steve
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Post by steve on Aug 10, 2022 6:22:16 GMT
Danny While undoubtedly there was Russian money and influence involved in the lie based Brexit campaign. But don't underate the influence of home grown tax dodgers, media far right delusionists and a whole pack of useful idiots, without whom this shit show wouldn't have been possible.
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Aug 10, 2022 6:35:06 GMT
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-62486406Vacuous sound and fury coming from many current politicians on the right, but there are also some more interestingly measured comments around from former advisers/strategists to both parties. On the one hand, it seems hard to believe the DoJ and FBI would undertake such a raid unless they were pretty certain of finding evidence damning enough to nullify concern about both the optics and the precedent. And if they do find it, then it feels (for the first time to me) that there's a genuine prospect that Trump is going to jail. On the other hand, having gone ahead with the raid, they now pretty much *have* to find such evidence, or the fallout will be huge and Trump2024 will be away and flying. There can't be many politicians who, after a day of doing nothing at all, find that their chances of going to prison and their chances of being elected President have both gone up. Where we have been lucky in the US and UK is that while Trump and Johnson - and Truss is shaping up to be the same - have undemocratic populist leanings, notably an intolerance for dissent, they are also incompetent. More competent populists such as Orban or Erdogan demonstrate how quickly democracy can be destroyed. I note that with Bolsonaro forecast to lose the election in Brazil there are now serious concerns spreading in that country that he will mount some sort of coup to stay in power.
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Post by hireton on Aug 10, 2022 6:45:40 GMT
A former Tory Cabinet minister comments:
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Aug 10, 2022 6:46:13 GMT
Danny While undoubtedly there was Russian money and influence involved in the lie based Brexit campaign. But don't underate the influence of home grown tax dodgers, media far right delusionists and a whole pack of useful idiots, without whom this shit show wouldn't have been possible. Yeah but it's almost academic whether the government did what it did because it was taking orders from Russia or not. Putin could not have wished for anything more in Russia's interest than what conservatives delivered.
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Post by crossbat11 on Aug 10, 2022 7:05:04 GMT
eor
I'm not at all convinced about this Trump re-election thing. I'm not sure that he'll win the Republican primaries, let alone the actual presidential race should he get that far. Some sensible GOP heads may eventually appear over the loony right wing parapet but, even if they don't, come the actual race something similar to 2020 may occur. Stop Trump wins. I can't see Biden running again, but if the Democrats can't find a credible Anyone but Trump candidate, then they really are a basket case of a political party.
The idea of Trump running again may cause some right wing salivation, both in the US and beyond, but I'd rate the chances of him reappearing in the White House, bungled FBI raids and prosecutions notwithstanding, as somewhere between zero and non-existent.
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Post by moby on Aug 10, 2022 7:06:40 GMT
@leftmercian et al
But some "work in mysterious ways" Gosh oldnat didn't take you as someone who believed in the immaculate conception.
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Post by jib on Aug 10, 2022 7:11:10 GMT
We're told to expect energy shortages this winter now as interconnectors with the continent will have no electricity to supply. The lack of baseload UK generation capacity has been well known for years, and the failure of successive Governments to move from paper promises and grand designs to implement new builds chronic. It looks like we'll be back to power cuts and shortages. Presumably a cold, overcast and not windy winter will spell disaster. Every time I heard in the news about another coal power station cooling tower being demolished I thought if this possibility. The government has withdrawn from ensuring energy supply for the UK. See my post above, everything Putin could wish for. Because the government really work for Russia, or simply because they don't work for us and have never cared for anything except their own careers at any expense to the national interest? I agree the closure of coal power stations has been premature. Ill thought out and more about allowing the likes of Sharma to wipe away those tears and claim the UK is coal free. I hear the Government as desperately trying to reopen some of those prematurely closed coal stations. It says it all about the attitude in Government and the incompetent Whitehall Civil Service.
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Post by pete on Aug 10, 2022 7:16:13 GMT
Thick cow has been in power for 12 years. You'd think Labour were in power and it was a GE. And 'handouts' is a disgraceful word implying begging. Typical Tory attitude of not being able to help someone without looking down upon them.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Aug 10, 2022 7:18:37 GMT
View Attachment"Sunak defended his decision to tell an audience in Tunbridge Wells that he deserved credit for diverting funding away from “deprived urban areas” to places like theirs. He said he was making the point that poverty was not just urban. " Indeed Yeah I was there recently visiting an 80s new build estate. It's awful how the planners only required one off-street parking space for each dwelling when you only have to look at all the parked cars to see they needed two spaces for each dwelling at least. Irony is, if they lived in a 60s new build estate, they would all have been allocated much more space even though far fewer people owned cars. So it's clear, the residents of tun wells have good reason to be disgusted with their rulers and something must be done. Oh...did anyone mention the lib dems are doing very well in tun wells? Is that why Sunak was there?
