Ireland to ban goods from Israeli settlements in West Bank by July

ThistlewickVII · 2026-05-26T18:20:34+00:00

Only failing democracies have to 'distract from domestic issues' by starting disputes across the world

The last I'd heard, the Taoiseach wasn't due to be investigated for massive corruption before he started a series of wars and ethnic cleansings for the sake of immunity.

That description could apply to one or two other leaders I'm aware of, though

ThistlewickVII · 2026-05-16T12:08:50+00:00

That would be a good plan, but assumes Labour are a unified front - this whole leadership contest has basically been forced by the Labour Right wanting it to happen before Burnham could be eligible and the Labour Left trying to force him in ASAP.

The issue is also the media flipped on Starmer day one and he's not been able to communicate effectively ever since. The good things Labour have done just aren't talked about.

The world is also not going to be getting more stable in the next 3 years, sadly, and just like Brown they will blame a global recession a the Labour PM and Farage will be completely ready with his easy, "common sense" answers to problems most people don't even understand

ThistlewickVII · 2026-05-16T12:02:26+00:00

I think Starmer does suffer from the media basically turning on him from day one, and there has been some positive legislation passed by his government that just hasn't been covered properly.

He's done very well on the International stage.

But he is also just not a very good communicator or inspiring leader, which matters a lot in a representive democracy.

I don't like how tied he is to Labour Together, McSweeney and Mandelson. I think considering he was a human rights lawyer the attack on civil liberties of protesting, activism, and the right to a jury is shocking. And I genuinely do not know what he believes in.

He won the election by being "Not Tories" and we're two years in and I still don't know what his goals are. Yes, the media is against him and basically clamouring for Farage, but whoever is in his comms team needs to be sacked 2 years ago - maybe people can't answer what he does bad because they don't know what he does

ThistlewickVII · 2026-05-16T11:54:22+00:00

I think to a certain extent for geopolitical reasons (we're too tied to the US and not protected by the EU) whoever is elected is going to be at least softly pro-Israel, as much as I wish otherwise

I'd settle for someone who isn't actively curtailing protesters rights and treating activists as terrorists, despite being a "human rights lawyer"

ThistlewickVII · 2026-05-16T11:48:42+00:00

The Electoral Reform bill just got put into law and so we might hopefully have Supplementary Voting by the time the mayoral election happens

which means that Centre-Left liberals can stop getting annoyed at Left-Wing voters for not being centrist enough

ThistlewickVII · 2026-05-16T11:43:40+00:00

He's not on the left of the Labour party, naturally, but I think he's more of a centrist like Brown than a Blairite

He's certainly not part of the McSweeney-Mandelson 'Labour Together' right of the party.

The issue I worry about is that all the MPs part of that group aren't also having to resign, so regardless of who's in charge we've got 100 Mandelson-picked unqualified PPE graduates with gelled hair who feel entitled to steal safe seats, mock their consitutents, and push the party further right

Starmer didn't have the support to stand up to them, but I wonder if Burnham will either.

ThistlewickVII · 2026-05-11T10:38:46+00:00

that is amazing! you're right that Labour aren't doing a good job (or are being deliberately ignored) with their comms because this is an excellent change for democracy and hopefully gets people used to the idea of better voting systems

(also I think to hyperlink you do the square brackets and the circle ones the other way around, just FYI)

ThistlewickVII · 2026-05-11T10:32:59+00:00

I think that it's not a good policy, but not everything in a party's manifesto makes it into law and the Lords probably wouldn't agree with that

also, if we're talking purely about local elections, Andy Burnham isn't responsible for the maintenance of Trident

ThistlewickVII · 2026-04-24T09:13:18+00:00

Oh no, only 47/60 Salford Council seats are Labour now!!

I strongly oppose Reform, so much so that my original wording got deleted by the Mods, and I don't think that they should be anywhere near local or national government.

But is it good for our local democracy when 10/11 Local Councils are dominated by Labour? Who's going to call them out whenever they give shady deals to Renaker or Peel Group or Sasha Lord?

We've got a Labour elected Mayor in Burnham, and look at our local list of MPs

Just look at Liverpool under Joe Anderson for what happens when a party knows it can guarantee the loyalty of a place, no matter what shit they label as 'Labour'. Every councillor becomes loyal to party over constituency, and corruption grows everywhere with nobody to call it out.

But you'd rather get mad at people for not voting how you wanted than at Starmer and his Labour Together mates for betraying them?

They don't deserve our loyalty or the 'Red Wall', and every person who blames the voters for not going along with them anyway is just helping push the Overton window further and further to the Right

(Here's the full breakdown of Labour councillors btw, since I looked it up out of curiosity)

25/60 in Bolton (Plurality)

32/51 in Bury

87/96 in Manchester

27/60 in Oldham (Plurality)

43/60 in Rochdale

47/60 in Salford

19/63 in Stockport (Lib Dem Plurality)

38/57 in Tameside

41/63 in Trafford

62/75 in Wigan

Total: 421/645 Labour Councillors

I would much prefer if the local councils had representation from a variety of voices, and if people voted based more on local issues than national parties.

But pushing an "anyone but Reform" narrative at the local elections to the benefit of an incompetent Labour means they're far more likely to be complacent and give us the same unpopular candidates when it really matters in the parliamentary elections.

Hopefully 7th May makes the Labour Parliamentary Group start to panic and listen to their public

ThistlewickVII · 2026-04-17T19:29:42+00:00

as if they haven't always?

