UKMT Summer 2020 - Two Pints of Saline and Abacavir for Drip

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT Summer 2020 - Two Pints of Saline and Abacavir for Drip

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Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

ronya posted:

I plead annoyance at upholding Kerala as a model divorced of context

for the post-special-period Cuba types there's a certain degree of obligatory bullet-biting that, yes, okay, the country is really poor but these HDI statistics and happiness surveys are actually more important!!

for Kerala the massive role of remittances in its economy is just silently ignored, it's massive enough that eliding it borders on dishonesty

whats your take on the costa rican model? centre left, full democracy (mandatory but not enforced voting), poor but not cuba poor and near the top of some happiness surveys. it does have the usual adverse effects of tourism with foreigners pricing out locals but appears to be trying to develop sustainably

# ¿ Jun 26, 2020 11:00

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 07:25

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

saludos cordiales, all

ronya posted:

hot take time

the secret to Costa Rica's relative success is threefold:

#1 - having lots of undeveloped land even by the mid-20th century. The peasant land reform question that grips much of Latin America never arises because the country simply deforests much of itself to create more arable land, and only sets out to reverse it after it becomes wealthier. The swing is staggering:

it is this - more than anything else - that explains why Costa Rica does not become Guatemala. It's much easier to call for a moderate center-left pragmatic approach when it's inexpensive to avoid rural starvation

#2 - not succumbing to the temptation to pick sides during the Cold War; throughout it remains carefully aligned with the dominant US (largely rejecting Soviet aid), but not to the point of engaging in struggle with Soviet-aligned neighbour Nicaragua either. This pragmatism is seen in e.g. hosting the Sandinistas in Costa Rica before they took power and then hosting the Contras after as well. This relative detachment itself is due to #1 allowing a for a relatively low-stakes politics

#3 - neoliberalising rapidly as the Great Commodities Depression of the 1980s bit, following the free trade zone model, rather than fruitlessly (heh) seeking to defend the viability of bananas and coffee and beef. This is itself due to a relatively successful rural wealth buffer bought by #1

Due to the role of factor #1 it's not really generalizable either, but maybe some lessons can be taken...

...

I mean, the other side of the center-left moderate scissors is that Costa Rica is also standout in how much it doesn't confront the large landowners in its land reform programme, especially relative to the rest of Latin America. Costa Rican land reform bought out concentrated landowners at market rate since the 1960s - no revolution, not even any "we'll pay but at a discounted rate only", not even coercion (sales were voluntary).

(again - because it could pay for it by converting half the entire country's landmass to farms and then export vast quantities of fruit, coffee, beef, etc. to much richer+industrialised neighbours, and thus have the revenue to engage in the least confrontational way to dismantle concentrating land ownership. If it had already all been farms and plantations, then this option would not have been possible)

...

some of its post-liberalisation Free Trade Zone Regime niches are medical devices and online gambling, so.... uh, kinda? Unironically?

ronya, youre a prince. where else do you post online? how do you know about costa rica's FTZ niches?

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

A young male relative of mine was in a relationship with a Costa Rican woman (in Costa Rica - he was there). I'm not sure it's great for women from what he described - seems rather 'middle eastern' in outlook particularly with regard to the role of Mothers (and prospective Mothers in Law).

interesting! so traditional gender roles are the order of the day. the reason im asking at all is because my gf loves the place. shes visited the last couple of winters and we plan to take career breaks from november to explore a bit more. shes from the caucasus herself so not drinking and modest clothes wont present too much of a culture shock

yaffle posted:

Costa Rica is interesting, It has a huge number of American expats who have driven prices up all over, and many of them are horrible. It has a massive crime problem. In the five years that I lived there I personally knew three people who had home invasions in which they were tied up at gunpoint while a gang emptied the whole house. On the other hand when I first went exploring San Jose with my two year old daughter in a backpack a very nice toothless crackhead escorted us out of Barrio Mexico whilst explaining that it wasn't quite the place.
A lot of the Central Valley is pretty wealthy, or at least not poor, but when you get off the beaten track there is really grim poverty.
Also they have a brand of Whisky called Black Cock. it has a Ptarmigan on the bottle

id like to hear more about your experience there. presume you were with a multinational based in san jose? a home invasion of my place would only yield a refurbed macbook air and some art supplies, so not too put off...yet!

