU will be unveiled on May 19 in summit at Lancaster House - will cover security, goods, agriculture, fishing. It will be far more substantive that any US deal
* The new internal deadline for the US deal is May 19. Concern is that EU deal and visuals of summit could infuriate Donald Trump and undermine deal
* Desire for deal with EU has influenced negotiations from US from off. On day one of negotiations UK made clear agricultural standards was red line because alignment with EU seen as greater priority
* YouGov polling for Times suggests 55% of voters want a closer relationship with EU, compared to 21% who think UK should have a closer relationship with the US
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
It began because Western security services have been very successful in shutting down terror cells, so lone wolf attacks are all that's left.
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
True and these SUVs can do terrible damage . I suppose in places with more guns freely available you get people resorting to that .
And it’s basically impossible to prevent unless you fence off any crowd of people with tank traps and armed cops - or both - which makes everywhere ugly and menacing and unfeasibly expensive
It’s another quite serious reason to welcome self driving e-cars and the end of the human driven motor. These attacks will become history
Until Skynet has had enough of us silly, capricious twats.
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
Was the first one in Europe not in Marseille in 2016 (84 dead)? The first in the UK I can recall was Westminster Bridge in 2017.
Security perimeters around UK cities started iirc with the Ring of Steel in London in the early 1990s - though that was the IRA and bombs, following on from the Mortar Attack on Downing Street. But there was a recommendation in the 2010s about bollard perimeters now in place in places like York and Cambridge, where inept design / installation causes controversy around denial of access to Blue Badge parking, and also mobility aids.
They became advised by Al-Queda when it became harder to smuggle bombs in.
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
True and these SUVs can do terrible damage . I suppose in places with more guns freely available you get people resorting to that .
And it’s basically impossible to prevent unless you fence off any crowd of people with tank traps and armed cops - or both - which makes everywhere ugly and menacing and unfeasibly expensive
It’s another quite serious reason to welcome self driving e-cars and the end of the human driven motor. These attacks will become history
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
True and these SUVs can do terrible damage . I suppose in places with more guns freely available you get people resorting to that .
And it’s basically impossible to prevent unless you fence off any crowd of people with tank traps and armed cops - or both - which makes everywhere ugly and menacing and unfeasibly expensive
It’s another quite serious reason to welcome self driving e-cars and the end of the human driven motor. These attacks will become history
Until Skynet has had enough of us silly, capricious twats.
We have a loony in the White House. We're told the world's in meltdown. How could they expect the findings to be any different. Meanwhile every pub and cafe is overflowing as are the shops. Maybe they're just spending before the apocalypse....
We have a loony in the White House. We're told the world's in meltdown. How could they expect the findings to be any different. Meanwhile every pub and cafe is overflowing as are the shops. Maybe they're just spending before the apocalypse....
Apparently Americans have stopped buying "snacks" because of the economic uncertainty.
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
True and these SUVs can do terrible damage . I suppose in places with more guns freely available you get people resorting to that .
And it’s basically impossible to prevent unless you fence off any crowd of people with tank traps and armed cops - or both - which makes everywhere ugly and menacing and unfeasibly expensive
It’s another quite serious reason to welcome self driving e-cars and the end of the human driven motor. These attacks will become history
Au contraire, these attacks will become automated. Self-driving cars will have their software hacked to drive into crowds. Both state-sponsored and terrorist hackers have been around for years.
In the meantime, revelations about Hegseth’s use of Signal and potential security risks he’s creating with it have not stopped coming. The latest is that Hegseth had a special internet line installed in his Pentagon office in defiance of the Defense Department’s normal security protocols so that he could use the Signal app on a personal computer there, according to two officials familiar with the matter.
The so-called “dirty” line, referred to that way because it’s not secured, increases the likelihood of the office being hacked or surveilled by a foreign adversary or another entity because it doesn’t have the same security filters as other, highly secure lines in and out of the office. Hegseth’s office is considered a SCIF, or sensitive, compartmentalized information facility, which is specially designed to protect communications. The existence of the line was first reported by The Associated Press on Thursday.
Just on the politics of the Vancouver attack, even if there were an obvious beneficiary, it will have limited impact. That's because already over 7m (or some 25% of the electorate) have cast their vote. In 2021, 17m voted out of an electorate of 27m, so some 63%. So unless turnout changes radically, some 10m votes still to be cast.
Why is this a surprise? Much of the Press, including the BBC have been 'doom and gloom' merchants for some time now. It's been surprisingly (to me anyway) noticeable since the election, but then I'm a Centre/Left voter who was delighted...... for the first few days anyway ....., by the election result.
This reinforces my consumer boom point.
If ever there were a time where “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” were true, it’s now. Consumers across the West, and most large businesses, and especially of course PE and AIFs, have stronger balance sheets than we’ve seen in at least 2 decades. There is the dry tinder needed for an huge upswing in economic activity all over the place.
But fear and uncertainty are holding it back. And if you leave dry tinder too long, it rains, and the tinder composts into soil, and it’s harder to get the fire going.
Still, global GDP has tended to follow the inverse of the oil price pretty directly over the decades, so if it can stay down for a while we’re in a good place.
