*** OFFICIAL BREXIT SUNLIT UPLANDS and #MEGA THREAD ***

[CoccoBill]

^A lot of the richness is affected by the whiteness, sure.

[Poopadoop]

Goddamn woke builders talking about their feelings, eating a healthy breakfast, and having an intellect! What's wrong with them? #MEGA

https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2022/06/20...ave-gone-woke/

[Poopadoop]

Wait, I thought it was Remoaners' fault! What is this woke libtard "journalist" on about?

https://twitter.com/Sime0nStylites/s...44921574182914

[Poopadoop]

Best reaction to losing an election ever.

https://twitter.com/theousherwood/st...65256902856705

cliffs for non-Brits. Woman stood in a by-election in a seat that had been Tory forever, with a huge majority in 2019. Got completely trounced (to be fair, that was mostly down to people being fed up with Johnson). Locked herself in a room for hours (presumably with a bottle of vodka) and refused to talk to anyone.

Edit: In a side dish of funny, she had "(soon to be MP)" in her twitter bio during her campaign.

[Poopadoop]

Gee, I wonder why he's not losing weight.

https://twitter.com/LouisHenwood/sta...05452058087427

[Poopadoop]

Boris spotted at G7 letting his guard down.

[MadMojoMonkey]

So that's what you bri'ish people mean by guard, these days.

[Poopadoop]

Seems Boris' current wife was caught giving him a hummer in his office while he was foreign sec. (and while he was still married to his previous wife). Meanwhile he's still our PM because no-one gives a shit anymore.

In other news, his deputy chief whip has resigned today because he apparently got boozed up last night and tried the gay with some colleagues who don't do the gay. His resignation letter began "Last night I drank far too much." Lol, what an opener.

And there's two days left in the week. This is getting to be very Trumpy.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I mean... Clinton was impeached over lying about a blowjob.

Trump got busted writing a $35,000 check of hush money to a porn star he banged while campaigning for POTUS and lied about it for months up until the actual check he signed in the amount stated was produced.

And no fucks were given.

[Poopadoop]

Earlier in the week the UK approved a bill that would allow them to arbitrarily break part of the Brexit agreement, pissing off pretty much the entire rest of the civilised world. Tues. they celebrated the first day of their new anti-protest law by confiscating the amps of a man who routinely protests against Brexit near parliament. Hummergate came on Weds., Gaytouchinggate yesterday. So obviously today Boris is going to grab van der Leyden's ass at the G7 to round the week off.

[oskar]

Seems Boris' current wife was caught giving him a hummer in his office while he was foreign sec. (and while he was still married to his previous wife).

I have a newfound respect for the man.
Say what you will but at least he went out without throwing cheeseburgers and calling for his associates to be hanged.

[Poopadoop]

Say what you will but at least he went out without throwing cheeseburgers and calling for his associates to be hanged.

He would never waste a cheeseburger.

He somehow managed to convince his party, after nearly every single one of his ministers resigned with 24 hours, to let him stay in the job until they can find a replacement. Feeling is he's plotting to buy time; he doesn't really think it's over. Sound familiar?

[Poopadoop]

Only in the UK:

https://twitter.com/Fritschner/statu...77380527673344

[CoccoBill]

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson eh. TFW I just learned he has one helluva name.

[Poopadoop]

Silence, peasant! That's our boy-king you're talking about there.

[The Bean Counter]

Today is a good day.

[Poopadoop]

yeah it's good to see him going. It's funny how he still doesn't think he's done anything wrong.

[Poopadoop]

"Clownfall" lol

https://twitter.com/MrJonDePlume/sta...71621566746627

[Poopadoop]

Leader and Deputy Leader of the Opposition just cleared of breaking lockdown rules.

https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/stat...71063554658309

Cue the ANR to go crazy on twitter.

[OngBonga]

What's the A in ANR again?

[OngBonga]

nvm I remembered, it's angry nationalist racist iirc.

So anyone watching Wimbledon? They've refused to allow Russian players to compete. Racism isn't ok, but xenophobia is fine apparently.

The argument is that Russians competing in elite sport serve as propaganda for Russia or some shit. Imagine if we said the same about, ooh let's say Afghanistan. Imagine if we banned Afghans from competing in elite sport because we want to stick it to the Taliban. People would be outraged, possible even using the word "racism" rather than "xenophobia" because, you know, Afghans aren't white.

[Poopadoop]

I personally think banning athletes because their home country is run by a cunt is a pointless bit of virtue signalling.

And you're probably right about how some people would react if it were Afghanistan 20 years ago. But they wouldn't have a race-based argument to make if it happened now because the precedent is there.

[OngBonga]

I don't even think it's virtue signalling. I'm not sure what virtue they're trying to signal. Xenophobia isn't a virtue.

All it does is devalue to competition, both in terms of competitive quality, and in terms of moral integrity. It can't be good for ratings, since at least some people turn off as a consequence (me being one of them), while I can't imagine many people will watch when they wouldn't have otherwise done so, just because they stuck it to Putin.