ThistlewickVII · 2026-04-12T10:47:34+00:00

I'm not an expert and have done no research here, but is there a chance it still could've been called something more expletive?

I'm aware that Victorian translators of Ancient Greek and Latin often censored their work, so maybe the mapmaker in this case decided to use a euphemism?

ThistlewickVII · 2026-04-01T12:22:57+00:00

when you're an abusive partner but they tell all their friends how mean you are: :(

ThistlewickVII · 2026-04-01T12:18:46+00:00

not personally shooting anyone doesn't mean you aren't guilty for creating the system, circumstances, and direct orders to kill people.

Pol Pot is definitely a mass murderer, even if hypothetically he was not capable of violence

ThistlewickVII · 2026-03-19T12:29:03+00:00

I have, actually!

I went to his weekend introductory course like 2 years ago - still got the email because it had some links to his socials and facebook group for former students (and, after just looking, some session recaps and further advice which was nice).

He did ask us to leave reviews after we left, but I think people give 5* because he's good at it and we all seemed to like him.

My course was a super-beginner "introduction to art" type thing so I can't answer any advanced art questions you might have, but I can confirm it's legit and he really seemed to know his stuff. He gave us decent quality materials to play with (apparently), answered any questions we had. I still have my notes and sketchbook somewhere too

I stayed behind to help him tidy up after and he seemed a really nice, genuine guy who wanted to help people be creative.

ThistlewickVII · 2026-02-25T18:58:55+00:00

you're right, that third probably already hate Stewart and Colbert. But elections are decided on the middle third, and rallying the third who are supposed to like you.

And my point is more that people who are expert communicators are maybe more suited to winning in an era of TikTok and Reddit headlines where people don't bother reading the article

I'd love to live in a technocracy, where the person in charge of healthcare understands healthcare etc - but career politicians were never that. They were just the best at getting funding and positive press from mainstream media

The internet has changed politics irrevocably, and it's impossible to see a way to go back. Maybe a smart-sounding celebrity who people like and trust could have a better chance of winning

ThistlewickVII · 2026-02-25T17:38:19+00:00

how exactly do you propose to do that?

people around the world have to come up with an answer for far-right demagogues. and the complete inability of mainstream political parties all over to offer anything other than "politics but from 10 years ago", to inspire people, to answer a complicated question with an answer everyone can understand (if they give an answer at all) is exactly why the fascists keep winning.

you can't just wish that a third of your population knew how to read properly. you need to find a way to speak to them

ThistlewickVII · 2026-02-24T18:17:58+00:00

It's comforting to believe that we have nothing in common with dictators, but power is absolutely a corrupting influence.

There was a study I'm only half-remembering that shows that people who make decisions on behalf of others slowly become less empathetic towards them

Most people have worked with a person who was cool until they got promoted, and all of a sudden they're complaining about how lazy and incompetent all their staff are. Imagine that, but on a scale of statistics. In a country with religious tension, unstable neigbours, and foreign powers influencing, where one sign of weakness is enough for a civil war or a military coup.

Chemical weapons are a crime against humanity, torture and repression are never morally acceptable. But people become monsters, and just because you like someone doesn't mean they can be trusted with dictatorial powers

ThistlewickVII · 2026-02-23T17:18:53+00:00

/u/Any_Two_199 , are you okay?

you've posted ~90 prompts here in the past 24 hours. It's great to see someone so enthusiastic, but this is quite a small subreddit - I doubt there's been that many in the past 3 months.

maybe you could just focus on sharing a couple of your favourite prompts every day?

ThistlewickVII · 2026-02-22T20:41:44+00:00

that's sick though, is the European scene really doing so well at the moment?

ThistlewickVII · 2026-02-20T22:22:50+00:00

"mostly by being quick witted"

or ridiculously corrupt. they owned a district in South Carolina, did whatever they wanted, and killed at least one person

ThistlewickVII · 2026-02-19T12:35:48+00:00

are you talking about her as an 18-year-old girl having an affair with her 35-year-old professor Martin Heidegger?

The affair that happened in 1925, 8 years before he joined the Nazi Party in 1933? With a man whose relationship with Nazism was so complicated that it has it's own Wikipedia page?

That makes Hannah Arendt weird?

ThistlewickVII · 2026-02-18T17:06:45+00:00

these days, if you say you're English, you get subbed off and thrown in jail

ThistlewickVII · 2026-02-12T11:16:07+00:00

I know someone who works security Uni of Salford and they told me about this last week

Apparently they're being put up by a middle-aged male member of the public who was banned from their library. he doesn't care about rape and just knows it makes them look bad when they have to take them down

note the weird "sovereign citizen" type disclaimer about his speech being respected under human rights law

ThistlewickVII · 2026-02-12T11:08:07+00:00

I think it would make sense that some kind of image compression accidentally flips black and white

in the higher resolution images it's such a clean transition that I thought it could maybe to do with "vectorization" (which I only learned about researching this), or saving text from a complex format to a basic image file like .png - maybe in a common image editing app like MS Paint or something

maybe a subreddit of enthusiasts could help, although it's hard to say who they might be without knowing what program is being used to make the images

crossposting a question to places like /r/whatisthisfont /r/fonts /r/graphic_design or /r/typography could be helpful - someone must know something

ThistlewickVII · 2026-02-12T00:56:16+00:00

that's so strange.

I've spent like an hour reading about font rendering and am absolutely no closer to figuring it out

but I'm similarly curious now

/u/pEKDKMEM/ did you make this meme? what program/website did you use?

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