thehustler posted:

I don't want religious people in parliaments making decisions based on ideology and faith instead of appraising evidence. Those Lords have to go.

thehustler posted:

I don't want religious people in parliaments making decisions based on ideology and faith instead of appraising evidence. Those Lords have to go.

Jose posted:

How urgently does westminster palace needs repairs and are there any plans for where parliament would move since there's no money to fix it?

JFairfax posted:

I have some bad news for you... it's not just the lords from the church who do this, in fact only yesterday folks were talking about drug policy... it's quite clear that a lot of parliamentarians do not base policy on evidence.

kapparomeo posted:

When someone agrees with what I say, they are rational evidence-led empiricists. When someone disagrees with me, they are blind dogmatic ideologues. Ideological neoliberals (a favourite insult on the UKMT!), ideological socialists, ideological greens and ideological nationalists, we just elected 650 of them a few weeks ago, and gave them far more power than that is held by a very small sub-section of the legislatively inferior second chamber. If you want to eradicate ideology from Parliament there are better places to start than about twenty-odd bishops who are open about it and aren't noted for dramatic laws.

And many MPs are religious as well, twisting debate further still with all that ideology and faith. Are they all to be thrown out?

thehustler posted:

I hate you both for bringing up good points

Guavanaut posted:

This is good and I like it.

Prince John posted:

If I can weight in to this debate, the Independent has a roundup here dated 2008 (i.e. after 11 years, not the full 13), saying 3,600 new offences, almost 1 per day in office.

My personal favourite in terms of its loving over of rural communities - up to 6 months in prison for holding an unlicensed concert in a church hall or community centre. Not surprised to see DEFRA being the worst offender - got to keep going after those criminal farmers and fishermen.

Quite why things like "obstructing a DLR worker" needs to be a criminal offence, I have no clue. Likewise, I'm sure it was perfectly legal to set off a nuclear explosion before Tony Blair saved us from the inability to prosecute huge destructive explosions.

quote:

The UK's Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has said a whistleblower's concerns about Trident nuclear submarine safety have not been proved.
He said William McNeilly's allegations were either factually incorrect or the result of misunderstanding or partial understanding.
The Royal Navy submariner claimed the missile system on the Clyde was a "disaster waiting to happen".
He wrote a report, detailing "serious security and safety breaches".
Most of McNeilly's concerns proved to be either factually incorrect or the result of mis- or partial understanding; some drew on historic, previously known, events none of which had compromised our deterrent capability
Michael Fallon, Defence Secretary
In a statement addressing the 25-year-old able seaman's concerns, Mr Fallon insisted that neither the "operational effectiveness" of the fleet "nor the safety of our submariners or public have been compromised".
Able Seaman McNeilly, who is from Belfast, went on the run after making his claims earlier this month.
He was later "apprehended" by Royal Navy Police at Edinburgh Airport and was held at a military establishment in Scotland.
An official investigation was launched into the safety concerns he had raised.
Mr McNeilly is an engineering technician submariner who said he had been on patrol with HMS Victorious earlier this year.
'Factually incorrect'
Mr Fallon's statement said: "I can assure the House that neither the operational effectiveness of our Continuous at Sea Deterrent nor the safety of our submariners or members of the public have been compromised.
"Able Seaman McNeilly published his comments following his first submarine deployment. He was under training, and his access and exposure to activities and material on board were appropriate to his security clearance.
"We have found no evidence that he raised any concerns with colleagues on board or with the chain of command: had he done so, the more senior and experienced submariners would have been able to explain how the boat operated and why McNeilly's concerns were unfounded.
"A number of the issues he raised did not occur during his patrol.
"Most of McNeilly's concerns proved to be either factually incorrect or the result of mis- or partial understanding; some drew on historic, previously known, events none of which had compromised our deterrent capability and, where appropriate, from which lessons had been learned to develop our procedures as part of a continuous improvement programme."
The minister conceded that one allegations remained to be "fully examined" and it was in regard to allegations that e-cigarettes were being used within the submarine.
Mr Fallon's statement came ahead of an SNP-sponsored debate in the House of Commons on the safety of Trident nuclear weapons.

quote:

and, where appropriate, from which lessons had been learned

Jose posted:

nuclear arsenals

WMain00 posted:

Hmm yes, I imagine it would be difficult to prove it, what with the fact what he was describing sounded like a malfunction that would result in er...well, a nuclear explosion.

