Doesn’t change the fact they murdered people deliberately.

I hate games with very low playtime or just not very appealing to replay. Some of my best buys:

The ascent, Grim dawn, Shadow tactics blades of the shogun

Currently finishing Deperado’s 3 (version 1 and 2 is not very good imo due to incompatible graphics updates).

You would have to get rid of the crappy 3rd-party DRM before I would consider it.

If there is no need for office block then there will inevitably be a drop off in the need to hire the space to work in, which in turn will lead to lower prices. Employers do not request higher costs.

In the UK, the government are pushing for return to work because of pressure from newspaper media. People buy papers on their way to work. The are no cost basis arguments with forced returns to work. There is an obvious case for net zero benefits.

My point was that everyone can do it, but not everyone will commit the time and energy to do it. This fact alone is why people prefer an open source product over the hidden schemes behind the likes of Google and Samsung. And you right you will never stop malicious elements trying to take advantage of the flaws that are inevitable in the complexity of software today.

I haven’t done any real coding since the 90’s. Excel meant having the ability to write your own software from scratch redundant.

Not a problem, I am not fragile in the least. I hope your hangover is a short one.

Everyone can audit the code you clown, that is the point. When it is hidden you cannot do this. If you are trying to be clever and demean my intelligence, let me put it another way, Everyone who can use google can audit the code. Writing code is not something restrictive, there are many, many guides out there along with syntax breakdowns.

Do you even know what the internet is?

Exactly. The software is being kept closed source. You have no idea if Google is up to its shitty stunts to data track or anything along those lines. If it was open source then that argument is gone, till then…

I believe it was a report that was sold at the 2005 conference. The PDF was available for purchase on Amazon last time I looked. It made a few pounds in 2012 when Jeremy Hunt (the main author) was promoted.

As for the discrepancies, they were trying to sell an idea. Truth was not at the top of their agenda.

Is this a relatively new thing? I was under the impression that the UK conservative party was fairly different than US conservatives. I had heard that Johnson was a bit of a johnson himself, but assumed things went back to “normal” with his ousting.

I really don’t know when it infiltrated the Tories. Thatcher from the 80’s for all she was hated because of the way she attacked unions was certainly not of that ilk. Part of Thatcher’s persona was honesty and integrity.

Major who followed her did not seem that way. I listened to him giving an interview on TRIP, he seemed extremely genuine. He was also a major feature of Thatcher’s government.

I think the rot started when the Tories took a major arse kicking in 2005. I have no real evidence or insider information to back that up.

There was a lot of talk within the party regarding reform so they could get back on track. There was a very disturbing report written up from a group within the party. It was based around manipulation and where the party should aim for. One particular notable part pointed out that educating the poor was not good for Tory votes. People from poorer back grounds who gained degrees were less likely to vote Tory than any other group. DIRECT DEMOCRACY: An Agenda for a New Model Party. Page 12

The decline in Conservative support has been particularly marked among the most educated. This is not always obvious since more education is associated with higher income, and higher income is still (just) associated with stronger Conservative support. However, other factors being held constant, the more educationally qualified someone is, the less likely he or she is to support the Conservatives. This is a problem to the extent that the more educated are likelier to vote, and are often influential in leading the opinion of others. It is also, of course, a problem in a country where nearly half of young people are now going to university.

There is a conspiracy theory thrown around from time to time that defunding education in poor areas is done by design to increase the vote share. Something that is hard for a Tory to argue against in the UK, especially when you show the stats on funding.

If you read the report in entirety you will see republicans are mentioned many times over.

The first Tory PM in power after this was Cameron with Osborne as chancellor. I listened to Osborne on TRIP and was not impressed. I am going to say imo here, I CBA to dig up more details, it really annoyed me to listen to him. He told lies on his figures, he ducked and dodged with inuendo. It just felt massively different to Major talking. I have seen people quote stats on things that were wrong under Cameron and Osborne. This was not the view I had on them at the time, but that has since changed in hindsight.

Teressa May who followed them seemed genuine to me. She also did an interview on TRIP. I felt at the time she got a bad deal from the Tory MPs and the infighting. That view has not changed.

The rest is as they say history. Johnson, Truss and Sunak, all I can say is shithouses. And that is unkind to the toilet.

Both parties are known for gerrymandering now, the Tories are changing the boundaries across the UK. Both are recognised for hiding information through obfuscation. Both have shown designs to bully influential depts (judicial system, elections control, police etc). Both have shown a prevalence for gaslighting and talking nonsense to fog over issues. Both are reputed to have Russian influence running through them. I would guess the Republicans are known for selling government contracts to donors, something the Tories are going to loose the next election over.

History for granite is similar in as much the second one shows how much the guy has looked into it.

I have watched a ton on history. With vloggers I generally watch for the bits I didn’t already know now. Vloggers tend to focus on the same stuff. What artists would consider pot boilers. It is great when you find someone with the different angle.

