Is it though? :O)

Tried to paste this from twitter (how people react when someone tries to defend boris) but failed ..
heres a link instead https://twitter.com/cliodiaspora/status/1176982099859058689

Biased as I am against boris, I only saw the headlines last night and I honestly thought when I had a look this morning, I’d find he’d probably been taken at least a little out of context (the “mefty defence” I think its called?).

Having caught up this morning. **** me he’s a waste of organs.

I’d written more but words fail me.

No idea if you can get a .50 cal round designed to deform for hunting? Most big hunting rounds are blunt lead (mostly) projectiles designed for fairly short range use and deformation rather than powerful pointy rounds designed for long range use like a .50 cal?

So I wonder if the “animal” envisaged is perhaps hiding behind a wall or driving a lightly armoured vehicle?

binners,
Exactly, they are saying one thing in public and briefing another in private, and the BBC is passing on the subversive “judiciary messing with politics” message unvarnished from anonymous “sources”.

Its the definition of a forked tongue, and if Cox is acting as reported then they haven’t learned anything in the last few days.

In any other country this kind of rhetoric would qualify you for free clown shoes and a red nose at the UN.

To see it in my own is genuinely frightening.

I used to think that 10% of people would fall for anything shouted loudly enough (flat earth, moon landing conspiracy etc)), but when populism and nationalism take the gloves off, it looks more like 30 to 40% of the population will wander blindly down the road to dictatorship to avoid thinking for themselves.

I’m off to buy some gold and a flagpole to use as a disguise.

I corresponded once with someone (Admiralty I think) whose job title was;
Head, Law of the Sea

Sadly I think it was an office based position and probably nothing to do with hunting pirates.

How do you aim for centre mass on a snake?

Two methods,
You balance it across two fingers and then draw your fingers together slowly. When they meet that will be the center of gravity.
OR
You pull it straight, shoot it at the head end and ensure the bullet comes out the tail.

Addendum:
I see that “vox pop” reporting (A.K.A. “triple A reporting” or “Ask Any Asshole”) is also getting a kicking this morning on twitter.
Maybe its time to call time on that pish as well.

Exception for the French reporter who got David Allen Green (constitutional law expert) yesterday by accident 🙂

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1176533793194303490

He’ll back in country soon and she can stroke his knee in a sympathetic fashion.

I realise it’s a convention to say “source”, but “Number 10” is the government. They’ve just been handed their arse by the judiciary and told that effectively they tried to take power which was not theirs to take from parliament (a “constitutional coup” as some might put it).

Popping up anonymously via the BBC and accusing the court of bias and political interference should have consequences.

EDIT for clarity, As binners said, this is a dangerous game, and they shouldn’t be allowed to play it anonymously with the aid of the press while we’re paying for it.

PS, probably not the best place to ask, but can JRM (or boris) get the heave-ho from the privy council?
It obviously wouldn’t bring an end to all of this but it would blunt the haunted pencil in a very satisfying way.

In other news, after these tweets from Laura Kuenssburg,

L1. No 10 source: “We think the Supreme Court is wrong and has made a serious mistake in extending its reach to these political matters.”

2. Source goes on… “Further, the Supreme Court has made it clear that its reasons are connected to the Parliamentary disputes over, and timetable for, leaving the European Union. We think this is a further serious mistake. “

3. No 10 – “We think this is a further serious mistake. We will study the judgement carefully to consider how we can best respond in these unique circumstances. As always the government will respect the law and comply with the courts.”

Does anyone else think its time she started naming to the “source in number 10” who clearly has so little idea of what just happened, that they’re accusing the judiciary of “extending its reach into political matters” when they’ve obviously just reinforced the rule of law and buggered off.

boardinbob

Loads of people have been cut off as other people became available, but ETP can’t help but get a sly dig at the SNP 😉

Are you feeling OK? On what planet is observing that the BBC showed Joanna Cherry in their coverage and not Jo Maugham “a dig at the SNP”?

(Unless its sooooo sly a dig its like Dominic Cummings secret plan? (spoiler: its a turnip)

PS my reference to cutting Jo Maugham off was not just to one event on the steps of the court, but the way that the BBC have failed to have him on to explain whats going on and have occasionally asked him for interview on various BBC outlets, just for the opportunity to be removed later without explanation, and some other lawyer being asked to explain his work. It’s well documented on his twitter feed and has **** all to do with the SNP.

The most fundamental argument against faith schools is NI.
I’ve said on here before that, growing up in NI, I didn’t knowingly meet a catholic until I was a teenager. Its still true there today, and just as tragic.