It's annoying, too. I want to watch it, there's a (pretend) Brit in the semis. But I feel like to watch it would be to turn a blind eye to systematic xenophobia.

[OngBonga]

btw in case you think there's a hint of hypocrisy when I use the word "pretend" to describe Cam Norrie's Britishness, it was tongue in cheek. I'm not a huge fan of people being able to just pick which country they represent, but Norrie has British parents. There's a few tennis players that choose to represent the UK, it all seemed to start with Greg Rusedski, who caused outrage in Canada when he chose to represent the UK. His reason was apparently because his gf lived here, though his Mother is British so it's not as tenuous as Konta, who was born in Australia to Hungarian parents and didn't move to the UK until she left school.

I think you should have to represent your country of birth, that of your parents, or the country you grew up in. So Rusedski, Norrie and Raducanu are all fine, while Konta I'm not so sure about.

[Poopadoop]

I don't even think it's virtue signalling. I'm not sure what virtue they're trying to signal. Xenophobia isn't a virtue

'course it's virtue signalling. Putin bad, so we won't let some kid from Magnitogorsk play in our sport.

[Poopadoop]

btw in case you think there's a hint of hypocrisy when I use the word "pretend" to describe Cam Norrie's Britishness, it was tongue in cheek. I'm not a huge fan of people being able to just pick which country they represent, but Norrie has British parents. There's a few tennis players that choose to represent the UK, it all seemed to start with Greg Rusedski, who caused outrage in Canada when he chose to represent the UK.

Not been paying attention. I remember Lennox Lewis deciding he was British even though he trained and lived in Canada for a while being a semi-story, but really most of Canada doesn't care. Maybe because we don't have a Daily Mail there.

[Poopadoop]

Been following clownfall in the papers. Naturally the Daily Mail is al "et tu Brute?", but even the Times (moderate centre-right paper) is torn between 'he had it coming' and 'stabbed in the back'

So either he's going to make an amazing comeback or Tories are going to elect a non-populist leader. Either way, they're fucked.

[OngBonga]

Haha to make a complete mockery of Wimbledon's xenophobia, Elena Rybakina has won the ladies singles. Representing Kazakhstan, she was born in Moscow. She chose Kazakhstan because they invested more money in her than Russia. Nothing to do with culture or heritage, purely economic.

Superb. Fuck you Wimbledon.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Aren't you all about sovereignty?

What about a person's sovereign right to claim allegiance to whatever nation or leader?

And who are we to judge whether their reason is good enough?

[OngBonga]

How is this about sovereignty? You guys seem to think that sovereignty means something completely different to what I think it means. For clarity, when I talk about sovereignty, I talk about a nation's right to self determination, or a country's right to govern itself. I'm talking about territorial integrity, and cultural recognition. Not an individual's desire to pick a country on a globe and say "I want to live there" or "that's who I want to represent". That's not sovereignty, otherwise everything is sovereignty. What about my sovereign right to nail every beautiful woman on the planet? It gets quite silly if we define sovereignty so loosely.

And who are we to judge whether their reason is good enough?

An observer. I have as much right to judge as anyone else does to identify as whatever nationality suits them. It's not like I'm making decisions, I'm just making the point that it's silly. If I decide to be an Uzbek, does that make me an Uzbek? No it does not.

[OngBonga]

I'm not even being critical of Rybakina. I'm basing my brief assessment of her on what I read on her Wikipedia page, I have no idea what motivated her to represent Kazakhstan other than the very brief notes on her wiki. I'm critical of Wimbledon's xenophobic policy and believe that a Russian who decided she's not Russian winning the thing is hilarious.

[MadMojoMonkey]

How is this about sovereignty? You guys seem to think that sovereignty means something completely different to what I think it means. For clarity, when I talk about sovereignty, I talk about a nation's right to self determination, or a country's right to govern itself. I'm talking about territorial integrity, and cultural recognition. Not an individual's desire to pick a country on a globe and say "I want to live there" or "that's who I want to represent". That's not sovereignty, otherwise everything is sovereignty. What about my sovereign right to nail every beautiful woman on the planet? It gets quite silly if we define sovereignty so loosely.



An observer. I have as much right to judge as anyone else does to identify as whatever nationality suits them. It's not like I'm making decisions, I'm just making the point that it's silly. If I decide to be an Uzbek, does that make me an Uzbek? No it does not.

"A nation's right to self-determination, or a country's right to govern itself" is anthropomorphizing an idea to having rights.
A nation or a country is a bunch of people in a place. Those people have the sovereignty of self-determination.
The nation or country is an idea those people believe in. It's reality exists only insofar as people believe in it.

The way I've interpreted you is that:
When you argue for sovereignty, it's those people's sovereignty that you argue for. It's those people's right to choose their state, their government. You're not arguing that the gov't of the UK has any moral right to exist, only that the people of the UK have the right to choose their own government.

How is that different than a person choosing to leave one government and hold their allegiances to another?

