GBR48 comments

What they should have done, when Biden was elected, was choose half a dozen promising Democrats for four years of PR and promotion, to see which would be the best option to run for the next election. And they could have been younger, to play the youth card v Trump.

Instead they did, um, pretty much nothing. That's if anyone does actually run the Democrat party.

So now their best option is for Harris to do what she would have done as VP, if required, and step up to the plate. Biden could switch to a running mate role if he wanted.

They were arrogant with Hillary Clinton. This time they have just been lazy. The progressive/centrist split is being leveraged by Netanyahu, but it is more damaging to see them split over something as basic as Biden running. It does Trump's work for him.

After dreadful performances, England finally played some football in the first half, before the Dutch tweaked their tactics and things got cagey.

The refs haven't been too bad, but Germany should have had a penalty v Spain, and England shouldn't v the Dutch. That simply wasn't a foul.

Kane can take a penalty better than most but he is starting to look like a passenger for the rest of the game. Not sure why. He's been banging them in for Bayern. He's going to have to make more space for himself and any passes are going to have to be perfect for him.

Knocking the ball around in a semi-circle looking to go through a crowded defence requires more precision, and they need to use the wings more. Saka was their best player in the previous game, Foden in this one.

Watkins has been a goal machine For Villa. That was a super strike. And Foden nearly matched Yamal's.

England remain very vulnerable at the back and will need to tighten up v. Spain. They will need subs before the very last possible minute. They have been lucky. Luck only takes you so far in a tournament.

I have no problem with AI scraping my posts. I like to think it will improve the tech, which would be a public benefit.

But given the nature of so much web 2.0 content, I'm not sure you will get a reliable AI out of it. You may want your kids to study at Oxbridge. You probably wouldn't want them to study at the University of Facebook.

quote: We are convinced that this regulation will be a genuine game changer in the global fight against deforestation.

Nope. Faced with not being able to obtain basic stuff, EU companies will have to fake the paperwork or launder their imports through third parties, as Putin does his fossil fuel and China does when importing sanctioned tech.

It all adds cost, so everything will go up, inflation will increase, and interest rates will be jacked up. And the next time the big nations go to the polls, an angrier, poorer and even more disillusioned electorate may finally plump for the populists.

You can, hand on heart, want to do the right thing. But it comes at a cost, and that cost has real world consequences for livelihoods, economics and political stability. Push harder than is viable, and the unintended consequences will bury you. There is no joystick for the EU to wiggle that will stop deforestation. It requires a long term reduction in poverty and the corruption it fuels in the global south. You cannot do that just by wrecking supply chains in Brussels.

Such sites are useful, but don't assume that you will enjoy something that someone else did. We are all looking for different things on holiday.

No. Because I don't text, and I don't use abbreviations in e-mail. Any decline in my textual performance is down to my age and eyesight.

Voters chose the Fifth Republic over a Fourth Reich, but the left and centre right have to get on together and make it work.

Plus Macron's lot have just lost two elections - the first to the right, the second to the left. What sort of mandate is that?

Whilst it is always nice to see nationalists lose, there may be too many egos and too few grown adults to maintain an anti-fascist alliance.

quote: peace, abundance and health.

All of which have been conspicuous by their absence recently. It's a toss up whether WW III, climate change, poverty, famine or Covid II will polish us off. No great incentive to have children there. People don't plan for a future that they no longer believe they will have.

The lack of affordable properties in European cities - which have always been full of tourists - is due to governments being too lazy and too tight to build them for the last few decades. Instead, they now scapegoat tourists. Owners of such properties need to get them on the market now before they get filched by the state. The value of them will likely decline, so sell now rather than later and don't waste your money on lawyers.

There are loads of nice places to stay in Spain. Just avoid Barcelona. Then they will be happy and you'll be safe.

Too much global agriculture is done on the cheap. Farmers burn rainforest and get good crops for a few seasons from the rainforest soil and the ash from the burning. The nutrients are then depleted, so they burn more rainforest. Without the tree cover, soil is eroded, and then poisoned with agricides flogged by Western regimes to corrupt governments looking for a quick fix. Crop residue burning drives up emissions and pollution levels, damaging air quality, but nothing is done to stop it.

As any gardener or farmer knows, the key to a good crop lies in your soil, but soil isn't sexy enough for activists, who are busy demanding bans on plastic, social media and anything else they don't like.

It's not just the global south either. Most G7 countries have rubbish water management, with sewer systems that date from the nineteenth century, decaying, inadequate dams to store water during heavy rain, and no national infrastructure to move water around during droughts or soak parched land to prevent fires. Lagoons are not being built fast enough to protect against flooding, even though they would tick so many boxes for improving biodiversity at relatively little cost.

We know what we need to do, but governments would rather spend money on military gear than building a habitable future.

Most of my PCs have been assembled from cheap 'OEM' parts. Most of my laptops and Macs have been second hand. Just max out the RAM and get a new battery. For free/low-cost software, check out LibreOffice (Works package) and IrfanView/VLC Media Player (Media).

