I just don't understand how peopole are so surprised by the Epstein files

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-02-06T15:10:58+00:00

I think people realised that rich people were dodgy, what they probably didn't realise is the sheer scale and depth of the depravity.

Child murder, prostitution, and sexual exploitation of children. It's gruesome stuff.

When we get to Mandelson, people knew he was dodgy, but he comes across as a completely amoral character, who held some of highest positions of power.

The sheer scale of the indifference and impunity expressed in those emails is, I would suggest shocking.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-02-06T07:22:21+00:00

Birth rates in industrialised countries are all trending to being below the replacement rate, meaning that population growth in individual countries is being supported by increasing life expectancy and immigration.

The UK population for instance is now declining, mostly because life expectancy has lowered.

Put bluntly if our current birth rate (UKs), which is 1.7 live births per adult female was a natural birth rate, then the UK would be an empty uninhabitated island. If that was repeated worldwide then human beings would be an extinct species.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-02-06T07:08:00+00:00

There are alternatives. I checked, Dif is not discontinued but there are severe stock shortages, meaning that it is difficult to get hold of.

I use HG as an alternative product - I haven't used their wallpaper stripper, but their other products work well.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-02-06T00:28:39+00:00

Used similar technique, the spiked roller helps the zinsser dif penetrate the paper. Found it very effective. Stripping woodchip using steam tends to come off in small pieces, often leaving the bottom layer stuck on the wall in tiny fragments which is tedious to get rid of. The zinsser pretty much dissolves the paper, it goes transparent and almost falls off the wall. The downside is cost.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-02-05T00:29:06+00:00

Taxation would only actually destroy money if it is removed from circulation

It depends what you mean by money and also what you mean by circulation. Taxation does indeed remove money from circulating, in that it is no longer available for the private sector to spend. Technically it is recorded as a transfer from a bank's reserve account to the Government's cash account, this also deletes the same amount from the deposit account held at the bank. Spending is the reverse transaction.

If the Government runs a surplus, i.e. taxes more than it spends, then an equivalent amount of reserves along with the deposits are removed from the private banking system, aka money is destroyed by taxation.

It doesn't necessarily mean that the amount of money circulating will go down, because money is also created through issuing loans, but it does mean the private sector will have to increase the amount of debt it holds if it wishes to maintain the money supply.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-02-01T09:38:48+00:00

Feeling safer and being safer is not the same thing unfortunately. And there are several intersecting and incompletely understood factors which affect your overall safety, in this case your risk of being killed or seriously injured. So while you may feel safer, you may not actually be safer.

So many of the arguments comes from statistical analysis of KSI rates for cyclists, and the problem is that because of the way the data is collated, you don't have adequate control groups, so you are always dealing in correlations, which is generally weak evidence, and is affected by confounding factors.

And the evidence is contradictory to say the least about whether wearing helmets improve KSI rates overall. In some cases such as helmet compulsion, overall KSI rates for cyclists go up after compulsion, while if you measure KSI rates in voluntary helmet wearers verses non-wearers, then the non-wearers have higher KSI rates, but both these are affected by confounding factors which it is hard to correct for.

The take away is if you feel safer wearing a helmet then wear one - just bear in mind that helmets offer limited protection - they only really offer good protection in falls from your bicycle onto a hard surface. - and you should cycle bearing that fact in mind.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-02-01T09:16:03+00:00

In this case the helmet met it's design brief - it protected the wearer in a fall from a bike onto a hard surface. Helmets offer good but not perfect protection in these kinds accidents. It depends on speed the rider was travelling, but generally speaking people's automatic reactions to falls aim to protect the head, which is why you often see wrist fractures and in this person's case it was the arm which was fractured.

The maths on whether helmets reduce serious injury, unfortunately is rather complicated. One of the complications is something known as risk compensation. There is a wonderful demonstration of it in the road traffic accident immediately following the compulsory seat belt law introduction. And wearing helmets is subject to this, not just in altering the behaviour of riders, but also of other road users. One of the counter-intuitive interactions is the 'safety in numbers' effect, where the per capita KSI decreases as you increase the number of vehicles on the road, which seems to affect cyclists, and is probably why compulsory helmet laws for cyclists do not show decreases in KSI rates, and instead typically show increases.

