Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
I always find this very strange and confusing. Some places we always have, some places we do now, some places we never do.
…..
From that well known wokeist, Erdogan.
Erdogan is making us call Peking, Beijing?
We could ask the UN to stop using English as an official language, and the problem would go away.
French is an official language at the UN and they still say Pékin rather than Beijing.
Well the same characters in Chinese but different transliterations via different dialects.
Is that true? My understanding is just that Peking was how we used to express the Chinese word phonetically and Beijing is how we do it now - with neither quite matching the Chinese pronunciation.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
An overwhelming military advantage is only relevant when the fight is conventional, but this is not a conventional war.
When Hamas use hospitals as human shields and embed themselves into Gazan society as much as they can, Israel can't use its overwhelming majority advantage so the fighting is going to be riskier and at much more risk of innocent civilian casualties.
Or they could, but it would utterly flatten and wipe out the entire population. Which they could do if they wanted to, but they haven't, quite rightly as it would not be proportional.
Yes they could and it would be genocide but what could/will the world do about it?
That’s the equation in play at the moment
Thankfully Israel isn't doing that, because they're not genocidal, no matter if they regularly get falsely accused of being so.
If Israel were half as bad as they're accused of being, the death toll would be much higher.
Oh, so Israel haven't slaughtered enough of one religious group to be considered genocidal? How many then? Do we have to wait for them to slaughter 6 million?
If they were genocidal then I'd expect 2 million dead approximately - and I would oppose that as evil.
Targetting Hamas, even if it risks collateral damage, OTOH is legitimate.
There are only three ways I can see to avoid collateral damage:
1: Hamas surrenders - my preference. 2: Innocent Palestinians get refuge elsewhere away from the violent conflict - what refuge status and asylum is supposed to be for, is it not? 3: Israel surrenders letting Hamas survive.
I don't see option 3 as acceptable. My preference is 1, then 2, others it seem prefer 3.
Killing 2 million civilians is a bit of a throwing the baby out with the bathwater solution.
I don't believe anyone is supporting Hamas. Some are just a little queasy that in order to resolve the Hamas problem we are looking at incredible levels of collateral damage.
Its reasonable to be queasy about it, but there is no other realistic, serious way of eliminating Hamas than following similar paths to that which eliminated the Tamil Tigers.
Hamas are not the IRA, and its not possible to negotiate with them like that and to try yet again is that definition of insanity quote and something Israel quite reasonably won't countenance after what happened last time.
Either come up with a serious, credible alternative path to completely eliminate Hamas or let Israel finish the job. In the mean time, for any innocent Palestinians, there should be alternative options like refugee status available which is why they exist in times of war.
You can't starve 2 million Palestinians to eradicate a 30,000 strong death squad. There is no moral case.
In your pontificated blood lust you forget that a key reason the suffering continues is that the Prime Minister needs hostilities to continue to stay out of jail.
why don't the 2 million help the Israelis kill the bad guys, tumbleweed
It looks like another Reform UK moron has had to step down. Wayne Titley from Staffordshire County Council. According to Mark Pack his tweets about dealing with the boats were a little extreme.
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
I think Czechia is now officially preferred by the Czechs (or Czechias?) And we don't go on about Peking any more, do we? Things change.
Turks often call England İngiltere, which strikes me as very much like the French and the Spanish.
My wife and son both have extended-Latin letters in their names. My wife has an s-cedilla (Ş), and my son has a dotted I (İ). You get used to working out how to produce them on various computer systems.
Incidentally, if you find this confusing, feel sorry for poor Khazaks, who are moving from a Cyrillic-based alphabet to a Latin-based one. Then again, they should be used to it, as in Soviet times they moved from an Arabic alphabet to a Latin one, then to Cyrillic! Four alphabet changes in about a century...
I don't mind about Czechia and Peking, because I think those were correctings of misunderstandings.
The i already has a dot! Why does it need another? What does that do? What language is that from?
Anyway, I'm going to go on spelling Turkey as Turkey until the day that I die - like my gran did with her stoic refusal to change her pronunciation of Kenya from Key-nya to Ken-ya. Unless I'm writing to a Turk, of course.
More generally, on reflection, I find any attempt of other people to change words which were previously perfectly acceptable very irritating. Whether its products, names of pubs, names of cities, renaming 'personnel' as 'human resources', stadiums...
Personnel to Human Resources just shows how workplaces have changed how they see employees.
As Personnel we were people, human beings. As Human Resources we are just another resource to use, like raw material or machinery. The human element is devalued.
Max Burns @themaxburns · 2h Trump Solicitor General D. John Sauer tells Justice Amy Coney Barrett that Trump "generally" tries to respect federal court decisions but he has the "right" to disregard legal opinions he personally disagrees with.
Maybe she shouldn't have granted him immunity, eh?
That outcome genuinely seemed to take most US commentators by surprise, not just ones who believed any anti-Trump interpretation of things.
The Justices are very blatantly politicians in robes, but they also mostly seem reasonably bright (as one would hope given their careers) and with lifetime appointments presumably can take a long view of judicial and constitutional matters (which is why plenty of decisions will not need to be decided purely on partisan lines).
It's somewhat baffling none of them saw the potential issues with such an expanded view of presidential immunity which, until Trump, virtually no one seems to have advanced as true.
POLITICO @politico · 1h John Bolton on Trump envoy Steve Witkoff: "He knows nothing about Russia, he knows nothing about Ukraine, he knows nothing about Iran, he knows nothing about nuclear weapons...what could go wrong?"
They see weakness. Why wouldn't you keep pushing when its pretty clear that the current government will never say no.
The Government has already boxed itself into a corner by making a 'successful deal' with the EU a non-negotiable question of their identity as a Government.
He would be good at the job and would walk the election if it was a UK audience voting. Hope I am wrong but think he may be more likely to be a good runner up at the nominee stage, and if he does become nominee then at the main election. At the nominee stage as the Dems may want someone more lefty and at the Presidential election because of social conservatives. When he was in the running for 2020 polling showed 37% were not ready for a gay President.
So 63% were and the vast majority of that 37% would have been evangelical Republicans
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
I always find this very strange and confusing. Some places we always have, some places we do now, some places we never do.
A typical British fudge no doubt.
I don't have an issue going with the spelling another nation may prefer if they really seem to care about it, but it's pretty obviously the case that we won't do so consistently and nor will anyone else and that's fine.
