Flatulent tosspottery

“They are exploiting users by taking their personal data without properly compensating them for taking that data,” said Lovdahl Gormsen, who added that Facebook had a “completely disproportionate” relationship with its users. “I don’t think the users are entirely clear when they click on the terms and conditions how unfair that deal is.”

Lovdahl Gormsen, a competition law specialist at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, is bringing the class action at the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London as an opt-out case. This means Facebook users covered by it do not need to actively join the case to receive damages and will be part of the claim unless they decide to opt out from it. The lawsuit covers the period from 1 October 2015 to 31 December 2019. If the case is successful, the amount of compensation per user will be settled by the judge. The £2.3bn compensation number cited by the cases’s backers represents an estimate of the damage caused to users.

Of course it’s rampant idiocy. So, anyway, I go to BIICL:

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Oh, same as Facebook then. Hmm, what will a judge make of that?

We also have “to father” and “to mother” as verbs, which gets a bit more complicated. “To father” is synonymous with “beget” and “sire”—though Merriam-Webster notes, in a circular way, that these words are considered archaic, except in relation to domestic animals. “To mother” seems simpler on the face of it, maybe less overtly sexist? “To mother” is defined as “to give birth to” or “to care for or protect like a mother.” The first definition is the biologically essentialist one, but at least unlike with “beget” and “sire,” there are no caveats or domestic animals to be found.

It’s subtle, but already we can see clear signs of a patriarchal system of society embedded in language.

Freddy McConnell is mad again.

I can’t see anything there at all which would not also fit a description of a matriarchal society. Can you?

But then this is Freddy:

Why We Need Gender-Inclusive Terms for ‘Father’ and ‘Mother’

Umm, why?

We don;t need gender inclusive terms for left or right handed, for short or tall, so why would we for father or mother?

This isn’t a new conversation, but Return to Hogwarts and responses from fans past and present on social media invite us to revisit the question: Is it possible to separate the art from the artist?

The answer, of course, is complicated and nuanced. Except for the moments when it’s pretty straightforward. The idea that we can separate the art from the artist hinges on a form of privilege and a misunderstanding of how creators can put themselves and their beliefs into their work. French philosopher Roland Barthes’ essay “Death of the Author” is used as a way to explain that it’s “just art” and can be consumed without any input from the creator, making the creator someone whose shouting doesn’t impact the narrative or your understanding of it. Unfortunately, when it comes to bigotry, that’s not necessarily an approach that works.

So this modernism, deconstruction, teaches that what the author meant, even what they said, doesn’t matter and isn’t the point. We each construct the story ourselves as we read/watch.

This is true until we find an author we want to criticise, when it’s not true.

Ho Hum.

“Our metabolism has the key to unlock our health and wellness. If we take care of it by making it more flexible, everything else follows – higher energy, weight management, lower blood sugar,” says GP Dr Emeka Okorocha.

Along with several studies looking into the benefits of metabolic flexibility, functional medicine practitioner Will Cole – among Gwyneth Paltrow’s team of experts

….that this might be bollocks.

Ms. Paltrow might find useful health advice, the blind squirrel does occasionally get the nut. But that’s not exactly the way to bet, is it?

New Zealand yoga industry suffers as anti-vax sentiment co-opts wellness industry

People subject to two types of nuttery are likely to adopt a third when it rolls in.

Doing stretching exercises isn’t nuttery, nor is mens sana in corpore sano. But yoga and wellness are. So, when anti-vax rolls in….

Even, put aside those two specifics and think more broadly. Those specifics both see themselves as being part of a counterculture, away from, even opposed to, that capitalism and markets and blah blah over there. So, when there’s some other thing that comes down the pike from that conventional world they’re counter to then…..

If it turned out that avocado and tofu smoothies were the way to make a stock market fortune then they’d all stop drinking avocado and tofu smoothies….

“The paper provides a much-needed analysis of the drive to ‘decolonise’ the plant collections at RBG Kew.

Everyone who went anywhere sent plants back to Kew. Whadda ya mean “decolonise”?

An analysis of DNA from a 5,700-year-old tomb has revealed the world’s oldest family tree, shedding “extraordinary” light on the importance of family and descent among people who were some of Britain’s first farmers.

