I know what the point was, but Biden is included as if he is part of some political dynasty. He was VP. A very normal situation, 19 out of 49 have run for president. It’s like being promoted through the ranks until you get to the top. Isn’t that kinda normal in most careers?

So why is it “insanely improbable” for Biden, someone who qualified for the job over decades, to be “chosen” as opposed to anyone else.

We aren’t talking here about how much cash it requires to become president which raises the bar above most people’s head.we are taking about political dynasties.

So I say again, including Biden as if it is some statistical anomaly or stranglehold on politics is disingenuous, especially if you exclude Harris.

Her situation of running for president after serving as vice president is EXACTLY the same as Biden unless you want to split hairs and say he served 2 terms and her only 1. So if you want to say Biden was given a silver spoon, so was she.

Biden is not a dynasty. But if you insist he is, so is Harris, and that makes the original premise flawed.

I don’t think it’s really fair to include “Biden” alongside “Bush” and “Clinton” and NOT include “Harris”, just to make a point. The point is the Bush and Clinton represent two people each, a dynasty as it were. Biden is just one person. You might as well add then Harris since she has served as VP just like Biden, or Trump but I get the feeling this is intended to somehow make the statement that Harris represents a new breed of politics, a break from the old. That may or may not be true, but it doesn’t hinge on this meaningless metric.

“since 1981 there has never been an election without a Bush, Clinton, Biden, Trump or Harris.”

I love to see free speech absolutism being so unshakable.

You think the only reason people could find destructive, violent behaviour to be unusual or difficult to understand is because they have no passion in their own lives?

I’m just a little sad that there are people in the world who have grown up in such violent, loveless homes that they can’t conceive of finding violent behaviour over a sports game disgusting.

I wonder how many of wives and partners who get the shit kicked out of them when their passionate “alpha” male’s favourite team loses would agree with you. Oh it’s OK, he had just lived such a full, passionate life that he sometimes loses his self control for a moment.

They wanted the IP not the staff.

I don’t know if I’m a millennial or generation x

And maybe this answer is kinda what I was thinking of. The justification your are supplying about the diminished influence of record labels makes sense and logically I can see that probably means the sound of the decades I listed was less organic and more manufactured. I also feel that there is probably less air for experimental genres to establish and become dominant like in the past.

Thank you but if the discussion does start going toxic, please do take it down.

P.s. I updated the title to make it clearer that I do not wish to conflate the two

I did not mean to imply that supporting Israel’s right to exist as a state means you must support their actions or vice versa. It is not intended to be a loaded question.

Does one side disregarding the Geneva convention mean the other is free to do so?

I would argue that the Geneva convention is as much about protecting the humanity of adherants as it is about protecting the lives of the innocent.

If you sign up to it, you should not be considering the actions of your enemy in deciding whether to adhere to it or not. Yes the realities of war blur the lines, but as someone else said, if you become a monster to defeat the monster, you still lost.

This is the kind of response I was looking for.

I’m not seeking to pile on the anti Israel sentiment but to genuinely understand what the basis for the Israeli position and supporters of it might be.

No I’m genuinely interested in how people rationalise the actions of Israel against the articles of the Geneva convention. There have been some thoughtful answers already which I appreciate.

Russian warfare is 90% cyber these days. They troll, hack, spy and attempt to influence elections using the internet. Are they really going to cut off their ability to engage in those activities? It’s like saying they will blow up their own weapons factories if people don’t start catching their bullets.

I always found the journal model to be one of the best scams there is. Buy our journal. Written by you. Edited by you. Referreed by you. Based on research paid for with public money. The journal contribution is to sell the paper back to the people who provide their content.

My train of thought…

“How is that going to fit on your wrist? I mean I guess it could but would be really heavy and uncomfortable. Oh wait, those are headphones so it’s even bigger than I thought. Ah wait, ‘watch’ not ‘watch’. Dumbass”

Because you are a kid and you don’t know but are pretending to be an adult. Nice try!

I guess it’s “I don’t want to use fossil fuels but I don’t have an alternative. Give me an alternative! Don’t have one? Then I’ll keep using fossil fuels”

In fairness though not using fossil fuels it’s something of a luxury at present. EVs are more expensive that non EVs. Maybe this will change but slowly. Home solar is very expensive and still doesn’t get you self sufficient in most cases. Power companies need to make the grid renewable to make it accessible to the average person for home power.

The problem with this type of thing is intent.

How do we prove intent to deceive?

Lying is not simply stating incorrect information. It is intending to deceive by knowingly stating incorrect information. It is not easy to prove what someone knew.

What if they were misinformed by a third party that may or may not have an agenda? Under these circumstances the politician is not lying and believes they are telling the truth even though the information they uttered is wrong. Do you go after the third party? Does this then give the politician a mechanism to evade charges using fall guys?

I absolutely believe that people like Bojo should be held to account. In his case there was plenty of evidence. It should also be acceptable for the opposition to state that they were lying in the commons without facing repercussions.

Except there is a big difference in that these people choose to live abroad. They have chosen diminished influence of British politics over their lives so they should have diminished influence over British politics.

If they really want to influence politics here, then live here. It is not fair on resident, tax paying citizens to have non resident non tax paying ex pats making choices that may benefit them at the cost of others.

For example, elderly expats may choose to support a policy which significantly increases their pension to cover their overseas lifestyle at the expense of resident pensioners or increased taxes or reduced public services for resident voters. While this is very unlikely to be proposed or succeed, it is theoretically possible. I’m sorry but if I resign from my job should I still get to make demands of my former colleagues because I worked there for 30 years or still feel like an employee??

I just can’t reconcile the thought “I don’t want to live there anymore” with the thought “I deserve a vote in the country I left behind”.

It was a little different when we were in the EU. But we are not.