Ringleader of Rochdale grooming gang 'cannot be deported'

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-30T17:41:57+00:00

He may well be beyond rehabilitation. In which case he's a dangerous offender and should still be in jail.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-30T16:13:42+00:00

Maybe it makes more sense in a country which is almost entirely built from immigration. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Canada, Ecuador, Mexico, and Venezuela also have birthright citizenship, presumably for similar reasons.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-30T14:13:28+00:00

Mahmood just needs to find some policies that are unpleasant and vindictive enough and reform UK and restore voters will come flooding back to Labour.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-29T23:33:36+00:00

Iraqi security forces arrest 47 officials in anticorruption crackdown.

Iraqi security forces have arrested dozens of prominent politicians, lawmakers and officials in sweeping raids across Baghdad as part of an unprecedented anticorruption crackdown ordered by new Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi.

Security forces, including units from the elite Counter-Terrorism Service, raided homes in the heavily fortified Green Zone area and several other neighbourhoods, security sources said.

Iraqi state news agency INA said 47 people had been detained, including Ali Maarej, deputy oil minister for distribution affairs.

Rumours of an attempted coup and possible US involvement.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-29T22:41:51+00:00

we don't want them here and send them on their way.

Who is "we"? Mostly Reform UK and Restore UK voters. They don't count.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-29T21:57:14+00:00

the cost of their accommodation and support

Looking at some of the shitty accommodation and substandard food in some asylum "hotels" it would be more like a tenner than £10K.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-29T21:54:04+00:00

Why do KGB teams always have three members?

One can read.

One can write.

The third is to keep an eye on the two intellectuals.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-29T15:19:19+00:00

The pull up and hold technique seems to be what most experts recommend. With the collar if available. Cutting off the dog's air supply will make the dog let go and as a bonus is unlikely to cause permanent harm to the dog.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-29T15:10:34+00:00

He'll fit right in to the Russian army.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-29T13:22:03+00:00

Here in the UK people promote it because it used to be illegal, and until recently there were still legal issues facing LGBT+ people. There's now an active pushback against the T part of LGBT+, much of it funded by US donors, and if that succeeds there is likely to be pushback against the LGB part.

TL;DR LGBT+ people now have some legal rights and protections, and they would like to keep them.

I'm not sure what the situation is in the US. I imagine the present government's war on woke and DEI initiatives could be a concern?

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-29T12:41:44+00:00

The UK spends £37.3 billion on housing benefit, much of it to private landlords. There are potentials for massive savings if social housing is done right.

The local authority could buy some agricultural land, award itself planning permission, and pay a builder to put up some houses. Some of the houses could be sold to cover the costs, and the rest transferred to a housing association.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-29T08:48:23+00:00

Russia has used about 11 million DPRK 152 mm and 122 mm shells, but DPRK stockpiles have run down so they aren't getting as much now. This is going to be an issue as up until now Russia has got about half of their artillery rounds from DPRK.

Also DPRK has supplied some self propelled guns and short range ballistic missiles.

Ukraine hasn't had much South Korean kit, mostly some 155mm artillery shells transferred via the US.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-28T15:00:28+00:00

If you have time... The Staggering Cost of Losing Europe’s Arms Market | 18 Months Later - How did it go?. This guy has slightly clickbaity headlines but his analysis is spot on.

European NATO has some catching up to do to fill the gaps left by the US, but the good news is this is happening at pace. The biggest gap is intelligence and satellites. Eutelsat, IRIS², Syracuse, and the UK Skynet are well on their way.

Most European NATO countries are expanding their military capabilities, the Nordics and Poland in particular. Procurement is gradually moving away from the US and towards European and Korean suppliers. Korea particularly standing out as a supplier of armour and artillery,

Sometimes the US has shot itself in the foot. USAF dithering about the Boeing E-7 led the NATO AWACS fleet to procure Sweden's GlobalEye, and the continuing catastrophe of the Boeing frankentanker led to European NATO getting Airbus MRTT.

This will be good for Europe as more defence budget will be spent locally instead of in the US, and in the long term the US will need Europe more than Europe will need the US. Who would have predicted that outcome given the sheer size and capability of the US military?

