JdeBP

@JdeBP@mastodon.scot

I talk about Wales-related things at https://toot.wales/@JdeBP, London-related things at https://mastodon.london/@JdeBP, and other stuff at https://mastodonapp.uk/@JdeBP.

For the command-line and system tools, specifically, see https://tty0.social/@JdeBP.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

ianbetteridge, to random
@ianbetteridge@writing.exchange avatar

In journalism it’s always important to get the local angle

JdeBP,

@jsbilsbrough @ianbetteridge

I think that that's a very good question. The newspapers are speculating about state visits if is elected, but obviously the Home secretary would grant an exception in such a case.

But if the felony convictions are for falsification of business records it seems a lot more apposite to ask whether our rules about company directors would prohibit one that was a foreign felon convicted specifically for business-related offences.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

WHY IS THERE NO EMOJI FOR GIBBON?

I WANT TO BE ABLE TO SIGNAL "tangerine shitgibbon" UNAMBIGUOUSLY!

SAYING "🍊💩🐒" IS OPEN TO MISINTERPRETATION!!!

(Although I'm okay with 🍊💩🐒🚔⛓️‍💥)

JdeBP,

@cstross

I can get you to elsewhere within the apes. (-:

U+130FC is a baboon sitting on a basket, which does rather resemble taking a shit.

𓃼

And U+1313D is excrement.

𓄽

U+130E2 is lying canine, which I mention purely on the offchance that you might have some use for it.

The Egyptian Hieroglyphs section of #Unicode is sometimes quite useful in the modern world, and much underappreciated.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Putting the tangerine jumpsuit on the tangerine shitgibbon

JdeBP,

@wolfsbruder

@cstross is right. There are fairly stringent requirements about an overt act and whom the accused is giving aid and comfort to.

It's not trivial to convict for treason, precisely because of centuries of abuse of what treason was in Europe before the U.S.A. was founded. They didn't want to perpetuate that problem.

You can still see the reason why today, with all of the people in #USPolitics screaming "traitor" at one another at the drop of a hat.

#USLaw #USConstitution

JdeBP,

@wolfsbruder

Updated in the Victorian Era.

It's the Treason Act 1842, as amended in the late 19th and 20th centuries with revised sentencing. They did away with "transportation beyond the seas" as a sentence, for starters.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/5-6/51/section/2

#UKLaw @cstross

JdeBP,

@wolfsbruder

And as @cstross points out, we've had this on the books for a long time. Raping the Monarch's consort has been treason since the Treason Act 1351.

That also makes killing the Chancellor or a Justice of the King's Bench treason, and does not seem to have been repealed. Interestingly, "Treasurer" probably covers the First Lord of the Treasury (a.k.a. the "Prime Minister"), but I'm not certain.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/Edw3Stat5/25/2/section/II

#UKLaw

JdeBP,

@cstross

If you want a particularly gruesome example to point to, see the 1531 Act of attainder of treason that was passed to declare ex post facto Richard (a.k.a. Robert) Roose guilty of treason for attempting to poison the bishop of Rochester. Roose was sentenced to death by boiling.

The U.S. Founding Fathers ruled out acts of attainder, too. A lot of the #USConstitution is from us being really terrible in the 14th to 18th centuries. (-:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2639253

@wolfsbruder #UKLaw

JdeBP,

@SteveBellovin @cstross @wolfsbruder

Another thing that I enjoy is how the German Basic Law is essentially the same process all over again, as it addresses some of the warts of the #USConstitution that were learned over a century and a half. Its Bill of Rights comes first, has several unamendable provisions for the truly fundamental stuff, and is more explicit, for example.

#GermanBasicLaw #USLaw

JdeBP, to Youtube

The manipulation of social media by some political groups became abundantly clear when, after a solid diet of physics and mathematics videos, with occasional ducks and movie trailers thrown in, just one accidental viewing of a Daily Telegraph video showing CCTV footage of a robbery (which on the face of it would appear apolitical, but which has been hi-jacked in the comments) has videos about Reform U.K. Ltd and an extremist German political party at the top of my #YouTube recommendations.

JdeBP, to UKpolitics

"But this is 2024 and we have seen truly lunatic schemes now."

I wrote this on Friday.

Today, Rishi Sunak came out of hiding and metaphorically said "You haven't seen anything yet. Here, hold my umbrella!"

#conscription #UKPolitics #UKGeneralElection #Tory

JdeBP,

Hands up, all of those who are old enough to remember …

… no, not the 1950s, but …

… March 2024, when the Prime Minister's spokesman told the newspapers that 'the PM disagreed with Sir Patrick and that Mr Sunak had “no intention” of considering #conscription'.

#UKGeneralElection #UKPolitics #Tory

JdeBP, to UKpolitics

As I was saying a couple of days ago, if the pattern holds of running against the incumbent PM, at the general election @CountBinface will be running in the Richmond and Northallerton constituency.

I wonder what policies the Count can come up with for North Yorkshire. Making the two National Parks join up at Great Langton, perhaps? (-:

#UKPolitics
#UKGeneralElection #Yorkshire

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

UK government adviser on disruptive protest accused of conflict of interest:

John Woodcock, whose review proposes bans for protest groups, has lobbying links to firms in arms and fossil fuel sectors (and is recommending bans on protests against both those industries)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/17/government-adviser-on-disruptive-protest-accused-of-conflict-of-interest

JdeBP,

@cstross

I wonder who filed the story first.

