The “ I’ve got something to say, but it doesn’t warrant its own thread “ thread.

[Finnegan]

10 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

As we know, there is politics, and then there is Israel Palestine.  Nuance gets a bit lost in the hatred and there is so much nonsense on both sides these days the facts are hard to discern even to those with the brain power to do it.

 

I hate this. I hate that we (I've done it myself loads in the past, I mean we, everyone really) use the fact that resolving the Israel / Palestine conflict and the wider turbulence of the Middle East is hard to try and make the entire thing seem nebulous, complex, impossible to perceive and thus impossible to judge. 

 

Whats happening in Israel/Palestine has escalated under Netanyahu to way beyond anything that's come before. Israel's government just can't be defended by any honest, neutral outsider.

 

It is a genocide, it is the mass slaughter of non combatants, it is the mass murder of children, it's illegal eviction from their homes and the illegal settling of their land. That's not "oh there's so much disinformation around we just don't know, none of us are really smart enough to work it out!" All of that is fact, the disinformation is the idea that it's complex. It's not, it's pretty simple, Netanyahu is a war criminal murdering civilians. Everyone should be sad about that whatever their religious or political beliefs. 

 

Everyone should also be sad and angry about a militant terrorist organisation crossing the border in to Israel and murdering a bunch of festival goers, taking hostages and committing massive atrocities. Absolutely. 

 

But one of these is a legitimate, democratically elected modern government with global allies, including the biggest military super power on the planet as well as the backing of an enormous amount of private wealth (including Kraft.) The other is an organisation reviled in the entire West, officially designated a terrorist organisation across the EU, the Anglosphere, Japan and other NATO allies and to which membership in this country and America is a crime. 

 

One of these is a full member of the UN, Interpol, CERN, the WHO, the IMF, the WTO and countless other global groups that give it legitimacy and influence and the other isn't even recognised by the United Nations as the rightful representative of its country, which is itself only an "observer" member. 

 

I think it's pretty fair to say our standards and expectations for them should be significantly different and "wow, that terrorist organisation is horrific" isn't a good enough reason to shrug away the abysmal human rights record of Netanyahu's government as "ah yeah but there's blood on both sides, it's complex isn't it."

 

Even now, lobbies with enormous political power and financial weight uses a mixture of wealth and accusations of anti-semitism to shut down criticism of the Israeli government (and let's be clear here, that is equating the Israeli Government to all Jewish people which is far more anti-semitic than any criticism about Netanyahu.) The treatment of Mackelmore is the latest of many, many cases of this. 

 

When has anyone, ever, be cancelled or had their freedom of speech curtailed on this scale due accusations of Islamophobia for suggesting that Hamas are bad or criticising them? 

 

[BenTheFox]

[Corky]

Dentists do a remarkable job. Had some reasonably large rebuild work undertaken and the skill involved is incredible.

[Free Falling Foxes]

If algorithms are so intuitive, all seeing and powerful, why haven't they detected that I never click on an ad that appears on websites I'm visiting and press 'skip' ASAP on the ones that appear on YouTube.

Surely if they knew all that, I wouldn't be bombarded with any more ads, ever?

[Stadt]

14 hours ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

If algorithms are so intuitive, all seeing and powerful, why haven't they detected that I never click on an ad that appears on websites I'm visiting and press 'skip' ASAP on the ones that appear on YouTube.

Surely if they knew all that, I wouldn't be bombarded with any more ads, ever?

Ad platforms are usually quite dishonest with the actual advertisers. It’s easier and more profitable for Google to just let them run and hope the business doesn’t notice.

 

 

[Sampson]

Semi-related to the King Charles stuff, but I do always wonder when these old scandals come up, how the feck people are supposed to remember single off-the-cuff things they said or phonecalls they had 30 years ago and how it's still supposed to represent them as a person?

 

Surely most of us would say we're completely different people than we were 5 or 10 years ago and we've all said stupid off the cuff stuff to our friends, colleagues, acquaintances and family loads of times throught our lives and have forgotten them within a week, but its like the media are demanding us to judge people on off the cuff remarks from 2 generations ago?

