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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: January 7th, 2024

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  • It remains to be seen what he’s actually done to benefit anyone who gave him anything.

    And he stopped accepting them once he entered the office. We found out because he told us about it all and the mistake of accepting some gifts a bit too late.

    With the only arguable benefits being publicity for the brand it’s not nothing but it really is daft the perspective tricks that have been played with that particular molehill. It’s the press that actually gave the gifters the benefits, not any actions by Starner himself.

    Being given something isn’t proof of being bought. Acting for the person who gave you something is.

    I predict that as the COVID era corruption comes to light his previous job will result in him prosecuting and recovering quite a lot of public money. Sadly I don’t think he will get a result of jail time for anyone. The laws just aren’t in place for that and he can’t get them made retrospectively.

    A UK constitution would be very interesting. But I’d just settle for some actual laws specifically against corruption rather than relying on MPs following conventions and being honourable.

    The shocking thing is that hundreds of millions of pounds worth of corruption through the “fast lane” wasn’t illegal to do. We’ll only be able to recoup from the companies who actually didn’t deliver their contracts.



  • Look into the maintenance costs of Germany’s 1970s reactors before calling an entire nation brain dead.

    The cost of nuclear today is high and continues for thousands of years. Cost is the entire problem.

    Nuclear power isn’t green, it’s just at the beginning of the cycle where it’s waste is seen as a small problem because there isn’t a lot of it. Like fossil fuels were a century ago.

    Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of suitable places to put nuclear waste so the small amount we already have is already causing problems in Europe. The US being a bigger place may get to that point a little later than us. But nuclear waste stores are already oversubscribed in the UK, Germany, and France.

    Nuclear power is short sighted.

    The money spent should be on renewables and grid storage. Then more efficient heating and insulation.

    Not nuclear, not carbon capture.

    Proponents of nuclear power never look at the total lifecycle cost of a reactor. In fact it’s usually deliberately hidden.

    Nuclear reactors have always been and will always be military technology. They should be funded as military spending.

    By all means put a price on carbon so they can get a better price on energy but the military should be funding the reactors they need and dealing with the waste out of their budgets.






  • Yes, but your country being unable to have sensible judicial selection and poor judicial elections is not an argument for anywhere else.

    The US ranges from failure to bad.

    Other countries range from the good to the point other countries refuse to replace their own court system in order to continue using the good judiciary that’s trusted internationally.

    Using the US as an example to follow in this case is a bad idea. Even if removing selection from the US system would be an improvement, it isn’t relevant anywhere else.

    Especially when discussing an ideological law like making elections compulsory.





  • Well if that’s the meaning of "political you’re using then all judges are. That’s why I put it in quotes in my last reply, I assumed you meant partisan. Otherwise you’d have been making an irrelevant point.

    Unfortunately the US has a storied history of elected local judges allowing lynchings, for example, while the appointed federal courts passed civil rights so I won’t be taking notes.

    Of course the appointed judges and elected judges are now targeting women and minorities. So your appointment system is also broken.

    Again, not taking notes.


  • An attempt to be representative is not equal to being “political”.

    It’s actually a strength of the system that minorities get some representation rather than being always voted into zero representatives. And they still have to pass the standards to be considered as experts in the field.

    No system is perfect, but look at America. Small area elections for judges produce poor corrupt picks. Large area elections produce partisan fights with extremists campaigning against each other.

    There’s no country which is a good advert for directly electing judges.




  • Is the internet scarier?

    Or is it just millennials and “internet natives” having kids and more of them knowing better what the internet actually is.

    I tell people to imagine a public place with everyone in it, the majority wearing masks or costumes. With constantly recording surveillance. Do you take off your mask.

    Sure the mask is not perfect protection, and there are areas off to the side where people seem to not be wearing masks. But go ahead and choose a way to keep your kids safe.