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Post by crossbat11 on Aug 10, 2022 7:25:11 GMT
View Attachment"Sunak defended his decision to tell an audience in Tunbridge Wells that he deserved credit for diverting funding away from “deprived urban areas” to places like theirs. He said he was making the point that poverty was not just urban. " Indeed Yeah I was there recently visiting an 80s new build estate. It's awful how the planners only required one off-street parking space for each dwelling when you only have to look at all the parked cars to see they needed two spaces for each dwelling at least. Irony is, if they lived in a 60s new build estate, they would all have been allocated much more space even though far fewer people owned cars. So it's clear, the residents of tun wells have good reason to be disgusted with their rulers and something must be done. Oh...did anyone mention the lib dems are doing very well in tun wells? Is that why Sunak was there? Doubt it, Danny. His electorate is Tory Party members for now and there may well be more of those in Tunbridge Wells than Lib Dem voters I would imagine! He may worry more about a putative marginal Tunbridge Wells in 2024 if he wins the leadership contest. If he doesn't, then he won't give the remotest monkey's about the place
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Aug 10, 2022 7:31:28 GMT
It says it all about the attitude in Government and the incompetent Whitehall Civil Service. It says nothing whatever about civil servants. We have a government which refuses to intervene in markets or plan for emergencies. Don't you remember how they had slashed national stocks of PPE and stopped updating what they did have? Not much talk about it, but the same even applies to defence industries and our own stocks of ammunition, so there is nothing to send to Ukraine even when it's their troops dying not ours How many times do the same people have to be caught out before we acknowledge their incompetence? Or the fundamental failure of their free market approach?
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Aug 10, 2022 7:38:02 GMT
eor I'm not at all convinced about this Trump re-election thing. I'm not sure that he'll win the Republican primaries, let alone the actual presidential race should he get that far. Some sensible GOP heads may eventually appear over the loony right wing parapet but, even if they don't, come the actual race something similar to 2020 may occur. Stop Trump wins. I can't see Biden running again, but if the Democrats can't find a credible Anyone but Trump candidate, then they really are a basket case of a political party. The idea of Trump running again may cause some right wing salivation, both in the US and beyond, but I'd rate the chances of him reappearing in the White House, bungled FBI raids and prosecutions notwithstanding, as somewhere between zero and non-existent. Biden has said he wants to run again. I think he will. If it is not him then it is most likely to be Harris and she is very unpopular, as is Biden. Happily, Trump is likely the only Republican candidate who could actually lose to either of them and he pretty clearly intends to run, even if only as a protection from his legal problems. I would say he has a 50/50 chance of being the Republican candidate. The base who decide these things still love him and believe he has been framed by the media, the Democrats and the 'deep state' - much as Truss blamed the media for Johnson's downfall yesterday.
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Post by johntel on Aug 10, 2022 7:45:04 GMT
eor I'm not at all convinced about this Trump re-election thing. I'm not sure that he'll win the Republican primaries, let alone the actual presidential race should he get that far. Some sensible GOP heads may eventually appear over the loony right wing parapet but, even if they don't, come the actual race something similar to 2020 may occur. Stop Trump wins. I can't see Biden running again, but if the Democrats can't find a credible Anyone but Trump candidate, then they really are a basket case of a political party. The idea of Trump running again may cause some right wing salivation, both in the US and beyond, but I'd rate the chances of him reappearing in the White House, bungled FBI raids and prosecutions notwithstanding, as somewhere between zero and non-existent. I'll have £1 at a million to one please Batty.
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Post by crossbat11 on Aug 10, 2022 7:59:08 GMT
pjw1961
I don't think mid term popularity levels as measured in polls, or congressional elections for that matter, for an incumbent President and VP have ever really been a reliable guide to their subsequent electoral performance in a presidential race, especially if they become, de facto, the "Anyone but Trump" box on the ballot paper. Clothe pegs on noses aplenty.