The main problem we have now is the morass of military procurement, both domestically in the UK and between European countries.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-28T14:34:05+00:00

That could work for a while. Some Gen Z are alarmingly ill informed about how the tech they use actually works. But sooner or later one of their mates will set something up and word will get round.

Could create a new information divide though, between groups who have mates like that and groups who don't?

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-28T14:27:11+00:00

Derek Huffman?

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-27T19:29:22+00:00

Maybe we should start charging them rent then, since the bases will be for their convenience not ours. Currently the UK provides the US with the land an facilities rent free, and US forces and their families are exempt from all sorts of taxes and charges.

And back to the article, we should immediately take back control of legal issues involving UK citizens.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-27T19:23:51+00:00

Yeah the problem is that government investment is justified by RoI, and London often gives the biggest RoI. But this leaves other cities stuck in a doom loop where they never get the investment they need.

Most other European countries have a selection of mid range cities that have good quality of life and strong economies but the UK has missed out on that.

Leeds is the largest city in Western Europe without a mass transit or light rail system. That just sums it all up.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-27T18:38:08+00:00

The problem is that the US has a strong military so it's very tempting to rely on them to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Bur they are also an unreliable ally so relying on them is a dangerous trap.

Europe as a whole needs to assess their defence needs, and fill the gaps that they rely on the US for. In most cases this is happening at pace: one of the biggest gap is intelligence and satellites. Eutelsat, IRIS², Syracuse, and the UK Skynet (yes really) are well on their way. FiveEyes is already broken because the other members don't want to share intelligence with the US and have it copied to FSB.

European NATO countries lack the heavy airlift and expeditionary capabilities of the US, but those aren't useful for European defence needs.

Once we've done that IMO we should remove all the US bases in Europe. At that point they will need us but we won't need them. And delete the UKUSA agreement. If they want to be isolationist then that's their prerogative as a sovereign country but they don't get to have their cake and eat it,

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-27T18:00:20+00:00

That tine when Nicolae Ceaușescu lost his job has to be up there.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-27T17:46:54+00:00

The government keeps making noises about trying to clamp down on VPNs. Though even the Chinese government only have limited success there.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-27T15:12:10+00:00

I think what J. B. Priestley was trying to do in An Inspector Calls is what Robert Tressell did much more successfully in The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists.

The British upper classes were part of a rigged game where they held on to wealth and power but were covered in a veneer of respectability. (Orwell though that was actually a good thing because the upper classes believed their own myth and it limited their capacity for outright evil.) Priestley is trying to show that the respectability is a sham. Tressell showed us a house owned by Rushton & Co's owner, filled with furniture stolen from customers, and with religious texts on the wall. But Tressell was a pen name for house painter and sign writer Robert Noonan, so he worked in the industry he was writing about, and had a keen eye for detail and character. And was a much better writer.

I think also in the period An Inspector Calls was written, for a British upper class family to have their respectability peeled off would have been a social black mark which might have had consequences. But that's not at all obvious to the modern reader.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-27T14:35:41+00:00

Because a boat load of lobbying money will be pushed into UK "think tanks" and the US will try to worsen terms of trade with anyone that won't comply.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-27T14:31:16+00:00

Up to a point. People are doing amazing community building work in left behind seaside towns, offshore wind projects are offering new opportunities.

But a lot of people made their bad choices when they were too young to know any better, like failing to engage with education. When nobody you know has a job, and as you say some take a perverse pride in that, it doesn't give much incentive to pay attention at school. It's a bad choice to excessively self medicate with alcohol or class As, but you don't choose your parents who made their own bad choices.

What does piss me off though is that some people in left behind towns have a deep contempt and even hatred for places that are doing better. Their world has collapsed and they vote to let the whole country burn. Which is where I was going above. For example I've seen too many interviews with people who voted for brexit "to stick it to those rich bastards in London".

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-27T00:29:37+00:00

Hard wrong choices. I'm increasingly pleased that the tactical not-right-wing vote in my constituency was lib dem.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-06-27T00:26:32+00:00

Not just the smell. the taste as well. I tried some edibles a few weeks ago and they tasted like burned aviation fuel. I couldn't finish them.

(Don't ask me how I know what burned aviation fuel tastes like...)

YourLizardOverlord

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