# ¿ Jun 26, 2020 16:57

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

ronya posted:

there's often very little literature in postcolonial countries that is set in the interregnum between the initial national awakening and dash to independence (with the exception of India). It can be before, or after, but that period in between...

it's the 'colonial space' - that life of hill stations, clubs, forts and cantonments, education in the metropole, long journeys by sea. That life existed and may have applied to a surprisingly large number of social groups making up the nativized civil service - not just the white colonial elite - but there is little enthusiasm for memorializing its high society, even as (or especially because) those same native elite groups largely went on to govern their successor states

the past is already a foreign country, it doesn't help if it is literally so

I don't see that observation on Yugoslavia to be different, really; it's not a conspiracy to whitewash the successes of Yugoslav socialism (if it can be called as such) inasmuch as that nobody particularly identifies with the life of the Yugoslav upper class after the fact

someone in secondhand time says 'we all live in different countries, even though they're all russia.'

milanovic complains that in inter alia svetlana alexievich's work he cant find accounts of 'long dinners discussing politics, women and nations, long Summer vacations, foreign travel, languid sunsets, whole-night concerts, epic soccer games, girls in mini-skirts, the smell of the new apartment in which my family moved, excitement of new books and of buying my favorite weekly on the evening before the day when it would hit the stands'.

from memory, it's true you'd be hard pressed to find much in the accounts of the soviet afghan conflict or chernobyl*. but in secondhand time there's plenty of nostalgia about the pre- shocktherapy times and it's the opposite of victors writing the history; it's history from below (much like this thread).

*anyone know if the director of chernobyl ever publicly mentioned his debt to alexievich?

# ¿ Jun 28, 2020 14:12

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Guavanaut posted:

Condolences Beefeater.

I really don't like those fake brick outside insulation that they put on a lot of terraced houses around here. They look like the same lovely metal plastic cladding on Grenfell but dressed as bricks.

Maybe it's just me but there's a lot of things I'd consider before slapping the world's fakest-rear end bricks all over.

Like even the same cladding but flower pattern wouldn't be quite as insulting. Hawaiian shirt house.

Apparently Hawaiian shirts are now the uniform of the US alt right boogaloo movement

# ¿ Jun 29, 2020 11:22

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Miftan posted:

No, I agree. I meant that they're a pressure group atm, they can't get anything through parliament, but they also need to get elected, so they probably think they need to choose what they pressure on. Which means, to me, they've decided trans issues aren't important enough to pressure on. I completely agree they should be taking a hard stance on this, and the fact that they're not speaks to their priorities.

Jose posted:

*ronya comes crashing into the thread to post about corbyn's labour suggesting 10k more cops*

Feels like 'more police' and 'free summer meals' have decent traction with the public. A 'hard stance' on trans issues just feels like fiddling while Rome burns, especially if a) it's true that countries with better trans rights developed those through the back door, bundled with other stuff and b) it's not a vote winner by itself and even trans activists don't consider it a single issue.

The antisemitism thing was just a handy way to dismiss RLB and distance him from a leader seen as weak and untrustworthy. Don't think the average voter minds about a/s too much one way or the other.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2020 15:30

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Aramoro posted:

I don't think you're going to get anything other than nickle and diming from Starmer, everything will be measured and very restrained. He's finally pulled ahead of Johnson in the opinion polls and that's what he's looking for. I would bet that his team's calculation is that all the disaffected Corbyn supporters will either bite the bullet and vote Labour anyway, vote for minority party that makes no meaningful difference or simply not vote. Those last 2 options are obviously less ideal but at the very least they wont vote Tory and that might be enough in the end.

Labour have 4 more years in opposition so what they actually 'do' right now is far less important than the narrative they can try to build about the party in peoples minds and any relationship they can build with the press.

I didnt know he was ahead in the opinion polls! you wouldnt guess it to read this thread. if that's true then the above calculation looks justified tbh. i imagine he's trying to get away from identity politics because the cities and their BAME and LGBTQ+ inhabitants are increasingly labour anyway and the red wall feel idpol penalises hard/non-working white people. and corbyn was all about idpol and by extension so was his anointed successor who gave him 10/10

the question is, will rishi be able to surf to power because people will be thanking him for furlough money and being rich glamorous and polished AND give people the chance to say I cant be racist I voted for the UK Obama...?