How would that make everything sovereignty? Sovereignty is the power of self-authority.
The power of a government comes from the will of the peoples in that government and its constituents.

Sovereignty is a human right, and that manifestation on the state level can only represent an accumulation of many human's rights.

[OngBonga]

When you argue for sovereignty, it's those people's sovereignty that you argue for. It's those people's right to choose their state, their government.

Sure, but when we talk about a "people", well, notice the grammar, I said "a people", not merely "people". The context is different. When we talk about "a people", it's a reference to a nation, or a culture, not just a random selection of humans.

Point is, you don't decide what culture you belong to. I know you're the kind of guy who believes in freedom of choice, which is awesome, but that only goes so far. I mean, I can't choose to be black, can I? So how can I choose to be South Korean?

Of course, if I spent most of my life in South Korea, me being a white European shouldn't itself be a barrier to belonging in Korean culture.

idk if this Kazak Russian tennis player has any legit cultural link to Kazakhstan, and you're right that it's not me that gets to define what is an isn't a legit cultural link, but I can have an opinion. And if this lady's wikipedia page is accurate and that she chose Kazak nationality for purely economic reasons, then in my opinion that's a tenuous cultural link. Feel free to disagree all you like, but unless you're of the opinion that I can indeed choose to be black, you have a line somewhere too.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I mean, I can't choose to be black, can I?

Black is not a culture, so I don't see how this is on topic, really.

You can choose to live with and among a culture that is predominantly black, and by that dedication be of the same culture.

You can probably get some reverse Michael Jackson surgery to darken your skin color, but IDK. I don't think that's what you meant, but the implication that Black is a culture, let alone a monolithic group of like-minded people is definitely not seeing the big picture.

So how can I choose to be South Korean?

Prob a million ways. A couple off the top of my head:
1) Learn about SK culture, fall in love it, adopt is as your own.
2) Get paid to say as much.

Whatever. It's your allegiance. I mean, I see your point that the latter seems watered down and not really about patriotism, but patriotism has never been a requirement for citizenship.

The only good thing about the US is Americans, and far from all of 'em.
I'm no patriot. That doesn't mean I'm not a US citizen. It doesn't mean my political allegiance lies elsewhere.
And none of that means I can't change my mind someday.

Of course, if I spent most of my life in South Korea, me being a white European shouldn't itself be a barrier to belonging in Korean culture.

Cool that you feel that way.
I don't see why how you feel about your own cultural identity should dictate anyone else's, is all.

idk if this Kazak Russian tennis player has any legit cultural link to Kazakhstan, and you're right that it's not me that gets to define what is an isn't a legit cultural link, but I can have an opinion. And if this lady's wikipedia page is accurate and that she chose Kazak nationality for purely economic reasons, then in my opinion that's a tenuous cultural link. Feel free to disagree all you like, but unless you're of the opinion that I can indeed choose to be black, you have a line somewhere too.

I don't know that I have a line other than whatever someone says. I'd say that as much as possible, try to treat people in the way they ask to be treated, without betraying anything about your own morals in the process. When you can't treat someone as they ask without feeling wrong about it... 99.999999% of the time, it's best to just walk away. Pick your battles and all. They're gonna be them, and you're gonna be you. If no one's getting oppressed or anything, then just live and let live, IMO.

If you want to identify as a Cherokee in the UK, that's fine with me. If you're being disingenuous about it, then there may be consequences. It's not like there isn't a long and varied history of people appropriating other cultures for their own gain. Sometimes that's seen disfavorably by history, but often times it's just seen as people learning from each other and living as a culmination of their life's experiences.

I mean... Rock and Roll was black music appropriated by white people in the US. Pretty much the same for Jazz and Blues before it. Sometimes that was pretty ugly theft of intellectual property. Oftentimes, it was just people who happen to have different colored skin in addition to the more relevant different life experiences that shared some of their better ideas with each other and learned together.

[OngBonga]

Black is not a culture, so I don't see how this is on topic, really.

Well this is debateable, there's certainly black culture, but I accept it wasn't the best example because it's certainly not a nationality.

Prob a million ways. A couple off the top of my head:1) Learn about SK culture, fall in love it, adopt is as your own.
2) Get paid to say as much.

1. Fine,
2. Not fine.

This is my opinion, not a definition. Understand that I'm not demanding anything here, just sharing my thoughts on the subject.

