Communist Thoughts posted:

The tories killed 200,000 people in order to wreck the economy for no reason. Nobody is gonna care if a disease killed them under their watch.

They quite literally believe gov shouldn't interfere and the people who died did so because of a moral failing and there's too many people anyway

Bobby Deluxe posted:

Oh come on. That is not a normal word to know.

Every loving time someone shows their arse and gets dunked they fall back on this word, loving hell.

You can have dissenting opinions in here. Expect them to be challenged though.

Saw a viral post ages ago about how Rowling at a basic level understands body dysmorphia.

In one of the books / films they all take polyjuice potion to look like Harry. They pull off the scheme they meant to, they meet up later but Hermione is freaking out* because something went wrong and she hasn't changed back yet.

Notably, she's not freaking out about looking like Harry, she is freaking out about actually being a girl, trapped in the appearance of a boy, and facing the prospect of having to live out the rest of her life being regarded as a boy.

And it's like... She loving had it. Right there, she understood and conceptualised the basic problem. She has the capacity to see this from a trans person's perspective. She just doesn't want to, and all the terf poo poo is an active attempt to pull her mind away from the perspective of the trans person in case she suddenly realises she is wrong.

* In the bathroom, I'm pretty sure.

Ednamamame posted:

Sorry to have to reveal my Harry Potter knowledge (I was young!) but the viral post lied to you. The mistake turned her into a cat person, so Hermoine was freaking out about spending the rest of her life as a furry.

Bobby Deluxe posted:

And it's like... She loving had it. Right there, she understood and conceptualised the basic problem. She has the capacity to see this from a trans person's perspective. She just doesn't want to, and all the terf poo poo is an active attempt to pull her mind away from the perspective of the trans person in case she suddenly realises she is wrong.

* In the bathroom, I'm pretty sure.

quote:

Student activists are preparing for the biggest wave of university rent strikes in four decades amid growing frustration at heavy-handed hall lockdowns, the prospect of paying for empty rooms and little face-to-face teaching when they eventually return in the new year.

There are at least 20 rent strikes currently under way or being organised on campuses, with activists at both Oxford and Sussex universities this week signing up hundreds of students ahead of the new term. Other institutions also preparing action include Goldsmiths, University of London, and Edinburgh and Cambridge universities.

Matthew Lee from Rent Strike, a grassroots group that is coordinating many of the campaigns, said students were fed up with being treated as cash cows for universities, especially in the midst of a pandemic when in-person teaching and campus life was so limited. “This is the biggest wave of student renter militancy in over 40 years,” said Lee. “The last time there was resistance on this scale was in the mid-1970s.”

Activists across the country are hoping to emulate a successful mass rent strike at Manchester University, which last month led it to cut rent in its halls by 30% for this term. However, the first-year students, who organised the campaign, are determined to join other universities to force rent cuts for the rest of the academic year.

The number of students pledging to withhold rent has tripled, with almost 600 ready to strike in January.

“We are going to keep withholding our rent,” said Ben McGowan, one of the Manchester organisers, who hasn’t had any real face-to-face teaching yet. “And we are helping other universities set up their own strikes because every student in the country deserves a rent cut.”

The movement in the city has been growing since hundreds of hall residents tore down fences erected to prevent them moving freely around the campus last month, intended, according to the university, as means to stop the spread of the virus.

McGowan said students are expecting rent cuts to cover the government’s staggered return, which will see students on non-practical courses come back across a five-week period. “Students should not be paying for halls when they are not there,” he said.

Nearly 200 students have pledged to withhold their rent in Sussex. “In 24 hours, we got 198 names,” said Ellie Concannon from Sussex Renters Union. “Students are getting desperate because money is going to very tight over the Christmas period.”

Concannon added there wasn’t enough support for new students struggling to make friends on largely shut-down campuses or to help them find scarce part-time work. “There are loads of students in dire situations … but there’s no availability for mental health services for months,” she said.

In Cambridge, more than 400 students have promised to join a rent strike amid anger at redundancies in some colleges. “The colleges are so rich they absolutely have the means to make rent cuts and ensure staff are not laid off,” said Laura Hone from Rent Strike Cambridge. “Yet they continually put profit ahead of the welfare of students and staff. They are run like businesses – that has become particularly stark in the context of the pandemic.”

Hone stressed that the strikes sweeping the country were about more than disruption during the pandemic. “The education system should prioritise the welfare of students and staff, but universities are not going to come to this conclusion on their own. Students have to make them listen and rent is the most powerful leverage we have.”

The largest rent strike in the country is at Bristol University, where more than 1,400 students have been demanding rent cuts, more support and no-penalty contract releases. They plan to continue next term and have signed up 200 more students in recent weeks.

“The national rent strike movement is really picking up speed,” said Saranya Thambirajah, one of the first-year strikers in the university’s halls. “We are going to keep on fighting for a 30% cut for the whole academic year.”

The National Union of Students president, Larissa Kennedy, said students had been encouraged to move into halls because universities were heavily dependent on rents and tuition fees. “Students have been essentially lied to,” she said. “They were told campuses would be safe and there would be face-to-face teaching but, within days of arriving, many found teaching was completely online – or everything bar two hours of in-person teaching was online. Understandably, students feel like they been trapped on campuses so universities can collect rent and fees.”