But there are things to fear, mostly notably the actions of DJT.
Which has made my personal balance sheet tens of thousands less strong than it was a few weeks ago.
And a few pence off at the petrol pump isn't going to rectify that.
Update. Mate was at Lapu Lapu festival. It broke up, still many milling around. He went to buy some groceries. Happened literally outside his front door as he returned. Have another photo if I can exceed my limit? Never posted one before.
There seems to be a massive disconnect between these optimism forecasts and the real figures. Both growth and retail sales were good on the recent figures.
Certainly the shops and garden centres are busy.
It all comes down to cost of living, doesn’t it?
This is where all the messaging about growth falls down. It’s all well and good to eke out an extra few decimal points on the overall growth figure, but people don’t see the result of that growth (or indeed, they’re not seeing it yet).
Fundamentally we are in a doom spiral (still not helped, I might add, by the Labour messaging in Summer-Autumn 2024 (this may wane with time, but was a huge mistake)). It will take a fair bit to get us out of it. If Labour can break it, or start to chip away at it at least, their chances in 2029 will immeasurably increase. That is what they are gambling on. The jury is out on if they’ll manage it.
Two obvious places to start - the cost of energy and the cost of housing.
Energy 1) decouple electricity prices from that of gas which we simply don't import in vast scales any more. The European pricing market isn't indicative of our needs / uses. Spain decoupled and prices fell. 2) Whilst we're at it, bin Net Zero. Not the policy, the name. Rebrand it "Energy Independence". We're going to get rich by making our own electricity and no longer be the guy pushed around by Putin and foreign markets 3) Whilst we're at it, reconfigure national grid pricing so that we're not making renewable energy generated for pennies more expensive than any other power costing pounds. Charging vast transmission fees is a choice. Make a different choice. 4) By cutting the price of power you cut the price of everything. Britain is a poor place to manufacture with such grotesquely high energy prices, but we can change that by slashing them
Housing 1) Remove the NIMBY row by starting work on a new town. RAF Burn and surrounding land looks perfect. Direct access to the East Coast Mainline, the M62, the forthcoming eastwest rail linking Liverpool Manchester Leeds and Hull etc. Identify other similarly opportune empty spaces 2) We can't build houses because we won't make enough bricks. Fix it. Don't train enough builders and craftsmen. Fix it. Make construction patriotic - equip colleges to train people on generous packages to work in a career that's Bob the Builder cool 3) Transform house prices by empowering Housing Associations to Build Build Build. Houses that people actually want at rents they can afford because they're social not market. These properties have a "not for sale" guarantee written in law, but if it crashes the parasite landlord sector then even better - a flood of property comes onto the market at competitive pricing due to the volume
Neither of these will happen because the Tories are corrupt and Labour are frit. Which is why we need to comprehensively rewrite the politics of our country so that it is fit for purpose...
We have a loony in the White House. We're told the world's in meltdown. How could they expect the findings to be any different. Meanwhile every pub and cafe is overflowing as are the shops. Maybe they're just spending before the apocalypse....
They may be on your posh part of the world, they’re not by me and they’re not where I was last night.
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
Mrs C has relatives in Vancouver. Don't think they're near the attack but one couple have adopted one Thai orphan and are in the process of adopting another. Another couple has fostered Chinese children. Never heard of any suggestion of anti-immigrant feeling. It's a while since we were there, but I didn't get the impression there was much, if any, anti-non-white immigration.
Surrey is essentially a suburb of Vancouver:
Immigration to Surrey has drastically increased since the 1980s; this has created a more ethnically and linguistically diverse city. 52 percent do not speak English as their first language, while approximately 38 percent of the city's inhabitants are of South Asian heritage.
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
True and these SUVs can do terrible damage . I suppose in places with more guns freely available you get people resorting to that .
And it’s basically impossible to prevent unless you fence off any crowd of people with tank traps and armed cops - or both - which makes everywhere ugly and menacing and unfeasibly expensive
It’s another quite serious reason to welcome self driving e-cars and the end of the human driven motor. These attacks will become history
Au contraire, these attacks will become automated. Self-driving cars will have their software hacked to drive into crowds. Both state-sponsored and terrorist hackers have been around for years.
No that won’t happen. They’ll make FSD virtually unhackable. Maybe at state level it might become possible but it will stop all nutters, randos, petty terrorists
Indeed I wonder if vehicles will have sealed local neural networks, completely inaccessible like an iPhone, that will entirely invulnerable to hacker or engineer. Overrides that make it impossible to aim a car at a human
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
True and these SUVs can do terrible damage . I suppose in places with more guns freely available you get people resorting to that .
And it’s basically impossible to prevent unless you fence off any crowd of people with tank traps and armed cops - or both - which makes everywhere ugly and menacing and unfeasibly expensive
It’s another quite serious reason to welcome self driving e-cars and the end of the human driven motor. These attacks will become history
The White House must have issued a challenge to American architects: "Modern British architects think they are the last word in ugliness. We have to show them that anything they can do, we can do more because we're the US of Facking A".
I sometimes pass that ghastly eyesore, and it's sublimely awful, though to be fair it's not obviously worse than its 1960s-concrete-box predecessor.
