In todays news...

[Count Steer]

So, Greeny, which successful populist 'uprisings' do you think we should imitate? There don't seem to be many. Chávez in Venezuela, Mečiar in Slovakia? They both sort of became the elite they were supposed to replace. It's as well to have an idea of the better system you're going to replace things with. Getting rid of the first-past-the-post, 2 party system would be a start.

I don't have the solutions just the ideas, it's the ruling governments job to come up with the solutions, which they won't as they don't see that there is a problem!

It's an ever increasing circle of doom!

Maybe one idea could be to empower ethical people from non privately educated backgrounds to stand for PM, and not let the usual corruption get in the way of making that reality.

If you're going to chuck out the government/parliament there won't be anyone to come up with the solution.

Here's a few ideas. Pay MPs a lot more BUT, no second jobs, no 'expenses', no professional lobbying of MPs, no 'freebies', fixed, long sentences for any corruption. Limited terms eg max 15 years. No PMs lists of mates to be put in the Lords. (I wouldn't abolish it but it would be a lot smaller, no life peerages, compulsory retirement at 75).

PS PMs have regularly been from privileged backgrounds in the past and they didn't appear to be spivs like Eton seems to churn out these days...although maybe they were and we didn't know?)

[Count Steer]

So, Greeny, which successful populist 'uprisings' do you think we should imitate? There don't seem to be many. Chávez in Venezuela, Mečiar in Slovakia? They both sort of became the elite they were supposed to replace. It's as well to have an idea of the better system you're going to replace things with. Getting rid of the first-past-the-post, 2 party system would be a start.

So, let's get rid of first-past-the-post and replace it with something else. Then we can have minority governments where small extreme minorities effectively hold control like Israel. That will be nice, I wonder which extreme viewpoint we will get?

Instead of the majority parties we have that routinely dance to the tune of extreme minorities IN the party?

[MyLittleStudPony]

This is a sad sad story...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66982160

It's beyond sad, it's fucking outrageous! Heads should be rolling.
The senior rank that bombarded her with thousands of texts needs to be locked up forever, he's not safe around women, and the senior officer that forced her to sleep in the car out of fear should be locked up and then put on the sex offenders register.

However, I also blame society at large, I blame the lack of decent values, the overflow of pornography, OnlyFans and even Instagram type shit.
This isn't just a few men who are animals, it's a generation of women groomed to behave a certain way and a generation of men that have grown up slowly sliding down the moral shit heap.

I watched a documentary where a young woman proudly announced that she had dropped out of law school because she made more money masturbating with sex toys on OnlyFans.
What chance have future generations got in a society like that, we're turning into animals.

We live in a time of incels under the thrall of Andrew Tait and PAWG'y Instagram girls firing out vacuuous Facebook Reels. It is the way of things.

“Man is and remains an animal. Here a beast of prey, there a housepet, but always an animal.” - Joseph Goebbels


As for me? I take the advice of Professor Korea when quizzed how he masterminded his country's successful Covid response: "Be humble".

[Potter]

As for me? I take the advice of Professor Korea when quizzed how he masterminded his country's successful Covid response: "Be humble".

Personally I live by Sid the Sexists three point principle - cash, gash, pie & mash.

[Potter]

US President Joe Biden's administration is to build a section of border wall in southern Texas in an effort to stop rising levels of immigration.
Around 20 miles (32km) will be built in Starr County along its border with Mexico, where officials report high numbers of crossings.
Building a border wall was a signature policy of Donald Trump as president and fiercely opposed by Democrats.
In 2020, Mr Biden promised he would not build another foot of wall if elected.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67015137

That's a bit of an own goal.
Get voted in on lies, then copy Trump

[Mussels]

I thought they were pulling down the border fencing, second thoughts?

[Potter]

I thought they were pulling down the border fencing, second thoughts?