Kennedy said the increasing discontent was a “very clear rejection” of the post-2012 funding model for higher education, which requires universities to generate more revenue from students to make up for reduced funding from central government. “Universities have turned into mega landlords, collecting millions of pounds in rent every year,” she said. “A massive chunk of the inadequate maintenance support most students get is funnelled straight into these institutional landlords.”

Research by the NUS found that the average rent for student accommodation accounted for 73% of the student loan in 2018, up from 58% in 2012. Universities generated £1.9bn from residential operations, including hall rents, in the last academic year.

Bristol University said it would be offering students a 30% rent rebate for seven weeks to reflect the staggered return in 2021, along with penalty-free contract releases for students whose health has been impacted.

A Manchester University spokesperson said: “The university will be unable to provide further reductions, but students can decide to break their accommodation contract without financial penalty.”

The University of Sussex said staff were working tirelessly to ensure that living on campus was possible during the pandemic. Cambridge University said the majority of its students appreciated the high-quality education it had provided.

Lungboy posted:

Maugham wrote a piece some time back on the wider implications for the Bell case on the ability for kids to consent to things like birth control and abortion: https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1335113639171420162

In short, the Bell decision is loving terrible, for trans kids, pregnant kids and all sorts of other kids too.

Bobby Deluxe posted:

https://twitter.com/Rachel_Ish_/status/1335568953989603328?s=19
Puberty blockers: Simultaneously ineffective, and dangerous enough that under 16s can't consent to their use.

gently caress's sake.

Jedit posted:

No, they said the exact opposite - we could have freely extended the transition period until as late as the end of 2022 if required, and could have done so as late as July. That we didn't do this in the middle of the worst global health crisis in a century is entirely on the head of Boris Johnson.

Vitamin P posted:

Isn't it politically advantageous for the tories to be able to muddle consequences of brexit with consequences of the pandemic?

Gort posted:

A lot of the dead are from age groups that overwhelmingly vote tory though

Regarde Aduck posted:

How would 'no deal' be trumpeted by the press as 'fine'?

It's going to be chaos.

Regarde Aduck posted:

How would 'no deal' be trumpeted by the press as 'fine'?

It's going to be chaos.

Bobstar posted:

To reaffirm what's been said, Brexit has de jure happened already, the EU now has 27 members and is proceeding on that basis. It will de facto happen in 26 days, after Johnson rejected the no-brainer extension.

Because rules are made up by humans, it is just barely conceivable that during the transition period, an extremely pro-EU UK gov with a large majority and a clear backing from the people could have persuaded the EU to pretend that this year never happened, and slide us back in with some legal sleight of hand. But given the actual government we have, they want this over asap.

Previously I've talked about the two options that are left being no deal, and a very thin deal that keeps the planes flying and the medicines flowing and not much else. I'm not totally clear how the latter will work, considering the old deadline for a deal was mid-October (?) to give the members time to ratify it. I imagine that will necessarily make it even thinner.

Interesting idea that they could just throw in the towel and go "fine, EEA-like" - obviously that goes against the entire point of Brexit for many, but it would be too late to do anything about it. But while the concept of EEA-like is ready made, I'm not sure there's time to turn it around in practice. So my prediction is still no deal, or a thin deal that gets trumpeted by the press as "See? It's all fine, project fear", but leaning more towards no deal because the remaining sticking points (esp level playing field) are still ones that Johnson and co claim to be dealbreakers.

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

Vitamin P posted:

They really do don't they?

Philosphers Stone - Big scary troll invades girls toilet
Chamber of Secrets - Girls toilet is where they brew the potion to change their bodies (also that toilet is haunted by a girl that got killed by a snake in it years ago)
Prisoner of Azkaban - ????
Goblet of Fire - Fancy prefect bathroom is where Cedric and Harry figure out the egg puzzle/get perved on by the ghost girl
Order of the Phoenix - People get into the government by flushing themselves down the toilet
Half-Blood Prince - Harry nearly kills Draco in the girls toilet
Deathly Hallows - Voldemort invades Harrys brain, he goes to the toilet to cry and be sick

It's not enough to be a theme exactly but she does love a toilet.

mediaphage posted:

let's not forget that the lady ghost is a complete perv and consistently and inappropriately spies on people in the bath or using the bathroom to get her rocks off

Vigil for Virgil posted:

Tories control the press...


Or rather, the Tories have enough friends in high places in enough of the press to make it seem like it's good for them.

Ms Adequate posted:

It is an interesting constitutional question about what happens if a part of an existing country wants to join the US and how that would work. I uh, I don't think Scotland would be super eager for that path though.

I mean I assume it's just as any other part wanting to become a state really, and it's actually more a political than constitutional question, but you know.

mediaphage posted:

let's not forget that the lady ghost is a complete perv and consistently and inappropriately spies on people in the bath or using the bathroom to get her rocks off

ronya posted:

An argument:

https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1333374935528583175

Regarde Aduck posted:

Depends how 'turning on brexit' it defined. I don't think people are going to be happy with how Brexit turns out. But I have no idea if anyone even remotely to blame is going to take the brunt of the ire. Brexit the idea isn't the same thing as Brexit, the thing that's about to happen.

crispix posted:

That old Jermany Crobins man grows anti-semitic vegetables in his allotment, i heard

Comrade Fakename posted:

I love that the government are running TV ads compelling businesses to prepare for the transition at the end of the month, but with no deal signed we have no idea what we’re transitioning into, and it’s impossible to prepare.

ronya posted:

An argument:

https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1333374935528583175