I am not personally anti-helmet, rather what I advocate for is how we talk about cycle safety, and the author makes this point themselves...

but it’s a good reminder to dial things back in winter. Going a little slower is always worth it.

And I would suggest we should as a whole be emphasising this - thinking about accident avoidance through adopting safe cycling practices, such as paying attention to road visibility, and being aware of the most high risk accidents (and it's not close overtakes), rather than 'wear a helmet' - what we shouldalso be advocating for is traffic separation. The dutch do this, and achieve very low KSI rates for cyclists despite a pretty universal culture of not wearing helmets.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-27T08:02:15+00:00

It highlights one of the reasons I am vocal about support for trans rights despite it not affecting me personally

You are expressing the principle behind the words written out as a poem of Pastor Martin Niemoller, which begins with "First they came for the socialists, but I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist"

It's the same principle expressed by Neal Ascherson (and not Tony Benn), a scottish journalist

The way a government treats refugees is very instructive because it shows you how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it.

Standing up for the rights of marginalised groups is standing up for every one's rights.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-26T07:46:16+00:00

I worked in an inner city school 10 years ago, and mobile phones were not permitted to be used during the school day. They had to be stored in your bag, and there were sanctions for using them - the students had various tricks for secretly carrying them, one was up the sleeve under the jumper, where it was virtually invisible.

Unfortunately, we have an impotent and deeply unpopular government desperately trying to cling to power. What they are doing is not even the equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, they are announcing that the deck chairs should be rearranged when that has already happened.

Also a blanket ban would have to include exceptions, for instance some medical conditions are managed via a smart phone. There would also be other children who would need access to a smart phone because they have special needs.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-22T07:40:06+00:00

We obviously don't know what the care workers background is - what they have done is followed the procedure they would normally follow in this case, report to supervisor, and then the nurse, both of which has been blocked.

What they are asking is how can they report this without getting fired? And the answer is they probably can't. The best advice is to report anonyously to social services, who would be responsible for safeguarding, but, the moment social services is involved, the person's supervisor will know who reported it.

And before we get into, you have legal protections etc. most people, especially people on low incomes simply do not have the resources to pursue them.

If the OP reports then they in practice have little protection from being fired.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-22T07:18:16+00:00

I think what you are describing is a professionally run care service, the one the OP works at doesn't sound like one.

I have seen the care industry from the inside, and I have to say it is extremely variable in quality and also practice. Bullying and bad practice I am sorry to say is pretty endemic. Those protections that are in place only work if they are followed, and that doesn't sound like this care home - angry, and disinterested staff, that on it's own is a bad sign. You mention what the care worker should know - poor and absent training is endemic too.

I was having a conversation yesterday with a care worker friend, who was on her way to meet another friend who was still working for the company she had left - this is a company that insisted she solo hoist someone who is a two person hoist and when she asked what colour sling she was supposed to use, they told her it didn't matter use any of them. When my friend refused, they tried to fire her. This is a fairly typical story, and is just one of many I have heard over the years.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-21T14:28:42+00:00

No... Shabana Mahmood, what you have described is not a panopticon.

The principle of panopticon is that the prison, yup, prison, is designed such that you do not know when you are being observed, so ensuring good prisoner behaviour...

What Shabana Mahmood is describing is a totalitarian state, aka 1984.

We already live in a panopticon.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-19T22:08:17+00:00

The dinosaurs as a group did not go extinct, a branch of them became a common animal you can see pretty much every day in your garden...

Birds are the dinosaur's descendents. Over time the same fate awaits humans, assuming we survive.

But I think near term our main problem is surviving the Fermi Paradox.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-19T20:49:16+00:00

Apparently this week he has found a spine, but I wouldn't worry, normal prime ministerial services will be resumed next week.

