rifleman

I'm personally amazed that he chose Charles, given the chequered history that has befallen previous kings of that name.

The anti "woke" folks have been at it a long time and spouting similar themes to today. Clip from a newspaper (1860):

“I’m not arguing there are no decent people in the Tory party but they're like sweetcorn in a turd; technically they kept their integrity but they're still embedded in shit” - Iain Banks

Seen on a FB group - If you want to go on a camping trip, to a state that welcomes camping, I will happily drive you and never talk about that camping trip to anyone.

Welcome to Gilead. "Blessed Be The Fruit."

Senate votes in favour of bi-partisan gun control bill It seems that politicians, at least in the Senate, are less concerned with owning the other side and more concerned about working together to reduce the number of mass shootings.

I wish. Here in the UK we're about to hit £10 per gallon ($12.30).

Interesting twist in the tale. Article 16 of the agreement between the UK and Rwanda obligates the UK to take an equivalent number of vulnerable Rwandan refugees back to the UK in exchange for the deportees. No decrease in the number of refugees entering the UK, just a refugee exchange program that's going to cost UK taxpayers millions of pounds.

The greatest threat to the UK public comes not from brown people fleeing war and persecution, but from over privileged, over educated, emotionally stunted public schoolboys who are pissing on them and telling them it's raining.

The simple answer is cronyism. The company with responsibility for assessing asylum claims is InfoSys, a company based in Kigali and mainly owned by Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy, an Indian businessman and father-in-law to the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak.

Generally, if someone is coming to the UK as an economic migrant they will have applied for entry prior to leaving their home country, will have a job already lined up and letters from their employers and sponsors to show as proof. Most of the people crossing the channel are not economic migrants but refugees and asylum seekers, fleeing either unsafe conditions (war, famine etc) or persecution (political, religious or because of their sexuality). The definition of a refugee according to The 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees is:“A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”In the UK, a person becomes a refugee when government agrees that an individual who has applied for asylum meets the definition in the Refugee Convention they will ‘recognise’ that person as a refugee and issue them with refugee status documentation. Usually refugees in the UK are given five years’ leave to remain as a refugee. They must then must apply for further leave, although their status as a refugee is not limited to five years. Refugees certainly aren't coming here for a "soft touch". They're not allowed to work and most are given £40.65 per week to cover all their day to day expenses (food, toiletries, transport etc). If they're given accommodation it will usually be in a hostel or some other poor standard housing (including ex-military camps that have been classified as unfit for human habitation). There is no such thing as an ‘illegal’ or ‘bogus’ asylum seeker. Under international law, anyone has the right to apply for asylum in any country that has signed the 1951 Convention and to remain there until the authorities have assessed their claim It is recognised in the 1951 Convention that people fleeing persecution may have to use irregular means in order to escape and claim asylum in another country – there is no legal way to travel to the UK for the specific purpose of seeking asylum The 1951 Refugee Convention guarantees everybody the right to apply for asylum. It has saved millions of lives. No country has ever withdrawn from it. The UK's social and medical services are being overloaded, not by brown people fleeing war or persecution (usually from countries where the UK has been involved militarily - Iraq, Afghanistan - or from places where we've sold arms to countries such as Saudi Arabia who then use those weapons to bombard civilian populations in countries like Yemen) but by systematic and chronic underfunding of those services by successive governments. The UK only accepts 0.026% of all the world's refugees with 86% being offered sanctuary in countries close to their country of origin. If refugees were allowed to work while their claim for asylum was assessed they could make a massive contribution to the economy and society of the UK: About 1,200 medically qualified refugees are recorded on the British Medical Association’s database. It is estimated that it costs around £25,000 to support a refugee doctor to practise in the UK. Training a new doctor is estimated to cost between £200,000 and £250,000 and takes between 5 and 7 years to qualify as a junior doctor.

Under the proposed new immigration legislation, anyone who arrives in the UK that the government doesn't like, is likely to find themselves with a one way ticket to Rwanda.

My belief is that ready and easy access to guns is a major problem, as is the cultural mindset that, influenced by John Wayne et al, every problem can be solved by a "good guy with a gun". There's also an awful lot of talk about rights, but not a lot of lip service paid to responsibilities concerned with owning firearms. The US won't let people drink until they're 21 but will quite happily let them buy a gun with no oversight at 18. How about enforcing the same standards across the board? I'm not saying that mental health is the be all and end all of the problem by any means but it doesn't help in a society where mental ill-health is stigmatised, and it costs a small fortune to get treatment. Mental health breakdowns very rarely happen instantly, there's usually a build up over a few days or weeks that culminates in the crisis. Early intervention may prevent an incident saving lives but any crisis isn't helped if a person can lay their hands on a gun and ammunition with ease.

I asked this question in another thread but it seems appropriate to repeat it here: How much of the current trend towards gun violence, particularly school shootings, can be attributed to the lack of universal healthcare (and ready access to free mental health services) in the US? Here in the UK, we have a single payer, universal healthcare service where a person can self-refer for mental health support if required. We have organisations that actively campaign to destigmatise mental health issues and raise awareness of support networks and also have a charity supported scheme to train people in Mental Health First Aid. From the site of one provider: "They are trained to spot the early signs of mental ill-health in others. They are taught to confidently signpost someone to appropriate support, both internal and external, and they are equipped to deal with emergencies too - such as psychosis, thoughts of suicide, or attempted suicide." Many workplaces now have Mental Health First Aiders alongside regular First Aiders, providing support to colleagues who are feeling the stress caused by COVID, the cost of living crisis and workplace related problems.

Soviet

Apparently, a Danish company has been working on a product called Violette, a firearms system that uses a small amount of propane mixed with air. This simulates the bang and flash of a firearm. The company approached Hollywood about 5 years ago but companies liked the product but weren't interested in investing in their development. https://youtu.be/QSKq-_JvYEc

Which is strange given that disingenuous attacks on comic books such as Batman and Robin, and Wonder Woman by Frederic Wertham and Senator Carey Estes Kefauver (D, Tenessee) led to mass comic burnings in Missouri and other places. Wertham's flawed research led him to publish "The Seduction Of The Innocent" in 1954. "Wertham's crowning achievement against comic books came in 1954. He published his book The Seduction of the Innocent. Seduction also featured bad research. It made hard-to-substantiate claims, suggesting Wonder Woman was a lesbian, Batman and Robin were gay, and comic books were leading children into danger. Wertham's comic book witch-hunt coincided with McCarthyism in the US, adding fuel to the fire. Wertham's work caught the eye of Carey Estes Kefauver, a Democratic senator from Tennessee. Kefauver eventually chaired a Senate subcommittee that gave an even larger platform to Wertham's panicked arguments against comic books." Of more interest than an interview with the cartoonist, is the Family Circle interview "Don't laugh at the Comics." between Wonder Woman's creator, William Moulton Marston and a journalist, Olive Richard. Richard was in fact Olive Byrne, polyamorous life partner to both Marston and his wife, Elizabeth. The triad was villified and driven out of their home and university posts by discovery of their lifestyle.

Bill Engval's take on stupidity

Actually, that would be a fascine https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Fascine

Another approach to dealing with neo Nazis: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/21/german-town-tricks-neo-nazis-into-fundraising-for-anti-extremist-org.html

The world can't be flat. If it was, cats would have pushed everything off the edge by now.

If you had one trillion dollars and were able to spend one dollar every second, without a break, it would take you 31,170 years to spend it.

And in the meantime, apply pressure to professional sports organisations, musicians, film makers etc. to boycott Texas as a venue.

He's the worthless w*nker who should have been stood in The Hague charged with war crimes.