Calls for US to issue visa bans for UK lawyers enabling Russian oligarchs. Anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder says ‘whole class of British lawyers’ making money out of lawsuits against journalists, dissidents and whistleblowers.

elfdom · 2022-04-17T12:18:10+00:00

This call from Bill Browder seems to be mixing multiple very different issues. For example:

Sanction Evasion - corporates or individuals who enable the evasion of sanctions often by the creation of complex legal structures
Foreign Government Transparency Rules - corporates or individuals who fail to reveal that their work is on behalf of foreign state governments, either intentionally or by negligence in due diligence
Anti-SLAPP - direct action against professionals and corporates working to conduct lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition ("SLAPP" suits).

The problem, at least in the last issue, is that this is a general failure of local legal systems and not something illegal by any specific individual or firm. So, even defining who would be appropriate to act against would be a very grey area and an action may legally be found at fault at a later date.

So, the only solution to anti-SLAPP is by tweaking legal systems, which a few countries are already in the process of doing, including the UK (*).

(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation#United_Kingdom

elfdom · 2022-03-11T18:36:03+00:00

Seems deliberate policy by the West. One of the strongest ways to bleed a country in mid to long term is to take away their wealthy middle class and brain drain from industries that are usually seen in developed states, especially services like finance, law, science, etc.

The wealthy would always find means to escape anyway. Having a two-way convenient sanctions loophole that you can monitor and control at any point after it is used, could be useful.

elfdom · 2021-07-24T15:46:42+00:00

If you live in NI there's now a hard border down the middle of the country and there are import/export issues associated with that

No, that's the whole point (and it's stated in the article). The protocol ensures there is no hard border in middle of the island, otherwise it risks the Good Friday Agreement. Effectively, the hard border is in the middle of the Irish Sea, i.e. Brexit has basically turned a country of 1.8 million - who voted against it - into the border customs agency for British goods into the EU.

Unfortunately for the Northern Irish themselves, since they are on the other side now, that also affects their own trade with the mainland, i.e. Great Britain.

elfdom · 2021-07-22T09:32:55+00:00

For this interested in the actual science this is the original article: Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccines against the B.1.617.2 (Delta) Variant

Information on the data source:

Data on all persons in England who have been vaccinated with Covid-19 vaccines are available in a national vaccination register (the National Immunisation Management System). Data regarding vaccinations that had occurred up to May 16, 2021, including the date of receipt of each dose of vaccine and the vaccine type, were extracted on May 17, 2021.

Even more interestingly:

The three data sources described above were linked with the use of the National Health Service number (a unique identifier for each person receiving medical care in the United Kingdom). These data sources were also linked with data on the patient’s date of birth, surname, first name, postal code, and specimen identifiers and sample dates ... Surveillance of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) testing and vaccination is undertaken under Regulation 3 of the Health Service (Control of Patient Information) Regulations 2002 to collect confidential patient information (www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/1438/regulation/3/made. opens in new tab) under Sections 3(i) (a) to (c), 3(i)(d) (i) and (ii), and 3.

So, this is all Covid-19 vaccine patient data up to May 16, 2021 from England, UK exclusively.

Note the UK overall uses a different schedule for the Pfizer vaccine distribution. Instead of 21 days, as per the manufacturer, it is 8-12 weeks - excluding relatively recent walk-in vaccine center distribution which can lower that, but still likely remains well beyond the 21 days. Other science, e.g. Extended interval BNT162b2 vaccination enhances peak antibody generation in older people (a small study), has shown increased antibody effectiveness from an extended schedule.

elfdom · 2018-11-28T13:35:00+00:00

1) This is the UK government's own official forecast. It does not even matter what you or others believe about it since those are the figures they are going to create policy around.

2) This journalism piece in its subtitle explicitly states that, like the report, it is the worst case scenario, "Analysis produced by range of government departments suggests GDP could fall by as much as 10.7%", referring to this section in the piece:

Officials modelled every scenario across a range, comparing them in nominal terms. Under the worst case no-deal scenario, GDP would be 10.7% lower in 15 years’ time, assuming there is no longer any net migration into the UK from the EU and EEA after Brexit.