So there's nothing wrong with calling the Irish Taoiseach the Irish PM for example. No one is going to refer to Merz as the Bundeskanzler after all.
Netanyahu now says flat out that he will not end the war.
Hamas could end the war by surrendering unconditionally and releasing the hostages.
Netanyahu is a bad, corrupt leader who should be replaced but even broken clocks can be right. Why the hell should Israel end the war before Hamas are defeated and before the hostages are released?
Because they are engaged in a crime against humanity.
Israel had the right to wage war against Hamas, and, by extension, the Gaza territory it was the de facto government of, within the bounds of the laws of international conflict. Those bounds have been so consistently breached, and, in its blockade, so grossly breached, that it's time for the international community to act.
Put simply, Israel is not conducting a war of legitimate military action but of, at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, perhaps, extermination. The latter would certainly be the practical outcome of its current policy if continues, as appears to be the Israeli government's intention.
Time to place full sanctions on the regime, and on the country.
I agree with this but can anyone tell me if hostage taking (and murder of said hostages) is a war crime?
Yes, of course it is. So was the original Hamas attack on unarmed civilians, and the murders, rapes and other crimes that accompanied it. That formed a legitimate casus belli.
However, the war crimes of one side do not legitimise* the war crimes of the other, particularly when the other's crimes are considerably in excess of the original.
* There is a case, which I'd agree with, that when one side in a war engages in actions which are illegal but give it an advantage, as a matter of policy, then that legitimises the victim to take proportionate and equivalent actions in retaliation and/or defence. This is dodgy ground legally but it cannot be right that a victim is bound to suffer further - and potentially to lose a war - in defence of a principle that the aggressor rejects. Where is the logic in that? However, that doesn't apply to Israel/Gaza, where Israel started the war with an overwhelming military advantage, and has only increased that advantage since.
An overwhelming military advantage is only relevant when the fight is conventional, but this is not a conventional war.
When Hamas use hospitals as human shields and embed themselves into Gazan society as much as they can, Israel can't use its overwhelming majority advantage so the fighting is going to be riskier and at much more risk of innocent civilian casualties.
Or they could, but it would utterly flatten and wipe out the entire population. Which they could do if they wanted to, but they haven't, quite rightly as it would not be proportional.
Yes they could and it would be genocide but what could/will the world do about it?
That’s the equation in play at the moment
Thankfully Israel isn't doing that, because they're not genocidal, no matter if they regularly get falsely accused of being so.
If Israel were half as bad as they're accused of being, the death toll would be much higher.
Oh, so Israel haven't slaughtered enough of one religious group to be considered genocidal? How many then? Do we have to wait for them to slaughter 6 million?
If they were genocidal then I'd expect 2 million dead approximately - and I would oppose that as evil.
Targetting Hamas, even if it risks collateral damage, OTOH is legitimate.
There are only three ways I can see to avoid collateral damage:
1: Hamas surrenders - my preference. 2: Innocent Palestinians get refuge elsewhere away from the violent conflict - what refuge status and asylum is supposed to be for, is it not? 3: Israel surrenders letting Hamas survive.
I don't see option 3 as acceptable. My preference is 1, then 2, others it seem prefer 3.
Killing 2 million civilians is a bit of a throwing the baby out with the bathwater solution.
I don't believe anyone is supporting Hamas. Some are just a little queasy that in order to resolve the Hamas problem we are looking at incredible levels of collateral damage.
Its reasonable to be queasy about it, but there is no other realistic, serious way of eliminating Hamas than following similar paths to that which eliminated the Tamil Tigers.
Hamas are not the IRA, and its not possible to negotiate with them like that and to try yet again is that definition of insanity quote and something Israel quite reasonably won't countenance after what happened last time.
Either come up with a serious, credible alternative path to completely eliminate Hamas or let Israel finish the job. In the mean time, for any innocent Palestinians, there should be alternative options like refugee status available which is why they exist in times of war.
You can't starve 2 million Palestinians to eradicate a 30,000 strong death squad. There is no moral case.
In your pontificated blood lust you forget that a key reason the suffering continues is that the Prime Minister needs hostilities to continue to stay out of jail.
Petey
How many Palestinians have died from starvation?
How many Palestinians are going to die from starvation?
How much food has Hamas stolen from Palestinians to cause starvation?
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
I always find this very strange and confusing. Some places we always have, some places we do now, some places we never do.
…..
From that well known wokeist, Erdogan.
Erdogan is making us call Peking, Beijing?
We could ask the UN to stop using English as an official language, and the problem would go away.
French is an official language at the UN and they still say Pékin rather than Beijing.
Well the same characters in Chinese but different transliterations via different dialects.
Is that true? My understanding is just that Peking was how we used to express the Chinese word phonetically and Beijing is how we do it now - with neither quite matching the Chinese pronunciation.
Yes that’s true. Beijing reflects the correct native pronunciation in modern standard Mandarin but Peking is an approximation of the Cantonese.
I don't think anything dodgy is being pulled when it comes to the likes of GDP figures. But they are noisy estimates and as we repeatedly see quite large adjustments of even figures from several years ago. It is more sensible to zoom and out see the general trend (which has been for 20 years pathetic growth) rather than obsessing about what a single 3 month predict was estimated to be e.g. here it could be turning the corner or it could be front loading due to Trump tariffs and Rachel from Accounts tax rises or it could just be natural variation e.g. this time last year we got 0.9% growth then it died right off.
Despite general reticence in matters of faith I would think many MPs would be open about their religious beliefs and impacts on this matter. But it wouldn't matter if they weren't, my opposition to the bill as an atheist shouldn't count more (or less) than someone who opposes it and is a Christian or Muslim or whatever.
I'm sure the bill will pass, there's obviously a majority in favour of the principle and I find it hard to believe they will pull back because of concerns around specifics of the bill (as was said at earlier stages people fear it won't come back if this bill does not get passed)
I don't think anything dodgy is being pulled when it comes to the likes of GDP figures. But they are noisy estimates and as we repeatedly see quite large adjustments of even figures from several years ago. It is more sensible to zoom and out see the general trend which has been for 20 years pathetic growth.
In 20 years time we will be reflecting how good it was to only have 20 years of pathetic growth rather than 40...
If Labour does get a good GDP tailwind and the waiting lists continue to fall, as does the immigration number, the right is going to have real problems going forward. Thoughts and Prayers for Leon et al, if that happened.