 

I dunno, still just feel like we're creating a society where people aren't allowed to make mistakes anymore, even retroactively.

Edited 20 hours ago by Sampson

[Foxdiamond]

1 hour ago, Sampson said:

Semi-related to the King Charles stuff, but I do always wonder when these old scandals come up, how the feck people are supposed to remember single off-the-cuff things they said or phonecalls they had 30 years ago and how it's still supposed to represent them as a person?

 

Surely most of us would say we're completely different people than we were 5 or 10 years ago and we've all said stupid off the cuff stuff to our friends, colleagues, acquaintances and family loads of times throught our lives and have forgotten them within a week, but its like the media are demanding us to judge people on off the cuff remarks from 2 generations ago?

 

I dunno, still just feel like we're creating a society where people aren't allowed to make mistakes anymore, even retroactively.

Can't see any other reason Charles Spencer wanted to drag it all up again other to make a few quid. 

[Corky]

2 hours ago, Sampson said:

Semi-related to the King Charles stuff, but I do always wonder when these old scandals come up, how the feck people are supposed to remember single off-the-cuff things they said or phonecalls they had 30 years ago and how it's still supposed to represent them as a person?

 

Surely most of us would say we're completely different people than we were 5 or 10 years ago and we've all said stupid off the cuff stuff to our friends, colleagues, acquaintances and family loads of times throught our lives and have forgotten them within a week, but its like the media are demanding us to judge people on off the cuff remarks from 2 generations ago?

 

I dunno, still just feel like we're creating a society where people aren't allowed to make mistakes anymore, even retroactively.

I genuinely don't see the need to keep dragging Diana up now. Of course her death was tragic and her two sons and family will always be devastated but I really don't get why we need to hear all this. Nobody under 35 will remember her, even fewer will remember her being married to the King.

 

You do get the feeling that the younger generation will have a much lower interest in The Family than previous demographics.

[Foxdiamond]

37 minutes ago, Corky said:

I genuinely don't see the need to keep dragging Diana up now. Of course her death was tragic and her two sons and family will always be devastated but I really don't get why we need to hear all this. Nobody under 35 will remember her, even fewer will remember her being married to the King.

 

You do get the feeling that the younger generation will have a much lower interest in The Family than previous demographics.

Trouble is the media loves gossip and stirring the pot and some people lap it up. 

[bovril]

27 minutes ago, Foxdiamond said:

Trouble is the media loves gossip and stirring the pot and some people lap it up. 

And family members have books to sell. 

[Foxdiamond]

3 minutes ago, bovril said:

And family members have books to sell. 

Yes. As I said previously Charles Spencer appears to want to rake over the coals for money. 

[FoyleFox]

Spencer is hardly a paragon of virtue. Divorced several times, was very abusive to wife No 1 and most of his children don't have any contact with him. So, I'd be taking a very large helping of salt with anything he said. 

[Zear0]

16 minutes ago, FoyleFox said:

Spencer is hardly a paragon of virtue. Divorced several times, was very abusive to wife No 1 and most of his children don't have any contact with him. So, I'd be taking a very large helping of salt with anything he said. 

He’s an absolute specimen. Harry and William don’t have much luck with uncles…

[CornwallFox]

The closure of Portsmouth RNLI station due to attacks and threats on its staff by far right thugs really needs to be a watershed moment for the rest of the population. We really must now push back on the rhetoric We've been hearing in recent years. It's poisoned our country.

[grobyfox1990]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cje3rk4p39zwo
 

No 

[leicsmac]

Interesting Web find:

 

"A hostile state doesn't actually need to persuade Britain that Russia is wonderful. That's Cold War thinking. A much cheaper objective is to make Britons distrust one another, distrust expertise, distrust elections, distrust journalism and distrust institutions; amplify whichever existing grievances are most useful; make politics permanently furious; and leave everyone convinced that the person living three streets away is the enemy.
At that point, a missile defence system is somewhat beside the point.