American politics is a new fad of mine. I have been following Trump closely, along with the legal break downs that come with that. I strongly dislike the scum that are the Conservatives in the UK. The UK Conservative party is very much aligned with the US Republicans. They share the same think groups. The parallels with tactics are very stark.

Maybury and Madison was brand new to me and filled in a fair few hours. I tend to read the fine print and follow the explanation links. My wife was not impressed when I told her that equal rights for women had not been ratified in the US as part of the constitution. More so when I told that Virginia had rejected another vote on it in 2019. It is the little things in life that make you smile. Education can be a dangerous thing, I will be inspecting my food for a few days.

Added it to my lists.

My current ones are: https://www.youtube.com/@HistoryforGRANITE/videos (one of the most interesting. For someone who talks about rocks, it is actually very insightful) https://www.youtube.com/@HistoryTime/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/HistoryHit/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/HistoryHit/videos

Besides its overwhelming impact on US history, the reason for the Marbury v Madison itself is an interesting insight into how contentious US politics has always been.

Thanks, I read the wiki and watched a lecture from the Uni of Virginia. There is obviously a lot more history around the outcomes of the case, but it asked the question which always seemed blaringly obvious to me and the SCOTUS. How does a non elected body get such power? I will look into it more. I find the diversion between UK law and US law interesting. I have to own up to be an bit of a history geek.

I agree with a lot of what you say. I don’t think polarisation is a bad thing. Everyone has a different perception of where the priorities should be, sometimes that is just pure greed, sometimes it is genuine need. The biggest issue in the US (and the UK) imo, is the voting system. FPTP system are too easy to corrupt. Voters recognise that a vote for an independent can lead to what you really don’t want into power. This encourages tribal voting instincts. In my own area, I know I am going to have to pinch my nose and vote Labour. I will do this knowing full well that the person I am voting for has shown to be nothing but a grifter for over 10 years.

A FPTP system only requires attention in the swing areas. The rest is largely ignored. A PR voting system has been gaining more and more popularity in the UK. A lot are recognising that FPTP has some very real dangers.

Truth and media accountability has become a conduit for celebrity voting. They even used the same model that was used on Trump with Johnson in the UK. We got lucky because we got the idiot who was much easier to spot. Trump also recognised that by throwing out crumbs, people would see him as doing something. Johnson actively did as little as possible. Neither of these would have been voted into power with the media backing they got. I am hoping that our next PM sorts the media out in some way. Leveson Inquiry 2.0 is another item to be looked into, imo.

We, in the UK, need a return to independent oversight. Johnson annexed what was previously independent bodies into government control. He then used them to justify government choices. Johnson was very close to gaining absolute power in the UK. Trump will do exactly this, if he ever gets in. Trump will mimic Erdogan, he will use his current predicament to justify doing even more extreme moves once in power. There is a fair to good chance you will not remove Trump and his family if they return.

Independent oversight seems to be a thing that is greatly missed in the US. There does not seem to be any trusted bodies where people can turn to for an honest opinion on truth. The problem seems to stem from the power of the ruling class of the time having the complete control of who gets which job. Having individual politicians plant the highest power in the legal system into place is always going to cause an imbalance. We have exactly the same problem with the house of Lords. I like the idea of cross party review bodies being used to adjudicate key positions of influence, but a lot of ultimate power positions like SCOTUS need a much wider oversight committee.

The biggest problem of all politics though has to be corruption. Politicians should not be able to earn money from secondary sources.

I lost you here. What position? Prevent more of what?

Not all republicans are bad. But the longer the good ones wait to take the bull by the horns, the harder it will be.

My point was not about authoritarian. It is about the lies that are being told to the masses to convince them that being turkeys for Christmas is actually good for them. The lies have gone from extreme into the ridiculous. I watched Trump tell a crowd that climate change is not true and that he can sort out the forest fires tomorrow. He wants to make use of the wasted overflow pipes in cities. Where do you start on that one? Trump has caused murders literally; people died in the insurrection. He is affirmed as being a rapist in judicial hearing. In the UK we call this out as being a nonce. There were republican candidates who said they would follow Trump if he was elected while in prison. Worse still, this is only a minor take on the whole story. Boebert committing sex acts in front of kids. The open gerrymandering in states across the US. The attacks on the judicial system and civil employees. The way they used public servant wages as blackmail instead of using democratic leeway.

How far down the rabbit hole do you have to go before thinking that there is something wrong here, and I have to use my position to prevent more of it?

Your point seems to be that people should not generalise an opinion on a large group of people. But you fail to ask the question of when passivism becomes guilty by failing to act. Germany was held accountable for the atrocities of the holocaust. They moved on. They educate in schools in an attempt to prevent this from reoccurring. What is happening in the US with republicans can only persist if people support them, and polling suggests there is support there.

Are you suggesting that politicians create issues to hide other more heinous issues? That would just be dead catting.

A honest politician is usually the more open one. You would think that getting threats would be an indicator she is doing something upsets people, and she wants to double down on the crazy.

I can understand restrictions on upcoming events, but there is nothing wrong with releasing them after they have been used. It is not like someone is going to go back in time to commit an offence.