mormont

I doubt Sunak is going to fire Braverman before the Rwanda verdict this week. If he fires her now, the Tory right are going to go apeshit about 'caving in to the woke mob'. And he's not going to do a reshuffle over the same weekend events everyone is making a fuss about. Plus, he doesn't have the guts to fire her now in case the government win on the Rwanda verdict. The right wing backlash would double. If they do win, she's unsackable. But if they lose, yeah, then he might fire her. Or not. He may genuinely be too weak.

It's particularly notable how she went out of her way to drag Northern Ireland into it, then had a 'source' close to her (100% this source was literally just her) clarify that this was a reference to Nationalists, just in case you thought it was about Unionists or about both sides. Now, you can level a lot of criticisms about Irish nationalists, but complaining about them holding demonstrations as an 'assertion of primacy' is an odd one, particularly as the more notable examples of that would be on the other side (Orange Walks). She's crowbarring the reference in somewhere it largely doesn't fit. It's either spectacular ignorance or she really wanted to get this reference in to an unrelated topic, maybe to appeal to Unionist sympathising MPs? It's gratuitous either way, and does nothing but harm to a tricky situation that her own colleagues are trying to negotiate in restoring power sharing at Stormont (and to relations with the RoI goverment).

The party of law and order, folks.

Look at this absolute muppet that for some reason is our Prime Minister. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67355227 Yeah, I'm not going to be putting any pressure on you. I'm just announcing in advance that this is all on you, that I think you're wrong (even though there are no legal grounds to take any other decision) and that I'm going to be blaming you if anything happens at this march where we've been hyping up the potential for trouble for days because we think there might possibly be votes in it. At the very least it might distract from the unrelenting narrative about how I personally was on the wrong side of every decision in the pandemic response.

None of this is realistic, I'm afraid. The current Israeli government have zero interest in establishing a Palestinian state or anything of that kind. Their interest in the Palestinians begins and ends with whether they are a threat. Their aim is peace, but not the sort of peace where Palestinians have no reason to attack Israelis: rather, the sort of peace where Palestinians are not able to attack Israelis. That means a powerless, impoverished, subsistence level population living in a stateless buffer zone where they, Israel, can exert military control at will. Can that be achieved? You might think not. But you assume another solution is possible. Since the current Israeli government don't want or believe in that solution, it's not.

Could it possibly be that Netanyahu, the guy whose plan to handle the Palestinians turned out to be a giant disaster and whose response to the October attacks is also turning out to be a chaotic mess, doesn’t have a sensible plan for the aftermath either? Seems far fetched, but maybe.

None of them matter even a little tiny bit. None of them will be the nominee unless Trump drops dead.

He also looks like he doesn't know where he is. As does Trump. If you're looking for a candidate who does look like he's fully compos mentis, it's Biden. Put aside the age prejudice, because they're all old. The question is, which of them is not both old and insane? Biden.

Yeah, but even if you just read the comics, the letters pages were full of people discussing continuity. The stories were full of editors' notes referring you to other comics, past or present. There was a point when comics writers and fans didn't care about continuity, but that point had passed by the '80s. You need to go back to the '60s for that.

You and I remember the 80s very differently.

No. I mean, in some cases that might be the proximate cause, but mostly it’s the weird popularity of the notion that forecasting disaster proves how insightful you are, mixed with a bit of ‘expect the worst’ as a protective psychological approach. Hyper-pessimism on the board is the intellectual fashion.

Trump's testimony is going about as well as anticipated. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-67314495

It's not small. It's microscopic. It's not even measurable in polling terms. You appear to be talking about a very different group of voters.

The version in Hawkeye is closer to the original Kingpin, who was around for fifteen years before Miller changed him to be more 'gritty', so really you can argue the version in Hawkeye is more the 'true' Kingpin. This is essentially the problem, yeah. Everything I'm enjoying about season 2 - the aesthetic, the characters, the actors - is a thing from season 1, and season 1 did them better. Season 2 hasn't really given us anything new that I care about. OB maybe? I certainly don't care about the Loom. It hasn't even developed the characters, though it looked for a minute that they might do something interesting with Loki by reminding him that he is, or used to be, a villain. But then that just went away. Weirdly, everything in season 2 feels like a sub-plot, including the main plot. Nothing seems to get going. The pacing is weird too: we focus on one thing then drop it. Like, we got a lot of attention on Timley and Renslayer and Miss Minutes, but now they're dead/dropped for an entire episode. It's the final episode next week and the show feels like it's just been messing about for the first five.