Pointing out the obvious: @Big_G_NorthWales has a relative (a son?) in Vancouver. Is he OK?
My flat was 55 Old Compton St. and the bomb was in the Admiral Duncan which was 54 Old Compton St. The number of calls my family got to see if I was OK was heart warming but the chances were so minute that a moments thought would have saved a lot of phone calls. As it happens I was abroad anyway and the street numbering is alternate......
...multiply by several hundred thousand and you'll have the odds for somewhere in Vancover
I find it very strange that at the very least, the murder weapon hasn't been taped off/immediately taken away on low-loader. Anybody can wander up and tamper with the evidence.
We have a loony in the White House. We're told the world's in meltdown. How could they expect the findings to be any different. Meanwhile every pub and cafe is overflowing as are the shops. Maybe they're just spending before the apocalypse....
Apparently Americans have stopped buying "snacks" because of the economic uncertainty.
Unexpected health benefit?
Never been a better time for the 'Big Kahuna Burger' that you've always wanted
Pointing out the obvious: @Big_G_NorthWales has a relative (a son?) in Vancouver. Is he OK?
My flat was 55 Old Compton St. and the bomb was in the Admiral Duncan which was 54 Old Compton St. The number of calls my family got to see if I was OK was heart warming but the chances were so minute that a moments thought would have saved a lot of phone calls. As it happens I was abroad anyway and the street numbering is alternate......
...multiply by several hundred thousand and you'll have the odds for somewhere in Vancover
I don't see the harm in expressing concern, even if the chance is remote.
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
True and these SUVs can do terrible damage . I suppose in places with more guns freely available you get people resorting to that .
And it’s basically impossible to prevent unless you fence off any crowd of people with tank traps and armed cops - or both - which makes everywhere ugly and menacing and unfeasibly expensive
It’s another quite serious reason to welcome self driving e-cars and the end of the human driven motor. These attacks will become history
Au contraire, these attacks will become automated. Self-driving cars will have their software hacked to drive into crowds. Both state-sponsored and terrorist hackers have been around for years.
No that won’t happen. They’ll make FSD virtually unhackable. Maybe at state level it might become possible but it will stop all nutters, randos, petty terrorists
Indeed I wonder if vehicles will have sealed local neural networks, completely inaccessible like an iPhone, that will entirely invulnerable to hacker or engineer. Overrides that make it impossible to aim a car at a human
These car systems are designed to receive and apply over-the-air software updates. I do not know if @RochdalePioneers has a video on it. The bad guys would just need a compromised key (certificate) to tell your Tesla that this particular update comes from Musk Towers and not Jihadi Inc.
I find it very strange that at the very least, the murder weapon hasn't been taped off/immediately taken away on low-loader. Anybody can wander up and tamper with the evidence.
Thought hard about posting this, but it gives you an idea of how "immediate" this was.
Feel free to remove. But some idea of how bewildered the instant aftermath is.
Update. Mate was at Lapu Lapu festival. It broke up, still many milling around. He went to buy some groceries. Happened literally outside his front door as he returned. Have another photo if I can exceed my limit? Never posted one before.
'@PierrePoilievre I am shocked by the horrific news emerging from Vancouver's Lapu Lapu Day Festival tonight.
My thoughts are with the Filipino community and all the victims targeted by this senseless attack. Thank you to the first responders who are at the scene as we wait to hear more.' https://x.com/PierrePoilievre/status/1916363704142119014 I am devastated to hear about the horrific events at the Lapu Lapu festival in Vancouver earlier this evening.
I offer my deepest condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured, to the Filipino Canadian community, and to everyone in Vancouver. We are all mourning with you.
I find it very strange that at the very least, the murder weapon hasn't been taped off/immediately taken away on low-loader. Anybody can wander up and tamper with the evidence.
tbh it drives me mad that any incident results in a British town centre being brought to a halt for hours if not days on the off-chance that police might want to have yet another look round.
I find it very strange that at the very least, the murder weapon hasn't been taped off/immediately taken away on low-loader. Anybody can wander up and tamper with the evidence.
Thought hard about posting this, but it gives you an idea of how "immediate" this was.
Feel free to remove. But some idea of how bewildered the instant aftermath is.
The "bewildred" reaction seems to be for everybody to get their phones out and take images. Of bodies.
I guess that is the world we are now in. Everybody is an "on the spot reporter".
The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, ratified during the Reconstruction era, along with the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920, are our most important civil rights laws.
So, for many Americans, opposing birthright citizenship means attacking civil rights.
(Most nations in the Americas have birthright citizenship, unlike most nations in Asia and Europe.)
If we’re allowed to speculate on that horrific attack my guess would be either - genuinely - a random nutter, or some internecine gangster stuff
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
I don’t think it’s far right related given the ethnicity of the suspect . The suspect looks like he’s from eastern Asia. Vancouver police seem confident it’s not terror related but not sure how they’ve managed to make that assertion this early .
Agreed. Just saw the images of the evildoer - it seems there is no dispute it was him
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
True and these SUVs can do terrible damage . I suppose in places with more guns freely available you get people resorting to that .