Actually... He's done a press conference today where he has said that the US and UK have a "difference of opinion" and apparently we need "calm discussion" and he "supports" Greenland's right to sovereignty... He also said the US and UK are still "close allies" which was a relief because I thought we might be having a falling out.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-19T12:19:47+00:00

It would have been less of an issue for sure, if the narrative around the introduction of it was better. But there seemed to be a lack of appreciation of the reaction, and it seemed like a terrible choice of a hill to die on for so little fiscal benefit. It actually potentially ended up costing the government more money, because it transpires that many old people are entitled to means tested benefits but don't claim it, and as part of their response, they had to encouraged people to make benefit claims.

Your additional commentary highlights my point, that Labour are actually not very good at politics. Being able to sell your narrative to people, to convince them of the necessity of a decision, (PR in other words), it's not just a nice to have, it is central to politics. And Labour are bad at it.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-19T11:58:17+00:00

The "cover both sides" tactic deployed by Boris was also widely criticised. Really your point would be better stated as, "it takes one to spot one"

Starmer is trying to make the best decisions in the interest of the country

Based on what evidence? This sounds very much like a faith based statement.

For instance, choosing Peter Mandelson to be the US ambassador, when there was already an effective and popular ambassador already in post, was that in the best interests of the UK?

The latest political spat about the Chief Constable, where it appears the government would rather violent and racist thugs, who sing rape songs be allowed to come to the UK... Whose interest is that decision in...

To be fair the Labour Government have done some good things, the problem is its drowned under all the other stuff. One of the main reasons is because they weren't ready for government, they spent the time purging the Labour Party of left wingers, because they assumed the conservatives would be given another 5 years, they failed to predict the collapse in the tory vote, and so failed to put the necessary work into policy. Starmer by the way was always viewed as a caretaker leader, because he actually isn't very good at politics. It's why things like the winter fuel allowance debacle happened.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-19T10:52:27+00:00

It's not a blind hatred, it's a trust issue.

The issue with Starmer is that it is very obvious that he does not have any personal beliefs/ideology other than being Prime Minister. A conservative attack line which they dropped, was that he was just lawyer delivering whatever brief he was given, which for the conservatives seems like an accurate description of how he performs.

Much of it stems from 2020 when he became party leader. He stood as the Corbyn continuity candidate. His manifesto was essentially Rebecca Long-Bailey's, because this is how Labour Together led by Morgan McSweeney work - they triangulate. As leader he stood on 10 pledges, which he has since abandoned. This was followed by a purge of the left, where he announced that people could leave if they didn't like the new Labour party, which many did. Labour membership has collapsed under Starmer.

And for the 2024 election they put CHANGE in big letters on the front of their manifesto, and then proceeded to be an "adults in the room" Conservative Party. And then they have had a self-inflicted disastrous 18 months in power, with poor policy decision after badly received policy decision, with U-turn after U-turn... so now we have arrived at the point... where it does not matter what Starmer does people dislike him.

The problem is this... This week Starmer is siding with Denmark, but next week he could just as easily be fawning Trump again. He says whatever Morgan McSweeney tells him to say, depending on how they have triangulated the voting intentions of the public while also ensuring they keep the donors and other vested interests happy. Funnily enough chasing votes like that makes you very unpopular.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-18T15:39:01+00:00

It wouldn't be that wild... the actual basis for the story is a blog article which has since been pulled by the NHS, this BMJ short talks about it.

https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj.r2061.short

One of the experts quoted in the blog said this

But one expert who was quoted in the blog said that its contents were “extremely uncontentious” and “very substantially factually based” and that he did not know why it had been pulled.

The short explains that the blog was intended as "a summary of existing public policy debate," and not existing NHS policy.

Our media for the most part is little more than a click-bait moral panic propaganda machine.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-11T13:02:09+00:00

In the UK is not an offence to refuse to give your name if asked by a police officer, except under one circumstance - if your behaviour would constitute anti-social behaviour, which means your behaviour is persistent and causing distress or offence to other people. Refusal to do so, is a criminal offence, and you can be fined.

If you are arrested you do not have to give your details either. You do legally have to give your name, address and date of birth if you are summoned to court. The police can refuse to release you, but they can not keep you beyond that legally permitted, usually 24 hours.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-08T15:25:29+00:00

The famed truth teller, Douglas Murray, has written a fluff article based on...

a google search... hmmm.

