I mean, yeah. All of this. Absurd.

But, FWIW, offloading cheap tat onto charity shops is not going to work well. It costs them money to put it on a shelf and it probably takes up more space than it is worth. Plus, they very likely can’t sell electrical equipment that has had its cord chopped up and repaired, or at least not without spending more on having it tested than they could sell it for anyway.

Next time, find a friend with small feet who would like to take it off your hands.

Archive link

There’s only 23 players in a squad and, traditionally, only the numbers 1-11 used on the pitch. There are no good reasons for 44, let alone 88, to exist.

“Ban” is a clickbait word. Adidas has decided not to make any more of them because it doesn’t want to be associated with Nazis. Oh noes.

The age of consent in Washington is 16.

Yes, yes it does.

Yes, it’s important that governing parties view women as sex objects rather than human beings. Fun, fun, fun all the way.

To start with the obvious:

How the Christian right took over the judiciary and changed America

And here’s a small selection of recent history from elsewhere:

How Ireland Turned ‘Fallen Women’ Into Slaves

Infidelity plus’ – the new defence against murder

Ugandan MPs pass bill imposing death penalty for homosexuality

So you haven’t been paying attention. Well done.

When I was born, married women were barred from most white collar jobs and women did not have the right to their own bank accounts, decades before rape within marriage was formally recognised as a crime.

If you are old enough to remember this era, you should realise that singling out these behaviours as somehow “Muslim” is bizarre.

I appreciate that that might not have been your intent (although it is certainly the subtext of this thread).

You must be very, very young if you do not remember these tropes being absolutely standard in the ‘Christian’ world, and not paying much attention now if you think they’ve completely disappeared since.

You know that money isn’t dug out of the ground, right? There’s no gold standard any more. The number of exchange tokens is irrelevant when you’re being extorted (most obviously on housing costs).

That’s true. To be clear, I’m not saying poverty is necessary. I’m saying it’s not because of the super rich (at least in the West). Nor am I saying the super-rich are useful.

If there is enough to go around, then your money-based maths must be incorrect. You’re contradicting yourself. Which is it?

It’s a bit more complicated than just adding up all the money and dividing it by the number of people.

Rich people don’t spend their money, they use it to outbid each other for control of existing assets that the rest of us need and have no choice but to pay them for. Instead of spending that money on things that other people get paid to make (the “trickle down” lie), they use it to extort us for access to things we need to survive.

There is plenty enough in this world to go around. That so many have so little is nothing to do with the amount of arbitrary exchange tokens that exist.

If you mean “turn out to protest” I don’t disagree but would note that this is made exceedingly difficult by the conspiracy theorists who don’t think he should be sent to stand trial in Sweden either. I strongly disagree with the decision to extradite him to the US but I can’t make common cause with the conspiranoids who insist that Sweden was a set up. He got himself into this predicament by trying to evade trial on credible charges of rape and sexual assault. Two things can be true but his supporters almost universally insist that they can’t and it is exhausting.

Can’t see where you got that quote from but if you think that a call for protest proves that we control our polity, bless you but no.

Why would you think that any Brits need to hear that? Do you imagine we have any more control over our polity than you do yours?

No riots or even protests though

Probably because the victim was East European. It remains to be seen if the attacker was Irish fash but, regardless, the fash get no mileage out of this one.

Amnesty International refused to support Mandela because he was involved in violent resistance. History does not magically change when a resistance wins and becomes the government. Most Israeli prime ministers were once (and for many still are) regarded as terrorists too.

Fight against the Hamas on a fair battlefield?

They’re going to bomb it from a very safe distance. And, if the last week is anything to go by, may ‘accidentally’ bomb places they’ve herded everyone into.

100% certain they weren’t beheaded or it would have been confirmed by now.

Inevitable that children, including babies, died. And also inevitable that Israelis get much more media attention than Palestinians, before and after they are killed by this wickedness.

Predictable that the media are, often uncritically, publishing calls for the massacre of Palestinians in response, while condemning Hamas for doing exactly what they’re demanding Israel do.

the initial goals of the project (to connect Northern England to London).

This was never the goal. Northern England is already connected to London. But the trains to London use the same trains as local commuter trains, which don’t work as a reliable commuter service because they have to squeeze into the gaps between fast trains, and get held up every time a fast train is running late.

HS2 is about giving the fast trains their own track so that local trains can function properly.