Be Excellent To Each Other

Not what it is, why it is.

I don't think anyone actually, really understands why inflation happens.

Doozers.

Those little guys from Fraggle Rock make inflation go?

Cornish

You'd be amazed at where they get to. Honestly.

Magnets, nuclear fission. All doozers.

Cornish

I don't think the Cornish make magnetism work, Mali

But why have wheat and mortgages gone up

Because the wheat farmers need more money to pay for their televisions.

Perhaps there was a sudden frost that year so supplies are less than usual. Or perhaps everyone develops a taste for Weetabix. Either way, demand is greater than supply so the price rises.

... and no one in government understood or cared what the mortgage providers were actually doing, so we had to stump up 2.3 gazillion loaves of bread.

British Politicians Sex

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 25351.html

EXCITING CAR PARK UPDATE


http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n ... _launched/





Not sure if I'm meant to type car reg in anymore or not, but it looks like a proper car park still.

Heh.

In US news, indictments issued for Paul Manafort (Trump's campaign manager) and his ex business partner for 12 charges including "conspiracy against the US"

This'll be fun. No doubt Mr Trump will deny ever having him on his staff. He does have one of the world's best memories, after all.

Absolutely fuck all is actually going to happen though is it? It never bloody does.

Even pretend politicians are at it. Kevin Spacey.

I couldn’t possibly comment.

A slightly different side to the question of historical memory in today's 'Guardian', moving away from dead confederates: Plan to name German train after Anne Frank condemned.

Yeah, I understand why they want to do this, and with the Scholls on the list it does suggest a desire to memorialise those resisting the Nazis, but I think I find this particular idea a bit uncomfortable given the circumstances of Anne Frank's death.

The nights are drawing in, so what better way to while away the darkness than by digging out our plans for the House of Lords? A House of Lords commission has suggested a two in, one out system for the Upper House, aiming to reduce it to a maximum of 600 over time. The article lists some interesting other tweaks which would slowly evolve the House without the complexities of major legislation. I'm equivocating on a fifteen year term: I like the idea and understand it, but if someone does contribute actively maybe they should stay on?

Um...

yer mum has a two in, one out policy every Tuesday night

But she's not getting smaller!

Strange how Mr Trump didn't blurt out policy ideas after over 50 were killed in Las Vegas, but has been really busy today after the New York attack.

The free market is good innit

Too many highlights from last night's debate on the Brexit papers (charmingly addressed as 'an Humble Petition to Her Majesty') to cut and paste using my netbook's annoying trackpad, but it finishes with this gem from Dennis Skinner:

And for those wondering how things work in the 21st Century, the Speaker explains all:

So then, another upbeat assessment of our prospects, Kern?
Fuck me, the day I rely on Dennis Skinner for anything other than wry, ironic laffs and incredulity that he's still even A Thing, I'll throw in the towel.
Mind you, he's looking increasingly moderate in Corbyn's Labour Party.....

Pretty solid point I reckon.

I disagree. I did Media Studies at college and it was mostly pointless. Of course, this could have been down to me but that's another story.

Is there any evidence that young people are more susceptible to this? Average age of Dail Mail reader is 58.

58 year olds wouldn't have done any media studies either, so that actually supports the hypothesis.

I'm not sure media studies particularly carried much of a message of critical thinking and analysis of message, if I'm honest.

Potentially the equally mocked philosophy courses are the closest you'd get to that!

I think education in general is what's most important. If someone is fairly clued up on a variety of topics then it's probably easier for them to discern reliable sources.

FAKE NEWS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_studies#UK
"Soon after in 1966, the Centre for Mass Communication Research was founded at Leicester University, and degree programmes in media studies began to sprout at polytechnics and other universities during the 1970s and 1980s"

I was about to disagree but then I did the math and realised (a) it's almost 2020 and (b) we're fucking old. So fuck you, son.

Another day, another mass shooting in the US. Almost nothing worth saying that hasn't already been said a long time before.

I'm left wondering if Mr Trump will start calling the killer a "degenerate animal" and start demanding urgent policy changes, like he did after the New York truck attack the other week. He probably won't. Odd that.

Politicians sending "prayers".

These people were already praying whilst they get shot. They don't need prayer, they need to be in a country not filled with automatic firearms.

A line that probably wouldn't air in The Simpsons these days....

Boris now really needs to be fired. Or worse. It's one thing being a "loveable" buffoon, quite another when your incompetence causes someone to have their prison sentence in Iran doubled.
I really don't have the words.

If he were ever going to be held accountable for his actions, his career would have been over years ago.

True, but I'm not sure he's had a fuck up of quite this sort before

It's a sign of Mrs May's weakness that she cannot fire her own foreign secretary. It's not the first time Mr Johnson has misspoke on official business either. The only light I can see is that he doesn't appear to carry the support he once did so, although Mr Rees-Mogg is rising.

Another sign of the Prime Minister's weakness is ministers thinking they can have their own independent foreign policy. Even if it's an allied state, you'd expect a minister to be aware that you need to run any meetings by the Foreign Office and Number 10 first. Pathetic.

One of the things worries me most about the future is the lack of political knowledge from younger people, both teenagers and 20-somethings. Nowadays these younger generations see the difference between left and right, or "liberals" and "conservatives" as a fight between "political correctnes"s and "honesty", or about LGBT rights and so on. They see neo-liberal economics as a given, and are pretty submissive when it comes to workers rights. They see as normal to work 10/h per day, or more, to work for unpaid internships after college. To be "hired" as a contractor without any kind of social benefits. To have under minimum wage wages as a means to learn and progress on their careers. They see this as a normal process before having a reasonable confortable life, maybe when they're forty, while still working more than 10/h a day by then. They see using Uber something that greatly helps their quality of life without even thinking about the erosion of social values.
It seems the sickness of the american political system spread everywhere. It's no longer funny to see people calling the Democrat party as "the left". It's the new status quo.

To me this is the biggest problem our world faces right after climate change, and i find it even more difficult to thwart.

http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2017/11 ... ign-policy

Dunt is very good regarding the current total lack of ministerial discipline in the cabinet, including Johnson's latest (and perhaps most serious) gaffe and the eye-boggling news about Priti Patel having secret meetings with Israel that the Foreign Office and the PM had no idea about.