Citizenship isn't about patriotism, though it certainly helps. Citizenship to me is about heritage, culture and residence. I can't just declare myself to be a South Korean citizen. The South Korean government must grant me citizenship. Now, it's likely that Rybakina has been granted Kazak citizenship by their government, but why did they do that? Because she's good at tennis. Kazakhstan want elite sports players, and Rybakina wants better funding. Win-win. Legally she's a Kazak citizen, but morally? Do you think this is reasonable? I mean Kazakhstan can do what they like, but I can have the opinion that it's tenuous. By the same standard, governments around the world can dish out citizenship to whoever they like for no reason other than to improve their sporting chances. If this were to happen in football, I'd find it problematic, because it's a team game and it's arguably not fair. If, in theory, England can just cherry pick the best players in the world by giving them a passport, even when these players have absolutely no cultural link to England, that would devalue what it means to be an England player. Legitimate English players are being deprived of their chance, and countries around the world are being deprived of their best players. It completely changes the landscape when it comes to international football, basically making it more like club football. Thankfully this doesn't tend to happen, save for a few exceptions that I can't even think of. We have a Jamaican playing for England (Raheem Sterling) but he's lived here since the age of five and is very much culturally English. No problem. But if he moved here when he was 16, I'd find it difficult to accept it as fair.

try to treat people in the way they ask to be treated

I get it, and this is a good thing. But it's also problematic. People should be treated fairly. That has to come before treating people how they want to be treated. In the case of Rybakina, I can't make an argument that it's not fair for her to represent Kazakhstan, other than her dodging Wimbledon's xenophobic policy while other Russians miss out, but it's Wimbledon's policy that isn't fair, not Rybakina's nationality status. But in the case of football, there are matters of fairness.

I mean, let's say you meet someone who wants to be treated like a god. Are you going to indulge them? I'm not. I can't treat everyone like a god. This is an extreme and somewhat silly example but it shows that treating everyone like they want to be treated is not the same as treating everyone fairly. What matters most?

I'm not of the opinion you can just declare yourself to be a particular nationality. It doesn't work like that. If I want to be treated like a Japanese citizen, that doesn't make me a Japanese citizen. What makes me a Japanese citizen is government recognition, a passport. And I'm not getting that by making tenuous claims. Maybe if I were an elite tennis player I'd have a better chance. Is that fair?

[MadMojoMonkey]

It's funny because the US is so, so big. In US sports, it's totally common place for players to switch teams, move between cities, not even live in the city they play for... It's just an entertainment industry, and the tribalism of the team's home location is just part of the pageantry. Like US wrestling - but with a sense of subtlety (and dignity).

Football is an entertainment industry. The national borders are kinda just part of the rivalry-game.

I definitely get that giving people a safe outlet to play out cultural differences in games, rather than wars and politics, is a supremely healthy thing. I suppose that allowing players to transfer so readily between teams waters down that cultural release valve somewhat.

IDK. On the one hand the utility of that release valve is huge and we shouldn't treat the industry as merely "entertainment."
On the other hand... using that as an excuse to perpetuate xenophobic norms doesn't feel right, either.


"Legitimate English players are being deprived of their chance"
Those "legitimate English players" wouldn't have lost their job if they were better at it... much like their colleagues who are still on the team, I'd wager.

Can't blame the competition for the fact that you can't beat them, you know.


"I mean, let's say you meet someone who wants to be treated like a god. Are you going to indulge them?"
Depends. I will indulge said person at a party or bus stop or some limited social encounter.
If they're actually fun or funny or just a kind-hearted person with a confrontational point to make... and not a dick... then maybe.

I mean... prob. that's just one of those, "Aren't you adorably harmless in a way that's likely to get you punched by someone. Good luck with that." situations.


I'm of the opinion that life is a shit-show that feeds us all shit sandwiches for lunch and stands there tapping its foot ensuring that we eat every bite. I'm of the opinion that, as much as possible, it's really best for everyone if you don't add more shit to their sandwich. People do dumb things all the time. You and I do dumb things all the time. It's mostly fine. Just get on with what matters and don't let other people's mistakes grind you up. Deal with your personal issues and try to grow. Tearing down someone else is rarely going to help with that.

[OngBonga]

American football is totally different, in fairness. There's more or less one country in the world that takes that sport seriously. It's not like you have club level and international level competition.

Soccer (I hate using that word but I'll keep things amicable haha) is much, much different. Club football is like how you describe, with little loyalty to home city clubs, and transfers from one club to another. International football doesn't work like that. You usually represent your country of birth. You can represent other national teams if you're eligible, but that are strict rules, including not being able to switch once you've represented a nation at tournament level. As for whether you can switch from birth country in the first place, if you have a grandparent or parent from that country, you're good. If you've lived there since childhood, and obtained the necessary citizenship, you're good. But you can't just pick and choose what country you represent. Good job too, because otherwise everyone would want to represent the best countries, and that would make them even better as those countries can cherry pick the best talent. It would turn international football into club football, where money and team status rule.

Those "legitimate English players" wouldn't have lost their job if they were better at it

You're missing the point of international representation. The point isn't to showcase how good individuals are, the point is to showcase how good the country is. If English players aren't good enough, then we don't win anything, rather than find better players from abroad. That's the point.

Tearing down someone else is rarely going to help with that.

I'm not into tearing people down. But I am into equality. True equality. And I'll treat people as they want to be treated, within reason. If you tell me you're a dog, well that's fine until you want to shit in a park.

[MadMojoMonkey]

American football is totally different, in fairness. There's more or less one country in the world that takes that sport seriously. It's not like you have club level and international level competition.

