Esther Rantzen now ‘too physically fragile’ to end her life in Switzerland
If she dies while in transport isn’t that job done?
but of course we’re not supposed to think that way, are we? Instead the announcement comes as Parliament votes on the issue – this is political manipulation.
Rising global temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels are transforming the world’s forests, wetlands and tundra to the point they are releasing emissions that could further worsen global heating by as much as 30%, a new study has found.
As the world heats up, permafrost in the high latitudes is thawing, fiercer wildfires are burning in drying forests and wetlands and lakes are warming. All of these changes are themselves causing the release of planet-heating methane and carbon dioxide locked in trees and soils, therefore worsening the climate crisis, the paper states.
While scientists have long known of these “feedback loops” that amplify the impact of direct pollution from burning coal, oil and gas, the emissions from natural sources are largely unaccounted for in climate projections.
So everyone’s known about this since forever but the scientists haven’t been putting it all in their models?
Pretty shitty models from not very good scientists then, eh?
And what else isn’t in there? Negative feedbacks, like more CO2, more plant growth? Say?
Why do this? It is to explore the idea that the supposed certainty that many neoliberal thinkers have about matters to do with economics is entirely misplaced. The idea that anything in economic data has an objective reality is just wrong.
Gonna make planning difficult if we don’t know anything, innit?
Of course, the actual observation itself is Hayek’s Nobel acceptance speech in a nutshell. The Pretence of Knowledge. That Spud uses the core observation of the arch neoliberal to disprove neoliberalism is rather fun, no?
Our natural resources were ravaged during the colonial period, leaving us one of the most vulnerable regions in the world in relation to the climate crisis and extreme weather events.
Our infrastructure is massively underdeveloped; our most talented young people often choose to immigrate to the US or come here to the UK. Poverty levels remain high; educational disadvantage persists; health outcomes are poor – all of this can be directly linked to our history of enslavement and colonialism.
While the government of Jamaica works tirelessly to address the economic and social deficits, legacy issues persist.
A useful guide to Jamaica’s poverty is that Michael Manley followed a Castro-lite set of economic policies thus impoverishing the place. Sorry about this and all that but the poverty is home grown, not foreign imposed.
Instagram’s chief executive has said users will have a worse experience in an algorithm-free world, seeing more brand-related content, and spend less time on the app.
The comments come as the Australian government plans to give users the option to opt out of algorithms, with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announcing plans on Tuesday to require social media platforms to prompt users to choose between a feed of algorithm-recommended content or a reverse chronological feed of the pages users follow.
So the Big Solution is that Instagram must offer the same feed choices as Twitter. This will obviously make a big, big, difference.
You can’t say it would be a huge surprise if a leading figure of the British far right turned out to be a fraudster: that whole strand of politics is, after all, a con job preying on angry citizens who are daft enough to believe that immigrants, and not the rapaciously greedy super-rich, are somehow the cause of the nation’s problems. If people will fall for that, fleecing them out of their money is not a big leap.
The finesse, delicacy, of the political analysis here.
A rapid global shift to clean electricity could trigger a “cascade” of progress towards repairing the damage to the planet by the climate crisis, according to a report identifying the environmental solutions most likely to bring about change.
The analysis focuses on “positive tipping points” – thresholds beyond which a sustainable technology or practice becomes increasingly cheap, widespread or politically popular, allowing progress to become self-propelling.
Everything’s going to boil because tipping points. The tipping point of the revolution. Etc.
And, you know tere’s a decent point there too. If a tech gets nice and cheap then we’ll all naturaly use it. It becomes self-propelling. So, get on with it then, make it all nice and cheap.
US citizens will receive $5,000 if Republicans win midterms, Trump claims in lengthy convention speech
Everyone goes into an election promising to bribe the voters with their own money. Some a little more nakedly than others….
Doctors should not be involved in ending lives, says Archbishop of Canterbury
Kill them all, God will know his own? You know, don’t bother to listen to those doctors things, just inject everyone?
‘Mazin’ly, it’s actually a bishop with the right idea:
She wrote: “If passed, the Bill will signal that we are a society that believes that some lives are not worth living. That would become our state-endorsed position, and the NHS would be active in its delivery.”
But then the soft left at least – the Fabians, all that lot – has believed this for well over a century. Eugenics was very Webbs.
Backers of the bill have stressed that MPs should see the vote as a moment to assert the Commons’ decision-making power, rather than rerun the arguments.
