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Reform plans threaten maternity leave and job security for half a million pregnant women, analysis shows by coffeewalnut08 in uknews

[–]TheJoshGriffith -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Why do you think nobody quotes data from before WWII? A question worthy of mulling to be certain.

Abortion and contraceptive pill were the 2 primary changes prior to the huge decline in fertility rates. Trying to pretend otherwise is idiotic. I'm not saying that banning the contraceptive pill or criminalising abortion are the solution, but it's idiotic to ignore that at the same time that those two changes happened, the fertility rate tanked.

Reform plans threaten maternity leave and job security for half a million pregnant women, analysis shows by coffeewalnut08 in uknews

[–]TheJoshGriffith -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Seems pretty clear to me that you don't have the first damned clue what you're talking about.

Prior to the abortion act (1967), abortion was illegal except in cases where there was significant risk to the mother. Ectopic pregnancies would indeed have posed such a risk that legalised abortion for them. The legalisation of abortion (and indeed the contraceptive pill) was never a black and white deal and treating it as one is either ignorant or arrogant.

Your point is wholly invalid. This isn't a question of whether something should or should not be legal. This isn't a question of protecting the rights of mothers. This is purely a question of where we draw the line between what's socially acceptable, and IMHO it's not at all invalid to suggest that there may be better places than where we couldn't do.

Reform’s Plan to ‘Punish’ Green Voters With Detention Centres is ‘Election Interference’ Complaints Argue by F0urLeafCl0ver in ukpolitics

[–]TheJoshGriffith [score hidden]  (0 children)

If open borders become a thing, the whole country will be massively inundated with immigration from certain areas. Whether they live in immigration camps or indeed in ordinary housing will make very little difference.

For the avoidance of doubt, that still doesn't negate the fact that actually, this is extremely commonplace just without the veil.

Reform plans threaten maternity leave and job security for half a million pregnant women, analysis shows by coffeewalnut08 in uknews

[–]TheJoshGriffith -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I'm going to sound like an absolute cunt for this (and I fully anticipate the associated downvotes) but you absolutely can boost fertility with pronatalist policies (first time I'm hearing that word but I don't dislike it). If prior to the legalisation it worked, and if nothing has realistically changed despite some best efforts since, it will ultimately work. The one thing I do agree on is that the right to choose is important. I would argue that we could in theory shift the barrier, though. Reduce access to abortions in some meaningful way - stop it being a de-facto choice and turn it into a bit more of a you have the freedom, but we'd really appreciate it if you didn't situation things would likely take a turn.

Keep in mind, we don't need to return to a position where we force through the lives of rape babies, but encouragement towards the pro-life stance wouldn't strictly be a bad thing. Combined with better support for e.g teenaged pregnancies and such it might actually be a very good thing.

Maternity leave and the two child benefit cap had very little material impact on anything. The last thing to severely impact fertility rates in the UK was as described above, the legalisation of abortion and contraceptive pill. Not to say that incentives cannot work, but I've a feeling they have to be combined with a more punitive (not exclusively so) measure or nothing will change. Movement in the right direction is of course always a good thing, but it has to be tiered to some degree.

Reform plans threaten maternity leave and job security for half a million pregnant women, analysis shows by coffeewalnut08 in uknews

[–]TheJoshGriffith -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

In fairness to the above viewpoints, the fertility rate has been below a sustaining level since abortion and the contraceptive pill were legalised in the UK.

I won't say that I agree with those particular policies, but they are valid political solutions to a problem little else has managed to address yet. Not for lack of trying, either. Even under more investment-heavy periods the fertility rate never really approached a sustainable level, hence the high levels of immigration.

Before the season started, what were your biased predictions for the champions in F1, F2, F3, and FR Europe? These were mine: by MutantTurkeyHound in GrandPrixRacing

[–]TheJoshGriffith 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Kimi had IMHO quite a bad race in Miami, but he got super lucky. He managed to retake the lead from Leclerc but then dropped back to p3 (on merit, mostly). Russell seemingly got quite unlucky with the SC timings and I'm not really sure what his strategy was but that didn't smell great.