A research team has examined the bones and teeth of 35 people in one of Britain’s best preserved neolithic tombs, near the village of Hazleton in the Cotswolds. The results, said Dr Chris Fowler of Newcastle University, are nothing short of “astounding”.

The researchers have discovered that 27 were biological relatives from five continuous generations of a single extended family. The majority were descended from four women who all had children with the same man.

Astounding and most important. Only in modern academia perhaps is the finding that families, descent, are important to humans one of those things that astounds. Everyone else is looking at the astounded as if they are the idiot ginger stepchild. What bleedin’ social institution does anyone think pins the species together?

The government did not act. The inequalities became more evident. In England, mortality rates among some Black and Asian groups were between 2.5 and 4.3 times higher than among white groups, when all other factors were accounted for.

That’s certainly not including Vit D levels and all that. And I doubt very much that it includes socioeconomic profiles even if it does comorbidities.

Thing is, if we want to solve a problem we’ve got to get the analysis of why it is a problem right first. Shouting about institutional racism might not be a good start to that.

Minorities were not more susceptible because they were Black or brown, but because they were more likely to be poor.

Ah, right, so everything else wasn’t taken into account now, was it? And a small question here. Mass immigration is a pretty new thing. Last time the most recent immigrants were top of the societal pyramid was with the Normans. So, why should the recent arrivals have that same socioeconomic profile as the average?

The HIV epidemic is driven by stigma and inequality.

It’s driven by fucking and drugs.

Both entirely human things, things that are going to happen. Yes, it’s all a problem and things do need to be done. But you can only solve a problem if you identify the correct causes. Pulling down statues of slavers and reinstating the £20 UC uplift aren’t going to solve a problem caused by fucking and drugs now, are they?

A historic Scottish pub will change its name after its owner, Greene King, said it could offend punters who considered it racist.

The Black Bitch, located in Linlithgow, West Lothian, was built in the 17th century and named after a female dog that forms part of the town’s official crest. It still stands as a statue in the town centre.

Local lore dictates that the eponymous greyhound had courageously saved her owner from starvation while they were imprisoned on Linlithgow Loch.

Greene King has now said it will rename the pub to The Black Hound because of the company’s “commitment to being an anti-racist organisation”.

Prominent trans activist Paris Lees criticised Redmayne’s casting in 2015, saying: “What right does Eddie Redmayne have playing a transgender woman?

Ms. Lees, do you understand the word “actor”? The verb “to act”? It means “pretending to be what you are not for dramatic purposes”.

Once you grasp that basic bit of the English language you should be able to work out the rest.

Azeem Rafiq has apologised for using anti-Semitic slurs in an exchange of messages with another cricketer.

Rafiq admitted sending messages more than a decade ago in which he joked about a Derbyshire player, Atif Sheikh, being reluctant to spend money on a meal out because “he is a jew”.

“I am the victim of racism!”

“Oh aye?”

Of course, we’ll have to see how this fully plays out but rarely have we seen the wind spill out of the sails of a moral outrage quite so quickly. It’s like finding out that Jim Bakker was shagging the help while preaching the Bible….ah, see the problem with that one?

Elon Musk has saved almost $2bn on his tax bill after a poll asking Twitter users if he should sell 10pc of his stake in Tesla sparked a sharp drop in the carmaker’s shares.

Tesla’s shares have fallen by more than 10pc since the weekend, whittling down the value of Mr Musk’s holdings, after he promised to heed a vote on social media to offload stock.

That also had the effect of reducing Mr Musk’s taxable gains – and therefore the potential bill he will have to pay US authorities – a Telegraph analysis has found.

Seriously, nonsense.

The resulting share price fall following his tweet saved Musk almost $2bn in tax.

Cretins.

Millions of landlords face a bill of almost £10bn to make their properties better insulated if the Government forges ahead with plans to make rented accommodation more energy efficient, according to analysis from a leading law firm.

JMW Solicitors estimates that around 2m landlords will be stung by the proposals from the Business Department, which will require all houses for tenants to achieve a rating of at least band C under the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) scheme.