And it’s basically impossible to prevent unless you fence off any crowd of people with tank traps and armed cops - or both - which makes everywhere ugly and menacing and unfeasibly expensive
It’s another quite serious reason to welcome self driving e-cars and the end of the human driven motor. These attacks will become history
Au contraire, these attacks will become automated. Self-driving cars will have their software hacked to drive into crowds. Both state-sponsored and terrorist hackers have been around for years.
No that won’t happen. They’ll make FSD virtually unhackable. Maybe at state level it might become possible but it will stop all nutters, randos, petty terrorists
Indeed I wonder if vehicles will have sealed local neural networks, completely inaccessible like an iPhone, that will entirely invulnerable to hacker or engineer. Overrides that make it impossible to aim a car at a human
Any sufficiently complex machine connected to the internet is vulnerable to a nation state or v-clever group.
I find it very strange that at the very least, the murder weapon hasn't been taped off/immediately taken away on low-loader. Anybody can wander up and tamper with the evidence.
tbh it drives me mad that any incident results in a British town centre being brought to a halt for hours if not days on the off-chance that police might want to have yet another look round.
I find it very strange that at the very least, the murder weapon hasn't been taped off/immediately taken away on low-loader. Anybody can wander up and tamper with the evidence.
Thought hard about posting this, but it gives you an idea of how "immediate" this was.
Feel free to remove. But some idea of how bewildered the instant aftermath is.
The "bewildred" reaction seems to be for everybody to get their phones out and take images. Of bodies.
I guess that is the world we are now in. Everybody is an "on the spot reporter".
I find it very strange that at the very least, the murder weapon hasn't been taped off/immediately taken away on low-loader. Anybody can wander up and tamper with the evidence.
Thought hard about posting this, but it gives you an idea of how "immediate" this was.
Feel free to remove. But some idea of how bewildered the instant aftermath is.
The "bewildred" reaction seems to be for everybody to get their phones out and take images. Of bodies.
I guess that is the world we are now in. Everybody is an "on the spot reporter".
I've liked, but that seems very inappropriate, but it was also my first thought and people are just standing around and not helping. It could be the shock or the timing of the shot. I hope so.
Many years ago we were first on the scene of a multiple pile up. In fact a car crashed into a car that I had just checked on shortly after I checked on it which shook me. It may also help that my wife is a Doctor, but we were helping those involved until the police and ambulances turned up as were others who arrived on the scene. To be honest I was pretty useless, but my wife was absolutely brilliant.
The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, ratified during the Reconstruction era, along with the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920, are our most important civil rights laws.
So, for many Americans, opposing birthright citizenship means attacking civil rights.
(Most nations in the Americas have birthright citizenship, unlike most nations in Asia and Europe.)
Just asking, because if I wonder this others of a less generous disposition might do too, did the States in the former Confederacy have votes during Reconstruction?
“A 1% increase in new supply (i) lowers average rents by 0.19%, (ii) effectively reduces rents of lower-quality units, and (iii) disproportionately increases the number of second-hand units available for rent. Moreover, the impact on rents is equally strong in high-demand markets.”
I find it very strange that at the very least, the murder weapon hasn't been taped off/immediately taken away on low-loader. Anybody can wander up and tamper with the evidence.
Thought hard about posting this, but it gives you an idea of how "immediate" this was.
Feel free to remove. But some idea of how bewildered the instant aftermath is.
The "bewildred" reaction seems to be for everybody to get their phones out and take images. Of bodies.
I guess that is the world we are now in. Everybody is an "on the spot reporter".
I've liked, but that seems very inappropriate, but it was also my first thought and people are just standing around and not helping. It could be the shock or the timing of the shot. I hope so.
Many years ago we were first on the scene of a multiple pile up. In fact a car crashed into a car that I had just checked on shortly after I checked on it which shook me. It may also help that my wife is a Doctor, but we were helping those involved until the police and ambulances turned up as were others who arrived on the scene. To be honest I was pretty useless, but my wife was absolutely brilliant.
As I walked around fields yesterday, looking for a missing boy, I chatted with the strangers I was with about what we would do if we found something - as none of us had been told. We decided that if we came across non-body 'evidence' - a mobile phone, or wallet, or bag - we would call it in, then photograph it so the police could tell it had not been moved. If we found a body, we would not photo it - unless it was in danger of moving (e.g. falling) for whatever reason. A rather macabre conversation.
Also, after-the-event photos could be useful in some circumstances. ISTR that the Bostom bombers were partly ID'd from photos taken as they walked away after the bombing.
Do you think that sentencing guidelines for causing death or injury while cycling should or should not be the same as those for causing death or injury while driving a vehicle?'
Should 75% Should not 11%
87% of Tory voters, 84% of Reform backers, 74% of LDs and 73% of Labour voters think the sentencing guidelines should be the same for cyclists as drivers
OKC: "Just asking, because if I wonder [if] others of a less generous disposition might do too, did the States in the former Confederacy have votes during Reconstruction?"
Yes, with one exception -- after they ratified the Amendment. "After state legislatures in every formerly Confederate state except Tennessee refused to ratify it, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, which conditioned readmission on ratification."
