desensitized43

Remembering back to when I was at school in that final year (20 years ago - I feel old!) there was a running thing when people were turning 16 at the various times in that year of "oh you're legal now" "you're not legal" "if person x **** person y they were going to jail" - even though you know no one in the country would think it was appropriate to prosecute a 16 year old for having sex with a 15 year old in the same year at school. Could you not just go "if you're at school, you're off limits to people older than school age" I do get the motivation to "protect" younger people - mainly girls - from creepy older blokes but at what point does it become "you can't be trusted to not get coerced into something you'll look back on and regret so we need to make this law to protect you from yourself".

Didn’t he leave the bbc some time ago?

Started watching Yellowstone. Few episodes in and it’s decent so far. I’ve heard season 2 is brilliant so going to stick with it. Looking forward to some of the spin off prequels.

Didn’t they do the same thing with Emma Watson? Counting down until she was 16. Not in preparation for any kind of modelling just in a “look she’s legal now” way. Just super creepy.

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/evil-home-office-paints-over-mickey-mouse-mural-at-child-asylum-seeker-centre-12916543 How much of a word removed do you have to be to think this is ok?

If you believe what the Tories are saying and the finances are as tight as they say....and I surely don't. If there's limited money due to their completely botched handling of the economy going back years now, where it gets spent is a political choice. I doubt any incoming Labour government would continue trafficking people to Rwanda at a cost of 175k pp.

I think at the time it was less hassle but I don't remember ever not getting a ticket for a gig I really wanted to go to. Now it happens really regularly because the sites are all just grinding to a halt under the weight of the traffic, a lot of it caused by the scalpers rigs and bots flooding the servers with requests. Sat in virtual queues only to get to the front to find all the tickets have gone and then see them listed on touting websites within minutes. It might be convenient to get tickets while sat behind your desk at work now but I'd argue that it's just as much hassle as it used to be but in a different way.

Bring back physical queueing at the box office for a ticket.

Making your own country uninhabitable for 10,000 years in exchange for NATO intervention...seems likely

If Russia blows it up it should and probably would result in much more than just a few extra jets to Ukraine.

It has but it should be said again and again in the strongest possible terms. The Russians control the plant and any attempts to take it back by force are incredibly risky. The only solution is for the Russians to leave voluntarily or agree to some kind of DMZ around it which isn't going to happen in the short term as they know Ukraine and pretty much everyone else in Europe is crapping themselves at the thought of what might happen there.

I'm not sure adding more jets at the minute solves the issue. I think the only thing that will prevent this is if NATO makes it very clear that it will hold the Russians responsible for any incident at the plant and that we'd consider it an act of war for them to deliberately leak radiation in Europe.

The situation with them makes me so **** angry. They're basically owned by other states sovereign wealth funds who have syphoned the money out, invested pretty much nothing, and now we're expected to pay. Any reasonable government would be calling in the ambassadors to these countries and telling them that unless they stop taking the piss we're going to start enacting some very harsh laws to restrict investment that British companies can make in their countries.

I know your comment is in jest but I don't think the answer is nationalisation alone (although in case of vital national infrastructure that we paid to build like water, power and rail it clearly is!). When it comes to banking and supermarkets effectively price gouging it's proper laws to prevent it and a regulator with the teeth and balls to enforce it.

Riz Ahmed is a fantastic actor. Really enjoyed his performances in The Night Of and the one about the metal drummer going deaf, name escapes me.

It's deregulation and runaway capitalism that's the problem. Businesses have no moral or legal obligation to anyone but shareholders and until that changes their behaviour won't change.

There’s always that kind of element when you have world powers. They go through periods of activity and isolationism. We did the same thing when we were the dominant power.

I’m certainly no conservative or fan of the Republican Party but I don’t necessarily agree with the principle of affirmative action (or as we call it, positive discrimination). We’ve just had a ruling that the RAF broke the law by assigning quotas to their admissions, essentially turning away perfectly qualified white men from being admitted purely because they wanted to have a more racially diverse workforce. Ive always been of the mind that you get the most suitable candidate and race or sex doesn’t come into it. Idealistic, sure, I get there are people who are racist and those people are themselves breaking the law and need to be punished. Basically the crux of my point is that I don’t think you can fight discrimination with more discrimination. I think to do so would be massively divisive.

Ordinarily I'd be really happy to have massive Tory in fighting but we've got massive structural problems in the country that as you point out rhe government isn't interested in fixing. I'm really not sure the country can wait 12 months for a change of government.

My opinion is that if you’re a person of colour in a Tory party with a large number of people who you could kindly describe as a bit prejudice and if you were being unkind are outright racists there’s a temptation if you’re looking for approval that you have to prove your credentials. I think that’s what’s going on with people like braverman and Patel. They’ve got to work a little bit harder and be that much more extreme to be accepted into the club.

"decent entertainment style zone" - Tony Xia? Is that you?

A bit morbid but my reaction when they announced this last night was "how badly must the remains be **** up for them to say suspected"

Last I heard it was somewhere around 28k Edit: That's average persons salary...no idea about household

It's all bravado with Levy. He's getting it from all angles from fans right now and he can't be seen to let Kane go for less than we got for Grealish or what West Ham are getting for Rice or questions get asked. You're right that all those things should matter and they probably will later in the window.

He's made a massive mistake backing away. Once he'd decided to go after the regime he needed to see it through because he's a dead man now either way. He'll need to watch everything he eats, drinks and touches until the end of his days and there's no where in the world he can go that the FSB won't find him. His only hope to live was if Wagner desposed Putin and that's gone now.