UKMT February 2017 - Welcome to Tiny Train World

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT February 2017 - Welcome to Tiny Train World

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Came to check this thread but there's not nearly enough gags about that kid burning a twenty quid note in front of a homeless person.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2017 15:52

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 06:03

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Guavanaut posted:

Jeremy Corbyn burned a homeless person. I heard him talking about it in Nando's.

�50 notes weren't in circulation when Pig Dave was joining his ~~thug gang~~dining club.

Wiki says the old �50 notes were released in 1981 which was before he went to uni.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2017 16:27

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Petition to give Wales more vowels

# ¿ Feb 11, 2017 18:59

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

jBrereton posted:

Pesto basically single handedly destroyed Northern Rock lol

I didn't get the reference immediately and I was sitting here like, "heh investing all their money in toxic italian pesto debt"

# ¿ Feb 19, 2017 16:49

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Farage was the only acceptable public face of the party, but more relevantly they just fulfilled their raison d'etre. I mean, what does a UK Independence Party stand for now that they have Brexit? They're a party in massive limbo, and they need some variety of miracle worker to rebrand them and maintain their electoral relevance. Of course I hope that doesn't happen and they implode in spectacular fashion.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2017 13:04

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

PM'd by D&D posters...a fate worse than death...

# ¿ Feb 20, 2017 15:33

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Jose posted:

I hadn't realised only 2 US presidents in the last 50 years got a state visit and trump is getting one lol

Huh?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_visits_to_the_United_Kingdom_and_Ireland

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 11:54

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

The way I read it, every President except one in 36 years has had a state visit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom%E2%80%93United_States_relations#State_and_official_visits

But if you want to quibble official terminology, at least the last three in a row have had state visits.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 12:03

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Just because the state visits of previous presidents didn't meet the personal criteria of a state visit by the exact standards of the loving Royal household because they didn't stay the entire time in Buckingham Palace and receive a 21 gun salute does not mean they weren't state visits. Bill Clinton was met by the PM and went to Downing Street, went to Buckingham Palace, had the American anthem played, inspected a military honour guard, had a state banquet, addressed Parliament, did a bunch of other head of state stuff like laying wreaths before jetting off to Ireland. Because it was the time of the peace process and they only have so much time.

This is just pedantry. It isn't at all surprising or controversial that Donald Trump would get a state visit, even if you want to go by the fact that only the previous two sitting presidents have had super official ones.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 12:30

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

forkboy84 posted:

But sure, give May a pass for toadying up to the reactionary.

Royal Visits are not the domain of the Prime Minister, not to mention many worse people than Donald Trump have had the red carpet laid out for them. Maybe I should twist words as pathetically as you and say, "Why, no President in almost two DECADES hasn't received an official invitation for a state visit!"

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 12:45

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

mfcrocker posted:

Cheers, this actually explains pretty well why they whipped when it otherwise seems daft as gently caress

Actually, State Visits are usually suggested by the Foreign Office rather than the Queen's staff. So yeah, it is the domain of the PM.

forkboy84 posted:

And mate. I don't want to shock you but the royal family have gently caress all power in 21st century Britain. They do what they are told by the government. Lead by the Prime Minister. It's not Charles II's day anymore. It's not the Her Maj who decided to give Donald Trump all the pomp & circumstance, it's Theresa May for the precise reason of appealing to a vain, insecure reactionary fuckwit who we desperately need a favourable trade deal from since we've cut off our nose to spite our face & quit the EU.

The committee who decides state visits:

Sir Simon McDonald: Permanent Under Secretary of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Christopher Geidt: Private Secretary to the Queen
Clive Alderton: Private Secretary to Prince Charles
Miguel Head: Private Secretary to Prince William
Simon Case: Private Secretary to the Prime Minister
Sir Alan Reid: Keeper of the Privy Purse and Treasurer to HM The Queen
Sir Mark Lyall Grant: National Security Adviser
Representative from International Trade Department
Julian Evans: Foreign Office Director of Protocol

forkboy84 posted:

What words have I twisted? Is using the official definition of state visit twisting words pathetically? What a weird criticism.

