Recent posts

#11

Off the Record / Re: Climate Change/Mass Extinc...

Last post by HVC - Today at 02:56:02 PM

When I was researching this it turned out in many cases you only need planning permission for an AC external unit if you want to use it for cooling. If it's for heating only it's OK. Mental.

Can a dual purpose and lie?

#12

Off the Record / Re: Climate Change/Mass Extinc...

Last post by Duque de Bragança - Today at 02:54:11 PM

I have learned to be...charitable.

Yet garbonites have much to learn, needing lot of charitable learning work and not just regarding wine. 

#13

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Oexmelin - Today at 02:41:20 PM

Jan. 6 rioter who encouraged violence against police hired to work in Trump's DOJ
A Jan. 6 rioter was caught on video encouraging insurrectionists to "kill" police officers. Now he has a job in the Justice Department.

Two weeks after Election Day 2024, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama assured the public that Donald Trump wouldn't choose "a criminal" for a governmental position. Soon after, the president started adding politically aligned ex-cons to his administrative team.

But the latest example of the phenomenon is the most breathtaking. The New York Times reported:

A former F.B.I. agent who was charged with encouraging the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to kill police officers has been named as an adviser to the Justice Department task force that President Trump established to seek retribution against his political enemies. The former agent, Jared L. Wise, is serving as a counselor to Ed Martin, the director of the so-called Weaponization Working Group, according to people familiar with the group's activities.
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Wise's new role.

#14

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 01:05:14 PM

Interesting piece on the FT with a slightly provocative argument (that I think could be right)...

The White House favours gutting any effective regulation of artificial intelligence, even as more and more experiments confirm that existing large language models are not safely aligned with acceptable political and social norms.

China's platform giants are ploughing huge resources into AI too. The results are no more predictable.

But if there is any prospect that AI development poses a threat to the social and political order Beijing deems acceptable, can anyone be in doubt that it would be halted in its tracks?

That is what the humbling of the platform oligarchs in 2020 betokened.

What analogous guarantee is there in the west?

Time to disappear some tech bosses for a few months pour encourager les autres

#15

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Crazy_Ivan80 - Today at 12:47:41 PM

29 "terrorists" were arrested in London https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gd3pkr9x1o 

too bad they didn't get the rest.

#16

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 12:14:55 PM

What happens if a prescribed group changes it's name? Is it still considered a prescribed group? If not how much of a change counts, or can they do the whole prince thing?

They have actually renamed themselves Yvette Cooper

#17

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by HVC - Today at 12:07:22 PM

Also, what do they thow paint on? People and property I'm ok with. In the sense that normal prosecution is the best course. Art and cultural significant things and I turn more towards a "throw the book at them" mentality. And I'm not even a art guy, but the idea of attacking cultural significant things like art is abhorrent to me. It belongs the whole of society. No better, in my view, then when the taliban destroyed those statues or ISIS attacked museums.

#18

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by HVC - Today at 12:02:42 PM

What happens if a prescribed group changes it's name? Is it still considered a prescribed group? If not how much of a change counts, or can they do the whole prince thing?

#19

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 08:24:18 AM

Yeah totally agree. And I think there's a fair amount of distraction on this rather than how this group were able to break into RAF Brize Norton and right up to the planes to do it. As I said earlier, to my mind, that's borderline a resigning issue.

Brize Norton's the home of a lot of the RAF (and I think biggest RAF base), it's the sole embarkation point for British troops being transported by the RAF, it's where the royal, government and foreign dignitary planes land when they're travelling to London. It's a pretty serious security failing - half expecting to discover that we've actually outsourced military base security to G4S.

#20

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Richard Hakluyt - Today at 08:13:57 AM

It would be capricious if the government deciding not to arrest those supporting a group it had declared a terrorist organization.

The red lines for me are material support and incitement to violence.  Everything besides that should be an issue for manners, not the criminal code.

The particular group in question likes to throw red paint on things, including a couple of military jets. The appropriate response would be to charge the offenders with criminal damage (which carries a sentence of up to 10 years), but the government has decided that this non-violent direct action should be treated under terrorism laws. By proscribing the organisation even expressions of support become offences under the terrorism act.