Soccer (I hate using that word but I'll keep things amicable haha) is much, much different. Club football is like how you describe, with little loyalty to home city clubs, and transfers from one club to another. International football doesn't work like that. You usually represent your country of birth. You can represent other national teams if you're eligible, but that are strict rules, including not being able to switch once you've represented a nation at tournament level. As for whether you can switch from birth country in the first place, if you have a grandparent or parent from that country, you're good. If you've lived there since childhood, and obtained the necessary citizenship, you're good. But you can't just pick and choose what country you represent. Good job too, because otherwise everyone would want to represent the best countries, and that would make them even better as those countries can cherry pick the best talent. It would turn international football into club football, where money and team status rule.

You sound like everyone in the US who's not a Yankee's fan bitching about the Yankee's having the most championships because they have the biggest budget to throw at players, which gives them more championships, which gives them more money.
#angryface

The New York Yankees are a baseball team, FYI.

It's not really a "better" system by any means, I grant you.

The benefit of having an emotional alternative to wars and political aggression is good vibes.


I talked about sports teams in general, but when I said football, I meant that silly game people not in the US get all excited about and stuff. That one where you run around and run around and then if someone runs close to you, the first one to fall down and grab their leg wins.

Man, I love sportball. Get the ball in the hole! For god and country! Go sport team!

You're missing the point of international representation. The point isn't to showcase how good individuals are, the point is to showcase how good the country is. If English players aren't good enough, then we don't win anything, rather than find better players from abroad. That's the point.

I mean... I appreciate the heart of it, but isn't it really about which country has the luck of the draw to have a big population size to draw from that gives them more statistical shots at having an exceptional athlete... and then the added cream of which nation has the most money to create a quality program around those elite athletes that really supports them and helps them thrive..?

Isn't it *really* about NOT the things you said it's about... that the people of a nation are somehow different because of where they happened to be born or whether their government is full of total assholes or murderous thugs... things beyond their athleticism or ability to sportball better than the rest (gotta catch 'em all).

I'm not into tearing people down. But I am into equality. True equality. And I'll treat people as they want to be treated, within reason. If you tell me you're a dog, well that's fine until you want to shit in a park.

I'm sorry if I implied that you were tearing anyone down. I kinda went off on a minor rant there at the end, I think. I was speaking as much to myself as for myself, there.

Oh, so now where I want to shit isn't good enough for you? You tore down all the nice forests where it is good and proper to shit, and now you criticize me for finding the next closest thing to a forest within a 30 minute walk to my house? Where am I supposed to shit? In the river like some damn fish?

[OngBonga]

I mean... I appreciate the heart of it, but isn't it really about which country has the luck of the draw to have a big population size to draw from that gives them more statistical shots at having an exceptional athlete... and then the added cream of which nation has the most money to create a quality program around those elite athletes that really supports them and helps them thrive..?

No. A few years ago, England (population 56,000,000) lost to Iceland (population 345,000). China plays football and they're really not very good at it. India and Indonesia suck too.

Having a big population helps, of course, but having the right infrastructure and management team matters more. It's all in the culture. Money is a factor, but only to a certain degree. And that's less the case with other sports like cricket, which India definitely do not suck at. Plenty of poor countries have had success at football, the obvious example being Brazil. Mexico are very good too.

America sucks at football (soccer) for a very important reason... it's not a cool sport to play, so your best athletes play gridiron, baseball, basketball or hockey. Soccer is not important to Americans. So that's why such a large and wealthy country like USA sucks at soccer. American culture is focussed on different sports.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Yeah... that tracks, actually.

It's more about how popular the sport is and how much the culture venerates those athletes that excel at it.
That makes sense as the largest factor. It's not enough to produce the great athletes, you have to convince them to spend their lives playing a game. That takes a culture that loves the sport and celebrates the greats.

[Poopadoop]

BloJo had to resign as PM because he "became woke," according to Fox News analyst.

https://twitter.com/supertanskiii/st...71380422774785

[OngBonga]

We've got a heatwave coming, they're predicting 41 Celsius, our all time record is 38.7. We're not built for this. Our train lines will buckle, roads will start melting, we generally don't have air con in houses, we might even lose power, people get drunk and throw themselves in bodies of water, people flock to the beaches to get horrible sunburn, the country will basically grind to a halt.

Should be fun.

[OngBonga]

41 Celsius is 105.8 in voodoo nonsense.

[oskar]

The lack of serious climate action is completely baffling to me. When covid hit, a virus that has a 1% chance of killing you if you're over the age of 100 with a precondition, politicians were like: fuck it, we're shutting down the world!
Now it's like: ok the prognosis shows we'll be experiencing temperatures unsuited to sustain life. Should we be restrict the burning of fossil fuels to accelerate a serious switch to alternatives? Not if it means even the slightest bit of discomfort!

[Poopadoop]

The candidates to replace Johnson as PM are mostly in favour of scrapping the green policy already in place so as to boost the economy.

[Poopadoop]

I guess its' not all bad.

https://twitter.com/mrnickharvey/sta...39623779823616

[MadMojoMonkey]

I mean... Biden went to a big conference of world leaders and was all, "We need to make strong commitments to combat climate change."