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2024/05/16/john-woodcock-jobs/

#journalism

JdeBP, to humanrights

"The [European] Convention [on Human Rights] was drafted [...] in the aftermath of the horror of the Second World War, but over 70 years ago. And it's now clearly been overtaken by events"
— Conservative and Unionist Party MP for Rayleigh and Wickford, House of Commons, 2024-05-14

JdeBP,

People of #Rayleigh and #Wickford:

Your Member of Parliament yesterday represented you by stating that the #ECHR, guaranteeing freedom from slavery and torture, the rights to life and fair trials, so horrifically violated during WW2 and fought for by many, are now out of date and should be renegotiated by the United Kingdom in favour of more limited #HumanRights.

Is this your view?

Are you willing to espouse this view aloud in, say, Wickford Memorial Park?

#UKLaw #UKPolitics #Tory

JdeBP, to UKpolitics

#TLDRNews is often shallow, and one drinking game that can be played is waiting to see how far into the video we get until there is an utterly boneheaded factual, proofreading, or captioning error.

But this video, in spite of its faults, does bring home the sheer scale of the resignations, withdrawals of the whip, suspensions, and defections that have happened to the Conservative and Unionist Party in this Parliament.

https://youtu.be/bq0akC4kY3I

#UKPolitics #UKGeneralElection #Tory

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Question for election psephologists: is Elpicke likely to win re-election in her own constituency as a Labour candidate?

(Genuine Q, I have no idea how popular/unpopular she is locally.)

JdeBP,

@emmatonkin @rzeta0 @cstross

Phil Moorehouse's argument is that the LCP is thinking 2 moves ahead here. It's not about this #Tory defector. It's about leaving the door open for at least one much more valuable defector to come.

The committee that made the decision has stronger stomachs than some, certainly. But my question is how come Reform UK Ltd either wasn't approached, or turned her away? This has to be a kick in the teeth for them.

https://youtu.be/QSDSoE6CTDM

#UKPolitics

JdeBP, to UKpolitics

Thinking about it:

The House of Lords, even after all of the reforms of hereditary peerages, the Lord Chancellor, the Supreme Court, and whatnot, since the turn of the century, still has to be one of the places in the U.K. that is by definition a bastion of Toryism.

If the House of Lords opposes one, can one in fact reasonably claim to be a #Tory?

#UKPolitics

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

The worst thing about working on another Laundry novel is that I seem to spend 75% of my working time paging through previous years' books trying to figure out precisely which events happened in what sequence and to whom, and another 50% of my time trying to find obscure minor characters I can re-use in a more advanced role, and finally 10% of my time actually writing.

JdeBP,

@cstross

So what do you do with the other 45%?

#9090Rule

adrianfry, to conservative
@adrianfry@mastodon.scot avatar

I've found it quite distressing to hear #Braverman echo Enoch Powell's 1968 "rivers of blood" speech. That kind of rhetoric has no place in mainstream politics.

Anyone who I discover has voted #Conservative after this, be they friend, family or otherwise, will be unwelcome in my life.

JdeBP,

@fkamiah17 @adrianfry

Which of Schapps's sockpuppets is supposedly this stupid?

Even I picked up on the parallels.

#EnochPowell #SuellaBraverman #UKPolitics

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

What is this "Labour Day" the Americans are nattering about on the interwebbytubes at present?

Wrong answers only, plz.

JdeBP,

@slothrop @cstross

Aha! Spotted the Hungarian! (-:

est, to random
@est@emily.news avatar

cannot believe that we taught rocks to whisper Secret Numbers so vast that their names have never before and will never be spoken again in the long span of human time, and we use them to key databases for e-commerce systems

JdeBP,

@mcc @est

Easy. Small irrelevant items, like socks and ball-point pens, are deleted.

#Windows #DiscCleanup

JdeBP, to random

I'm still re-reading the #TomClancy #JackRyan novels and the thing that keeps hitting me is how bad Clancy was at anything non-military.

There's a distinct lack of a good copy editor by the time of Debt Of Honor, too. Several times things, obviously dictated by the author, are replaced with nonsense homophones and one has to work out what the intended text was.

JdeBP, to random

I'm re-reading #TomClancy's Jack Ryan novels. Quite a lot of things have dated really badly. Of course, it's just like reading 1940s fiction in the 1980s.

JdeBP,

@cazabon

The world really has changed a lot. I'm having to clear out my collection of recorded TCM movies, and finally watched "Unlocked", a Noomi Rapace movie from 2017.

The bad guy's monologue rationale at the end has dated really badly since COVID-19.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

This is like CMOT Dibbler holding a coup against Lord Vetinari, isn't it

JdeBP,

@tokensane @cstross

Exactly. Vetinari is a reference to the Medici, which Putin is not like.

In fact, the #Discworld is the wrong place to look, as there aren't many Cold War/Soviet analogues in it.

However, #StarWars is a different kettle of fish.

This is like Lando Calrissian turning on #DarthVader for altering the deal ("Pray that I do not alter it further!").

Although a better parallel would be General Motti going after Vader for choking him in a staff meeting.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • anitta
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • GTA5RPClips
  • osvaldo12
  • love
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • khanakhh
  • everett
  • kavyap
  • mdbf
  • DreamBathrooms
  • ngwrru68w68
  • megavids
  • magazineikmin
  • InstantRegret
  • normalnudes
  • tacticalgear
  • cubers
  • ethstaker
  • modclub
  • cisconetworking
  • Durango
  • provamag3
  • tester
  • Leos
  • JUstTest
  • All magazines
    •