# ¿ Jun 29, 2020 18:29

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

ronya posted:

it's politics by focus group - on policing there is solid support for more police rather than less; this hasn't changed in the past few years and it doesn't look to be shifting now. The US phenomenon of excess police funding is a US phenomenon, not a UK phenomenon. Same reason Corbyn hopped on that boat to begin with. It's not like it was a comfortable position to adopt.

on coronavirus lockdowns there is support for more caution in general but also support for dismantling measures in the specific - hence Johnson serially trying to bait Labour into opposing specific easing measure whilst Starmer tries to hit Johnson on caution in the general. "60k dead" is an attack that only makes sense to an already anti-Tory frame, just as the ### DEAD FROM AUSTERITY only made sense in that frame. Resentment of particular measures really sticks. I don't think Starmer has to hit Johnson all that hard for the idea of Johnson as careless with lives to stick - it's a natural fit to the image Johnson sets out for himself - whilst he does have to avoid getting tarred with having pushed too hard for particular lockdown measures

fwiw I think Corbyn would have taken every BLM bait and then some; it's catnip to his politics and it falls into the group of topics where he's willing to endlessly burn political capital to fight for a certain message (see also: Skripal). In an alternate universe not too different from ours every headline is screaming about Labour's self-evident untrustworthiness when the Labour Leader swore hand on heart last year that he will, will Reverse These Tory Cuts, he will Put Bobbies On The Street To Halt Knife Crime And Keep You Safe, yes he and Home Secretary Abbott love the coppers now, will the Prime Minister apologise to the police (and because this hypothetical universe isn't that different from ours, none of the headlines particularly care about whether Johnson is adhering to his promises for Even Bigger Numbers. That's not a story, and it's especially not a story because Johnson will act to make it tedious to cover whilst Corbyn would do the opposite, precisely because Corbyn would want to go to bat for this particular message).

whether or not that sacrifice for those values would be worth it, well, that's ultimately a political judgment innit. Every political leader has some set of values they're willing to sacrifice political capital for; the trick is assuring enough one of one's tent that it's their values that are most prized (and, conversely, for those that prioritize those values, making sure that it really is - whilst still winning power, of course)

re your faith in the idea of political capital. it seems a bit simplistic to me, a bit like 'the nation's current account'. do you think it is a finite thing ebbing away over the course of (say) a parliament, with eg dementia tax proposals, u-turns and scandals accelerating the ebb? can the ebb ever be reversed? can it be built/topped up now and then and if you can burn political capital 'endlessly' what is the value of the term?

# ¿ Jun 29, 2020 23:27

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Pistol_Pete posted:

RLB: "Hmm, yes, surely this time, a good faith response to bad faith attacks will draw a line under things! I'm definitely not encouraging people implacably opposed to my political existence to double down on their efforts by taking this attitude!"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/29/responsibility-actions-antisemitism-rebecca-long-bailey

Good on her for taking it on the chin. Clearly has her eye on getting back in the shadow cabinet at some point.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2020 07:59

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

sebzilla posted:

I just had to give my allotment guy �6 and it involved searching all round the house for loose coins because who has cash these days, especially since it's all covered in 'roni germs?

The ideal world is one where I don't need cash and also don't have to talk to a human for basic shopping/food needs. Self-service checkouts and those McDonalds screen things are extremely my poo poo.

i remember when i was very small i was shy and didnt like talking to people when I was buying sweets so i can sympathise..i think covid has made everyone friendlier though so it's a great time to give it a go. and the best part is, human contact is good for you

1/ as you approach make eye contact and say Hello or Good morning (hi can easily be missed)
2/ when you put the things on the counter say Just these please
3/ when they say how much it is say I'll pay with a card if that's all right
4/ when they ask you if you want a receipt say No thanks
5/ when you leave say Thank you to the security guard

# ¿ Jun 30, 2020 13:04

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Jose posted:

https://twitter.com/johnestevens/status/1277932346797416448?s=20
https://twitter.com/johnestevens/status/1277940035921330176?s=20

powerful stuff from the greatest pm of our time

# ¿ Jun 30, 2020 13:45

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Guavanaut posted:

That's why I'm not convinced he's gunning for no deal (although some interests are), the narrative is Big Boy Boris Got Brexit Done and now he'll just accept whatever poo poo gets cobbled together in october and ride it roughshod over the ERG and DUP, which May never could.

that's right. i cant remember what may's deal accepted now and how it differed from what we had before. is there a table somewhere?