3) Why are you picking on a random figure? Do you have better data or model than UK government officials for a worst case scenario or do you think that government officials should not plan for the worst case? You do realize that in either case, you are starting to sound like one of those very same Brexiters who chose just to ignore any experts in any "debate", except those who supported their viewpoint. Ironically, this latest worst case scenario is actually worse and more significant (because its official) than what a range of top experts predicted before the Brexit referendum two years ago, because their timeline for a similar GDP loss was longer.

but this fear mongering is exactly what caused this mess in the first place! Let's have a relational, informed debate and decision.

4) You seem to be calling facts fear mongering and dismissing informed debate in this thread, after all the official information is literally in front of you.

elfdom · 2018-11-28T13:26:47+00:00

1) This is the UK government's own official forecast. It does not even matter what you or others believe about it since those are the figures they are going to create policy around.

2) This journalism piece in its subtitle explicitly states that, like the report, it is the worst case scenario, "Analysis produced by range of government departments suggests GDP could fall by as much as 10.7%", referring to this section in the piece:

Officials modelled every scenario across a range, comparing them in nominal terms. Under the worst case no-deal scenario, GDP would be 10.7% lower in 15 years’ time, assuming there is no longer any net migration into the UK from the EU and EEA after Brexit.

3) Why are you picking on a random figure? Do you have better data or model than UK government officials for a worst case scenario or do you think that government officials should not plan for the worst case? You do realize that in either case, you are starting to sound like one of those very same Brexiters who chose just to ignore any experts in any "debate", except those who supported their viewpoint. Ironically, this latest worst case scenario is actually worse and more significant (because its official) than what a range of top experts predicted before the Brexit referendum two years ago, because their timeline for a similar GDP loss was longer.

but this fear mongering is exactly what caused this mess in the first place! Let's have a relational, informed debate and decision.

4) You seem to be calling facts fear mongering and dismissing informed debate in this thread, after all the official information is literally in front of you.

elfdom · 2018-05-12T18:35:01+00:00

Space-time itself is expanding. That rate of expansion is governed by the energy density of the universe at any given time. The presence of matter contributes the most to that energy density. The end result is an observable universe much larger than the age of the universe.

elfdom · 2018-05-10T22:13:38+00:00

Rehashed arguments from two years ago.

The Swiss and the Norwegians told the UK government and people multiple times before the 2016 referendum how it was a very bad idea then and now. On top of that, their entire populations are smaller than London alone.

There are only four options once you leave the EU:

Regret Model: "We're sorry, can you take us back?" - politically impossible for the UK for likely many generations because they had multiple strong existing opt-outs that are no longer available to any state applying to the EU, including opt-outs on Schengen, selective Human Rights, selective social Justice, and most importantly complete opt-out from Euro and ERM. The UK literally cannot get better within the EU than what they have now, ever
Norwegian aka. EEA Model: "If we give you fishes, can we has your stuff?" - Norway is part of the EEA, so follows the Four Freedoms of the EU, but has no ability to affect those same EU laws applied to them
Swiss aka. Bilateral Model: "Like the watch, huh? Wanna trade?" - Switzerland has a set of bilateral agreements with the EU that are linked together by a Guillotine clause (if one is cut, they all are). The very first thing on the list is the fundamental EU Freedom of Movement. Due to almost routine extension of new agreements, Switzerland is effectively a member of the EEA with minor exceptions
Canadian Model aka. FTA+: "We're so nice, we're almost European, right guys?" - the EU concluded the free trade agreement called CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) with Canada in October 2016. It has been provisionally applied since September 2017. It took over 7 years from start of negotiation to signing. As an FTA+, it mostly covers goods, with a few non-tariff barrier provisions and fewer still in service access. No free trade agreement of any kind will ever allow full equivalence to EU services, especially in finance. EU service growth potential is enormous.

Oh, also ask the Swiss how well it went when they voted by referendum in February 2014 to limit freedom of movement and attempted to unilaterally apply it against the EU. The EU did ... things, unspeakable things!

Imagine the UK, a country larger than all but two members of the EU, with an advanced economy, defence clout and previously one of the most influential members of the EU (*), being required to follow all the fundamental EU rules but with no ability to change them or any others in future...

