Oxbridge graduates double votes only ended in 1950. 2021 for the last major cash for honours scandal. Not so long ago really.

It’s noticeable how many right-wing grifters have found Jesus over the last few years. Top of the list is James Delingpole (who at least has the sense to so obviously satirise his whole Christ-believing-comspiracy-theorist send-up).

Shocked Pikachu face: British political system is corrupt? It wasn’t that long ago that rich people had more than one vote if they had houses in different constituencies and would travel across the country to vote many times. Or that graduated from Oxford or Cambridge had two votes. Or not long before that that candidates could round up voters take them to the pub and buy them drinks and then to cast their votes. And that’s before all the cash for honours scandals…

Surely people don’t believe that there was ever a time when parliamentary politics was ever honest.

That’s one of the other big issues. I have the same worries about how digital-only gaming has become. My kids seem to prefer digital downloads and really don’t believe me when I warn them that they have absolutely no control over what they “buy”. But they look at me like one of those crazy old-timers who just doesn’t understand the modern world.

I started with Logseq and then quickly moved to Obsidian (which I think is great). Over the last couple of months I’ve started using Emacs with Org (partly for the challenge and partly because it seems to be able to do pretty much everything).

I did make the jump… into unemployment. But still much happier. I love teaching and would join an authentic, child-centred school at the drop of a hat - but not willing to be complicit in the toxic horror show that’s current UK education.

Former English teacher here. My self-hosting origin is that I had 20 years or so of teaching materials I’d collected in OneNote over that time and simply wanted to have offline copies so that I could feel that if ever something went wrong with Microsoft like getting permanently locked out of my account, then I had a means of restoring everything. Microsoft makes it practically impossible to export to a working backup.

After spending a LONG time trying everything to get back ownership of my materials, I understood the need to move my digital stuff away from big tech. I bought a Synology NAS, learned how to use Docker and then took more steps. About the same time I started using Fediverse apps and learned a great deal from the discussions and links there. My greatest “learn” has been keeping notes in plaintext files (and not getting seduced by nice shiny new apps that are actually horrors that want lure you into a future subscription).

Thank you. That was actually weirdly interesting in terms of the specificity (while also being quite broad). I can’t imagine how many hours and meetings and people were involved in that.

Have the courts come to an actual definition of what (animal) milk actually is? Last I read, neither EU or UK could define it. Milk’s content differs so much from brand to brand and there’s no set standard. Presumably other than it comes from an animal of some kind.

Has no one noticed how many Americans have always worked around Westminster in the think-tanks, in the lobby groups and even in the civil service. Did anyone actually think that the UK government was actually running things?

Supposedly each episode of Disney’s Doctor Who cost about £10 million!

We’re a couple of years out but the Labour left, Your Party and the Greens need to establish some sort of electoral alliance to stand against what is an increasingly dangerous Right. Who am I kidding? Most of these parties exist to split the vote and let the Right maintain their rightful hegemony.

This sort of stuff - which indicates organised international political operations by the far-right - will get drowned out by the rabble-rousing “pedo” noise.

Benzion Freshwater.

Surely that’s a made-up name? Do you have to have a name like that to be a billionaire?

Palantir is literally the Eye of Sauron watching. These ghouls aren’t hiding what they’re doing.

Why doesn’t your company provide parking? Why should other people not be able to park because people with business vehicles hog residential parking?

I live in a road that’s nearly 150+ years old. Not sure that the planners foresaw vans and monster-cars. They were probably more concerned with horses and carts. I doubt trademen parked their carts and hitched their horses outside of other people’s houses in the street.

I don’t blame him. Choice of one stable and expanding authoritarian regime and one unstable and expanding authoritarian regime. Do the Chinese police hold nurses down in the street and shoot them?

Why aren’t the vans parked in commercial car parks or premises? And why do their owners insist on parking them wherever they like (but not their own drives!) without any thought for pedestrians? At the same time, after about 7pm it becomes almost impossible to find a parking space largely because of the sheer number of vans. I’m not talking about the little white vans but the big ones. Commercial vans and pickups have no place being parked in residential streets. Or, charge them higher rates of parking permit fees for commercial vehicles. No one is driving a big van as their family vehicle - unless they’re Steptoe & Son or Trotters Trading.

Palantir = truly evil Skynet.

Are these “talent liason” outposts what used to be called spies? And doesn’t the UK have “talent liason” people in China? Excuse me if I’m not really shocked about this. Surely, rather than moan about it, the UK security services need to use some James Bond-types to investigate (using some futuristic gadgets like chewing gum that blows up etc) and sort it out. Usually these “talent liason” outposts are inside volcanoes or deep sea bases. Should be easy to spot in UK.

Welcome to the UK… country that once had aspirations to be a center of digital tech… now just wants a Victorian factory education for its kids. Soon pen and paper will be too radical and chalkboard slates will be reintroduced. You can hear the “teach from the front”-types salivating already. “The Empire was built on rote and chalk, Mr Gradgrind!”