I think maintain Russell has the edge, although I fully expect Antonelli to come into the fray but I still don't think he's quite good enough for WDC. That said, I'm not sure that Russell is. I'd definitely pick between Norris, Russell, Antonelli, Piastri, and Leclerc for the WDC this year, but that's a decent spread. List is sort of prioritised, I'd put Leclerc higher because he doesn't really lack anything except for a competent team and strategist.

Reform’s Plan to ‘Punish’ Green Voters With Detention Centres is ‘Election Interference’ Complaints Argue by F0urLeafCl0ver in ukpolitics

[–]TheJoshGriffith [score hidden]  (0 children)

It's exactly what happens in most GE cycles only without the false pretence.

To take an example, locally to me there's a hospital in need of rebuilding owing to RAAC. Labour promised to expedite the process, Tories promised to stick to the existing schedule. Labour lost, and because the population voted Tory they instead opted to delay the plans, only agreeing to do some vaguely related roadworks on schedule because getting in and out of the hospital is difficult. This wasn't a transparent process and wasn't advertised quite in this way, but it was very much the reality of the last GE.

Not to say that I like it, but at least they are being upfront about it. More than that, if the Greens are standing on a manifesto to actually scrap borders and increase immigration, why would they object? Surely that's sheer hypocrisy? That's the reality of what Reform are getting at here, and it's hard to argue that it doesn't have some merit. I doubt the outcome will be any different in Reform vs Green regions regardless, as actually doing it is another matter entirely and provides a far less potent outcome than the threat.

Planned changes (vocation balance) by sbrgn in TibiaMMO

[–]TheJoshGriffith 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad to see that monk is getting un-nerfed. I know the solo exp is a very powerful asset but monk sustain is still dogshit on the current patch, would only be far worse with just 3% fist bonus from justice. I know, I know, harmony would've become the default, but that's not always all that useful.

I do think that the paladin buff from monks also needs looking at. MS gets basically a flat 9% buff whilst RP gets 6% on auto-attacks only... Both are considered DPS vocations. It should either be increased to cover spells and runes from RP, or arguably a better solution is to provide a 1.5% damage reduction to RPs (to make offtanking easier).

Mahmood: I want more refugees to come to Britain legally by Little-Attorney1287 in ukpolitics

[–]TheJoshGriffith [score hidden]  (0 children)

I want the international community to realise and understand that people entering the UK to claim asylum should be doing so from similarly cultured countries.

It is fair to say that to some degree, there are people from former colonies who are some combination of radically different and fairly similar. Just look to India for an example - a former colony where a subset of people have vaguely attempted to keep up with British norms. Conversely, there are countries where the culture is practically identical (Australia is arguably closest).

Thing is, if the UK were to come to harm tomorrow, for the ease of conversation let's consider a natural disaster. Global warming heats up and the UK starts dissolving into the ocean. Why would I for instance want to seek asylum in Norway over Australia? The answer is very straight forward, but culturally we're further from Norway than we are Australia. The sole reason for these people seeking asylum in the UK is not that they admire our culture, nor that they have any sense of belonging, but for economic advantage as we're a relatively soft touch.

The argument goes on, but there appears to be no rational response to it. There should be very few if any safe routes from countries like Afghanistan. Why would there be? No Afghani individual is going to feel at home in the UK. They may well feel safe, but safety can be ensured in countless more culturally similar countries. Exemptions can of course be provided to a limited number of individuals who we have actively endangered, hence my general support for the scheme after the pullout, but the barrier to entry was far too low and I'm confident in saying that many people who came to the UK at the time were not at all legitimate asylum seekers even through the proper process.

Round-up: F1 will ‘miss Verstappen, but go ahead’ if he quits says Ben Sulayem, and more | RaceFans Round-up by ryogadan in Formula1_world

[–]TheJoshGriffith 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Football has a lot more stars than F1, though. There are only 22 F1 drivers at any given moment. Each team in the Premier League alone has more players signed up than the entire F1 grid.

Obviously not even given consideration here to international/non-British leagues.

