legov

5 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

Can one our american friends tell me about vivek ramaswarmy?

Out of all the people going for the leadership vote against biden he seems the better one out of a shit bunch

Just now, tonyh29 said:

College  would be my guess 

He lives in Pennsylvania, I personally know some people living around that area...

9 hours ago, Marka Ragnos said:

Atheists ... who believe in ghosts.

And deity-believers ... who don't believe in them.

In my mind, I'm like, "Pick one, you. You can have one or the other, not both."

It's puzzling to me, and then it's not, too. Maybe it's merely a sign of how a person's convictions and their delusions sometimes intermingle and aren't always so easily disentangled in some minds? I encounter the phenomenon from time to time with the college-age students I teach. I feel like it's something that's been more common since the mid-2010s or so?

Ooh cool where do you teach out of interest?

3 hours ago, maqroll said:

Not so fast, there are some very well informed non-American posters in this topic! 

Yeah sorry tbf last few ones have been pretty great.

2 hours ago, The Fun Factory said:

Of course. Putin is hoping the West will lose interest and move on to the next crisis.  The current elected leaders will eventually be replaced, with different agendas and domestic issues to address.  And if Trump ever got re-elected that would be very bad news.

I've been quite surprised by how united Europe has been behind supporting Ukraine though, regardless of political ideology. Even the far-right that's in power in Italy right now have been solidly pro-Ukraine.

The US is the one I'm worried about, as you said if Trump gets reelected that's not good news for Ukraine.

8 hours ago, maqroll said:

Obama-apppointed judge. A scathing indictment. A D.C. jury should be good for a conviction. 

A bit refreshing to see someone who knows more than a modicum about US politics here.

Cod is pretty rare down under, envy you guys.

No one paying attention to Spanish elections?

Refreshing to see so many great new movies being released, nice to see Hollywood coming up with new IPs again instead of churning out derivative superhero/Star Wars stuff.

1 minute ago, mjmooney said:

If I find I've played an album more than 4 or 5 times on Spotify, I buy the CD. 

BTW, where have you suddenly popped up from, after so long away? 

 

Huh? I tend to pop up from time to time, no?

I don't come on too often as I've been losing interest in football but I come on every now and then mainly for the bollitics

Just now, mjmooney said:

A lot better for us, perhaps. Very bad news indeed for working musicians. 

Yeah that might be something I think about going forward

7 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I’ve kind of deliberately regressed in to the whole slow pace and aesthetic of vinyl.

I’m sat here now, head phones on listening to an album that requires actual listening to and requires me to get off my lardy arse a minimum of once every 20 minutes and do something. The sort of whole engagement with it is quite nice, plus the thought that the artist possibly gets more than 0.00001 of a cent.

After that, download codes and Bandcamp stuff get put on a c and the c gets plugged in to the car.

I appreciate this isn’t ultra modern, and one of my kids did an uncontrollable laugh the other day when I offered to copy a stick of music for them ‘cos they’d liked something. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

I was in a record shop earlier today, chatting shit about local gigs and album release dates and all that. It feels nice, supporting a job in a shop and getting to talk to someone. It’s just where I’m lucky enough to be at present, a little bit of money in my pocket, the ability to conjur up a little time for myself, and access to a nice town centre. All that, and the philosophy of use it or lose it.

 

 haven't seen any of those in a long time

I think a lot of it is down to preferences too, I tend to like listening to tracks to fit a particular mood as opposed to listening by artist.

Anyone ever tried this?

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I had an account waaaay back but I let the kids have it when new accounts were hard to get and now I guess I’ve lost it.

it was the only place you could get some really weird Alabama 3 shit that they didn’t even sell on their own website.

Yeah well you can still give it a go now, like I said the free option's still there, and the subscription's pretty cheap anyway esp considering the amount of content you're getting.

A lot better than buying an entire CD just for a few tracks that's for sure.

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

Is it still a choice of free but with adverts, or pay to rent?

Yeah you can still opt for free or subscription, subscription isn't too expensive too

On 15/07/2023 at 02:50, Mark Albrighton said:

From the TTPYOTS thread - and I’m sure it must have been discussed in depth before, but it’s needle in a haystack conversation, what do people consider to be best the music stream service?

I have a suspicion that this can be interpreted a few ways. 

Purely on a music streaming basis, which by the sounds of it is Spotify (it’s the only one that has its own thread on VT - I think).

Or on a broader level - what’s a better package. So, let’s say Amazon isn’t a better music streamer but you get other things for your subscription - tv, free delivery of tat that I’ve ordered, etc.

Is there a consensus on either front?

Ideally if one was better towards the people making the music - rather than a podcaster that I have no interest in - that would be a consideration. Although in all likelihood there’s a good chance I would buy a physical copy of something I particularly liked anyway.

Spotify is the greatest invention in the history of humankind as far as I'm concerned.

Consistently surprised by how much non-English music I can find on it too which is good for my listening tastes.

