Dunge

Of course Biden shouldn’t be the Democrat candidate, no question. But of course people should vote for him, no question.

Sorry, but there are big problems with this. Firstly, this isn’t about asking for a recount (legitimate and frankly expected in tight votes), this was about asking for extra votes to be found. You must know the difference between these two things. You must. Secondly, you’re making a massive, massive assumption later on that the courts in America are free of political influence. That is in itself the big problem. Your last half-sentence is meaningless in current America. This isn’t something that happened behind closed doors somewhere where people are after a transcript, the insurrection happened in plain sight of the world. Trump said his words into a microphone and still looks like getting away with them. And he’s getting away with them for one reason: Because a big proportion of the American public are letting him. If they were up in arms then the Republican Party would show how tiny and shrivelled its balls really are and they would throw Trump to the wolves. Instead, there’s pressure, counter-litigations, trying to make out that “oh, but also the Democrats”, trying to pin an impeachment on Biden too so that they’re equal when they blatantly aren’t. It genuinely boggles the mind looking from the outside that anyone could vote for the Republicans and Trump right now - they brazenly tried to rip democracy out from underneath their own country and the populace are too cozy in false comfort for it to even concern them. There was a literal attempted insurrection and they’re still casting their votes on the nuances of taxation plans.

I see Christmas in this country as far more reflective of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol than the Nativity. It’s more a cultural thing than a religious thing, which makes it all the more disappointing when this cr*p comes up each year.

He always said that he was the one who invented Self Assessment.

It’s interesting to me to see the mental gymnastics in this. She hasn’t seen a penny of it, she says. Which is technically true, but hardly a great moral argument because it’s all in trust. The risks were absolutely extraordinary, they say. From a business perspective, I get that, but it’s not exactly philanthropic behaviour from a peer of the realm. They’ve been investigated for years and it’s taken a toll, she says. Well maybe you should’ve declared an interest in the company like others told you to do. There probably isn’t anything criminal here, but that isn’t the only standard by which people are going to judge you.

Yeah, I believe the idea of fining people for failing to attend appointments is one of those that sounds great in principle but has negative effects in practice. You’d have admin, debt collection, all serving the scare the nervous and needy and incite the aggressive. I think it would backfire a lot in a number of ways and should be avoided.

You say that but that’s not the way it’s put to the public. For instance, the other week on Planet Earth we had David Attenborough stating that we need to transition to a plant-based diet. Average John is going to notice that, and will be treated by people as at best an imposition and at worst a plot.

The BBC is one of the best things going and the licence fee is fantastic value for money.

I agree. But Starmer’s going to have to be ready for the attack and be able to give his answer clearly, because the right wing press will go on the attack against him with it and try to make it the defining issue of the election.

Personally I’ve always thought you looked good in that saucepan, @leicsmac.

They’re definitely going to try to drive this into being the number one issue over coming months. The Liz Truss saga has massively damaged the Conservatives on the economy, to the point where people are laughing at them. So they’ll go with two lines of attack: Migration numbers (legal or otherwise) and social policy, particularly trans and cancel culture. They’ll threaten that if Labour get into power then the Old English culture that the older population know will be taken from them forever, and by a man who tried to put Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10. (Missing out the part where he later kicked Corbyn out of the same party.) But immigration will be the main line because it’s somewhere that the Tories can speak strong words while Starmer will likely squirm.

That’s why the only way I can see a deal is the rest of Ukraine joining NATO. - Ukraine loses territory but (theoretically) gets security. - NATO sees the war stopped but accepts Russia getting a land grab. - Russia gets to proclaim a military victory but have NATO further at their doorstep. It’s an imperfect proposal, but it’s the only deal I can see without either a capitulation or something globally horrific from one side. Its imperfection could even be a persuading factor as everyone knows that nobody has won completely. There’s risk of course, of Russia either refusing to agree a new border for Ukraine and therefore preventing Ukraine’s joining. Or of Russia deciding to go on attacking anyway and causing a massive escalation. Which is why I could only see it working at a time when Putin sees a long a fruitless road ahead of him - after a Democrat win in 2024. A Republican win and it’s not worth offering any deal because he’ll believe the tide is turning toward him militarily.