There seems to be a massive disconnect between these optimism forecasts and the real figures. Both growth and retail sales were good on the recent figures.
Certainly the shops and garden centres are busy.
It all comes down to cost of living, doesn’t it?
This is where all the messaging about growth falls down. It’s all well and good to eke out an extra few decimal points on the overall growth figure, but people don’t see the result of that growth (or indeed, they’re not seeing it yet).
Fundamentally we are in a doom spiral (still not helped, I might add, by the Labour messaging in Summer-Autumn 2024 (this may wane with time, but was a huge mistake)). It will take a fair bit to get us out of it. If Labour can break it, or start to chip away at it at least, their chances in 2029 will immeasurably increase. That is what they are gambling on. The jury is out on if they’ll manage it.
Two obvious places to start - the cost of energy and the cost of housing.
Energy 1) decouple electricity prices from that of gas which we simply don't import in vast scales any more. The European pricing market isn't indicative of our needs / uses. Spain decoupled and prices fell. 2) Whilst we're at it, bin Net Zero. Not the policy, the name. Rebrand it "Energy Independence". We're going to get rich by making our own electricity and no longer be the guy pushed around by Putin and foreign markets 3) Whilst we're at it, reconfigure national grid pricing so that we're not making renewable energy generated for pennies more expensive than any other power costing pounds. Charging vast transmission fees is a choice. Make a different choice. 4) By cutting the price of power you cut the price of everything. Britain is a poor place to manufacture with such grotesquely high energy prices, but we can change that by slashing them
Housing 1) Remove the NIMBY row by starting work on a new town. RAF Burn and surrounding land looks perfect. Direct access to the East Coast Mainline, the M62, the forthcoming eastwest rail linking Liverpool Manchester Leeds and Hull etc. Identify other similarly opportune empty spaces 2) We can't build houses because we won't make enough bricks. Fix it. Don't train enough builders and craftsmen. Fix it. Make construction patriotic - equip colleges to train people on generous packages to work in a career that's Bob the Builder cool 3) Transform house prices by empowering Housing Associations to Build Build Build. Houses that people actually want at rents they can afford because they're social not market. These properties have a "not for sale" guarantee written in law, but if it crashes the parasite landlord sector then even better - a flood of property comes onto the market at competitive pricing due to the volume
Neither of these will happen because the Tories are corrupt and Labour are frit. Which is why we need to comprehensively rewrite the politics of our country so that it is fit for purpose...
Are you really a Lib Dem ?
It is not a Lib Dem prospectus at all.
Regarding Net Zero, a rebrand (declaring it a mission to onshore energy production) will not work because it isn't true. Net Zero does not take into account CO2 generated elsewhere, so it actively incentivises importing both the means to create energy (because it penalises oil and gas industries in the UK but takes no account of the carbon emmissions both of extraction and transport created by importing oil and gas), and energy itself in the form of imported electricity.
The cost of renewables isn't just transmission costs, it's the cost of intermittence and unreliability (constraint payments), maintenance costs, and the high price demanded by generators. It also falsely adds to the cost of gas power generation, because it demands that gas is switched on and off at the drop of a hat to cope with peaks and troughs of renewable supply, which is added to the strike price of gas. Gas would be far cheaper if it didn't have to be constantly switched on and off. So renewables get off quite lightly.
I do have some sympathy with decoupling gas and electricity, and there are definitely things we could do to balance things in favour of the consumer, which we don't do because Net Zero fanatics want people to shiver in the cold to experience what they call 'the real cost of energy', and energy companies like making shit tonnes of money.
Do you think that sentencing guidelines for causing death or injury while cycling should or should not be the same as those for causing death or injury while driving a vehicle?'
Should 75% Should not 11%
87% of Tory voters, 84% of Reform backers, 74% of LDs and 73% of Labour voters think the sentencing guidelines should be the same for cyclists as drivers
That is a very loaded question. It needs the background data and the consequences for the change for an informed decision to be made. These things aren't that simple. To be honest I find it difficult to believe the numbers aren't even higher. It shows some are more informed, because it is difficult to believe that 13 - 27% believe a dangerous cyclist should be treated more leniently, which they shouldn't. Maybe if the 73 - 87% had to read up on the issue before answering the question the numbers might be different.
Do you think that sentencing guidelines for causing death or injury while cycling should or should not be the same as those for causing death or injury while driving a vehicle?'
Should 75% Should not 11%
87% of Tory voters, 84% of Reform backers, 74% of LDs and 73% of Labour voters think the sentencing guidelines should be the same for cyclists as drivers
That is a very loaded question. It needs the background data and the consequences for the change for an informed decision to be made. These things aren't that simple. To be honest I find it difficult to believe the numbers aren't even higher. It shows some are more informed, because it is difficult to believe that 13 - 27% believe a dangerous cyclist should be treated more leniently, which they shouldn't. Maybe if the 73 - 87% had to read up on the issue before answering the question the numbers might be different.
Worth introducing a new law just to make HYUFD shut up about it
Do you think that sentencing guidelines for causing death or injury while cycling should or should not be the same as those for causing death or injury while driving a vehicle?'