Not that it’s a good one. Don’t actually cnosider whether it’s a good idea to kill everyone or not, just impose it because of those bastards questioning your authoritah. You know, Cartman logic.
Thousands of Germans have staged protests against the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) after the party’s watershed victory in a state election, warning it posed a danger in two more polls this month……..Police reported 5,000 protesters, while organisers said they drew more than 14,000 people in a campaign to mobilise voters against the AfD.
Well, OK. As opposed to 44% pf the adult population of the entire State of Saxony Anhalt?
You might have some work to do there.
This is what neoliberalism chose to do. For those old enough to remember, the plan was clear from the start. When Thatcher reached office in 1979, her first goal was to destroy British industry
Is it worth reading more of such frothings?
Conflict, migration and economic upheaval will accompany the global move away from oil, unless governments act urgently to help the worst afflicted countries to cope, research has found.
Nigeria, Iran, Angola and Algeria are among the countries that will be severely affected, as they rely strongly on oil revenues for their government and provision of public services, but have little diversification and too little capital to cushion the blow.
Because we stop using oil therefore we’ve got to pay those we don’t buy it from. At the same time as everyone has to pay for having used oil in the past. Except, presumably, these suppliers of all that oil.
Consistency’s a lovely thing, no?
For example, we discussed unemployment and agreed that instead of thinking of it as the absence of useful things to do, we should describe it as a state-imposed prohibition on people doing work society plainly needs because wages have been pushed too high for the worker to do the task.
Worse, this was a deliberate attempt to prevent lives from being saved at sea, and national and international law has long treated this as a priority. I have not bothered to investigate the law, but I suspect it is backed by that.
This is what, third, fourth, Guardian article on this dreck already?
A landmark petition is to be handed to King Charles by Jamaica over slavery reparations, aiming to confront historical crimes that still disadvantage former British colonies, the Caribbean nation’s culture minister has said.
Anyway, the base point here is that the people of Jamaica today are richer than the people of Ghana today. Therefore slavery made today’s Jamaicans better off. Therefore for reparations they c’n bugger off.
The enduring cult of male genius is keeping down female film-makers, one of the only two female directors in the running for the top prize at this year’s Venice film festival has warned.
“I’ve never ever read an article where a female director is promoted as a genius,” said the Danish-Egyptian director May el-Toukhy, whose film Woman Unknown has been selected for the Golden Lion competition on the Lido this year.
Different shapes of the bell curve between genders. Well known fact, that.
Even tho’ saying so cost Larry Summers his job as President of Harvard it’s still one of those true things.
The populist, far-right, anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has surged to a resounding victory
What happens if the people decide to do something the people who promote democracy don’t like?
The stated aim of QE I was to increase asset prices. Make more money, lower interest rates, increase asset prices. This will then spark a boom opf asset creation as borrowing to invest is cheaper and thus we’ll have a lovely investment boom – as we did in the 1930s – to drag us out of recession/depression.
This isn’t a “but” this is the aim. Widely distributed aim at the time too.
Now, that it didn’t quite work out like that was because we’ve an idiot planning system. But that was indeed the aim.
Left-wing opponents accuse the organisers of using the pork-heavy menus with a side of patriotic conviviality to ostracise Muslims and disguise a far-Right political project before the presidential elections.
Well, right-wing plot is a bit too far but:
Inside a packed market, a crowd of 1,800 belts out the Marseillaise, hunting horns sound and roars erupt as Asterix and Obelix rush past, banging a giant magic potion pot.
As local charcuterie is served and wine flows, classic French songs such as Michel Delpech’s 1974 Le Chasseur prompt guests to rise from their long wooden tables, sing, sway and dance.
Long lines of conga form but suddenly scatter when the DJ announces: “Le cochon, le cochon.” Pork is served.
The setting could scarcely be more French and for the guests, many clad in berets and stripy tops, that is precisely the point.
They have gathered in the central city of Bourges for the latest iteration of a phenomenon sweeping France: banquets géants, or giant banquets, mass feasts built around traditional food, wine, music and a celebration of all things français.
They are trying to ostracise those non-French in that cultural sense. They’re doing so very well.
“This is us, this is ours”, however exaggerated and over the top, is indeed meant to be exclusive of those who are not us, ours.
Having been right the lefties then get it wrong again. What the Hell is wrong with indigenes being indigenous?