I see Starmer is in Albania to boast about his “new version of Rwanda” only for the Albanian PM to turn around and say Nah, not happening
Oops
“Starmer trip labelled an ‘embarrassment’ as Albania rules out asylum seeker deal”
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
I think Czechia is now officially preferred by the Czechs (or Czechias?) And we don't go on about Peking any more, do we? Things change.
Turks often call England İngiltere, which strikes me as very much like the French and the Spanish.
My wife and son both have extended-Latin letters in their names. My wife has an s-cedilla (Ş), and my son has a dotted I (İ). You get used to working out how to produce them on various computer systems.
Incidentally, if you find this confusing, feel sorry for poor Khazaks, who are moving from a Cyrillic-based alphabet to a Latin-based one. Then again, they should be used to it, as in Soviet times they moved from an Arabic alphabet to a Latin one, then to Cyrillic! Four alphabet changes in about a century...
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
I think Czechia is now officially preferred by the Czechs (or Czechias?) And we don't go on about Peking any more, do we? Things change.
Turks often call England İngiltere, which strikes me as very much like the French and the Spanish.
My wife and son both have extended-Latin letters in their names. My wife has an s-cedilla (Ş), and my son has a dotted I (İ). You get used to working out how to produce them on various computer systems.
Incidentally, if you find this confusing, feel sorry for poor Khazaks, who are moving from a Cyrillic-based alphabet to a Latin-based one. Then again, they should be used to it, as in Soviet times they moved from an Arabic alphabet to a Latin one, then to Cyrillic! Four alphabet changes in about a century...
I don't mind about Czechia and Peking, because I think those were correctings of misunderstandings.
The i already has a dot! Why does it need another? What does that do? What language is that from?
Anyway, I'm going to go on spelling Turkey as Turkey until the day that I die - like my gran did with her stoic refusal to change her pronunciation of Kenya from Key-nya to Ken-ya. Unless I'm writing to a Turk, of course.
And that's your right. I generally use Turkey on here; and I use Tutkey and Turrkiye elsewhere rather randomly, often depending on who I'm communicating with. I don't bother with the dieresis over the U. But as I don't know Turkish, it isn't much of a problem. But I also don't see other people choosing to use it as objectionable or an issue.
As for your question about the letter i; from memory, there are several forms: lower and upper case, with or without a dot, and a dotless I (which is different from the capital I we use). In English we use the I and i; other languages use others. It's all very wonderfully weird.
I had to work with Unicode/UTF-16 a few decades ago, and researching all of this pre-Wikipedia was fun. Thankfully Unicode is pretty much invisible now; everywhere, but invisible...
It looks like another Reform UK moron has had to step down. Wayne Titley from Staffordshire County Council. According to Mark Pack his tweets about dealing with the boats were a little extreme.
Reminds me of the time I was in Rome for an England Rugby international. There were some Police officers in the group. Their solution to migrants was something similar. I was somewhat taken aback.
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
I think Czechia is now officially preferred by the Czechs (or Czechias?) And we don't go on about Peking any more, do we? Things change.
Turks often call England İngiltere, which strikes me as very much like the French and the Spanish.
My wife and son both have extended-Latin letters in their names. My wife has an s-cedilla (Ş), and my son has a dotted I (İ). You get used to working out how to produce them on various computer systems.
Incidentally, if you find this confusing, feel sorry for poor Khazaks, who are moving from a Cyrillic-based alphabet to a Latin-based one. Then again, they should be used to it, as in Soviet times they moved from an Arabic alphabet to a Latin one, then to Cyrillic! Four alphabet changes in about a century...
I don't mind about Czechia and Peking, because I think those were correctings of misunderstandings.
The i already has a dot! Why does it need another? What does that do? What language is that from?
Anyway, I'm going to go on spelling Turkey as Turkey until the day that I die - like my gran did with her stoic refusal to change her pronunciation of Kenya from Key-nya to Ken-ya. Unless I'm writing to a Turk, of course.
More generally, on reflection, I find any attempt of other people to change words which were previously perfectly acceptable very irritating. Whether its products, names of pubs, names of cities, renaming 'personnel' as 'human resources', stadiums...
Personnel to Human Resources just shows how workplaces have changed how they see employees.
As Personnel we were people, human beings. As Human Resources we are just another resource to use, like raw material or machinery. The human element is devalued.
In my "Escape From The Sorcerer", you can visit the dungeon's "Human Resources" section (I used that term instead of "Personnel") and pretend to be "recruited" as a guard
I'm feeling really bored and restless today, maybe because we don't have any interesting elections to look forward to for a long time. On the other hand, there's a local by-election in Whestone, north London today, so it's not too bad.
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
woke halfwitted morons
More like misplaced anxiety over being 'correct'.
I like Hungary (apparently Magyarország - so close).
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
I think Czechia is now officially preferred by the Czechs (or Czechias?) And we don't go on about Peking any more, do we? Things change.
Turks often call England İngiltere, which strikes me as very much like the French and the Spanish.
My wife and son both have extended-Latin letters in their names. My wife has an s-cedilla (Ş), and my son has a dotted I (İ). You get used to working out how to produce them on various computer systems.
Incidentally, if you find this confusing, feel sorry for poor Khazaks, who are moving from a Cyrillic-based alphabet to a Latin-based one. Then again, they should be used to it, as in Soviet times they moved from an Arabic alphabet to a Latin one, then to Cyrillic! Four alphabet changes in about a century...
I don't mind about Czechia and Peking, because I think those were correctings of misunderstandings.
The i already has a dot! Why does it need another? What does that do? What language is that from?
Anyway, I'm going to go on spelling Turkey as Turkey until the day that I die - like my gran did with her stoic refusal to change her pronunciation of Kenya from Key-nya to Ken-ya. Unless I'm writing to a Turk, of course.
More generally, on reflection, I find any attempt of other people to change words which were previously perfectly acceptable very irritating. Whether its products, names of pubs, names of cities, renaming 'personnel' as 'human resources', stadiums...
Personnel to Human Resources just shows how workplaces have changed how they see employees.
As Personnel we were people, human beings. As Human Resources we are just another resource to use, like raw material or machinery. The human element is devalued.
I don't know if is still the case, but there seemed a push to refer to 'customers' in the public sector for awhile, to refer to the public. Felt very weird.
They see weakness. Why wouldn't you keep pushing when its pretty clear that the current government will never say no.
I’m sure the upcoming negotiations with the public sector unions will see this govt re-assert itself and start to gain a reputation for not being pushovers.