On 20/07/2023 at 10:59, TheAuthority said:

There's a large portion of the male gay community who are also anti-trans. It's as if the gay rights movement has said, "hey we had to fight for our right through the 70's 80's and 90's, you can't just come along and expect them - go and fight for your own." The sad thing being that when the gay community was fighting for civil rights, the trans community was right there alongside them, and in many cases were very active leaders. For them now to be ostracized and in many cases vilified is a tragedy.

I have no skin in the trans game. I'm not trans and I only have two trans friends (one trans woman and one trans man.) However I cannot help but notice that the community seemingly gets attacked from every angle currently. Thats my objective view of a subject that I don't have any stake in. 99% of the time it's straight white people arguing about the "trans issue" with zero representation from the trans community. It's so one sided it's absolutely laughable. I'm not sure what it's like in the UK but over here is hilarious and also tragic that the conversation is controlled completely by people who are not part the community.

It's a story as old as time, sadly.

3 hours ago, Paddywhack said:

I thought he'd died years ago.

I just saw his real name was Anthony Benedetto. That's a much better name, much more exotic.

Tony Bennett sounds like a brick layer from Hull.

Haha incidentally Mark Goldbridge isn't a real name either

35 minutes ago, Xela said:

I think most hobbies are to be fair. I'd class posting on forums as a hobby/interest. Look at train spotting, plane spotting, steam rallies, classic car shows, historical reenactments, real ale quaffing, metal detecting, etc, it is all male dominated usually, as is most sport. I think men need a distraction from real life. Women are more focused on real life stuff I think. 

This forum is quite progressive but it can be laddish at times and fall into a Zoo/Nuts/Loaded type banter, but its few and far between and I think always said in a tongue in cheek way, and between posters who are comfortable with each other. I don't think there is an issue with sexism and misogyny on here. IMO of course. 

You really need to make a few more female friends...

6 hours ago, mjmooney said:

Well, we have a racism thread, an LGBTQ+ thread, and one specifically on transgender issues. 

But (unless I've missed it) not one on plain old sexism and male attitudes to women. So here it is. 

With a few notable dissenters, the most vocal VT OT posters would probably be categorised as left of centre and socially progressive. But is casual sexism the last bastion of VT's unreconstructed male football fan 'blokiness'? 

The language routinely used goes unchallenged - the legendary 'DHUTWU', 'I'd ruin that', 'impressive rack', 'mouth, arse and mouth again, if I had any left', etc., etc. 

Did stopping the 'lovely ladies' thread go far enough? At a time when women's football is at an all-time high of popularity, do we ever stop to wonder why there are so few female contributors to VT (active ones, at any rate)? 

I'm an old, white, male football fan, so hardly the riot grrrl demographic. But I have to admit that I sometimes feel uncomfortable about some of the language used on here. 

Controversial? Overreaction? Or just food for thought? 

Go at it. (KW) 

Yes.

No.

4 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

What did our Australian contributors think of Julia Gillard, out of interest?

I thought she was brilliant.

I'm not actually Aussie, I did spend a few years living there though

Gillard not someone I know a huge amount about as I wasn't living there when she was PM. That said she's most well-known for her little rant about misogyny during House Question Time while she was in the office, the video of which went viral.

I quite like Rudd, out of recent Aussie PMs he would probably be the one I would pick to have a casual chat with.

7 hours ago, LondonLax said:

Yes that is also true and I’m not sure why he was unpopular but I think it was mostly that people had not really thought about him much until he was front and centre as PM. I don’t think he was a liability in the run up to the election, more that he was just a bit beige and uninteresting. 

The previous Labour leader (Shorton) was from the Union wing and more left of centre than Albanese (though not as controversial a character as Corbyn). He had lost Labour an election they were strongly expected to win leading to Albanese getting a go the next time up. 

Shorten was always unlikable for some reason, Albo on the other hand was just a bit boring.

1 hour ago, Genie said:

Is Truss becoming the leader again more or less mental than Boris becoming leader again? I can’t decide.

Personally I reckon Hunt would get the gig.

My outsider's view is that Boris is a smart dude but utterly amoral, Truss on the other hand is genuinely probably the dumbest head of government I have ever seen.

8 hours ago, LondonLax said:

In the most recent Federal Election in Australia the biggest story was not the success of the Labour Party winning back seats to win the election but the loss of wealthy urban Tory seats to independent candidates who combined Tory fiscal policies with environmental policies, calling themselves ‘teal’ (i.e. blue/green) candidates.

The Australian Tories got smashed and shrank back to only representing the rural ‘throbber’ style constituencies with dog whistle culture wars and no actual substance.

There might be a similar story in play in the U.K.?

Was about to post this indeed. Was expecting the election to be centred around inflation and cost-of-living issues and was pleasantly surprised by how environmentalism became the central story as the election panned out.

There's an electoral realignment going on.

So I haven't been following football of late because...reasons.

Wtf, Spurs are being managed by an Aussie now? Lol