As for Biden running again, what he says now and what he subsequently decides, or is advised to decide, may be two very different things. Only a foolish incumbent would lame duck themselves this early in their Presidency anyway. Personally, I think it very unlikely that he'll decide to go for a second term. If he did, then I still think he'd beat Trump. Less likely he'd beat a moderate Republican though.
johntel - I wasn't offering odds. I'd put a quid on Forest winning the Premier League if you gave me a million to one! Villa would tempt me at 500,000 to one.
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steve
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Post by steve on Aug 10, 2022 8:06:01 GMT
crossbat11 There is zero chance of today's anti democratic republican party selecting anyone other than a far right Christian fundamentalist ( faux or real) fascist .
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2022 8:06:05 GMT
Who is waging this "war" ?
"Ten universities, including three from the Russell Group, have withdrawn books from course study lists, or made them optional, in case they cause students harm.Academics have previously been criticised for providing trigger warnings for students reading mainstream literature. The Times investigation found 1,081 examples across undergraduate courses.
This newspaper ( The Times) sent almost 300 freedom of information requests to officials across all 140 UK universities asking for details of trigger warnings and of texts removed from reading lists because of concerns about their content. Bangor University said it would not share details of content warnings on English literature courses because staff were “very concerned about the potentially negative personal impact”. Royal Holloway, University of London, declined to answer the questions because it would be “likely to endanger the physical or mental health of an individual”. The Times did not ask for any information about individual lecturers. Kim A. Wagner, a history professor at Queen Mary, University of London, shared an image of one of this newspaper’s FOI requests with his followers on Twitter. Alongside a photograph of the questions, asking for details about texts withdrawn because of concerns about their content, Wagner wrote: “While the world slowly burns, the rightwingers cheerily pursue their self-concocted culture war.” Julian Wright, a historian and head of the humanities department at Northumbria University, replied that recipients should “push back and tell your uni legal dept these are vexatious”. David Veevers, also a historian at Queen Mary, replied: “My first response: fuck off that’s a lot of work.” Stuart Jones, a historian at the University of Manchester, added: “Just ‘fuck off’ should suffice then”. University of Cambridge criminologist Kate Herrity suggested it might be worth cross-referencing answers with colleagues from other universities. “These have been doing the rounds at various institutions around the country. It might save your friend a bit of painful labour to check out what others are doing/saying about it,” she wrote.
For English students at the University of Essex, ....Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad...has since been permanently removed from the reading list. After discussions within the university’s literature department, the decision was taken that Whitehead’s novel should be withdrawn because of its “graphic description of violence and abuse of slavery”.The novel won the Pulitzer Prize and the US National Book Award and was praised by Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey.
At the University of Exeter,... stated that undergraduate students of late 18th and early 19th century literature are told they can choose not to read The History of Mary Prince as it “contains graphic accounts of racism, slavery, and extreme violence”. Students are warned about the content and, if any are concerned, they “are encouraged to contact the convenor to discuss alternatives”.
English students at Aberdeen University are told they can opt out of discussions on a module about Geoffrey Chaucer and medieval writing as the course “sometimes entails engagement with topics that you may find emotionally challenging”.They are also given content warnings that Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream “contains classism” and that The Classic Fairy Tales contains “cruelty to animals and animal death”.
The classic play Miss Julie, by August Strindberg, has been withdrawn from an English literature module at Sussex University because it includes discussion of suicide.
Some of Britain’s most influential authors — including William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie — are among those whose works have been deemed concerning enough to require warnings.
Daina Ramey Berry, an expert on slavery and dean of humanities at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said: “What concerns me most is the desire to downplay, to sanitise, to soften the history of enslavement. There are real people who did these brutal things. It is important for people to know this happened and those people existed.”
Trevor Phillips, Chairman of Index on Censorship said "University dons are never slow to point the finger at others, past and present, for racial transgressions. But the cancellation of black lives in order to make other people feel comfortable about their own past tells us what really matters to these self-styled anti-racists — their own refined sensibilities. This is a textbook case of institutional racism. It is shameful." " From The Times
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2022 8:07:27 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2022 8:11:25 GMT
"Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter." Times .........and then there is this :- "Inflation will mean a £44 billion cut to public services with health, education and defence all seeing real-terms spending reductions next year, analysis has found. The think tank ( IFS)says that the hit to public services will be almost three times as big as estimated at the spring statement. Rising prices will wipe out almost half of the increase in public spending planned over the next three years." Times ifs.org.uk/publications/16145Conclusion ?- A Truss administration will be in Fiscal & Social Crisis mode within six months. Starmer must be doing cartwheels.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2022 8:11:31 GMT
Who is waging this "war" ? you are, currently
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2022 8:19:47 GMT
Who is waging this "war" ? you are, currently Fake News eh Nick ?