# ¿ Jul 1, 2020 12:03

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Cerv posted:

if their (grand-)parents are willing to make the move too, they would at least have a theoretical path over as dependents.

what Taiwan's been doing is amazing, but obviously they have to avoid antagonising the PRC. so it's been things like quietly letting tourist visa roll over indefinitely, and setting up a dedicated office to help HKers enrol at universities there or get business visas through the existing channels. they have to publicly stress it's not an open refugee programme.

some of HK's other neighbours are being quite mercenary. Tokyo & Singapore both courting to entice the finance industry over.

even amongst those who'd be eligible for BNO, there are other countries were more popular amongst HKers getting second passports as safety nets. Canada, Australia, USA. a million seems wildly optimistic for how many might even be interested in coming to the UK.

it's been a long time coming, but this is really a shameful day for the world.
gently caress the PRC

even if 50k come to the uk, that is a large town worth of people to prop up our housing market. might be more when trump gets four more years

# ¿ Jul 1, 2020 15:05

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Where can we see your previous stuff

# ¿ Jul 1, 2020 16:04

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Yes that's what Brexit is all about if you think about it. More handouts for Brits.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2020 20:30

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Trin Tragula posted:

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has a new report out looking specifically at the choices made by low-income voters at the last election. The headline takeway:

We are officially living in Bizarro World. Labour's support base relies on wealthy voters as much as poor voters; and poor voters strongly prefer the Tories. Not even Thatcher managed that.

The given reasons are nothing that we haven't heard before; these voters don't necessarily think the Tories will improve their economic lot, but they do align better with them on Brexit, immigration, and other social issues, and hey, maybe Bozza Legernd will spend a bit of cash after all while he's getting us free of Brussels. Labour's got about three years to figure out how to reach these voters; there is no path to victory that doesn't lead through the constituencies where they can swing the result one way or another. On the other hand, I am reminded somewhat of the result in 1997, where "no way should this seat ever go red" seats started going red, before quietly flipping back blue in 2001 and 2005 once the stink of John Major started washing away. The Tories are well down on their polling high and there's some hope that perhaps inertia can bring some of these votes back...but enough even for a hung Parliament? That seems like a taller order at the moment.

Thanks for the link to the report. Starting to understand why Labour are playing down their historic interest in social justice and focusing on economic justice. By shadowing Tories closely on economy (e.g. warily agreeing on need to reopen the country) they can begin to build rep for fiscal continence.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2020 14:02

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Jeza posted:

I'm fairly sure they pay a much reduced fee that year. I think it operates as an exchange with the unis in that country, but I don't really know the ins and outs of it.

Perhaps I can help. My year abroad with the year below cost the same in tuition as the UK years - a whole grand!

It's up to the university how they alter the course and deal with the pandemic but nothing to stop the students taking a year out and arranging their own year abroad then returning to the UK for their final year.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2020 16:31

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

I don't think so. Students might need a student visa like you would for China or what have you.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2020 16:39

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Vitamin P posted:

Is this meant to be some damning indictment of Greenwald? The voters/members/MPs graphs a few pages back in this very thread showed that tory leadership is incredibly more economically right wing/anti-populist than tory voters are, there's a real vulnerability there which is why they're jumping on every possible culture war spark to try and make fetch a thing and stop people talking about the money. It's also why the entire renewed critique of Corbyn was top-down imposed amorphous He A Bad Man or culture war poo poo, if left-wing economic ideas get a hearing then working class people across the spectrum do hear them, see UK 2017.

InRight-wing populism is suspect because it correctly identifies problems but then has no actual solutions to them, or it uses the 'those darn globalist elites' righteous anger to try and sneak in it's actual, sinister proposals, I think it's an overblown dumb meme but if that's the term we're apparently using for traditionally right wing voters that have noticed inequality is kind of bad actually then what's the actual argument for not talking to, sympathising with the actual shared problems and trying to convert these people? The lefty arguments against economic inequality are far stronger than anything the right can begrudgingly offer so why not, you have nothing to lose and a strong chance to gain.