Ignore the 'AI' gimmickry and associated moral panic. Learning to assemble and fix your own PC is a good plan. If you don't connect it to the net, you can use a low cost older or retro system purchased second hand with software on physical media (Word, Excel, a Works package). It's the stuff everyone cheerfully used for years. It still works fine. For security, use something up to date such as your mobile phone/tablet to connect to the net, moving data between the old and the new on a memory card. Don't buy a mobile device that doesn't have a memory card slot - you will not be able to remove your files from it should you need to get it fixed.

The first things to fail in a PC are usually the power supply (PSU) and coin-shaped CMOS battery on the motherboard. Both are easy fixes. Many supposedly 'dead' retro Macs only need a new motherboard battery as they won't boot without one. PCs will, but will not retain the date. Keeping your data on an external hard drive will make life easier for you, if your system has problems.

Chromebooks are essentially laptop terminals and most geeks wouldn't consider one, but they are useful in education and for those with limited IT skills. Hopefully the Raspberry Pi folk will ignore AI and knock out a cheap 'turn on and go' PC or laptop built around the Pi. It would dramatically bring down the cost of mainstream computing. You can of course build your own.

Linux (an operating system alternative to Microsoft Windows) isn't as bad as it used to be and some of the versions ('distros') aren't too dissimilar from Windows.

That should say 'what's left of London's financial district'. A sizeable chunk of it is in the US and EU now.

The Tories did more damage to the UK economy than anyone else since WW II. Now, after Brexit, there isn't much left to break.

Most extracurricular activities don't require referees. We played football every break and lunch time all the way through school. We never needed a referee. Kids are good at organising themselves.

Reform pulled more than disaffected Tories to his ranks. It went from zero to surprisingly large numbers of votes in a matter of weeks, and won seats. Farage is a populist like his chum, Trump. If Labour activists replace Starmer with Kahn and it moves to the left, Labour's vote share will decline and Farage will make a play to replicate Trump's rise to power. A populist opposition leader is difficult to counter, as France, Holland and Germany are discovering.

The Tories got into power on the back of their Brexit lies. But the reality of Brexit - its consequences - couldn't be hidden. That buried them. Although the BBC hardly mention Brexit. Maybe a D-Notice, maybe self-censorship.

Indicative of the lack of talent and ability in British politics, the Tories deliberately politicised the relatively small number of 'small boats' migrants - even though they were only ever going to fail at stopping them. Local BBC TV stations then targeted the issue, stirring up hate against the migrants with daily reports. Many of them were dumped into seaside hotels, off peak, by the government. It isn't a coincidence that Reform won seats in seaside towns.

Starmer will have a short honeymoon period, as the UK economy, currency, services, healthcare and transport have all been broken by Brexit and cannot be fixed. Tory policy was pretty much scorched earth. And Labour activists will do anything they can to replace him with Kahn, as soon as they can.

We all die somewhere. He just picked somewhere with lots of transience and where lots of people sleep. If you are nearing your end, it's not a bad plan. Better than passing away at home, alone, and not being found until weeks or months later. RIP.

Governments might want to join the dots. Tariffs increase costs and prices, and make people poorer. The poorer they are, the more likely they are to vote their government out.

The key element in modern democracies is the number of people who do not vote, for varying reasons (many of them good ones - most politicians and parties don't merit a vote of support). That means the election is fought by those electors with an axe to grind. Populist agitation will always work well when people are disenchanted and stimulate more people to get out and vote for extremists. There is every chance France will get a neo Nazi leaning party making decisions for its citizens. Germany too is seeing a similar resurgence. And even Holland, which suffered so much from the original Nazis. Brexit everywhere, with similar consequences to 'broken Britain'.

A lot of the blame for this sits with the sitting regimes - people like Macron, refusing to go after alienating everyone, and rafts of hopeless, hapless, ideology-first policies that cost people money and damaged their lives. It's not difficult to win at politics, but you do have to be at least competent.

If the neo Nazis do get in, they will not be repatriating all of those immigrants. Because you can only do that when you have the agreement of the nation that you are repatriating them to. Countries like Rwanda will take some as outsourced camps, but it will cost you more money than it does to patriate them and let them work. And the loss to the economy of the labour will see the key services people rely on decay, as they have in the UK (health, transport, childcare, retail, hospitality, agriculture, education). G7 economies are built on easy access to motile and seasonal labour. Take it away and it is amazing how fast everything goes to hell. And no, locals will not replace them. That man in his 'handsome stone home' who just wants his nice life to continue. He will need to learn to start doing things for himself, as there really won't be any of the staff any more that currently support his lifestyle.

Criminalising immigrants will see organised crime exploit them as cheap labour and foot soldiers. Then things will really kick off as gang fights over turf spill over into the public sphere and the police fail to cope.

Traditional parties have already had a go at the 'war on migrants', exploiting covid to repatriate them, and then block them with visa rules. It didn't work. It just damaged the economy and saw services decline.