It's Daily Mail levels of retarded to talk about ONLY TWO STATE VISITS SINCE 1952, when the last two were the last sitting presidents. Ever heard of setting a precedent? Stretch the dates back as long as you want to make it sound as pseudo-relevant as you want. I call that twisting words.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 13:05

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

TheRat posted:

For what it's worth, Paul Flynn cites the same information as you do early on in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDPXiI0lzrk

It's nothing to do with the factual accuracy, it's a reference to the date of Elizabeth's accession to the throne. It's just not how a normal person would interpret the statistics, i.e. it's just deliberately deployed for exaggerative effect. We have also invited the last three Chinese presidents for state visits in the last 20 years.

There's no question that state visits have become more politicised. It used to be almost every invited head of state was a monarch or Commonwealth related. Since the late 90s you can clearly see less and less small/irrelevant nations, and more and more big players. Post Clinton it is now the norm for presidents of the US to be invited for a state visit. The only mildly surprising thing this time around is how fast it is happening, and really, it is not surprising. Trump is very pro-UK, the UK is in the middle of Brexit and looking for a stronger relationship with the US.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 15:11

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

ronya posted:

it seems to be doing well enough, as a party - it is successfully bridging factions that hate and despise each other, even though this hatred is so deep that it totally incapacitates the party from yielding anything like a consensus ideological outlook

as an organization brought together to realize very few points of agreement, it is a remarkable success, and all the more so given the instability brought about by a rough post-Cameron succession and a lacklustre May premiership

I'd say it's the opposite phenomenon to UKIP. While campaigning for Brexit was all that truly held UKIP together ideologically, the pro and anti-EU split was one of the biggest in the Tory party. Now that it's a fait accompli, it's necessarily less of a sticking point because it's soon to be water under the bridge. I guess it's hard to manufacture an equally relevant split in such a short space of time.

I would assume the details of Brexit will cause some issues, and in the medium-long term there will be a kind of wets/dries replay from the Thatcher years in relation to public policy.

It is a strange situation because there's been a drip-drip shift in Conservative rhetoric towards the centre for a long time, but Brexit was a big swing towards the swivel-eyed backbench of the party, and a massive blow to the more moderate side who are currently just going along with the "will of the people". And it's to be taken in context with the big global rightward lurch we're seeing worldwide.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 16:17

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Jedit posted:

Ah yes, the very pro-UK Donald Trump whose cabinet have vowed to backshaft us as hard as possible in any trade deal.

Trump doesn't want to help us. He wants to own us.

E: 21st February 1848 - first publication of The Communist Manifesto.

I'll wait and see on this one. In my opinion the right wing in America views the breakup/disruption of the EU as a favourable outcome, plus has traditionally supported the UK an ideological vassal state. It is also one of the only reasonable beneficial foreign policy relationship outcomes Trump can achieve and brag about. What matters most is how the UK will swing on Russia. I have a feeling if the UK is served a lovely deal in the EU, they will be forced into a warmer relationship with Russia/USA (and China on the side) as a kind of unholy political/economic pact. Simply out of pragmatism, and because it kicks the EU in the nuts.

e:

what im saying is prepare to hold your nose for the foreseeable future

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 16:22

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

forkboy84 posted:

No. gently caress the quality of the trade deal. Rolling out the red carpet for a far right reactionary who has admitted to sexual assault is not something I'll hold my nose over thanks.

We're not dealing with just a regular right wing politician. We're talking to a spiritual successor to Franco & Pinochet without the Catholicism.