This take of "Stop posting X" is just so stupid and counterproductive. Try and enforce a fruity little echo-chamber literally everywhere and think it's praxis or whatever if you want but it's a dogshit strategy, and btw Greenwalds close posts against Bolsonaro have probably done more to hamper the actual growth of an actual fascism than most of us here can claim to have achieved.

Love your energy

I don't really get what GG is asking for though..antifa to work with fascists against the centrists?

# ¿ Jul 2, 2020 22:20

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Bet chuka is kicking himself for leaving the party now it needs him the most

# ¿ Jul 3, 2020 13:39

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Kin posted:

When it comes to the 4 day week thing does that also result in a 20% reduction in pay?

I'm all for the 4 day work week but if capitalism means the price of things didn't also drop by 20% then it just feels like we'll end up being worse off it a pay decrease comes with it.

I do four in five which is great for wfh. you switch on your laptop at 8am when you get up and log off at 6pm. having an extra 24hrs a week to spend money with no distractions is not a problem either. i just go for a drive to see family or spend the day painting or reading

# ¿ Jul 4, 2020 01:42

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

This kind of stuff makes me wonder (and we'll never know!) if Corbyn were still LOTO whether Labour support would be going up just the same regardless. So is it a 'Starmer is great' or 'Tories are fuckin useless' support?

I think it's becaue starmer is seen as a safe pair of hands who isn't about to rock the boat with radical changes to the tax system that would affect guys like Clarkson. Although do note that it's only clarkson's contrarian persona that leans Tory cause sky and the times pay the most.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2020 12:45

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Jose posted:

welp the umbrella company who pay me have just announced they're stopping furlough as of the end of the month but i have no idea when I can go back to work. coworkers with a different umbrella company said theirs have extended the furlough

im surprised to hear this. it's been one of the wettest years i can remember

# ¿ Jul 6, 2020 17:24

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

bustin keaton posted:

I've tried to stay out of the day-to-day Labour stuff since the election, not for any more honourable reason than "the end of last year was loving depressing and I need a break". But just to vent for one second: after years of rightly complaining about dickheads like John Mann weaponising anti-semitism claims for purely factional purposes, got to admit it's kind of depressing to now see people on the left doing the same thing.

I get it, they're knobs. But I would have hoped the last few years would have taught us enough to not blindly accept "yeah Richard Desmond was slurred, fire Steve Reed, zero tolerance is zero tolerance" just to make a point about RLB. It's gonna make things worse.

I'm going to go back to not reading Twitter tbh.

Agreed, bit shortsighted of the labour left to join the Tories in criticising other bits of their own party I'd say. But accelerationism seems to be the order of the day among some unfortunately.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2020 18:06

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

I gave the guardian ten quid a couple of months ago, feels good man

# ¿ Jul 18, 2020 23:50

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

sassassin posted:

When my parents sold their business we were all convinced the guys who bought it were assuming there was a good 10-20% coming off the top of everything compared to the accounts. They had all these big ideas for expansion with new loans and lease-hire but we never had the margins to run like that.

Three years on no expansion but at least they've not gone bankrupt.

I'd like to hear more about this business

# ¿ Jul 22, 2020 00:11

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Guavanaut posted:

Leicester's in that mid-sized weird zone where you get both. There's a literal High Street high street which I guess still has pubs and shops (I've not been in months because of )

And there's a bunch of other streets like the cheerily named Gallowtree Gate with modernized high street layouts, radiating off of the old clock tower.

But if you step off the map in the wrong place you can end up in dehumanize yourself and face to food courts

which, yeah, you're not going to make that a livable housing area for anyone.

that last one looks a lot like cardinal place by victoria station in london's swinging westminster. there are quite a lot of blocks of flats going up there but hard to know who lives in them. its definitely not civil servants despite the many ministries nearby. nightlife is picking up beyond civil servant pubs as there is one of those pour your own wine bars but it must be deserted at the weekend. there was a club called qube where i saw cyril hahn a few years ago but thats closed now. still i suppose they have the parks nearby

# ¿ Jul 22, 2020 00:33

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

The Question IRL posted:

The people in the housing estate next to our house have often thrown their rubbish (from empty bottles of booze to empty Whippet canisters to full on wooden pallets) over the wall separating it into our field.