Then came back to the states and was all, "I'm releasing oil from the federal reserves to keep gasoline prices low."


So you know... people are asses. Politicians more so.

[MadMojoMonkey]

41 Celsius is 105.8 in voodoo nonsense.

Thanks for clarifying. I'll get back to my dolls, now.

[Poopadoop]

Good to know she's going to re-do it all over again.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/192245...enny-mordaunt/

[boost]

I mean... Biden went to a big conference of world leaders and was all, "We need to make strong commitments to combat climate change."

Then came back to the states and was all, "I'm releasing oil from the federal reserves to keep gasoline prices low."


So you know... people are asses. Politicians more so.

Meh-- I mean, fuck Biden, but also if gas prices stay high, voters are dumb, it almost ensures republicans winning in 2024 if not also the midterms, which ensures no movement or backtracking on climate mitigating measures.

[Poopadoop]

Boris spotted missing an emergency meeting about the heat wave so he can do a photo op. And some people think he's not a good leader...

[Poopadoop]

Our taxes are paying for this shit...

https://twitter.com/tamcohen/status/1548942946275397632

[OngBonga]

Well that was the UK's third hottest day on record at 38.1, forecast says hotter tomorrow before it cools down on Wednesday. It was lovely this morning but this afternoon was oppressive, it's still 30 degrees outside and it's getting dark. Imagine living in heat like that all summer. Lots of people do, it's not like humans can't cope in that heat over a prolonged period. This is normal to billions of people. I like it for maybe two or three days but all summer? Jesus.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Ugh. Keep hydrated, friend.

If you have an electric fan and a water spray bottle, you can stand in front of the fan and spray mist over yourself and clothes for a quick bit of relief.

[Poopadoop]

I wasn't planning on buying an air conditioner, but two years ago we had a heat wave where it got almost this hot. It was 31C inside my fucking house (~87 deg. in her Majesty's farenheit). I finally broke down and got an A/C unit. It's just a small one meant for one room, but I put it upstairs and set up the fans to blow the cool air down to the ground floor. My house never got above 24C (75F) today, a little on the warm side but entirely bearable. Am thanking fuck for that A/C right now. Will be even better when we start getting 45C in 10 years or so.

[Poopadoop]

People on twitter saying we've had heat waves before, what's the big deal? It's like it will never dawn on them that global warming is real...

[boost]

People on twitter saying we've had heat waves before, what's the big deal? It's like it will never dawn on them that global warming is real...

"It's just another flu, what's the big deal?"

[OngBonga]

People on twitter saying we've had heat waves before, what's the big deal? It's like it will never dawn on them that global warming is real...

A lot of people are naturally suspicious, call it paranoid if you prefer, of governments and their agendas. That in itself is perfectly understandable, and this phenomenon went full batshit after 9/11. An awful lot of people lost their trust in the system that day and it never recovered. These are the people who are suspicious of pandemics, climate change, terrorism, wars, and everything else that makes global news. You're not going to win the trust of these kind of people by lecturing them or insulting them. All you can do is simply hope they're wrong about their paranoia and the world isn't run by elites who commit atrocities.

The problem I have with climate change is that everything I read about it comes across as propaganda, there's a political edge to it when it comes from media or government. That makes me skeptical, but it doesn't make me a denier. I'm seeing a lot of people talking about the heatwave of 1976, but I read on Wikipedia (I can't find the article and I've looked for it) that London experienced 48 degrees in the late 1800s. But such a measurement isn't accepted as a record for the simple reason it's unverifiable and potentially unscientific. Maybe that reading was taken in a heat trap, a very localised region where it's hotter than the surrounding atmosphere. Or maybe the thermometer was faulty. No way to check that now, so it's not a record. That's fine, but the idea we've never experienced temperatures like this is a statement that puts all our faith in the measurement system we have in place over time, and of course this system gets better over time. So we cannot make reliable comparisons to historical summers, even fairly recent ones like 1976. But that doesn't stop us trying, and using the results as evidence. I'm sorry but that for me is also unscientific, hence it's political.

Personally I think warming very likely is happening, and humans are very likely to be the primary cause, but there's clearly an agenda at play too. What that agenda is, fuck knows, I don't understand the nuances of social engineering, but it's a topic where public debate is shut down and we're fed red maps and numbers with tenuous context. Skeptics are roundly mocked and pushed to the fringes of society, treated like flat earthers. I could understand that if climate change was as clear cut as the shape of the earth. Of course it's not that simple. So given the complexity of the topic, and the clear propaganda and social engineering at play, I can understand why people have doubt.

[Poopadoop]

Not sure what the gov't has to gain by faking climate change. On the contrary, all of their actions (not words, but actual behavior) suggests they are being heavily influenced by big oil. "Big wind" as a lobby group doesn't exist afaik, so it's not clear who would be pulling the gov'ts strings to make them fake climate change. There's also the fact that, despite making a lot of noises about tackling climate change, they're really not doing that much. Actions speak lounder than words.