That was fairly weird and extreme situation, but I fail to see how state funded sectarianism (which would be illegal in any tax funded sphere outside school) has somehow come to be seen as the magic sauce to improve educational attainment.

Faith school supporters seem to argue that faith schools apparently do nothing faith related(!) but yet are still different in some special way.

Apparently these 4 facts are true of faith schools;
1. Don’t indoctrinate pupils into a religious viewpoint.
2. Teach about all faiths equally (and never as fact)
3. Are fully funded by the state with no additional funding from the church in question.
4. Are legally allowed to discriminate, in a limited way, in the pupils they accept.

So which one could possibly explain the advantage that separates them from state schools?

I’ll wait while you realise that faith school proponents are claim that 1, 2, and 3 are true and then always try to explain why 4 is not the fundamental reason for their success.

I sadly don’t really expect any good to come from this ruling

A prime minister of a democratic country tried to suspend parliament unlawfully.

Stopping that is “good” by any definition

What happens next is unknown, but will probably be a little more good (or less bad) as a result.

Now, I wonder if the BBC will show or refer to Jo Maugham on their coverage this time or cut him out in favour of Cherry again?

mashr,
Learning to go to the toilet is necessary
Learning (particularly) your parents religion is not.

Especially not at taxpayers expense.

Discrimination is discrimination, even if its long standing and happened for perfectly legitimate historical reasons.

You have to ask why do religions want to educate children (at the taxpayers expense)?

They would always deny that “indoctrination” was the reason, but they sound like tobacco companies talking about advertising.

We don’t believe it really affects anyone.
Then why do you expend so much effort on it, and cry so loudly when we try to stop you doing it?
Just reasons.

Yes
PS private schools DO suck from the state by being “charities”.

tj,
We agree, but you only mentioned the army above, i was just expanding.

taxi25
It was set up so that the authorities could say to the victims “if there is evidence we will act”
and to the perpetrators “we’re no longer looking for evidence”.

Not everyone gets to be happy, but hopefully no-one else dies.

Its just a sleight of hand/form of words, but it has been working because people decided to believe in it and not look too hard.

Stringently applying the search for truth to one side and not the other might turn out to be a grave error.

tj,
So the army haven’t told “the truth”, I agree.

But please give a counter example of any involved group/side/interested party that has?

If the officers and politicians have to end up in court, what will you do about sinn fein?

Truth and reconciliation doesn’t start with “you own up to all the shit you did, and I’ll sit here and watch”.

Sometimes justice is not possible.

This just stinks of political point scoring.
After the GFA one of my neighbours dads was released from prison.
He was inside for burying a member of a rival terrorist group alive.

Did the victims family ever feel they had closure?

A relative of mine found a shoe in a hedge while playing in the street a few weeks after his neighbour, a policeman, was blown up while waving cheerio his family.

The policemans wife and children probably still live within 20 miles of the killers today.

It would be nice to be able to draw a line between those in the troubles who did bad things because they were politicised or desperate normal people and those who were psychopathic bloodthirsty killers and then make judgements about who deserves forgiveness, and who needs hunting down.

But the GFA required a degree acceptance from the people who were left behind that they had to let it go.

This bloke might be a killer and a scumbag and deserving of punishment, but it feels one sided and divisive to dig into this one event (horrific, significant and self defeating as it was) and expect people to just forget about the rest.

It was a terrible mistake not to have a truth and justice commission in NI (like, the one in SA), but this will help no-one.

I thought it was great, also liked the way that they excommunicated someone for threatening violence.

The basic inspiration for their existence seems to be to try to keep church and state separate in the USA. The focus of their tenets seems to be more concerned with not harming others rather than pure hedonism.

I’ll be disappointed if they’ve gone even partly alt right, but gratified if they’ve had a schism over it.
Every good religion needs a schism early on (think sandal and gourd) or they’re probably not taking it seriously enough.

In my opinion, they’re doing gods work :O)

People who spend hours walking round Tescos putting things in a trolley, take it to the checkout, watch or help while its priced bagged and put away, and then have a fit of surprise when they are asked for payment, pat pockets search bag, empty contents, panic, take minutes to do something that a normal human being should do in seconds (or been prepared for in advance).

WTF did you think was going to happen next?

I may be showing my misanthropic tendencies, but A venn diagram for many of the lane hoggers, progress makers, trolley abandoners, speakerphone enthusiasts and political muppets mentioned in this thread would be pretty close to a circle.