I think they've finally had to admit that their policy on immigration was actual bollocks

[Hoonercat]

US President Joe Biden's administration is to build a section of border wall in southern Texas in an effort to stop rising levels of immigration.
Around 20 miles (32km) will be built in Starr County along its border with Mexico, where officials report high numbers of crossings.
Building a border wall was a signature policy of Donald Trump as president and fiercely opposed by Democrats.
In 2020, Mr Biden promised he would not build another foot of wall if elected.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67015137

That's a bit of an own goal.
Get voted in on lies, then copy Trump

How did the 'Mexico will pay for it' promise work out, while copying Clinton (who actually started the building of the wall in the 90's)?

[Yorick]

I think the defence lawyers had taken drugs

The gunman set off a smoke bomb on the crowded subway and fired his handgun 32 times during the morning rush hour on a Manhattan-bound N train in April. 2022. He only stopped when the gun jammed.

Lawyers for James had asked for an 18-year prison sentence, arguing that he suffered from a serious mental illness and that he did not intend to kill anyone.

So he didn't intend to, 32 times

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67021986

.

[irie]

Time magazine's latest edition:

https://time.com/collection/next-genera ... f-leaders/

Exclusive: Meet the New Face of Scotland
Humza Yousaf, Scotland

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67024848.amp

Labour defeats SNP to win Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election.

The party's candidate, Michael Shanks, took the Westminster seat with 17,845 votes - more than double the number polled by the SNP's Katy Loudon.

The result was a swing of 20.4% from the SNP to Labour.

Got that timing [sic] a wee bit wrong perhaps?

[demographic]

This is a sad sad story...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66982160

It sure is but according to R4's Womans Hour its been endemic in UK military for years.
To the kind of numbers where it seems that if someone claims never to bave seen it theyre either a liar, involved in doing it or the kind of person who never looks at any information that shows the people who pay them in a bad light. Or all of the above.
More about it a couple of years ago, this from the Guardian but I could find other news outlets if thats a problem for anyone.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... ual-abuse

Mind, before anyone points out that sexual discrimination is rife in the building trades? Yeah, I know cos I've seen it and challenged it.
One of the best carpenters I know is female but she's had to battle discrimination for decades.
Mostly by just being better at ber job than most of the people around her.

[Dodgy69]

Holly Willoughbooby nearly kidnapped, wonder what he had in mind.

[MrLongbeard]

Holly Willoughbooby nearly kidnapped, wonder what he had in mind.

Crushing her to death

[Potter]

It sure is but according to R4's Womans Hour its been endemic in UK military for years.
To the kind of numbers where it seems that if someone claims never to bave seen it theyre either a liar, involved in doing it or the kind of person who never looks at any information that shows the people who pay them in a bad light. Or all of the above.

Nope, I never saw anyone sexually assaulted, raped or violated in any way during my relatively brief military service, I heard about it but no more than you hear about it in civvie life.

I may be wrong, perhaps I wasn't looking for it, I didn't hang around with rapists or perhaps serve for long enough to see it, and clearly it obviously does happen, but IME I saw more misogynistic stuff that went on in factories and building sites than I ever saw in military service.

I'm all for dragging this stuff out into the light but it wasn't my experience.

[ZRX61]

I thought they were pulling down the border fencing, second thoughts?

Two or three months ago the Biden clusterfuck sold off stacks of fencing (for pennies on the dollar) that was ready to be installed.

[Yambo]

It sure is but according to R4's Womans Hour its been endemic in UK military for years.
To the kind of numbers where it seems that if someone claims never to bave seen it theyre either a liar, involved in doing it or the kind of person who never looks at any information that shows the people who pay them in a bad light. Or all of the above.

Mmmm, not sure quite which category I fall into here but I must fall into one of them as I never witnessed any of those things. I don't doubt for one moment that they happened and that there's been a serious problem for years but hey, I'm probably all of the above.

