Off Topic The SIR Kenny Dalglish Public House

We're closer to it being possible though. With digital technology.

I don't know many of us would be comfortable trusting internet voting for running a country yet.

Some things need to remain secret for the public's good (things you don't want Putin to know), so even in a direct democracy there would need to be a little bit hidden.

 

That's why I think a regularly changing second house picked by sorti is a good idea. Sure, not every voice is heard, but you're going to get a lot more than two or three viewpoints on every issue that way. It's a much better representation of real people.

 

Still baffles me how someone in politics can move from one job being in charge of housing to then being in charge of education then a few years later come back in charge of foreign affairs.

Get rid of all that moving people around and hire people who are actually specialists in that area.

As well as having a clear defined list of targets that your aiming to get sorted that anyone can look at to see progress and any failure has major consequences (or has to be explained if circumstances dictate, like covid etc).

Make any procurement decisions available to public information in terms of how contracts are given out (unless they are high sensitive ones). Who applied to provide ppe. Why were this company provided? Were there any potential conflict of interests that were declared… you know standard business procedures.

 

Quite.
It's not about the technology, it's about the principle. How many decisions do governments make? How could everybody even have their say in everything, never mind exercise due diligence in investigating all the relevant factors needed to arrive at an informed and unbiased decision?
Never gonna happen.
The public making decisions on things that they are ill-informed about, prejudiced over, and/or have no interest in would be a complete disaster. Not to mention manipulation by the media, which is already bad enough.

The current system is dire, but at least there is the potential to improve it, direct democracy would be totally unworkable.

 

Already the case. The named MP is just the go to person that relies or directs the information, they rely on specialists feeding them the data just like Boris supposedly did during the pandemic

 

Thanks. It's ****ing pissing down here thanks to you ****s

 

I agree to a point. I always think that ministers are there largely to maintain the illusion of democracy while most of the actual work is done by career civil servants.
However, ministerial changes do often lead to policy changes so they obviously have influence. Truss and her minions are taking a different approach to Boris's Bunglers. Just as incompetent and out of touch with the people of course, but with added nastiness.

 

there are specialists. civil servants.

The Minister is only a department head (and i'd call it that loosely) and a talking head.

The real work is done by mandarins.

The poltiticans never set targets as they don't want to be judges on them. not real targets anyway. lots of promises in manifestos.

I agree on procurement. That needs oversight and the usa use their senate for an amount of that. we have a house of inbreds called lords.

 

Wouldn't be the same system. Blame that one on the Canadians.

Cold here today... Real strong winds won't start for us for several hours yet. Been a number of years since we've had a hurricane (well not really hurricane by time this far inland) hit us directly.

 

They keep the country out of the far red and into the orange.

 

12 hrs till centre of storm hits me... Just saw a 40' tall spindly oak tree bend all the way over so it's crown touched the ground.

I can see how my weekend will be spent now... Cutting up trees that fall. There will be quite a few.

 

Regarding the £, just got this headline in my Google News feed:

The British Pound has fallen so much that instead of buying a Rolex in the US, it’s actually cheaper to fly first-class from New York to London, buy the watch, stay in a 5-star hotel and fly back.

Personally I think it's still too expensive. My Dad bought me my Rolex from a man in a market in Paris in the early 90's. He said it was only about £5. Although with inflation that's £10 today.

 

How are you and Ian getting on? Hope everything's ok.

 

Yeah, it ended up not being too bad for us. Storm ended up being no worse than any big summer storm by the time it got to us... Helped it did end up veering to the east of us, unlike it's one time plot that was putting the centre going right through our house.

Haven't taken my son back to university yet. Charleston is trashed since it hit close to there. Hopefully the University buildings are still standing.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-63114568

nobody has posted on this.

another case of over zealous cops causing mayhem at football. I don't know what started the pitch invasion but the mass panic that followed was caused by cops showering people with tear gas. the damage to railing, bent by sheer force of numbers crushed is sickening.

Police chief was fired immediately and there doesn't look to be too many making a cover up here.

 

must admit haven’t read too much about it. Saw tear gas was used by police which seems massively excessive. No idea what caused the initial problems though. Horrible looking at some of the headlines and small quotes over it though. So many people dead.

 

According to one person on that article, Seems like a few fans ran into pitch at end of the game (no excuse for this…) but that then prompted a massively over the top reaction from police using weapons and as more fans ran onto the pitch to then protest the police action and at that point they fired the tear gas into the stands which caused the panic.

If that is what happens then 2 things, shows why pitch invaders need to be handed proper fans and really stamped out. But also shows the police there just massively heavy handed and need a hell of a lot more training jn how to deal with situations like that. Firing it into supporters in the stands doesn’t seem to make any sense as common sense says those that weren’t invading the pitch will then try get away from the gas anyway possible.

 

So, Kwasi does a U-turn on his aid for struggling rich people plans.
A change of heart by a conscientious politician who sees that he may have been a little rash...
... or a realisation by his party that his plan was a vote-killer that would definitely lose them the next election.
You decide.

Redolent of Truss' retraction of her statement that huge profits for energy company shareholders aren't in the least immoral just because millions of oiks are wondering how to survive the winter.

 

Can't read any of this lot any longer. I can't even watch the news, saint. It all makes me feel physically ill.

 

Over many years I have analysed, in great detail, the actions of politicians of all parties when they are running the country. I have used bar charts, pie charts, spreadsheets, analytical software, tea leaves, crystal balls, etc. Having reviewed my findings I can confirm...........none of them have a f*cking clue how to run a country and 90% of them are in it for their own ends!