coprolite

There are like three cause celebre examples of people losing their jobs for political incorrectness that always get brought up and bandied about. I don't think that should happen and it is fair to complain when it does. I think the usual examples are all from US academia, and there is no evidence it is widespread. There is plenty evidence (a stammering buffoon in downing Street for example) that expressing racist views is no problem at all for your employment prospects and is generally socially acceptable.

Thanks for the details. I'm a bit unclear as to the scope of your proposals. You start by referring to "political programmes". I would usually understand that to refer to a self contained scheduled slot on traditional broadcast media (tv or radio) which has "politics" as its main subject matter. Is that correct? If it is, then i can't see how that applies to history programmes, school texts or social media posts. Do these different media (or different subject areas) require separate algorithms? Or is the scope of your proposal limited to "political programmes" Or have i misunderstood?

We can talk about anything, more or less. People should be free to express their contempt for certain views which they find objectionable without being accused of shutting down debate, cancelling or being against free speech. People are treated as pariahs for holding left wing views, both economically and socially. Maybe not on here but this forum is only a very tiny part of the world. Look at the hounding Corbyn took. The right is generally in power everywhere significant so trying to pretend that the right are some oppressed minority without a voice is disingenuous and a little insulting.

There isn't just one left/right spectrum. If, like myself and other grown ups you view the scale as a description of economic views, there has been a clear shift to the right. State ownership, even of natural monopolies and failed industries, is regarded as a loony far left idea. Union membership is practically a historical curiosity. Nobody even mentions full employment as a policy goal. Corbyn's manifesto was comparable to an 80s SDLP one but laughably called far left. If however you view left/right as a cultural thing, then there probably has been a bit of a shift to the left, what with the gay marriage, racism becoming taboo etc. I think that to some degree, both of these shifts are linked to a decline in the influence of the church. I think that's a good thing in itself, because religion is an abdication of intellectual responsibility. On economic left right issues, although i disagree with a lot of the rights views i can at least respect them. On cultural left/right issues i can't see where the right is coming from at all usually.

Not enough discussion of the pros of animal cruelty on here.

Difficult to critique something that is hard to understand. How does "equal voice" happen? What media does it apply to and how? Who is the gatekeeper and what checks are there on their power? How do you think the following should play out under your rules: A historian, lets call him David, doesn't believe in the holocaust and wants a series on the bbc to explain this to everyone. The Christian parents association demands that Intelligent design is taught in biology and in response the school wags request that FSM is also included. Steve of Essex thinks there are too many people of asian origin in the UK and starts a "send them back" campaign on twitter. I think that your faith in people to select and agree with "correct" opinions is touching but misplaced.

I don't think you've mis-identified a problem. I pretty much share your intuition that it's harmful for a wealthy people to have disproportionate influence on some media. I do think that the way you've framed your understanding of both the problem and potential solution is too broad in scope, too imprecise in your language and too vague to be of any practical use in understanding or remedying the problem. One measure that could help by reducing inequality of wealth in the first place is a global wealth tax. I found Piketty's arguments for this persuasive, even if his methodology was controversial.

Didn't even know there was a second book. I think i might be a nerd because the bits i remember most were the science bits, frog DNA and rants about chaos theory etc. Just realised it must be about 30 years since i read it and now i feel old.

The basic plot and most of the characters are the same aren't they? I remember reading the book and thinking how great a film it would make. I don't remember that they changed much. I'm sure i heard that Michael Crichton primarily writes stories that will convert to films. I wonder how many other writers do this. Jurassic Park was basically a re-write of Westworld which had already been a moderately successful film.

I was speaking about you not to you. It's very bad manners to interrupt.

Yeah, it's a slightly advanced version of a toddler asking "why?.... Why?...." to every answer they get until you eventually stop playing and tell them to stop it. Then they go "why?" and laugh at you for being irritated by their juvenile shit. In fact it's not all that far advanced from that.

Sandy's chipper is also the generally accepted originator of the deep fried mars bar supper, so there's blue plaque level heritage and culture there. Is it too late for it to enter?

You've implied a causality from a correlation between power and "prominent voice" and treated that as axiomatic. Maybe it’s at least partly true that power can derive from a "prominent voice" as it was in the bolsheveik revolution, to take one high profile example. Your definitions haven't exactly helped clarify the issue that you're looking for an answer for. In particular your definition of "heard" still suggests that you would mandate something based on the reception of a message rather than, for example, providing a platform to publish on. There are for sure some aspects of regulation of some forms of media that i'd change, but i can't specify any rules that could reasonably apply to any situation in such a complex system at least not without taking months, probably years. The fact that you are asking such a broadly scoped question so glibly strongly implies that you've not put any work into understanding what you're taliking about.