I don't see how you have any influence or choice in the matter unless you are strategically placed to do something about it. I also think it's a little lurid to draw the comparison with unelected dictators who oversaw mass executions and concentration camps, but obviously I'll give Trump the chance to fully embrace that role.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 17:01

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

TomViolence posted:

What difference does it actually make whether a dictator is elected or not? This has always puzzled me. Are tyrants made less tyrannical by virtue of democratic mandate?

Well, it's simple. Democracy and tyranny are natural enemies. You can't become a true despot without first dismantling the democratic structure. Unelected dictators are far, far more common than elected ones, so it's just a game of probability. If you're elected democratically, the odds of you going full dictator historically are a lot less than if you just busted into high office on the back of a military coup.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 17:22

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

OwlFancier posted:

I think that is a historical and, demonstrably, outmoded perception.

It is not necessary to dismantle the democratic structure, you can instead simply seek to own all of the inputs into it. You don't need to prevent participation when you can make people participate in the way you want.

It depends on your definition of what qualifies as dictatorship. I don't think there is an extant example of what you're talking about that truly exists in the world today. I think it cheapens the term dictatorship when people bandy about the UK and the USA as dictatorships.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 18:15

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

JFairfax posted:

if you study politics the term 'elective dictatorship' to describe the british political system comes up pretty early.

Yes but it shares only a little common ground with actual autocratic dictatorships. The fundamental basis of a dictatorship is one where the people being dictated to have no say in what is happening. Elected representatives with oversight, checks and balances, and the vulnerability of elections (also being constitutionally prevented from binding the next gov't) do not really qualify.

Yeah in times of massive majorities in this country they probably seem like kissing cousins, especially if you are in opposition to government policy, but it's more an emotive conclusion than a rational one.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 18:38

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

I like how even the Stoke Sentinel has drive-by shills.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 15:41

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

I like the MRLP candidate - The Incredible Flying Brick

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 16:51

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

LemonDrizzle posted:

Islamic mortgages exist - it's charging interest that's forbidden, not moneylending per se. The way they work is that the bank buys the house and sells it to the buyer at an inflated price, then the buyer buys it from the bank in instalments.

It's interesting stuff. To me it seems like certain kinds of Islamic mortgage are almost strictly superior to conventional mortgages because the bank shoulders all of the risk, and in turn you can't end up charged late fees and such.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 16:23

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

LemonDrizzle posted:

I'm not a Muslim or someone knowledgeable about Islam, but I don't see why the bank wouldn't be able to charge late payment fees - it's not usurious to charge someone for failing to hold up their end of a deal, after all. The bigger attraction for a non-Islamic customer might well be that the mortgage effectively has a fixed rate of interest for its entire duration, so even if there's an inflation crisis and the base rate shoots up to 10% or more, you can just keep on trucking with the same monthly payment you agreed at the outset.

Basically every fee, included late fees, are considered riba AFAIK. Islamic banks have way less recourse against delinquent customers. An Islamic bank account wouldn't charge you for an overdraft either, if they offered that service.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 16:43

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

I mean it is very difficult to assess what making a good job of Brexit is. It's a one-off event, there's no transparency on the process, little transparency on what our realistic best case scenarios are likely to be. No standard to be held to, just a vague wishlist of things we want but probably can't get.

As with most things people will talk in circles about it for a while, and then we'll decide it was a good job or a bad one five years down the line when we live in a dystopian hellhole/British paradise through a combination of ends-justification and maybe some post-mortem interviews/expos�s.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 12:51

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

jabby posted:

BBC News now describing Copeland as an ULTRA safe labour seat. Considering it had like the 26th lowest majority out of 219 seats that seems like stretching the truth slightly.

Yeah I mean, the seat has never been anything but Labour. The preceding seat was Labour since 1935. I feel like nitpicking the exact majority of the recent election should probably take lesser relevance compared to what is essentially an 80 year safe-seat for Labour.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 14:40

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

TheRat posted:

I think a seat lost wasn't safe by definition.

jabby posted:

So a seat could have a majority of one but still be considered ultra safe because it's never been under anyone else? That seems like a poor use of the word 'safe'.