Of course since there is multiple houses we can't prove where the rubbish came from and can't do much about it.

In addition kids are hoping over the wall in different spots and have been breaking the crops and trees while doing so. Again limited stuff we can do, as we can't prove who is doing it. (That being said we are looking at getting a drone so we can use it on our land to record footage when we spot said kids trespassing. )

In short, people are surprisingly blase about having litter as someone else's problem. You only have to watch dog owners walk their dogs and see how many actually pick up their dog's poo and how many just don't. (Or the ones who do bag it, but leave the bags on the ground.)

whose wall is it? how high is it? if you cant make it harder to get over then (bear with me) it might be better to make it easier so different trees and shrubs not damaged. or you could use anticlimb paint on 'their' side. it really depends on where you are on the political spectrum

# ¿ Jul 22, 2020 13:43

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

Looks like those disgusting gits are going to sue Corbyn:

https://twitter.com/simonmaginn/status/1286005041980149760?s=20

seems like a good result if you like corbyn and you want him to have his day in court. plus starmer is distanced even further from corbyn. it's win-win

# ¿ Jul 22, 2020 20:07

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Cerv posted:

the remaining dogs aren't going to start making GBS threads more to make up the difference

i think the best argument to limiting the dog population is probably around the environment with a capital E and the carbon footprint of breeding and feeding several generations of dogs over the lifetime of a single owner

# ¿ Jul 22, 2020 21:30

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

The Question IRL posted:

The wall was built by the developers who made the housing estate. It faces onto our land, but technically it might be part of the houses in the same way that if you buy a house in a housing estate you get the back garden.

Height wise I would say it must be at least 6 to 8 feet high.

As for this, I understand what you are saying. But I just don't think people should be allowed throw their crap into our families field.

that's a pretty high wall! i thought the kids were just vaulting over it. go for the anticlimb paint then, you run less risk of being prosecuted than if you topped the wall with broken glass and razor wire as long as you arent caught doing it. apparently you just need to paint the top foot or so according to https://www.askthe.police.uk/Content/Q726.htm

# ¿ Jul 22, 2020 23:27

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

feedmegin posted:

For all we rabbit (heh) on about being a nation of animal lovers, it was so much easier living in America. America loves to capitalism so you'll pay for it (non-refundable pet deposit per cat, then monthly extra fee of like $10 per cat on top) but having a pet was never a problem over there. Here, I spent a week in an airbnb while my cat crashed at my ex's place because I was being chucked out and couldn't find a new place in time, because cat.

it hasnt come up so far (2+ years) but i think if my tenants wanted a pet this seems like a decent way to go about it. not sure how much a non-refundable pet deposit would need to be to outweigh scratches to sofas and so on though

# ¿ Jul 23, 2020 13:30

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Bobby Deluxe posted:

I mean to be fair, half the problem is that too many people casually assume brown = muslim, so to them the government has done more than its fair share - there's two of them! Probably with ray guns!

The tories absolutely play on this with Sunak & Patel and boasting of a 'diverse' cabinet while still not having any muslim or black ministers on the frontline.

The problem being that they see all minorities as being essentially the same.

I kind of had the inverse of this in that my wife and I had the chance to move out of our shared but owned house a few years ago, but were turned down by every landlord because of having guinea pigs, so we gave up and the financial circumstances passed.

But now we have a dog, there is absolutely 100% no chance we will ever get to move into rented accommodation. Having a dog is absolutely a choice based on having a secure living arrangement that will allow it, and enough financial space to be able to pay for food and either insurance or saving in case of medical needs. Like yeah a ton of people want dogs, but actually having one is very much a sign that you have resources to spare (excluding homeless dog owners which is a whole other issue).

There was an article ages ago lamenting that millennials don't buy books or albums or physical copies of anything any more. And the comeback to it was essentially 'yes, because when we get forced out of our houses every year it's easier to move a laptop and a kindle than six sets of shelves and the library of loving alexandria.'