Should 75% Should not 11%
87% of Tory voters, 84% of Reform backers, 74% of LDs and 73% of Labour voters think the sentencing guidelines should be the same for cyclists as drivers
Comments
Certainly the shops and garden centres are busy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/27/conservatives-kemi-badenoch-reform-nigel-farage-fightback/
“Pro bono publico, no bloody panico!”
Mixed Media: Pixels on Glass, Sino-American Electronics: 2025
Why is this a surprise? Much of the Press, including the BBC have been 'doom and gloom' merchants for some time now. It's been surprisingly (to me anyway) noticeable since the election, but then I'm a Centre/Left voter who was delighted...... for the first few days anyway ....., by the election result.
Legacy companies are still beholden to the dealer network - have to sell EVs that have to have vastly expensive servicing despite most of the parts that need fettling not existing on an EV.
I genuinely think this will be as big a problem for legacy brands as any other issue. EVs don't need that £400 interim service at the big glass dealership every 12 months, but the likes of BMW still insist on it. Not that long ago that I screenshotted the service plan offer on an i4 which had - you guessed it - oil changes and the like included.
Talking BMW, I did a double take following an i4. Why does it have the same bumper as a 4-series? Why does an EV have a bumper for quad exhaust tips - with the holes crudely plated over?
Gender-neutral alternatives, like disabled toilets which most places already have, are an alternative option.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/f89ecc90-d81e-4f92-967b-8b6309cbb65f?shareToken=89a05676716e9d9c97242f0bbde7bbd2
In fact, the judgment says that the Equality Act allows trans men (biological females) to be excluded from the women’s facilities, and trans women (biological males) to be excluded from the men’s. This might happen if, for example, a trans person looks so much like a person of the opposite biological sex that it would be disruptive to accommodate them in the single-sex service.
Undoubtedly this creates a double bind for trans people, and lawful solutions that preserve dignity and enable the full participation of trans people in public life must be found. An obvious one is to provide additional mixed-sex spaces alongside single-sex ones.
That answer your "final word" point?
This is where all the messaging about growth falls down. It’s all well and good to eke out an extra few decimal points on the overall growth figure, but people don’t see the result of that growth (or indeed, they’re not seeing it yet).
Fundamentally we are in a doom spiral (still not helped, I might add, by the Labour messaging in Summer-Autumn 2024 (this may wane with time, but was a huge mistake)). It will take a fair bit to get us out of it. If Labour can break it, or start to chip away at it at least, their chances in 2029 will immeasurably increase. That is what they are gambling on. The jury is out on if they’ll manage it.
Just for a bit of fun - a hypothetical Pan-Anglosphere Election!
According to the most recent Anglosphere election results (with Canada and Australia pending), and with a total electoral college distributed proportionally by population (unlike the present US system!), but "winner-takes-all" at State level (like the present US system):
Remember - this just for a bit of fun!
USA (50 states plus DC) 538 electors (2024), but distributed proportionally
310 Radical Right, 228 Radical Left
US Territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.) 6 Electors, ie. 5 for Puerto Rico, 1 at large for the others (2024)
5 Radical Left, 1 Radical Right
US Associated States (ie. Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau) and Australia/New Zealand "Protectorates" (ie. Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa), 1 at large Elector (2021 to 2025)
1 Radical Centrist Dad (most elected representatives are unaffiliated)
UK (4 "states", ie. the Home Nations) 109 electors (2024)
109 Radical Left (oh, well!)
UK Dependencies and Territories, 1 at large Elector (elections 2019 to 2025)
1 Radical Centrist Dad (most elected representatives are unaffiliated)
UK Commonwealth Realms (11 states), 28 Electors (elections 2020 to 2024)
20 Radical Centrist Dads/Moms, 5 Radical Right, 3 Radical Left
Canada (13 states, including Quebec) 60 electors (2021)
51 Radical Left, 9 Radical Right - of course, this will change later this week!
Australia (6 states plus Canberra, the Aus external territories are included in Canberra and WA) 42 electors (2022)
22 Radical Right, 20 Radical Left - of course, will change later in the year!
New Zealand (1 state, ie. the main islands plus the three territories) 8 electors (2023)
8 Radical Right
Ireland (1 state) 8 electors (2024)
8 Radical Right
Remember - this just for a bit of fun!
TOTAL: 801 Electoral Votes for the whole Anglosphere Federation:
416 Radical Left Lunatics (51.9%)
363 Radical Right Lunatics (45.3%)
22 Radical Centrist Dads/Moms (2.8%)
And the "Populist" Vote:
113,340,707 Radical Left Lunatics (49.6%)
107,415,728 Radical Right Lunatics (47.1%)
7,552,218 Radical Centrist Dads/Moms (3.3%)
Remember - this is just for a bit of fun!
Source: www.801.com
China doesn't seem to worry about this, for now.
So that mountain on the left is quite possibly higher than Mont Blanc
Local rumour is 18 dead.
Is that going to be your sub headline.
Everyone's noticed and everyone is pissed off.