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Post by wb61 on Aug 10, 2022 8:21:19 GMT
Who is waging this "war" ? "Ten universities, including three from the Russell Group, have withdrawn books from course study lists, or made them optional, in case they cause students harm.Academics have previously been criticised for providing trigger warnings for students reading mainstream literature. The Times investigation found 1,081 examples across undergraduate courses. " From The Times Good Morning Colin finally something we can agree upon, avoidance of limitation of the types of literature available to students is a cornerstone of a liberal education. However you would, presumably agree that the long ignored works or Robert Tressell, Walter Greenwood, Jack Jones, Gwyn Thomas and Sean O'Casey should be placed on the reading lists.
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Post by lefthanging on Aug 10, 2022 8:28:27 GMT
"Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter." Pity Martin Lewis isn't PM - I expect he'd deal with the current crisis more competently than any of the current options.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2022 8:30:37 GMT
Who is waging this "war" ? "Ten universities, including three from the Russell Group, have withdrawn books from course study lists, or made them optional, in case they cause students harm.Academics have previously been criticised for providing trigger warnings for students reading mainstream literature. The Times investigation found 1,081 examples across undergraduate courses. " From The Times Good Morning Colin finally something we can agree upon, avoidance of limitation of the types of literature available to students is a cornerstone of a liberal education. However you would, presumably agree that the long ignored works or Robert Tressell, Walter Greenwood, Jack Jones, Gwyn Thomas and Sean O'Casey should be placed on the reading lists. And a much better morning for that wb61 I agree absolutely. Your reading list puts me to shame as I have little or no knowledge of those authors. If you say they are worthy of study by British students then I am sure they are. What I think is that students of literature should be challenged by its rich diversity, not deprived of it. Tutors and Universities which impose censorship on their reading are limiting, not enabling their life chances.
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Post by wb61 on Aug 10, 2022 8:34:10 GMT
John Crace has a turn of phrase which I like; rather than the cliched "Zombie" description he refers to the "Sargasso Regime".
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Post by laszlo4new on Aug 10, 2022 8:38:18 GMT
A friend of mine (professor of organisational studies) was asked to remove the 6th section of Marx's Capital (the work process) from the reading list of his MBA course, as some students may find it offensive.
Another one used a case study on the failure of FBI and CIA on the 9/11. In one class an American student broke down, as her two parents died in the attack. The case study was removed - mind police obviously.
In an exec training session for an employer association on human resource management (in the form of a role play), I used a modern Indian case study (as half of the participants were Indian expats. About one hour later the caste-war broke out in the session (it was pretty ugly). I fully agreed with the censorship of the client that I should never again use that scenario (the case didn't mention castes).
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Post by wb61 on Aug 10, 2022 8:42:14 GMT
colin perhaps Jack Jones and Gwyn Thomas are a little niche, but well Known in Wales I daresay. You may know the film the Corn is Green, it is said to be a romanticised biography of Gwyn Thomas' early life.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2022 8:45:25 GMT
A friend of mine (professor of organisational studies) was asked to remove the 6th section of Marx's Capital (the work process) from the reading list of his MBA course, as some students may find it offensive. Another one used a case study on the failure of FBI and CIA on the 9/11. In one class an American student broke down, as her two parents died in the attack. The case study was removed - mind police obviously. In an exec training session for an employer association on human resource management (in the form of a role play), I used a modern Indian case study (as half of the participants were Indian expats. About one hour later the caste-war broke out in the session (it was pretty ugly). I fully agreed with the censorship of the client that I should never again use that scenario (the case didn't mention castes). I think students should be challenged by the "offensive", not excluded from it. How else do they develop critical thinking ?