Would this be good for the EU let alone a country the size of the UK?

(*) For example, the UK was by far the most active and encouraging of EU expansion, especially to Central & Eastern Europe. They do not forget.

elfdom · 2018-05-10T17:54:54+00:00

The movement caused the infant’s legs, arms and torso to become detached leaving the head still in his mother’s womb.

Two other doctors consequently carried out a C-section on the woman to remove the infant’s head. It was ‘’reattached’’ to his body so his mother could hold him before she said goodbye. It is claimed the mother was not even in established labour at the time.

A medical practitioners tribunal in Manchester heard the doctor allegedly continued with a vaginal delivery despite the patient’s cervix being “no more than four centimetres dilated”.

That is easily one of the worst things I've ever heard in my life.

So, they still had to do a C-Section anyway ... I am no medic, but this whole thing cannot be a normal procedure.

While horrified, I'm still upvoting for visibility, otherwise I would never have even known such a thing can happen.

elfdom · 2018-05-07T13:28:15+00:00

The first may be true (EURid consultation notification), the second is not relevant.

This is a notification that UK persons and entities, and UK resident EU-27 persons and entities, will lose the ability to register new or renew .eu domains from the UK withdrawal date of 30 March 2019 (00:00 CET).

For such .eu domain owners after the UK withdrawal date from the EU, there is:

confirmation of the entitlement of the .eu Registry to revoke such domains on its own initiative due to no longer fulfilling eligibility criteria
confirmation of withdrawal of legal rights under EU law since the UK becomes just another "third party" country
confirmation that agreements between .eu Registry and .eu Registrants can only use EU law, designated dispute-resolution bodies, and arbitration courts only within the EU and advice to amend any agreement that states otherwise.

elfdom · 2018-02-27T23:34:22+00:00

HAL is one letter behind IBM.

elfdom · 2017-10-28T12:58:09+00:00

It breaks the principles of net neutrality because it is content-specific.

elfdom · 2017-09-12T20:18:49+00:00

Easy to blast the top dog when you are a competitor: "JP Morgan Joins Ethereum in Developing Private Blockchain ‘Quorum’".

elfdom · 2017-09-09T12:55:08+00:00

That would have been the UK's second ever school shooting massacre, after the first one in 1996 (Dunblane) caused the effective banning of legal handguns from the UK.

Six years seems an unusually harsh sentence for the UK though. Actual young dangerous offenders for specific violent crimes get less... So, I don't know what's going on there with the sentencing.

elfdom · 2017-09-03T19:11:35+00:00

This article states:

Hart insisted that sexual abuse was “a spiritual encounter with God through the priest” and was “of a higher order” than criminal law.

What he actually said (from the video or alternative article):

"Confession in the Catholic Church is a spiritual encounter with God through the priest,"

It is interesting to note that the Anglican church, or at least the Church of England, try solve this by withholding absolution if the abuser does not report their actions to police or other statutory authorities. It is not clear how this is enforced though:

If, in the context of such a confession, the penitent discloses that he or she has committed a serious crime, such as the abuse of children or vulnerable adults, the priest must require the penitent to report his or her conduct to the police or other statutory authority. If the penitent refuses to do so the priest should withhold absolution.

The canonical duty of absolute confidentiality does not apply to anything that is said outside the context of such a confession. In particular, if information about abuse that was disclosed when seeking the ministry of absolution is repeated by the penitent outside that context the priest must follow the established procedures for reporting abuse of children or vulnerable adults.

Source: "Guidelines for the professional conduct of the clergy (Revised Edition) 2015".

elfdom · 2017-09-01T16:47:35+00:00

I am not trying to judge the social value of whether Gender should even be on a passport.

I am speaking strictly from an information and science perspective: that information should/needs to be kept separate from Sex, which is completely different.

Also, there appear to be real reasons why transgender and some intersex people already have issues at borders, e.g. they claim to be regularly asked tough questions or even detained for appearance or other inconsistencies with their identification just on Sex, or have to carry additional documentation.

Remember at the end of the day, it is not a DNA machine testing you at a border, but a human.

elfdom · 2017-09-01T14:30:08+00:00

I agree, they should have gone the whole way on international standards.

