UK Politics: Not even a Penny for a new Prime Minister

[williamjm]

2 hours ago, Spockydog said:

The Right. What a bunch of intellectual titans and visionaries. I am so jealous of the quality of these people. 

Seriously though, who the fuck thinks Truss is anything more than a punctured whoopee cushion.

 

10 years would be enough time for Liz Truss to be Prime Minister 81 times.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

This was very specifically about a POC calling a white police officer a f'ing white bitch iirc.  It was about whether it was a criminal (public order) offence or not, it definitely was. 

Younger drunk me told a cop to go fuck himself to his face. I was not charged with anything. Just got a stern warning. I know it sucks, but in general I think it's best to take the insult in that position until the person won't stop and/or appears to be looking like they're about to get physical. Pause, dance party:

Back on topic, HoI calling racism academic and downplaying how power imbalances works is exactly why we can't have nice things. 

[Kalbear]

12 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Younger drunk me told a cop to go fuck himself to his face. I was not charged with anything. Just got a stern warning. I know it sucks, but in general I think it's best to take the insult in that position until the person won't stop and/or appears to be looking like they're about to get physical. Pause, dance party:

This'd be a very good example of privilege in the US. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

This'd be a very good example of privilege in the US. 

Never said it wasn't. The implication was that everyone should be afforded that privilege. 

[DanteGabriel]

3 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Never forget the Liz Truss line. 

Amazing, her reign wasn't even long enough to trace the second lightning bolt in the SS symbol.

[The Anti-Targ]

IDFA: CDC Confirms H5N1 Avian Influenza in One Person in Texas, Risk to Human Health Remains Low; USDA Confirms Additional HPAI Cases in Dairy Herds in NM and TX, Pasteurized Milk and Dairy Safe for Consumers

Quote

Dear Dairy Community,
 
Earlier today, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued two important updates on the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) (H5N1) virus in dairy cattle as well as one person. 

CDC Updates – One Human Case Confirmed 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that a person in the United States has tested positive for the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) (H5N1) virus, as reported by the Texas Department of Health and Human Services. According to the CDC, the person had exposure to dairy cattle in Texas presumed to be infected with HPAI. The patient reported eye redness (consistent with conjunctivitis), as their only symptom, and is recovering. The patient was told to isolate and is being treated with an antiviral drug for flu. 

CDC and Texas DSHS stated today that avian influenza (H5N1) viruses have only rarely been transmitted from person to person. As such, the risk to the general public remains low at this time.

I'm not saying the next pandemic is about to start, but a 'flu virus that successfully jumps species to humans is one of the candidates for the next pandemic.

 

[Impmk2]

I would caution against undue alarm (at least at present info). The infection through an intermediate animal is probably the most concerning aspect, especially as its in the food supply chain. However bird flu jumping to humans has been reported reasonably regularly in the last couple years. It's whether that infected person can continue to transmit.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/cambodia-reports-another-human-h5n1-avian-flu-case-hong-kong-notes-h9#:~:text=Cambodia has now reported 5,an older H5N1 clade (2.3.

 

 

Edited April 2 by Impmk2

[mormont]

Wrong thread?

 

[The Anti-Targ]

You're right must be close to needing glasses if I can't see the difference between US and UK on the browser tabs. Though in terms of culture wars it's almost impossible to distinguish between the two. 

Jonathan Pie definitely not a fan of the Scottish Law.

I don't know enough of the detail to comment, but if what he's saying about the detail of the law is factual that seems like a pendulum swing too far.

Edited April 2 by The Anti-Targ

[Heartofice]

Jonathan Pie must be a bad person now I guess 

[Mentat]

8 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I don't know enough of the detail to comment, but if what he's saying about the detail of the law is factual that seems like a pendulum swing too far.

The law itself can be read in two minutes here, for anyone interested.

I don't find any real cause for concern, myself, though I agree that the language could be less woolly.

This article on The Guardian about a proposed bill on rough sleepers outlines similar issues from another perspective.

That said, writing laws which cover all the possible real life situations that can arise and offer unequivocal and clear guidelines for everyone involved to deal justly with every one of them is much harder than most people realise, if it's even possible.