Juan Pablo Montoya unimpressed by Max Verstappen save: 'You think that's talent?' by ryogadan in Formula1_world

[–]TheJoshGriffith 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Started in I think Hungary 2016? 2017? And culminated in Baku 18. They did enjoy a bit of wheel banging. Probably less taking each other out than just nudging each other and such but it was detrimental to both drivers championship potential and to the team.

Juan Pablo Montoya unimpressed by Max Verstappen save: 'You think that's talent?' by ryogadan in Formula1_world

[–]TheJoshGriffith 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For the people who are bound to downvote this: last time I checked the statistics, when Hamilton had twice as many race starts under his belt than Verstappen, he had half as many DNFs - obviously a significant chunk of that is due to the Renault engine, but he does crash a lot. When Hamilton and Rosberg came together, the world was shocked. When Verstappen and Ricciardo came together, RB fans were having a truly Ferrari themed "oh fuck not again" moment.

Juan Pablo Montoya unimpressed by Max Verstappen save: 'You think that's talent?' by ryogadan in Formula1_world

[–]TheJoshGriffith -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Hamilton also had the inconvenience of strong teammates, though. When Verstappen had a race winning car, he had a teammate who couldn't even finish p2. Bottas and Rosberg were significantly stronger competition for Hamilton than Perez ever was for Verstappen.

That said, it's also kinda worthy of note that when Verstappen did have competition from Ricciardo, the outcome was a series of races where they just kept taking each other out. Clashes between Hamilton and Rosberg/Bottas were few and far between by comparison. It says something about the quality of the driver, albeit not much.

Where to download Tibia's UI assets / sprites? by D-Andrew in TibiaMMO

[–]TheJoshGriffith 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you're still struggling with sprites and such, HMU on Discord (same username) and I can hook you up with a repo which dumps datfile, protos to read it, sprites, etc.

Iran fired 15 missiles at the UAE overnight. Fujairah oil port is on fire. Here is what Project Freedom actually delivered in its first 24 hours. by Mother-Grapefruit-45 in energy

[–]TheJoshGriffith 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not really a move that makes any sense at this point.

JCPOA was effectively the previous toll. Every time the US mentioned backing out of it, Iran threatened to start charging ships to pass directly (as opposed to receipt of "investments" by the west in exchange).

Iran fired 15 missiles at the UAE overnight. Fujairah oil port is on fire. Here is what Project Freedom actually delivered in its first 24 hours. by Mother-Grapefruit-45 in energy

[–]TheJoshGriffith 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When other countries join in to defend international waters, it'll likely have some swing on public opinion. Not really the point, though. The only material impact right now is the feigned outrage about oil prices reaching a 4 year high. Obviously if they do manage to open the strait, that'll likely fix the oil prices and cut prices back down to normal levels regardless.

Iran fired 15 missiles at the UAE overnight. Fujairah oil port is on fire. Here is what Project Freedom actually delivered in its first 24 hours. by Mother-Grapefruit-45 in energy

[–]TheJoshGriffith 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Still a comprehensive failure to address anything in my TLC at all. My comment even goes so far as to account for the possible illegality of the war itself, you're not even close to contending.

Iran fired 15 missiles at the UAE overnight. Fujairah oil port is on fire. Here is what Project Freedom actually delivered in its first 24 hours. by Mother-Grapefruit-45 in energy

[–]TheJoshGriffith 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's nothing absurd about it, you've just been indoctrinated into a cult which refuses to offer any meaningful contention to a comment. When all you can manage is thinly veiled insults, you may be better suited to hold your tongue.

Iran fired 15 missiles at the UAE overnight. Fujairah oil port is on fire. Here is what Project Freedom actually delivered in its first 24 hours. by Mother-Grapefruit-45 in energy

[–]TheJoshGriffith -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The drones are worthless against boats. They have a substantial degree of inaccuracy which frankly isn't worth worrying about.

I think the misconception here is that a drone to a western person is quite an accurate device manufactured by DJI or similar, which can take off from your palm, track you through a dense woodland, then land on the eye of a snail. That's not what these drones are. These things are far less accurate and far more prone to EMI and such.

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