It astounds me that she was ever Home Secretary, and it's clear she was not appointed on merit. It's a thing people often suggest but in this case I've concluded that she absolutely must have some sort of leverage over Sunak. Nothing else makes sense.

Including the war dead in Gaza?

No. I just think some perspective is called for. It's not surprising that people are swift to play up any problems Marvel has: it's human nature. We like the narrative of the colossus being felled, particularly if it 'proves' we were 'right' about films that we personally didn't care for. Affirmation feels good! But while Disney are clearly concerned, as I said, they remain miles ahead of DC and the comparison - so frequently made in these discussions - actually only really highlights how far ahead Marvel movies remain. ETA - not that it matters, by the way, but if you're reading this thread, I've been a lot harder on season 2 of Loki than most others here and thought Secret Invasion was a waste of Samuel L Jackson's talents. I'm not exactly a reflexive Marvel shill.

Well, apart from the fact that it's still wildly successful. Love and Thunder, the film everyone is slating, outperformed every DC film since 2018, by a huge margin: only one DC film in that period (Black Adam) took even half of what Love and Thunder took. The lowest grossing Marvel film since 2018 is Black Widow and that took more than any DC film since 2018 except Black Adam. Only one DC film ever (Aquaman) has taken more than Multiverse of Madness. Numbers: https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Marvel-Cinematic-Universe#tab=summary https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/DC-Extended-Universe#tab=summary I appreciate that the point here is not that DC good and Marvel bad, and nor am I saying the reverse: and clearly Disney are concerned, as the link above suggests. But Marvel are still in a position that DC can only envy.

The current government have made it perfectly clear they don't give a single fuck about rail. Transport policy under Sunak is more roads, more cars, driving is sacred above all. Hopefully Labour have more sense.

If Putin were dead, you absolutely could not keep it quiet. Just walking around Moscow would be impossible due to the tanks causing traffic jams and the danger of walking on the pavements in a hail of people falling from windows.

No, worse, I’m afraid. We’re back to the same old running around the same old sets, explaining the plot and the stakes out loud, fiddling with McGuffins in ever decreasing circles. It all feels very small and claustrophobic for a series about the destruction of entire timelines, set in a vast city complex at the heart of time that has like six rooms. It needs room to breathe. It’s not awful, and it has charm, but it’s very far below the first series, which felt fresh and clever.

One could start by questioning whether a tiny, hand-picked and limited selection of admittedly high profile posts really suggest that no barriers exist for south Asian people accessing these positions. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01156/ https://apolitical.co/solution-articles/en/why-uk-parliament-needs-better-south-asian-representation https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f81c6ed915d74e33f6dc4/race-in-workplace-mcgregor-smith-review.pdf The issue is complex. Some minority groups do achieve highly in order to overcome systemic racism, and succeed, but overcoming that systemic racism in some examples doesn't mean it no longer exists. I would agree that race is too clumsy as a metric in many ways. Within the south Asian population, there are marked differences between Sri Lankans, Pakistanis, Indians and Bangladeshis, between Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus, and between men and women. It's complicatd. But then, that's what I was saying when I pointed out that saying south Asians hold high office doesn't say anything about systemic racism against black people. What we can say is that if you want to hold high office, it's a lot easier if you're a white middle aged man. The system favours folk like me. I can see that, and I acknowledge that I benefit from it.

Again, race isn't just white vs non-white. Systemic racism against black people can exist even if south Asian people are in powerful positions. For that matter, systemic racism against south Asian people can (and does) exist even if south Asian people are in powerful positions, in much the same way as sexism didn't end in 1979.

Not to speak for BFC, but Asian people are not black, ethnic minorities are not a single undifferentiated group, and it is perfectly possible that black people are underrepresented in positions of power while south Asian people are not.

Add Jenna Ellis to the 'took a plea' list: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67208871