The “other kind of chemical” (snort!)
Thats precisely the issue.
Words have actual meanings.
Saying “People understand what they mean”, or even assuming that you know what they mean without an adequate definition means absolutely nothing.

Its one step away from “chemicals means chemicals”.

You’ve picked up on a misleading, inaccurate (but sciency sounding) meme about “chemicals” and now you’re defending it against people who are trying to explain what the words actually mean.

You could probably benefit from reading “the angry chef” blog/book.

Then come back and explain the massive increases in life expectancy in modern “chemical filled” times compared to the “pre chemical” golden age which somehow existed in the past.

Cheers Greybeard,
Sadly in reality that seems to only apply if Ford dealt with the issue at the time. If you were scared off by their “We’ll have to see the car but we’ll charge you to look at it and it’s out of warranty so we probably won’t help you” spiel, and paid to have it fixed privately then you’re boned.
C’est la vie..

Not sure but probably because Project zero always release details of a vulnerability they discover after a set time period (regardless of any action).

Molgrips,
Yup, there was definitely an issue that led to a recall.
But my car was not recalled, (so apparently had no issue?) but died anyway (twice) from catastrophic coolant leaks.

So basically hes talking about things he doesn’t understand.
Taking pride in “touching a nerve” with his lack of knowledge.
And then implying that I’m a woman as an apparent attempt at an insult.

I’ll stick with my initial impression.

EDIT: For all that, I did like the car, but I have developed an aversion to small turbocharged engines, and Fords generally 😉

klunky,
Yes, yes you did touch a nerve!

Fords 1.0L ecoboost design cost me two engines totalling about £7,000 a few years ago and had a huge knock on effect on my families finances from which we have yet to fully recover. (Hence my exposed nerve).

But you are very sure the problem doesn’t exist (or is my own fault) so thats reassuring.

You are obviously an internet expert. Have a biscuit.

klunky,
I will of course accept your “nonsense” verdict based on what ford have admitted, over my experience of (twice) opening the bonnet on a non recalled car and thinking “where is the coolant”, and “why is it suddenly so warm?”
prick

Don’t get an ecoboost.
The 1L turbo is a lot more powerful than you’d expect, but the design means it runs very hot and there is very little metal to act as a heatsink if anything goes wrong.
A coolant leak will lead to the engine cooking itself before the temperature gauge moves, and you’ll be facing a considerably higher bill than those described above.

molgrips,
I don’t “believe there are no gods”,
I “lack belief that there are any”. I live my life as if they don’t exist (except on internet forums and when they push their random improbabilities and into politics or society.

To put it another way if someone had been raised in a place that had no concept of religion, they would be an atheist, or “one who lacks belief”. You seem to think that atheism requires a positive effort of will, or a series of philosophical assumptions, but it doesn’t, its the default.

Your definition of atheist is wrong.

nealglover,
don’t listen to me , keep being awesome!
perchy,
you’re doing it wrong

molgrips
Your definition of “atheist” us a bit strong
You say “Atheism is being absolutely sure there’s no God.”
google says “a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.”
Thats me (the second one) I lack belief. I am a belief lacker. I dis-belief 🙂
And if the evidence changed so would I.

Definition wise I also like the description from diskworld of (paraphrasing);
“A man who would stand on the top of a mountain, in wet copper armour, in a thunderstorm, shouting “All gods are bastards!””

colournoise
“not stamp collecting” is not a hobby.

molgrips,
I know you’re an atheist (with an apparent interest in the anthropology of believers 🙂 So I was using “you” in the sense of “someone who believes those things” not necessarily talking about you in particular.

I do prefer “materialist” to “atheist” as a description of how I feel about this stuff, but I’m quit prepared to say that “I believe in no gods” (as a statement of atheism) requires no faith.

Its a statement about my opinion based on the available evidence. And it would change if the evidence changed.

Are you saying that an opinion based on the available evidence, and prepared to change if the evidence changes, is a “faith” position?

Doesn’t sound like it to me 🙂

molgrips,
You say provability as in “can’t prove it exists” and “can’t prove it doesn’t” like those are equal sides of a balanced argument.

Like atheism is as much of a “faith” position as theism.

How about no.

If you claim X exists its up to you to prove it.
If I claim that the lack of evidence seems to indicate that it is extremely likely that you are wrong (to an extreme that edges from agnosticism to atheism (or materialism)), its still up to you to prove it does.

I’m sure someone could build a bullshit machine that would generate unlikely, unprovable propositions about the smell of blue and width of infinity and the infallibility of the pope at a rate of a million a day.