Putin won’t do anything different until the next US election’s done. He’ll know he could have a Republican in the White House - Trump or otherwise - who doesn’t fancy it. If he gets that he’ll probably plough on. If not, there may at least be the opportunity for a deal: Russia gets to keep some or all of what they took, boundaries are redrawn and what remains of Ukraine joins NATO. It’s not ideal for anyone but barring an unexpected change of fortune I fear it’s the best Ukraine can get right now.

Could it be that those conversations have popped into your consciousness because of the adverts in the first place, then you’re just seeing those adverts again?

I liked this week’s episode. Felt properly creepy. They didn’t need to try to explain the monsters’ reasoning and the Isaac Newton bit felt unnecessary, but it kept me hooked.

I don’t think of celebrity worship as anything new. It just used to be called society and was about the going of wealthy socialites. Now it’s more about people recognisable from media and better at selling themselves rather than just being of wealth. There’s an argument to say that celebrity is more inclusive now because anyone can be one.

No, not stopped. But there is an increasingly strong argument for lab-grown meat*, something that instinctively isn’t an attractive thought but could well be the lesser evil - and not just because of climate change but because there are just so many humans to feed now and only one Earth to cultivate. *as well

I wondered whether there was a change of policy from years ago. I’ve been watching it on and off this series, but I remember one trial earlier on where Nella had a panic attack inside a dark, enclosed space so maybe the medics/psychologist said she can’t do any more trials of this type “on medical grounds”. Which is different from how it was years ago of course, when they’d just be expected to get on with it regardless and say the dreaded words if they couldn’t hack it for whatever reason. These days if you look at a stick insect the wrong way Chris Packham tries to cancel you.

(To be fair it’s getting increasingly hard to tell these days.)

You know that website is satire, right?

@BlueBrett - Science is not a democracy and nor should it be. I’d agree that a good scientist should always be willing and ready to hear alternative theories, arguments and indeed plans, but when it’s the same thing being regurgitated and just phrased differently then I can understand why they would disregard someone quickly. If you have a compelling argument about climate change that hasn’t been heard and discussed already then by all means write it up and publish it for peer review. Then you can complain if it gets ignored.

This cosmic trend you speak of happens over millions of years. The reasons for them happening is studied, so we get an idea of how nature got set on a particular course by release of CO2 into the atmosphere, or it being removed, either by plants, volcanic activity, or even something like an asteroid strike. What we have now isn’t any of those things. The land itself has changed massively over the last couple of hundred years through human expansion. We know that we’re releasing different gases into the air than we used to five hundred years ago, and on massive scales. In a way, yes - it’s no different to before, in that there was a cause that made the temperature of the planet go up or down. The difference is that it’s happened over two hundred (not even two hundred thousand, which would be very quick from the past, but two hundred years) and our activities are the clear cause. And if our activities are the clear cause, then it’s also clear that our activities can change things with the right will and technology. As I say, I broadly agree that we don’t want people controlling our lives, that we don’t want to live in a Russia or a China. And yes, people shout “crisis” too willingly these days. But this issue is different. This is a genuine crisis, and yes - we can do something about it. We have scientific papers saying what we can do about it, which I’m sure Leicsmac will gladly point you towards because I’m convinced he keeps a store of them in a spreadsheet.

For many things, I have sympathy. The basis of modern government and democracy should be to serve the people, not rule the people. So I differ from Leicsmac generally in that I naturally don’t like going down that route, that even if what people want is stupid, broadly you should allow them to be stupid. But climate change is different. And unfortunately the fact that you’re citing that graph as evidence of “all is well, nothing to see here” shows only how far behind you are in these discussions. This is not some debatable social science where people desire power. This is hard science, fixable like the hole in the ozone layer, but more difficult and needing all the more coordination between states. You have to get used to this, fella, because it ain’t going to stop.

I think you give these people too much credit, and that they just figure they’ll cross that bridge when they get to it.

My dad still accuses me of not knowing one end of a screwdriver from the other. Which is ridiculous, because you obviously wouldn’t hit the nail with the thin end.