 

[mormont]

Jonathan Pie isn't a bad person, or even a person at all. He's a comedy character. Not someone that should be taken as an authoritative voice, anyway. (And he's only regurgitating the previously discussed errors: imagining that these criticisms are unique to this law when they're not, for example.)

As we've already seen, the law turns out not to do what some people are claiming it would do. Rowling knew very well she wasn't breaking it: that was just an egotistic publicity stunt of the type she's become very fond of. 

ETA - there's a decent explainer here:

https://jackie125.substack.com/p/scotlands-hate-crime-act

In which the author, rightly, points out that the real problem with this law is that the people likely to actually fall foul of it are not millionaire authors or politicians but people who lead chaotic, difficult lives and who are not well served by being sent to jail, when we jail too many people already. 

Edited April 3 by mormont

[BigFatCoward]

Ha, most complaints for hate crime since the new laws were brought in were about a 2020 speech by Humza Yousaf.  Luckily for him its not retrospective. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-68721208

More of concern is why the first minister appears to live in an absolute toilet/crack head location?

 

Edited April 3 by BigFatCoward

[mormont]

Have you been to Broughty Ferry?

That photo is not a typical representation. 

[Heartofice]

Rowling was testing the law, testing the Scots to actually take her to court. Remember it was the people who threatened to take her to Scottish court for the things she had said that led her to this testing. It is hardly a publicity stunt, why would she need publicity? 

Now there is a question as to whether things would be different if she wasn't so high profile, and if she hadn't done what she did, whether more people would have police turn up at their door for things they said online or on person. I suspect that word came from high up to resolve this quickly and for it to not get too far, Yousef doesn't really need that level of bad publicity, especially not after the Gender reform bill did for Sturgeon. 

But Rowling has now set precedent and badly trained officers should be less likely to start arresting people for little reason.

The issues with the bill are still there though, the vague wording isn't something to sniff at, there is still room to arrest people something they said in their own house, and you can still get a non crime hate incident recorded against your name even if you committed no crime.

On top of that, the enormous waste of police time and resources being used up by this bill .3000 complaints made in one day, obviously won't be that number constantly, but I'm sure there will be plenty of abuse of the law.

Anyway, it's not like Scotland is alone in this, the UK already has plenty of incidents of people being arrested for things that really shouldn't be the police's responsibility. This is just taking this on another step.

[karaddin]

2 hours ago, mormont said:

In which the author, rightly, points out that the real problem with this law is that the people likely to actually fall foul of it are not millionaire authors or politicians but people who lead chaotic, difficult lives and who are not well served by being sent to jail, when we jail too many people already. 

That seems an entirely reasonable concern and one I'm inclined to share. When imprisoning someone we should really be asking if society is actually served by derailing their life prospects and removing them from their families and communities and if the answer is no we need to find a better way to mete out justice.

On the matter of hate speech the goal should be to protect the targets of the hate speech and prevent the continuation of the speech, not punitive retribution. It would take very extreme cases that are going to make me think they warrant time in prison. Things geared more towards removal of platforms to spread the speech for a period of time would be moving in the right direction from prison time, but that's a not even half baked thought that came up while writing this reply.

[Maltaran]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

On top of that, the enormous waste of police time and resources being used up by this bill .3000 complaints made in one day, obviously won't be that number constantly, but I'm sure there will be plenty of abuse of the law.

 

It sounds like a lot of those complaints are either from people who don’t understand the new law, or opponents of the law deliberately making fake complaints (like the one the minister mentions which someone had made using her name). Presumably that’ll drop off in a week or so once the news cycle moves on.

[JoannaL]

IF I understand correctly there is no protection for women in this law (they say they will do it at a "later date" which is most often another word for "never")

I do not support or understand this law, but if such a law is made , I think it absolutely horrific to do it in a fashion to  activly not include women.  it seems like an invitation for every abuser: "I can not say something against trans people or religious minorities, but hey I can still call a woman a "....", this is still totally ok"

 

 

[AncalagonTheBlack]

So muslims are to blame for empty churches? 

 

[kissdbyfire]

6 minutes ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

So muslims are to blame for empty churches? 

 

As a confirmed atheist I find Richard Dawkins to be an offensive arsehole.