The media can of course gain clicks and viewers by being hysterical. But if climate change is real and it's bad, them exaggerating it is kind of irrelevant, except inasmuch as it fuels conspiracy theories and denial. Also, there's a lot of the media that are downplaying climate change - calling people "snowflakes" for being worried about climate change, etc..

Scientists could also be lying en masse for the sake of prestige and funding. But as a group, most scientists are pretty honest and have a fair bit of integrity. They're not like politicians. So I'd expect that when the vast majority of them agree on something, it's because the evidence is pointing to it being true.



Overall, the likelihood is that the planet is warming. There's a lot of natural variance in temperature and climate, to be sure, but this tends to occur over centuries or millenia, not decades. The current trajectory of global temperature is going upwards and there's good reasons to suspect it's down to human activity.

CO2 levels in the atmosphere have gone way up since the industrial revolution. Deforestation has happened on a large scale. Man-made chemicals have put big holes in the ozone layer. So there's plenty of reason to favour the hypothesis that it's real and not just natural variations in temperature. I'd reckon it's close to 99% likely that climate change is happening and that it's man-made. Hoping we're just experiencing the 1% that could be variance seems extremely wishful-thinkingy to me.



If climate change is real and nothing is done, we're looking at massive disruption worldwide. It's not just that we're going to have a few more hot days each summer, and those days are going to be increasingly hotter. Sea levels will rise; Miami is one coastal city that is already struggling with flooding from rising sea levels. Formerly fertile lands will turn to deserts. Fires, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters will increase in number. Basically a lot of bad shit will happen. The results could be mass starvation, migration, war, etc.. It could very well be catastrophic, and at the very least it will be a net negative change to how things are now.

If we do something though, we can start to turn this around. Yes this costs money in the short term, but in the long run it saves money. Wind is basically free energy, nuclear too (after an initial investment). Running my car on cheap electricity sounds a lot better than paying £100 every time I fill up.

It also reduces pollution, meaning less people get sick and need health care. When we had our first big lockdown I was living in the suburbs of London, close to Heathrow, and I remember going outside and noticing right away how much fresher the air was. It was like going outside as a kid in my small town in the middle of nowhere, Canada. If all our transport ran on electricity we could have that permanently, everywhere.

Even if climate change is completely down to variance and outside our control, then reducing pollution alone is worth the money in the long run imo.

So if it's real and we do nothing we're going to be fucked, whereas if we do something we can improve the planet whether it's real or not. Seems like a no-brainer to me.


p.s. It would be very surprising if London actually hit 48C in the 1800s, given that fluctuations in max. temperature tend to be in fractions of a degree - a freak 10C higher temperature is astronomically unlikely. Also pretty sure it would have caused a lot of excess deaths and been a big deal in the newspapers.

[OngBonga]

Not sure what the gov't has to gain by faking climate change. On the contrary, all of their actions (not words, but actual behavior) suggests they are being heavily influenced by big oil. "Big wind" as a lobby group doesn't exist afaik, so it's not clear who would be pulling the gov'ts strings to make them fake climate change. There's also the fact that, despite making a lot of noises about tackling climate change, they're really not doing that much. Actions speak lounder than words.

So what's the agenda? Pass the buck to us? We argue like twats about heatwaves while they continue to make a shit ton of money burning something we probably don't even need to burn?

I don't pretend to know what their endgame is. I'm simply saying that I see a lot of propaganda. And it's all talk no action. So do they really really think climate change is something to worry about?

You say we should do this and that. I assume you mean "we" in the "humans" sense, not you and me. I wash my soup tins while they send planes mostly empty so they don't have to compensate people. I can't do anything aside from hope the cunts in charge of the world are either making it up or fix it before it's too late. Frankly I don't have high confidence in either of those scenarios.

[OngBonga]

Provisional measurements say we broke our record before noon, 39.1 and rising.

[Poopadoop]

Their agenda is to virtue signal that they care about climate change while at the same time not do anything that would be unpopular with the voters in the short term and/or piss off their major donors imo.

[OngBonga]

40.2 at Heathrow

Never a big fan of readings at airports, surely they act as a heat trap.

[Poopadoop]

36C where I am.

My dog is all like "I want to go lie in the sun." Two minutes later, "fuck that, let me back in the house."

[OngBonga]

Their agenda is to virtue signal that they care about climate change while at the same time not do anything that would be unpopular with the voters in the short term and/or piss off their major donors imo.

I'd say there's a lot more corruption than this. It's not in their personal economic interests. They're invested in these companies, in the technology. The problem with wind and solar is they aren't scarce. Oil is. Scarcity is where they make money.

Of course, you can still profit from renewable energy, because even if the source is limitless, usable electricity is still scarce, it's a product created by the raw materials of sunlight and a power plant, and a service provided by a network. But you can't control the price of sunlight quite like you can control the price of oil. Oil has huge geopolitical leverage and the most powerful nations on the planet rely on that leverage.