Filipinos?! Not many obvious enemies. Maybe a gangster thing
RIP
If ever there were a time where “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” were true, it’s now. Consumers across the West, and most large businesses, and especially of course PE and AIFs, have stronger balance sheets than we’ve seen in at least 2 decades. There is the dry tinder needed for an huge upswing in economic activity all over the place.
But fear and uncertainty are holding it back. And if you leave dry tinder too long, it rains, and the tinder composts into soil, and it’s harder to get the fire going.
Still, global GDP has tended to follow the inverse of the oil price pretty directly over the decades, so if it can stay down for a while we’re in a good place.
Energy
1) decouple electricity prices from that of gas which we simply don't import in vast scales any more. The European pricing market isn't indicative of our needs / uses. Spain decoupled and prices fell.
2) Whilst we're at it, bin Net Zero. Not the policy, the name. Rebrand it "Energy Independence". We're going to get rich by making our own electricity and no longer be the guy pushed around by Putin and foreign markets
3) Whilst we're at it, reconfigure national grid pricing so that we're not making renewable energy generated for pennies more expensive than any other power costing pounds. Charging vast transmission fees is a choice. Make a different choice.
4) By cutting the price of power you cut the price of everything. Britain is a poor place to manufacture with such grotesquely high energy prices, but we can change that by slashing them
Housing
1) Remove the NIMBY row by starting work on a new town. RAF Burn and surrounding land looks perfect. Direct access to the East Coast Mainline, the M62, the forthcoming eastwest rail linking Liverpool Manchester Leeds and Hull etc. Identify other similarly opportune empty spaces
2) We can't build houses because we won't make enough bricks. Fix it. Don't train enough builders and craftsmen. Fix it. Make construction patriotic - equip colleges to train people on generous packages to work in a career that's Bob the Builder cool
3) Transform house prices by empowering Housing Associations to Build Build Build. Houses that people actually want at rents they can afford because they're social not market. These properties have a "not for sale" guarantee written in law, but if it crashes the parasite landlord sector then even better - a flood of property comes onto the market at competitive pricing due to the volume
Neither of these will happen because the Tories are corrupt and Labour are frit. Which is why we need to comprehensively rewrite the politics of our country so that it is fit for purpose...
OR maybe a far right anti immigrant movement? Seems unlikely but if it is, that could presumably benefit the liberals given such a close Canadian election arriving very soon
There are lots of Islamists in the Philippines but IIRC they don’t have much history of attacking their own people abroad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOx8q3eGq3g
https://archive.is/20250425204021/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/keir-starmer-pope-funeral-rqr9xv50z
It doesn't mention a couple of areas that I think are strategic - one is full access to EU run infra like Galileo and policing systems, and also full recognition of the City of London for trading.
It looks like certain successes in KS paying short term prices for long term benefits, which UK Governments always seem to get the wrong way round. We have a couple of years of extension of existing fishing access arrangements to UK waters.
I'm not sure he's got it as right as I would like, but he does not have the preternatural ability of our previous succession of governments of getting EVERYTHING wrong, ALL the time, whilst gutting the country.
As I see it, we need the EU (and Canada, and others) deals as being with stable trading partners, and we need what we can get from the USA - recognising that the USA is an unstable partner lead by a deranged psychopath on a random walk.
A modest amount of tactical Trump-fluffing may deliver great benefits, or it may not. That is the swing-prize.
He looks very Filipino so maybe a family/mafia grudge or just a nutter. Slight chance he’s an Islamist but it’s a very odd target if so
Horrific. When did this fashion of vehicle killing begin? I can’t remember it being a thing in the 1990s. It is depressing easy to slaughter a lot of people very quickly
People and business are walking away from new projects in several sectors.
Unless something changes, this will filter through to the consumer economy in a couple of months.
Here is his photo. He's in shock.
It’s another quite serious reason to welcome self driving e-cars and the end of the human driven motor. These attacks will become history
eg https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36800730
Security perimeters around UK cities started iirc with the Ring of Steel in London in the early 1990s - though that was the IRA and bombs, following on from the Mortar Attack on Downing Street. But there was a recommendation in the 2010s about bollard perimeters now in place in places like York and Cambridge, where inept design / installation causes controversy around denial of access to Blue Badge parking, and also mobility aids.
They became advised by Al-Queda when it became harder to smuggle bombs in.
Interesting piece on MSNBC from 2014:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/11/car-attack-in-jerusalem-why-are-terrorists-ramming-vehicles-into-crowds-of-people.html
God knows why places like Edinburgh persist with the “temporary” concrete blocks. Probably because the NIMBY types won’t agree to *anything*….
Then, you have some imitation.
While https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vehicle-ramming_attacks points to a 1953 case.
https://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/articles/fortress-london-the-new-us-embassy-and-the-rise-of-counter-terror-urbanism/
https://www.crowdguard.co.uk/surface-guard/
FFS....
Unexpected health benefit?
The so-called “dirty” line, referred to that way because it’s not secured, increases the likelihood of the office being hacked or surveilled by a foreign adversary or another entity because it doesn’t have the same security filters as other, highly secure lines in and out of the office. Hegseth’s office is considered a SCIF, or sensitive, compartmentalized information facility, which is specially designed to protect communications. The existence of the line was first reported by The Associated Press on Thursday.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/hegseth-trying-show-trump-s-fighter-chaos-pentagon-rcna202915
Which has made my personal balance sheet tens of thousands less strong than it was a few weeks ago.