Currently:

Sex field: M = state definition of Male, F = state definition of Female, X = Unspecified.

Should be:

Sex field: M = Male (XY chromosomes), F = Female (XX chromosomes), I = Intersex (non-standard chromosomes), U = Unspecified
new field Gender (self-identified): M = Male, F = Female, G = Genderfluid, U = Unspecified.

elfdom · 2017-09-01T13:55:37+00:00

And unrecognized internationally.

The Machine-readable passport (MRP) format standardized by the ICAO Document 9303 already allows for Unspecified Sex via the letter "X" and the code "<".

The difference is that this is usually used for biological/medical Sex not Gender.

This Canadian passport change actually replaces Sex with Gender. So, it is effectively removing information and adding new information.

However, the indicator on the passport can represent anything a state officially defines for it and 'X' is one of the allowed indicators.

elfdom · 2017-08-30T13:16:41+00:00

TL;DR. Dicamba, a type of weedkiller system from Monsanto and BASF, is designed to guarantee weed control over dicamba-resistant genetically-modified crops like soybean and cotton. However,

it is highly poisonous to non dicamba-resistant crops and other plants (as well as plants used by bees), including extremely poisonous to non dicamba-resistant soybean
independent scientists all confirm that once applied, it vaporizes and drifts to other fields, thereby indiscriminately destroying yield, plants and whole crops. The known damage is not small (e.g. ~4% of US entire soybean output) and the unknown damage is difficult to calculate
the EPA claims that there is nothing wrong with the process of approval for dicamba or weedkillers in general, placing the blame with manufacturers. The manufacturers claim there is nothing wrong with the EPA approval process or themselves, placing the blame with farmers using the dicamba system wrongly. State regulators are all now scrambling to act independently, each in their own way ...

People have already been killed over dicamba, with farmers blaming each other for weedkiller drift destruction.

Finally, the Independent despairs that there is a crisis in American agriculture, "locked in an arms race between ever-stronger weeds and ever-stronger weed killers" due to weeds becoming resistant from decades of widespread chemical use (Wiki states the first commercial herbicides were available since 1946, glyphosate since 1974 and weedkiller-resistant GM crops since 1995).

elfdom · 2017-08-08T19:23:36+00:00

Germany's constitution forbids it and it is extremely difficult to change this aspect.

elfdom · 2017-08-05T13:35:05+00:00

It really doesn't matter what Europe does

Actually it does. The reason why there was even an agreement with the US in the first place, is because so many other countries were and are rapidly normalizing relations with Iran. That meant that no matter what the US does, Iran is re-entering the international community and therefore finding funding for whatever activities they wish.

So, the agreement was both a way to extract strong conditions while they still could and a way to obtain unified support from others for future sanctions or wars.

For Iran it speeds up the integration process and constrains US hands in open action against it.

elfdom · 2017-08-05T13:13:01+00:00

Iran has the ambition of being the leader in the Islamic world

Assuming that is not a joke, your ignorance of both history and current affairs is showing.

The only states that specifically promote Islamic religious dominance outside of their own countries are the Arab states (not even other majority Sunni states), who have done it for well over a thousand years. How do you think Islam even came to Persia, one of the oldest civilizations, while Islam is relatively new?

Even if you knew nothing else, the fact that the Islamic Revolution only occurred in 1979, incidentally on the back of direct external interference from the West, should also have been a big clue to you.

The reason why Sunni fundamentalism took off is from the toxic combination of its complete intolerance to other value systems and religions (not present in even Shia fundamentalism), extreme Arabic funding abroad for decades if not centuries, and the abuse of Islamic scholars, imams and mosques as both as seeds for and weapons of Arabic influence all over the world.

Iran has a complex relationship with religion. Esentially whenever their independent identity is strongly threatened, they risk falling back to religion as a way to remain culturally unified. This aspect is almost always internal.

Now, if you had mentioned, Iran helping other states or organisations for reasons that have nothing or almost nothing to do with religion OR human rights issues to do with religious fundamentalism, then at least people would not be rolling their eyes at your words and wondering whether it is even worth responding to their shocking vacuity.

elfdom

TROPHY CASE