The problem being that buying digitally or subscribing to streaming services, you're always at the mercy of those services getting into contract disputes and dropping something that you can no longer get your hands on, or disappearing entirely.

Anyway. Renting is bad, boomers don't get how bad, and a lot of millennials have never known anything else so treat it as the new normal. Maybe this thread tends to be more aware of it as the tail end of Gen X, when the social expectation was that we'd own a home but the housing market had realigned to make it extremely unlikely.

interesting post. it's definitely a thing that some BAME people are considered more white than others thanks to their background and where they went to school / banking.

when i was renting, i only got kicked out once and that was after three years when the landlady said she wanted to move in.

now as a millennial accidental landlord (and still renting!) id like nothing more than long term tenants for my place.

the other side of that though is as a tenant i could and did use the flexibility to live with different friends or girlfriends and moved for work, staying for periods of 3, 18, 36, 6, 5, 12 and 6 months, so my experience is really more forcing my way out than being forced out.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2020 14:13

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Jose posted:

cool just found out i'm now going to be unemployed as of august

ah nuts. the goon hardship fund should be good for a couple of thousand. what job were you doing?

# ¿ Jul 23, 2020 18:16

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

baka kaba posted:

I feel like the approach was very Corbyny, where he was never a firebrand (outside of rallies) and kind of quietly did the right thing and hoped people would act in good faith, or at least refused to make it a divisive struggle. So that narrative was left up for grabs

I guess the Chris Williamson thing was the best example - he was basically saying the same thing (I think), that Labour had to be more assertive about the action it was taking, push a strong and positive antiracism message instead of being shifty and defensive which helps nobody

But it was a screwup because that wasn't the party line - if they'd been pushing this message it wouldn't have been out of place at all. Instead it was the kind of thing that could be secretly filmed and EXPOSED in the tabloids because it was so out of step with the official stance. It was made to look seedy and shameful, and that's what I mean really - if you own it and proudly support your own convictions, they can't be used against you like that

maybe it's another example of how Corbyn's conciliatory approach just didn't work out - we need more leftists banging the table

i read somewhere that khrushchev didnt really bang the table with his shoe, it was a photoshop

# ¿ Jul 28, 2020 13:32

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

couple of years ago Id commute via boris bike down regent street and on the one hand

it felt and was incredibly dangerous wearing a suit and school shoes and no helmet due to taxis and buses and tipper trucks and cars competing at traffic lights but on the other i definitely went through various red lights and glided down the wrong way / on the pavement from outside lillywhites to the duke of york (the statue not the pub!).

BUT my personal stance was not to endanger or startle anyone while riding a bike so i wouldnt ride through red lights unless there was no one near the crossing and i wouldnt go too fast on the pavement or ring the bell.

anyway i forgot where i was going with this but I did see a couple of people get on the spot fines from the police for going through red lights and yeah the fast bkes and the electric scooters are the real problem

# ¿ Jul 28, 2020 14:32

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

sunak is giving out dining vouchers and no ones had to pay for it yet tbf

# ¿ Jul 28, 2020 15:05

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Guavanaut posted:

Going to patent my new 'static guillotine' which is a sharpened guy rope between two lampposts.

did you watch cormac mccarthy's the counsellor? and read the viz 'parkie' cartoon before that?

# ¿ Jul 28, 2020 15:07

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

Pistol_Pete posted:

Coronavirus cases are creeping up again across much of Europe, which is kind of dispiriting. In the UK, we've gone from a low of 550ish a day at the start of July to 700ish now. France and Spain are doing a lot worse, while Italy seems to be doing something right - their numbers remain low and not trending upwards.

I was musing about returning to the gym and the pub but I don't think I will now.

it's great news about italy because im going on holiday there next week. don t hink sicily was ever seriously affected though?

# ¿ Jul 29, 2020 15:53

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

communism bitch posted:

When did you come crawling back in here you piece of poo poo?

just checked, it was about a month ago as part of some research on costa rica

# ¿ Jul 29, 2020 16:50

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 07:25

Breath Ray: Nov 19, 2010

mouthfeel

# ¿ Jul 29, 2020 17:50

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT Summer 2020 - Two Pints of Saline and Abacavir for Drip

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