I would think humanity is approaching the post-fossil fuel age but there's powerful resistance. How do you control the global economy in that world? If no nation is dependent on another for energy, then that radically levels the geopolitical playing field. I can see in this context why superstates of today, reliant on the leverage oil scarcity and energy dependence gives them, are in no hurry to move into the renewable age. So the corrupt politicians just jump on the gravy train and kick the can down the road.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Climate change is 100% real. Take humans out of the picture and the climate still changes. The tectonic plates move at their sub-glacial pace and change the shape of the oceans, change the direction of ocean currents, change how long a major current is near the equator or not. All of that has dramatic changes on the world climate. No one with any honest sense of curiosity could disagree. The climate changes. Fact.

Now, about 20 years ago, the data about whether or not humans were a significant cause of the current phase of warming was tenuous. However, today, while there are some tenuous conclusions out there, there is a vast wealth of evidence that points to anthropogenic global warming (AGW). I.e. human-caused climate change.

The count of carbon particulates in the air shot up during the US industrial revolution. Those particles take insane amounts of time to filter back out of the air. The boom the US and other countries had in their economies during that period was paid for with that carbon in the atmosphere. The wealth of industrialized nations was built on the back of mass-scale pollution that is still present in the air.

Historical temperature readings may or may not be accurate, and as ong said, it's hard to know which is which. However, modern analysis of ancient objects, like ice cores taken from Antarctica, allow us to draw conclusions about centuries of climate activity on the Earth using modern methods and techniques. We don't need to have been there, back then, with our modern instruments to know what the temperature was. We are clever bitches who can figure that shit out. We can't know what the temperature was in London in 1800, but we can know the average global temperatures in 1800. We can know the amount of carbon-based sediment precipitating from the air throughout history and see the massive spike that happened about 100 years ago. Clever. Indirect, but reliable measurement.

AGW is real. The evidence is overwhelming. It wasn't 20 years ago, but it certainly is today.


The news media telling us what it is and what to do about it is 100% fucked up.
The news media tends to either deny it exists in the first place or to suggest that driving less or turning off your lights when you leave a room is going to make a difference. Both are hogwash.
End-level consumer behavior is a tiny percentage of contribution to AGW. Nothing we can do in our personal lives will make a big difference. It's big companies and factories and trans-oceanic shipping using a grade of fuel so low that they aren't even allowed to burn it except in international waters, which is where they spend most of their time, anyway. Shit like that that goes off the scale of what you and I can affect by changing our behavior.
The solutions must come from politics and regulations that are going to cost businesses a fuckload of money. They're doing what they do now because it's cheap and they can get away with it. Alternatives are more expensive. That's going to piss off a LOT of people to make happen... and the political will is lacking, or at least trudging along far too slowly to matter.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Wind power is not environmentally free. The mining and processing of ores to produce the needed metals is significant. The lifespan of a wind turbine is non-infinite. There is environmental cost to everything. Wind turbines are not unique in this regard.

I mean... transitioning off of coal and other fossil fuels is inevitable. The oil will run out much sooner than people think. If not in our lifetimes, in our children's lifetimes. The amount there is, and the rate we consume it, and the fact that it's non-renewable will end this game sooner than later.

Coal is further off, but same story. All the coal on Earth was made during a 50 million year window after trees evolved lignin, but there was no bacteria or other life form that could eat lignin. So the trees fell and did not decompose, they just stayed on the ground and were eventually covered over and compressed into coal. There is no mechanism to make more coal, so it, too will run out eventually.


The question is how bad will we fuck things up before we stop using them.

[Poopadoop]

Current frontrunner in the race to replace the lying, corrupt, gravy-dribbling embarrassment that is our current PM is Liz Truss, aka "the Brains Truss." It's not meant as a compliment. Here she is getting lost on the way out of her launch event.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Unfortunately, shitty political leaders tend to be replaced by shittier political leaders.

[Poopadoop]

Speaking of climate change propoganda, looks who's writing climate change denial articles in the newspaper.

https://twitter.com/LeoHickman/statu...00917320777728

[Poopadoop]

Unfortunately, shitty political leaders tend to be replaced by shittier political leaders.

It will be hard to top Johnsonon the shitty leader scale, but if anyone can do it, the Tories can!

[Poopadoop]

Life imitating art.

https://twitter.com/benphillips76/st...68004233314306

[oskar]

What is making me feel cautiously optimistic is that I'm seeing my own mom slowly turn into the Joker over all of this. If we can radicalize boomers, maybe it's not too late yet. These mf's hate being hot.

The best I've come up with so far would be to bribe known corrupt politicians to support a green agenda. They don't care where the money comes from, right? Oil companies tend to go through legal channels of lobbying and employing the various fail-sons and daughters of the elite. You could easily outbid them with just brazen corruption.
Fail that, we simply roll out the guillotines like good old days.

[MadMojoMonkey]

The Reign of Terror, aka "the good old days."

[Poopadoop]

Pics of Oskar's mom glueing herself to an airport runway please.