Except for the fact that I never served with women until I got to the rank of Staff Sergeant, 15 years into my service. At that point, there were only 2 women in the regiment I was serving in. One of them was a Sergeant clerk and married to a Sergeant but during the time I knew them they got divorced and she remarried a Lance Corporal. The other was a Lieutenant and while I do know that she was not really welcome in the Officer's Mess and had to work hard to be accepted as a good officer, I was never aware of any sexual offences against her. She eventually volunteered for 'special duties' in Northern Ireland (it was called Op Zambesi) and the last I heard of her she was getting training prior to deployment.

There were a few more women in my last posting to Headquarters, 1st Armoured Division but I never worked with them and I'm pretty sure there were none in the building I worked in. I couldn't even tell you what department they were in but I seem to remember one was a legal branch officer.

So I thank you for categorising me and I hope you'll allow me some time to work out which of those categories I actually belong in, got to be one of them I suppose.

[Noggin]

This is a sad sad story...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66982160

It sure is but according to R4's Womans Hour its been endemic in UK military for years.

More about it a couple of years ago, this from the Guardian but I could find other news outlets if thats a problem for anyone.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... ual-abuse

I liked the post for this -

Mind, before anyone points out that sexual discrimination is rife in the building trades? Yeah, I know cos I've seen it and challenged it.
One of the best carpenters I know is female but she's had to battle discrimination for decades.
Mostly by just being better at ber job than most of the people around her.

A mate of mine is an incredible carpenter, but I know it's been tough, partly for the reason you suggest



The reason I unliked it is that I reread this bit -

To the kind of numbers where it seems that if someone claims never to bave seen it theyre either a liar, involved in doing it or the kind of person who never looks at any information that shows the people who pay them in a bad light. Or all of the above.

I'm guessing you quoted it from somewhere? But, it's an incredible generalisation. Given the numbers of women in the forces (certainly pre the last few years, I really don't know the ratio, but I know it was much lower numbers of women to men for most of the time my male friends served), I would suggest that an huge number of men would not have seen any kind of bullying/discrimination. Not because they are part of it, ignoring it or whatever, but because it wasn't happening where they were.

There's a lot of 'pushing around' in the military (from what friends have said over the years) and this could be bullying in some ways but over all that is across the board. The sexual harassment/offences less so - but when it happens, it's bad because of the way (mostly) women feel or felt that they couldn't report it.

But to tar all serviceMEN with the same sentence as above, that's pretty shabby


(I'm sure I haven't written things exactly right, but I've tried not to piss anyone off !!!)

[MrLongbeard]

Well, shit

https://news.sky.com/story/box-of-giraf ... e-12977930

[Noggin]

[demographic]

It sure is but according to R4's Womans Hour its been endemic in UK military for years.
To the kind of numbers where it seems that if someone claims never to bave seen it theyre either a liar, involved in doing it or the kind of person who never looks at any information that shows the people who pay them in a bad light. Or all of the above.

Mmmm, not sure quite which category I fall into here but I must fall into one of them as I never witnessed any of those things. I don't doubt for one moment that they happened and that there's been a serious problem for years but hey, I'm probably all of the above.

Except for the fact that I never served with women until I got to the rank of Staff Sergeant, 15 years into my service. At that point, there were only 2 women in the regiment I was serving in. One of them was a Sergeant clerk and married to a Sergeant but during the time I knew them they got divorced and she remarried a Lance Corporal. The other was a Lieutenant and while I do know that she was not really welcome in the Officer's Mess and had to work hard to be accepted as a good officer, I was never aware of any sexual offences against her. She eventually volunteered for 'special duties' in Northern Ireland (it was called Op Zambesi) and the last I heard of her she was getting training prior to deployment.

There were a few more women in my last posting to Headquarters, 1st Armoured Division but I never worked with them and I'm pretty sure there were none in the building I worked in. I couldn't even tell you what department they were in but I seem to remember one was a legal branch officer.

So I thank you for categorising me and I hope you'll allow me some time to work out which of those categories I actually belong in, got to be one of them I suppose.

As you describe there weren't that many women in the military back then so you were in when men were men and male recruits were nervous.