Sonic Sloth Scientist

We're more than that, though. Creative and media sector, professional services, higher education, high-value / small-volume manufacturing (OK, more of it than I'd like is weapons, but still), R&D, parts of the tech industry - unfortunately both main parties seem to be hell-bent on wrecking these.

The NIC rise seems to have hammered hospitality in particular - my sense is that's because it's been forced by a perfect storm of circumstances (Brexit, Ukraine/energy, Covid, and NMW/NICs) into a low-volume, high-margin model.

£4 coffees, £8 pints, even on a solid income I've cut way back on that.

This is absolutely central to it.

The problem is that the equation to "humans must reduce their impact on the planet quickly and profoundly" resolves to two general solutions.

One group of which can be classed, broadly, as eco-socialism.

And the other as ecofascism.

Choose wisely, people.

Oh, there very much are, it's just that they're Nazis.

It was still around in the 90s - although less common by then. (Uni halls removed the fridges from students' shared kitchens to try and force us to use their crap overpriced catering, is how I know).

Tinned peaches with evaporated milk, though, it wasn't all bad!

The food. Ye gods, the food. Instant Whip dessert for the kids, dad gets a glass of Watney's Red Barrel. I've mostly blocked out what was in the school dinners (other than Smash on heavy rotation), but the smell... 🤢

This is the logical consequence of Labour’s appeasement of the far right - this is an arms race Labour should never seek to win

Newspaper headline: "Reform chairman likens Starmer's digital ID scheme to Nazi laws."

They want strict digital ID but only for brown people, but also don't you dare call them racist you high-minded, arrogant metropolitan liberal.

Yes illegal immigration is causing potholes, low growth and long NHS waiting lists. The leaves don’t get swept up because of illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants also make the clocks go back and hair grow from my ears, both of which become more and more difficult to bear with every passing year.

(I'm not doubting that people feel poor, are often unhappy, and lack access to things that would make life feel richer and more meaningful - but there's this implicit, by Labour, or explicit, by Refuk, idea that "we're too poor to help, someone else should do it" - and it's just objectively false.)

Median Income by Country 2025 Detailed information on median income by country, providing insights into the average earnings of individuals within each nation with additional details related to this topic.

I guess it depends on your reference points - our public goods have been knackered by fifteen year of austerity which makes the place feel threadbare all over - but even on a median basis (removing the "1% effect") we're about the same as our European neighbours, and in the global top 15%.

Eighty years ago, George Ken­nan ended his Long Tele­gram from Moscow by say­ing the greatest danger is that we allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are com­pet­ing. Today, the task is not to seek to restore lost dom­in­ance, but to recover the moral clar­ity and polit­ical vis­ion of who we are and what we stand for.

As demo­cra­cies and their politi­cians are temp­ted down a path that rejects plur­al­ism, har­asses oppon­ents, demon­ises refugees, declares emer­gen­cies, opts out of inter­na­tional agree­ments and laws and attacks the judi­cial sys­tem – all fea­tures of the Soviet sys­tem – this is surely the ulti­mate role reversal in the world today, and one that we need to fight at all costs.

David Miliband's closing paragraphs in his Observer article today are quite ... striking.

But the Telegraph keeps saying that Britain was happier in the 70s, so it must be true. Who wouldn't want power cuts, bin strikes, British Leyland and ten per cent inflation?

Yep. The problem is that it's relatively hard to make the argument that boat arrivals are a tiny number, which a still-rich-actually country of 70M people can easily afford to look after, without some Daily Express throbber making accusations that the speaker is "arrogant and out of touch".

UK set to limit refugees to temporary stays Shabana Mahmood is expected to say the era of permanent protection for refugees is over, in major changes to the UK's asylum and immigration system.

This is as bad as anything proposed by Reform.