And a few pence off at the petrol pump isn't going to rectify that.
Mate was at Lapu Lapu festival. It broke up, still many milling around. He went to buy some groceries. Happened literally outside his front door as he returned.
Have another photo if I can exceed my limit? Never posted one before.
Immigration to Surrey has drastically increased since the 1980s; this has created a more ethnically and linguistically diverse city. 52 percent do not speak English as their first language, while approximately 38 percent of the city's inhabitants are of South Asian heritage.
Indeed I wonder if vehicles will have sealed local neural networks, completely inaccessible like an iPhone, that will entirely invulnerable to hacker or engineer. Overrides that make it impossible to aim a car at a human
The White House must have issued a challenge to American architects: "Modern British architects think they are the last word in ugliness. We have to show them that anything they can do, we can do more because we're the US of Facking A".
I sometimes pass that ghastly eyesore, and it's sublimely awful, though to be fair it's not obviously worse than its 1960s-concrete-box predecessor.
...multiply by several hundred thousand and you'll have the odds for somewhere in Vancover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnb_3ibUp38
Feel free to remove.
But some idea of how bewildered the instant aftermath is.
I am shocked by the horrific news emerging from Vancouver's Lapu Lapu Day Festival tonight.
My thoughts are with the Filipino community and all the victims targeted by this senseless attack. Thank you to the first responders who are at the scene as we wait to hear more.'
https://x.com/PierrePoilievre/status/1916363704142119014
I am devastated to hear about the horrific events at the Lapu Lapu festival in Vancouver earlier this evening.
I offer my deepest condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured, to the Filipino Canadian community, and to everyone in Vancouver. We are all mourning with you.
We are monitoring the situation closely, and thankful to our first responders for their swift action.
https://x.com/MarkJCarney/status/1916372984354243060
I guess that is the world we are now in. Everybody is an "on the spot reporter".
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_citizenship_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, ratified during the Reconstruction era, along with the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920, are our most important civil rights laws.
So, for many Americans, opposing birthright citizenship means attacking civil rights.
(Most nations in the Americas have birthright citizenship, unlike most nations in Asia and Europe.)
Many years ago we were first on the scene of a multiple pile up. In fact a car crashed into a car that I had just checked on shortly after I checked on it which shook me. It may also help that my wife is a Doctor, but we were helping those involved until the police and ambulances turned up as were others who arrived on the scene. To be honest I was pretty useless, but my wife was absolutely brilliant.
Our son and daughter in law live in North Vancouver and are safe but thank you for asking
Also the Leeds attack yesterday is exactly where our granddaughter socialises and fortunately she is safe as well
“A 1% increase in new supply (i) lowers average rents by 0.19%, (ii) effectively reduces rents of lower-quality units, and (iii) disproportionately increases the number of second-hand units available for rent. Moreover, the impact on rents is equally strong in high-demand markets.”
Also, after-the-event photos could be useful in some circumstances. ISTR that the Bostom bombers were partly ID'd from photos taken as they walked away after the bombing.
We also have a granddaughter living and working in Leeds but she was out of the city this weekend.
Should 75%
Should not 11%
87% of Tory voters, 84% of Reform backers, 74% of LDs and 73% of Labour voters think the sentencing guidelines should be the same for cyclists as drivers
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/travel/survey-results/daily/2025/04/25/24c7a/2?utm_source=daily_question&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=daily/2025/04/25_question_2
The agency has also banned references to the Holocaust, drugs and homosexuality
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/26/dvla-bans-pro-brexit-number-plates/ (£££)
While we are discussing cars and politics...
And one footballer's take:-
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/L4lQhGaEbSE
Yes, with one exception -- after they ratified the Amendment. "After state legislatures in every formerly Confederate state except Tennessee refused to ratify it, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, which conditioned readmission on ratification."
(There's a map here, showing when states ratified the 14th Amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Adoption )
Regarding Net Zero, a rebrand (declaring it a mission to onshore energy production) will not work because it isn't true. Net Zero does not take into account CO2 generated elsewhere, so it actively incentivises importing both the means to create energy (because it penalises oil and gas industries in the UK but takes no account of the carbon emmissions both of extraction and transport created by importing oil and gas), and energy itself in the form of imported electricity.
The cost of renewables isn't just transmission costs, it's the cost of intermittence and unreliability (constraint payments), maintenance costs, and the high price demanded by generators. It also falsely adds to the cost of gas power generation, because it demands that gas is switched on and off at the drop of a hat to cope with peaks and troughs of renewable supply, which is added to the strike price of gas. Gas would be far cheaper if it didn't have to be constantly switched on and off. So renewables get off quite lightly.
I do have some sympathy with decoupling gas and electricity, and there are definitely things we could do to balance things in favour of the consumer, which we don't do because Net Zero fanatics want people to shiver in the cold to experience what they call 'the real cost of energy', and energy companies like making shit tonnes of money.
That driver was probably looking for ME. A close shave
A bit OTT I think.