Rayvin

Ah fair enough. I mean it's obvious that Jones is very right wing, but I had him nearer to the Alt-Right than the Libertarians.

Alex Jones is a libertarian??

They might not need to in the Trump era. Although it's certainly clear that the US couldn't take both if it did come to that. Not without the EU. And the EU is on the ropes now anyway.

I don't think the Chinese could stand in the face of the wholesale might of the US navy, no matter their tech. Plus the US would get buy in from every other country actively resisting Chinese imperialism in that area. But I take your point - entrenched missile battery placements in their fake islands will make it difficult and it would be extremely costly for both sides. My point was more that the Chinese look concerned. This isn't a normal statement from them, to see them trying to calm things down rather than using current events for domestic bravado. It suggests that they don't fully trust that the US government won't attack them, or force their hands in something they don't want to do.

China looking concerned here - they're considered a much bigger military force than they actually are IMO. Sure if it came to land invasions they'd be able to repel anyone, but naval fights over the South China Sea, the US would win comfortably. They'll also be looking to keep a lid on domestic nationalism here. If the Chinese people see that the US is provoking them, they'll judge their government on its response. If the CCP look weak, they'll lose power. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/07/steve-bannon-china-plays-down-predictions-of-war-with-us-wang-yi I reckon the US might fancy their chances, disastrously.

I think that's quite a common problem actually. Being good technically isn't the same as being a good manager. Where things become difficult is that career progression becomes difficult once you've hit 'senior whatever' in your technical field. Then you either try your hand at management or... I dunno, stay where you are.

I'm really not trying to make a point about the virtues of private vs public, I was just lamenting NCC's incompetence. But fwiw, they hire a lot of private consultants to make up the shortfall in competence. EDIT - to be fair, private companies often do this too. As I say, the public v private argument wasn't the point.

Quiet, you.

I think the private sector is full of incompetence but that these people only rise so high. I think it's called the Peter principle. People only rise until they get found out as incompetent, and then don't go further. The need to maximise shareholder wealth ensures this to a greater degree than public sector concerns, I would guess. But look, I was just talking about NCC. I've heard similar things from colleagues working in hospitals as well, and think to myself that some manner of competent management would save a great deal of money. The problem often sounds like you have people with vested interests in resisting such change in positions of power. In the private sector, new management can come in and ride roughshod over those people. In public sector, I'd expect they can't. Peter Principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

I'm referring to Newcastle City Council only here, not that I'd be surprised to see it happen elsewhere. And it's based on nothing more than my dad's 30 years working there. The Tories made this problem infinitely worse with all the cuts; experienced people were asked to take on unreasonable amounts of work, left (quite often in large numbers), and were replaced by people beneath them who were patently unqualified to do the jobs. My dad had this issue - his department and another department were being merged - he was heading up his own department and was told he'd have to apply for the job to run both. The guy heading up the other department was told the same thing. The idea was that this would save management costs. The problem was, it was a fucking stupid idea. They were asking for a lot more work to be done and were driven only by the need to cut costs. So the fallout was that both my dad and this other guy simply quit. They had to promote someone from further down, ended up having to pay them more as well, as this guy was reluctant to take it on - and then discovered that it did need two people. So had to hire another person anyway, on a matching inflated salary. Also, they now pay my dad to consult for them at a rate higher than they would have had to if he worked there, because the two people they hired can't do the job. That would not happen in my company. Not sure about anywhere else in the private sector but it's fucking hard to imagine.

Grim stuff - in the first 5 years of the civil war, Assad hanged up to 13,000 people in secret: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/07/up-to-13000-secretly-hanged-in-syrian-jail-says-amnesty

Frankly, that's the problem with our entire democratic structure.

Aye sounds right. My dad used to work in there as a senior transport planner and gets so angry about how much the whole organisation is held back by internal politics and general incompetence. It's a shame but I can't think of any way of addrressing it. It's a systemic failure and they all close ranks to protect each other.

Thanks for that, it is interesting. You're likely right about corruption, but I think the main thing it suffers from is severe incompetence. Unqualified people rise to the top because they promote internally and don't always have the talent to do so. They make a big song and dance about needing to pay salaries that are competitive with the private sector but then don't hire enough ex-private sector employees - so you end up with a load of jobsworths running the council and desperately clinging on.

He also seems to want each event treated like it was the first one, presumably not understanding that the more frequently something happens, the less newsworthy it is. That even applies to terrorism. This whole battle with the media is really pointless from where we're standing, but I wonder if it's important for Trump in order to shore up his support. If he's not throwing counter narratives out there, presumably the MSM would wear people down over time. I can only assume that's what he's thinking. American trust in the media is at an all time low though (somewhere between 30 and 40% trust it) which suggests his methods are working. This isn't just on Trump though, it would appear that they've been falling for some time. It seems to be largely driven by Republicans. http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/14/media/gallup-trust-in-media/

I do, on the grounds that it's brought us Brexit. Prior to that, I'm not sure I would have thought that was the case.

I always liked to think of myself as just 'fair' Truth be told, I spent 3 hours in the gym yesterday for the first time in a couple of weeks to 'catch up' and I'm fucking feeling it now. The world and its problems can get fucked.

I wouldn't care if they had or hadn't, I'm simply articulating my view of the situation. Emotional needs don't come into it. The fact remains that the educated and generally younger people who voted for Remain will be the ones broadly responsible for sustaining the welfare state and supporting everyone else. Whether the Brexiters can see that or not is entirely immaterial. They've tasked us with a far harder challenge in keeping their heads above water.

Now you sound like me I'm not blind to that, but pragmatically, my statement holds. As unfair as it may be, they'd be fucked without the remainers. We'd not be fucked without them. The research in that article posits that more diverse areas voted in though - suggesting that many of the people who actually live with immigrants can see the benefits. How negatively impacted can Sunderland, with something like a 97% white population, claim to be?

That should be (but won't be) eye opening for the Brexiters. If everyone who voted Remain literally did up and leave the country, they'd be beyond fucked.

Not convinced Corbyn will see out the year to be honest. And if he goes, the whole administration goes with him. Then we're just left with whatever Labour can scrape up off the floor from there.

Nice that your put creative energies into something like that though. You should give it a look again, the board game market is resurgent at the moment, especially in the dark corners of the nerdiverse.