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Aug 10, 2022 8:47:30 GMT
Well doh!!! You are probably correct - you likely did have a covid like disease in late 2019, because......there was a covid like disease that was circulating at that time. As has been explained to you many, many time already Danny. Once again, with feeling, there was a notably potent coronavirus circulating in autumn and winter 2019/202 which infected a lot of people. It was notable because it had many 'flu like symptoms, was severe, for a coronavirus, with sufferers reporting things like loss of smell etc. Follow this link and look at Table 2, which gives you a flavour of what I trying to get you to understand - www.gov.uk/government/publications/respiratory-infections-laboratory-reports-2019/reports-of-respiratory-infections-made-to-phe-from-phe-and-nhs-laboratories-in-england-and-wales-weeks-44-to-48-2019. In particular, look at the line that says "Coronavirus". This was not covid, but it was a coronavirus. That's what you had, that's what people in Hastings had, and that's all there is to it. I had a look at your link but I see no indication there of any unusual corona virus outbreak at that time. Corona viruses are endemic and someone at school can expect to have three or four a year (pre covid),frequency falling with age as per covid. Nor any mention of an unusually bad one. It says nothing specifically about Hastings, and any outbreak confined to one town would be completely lost averaged into national figures like these. There is no indication at all even one of the cases they report came from Hastings, never mind any sort of local study about what evidence there was of local illness. These PHE figures are purely reactive, and as mentioned there are strict rules about what gets reported to them at all, which include screening out unidentified diseases. I'm not even clear how they identify corona viruses, Because specific tests for sars or mers as existed at that time and might have been run by a hospital might simply reject a case of covid as negative. All of us have had many many corona virus infections, but most authorities including you keep saying covid is uniquely bad compared to any endemic corona viruses. Nothing in you link says otherwise. So can you provide a link which is relevant to our discussion or suports the claims you make,rather than one which isn't and doesn't? 'RE loss of smell, reading the Zoe reports about symptoms but not confined to them, I noted people saying the covid loss of taste and smell senses was like nothing any had experienced before. It's very different to having a nose full of gunk which therefore isn't working. Mine indeed was in that category. Shame that, so I don't get to debunk them again in detail. Deaths from covid in Hastings are available on the government dashboard. If you look, you will see they are negligible all through the officially first spring 2020 outbreak and do not start until Kent strain hits Hastings in the autumn. It is regrettable you have not looked these up for yourself since I have explained where to look several times now. The deaths data is as I have described and does indeed support the argument the first wave of covud hit Hastings and had ended before counting of covid deaths (or indeed testing to identify covid) even began. I am puzzled why you refuse to engage with what is a very strong case that the UK covud epidemic began in 2019 and had ended in some places even before it officially began. Is it because admitting this totally and utterly proves that the covid lockdown intervention was the wrong policy and squandered a trillion pounds, public and private? And both main political parties are complicit in trying to cover this up? This isn't the first time I have replied to you pointing out that links you include in support of a case or some fact, actually fail to do so. It's a mark of someone on the losing side of an argument. Some people would post in this way not simply as a good faith but mistaken attempt to help the debate, but cynically expecting most people reading that post would never check the link and would therefore wrongly accept there was good evidence for a claim. You need to be much more careful checking the links you post.
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Post by laszlo4new on Aug 10, 2022 8:49:40 GMT
On limiting reading. The average reading per week at the top 10 FT MBA courses is about 200 pages (including cases). They read about 50 pages not counting for the cases.
As a member of an accrediting body of practice oriented UG management studies I can say that the weekly reading is less than 150 pages, and a large proportion of it is from textbooks.
As student feedback has become one of the key indicators (for tutors and departments), a number of courses in which I was involved in the accreditation process don't allow older than 12 years articles due to students' complaints (the university concerned showed the qualitative feedback from students when I raised that Ouchi's model (1979) of control should be taught).
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2022 8:56:04 GMT
colin perhaps Jack Jones and Gwyn Thomas are a little niche, but well Known in Wales I daresay. You may know the film the Corn is Green, it is said to be a romanticised biography of Gwyn Thomas' early life. I do-yes. My knowledge ( and love) of the Welsh Thomas literature is restricted ( though in my defence i think that word is not appropriate for these two) to Dylan and R S. I feel sure you will approve of this :- A Labourer Who can tell his years, for the winds have stretched So tight the skin on the bare racks of bone That his face is smooth, inscrutable as stone? And when he wades in the brown bilge of earth Hour by hour, or stoops to pull the reluctant swedes, who can read the look In the colourless eyes, as his back comes straight Like an old tree lightened of the snow's weight? Is there love there, or hope, or any thought For the frail form broken beneath his tread, And the sweet pregnancy that yields his bread?
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