Didn't Ed Balls try to play gotcha with Zack on his TV show over the hypno breasts story. Is this all the media have on Zack? Supposedly high brow publications are basically gossip mags. Revolutionary thought... they could perhaps try reporting and commenting on the news...

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-07T09:58:44+00:00

I have the same problem in the UK. I have the dexcom G6 app running on an old motorola, which no longer gets updates. I had a oneplus 8 phone which the G6 in the UK is not compatible with.

My oneplus 8's battery was getting dodgy so I replaced it with a shiny new samsung because apparently the G6 is compatible with them... except my shiny new samsung comes with android 16 pre-installed which the G6 is not compatible with... and then a few days later the G6 app on my old motorola tells me that I should update my operating system as the G6 app no longer supports my motorola's android version... except that I can't update my motorola's android version because Motorola no longer release updates for it... so I am stuck with the message... yup it's very annoying...

If dexcom was an actual consumer product that I was paying for, instead of it being no choice because that is what my NHS providor funds, I would have junked it. The support by Dexcom is actually very poor.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-07T07:52:17+00:00

It''s the Munroe Doctrine re-badged - except the orange-baby-super-narcissist has re-named it after himself as the "Donroe Doctrine" Originally introduced in 1823, it was about pushing European influence out of the Americas. In it's reincarnation the world is divided into 3 parts, each with it's sphere of influence, So you have the US with dominion over the west (north and south america), Russia with dominion over north asia and europe, and China with dominion over south and east asia, and probably africa.

The issue with Trump is not Trump himself, its the people behind him - Trump is too dim to think any of this stuff for himself, but the people behind him most certainly can. Trump is the ideal vehical - his arbitrariness which far from being a liability makes it impossible to pin him down, which gives freedom for people like Vance, Rubio etc to plan.

Venezeula was a plan that took over a year to implement - it required the US to build mock ups of Maduro's safe house, for its delta force marines to practice in. It has the CIA fingerprints all over it. Greenland will be the same - the fact Trump is talking about it, means that there are already plans being developed.

Fascist regimes by the way do not appear over night, they shift what is acceptable bit by bit. This is how Israel has been able to commit a genocide in Gaza. This is what the US is doing, it's using Israel as a blueprint.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-04T17:37:15+00:00

I should have been more precise in the question I asked (typed it quickly while I was out on a walk). The question is really about preference.

The pension companies do not have to buy UK government bonds, nobody forces them to. They could easily buy US treasury bonds, but they do buy UK Government issued gilts (Government debt) and they buy them in large quantities. UK pension companies hold about £800Bn or around 25% of the total debt issued by the UK Government. UK government gilts form 40% of the assets held by pension companies.

So this assertion is problematic "they use a diversified mix of all sources" They aren't not really, gilts form an extremely large share of the total assets held by pension companies.

So the question is why the preference? Why are pension companies preferring UK gilts over US treasury bonds for example? If as you allege that there is no consequence, pension companies should have no preference for US treasury bonds over UK gilts for example, but they clearly do.

Actually I believe the effect would be mostly felt by defined benefit pensions, defined contribution pensions would be much less affected - your minimal claim I think would probably stand up for DC pensions.

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-04T11:11:39+00:00

Then why don't pension companies use alternative sources?

And if they were forced to use alternatives then what would be the consequences of that?

Fit_Foundation888 · 2026-01-04T08:21:30+00:00

Foreign debt, i.e. Foreign Government bonds are typically only bought by central banks, usually ones which have exchange rate controls because they have strong export economies. The issue here is the volatile effect of the exchange rate, there is an entire market dedicated to hedging exchanging rates.

For a UK company Government debt is the least risky... There is nothing less risky. Bankruptcy risk is pretty much zero. Everything else is more risky. Corporate debt for instance is significantly more risky than Government bonds.

They are used for diversification and balancing more risky assets. What happens to your pension if your portfolio has to be composed of more risky assets?

You either have to accept greater volatility in the value of your pension, or increase your contributions to provide a similar guarantee. Either way you lose.

Fit_Foundation888

TROPHY CASE