It's exciting seeing a genuine young prospect coming through and ideally i'd like him to stay and help us win stuff. He might get crocked or not improve but he might be great. I'd rather he was great with us I can however accept pur place in the pecking order and that it makes sense for the club to sell if the price is right. The 25% of any fee or whatever that makes it back into the playing budget will be some comfort, but it's weird to me seeing fans aspiring to sell our most talented players. I expect i'll get called "yer da" for this.

Evidence is it? You first Oswald.

That quote is from a case where the little racist shite had claimed police harrassment and his claim was found to be baseless. A decision which directlt contradicts your assertion that he was targeted by the authorities. It also contains an explicit and direct contradiction from a judge as to your second and third contentions. In that she makes a statement about his limited popularity. I thought that the fact that she also noted that his supporters over-rated his importance was useful to understand your perspective as to why you might have thought a trivial little lager lout with a minor social media profile was some sort of existential threat to the establishment. As for your "playing the man" bollocks, it is always important to understand the motivation behind the bare words being used. You have revealed racist sympathies in the past and have again now. Ad Hominem may be a logical fallacy and a good reason for discounting an argument in a stricy logical context but we're not in that context. As an heuristic, ad hom can be perfectly servicable for many situations, including making a decision as to whether to view your posting as the fearless questioning of an enquiring mind or the contrarian trolling of a stupid loser.

A judge said “Mr Lennon’s complaint was that he had done nothing wrong and that he didn’t need to be moved on, that he was being singled out and moved on because of who he is. “That is not in my judgement is the case. Mr Lennon is not as well known as he or his supporters might think." Not at all surprised at you outing yourself as a credulous EDL fanboy.

The authorities don't "target" him. His message resonates with a handful of moronic throwbacks, not "ordinary people" He isn't any threat to any established order. Apart from that you're absolutely spot on.

A question that large and nebulous can't have a single short answer. An attempt at a satisfactory answer would probably run to tens of thousands of words. Your question pre-supposes that there can be an approach to deciding "what views are heard". It also implies that there should be a policy of that type. Neither of these things are immediately and universally obviously true. Assuming that it is possible and desirable to have such a policy, what do you mean by each of "views", "decide" and "heard"?

On the rare occasions we go to the shop together i leave her on the way in. She goes of to look at shite. I get the shopping. In the car on the way home, I smile and nod while she tells me about the shite she looked at. Couples in shops are invariably ailse blocking arseholes.

I thought i should give this a proper read because i've been snarking at the first section only. The rest of it is even more batshit. In summary a random selection of people who self nominate for an assembly will vote on everything they propose (plus some stuff petitioned by the people). Then they'll discuss it. All written in a lawerly style popularised by philidelphia's premier bird lawyer. I would change almost all of it and i think it's a terrible idea. You did ask.

I don't, why should i? The question of how "the media" should present opinions depends heavily on context: what media? What subject? For what purpose? My hairdresser told me that Brexit was a good idea because "it's about time someone did something about the muslims". You suggest that her stupidity should be given equal weighting in the press to Jonathon Portes view that there is little empirical evidence for immigration suppressing wage levels across the economy. Should the respected scientific journal Nature be forced to give equal weighting to a paper on covid vaccine efficacy and my daughters' opinion that Tom Holland (aka Peter Parker aka Spiderman) should not have grown his hair longer? There may be many flaws with how evidence is presented to and evaluated for the public. I don't think you've proposed a solution. I don't think you've got close. The BBC is a live example of how a mandate for impartiality can be abused to frame debates and how a failure to challenge bullshit views has harmful results. I'm thinking of austerity here but that applies to climate change and brexit too.

Home Alone, Home Alone 2. The first is a bona fide classic. Some of the burglars mugging is a bit OTT for my sophisticated tastes but the big set piece finale of cartoon violence is hilarious. 9/10 I'd never seen the two so close together before and hadn't appreciated how much of a scene for scene remake it actually is. Substitute shop staff and pizza boy for hotel staff, creepy old man for creepy old lady, change some locations, done. The finale lacks panache and the taller one continually squeaking "harry" was getting on my tits. The bit where he repeatedly got bricked in the face was good though. Not bad exactly but not as good and quite pointless. 6/10, but minus one for giving Trump a cameo, 5/10.

We could persuade Dr Gunther to collaborate with the animatronic boffins at Industrial light and magic so that Lizzy can continue to appear.

This is a good example of why not all opinions should be listened to. Absolutely incoherent drivel. You wrote that constitution thingy didn't you?