Jose posted:

Its amazing there haven't been any major accidents considering it seems nobody bothers to care for their nuclear arsenals

quote:

Winston Churchill publicly committed the UK to building a hydrogen bomb, and gave the scientists a tight schedule in which to do so. This was then hastened after the US and USSR began working on a test ban and possible disarmament agreements which would begin to take effect in 1958. To meet this deadline there was no chance of building a new reactor to produce the required tritium, so the Windscale Pile 1 fuel loads were modified by adding enriched uranium and lithium-magnesium, the latter of which would produce tritium during neutron bombardment. All of these materials were highly flammable, and a number of the Windscale staff raised the issue of the inherent dangers of the new fuel loads. These concerns were brushed aside.

When their first H-bomb test failed, the decision was made to build a large fusion-boosted-fission weapon instead. This required huge quantities of tritium, five times as much, and it had to be produced as rapidly as possible as the test deadlines approached. To boost the production rates, they used a trick that had been successful in increasing plutonium production in the past; by reducing the size of the cooling fins on the fuel cartridges the fuel loads increased temperature, which caused a small but useful increase in neutron enrichment rates. This time they also took advantage of the smaller fins by building larger interiors in the cartridges, allowing more fuel in each one. These changes triggered further warnings from the technical staff, which were again brushed aside. Christopher Hinton, Windscale's director, left in frustration.

After a first successful production run of tritium in Pile 1, the heat problem was presumed to be negligible and full-scale production began. But by raising the temperature of the reactor beyond the design specifications, the scientists had altered the normal distribution of heat in the core, causing hot spots to develop in Pile 1. These were not detected because the thermocouples used to measure the core temperatures were positioned based on the original heat distribution design, and were not measuring the parts of the reactor which became hottest.

winegums posted:

I think it'd be great if parliament moved out of Westminster while the repairs take place. Move to Liverpool, cardiff, glasgow...spread it somewhere half the mps have never been. Go see somewhere north of the Watford gap.

If Cameron really is a unionist he should be touring the union.

LemonDrizzle posted:

The vast majority of the things listed in that article are perfectly sensible, they've just been stripped of all context by a dishonest twat.

quote:

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of human rights group Liberty, said the figures demonstrated that politicians were becoming "addicted to law making". She said: "The next time the cry goes up to legislate our way out of a crisis, a deep breath from the Home Office might just be more inspiring than further statutory graffiti."

Enver Solomon, deputy director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London, said: "It has become a New Labour trademark to criminalise a range of social harms which would be more effectively dealt with away from the clutches of the criminal justice agencies."

quote:

Scallop Fishing Order 2004 - If a boat breaches the restrictions in articles 3, 4 or 5, the master, owner and charterer are each guilty of an offence.

quote:

Transport Act 2003

A person commits an offence if he provides air traffic services in respect of a managed area.

quote:

Polish Potatoes (Notification) (England) Order 2004
No person shall, in the course of business, import into England potatoes which he knows to be or has reasonable cause to suspect to be Polish potatoes.

quote:

Learning and Skills Act 2000

Obstructing an inspection by the Adult Learning Inspectorate.

Care Standards Act 2000

Obstructing the work of the Children's Commissioner for Wales.

quote:

Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005

Part seven of the Act created offences of failing to nominate a key-holder where an audible intruder alarm is present.

quote:

Bus Lane Contraventions (Penalty Charges, Adjudication and Enforcement) (England) Regulations 2005

Failing without reasonable excuse to attend a hearing held by an adjudicator, or to produce any document to an adjudicator.