This is just coming at this from the wrong place. Yeah you could say it was an at-risk seat because of its gradually hemorrhaging majority, but the term "safe-seat" in political rhetoric is just one that a party has traditionally been able to rely on no matter what. It's been a permanent Labour hold since its inception, and then 50 years previous to that. If you just considered seats safe or not based on their previous election majority, seats would fluctuate between safe and unsafe all the time, even if they never changed hands in a dozen elections. That just flies in the face of common sense.

Look at it this way: the seat's election majority does not make it a safe seat for the victorious party if it has historically elected a different party for a century. Look at somewhere like Enfield Southgate. A traditional Conservative safe-seat where Michael Portillo lost in 1997. Then Labour won again with a big majority in 2001. Was it a safe seat for Labour now? No, it swung back to Conservatives in 2005 and every election since.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 15:14

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

I love all of those books because Orwell always comes across as kind of bumbling, and never really fitting in. Homage to Catalonia is great because it's at once an astonishing idealistic phenomenon and super interesting, yet on the ground it just becomes an absolute farce. Towards the end where he is just bopping around from place to place, not taking the danger seriously as Franco's troops are moving in, and his wife flies in to take him home. Then through sheer dumb luck he avoids being arrested and nearly everybody else with him gets imprisoned.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 13:35

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

For me, his non-fiction is where it's at. He was at best a ham-fisted fiction author. All his narratives are just vehicles for a philosophical point, and it doesn't make for particularly enthralling characters or reading. Obviously the messages behind his fiction works are interesting, but they aren't exactly deep or well-written.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 13:41

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

I suppose it ties in with whether you believe British culture is intrinsic to skin colour and genetics, and is basically a pure strain thing that can only be diluted by foreigners.

But you'd have to be a pretty terrible person to believe something like that!

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 17:06

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

croc suit posted:

I dont give a poo poo about "british culture"

So you just think skin colour matters or what? Like, white people are just better because they are white? Or is this some kind of genetics thing, like Western Europeans have superior genes and brains?

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 17:12

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

croc suit posted:

Why do they need to be better? than what exactly, what the gently caress are you talking about.

Well you're the one contesting that non-white immigration to the UK is threatening white people. And you don't think that culture is relevant, so in order for what you think to be coherent, you have to think that non-white people are inferior. Or you'd be happy that they were coming.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 17:15

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

croc suit posted:

I'd be happy because... they're going to clean up my poo poo when im old????

What are you babbling about?

Thesis: White British people are correct to worry about becoming a minority in their own country.

Supplementary: Culture is irrelevant

Supporting reasons to justify this view: [BLANK]

Help me out here.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 17:19

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

my racism is ironic, much like my future life prospects

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 17:37

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Keeps reminding me of Nozick's utility monster thought experiment.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 20:36

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

I thought the definition of working class was whether they own a flat cap, and also wear it unironically.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2017 14:41

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Personal opinions aside, you don't need to step outside your bubble far to see that Corbyn is simply unelectable in this country. Even if you think he is great, even if he was great, it's just hopeless optimism to think he can turn things around from this point. It's just spinning wheels in the mud, he's never making traction, that golden "gotcha" moment where he captures popular opinion will never come. There are two kinds of people: young millennials who love him and want change in all ways, and everybody else who thinks the man is a joke.

All that's left is for you to decide whether you prefer to support a cause that cannot win even if you believe it to be correct, or support an alternative that probably also cannot win but very likely stands a better chance overall even if it represents a lesser good.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2017 18:59

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 06:03

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Not much of a "mad dog" if he wants to concede the Falklands back to Argentina, give NI back to Ireland, give Ukraine to Russia, leave NATO. You'd think that would constitute the opposite of mad doggery. Maybe sad dovery.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2017 14:20

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