The firm warned that the cost of installing new insulation and other energy saving measures would run to £4,700 per property – or £9.4bn in total.

David Smith, a partner at JMW, said: “The approach taken by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy in their proposal is difficult to understand as it fails to take into consideration the reality of properties in the UK.

For example, I have a small flat in Bath (recently starring in Bridgerton!).

4 inch ashlar construction, no cavity, Grade II* listed so even double glazing is illegal.

It becomes illegal to have flat rentals in central Bath?

Oxford University has been accused of a “moral failure” after accepting a multi-million pound donation from the Mosley family.

The university was given £6 million from a charitable trust set up by Max Mosley to house the fortune he inherited from his father, Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists.

Two of Oxford’s colleges – St Peter’s and Lady Margaret Hall – have also accepted cash from the Mosley family trust totalling more than £6.3 million, The Telegraph can reveal.

Max Mosley, who set up the trust a decade ago, signed off the accounts which confirmed the donations shortly before his death in May of this year.

Pecunia non olet and all that.

Sure, they were fascists. The money wasn’t.

Professor who claimed to be indigenous woman called ‘Morning Star Bear’ exposed as ‘imposter’
Investigations have revealed that one of Canada’s ‘most powerful women’ is actually of Polish, Russian and Czechoslovakian origin

So what is this then?

She decried a “smear campaign” and “lateral violence,” but this week Dr Bourassa, who was named as one of the country’s most powerful women in 2021, was suspended by UoS and stepped aside from her role as scientific director of the Indigenous health arm of CIHR.

Anyone care to explain “lateral violence”. As something other than “Darn, I got caught” that is?

As President Biden prepares to travel to Europe to meet with the Pope and our NATO allies next week, there remains a huge national security problem for him to grapple with, one that hasn’t been addressed in any meaningful fashion for many years.

It is the root cause of our problems with China. It’s why some people don’t want to get vaccinated. It’s why some people still gleefully follow Donald Trump. It explains why Congress can’t get together in a bipartisan fashion to deal with infrastructure, health care and gun control. It’s why we have problems understanding climate change. It explains voter suppression. It’s why “critical race theory” has become controversial, why elements of our population on the left and right are at war with each other and why some believe the earth is flat and the Holocaust didn’t occur. It’s why some of us believe we’re still the “No. 1” nation in the world when — other than having the largest military — we clearly lag behind other major nations in many critical factors. More than anything else it explains why we fail.

The United States is a nation of militantly ignorant people, arrogant in their beliefs, unable to change their minds and unwilling to try. We lack education.

The reason we don’t already have the progressive paradise is because the proles are ignorant meatheads.

Well done on that as a means of gaining votes in Flyover Country.

So, what’s the solution?

Our lack of education is the single greatest threat to the existence of our nation.

Thought it might be, up the propaganda quotient by insisting more folk go to school for more years.

One estimate suggests that, over the course of 200 years, the British extracted from India, at current prices, $45tn. They used this money to fund industrialisation at home and the colonisation of other nations, whose wealth was then looted in turn.

I did once try to track down this absurd number. It’s in one of those academic books that cost $hundreds and I never did manage to read the paper itself. But it’s balderdash even so.

Current UK wealth is around £15 trillion. So how did we nick $45 trillion from elsewhere?

What I think has happened is that Indian (Marxist, possibly even Maoist I think she is) writer misunderstanding, or misrepresenting, how letters of credit work.

Sigh.

From the Club of Rome:

Sensemaking disrupted by
social media

Quite, can’t just let the proles shoot off their mouths. They might make sense of things the way we don’t want them to.

Critics claim that the overhaul disproportionally benefits Western countries, while potentially hamstringing governments’ ability to set their own tax rates to entice international investment to their shores.

“The expected agreement would see rich OECD countries take the great bulk of new revenues, and would also sharply limit the freedom of others to set their tax rules and defend their tax bases,” said Alex Cobham, chief executive at the Tax Justice Network.

Now that there is an international agreement imposing tax rules he’s against an international agreement imposing tax rules.

Seems a bit strange having just spent two decades shouting for an international agreement imposing tax rules.