Which Tyler

FTFY

Lib Dems still 8 ahead of the tories, 1 council left to declare. I was NOT expecting them to actually win that battle (or be particularly close). Greens still running at better than a 50% increase in councillors.

Err... it was to my reading. This councillor is being written off based on their age, not their competence. Everything saying "I won't vote for an 18 year old" "18 year olds shouldn't be standing for office" is about age, not competence. If the only competent candidate is an 18 year old, then I'd happily vote for them (for a certain value of the word "happily") to keep out a whole bunch of incompetent 40-somethings. If anyone wants my actual opinion on ages for candidacy (let's face it, no-one does, but here goes anyway) If someone wants to enter politics, they should start at the bottom - not shoot high too early. Ideally, a career in politics would be parish council => town council => county council => parliament. And I have no problem whatsoever with a youth entering at the bottom level before they've sat their A-levels. I have no particular problem with a youth standing at town council level; I'm far more interested in their competence. In an even more ideal world, no-one should be seeing politics as a career, even if it turns out that way for them personally.

In the important race (outside of London) 102 or 107 councils declared. Labour: 1,026 councillors Lib Dem: 500 councillors Conservative: 468 councillors Pseudo-officially the 3rd party now. Brilliant day for the Greens as well, going from 100 to 158 As for the recent discussion - better a competent youth than an incompetent adult. Oh, and choosing 3 illustrative examples doesn't mean that there are only 3 examples - as any adult should know

137 v 140 in the important battle (good guys currently winning) 45/107 declared

As of this moment in time, Conservatives (74 councillors) are in 3rd place, behind Labour (230) and Lib Dem (79) https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/may/02/local-elections-2024-full-council-results-for-england Of course, it's after 24/107 councils have declared, but still... I wish I could say that I played my part, but I only got to vote for the police chief - normally, I'd spoil my ballot with "this should be appointed by merit, not politics" or vote "independent" on that principle. But we had the incumbent tory (tories out!) and our independent's "manifesto" was absolutely riddled with stuff like "some of my best friends are black" "I'm not a homophobe but" "authorise the RN to ram the boats*" "return to good old fashioned policing". So I felt I had to do what little I could to keep those 2 out. *This is Tewkesbury, so presumably he means narrow boats and the occasional small sailing boat on the Avon.

No. Thinking that trans women aren't women is anti-trans. But I'm pretty sure you knew that, whether you agree or not.

https://inews.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/billy-vunipola-tasered-arrest-3029862 Innocent until proven guilty etc

Thank you writing all of this. Great food for thought. Though I didn't know we were allowed informed and nuanced answers, not when knee-jerks are available

I've just checked - I earn approximately a 8th of the £90k listed above (with no expenses, and no outside payments for "consulting"); my credit rating is... not great. I'm also living through a cost of living crisis. I can get an unsecured £10k loan through my bank, online, and it says the money will be in my account in 2 hours. I'm not taking it just to check a theory, however.

I'm sure I'm far from the only person surprised that it hasn't been illegal for at least 20 years.

Anyone got any figures for food bank use in the same time? Closest I've got is 2022-23 (37% increase) which does coincide with the war in Ukraine

But... that profiteering CREATED inflation

5% not 50% It's an extra +1 on a d20 roll Also worth noting than an increase of 5% is the smallest possible increase in a d20 based system. If you you increases by smaller I crements, you need a completely different system

Yeah, it's a good system, but would surely be too complicated for tabletop. My homebrew is that PCs have to take a full day of R&R to train, study, meditate etc somewhere safe where they can let their guard down. I also allow them to learn extra (non-ASI) feats, skills, languages etc - which requires a dedicated tutor and 3 days (so 24 hours of actual study) to reach half-proficiency. Some stuff I'll allow by spending a LOT of hours just playing about with stuff (reduced if they've a transferable skill). Essentially - levelling up is putting into practice what you've learned by doing stuff, and trying out something new. Learning something new requires either being taught, or teaching yourself through trial and error. Ultimately, to my AD&D attuned brain, PCs get powerful stupidly quickly, even with me artificially trying to slow them down. You can go from random schmuck on the street to olympian (level 5-6ish) in a week of game time; to superhero (level 10-12ish) by the end of your first month; and to god-killer in another month or two.

Yeah, the power of the storm is the only one I can think of (beyond durability of future-tech). I'm pretty sure the Martian winds do get up to the speed suggested, but yeah, with way less density and therefore force applied. I'm not sure I'd call it a leap, so much as a stretch for dramatic (and narrative) purposes. Pretty sure Martian soil is fine for life. I am sure I remember it being a common criticism that was shot down by people who actually know about this stuff. Well beyond my personal understanding though. Absolutely agreed on the slingshot manoeuvre though - but that's a holding of the idiot ball rather than bad science.

Council of Elrond is straight from the book. Out of interest - what leaps of science? I mean, yeah it's sci-fi, but the science is generally held up as being spot on (if theoretical). From what I recall, most of the stretches are about durability, rather than "wouldn't work in principle".

That's a "no" then.

Did anyone say that? Or just provide some context (and correction) to your post?

Yeah, it took a bit of time to assemble the ETA, and different links for each peak and trough. Just linked the one graph to illustrate. The best I can find for the main 3 parties is this: https://www.tutor2u.net/politics/reference/participation-political-party-membership-in-the-uk Including this graph: https://tutor2u-net.imgix.net/subjects/politics/blogimages/pol-party-uk-membership-historic-trend.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=80&w=800

Isn't that almost exactly where the party membership was the day before Corbyn was nominated for party leadership? Of course, that doesn't make it a good thing (far from it); but I do wonder how many of the departures are "life long party members" and how many are "joined to vote for Corbyn" ETA: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Labour_Party_membership_graph.svg Nope, fell off a cliff around the Falklands, stabilising at 250-300k; bump up to a peak of 405k for early Blair in 1997, before dropping back to circa 200k with the illegal wars. Generally holding steady just below 200k (with a drop to 150k for Milliband) until Corbyn (largely, the option of installing Corbyn) brings it up to a peak of 564k in 2017. Corbyn ejected from the party => drops down to 366k (NB, 366,604 is the figure quoted in your article - is more a loss of "just under 200k", not a drop to "just over 200k"). Yes, I'm sure they'd rather have the members, but not exactly a fatal blow, currently significantly above the average for the last 40 years. Context. It's a thing.

I have, repeatedly, and I like it - but that doesn't change how disturbing it was when I was 6. It's why I separated "most disturbing" from "disturbed me the most".

Sorry, got caught as in "got caught in the public conscience" With very easily understood corporate sociopathy. People understand planes falling out of the sky = bad thing

Of course. The only difference between a Boeing, or a Nestle; and every other large corporation is... they got caught.

Not the most disturbing film, but the film that disturbed me the most has got to be Watership Down. FTR, absolutely not a cute cartoon about bunny rabbits, suitable for a 6-7 year old to watch unattended. Ahhh... the 80s Other nominaction would probably be A Clockwork Orange - though the mental scars don't run as deep.