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
I think Czechia is now officially preferred by the Czechs (or Czechias?) And we don't go on about Peking any more, do we? Things change.
Turks often call England İngiltere, which strikes me as very much like the French and the Spanish.
My wife and son both have extended-Latin letters in their names. My wife has an s-cedilla (Ş), and my son has a dotted I (İ). You get used to working out how to produce them on various computer systems.
Incidentally, if you find this confusing, feel sorry for poor Khazaks, who are moving from a Cyrillic-based alphabet to a Latin-based one. Then again, they should be used to it, as in Soviet times they moved from an Arabic alphabet to a Latin one, then to Cyrillic! Four alphabet changes in about a century...
I don't mind about Czechia and Peking, because I think those were correctings of misunderstandings.
The i already has a dot! Why does it need another? What does that do? What language is that from?
Anyway, I'm going to go on spelling Turkey as Turkey until the day that I die - like my gran did with her stoic refusal to change her pronunciation of Kenya from Key-nya to Ken-ya. Unless I'm writing to a Turk, of course.
More generally, on reflection, I find any attempt of other people to change words which were previously perfectly acceptable very irritating. Whether its products, names of pubs, names of cities, renaming 'personnel' as 'human resources', stadiums...
Personnel to Human Resources just shows how workplaces have changed how they see employees.
As Personnel we were people, human beings. As Human Resources we are just another resource to use, like raw material or machinery. The human element is devalued.
I don't know if is still the case, but there seemed a push to refer to 'customers' in the public sector for awhile, to refer to the public. Felt very weird.
Oh god, that was something too in the private sector for a while. We now had internal customers, and we were customers of other departments too. Thankfully that guff has gone.
And if their religious beliefs influence how they voted on this bill, so what?
Indeed, but it seems to be the case that Rantzen has an issue with it and is using it in an accusatory manner.
it should NOT be decided by religious fanatics though so she is correct, they were not elected to espouse their religious beliefs to the detriment of the general public. Bring out the tumbrils.
And if their religious beliefs influence how they voted on this bill, so what?
Indeed, but it seems to be the case that Rantzen has an issue with it and is using it in an accusatory manner.
Pretty bigoted really. People can hardly switch off their internal moral compasses and beliefs, and something supported in part due to one belief system doesn't invalidate it. Something 'forced' on people due to religious belief would equally be forced on people if it was due to a non-religious belief.
Am i inherently more rational and objective due to lack of religious belief? Doesn't seem likely.
It's high time we got rid of all this ludicrous wokeness and ditched 'Sri Lanka' for its proper name, Ceylon.
Name changes often don't have the support of a large number of people living in the area. For example a lot of Muslims apparently weren't happy with Bombay being re-named Mumbai.
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
I think Czechia is now officially preferred by the Czechs (or Czechias?) And we don't go on about Peking any more, do we? Things change.
Turks often call England İngiltere, which strikes me as very much like the French and the Spanish.
My wife and son both have extended-Latin letters in their names. My wife has an s-cedilla (Ş), and my son has a dotted I (İ). You get used to working out how to produce them on various computer systems.
Incidentally, if you find this confusing, feel sorry for poor Khazaks, who are moving from a Cyrillic-based alphabet to a Latin-based one. Then again, they should be used to it, as in Soviet times they moved from an Arabic alphabet to a Latin one, then to Cyrillic! Four alphabet changes in about a century...
Tosh
So the Kazakhs are *not* changing their alphabet again? You should scribble a message on a turnip to tell them they're doing it all wrong...
It's high time we got rid of all this ludicrous wokeness and ditched 'Sri Lanka' for its proper name, Ceylon.
Name changes often don't have the support of a large number of people living in the area. For example a lot of Muslims apparently weren't happy with Bombay being re-named Mumbai.
And if their religious beliefs influence how they voted on this bill, so what?
Indeed, but it seems to be the case that Rantzen has an issue with it and is using it in an accusatory manner.
it should NOT be decided by religious fanatics though so she is correct, they were not elected to espouse their religious beliefs to the detriment of the general public. Bring out the tumbrils.
Weren't people dragged out on tumbril's by non-religious fanatical ideologues?
How do we identify which topics people are allowed to be influenced by their faith and which they are not? Especially since they would argue it is not, in this case, to the detriment of the general public - which is of course a political judgement on every subject.
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
I think Czechia is now officially preferred by the Czechs (or Czechias?) And we don't go on about Peking any more, do we? Things change.
Turks often call England İngiltere, which strikes me as very much like the French and the Spanish.
My wife and son both have extended-Latin letters in their names. My wife has an s-cedilla (Ş), and my son has a dotted I (İ). You get used to working out how to produce them on various computer systems.
Incidentally, if you find this confusing, feel sorry for poor Khazaks, who are moving from a Cyrillic-based alphabet to a Latin-based one. Then again, they should be used to it, as in Soviet times they moved from an Arabic alphabet to a Latin one, then to Cyrillic! Four alphabet changes in about a century...
The way to solve the Turkey/Türkiye issue would be to have an official language regulator for the English language, similar to the Académie Française.
In French, Turkey is called Turquie, and will continue to be written that way until the Académie decides otherwise.
I'm guessing this type of language regulation would not be acceptable to those who are the most upset about Turkey/Türkiye.
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
woke halfwitted morons
More like misplaced anxiety over being 'correct'.
I like Hungary (apparently Magyarország - so close).
IMV it's generally polite to refer to someone in the way they want to be known.
As an aside, a growing number of women - including Mrs J - choose not to take their husband's surnames. That's their choice. But one acquaintance had a boss who, after she was married, started referring to her by her new husband's surname, when she had not taken it.
It's high time we got rid of all this ludicrous wokeness and ditched 'Sri Lanka' for its proper name, Ceylon.
Name changes often don't have the support of a large number of people living in the area. For example a lot of Muslims apparently weren't happy with Bombay being re-named Mumbai.
The only person I knew from the city was against the name change. Whether it was generally popular or not, it should mean it is seen as not a big deal if others don't reference a chance for whatever reason.
It looks like another Reform UK moron has had to step down. Wayne Titley from Staffordshire County Council. According to Mark Pack his tweets about dealing with the boats were a little extreme.
Reminds me of the time I was in Rome for an England Rugby international. There were some Police officers in the group. Their solution to migrants was something similar. I was somewhat taken aback.