Leaving refugees in permanent limbo and unable to build a new life in the UK would be a complete abdication of our humanitarian responsibilities

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

He's said shit like this before. London is, on the whole, safe. In fact London is safer than LITERALLY EVERY AMERICAN CITY. time.com/5266759/dona...

But does he need to be driven to golf lessons so he can be a big famous golfer like his dad? I mean, what would the rest of the club say if he turned up in an Uber instead of the family Range?

4-panel vertical comic. (1) 100 Years Ago [two people standing next to bicycle with small car nearby] PERSON 1: It’s too dangerous riding a bike with these cars around. I should get a car, too. (2) 50 Years Ago [two people between smaller car and bigger car] PERSON 2 with short hair: Small cars are less safe in collisions with larger vehicles, so I should get a bigger one. (3) Today [two people between big car and even bigger car] PERSON 1: Everyone has huge SUVs now. If I don’t get the biggest one, I’m putting my family at risk. (4) Soon [two people next to large armored car with spiked clubs attached] PERSON 2: If I don’t install more whirling spike clubs, I’ll be destroyed by all the other drivers who...

Car Size

xkcd.com/3167/

Chancellor urged to scrap Lower Thames Crossing in favour of stronger growth-generating rail projects Chancellor urged to scrap Lower Thames Crossing in favour of stronger growth-generating rail projects In its Budget submission to UK Chancellor of the Exchequer [1], Transport Action Network (TAN) has...

The Lower Thames Crossing is unaffordable.

If fully publicly financed, it would need £16 billion of taxpayers' money!

transportactionnetwork.org.uk/chancellor-u...

The most galling thing about the end of salary sacrifice is that you just know they're going to spend the whole lot on mOaR bOrDeRs, or on inflated costs of delivering health and social care which have arisen due to mOaR bOrDeRs.

And all to appease people who contribute nothing.

Yep. The conservationist strain of the wider green movement has some deep blue strands, from Sir Peter Scott to Zac Goldsmith.

But on the climate side there appears to be no solution to the arithmetic which is anywhere near a High Tory / One Nationer position. The sums just don't work.

EcoCentristDads? 🤔

As an interested layperson, is there a rule of thumb for turning GT/year into PPM increase per year?

As it seems like that carries on even past 2050 and maybe a lot longer, but I understand that carbon sinks and its atmospheric half-life will take some of that out of the picture?

Anyone that dressed as faux-butch as this thing looks would be laughed out of town*, or possibly arrested. Yet somehow it's seen as desirable to project that kind of image on the public road.

(* certain towns in Texas aside ).

Cummings' response reads like it was written by an AI.

Cities need legally employed delivery riders on legally purchased, well-maintained e-bikes whose batteries won't catch fire and burn down their overcrowded accommodation.

(Direct subsidy to fleet operators meeting the highest standards *waves @pedalme.bsky.social* is probably the way to go there)

It's also fundamental to what money *is* (as a claim on energy, wellbeing, ability to consume - depending on your preferred branch of economics).

Well-off people have inherently higher footprints, but also inherently higher agency - it's idiotic NOT to nudge them firmly in a greener direction.

Hundreds of thousands to lose heat pump subsidies in Reeves’s budget plan Exclusive: Supporters say grants largely going to middle-class households, but experts warn move will slow transition from gas boilers

One important thing to understand about these policy support mechanisms (“benefits for middle class voters”) being scrapped or slashed is that they are *expressly designed* to incentivise people with money to spend it on clean technology, on basis that public spending can’t deliver transition on own

The main thing that cost him popularity was Iraq, but the direct effect on most peoples' daily lives in the UK was modest.

For some reason, "would 2007-10 have been quite as bad if we hadn't pissed away billions from the good years in a futile desert war?" isn't a question that comes up much.

.. and if we're going to need higher taxes anyway (which is inevitable), might as well do that with some social liberalism, hope and maybe even a bit of actual *joy* in public life?

(If you've seen the @zackpolanski.bsky.social / Jordan Stephens chat or his stage appearance, you know.)