Prince John posted:

And I fell for it, welp! I do like multilateral nuclear disarmament.

Prince John posted:

Bit harsh on the owner, who presumably is nowhere near the boat.

Prince John posted:

Import a Polish potato? Take that, criminal!

WMain00 posted:

Hmm yes, I imagine it would be difficult to prove it, what with the fact what he was describing sounded like a malfunction that would result in er...well, a nuclear explosion.

MrL_JaKiri posted:

Quick ones for the others:

quote:

Posing as an air traffic control could kill hundreds of people very easily, I'm not sure why you think that it shouldn't be forbidden.

..

If you have a house alarm and leave on holiday for a fortnight and it goes off on day 1, what exactly is the procedure here? It's so that the people who install them have to tell people "You need someone nearby who knows the code and has a key just in case"

Semprini posted:

They just move the missiles around a lot and never try to shoot them.

Bozza posted:

Network Rail strike looks to be back on:

24hr strike from 1700 Thursday 4th June - 1659 Friday 5th June.

48hr strike from 1700 Tuesday 9th June - 1659 Thursday 11th June.

Overtime ban 0001 Sat 6th June - 2359 Friday 12th June

thehustler posted:

I don't want religious people in parliaments making decisions based on ideology and faith instead of appraising evidence. Those Lords have to go.

OwlFancier posted:

I would venture that the average preacher is probably at least more in touch with reality than the average senior politician.

Jose posted:

How urgently does westminster palace needs repairs and are there any plans for where parliament would move since there's no money to fix it?

Prince John posted:

What's the inside story Bozza? Looking at the Beeb article, I can see that the RMT are claiming that (i) staff are living in fear of their livelihoods and (ii) that their standard of living is under attack.

Neither of these statements seem to sit well with the latest offer, which includes (i) no compulsory redundancies for the duration of the pay deal and (ii) pay rises of 1 and 1.5%.

Rolled Cabbage posted:

using the british attitudes survey so..13.44 Christian Lords, 9.8 A-religious Lords and 2.34 all other religion Lords, with the remaining 'floating' lord probably being atheist if you round up.

OwlFancier posted:

Which is part of why I don't mind them being in government, they're probably more qualified than most of the other politicians, elected or otherwise, and generally the church's position is making GBS threads on the government for their lovely policies, which I approve of, and is in-keeping with their historic role.

Guavanaut posted:

I like the idea of compassionate people, with a specific formal education that covers moral and ethical issues, a long career of helping all kinds of people in society, and a history of criticizing austerity and supporting the poor having a certain number of given seats in the upper house.

I dislike the idea of that being because they are from a certain specific religion which is established above all others in the legislature.

At the moment it seems like we can't have one without the other though.

Bozza posted:

Prince John posted:

Re the ATC, because they could be charged with any number of other offences, including manslaughter if that happened. How many fake air traffic control centres were set up before the law was introduced?

quote:

The number of incidents in which radio hackers have broken into frequencies used by British air traffic controllers and given false instructions to pilots, or broadcasted fake distress calls, are on an alarming rise. There were three such incidents there in 1998, 18 last year, and now, so far this year, 20.

MrL_JaKiri posted:

quote:

The number of incidents in which radio hackers have broken into frequencies used by British air traffic controllers and given false instructions to pilots, or broadcasted fake distress calls, are on an alarming rise. There were three such incidents there in 1998, 18 last year, and now, so far this year, 20.

(From an August 2000 article from ABC)

So more than you'd think!

EvilGenius posted:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...g-hellhole.html

Syrian and Afghan refugees ruin Daily Mail readers lovely holiday in Kos. This is so close to parody.

BigPaddy posted:

Goes to island in the middle of a sea where there is a large amount of people fleeing war, is shocked that there are people there.

EvilGenius posted:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...g-hellhole.html

Syrian and Afghan refugees ruin Daily Mail readers lovely holiday in Kos. This is so close to parody.

happyhippy posted:

"It's enough to put you off your pie and chips and sangria, isn't it Sandra?"