People find it easy to be harsh in the abstract - turn the boats back and if they don’t turn, sink them. Far harder in reality to watch people drown as a result of your actions. Those police officers would be the first to help save people in danger. In Nazi Germany everyone knew that the Jews were being murdered. Too many people were doing to keep it hushed up. Yet it was far away and not in front of people. Himmler was sickened when he watched people being shot and decided that more humane method were needed. Not for the victims, mind, for the killers.
For all the rhetoric about the boats almost all of us would strive to save a drowning person.
Lovely firm, but I hadn't put two and two together until I was reading this morning and saw that the Member for North West Hampshire was mentioned......
Me: "John. You're not related to Kit Malthouse are you?"
John: "He's my son and I'm very proud of him."
That's an extra vote for the Conservatives in Bootle then...... maybe they'll get 2 votes next time.....
My advice would be to hire a halfway competent photographer for the company headshots, or at least a Photoshop wiz to get them all the same size and looking in roughly the same direction. The photographer will be cheaper.
It's high time we got rid of all this ludicrous wokeness and ditched 'Sri Lanka' for its proper name, Ceylon.
Name changes often don't have the support of a large number of people living in the area. For example a lot of Muslims apparently weren't happy with Bombay being re-named Mumbai.
The only person I knew from the city was against the name change. Whether it was generally popular or not, it should mean it is seen as not a big deal if others don't reference a chance for whatever reason.
The Indian Hindu I know also thinks the name changes were politically-driven and ludicrous. He comes from Delhi so can take a more relaxed view of these things.
It's high time we got rid of all this ludicrous wokeness and ditched 'Sri Lanka' for its proper name, Ceylon.
Not Serendip.
Taprobana!
Every days a school day here. Googling this I found out the ancient Greeks had discovered the island and some guy called Ptolemy had a map with it on !
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
woke halfwitted morons
More like misplaced anxiety over being 'correct'.
I like Hungary (apparently Magyarország - so close).
IMV it's generally polite to refer to someone in the way they want to be known.
As an aside, a growing number of women - including Mrs J - choose not to take their husband's surnames. That's their choice. But one acquaintance had a boss who, after she was married, started referring to her by her new husband's surname, when she had not taken it.
That's crassly rude.
Indeed, refer to people how they would like (in the example you give it's just antagonistic) - but when it comes to nations most don't seem to regard it as a big deal...presumably because they do the same thing we do, so I really wouldn't sweat over it.
I’m told the mini market down from the station has a big problem with shoplifters. It appears to be mainly under 18s who have the view they’re untouchable. When adults intervene all they get is abuse as the police don’t turn up if reported.
If you have been around a while you will know this is an occasional and recurring problem in society (Oliver Twist syndrome) but it erodes the faith in the police and the state until it is solved or dies away.
If there’s no consequence for bad behaviour it becomes normalised.
It’s the fault of the police and, unsurprisingly, Theresa May according to this.
The main reason the Conservatives lost their majority in 2017 was not social care but the two terrorist outrages during the election campaign, and Theresa May denying that cutting thousands of police officers was somehow connected.
Really? I don’t recall either terrorist attack having that great an impact.
The manifesto launch and “nothing has changed”… Well, that’s a different matter.
The thing the (first) terrorist attack did was halt campaigning. The Tories had just released their social care plans that had gone down like someone had sh*t on the living room floor. Instead of the typical reverse ferret to clear up the mess, the halt meant the stink just stayed there and got baked in.
I cant get excited about Turkey/Turkiye which is subtle pronunciation difference. But we should respect Sri Lanka, Mynamar, Cymru...
I think more people may object to the Turkey once precisely because it is more subtle, and they get concerned about getting a minor pronounciation preference 'wrong' than they do just saying a whole different word(s).
I’m told the mini market down from the station has a big problem with shoplifters. It appears to be mainly under 18s who have the view they’re untouchable. When adults intervene all they get is abuse as the police don’t turn up if reported.
If you have been around a while you will know this is an occasional and recurring problem in society (Oliver Twist syndrome) but it erodes the faith in the police and the state until it is solved or dies away.
If there’s no consequence for bad behaviour it becomes normalised.
It’s the fault of the police and, unsurprisingly, Theresa May according to this.
The main reason the Conservatives lost their majority in 2017 was not social care but the two terrorist outrages during the election campaign, and Theresa May denying that cutting thousands of police officers was somehow connected.
Really? I don’t recall either terrorist attack having that great an impact.
The manifesto launch and “nothing has changed”… Well, that’s a different matter.
It was Lynton Crosby who blamed the social care plan in order to exonerate himself. The media followed.
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
woke halfwitted morons
More like misplaced anxiety over being 'correct'.
I like Hungary (apparently Magyarország - so close).
IMV it's generally polite to refer to someone in the way they want to be known.
As an aside, a growing number of women - including Mrs J - choose not to take their husband's surnames. That's their choice. But one acquaintance had a boss who, after she was married, started referring to her by her new husband's surname, when she had not taken it.
That's crassly rude.
Meanwhile, in Florida, teachers are being let go because they call students the name they prefer, not the one on their birth certificate. Written permission of the parent is now required by law in the land of the free.
I cant get excited about Turkey/Turkiye which is subtle pronunciation difference. But we should respect Sri Lanka, Mynamar, Cymru...
That's another one. I can just about accept Eyri, though I'm not happy about it. There are at least Welsh speakers there. But renaming the Brecon Beacons was done purely to annoy the English. Brecon Beacons sounded quite nice - I quite fancied a weekend there. I'm not bothering with it under a name I can't pronounce chosen purely to annoy me.
I cant get excited about Turkey/Turkiye which is subtle pronunciation difference. But we should respect Sri Lanka, Mynamar, Cymru...
That's another one. I can just about accept Eyri, though I'm not happy about it. There are at least Welsh speakers there. But renaming the Brecon Beacons was done purely to annoy the English. Brecon Beacons sounded quite nice - I quite fancied a weekend there. I'm not bothering with it under a name I can't pronounce chosen purely to annoy me.
Well, you're missing out on a wonderful place but whatever.
It's high time we got rid of all this ludicrous wokeness and ditched 'Sri Lanka' for its proper name, Ceylon.
Not Serendip.
Taprobana!
Every days a school day here. Googling this I found out the ancient Greeks had discovered the island and some guy called Ptolemy had a map with it on !
I have a theory, which is almost certainly complete, utter bollocks, that this "Taprobana" island, much, much larger than Sri Lanka, could preserve knowledge of the fact that India once was a gigantic island in the Indian Ocean. But of course that was millions of years ago.