It's a really bad idea to stir up a hornet's nest of race hatred and Islamophobia just to get elected, because when you get into power, you will have no workable solutions for the things you promised to fix, plus the increased expectations, and the fallout from the damage your persecution of vulnerable people causes. In the UK, the Tories are going to get wiped out because, although they were able to lie their way to victory promising a post-Brexit Utopia, the reality of 25% off Sterling, a broken economy, broken services and rampant inflation was impossible to hide. So if the neo Nazis do get it across Europe, it will end badly, quite quickly. Hopefully before they start WW III.

Steel plants are switching to electric arc furnaces to lower emissions. These recycle old steel but cannot make virgin steel from raw materials. They also require thousands fewer workers. Combined with bans on imports of virgin steel from China, this would limit steel production and use in the West.

Make the majority of your citizens happy. Stay in power.

Damage the lives of a majority of your citizens. Get kicked out.

Politics isn't that difficult.

Xenophobia never ends well.

The UK government are doing the same thing - reducing foreign students. But those students were subsidising the domestic students, so now UK uni funding is broken, departments are closing, courses are being axed and academics are being fired. That is costing domestic students their chance of a degree.

With the UK and Aussie unis being downgraded, Japan has an opportunity to get more of its unis up the league table.

Shouldn't you all be writing 'thank you' notes to the government for comprehensively beating Japan's greatest enemy, deflation.

The last few years have been punishing for people. They want rid of those that have been governing them so badly. Wise leaders bow out and offer voters a different leader from the same party to vote for (a common feature of Japanese politics). Not Macron (or Trudeau in Canada). Both clung on, despite having lost support. Macron has alienated almost every section of French society. His party really needed him to retire, but he stuck around to poison his own party's chances.

The UK is out of step with the EU because it had a right wing government when the EU had a centre left one. Brexit damaged the UK far more than EU leaders damaged their countries, so instead of a reduction in power, they will get wiped out. This indicates how much this is not really a right-wing or left-wing surge, but anger against the failing, sitting regimes. Unfortunately, with a soon-to-be centre left UK no longer in the EU, the EU may find itself to be increasingly a collection of right wingers. Nationalist parties may traditionally be antagonistic towards the concept of a federal EU and find it difficult to get along with other nationalists - the people they would normally blame when scapegoating. But by all scapegoating migrants, specifically muslim ones, and other minority groups, they may feel that they have enough common ground and enough power to make the EU work for them as a new pan-European Fourth Reich.

TL;DR: Move to Canada before it all kicks off again.

If they want people to go to the shops using electric power rather than a an ICE, they are going to have to make stuff like this easier to use. You won't get a family shop home on an electric scooter, but you might in one of these.

Political targets are just part of the theatre and can be ignored. The real problem comes when US sanctions end imports from China and the EU has no alternatives. We can have a green transition or a new Cold War with sanctions and trade blocks. But not both. And given that increased environmental regulations are now being used to stop housebuilding, solar farms, turbines and some farming, there is no chance of opening large mines.

Biden is 81. What do you expect? If you want a 'spark' nominate someone younger. At 81, how well would you all do in a 90 minute debate under TV lights. Did he have to stand for it too? They've had plenty of time to find someone younger.

quote: Anyone over age 35 born in the US can run for US President. ANYONE.

Really? So the Republicans couldn't find anyone better suited under the age of 78 and the Democrats couldn't find anyone better suited under the age of 81.

Doesn't look good for the future, does it?

To misquote the Orange One, build a roof.

The temperatures you see on weather bulletins are recorded in controlled circumstances, inside a Stevenson screen.

Some years ago, 'wind chill factor' was added to cold temperatures, so people would take more care.

The same should now be done, adding 'sun burn factor'. You will experience a much higher temperature than the official temperature, if there is no cloud, and you are not in shade.

I commonly record outdoor temperatures over 40C when the official temperature is below 25C. I need to record what my plants are experiencing, which is what people are experiencing.

The difference between these two is the difference of temperature you will experience in shaded environments.

So build shade in cities. Trees are good but planners fear tree roots. Maybe canopies that unfurl when there is no cloud.

You can also paint your roof white, have thicker walls, block the sun from windows, and keep them closed if the outdoor temperature is higher than the indoor one. Air conditioning grids may also be created, allowing people to pipe centrally cooled air into their homes whenever they need it.

There is loads of stuff we can do in new builds and with clever retro-fitting.

Don't hold individual citizens of a nation responsible for the behaviour of their leaders unless you are happy to be held responsible for the behaviour of the leaders of your country. Individuals have no say in government policy and should not be punished for it.

This sort of situation initiating change may be the only way of changing things for ordinary Japanese people.

An enforced reversion to a pre-Industrial society is not politically viable. So innovation is our best option. Many of these technologies are game-changing parts of the future. Or even the present - harvesting water from atmospheric vapour has been happening for a while, supporting agriculture. Tech has made everyone rich on a VC basis (that is with an expectation of a high failure rate). So there is no reason to shy away from experimental green tech, even if some of it seems a bit Laputan.

Left to their own devices, politicians couldn't bake a cake, never mind save the planet. They are more likely to speed climate change with wars. This stuff will have to be done by the private sector. Let's hope we have enough billionaires willing to fund it.