And that's where education becomes national infrastructure. Not teaching children what political conclusions to reach, quite the opposite...teaching them how to ask: Who is making this claim? What's the original source? What evidence would disprove it? Is this photograph actually from the event being discussed? Does this graph start at zero? Is that account a person? Why is this story making me angry? Who benefits if I share it before checking it?

Those aren't left-wing skills or right-wing skills... they're democratic immune-system skills. The more seriously you regard hostile information operations as a national-security threat, the harder it becomes to regard teachers, librarians, universities, public-service journalism and media literacy as fluffy civilian expenditure that can be trimmed whenever somebody wants another weapons programme.

A fighter aircraft protects British airspace for perhaps thirty years.

A teacher who teaches thirty children a year how to recognise bullshit may remain operational considerably longer."

[BKLFox]

We need more homes but not on the outskirts of our village, never a problem until…..

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c65y72z5qw7ro

[CornwallFox]

2 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Interesting Web find:

 

"A hostile state doesn't actually need to persuade Britain that Russia is wonderful. That's Cold War thinking. A much cheaper objective is to make Britons distrust one another, distrust expertise, distrust elections, distrust journalism and distrust institutions; amplify whichever existing grievances are most useful; make politics permanently furious; and leave everyone convinced that the person living three streets away is the enemy.
At that point, a missile defence system is somewhat beside the point.

And that's where education becomes national infrastructure. Not teaching children what political conclusions to reach, quite the opposite...teaching them how to ask: Who is making this claim? What's the original source? What evidence would disprove it? Is this photograph actually from the event being discussed? Does this graph start at zero? Is that account a person? Why is this story making me angry? Who benefits if I share it before checking it?

Those aren't left-wing skills or right-wing skills... they're democratic immune-system skills. The more seriously you regard hostile information operations as a national-security threat, the harder it becomes to regard teachers, librarians, universities, public-service journalism and media literacy as fluffy civilian expenditure that can be trimmed whenever somebody wants another weapons programme.

A fighter aircraft protects British airspace for perhaps thirty years.

A teacher who teaches thirty children a year how to recognise bullshit may remain operational considerably longer."

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2026-02-09/debates/F9F28AFA-E1F3-449C-B18B-63DDCABC411E/RussianInfluenceOnUKPoliticsAndDemocracy

[leicsmac]

35 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2026-02-09/debates/F9F28AFA-E1F3-449C-B18B-63DDCABC411E/RussianInfluenceOnUKPoliticsAndDemocracy

Yeah, this has been going on for at least a decade and possibly longer, and certainly envisioned for longer than that. 

 

For me that's entirely obvious and I find the idea of so many people still thinking that they're not at least subject to being influenced this way utterly absurd. 

[CornwallFox]

38 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Yeah, this has been going on for at least a decade and possibly longer, and certainly envisioned for longer than that. 

 

For me that's entirely obvious and I find the idea of so many people still thinking that they're not at least subject to being influenced this way utterly absurd. 

You only have to look at how many comments online blame labour for "letting them all in" despite labour being the ones to actually close the gate and start taking action.

We've gone down the American path of the right wing deciding to entirely ignore facts and truth in order to sway opinion and turn politics into a them Vs us thing, entirely in accordance with the Russian playbook. 

Edited 1 hour ago by CornwallFox

[leicsmac]

19 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

You only have to look at how many comments online blame labour for "letting them all in" despite labour being the ones to actually close the gate and start taking action.

We've gone down the American path of the right wing deciding to entirely ignore facts and truth in order to sway opinion and turn politics into a them Vs us thing, entirely in accordance with the Russian playbook. 

Well, yes, that's the problem. 

 

The solution, however, is trickier. And we need a solution. Soon. 

[CornwallFox]

Just now, leicsmac said:

Well, yes, that's the problem. 

 

The solution, however, is trickier. And we need a solution. Soon. 

Involves Labour getting results and really pushing on with talking about them. 

They need to be bold, not timid.

[leicsmac]

1 minute ago, CornwallFox said:

Involves Labour getting results and really pushing on with talking about them. 

They need to be bold, not timid.

Right. 

 

But this is also a global problem, with global consequences.