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
I think Czechia is now officially preferred by the Czechs (or Czechias?) And we don't go on about Peking any more, do we? Things change.
Turks often call England İngiltere, which strikes me as very much like the French and the Spanish.
My wife and son both have extended-Latin letters in their names. My wife has an s-cedilla (Ş), and my son has a dotted I (İ). You get used to working out how to produce them on various computer systems.
Incidentally, if you find this confusing, feel sorry for poor Khazaks, who are moving from a Cyrillic-based alphabet to a Latin-based one. Then again, they should be used to it, as in Soviet times they moved from an Arabic alphabet to a Latin one, then to Cyrillic! Four alphabet changes in about a century...
The way to solve the Turkey/Türkiye issue would be to have an official language regulator for the English language, similar to the Académie Française.
In French, Turkey is called Turquie, and will continue to be written that way until the Académie decides otherwise.
I'm guessing this type of language regulation would not be acceptable to those who are the most upset about Turkey/Türkiye.
I quite like and respect the Academie Francaise, actually. It's so admirably French. Wouldn't work for English. Who would it? And it would be staffed by the sort of people who would absolutely delight in changing the language every five minutes for every new fashion.
Bizarre is putting it mildly given the nationality.
There have been a fair few Ukrainians who have been found to be Russian agents. Remember the outbreak of the war there was a huge concern just how many were already based in Kiev and might try and assassinate the leadership or very least cause a nuisance.
And if their religious beliefs influence how they voted on this bill, so what?
Indeed, but it seems to be the case that Rantzen has an issue with it and is using it in an accusatory manner.
it should NOT be decided by religious fanatics though so she is correct, they were not elected to espouse their religious beliefs to the detriment of the general public. Bring out the tumbrils.
I'll give you a like for that. I have my reservations about assisted dying, but I'd rather we decided it for human reasons rather than because of what someone's god thinks.
Learn something every day. I didn't know MPs were obliged to declare their religious beliefs. Do they fill out a form to record their morals and principles?
Learn something every day. I didn't know MPs were obliged to declare their religious beliefs. Do they fill out a form to record their morals and principles?
It's an interesting idea but how many MPs would have anything to say?
This remains an idea that is right in principle but a dreadful bill addressing the wrong problems in an unsatisfactory way.
Learn something every day. I didn't know MPs were obliged to declare their religious beliefs. Do they fill out a form to record their morals and principles?
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others." - G. Marx.
So he’s suggesting all the kids are running around with guns and therefore the IDF genocide is acceptable .
He can go fxck himself and his desperate attempts to justify the slaughter .
That is such a depressing tweet (and that's a hell of a field). It makes me really sad.
It was so sad seeing the little boy desperate for food in Gaza on the BBC clip . Children are crying because of the hunger . The west should be utterly ashamed .
Bizarre is putting it mildly given the nationality.
There have been a fair few Ukrainians who have been found to be Russian agents. Remember the outbreak of the war there was a huge concern just how many were already based in Kiev and might try and assassinate the leadership or very least cause a nuisance.
Makes a great deal of sense to use them, from the Russian perspective. It's also possible that they did not know they were working for Russia; someone just paid them to perform these acts. In the same way some American YouTubers were 'unaware' they were being paid to spread Russian disinfo...
Learn something every day. I didn't know MPs were obliged to declare their religious beliefs. Do they fill out a form to record their morals and principles?
The bigger problem is no one is actually reviewing these forms and barring those with incorrect morals and principles.
And if their religious beliefs influence how they voted on this bill, so what?
Indeed, but it seems to be the case that Rantzen has an issue with it and is using it in an accusatory manner.
it should NOT be decided by religious fanatics though so she is correct, they were not elected to espouse their religious beliefs to the detriment of the general public. Bring out the tumbrils.
I'll give you a like for that. I have my reservations about assisted dying, but I'd rather we decided it for human reasons rather than because of what someone's god thinks.
But how to separate that out? I don't support it and don't believe in God, so would it be ok if they said that whilst they are Christian (or whatever) they don't support it for entirely different reasons unrelated to their faith? Would people believe them if they said that? And if they wouldn't believe that would that mean that they are not allowed to take part because it is driven by religious faith not non-religious ideology? Why is the latter ok but the former not?
I really just don't see how it is practical as a complaint. Sure we don't want imposition of religious morals by a few on the many - blasphemy laws for example - but someone being of a faith means that faith will impact their views on many things, just as being a communist or a humanist would. A concern would be if someone makes their decisions solely based on religious factors, but eliminating them entirely doesn't seem possible in a society where religion still exists.
I cant get excited about Turkey/Turkiye which is subtle pronunciation difference. But we should respect Sri Lanka, Mynamar, Cymru...
That's another one. I can just about accept Eyri, though I'm not happy about it. There are at least Welsh speakers there. But renaming the Brecon Beacons was done purely to annoy the English. Brecon Beacons sounded quite nice - I quite fancied a weekend there. I'm not bothering with it under a name I can't pronounce chosen purely to annoy me.
Eyri is the sort of place where you turn up in a pub and they switch to talking Welsh. My Aunt arrives and the language instantly returns to English...
So he’s suggesting all the kids are running around with guns and therefore the IDF genocide is acceptable .
He can go fxck himself and his desperate attempts to justify the slaughter .
That is such a depressing tweet (and that's a hell of a field). It makes me really sad.
It was so sad seeing the little boy desperate for food in Gaza on the BBC clip . Children are crying because of the hunger . The west should be utterly ashamed .
Palestinian supporters should stop marching through London and have a whip round to pay for adverts featuring starving children in the American press.
So he’s suggesting all the kids are running around with guns and therefore the IDF genocide is acceptable .
He can go fxck himself and his desperate attempts to justify the slaughter .
That is such a depressing tweet (and that's a hell of a field). It makes me really sad.
It was so sad seeing the little boy desperate for food in Gaza on the BBC clip . Children are crying because of the hunger . The west should be utterly ashamed .
Yes we should but it is nothing to that ignorant boor that was on R4 on the WATO, Sebastian Gorka. That was one of the most disgusting interviews I have ever heard, a complete scumbag.
Jesus, will people stop calling it Turkiye. We don't suddenly have to change the English spelling for Germany or Spain. That u with an umlaut thing doesn't exist in English. I bet the Turks have a Turksih word for England/ Great Britain/ UK. (I dunno. They may not.)
I always find this very strange and confusing. Some places we always have, some places we do now, some places we never do.