Your belief and my lack of belief in the existence or reasonableness of those those things does not make them equally likely to be true and untrue.

Unless you’ve talked yourself in circles so much that you’ve vanished up your own fundament. 🙂

Over evolutionary time humans have developed the ability to see agency where none exists.

We are animals who can make noises and move things so big noises and big movements we can’t explain must be made by big things like us; that we can’t see.

And thats where gods came from.

Made up explanations for things we couldn’t understand extrapolated from things we could.

All of the rest is just window dressing.

A turd of a mistake about how the universe works rolled in glitter and given a big pointy hat (or spire or minaret EDIT or hammer EDIT:).

And we go round in circles wondering about the “mystery” of it all, when there is literally nothing to look for.

We’re now discussing what human qualities (faith) are necessary to keep fooling ourselves.

Religion.

Maybe not ruining everything but certainly confusing and obfuscating reality for a large number of people, over a long period of time.

Whether or not that’s a good thing, seems to be a matter of finely nuanced opinion, rather than a ball-achingly obvious fact?

Weird.

molgrips, thats what I mean about different people having different ideas about what respect means.

Your example makes sense, but what do you do when you meet ideas that just aren’t “fine”.

Some ideas deserve ridicule but might be harmless to the holders and those around them, flat earth, young earth, evolution denial or lizards run the world. We haven’t lost the cure for cancer and noones probably going to die (unless they fall off the edge).

But what about the other ideas, death sentences for homosexuality or apostasy, genital mutilation of children, vaccines cause autism, eternal torture?

Some people see ideas like that as a fundamental part of themselves and they will squeal “lack of respect” if you argue against them.

Thats where misplaced “respect” can be an issue. People deserve respect, ideas don’t.

Maybe we should avoid calling someone a **** idiot, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t call some ideas **** stupid or **** bigoted.

TJ, yup me likewise.
I do think the “respect” question is a big one, its a word that always comes up in these topics and I’m not sure it means the same things to everyone.

Some people seem to think that respect for someone means “accepting all their ideas without criticism”, but that doesn’t work.

People are due respect (and rightly have rights), but not ideas. If you walk into an internet argument about religion, and then demand “respect” (= silence) about your ideas without producing any evidence, then you’ve probably made some bad life decisions.

Equally, theres a time and a place. To take an extreme example, going to a religious persons funeral and telling everyone that heaven is a farce and uncle bobby is worm food would be a dick move, in exactly the same way that turning up at an atheists funeral and telling the bereaved that their beloved is in hell being tortured for eternity would be a dick move.

(this second example is close to the way I’ve had religious people behave towards me that was badly timed and they thought was just “speaking the truth”).

molgrips

Faith in the ability of a chair to support you and faith in God are quite different things. Most religious people (at least the intelligent ones) realise, I think, that God isn’t going to intervene in the material world. But that’s not what it’s about as I understand it.

Thats exactly my point. “Materialist” defines the sort of explanations I think have any validity, (or that I might have “faith” in) without needing to reference “gods” or any other number of things that don’t exist.

For example, whats the difference between a “God [that] isn’t going to intervene in the material world” and one that doesn’t exist?

Lets be clearer – using religion as a pretext for being a dick, requires faith.

A preacher I was listening to once said
“You’re all sitting on that chairs and whether you realise it or not, you had faith when you sat down that the chair would hold your weight off the floor. If you think that “faith” on its own is more important that what your faith is in, then stand up, remove the chair, and sit down on your faith”.

His point was about having faith in the right (his) flavour of religion, but its actually a better metaphor for the importance of having faith in things that have some detectable physical presence, and testable effect.

Atheism is an odd word. We don’t have a word for “non train spotter” or “non stamp collector”. The existence of the word shows how prevalent religion is, because we’ve coined a word to show how we deviate from that norm, “non-theist”

Maybe the best word for a someone who would rather sit on a chair than just air is “Materialist” (as opposed to a Spiritualist).

I think I’ll use that from now on, as it doesn’t acknowledge or contain “theism”, and it explains what I think is important about the world, and the sort of explanation or evidence I would have “faith” in rather than concentrating on what I don’t.

EDIT …
Countdown to some spiritualist saying “but isn’t materialism just another religion” :O)

Theres a tribute from his wife on the thames valley police site. Probably a more worthwhile read than discussions about the genetic heritage of the ineffectual prick who killed him. https://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/news/thames-valley/news/2019/august/19-08-19/wife-of-pc-andrew-harper-issues-tribute/