…..
From that well known wokeist, Erdogan.
Erdogan is making us call Peking, Beijing?
We could ask the UN to stop using English as an official language, and the problem would go away.
French is an official language at the UN and they still say Pékin rather than Beijing.
Well the same characters in Chinese but different transliterations via different dialects.
Is that true? My understanding is just that Peking was how we used to express the Chinese word phonetically and Beijing is how we do it now - with neither quite matching the Chinese pronunciation.
Chinese is a tonal language, which doesn't come across at all in common transliteration - but many languages have sounds that don't exist in English, which leads to multiple approximations.
For example. ..There are multiple romanization systems in common use. The two most prominent systems are McCune–Reischauer (MR) and Revised Romanization (RR). MR is almost universally used in academic Korean studies, and a variant of it has been the official system of North Korea since 1992. RR is the official system of South Korea and has been in use since 2000. The earliest romanization systems for Korean emerged around the mid-19th century. Due to a number of factors, including the properties of the Korean language and alphabet, as well as social and geopolitical issues, a single settled standard did not emerge. By 1934, there were 27 extant romanization systems, and by 1997, there were over 40...
Or it could be the bill is seriously flawed in it's current state so MPs are unwilling to vote for something unsuitable.
Both could be true. As someone who believes people should be able to choose not to prolong their suffering, while being concerned about the obvious risk of murder by improper influence, I've been most disappointed by the level of debate.
So he’s suggesting all the kids are running around with guns and therefore the IDF genocide is acceptable .
He can go fxck himself and his desperate attempts to justify the slaughter .
That is such a depressing tweet (and that's a hell of a field). It makes me really sad.
It was so sad seeing the little boy desperate for food in Gaza on the BBC clip . Children are crying because of the hunger . The west should be utterly ashamed .
Yes we should but it is nothing to that ignorant boor that was on R4 on the WATO, Sebastian Gorka. That was one of the most disgusting interviews I have ever heard, a complete scumbag.
He really is loathsome . He’s been on Newsnight a few times .
Learn something every day. I didn't know MPs were obliged to declare their religious beliefs. Do they fill out a form to record their morals and principles?
It's an interesting idea but how many MPs would have anything to say?
This remains an idea that is right in principle but a dreadful bill addressing the wrong problems in an unsatisfactory way.
It seems to have been a slapdash approach, and given the general support for the principle seems to be there among MPs I don't see why they couldn't start over (it wouldn't need to be from scratch) without a risk of it being dropped forever, but the impression is that that is a big worry, that opponents will gain momentum if that happens, so better this bill than no bill.
So he’s suggesting all the kids are running around with guns and therefore the IDF genocide is acceptable .
He can go fxck himself and his desperate attempts to justify the slaughter .
That is such a depressing tweet (and that's a hell of a field). It makes me really sad.
It was so sad seeing the little boy desperate for food in Gaza on the BBC clip . Children are crying because of the hunger . The west should be utterly ashamed .
Yes we should but it is nothing to that ignorant boor that was on R4 on the WATO, Sebastian Gorka. That was one of the most disgusting interviews I have ever heard, a complete scumbag.
He really is loathsome . He’s been on Newsnight a few times .
He's the authentic spirit of Maga. It's a loathsome movement.
Brecon is just an anglicisation of original Brychan/Brycheiniog. But Beacons was a made up name - made up for marketing the National Park, and never previously used. The peaks have always been named by their Welsh names only, eg Pen-y-fan, Fan Fawr etc. Bannau is the plural of Fan/Ban and so Bannau Brycheiniog simply means the Brecon Fans....live with it.
Good for you. It doesn't make the figures wrong, of course. But good for you.
Do you think they are likely to be right?
They won't be exact (statistics are not) but are extremely unlikely to be systematically biased.
I think you under-appreciate the work that goes into calculating growth figures (and many other economic statistics) by professional statisticians. Any manipulation would require a conspiracy with a broad scope, involving individuals with differing personal political views and no desire to limit their career through involvement in a scandal. Further, the work is subject to checking by others, independent of Government, who have access to data sets and the ability to interpret them.
Your approach, I think, is simply "why are the lying bastards lying to me?" which is all very well and not an uncommon view. I am just not sure you've thought sensibly about the practicality of the lying bastards lying to you in this particular way... in fact, I am pretty sure you haven't.
Finally, think also about the many occasions when economic data has surprised slightly on the downside for the Government of the day. Your view seems to depend on the Government manipulating data on occasions when it brings mildly good news for them, but failing to do so on occasions when it brings bad news. That's not a very credible or consistent position, to be honest.
PB is nothing without culinary tips. I recall that there was a proposition that the Oz wine 19 Crimes was more or less drinkable (which I’m not sure I agree with, but anyway). My brother bought me a bottle for my birthday which I stuck away for a rainy day. Needs must and I hauled it out only to discover that it was their ‘red blend’ with a shot of espresso. Fckn hell, it was horrible. I like coffee in quite specific forms, mainly hot and in a cup, this was not one of them. However today I slow cooked a beef stew with half the bottle (nine and a half crimes?) and it’s a triumph! Might have to do another one at the weekend.
Learn something every day. I didn't know MPs were obliged to declare their religious beliefs. Do they fill out a form to record their morals and principles?
It's an interesting idea but how many MPs would have anything to say?
This remains an idea that is right in principle but a dreadful bill addressing the wrong problems in an unsatisfactory way.
It seems to have been a slapdash approach, and given the general support for the principle seems to be there among MPs I don't see why they couldn't start over (it wouldn't need to be from scratch) without a risk of it being dropped forever, but the impression is that that is a big worry, that opponents will gain momentum if that happens, so better this bill than no bill.
I would say better no bill than this bill, and I say that as someone not unsympathetic to the concept.
Comments
https://x.com/kitty_donaldson/status/1923051631802712398?s=61
It looks like another Reform UK moron has had to step down. Wayne Titley from Staffordshire County Council. According to Mark Pack his tweets about dealing with the boats were a little extreme.
As Personnel we were people, human beings. As Human Resources we are just another resource to use, like raw material or machinery. The human element is devalued.
The Justices are very blatantly politicians in robes, but they also mostly seem reasonably bright (as one would hope given their careers) and with lifetime appointments presumably can take a long view of judicial and constitutional matters (which is why plenty of decisions will not need to be decided purely on partisan lines).
It's somewhat baffling none of them saw the potential issues with such an expanded view of presidential immunity which, until Trump, virtually no one seems to have advanced as true.
@politico
·
1h
John Bolton on Trump envoy Steve Witkoff: "He knows nothing about Russia, he knows nothing about Ukraine, he knows nothing about Iran, he knows nothing about nuclear weapons...what could go wrong?"
https://x.com/politico/status/1923054686304600117
They really are just awful negotiators.
I don't have an issue going with the spelling another nation may prefer if they really seem to care about it, but it's pretty obviously the case that we won't do so consistently and nor will anyone else and that's fine.
So there's nothing wrong with calling the Irish Taoiseach the Irish PM for example. No one is going to refer to Merz as the Bundeskanzler after all.
How many Palestinians have died from starvation?
How many Palestinians are going to die from starvation?
How much food has Hamas stolen from Palestinians to cause starvation?
You're ahead of yourself, and behind Hamas
I'm sure the bill will pass, there's obviously a majority in favour of the principle and I find it hard to believe they will pull back because of concerns around specifics of the bill (as was said at earlier stages people fear it won't come back if this bill does not get passed)
https://news.sky.com/video/listen-leaked-audio-reveals-knowledge-of-flaws-in-post-brexit-plans-13367839
As for your question about the letter i; from memory, there are several forms: lower and upper case, with or without a dot, and a dotless I (which is different from the capital I we use). In English we use the I and i; other languages use others. It's all very wonderfully weird.
I had to work with Unicode/UTF-16 a few decades ago, and researching all of this pre-Wikipedia was fun. Thankfully Unicode is pretty much invisible now; everywhere, but invisible...
I like Hungary (apparently Magyarország - so close).
Am i inherently more rational and objective due to lack of religious belief? Doesn't seem likely.
How do we identify which topics people are allowed to be influenced by their faith and which they are not? Especially since they would argue it is not, in this case, to the detriment of the general public - which is of course a political judgement on every subject.
In French, Turkey is called Turquie, and will continue to be written that way until the Académie decides otherwise.
I'm guessing this type of language regulation would not be acceptable to those who are the most upset about Turkey/Türkiye.
As an aside, a growing number of women - including Mrs J - choose not to take their husband's surnames. That's their choice. But one acquaintance had a boss who, after she was married, started referring to her by her new husband's surname, when she had not taken it.
That's crassly rude.
In Nazi Germany everyone knew that the Jews were being murdered. Too many people were doing to keep it hushed up. Yet it was far away and not in front of people. Himmler was sickened when he watched people being shot and decided that more humane method were needed. Not for the victims, mind, for the killers.
For all the rhetoric about the boats almost all of us would strive to save a drowning person.
I cant get excited about Turkey/Turkiye which is subtle pronunciation difference. But we should respect Sri Lanka, Mynamar, Cymru...
https://x.com/eliafriatisr/status/1922487035836694900?s=61
That last example is clearly fake anyway.
Written permission of the parent is now required by law in the land of the free.
Huh!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdedkr9439wo
He can go fxck himself and his desperate attempts to justify the slaughter .
Wouldn't work for English. Who would it? And it would be staffed by the sort of people who would absolutely delight in changing the language every five minutes for every new fashion.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/disturbing-photos-show-militarization-israeli-children
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm23zjknre7o
Harvard Law School bought it for $27.50 back in 1946.
This remains an idea that is right in principle but a dreadful bill addressing the wrong problems in an unsatisfactory way.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/14/germany-arrests-three-ukrainians-over-alleged-russian-parcel-bomb-plot
And Poland:
https://kyivindependent.com/poland-accuses-ukrainians-of-involvement-in-russian-ordered-arson-attacks-across-eu/
Makes a great deal of sense to use them, from the Russian perspective. It's also possible that they did not know they were working for Russia; someone just paid them to perform these acts. In the same way some American YouTubers were 'unaware' they were being paid to spread Russian disinfo...
I really just don't see how it is practical as a complaint. Sure we don't want imposition of religious morals by a few on the many - blasphemy laws for example - but someone being of a faith means that faith will impact their views on many things, just as being a communist or a humanist would. A concern would be if someone makes their decisions solely based on religious factors, but eliminating them entirely doesn't seem possible in a society where religion still exists.
For example.
..There are multiple romanization systems in common use. The two most prominent systems are McCune–Reischauer (MR) and Revised Romanization (RR). MR is almost universally used in academic Korean studies, and a variant of it has been the official system of North Korea since 1992. RR is the official system of South Korea and has been in use since 2000.
The earliest romanization systems for Korean emerged around the mid-19th century. Due to a number of factors, including the properties of the Korean language and alphabet, as well as social and geopolitical issues, a single settled standard did not emerge. By 1934, there were 27 extant romanization systems, and by 1997, there were over 40...
I think you under-appreciate the work that goes into calculating growth figures (and many other economic statistics) by professional statisticians. Any manipulation would require a conspiracy with a broad scope, involving individuals with differing personal political views and no desire to limit their career through involvement in a scandal. Further, the work is subject to checking by others, independent of Government, who have access to data sets and the ability to interpret them.
Your approach, I think, is simply "why are the lying bastards lying to me?" which is all very well and not an uncommon view. I am just not sure you've thought sensibly about the practicality of the lying bastards lying to you in this particular way... in fact, I am pretty sure you haven't.
Finally, think also about the many occasions when economic data has surprised slightly on the downside for the Government of the day. Your view seems to depend on the Government manipulating data on occasions when it brings mildly good news for them, but failing to do so on occasions when it brings bad news. That's not a very credible or consistent position, to be honest.
Forty-six per cent of voters said they wanted either a “one in, one out” system or for more people to leave the country every year than to arrive.'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/14/migration-freeze-backed-by-nearly-half-of-voters/
I always thought the proper English spelling was "Macau", but Wiki tells me it's actually "Macao", which looks more like Portuguese to me!
I recall that there was a proposition that the Oz wine 19 Crimes was more or less drinkable (which I’m not sure I agree with, but anyway). My brother bought me a bottle for my birthday which I stuck away for a rainy day. Needs must and I hauled it out only to discover that it was their ‘red blend’ with a shot of espresso. Fckn hell, it was horrible. I like coffee in quite specific forms, mainly hot and in a cup, this was not one of them.
However today I slow cooked a beef stew with half the bottle (nine and a half crimes?) and it’s a triumph! Might have to do another one at the weekend.
Ref: 33%, Lab 21%, Con 16%, Lib Dem 14%, Green 11%.