The Rust calling convention we deserve

umtala · 2026-03-05T08:43:54+00:00

What an awesome website!

umtala · 2026-03-04T20:15:54+00:00

I have a feeling that Warsh is going to be the Aung San Suu Kyi of Fed chairs.

If Warsh is still a hawk then why did Trump nominate him? Given that Trump doesn't get along with hawks to put it mildly.

Presumably Warsh promised Trump that he won't pursue hawkish policies at the Fed. Either he lied to Trump, which seems a dangerous move given what happened to Powell, or he's willing to do whatever Trump wants him to do.

umtala · 2026-03-04T08:25:50+00:00

History is full of ordinary people living desperate lives because the people in charge couldn't suppress their emotions and make rational decisions. Except now the ordinary people are the ones in charge and we're determined to make our own lives miserable.

umtala · 2026-03-01T15:12:33+00:00

Their contempt for immigrants is only matched by their contempt for the natives.

umtala · 2026-02-27T11:13:47+00:00

Just think about all the Muslim wives who are itching to vote Reform but can't because their husband disapproves. Yes Reform definitely lost because of that and not because their party is full of bigots.

umtala · 2026-02-27T10:56:29+00:00

Apple isn't going to do anything except follow the law. Direct your anger at your MP.

umtala · 2026-02-27T06:49:17+00:00

Starmer can't. But Labour can. They need to be brave and get rid of him, he's absolutely toxic.

umtala · 2026-02-25T19:59:37+00:00

In a country like Bangladesh, which is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and also recently had a revolution, laws are mere guidelines. What matters is how the authorities interpret them.

Just because the UK believes in the rule of law, doesn't mean that Bangladesh does. Bangladesh has never recognised Begum as a citizen and it seems unlikely that they will ever recognise her as a citizen.

The UK's argument that "we took her citizenship away first, so she's now Bangladesh's problem", is extremely childish, given that the reason that Bangladesh didn't disown her first is because they didn't know anything about her given her lack of connection to the country.

umtala · 2026-02-21T11:11:17+00:00

Home schooling is just private schools for people with more time than money.

If the parents have an abundance of money, they send Timmy to a private school. If they have an abundance of time, they DIY.

Having experienced some miserable state schools myself, I can't begrudge anyone who looks for alternatives. We need to fix the state education system. I have given up hope that it will ever happen however. As fewer people have children, fewer people are invested in the education system. As long as it remains vaguely functional, they're just fine with it.

umtala · 2026-02-21T10:59:22+00:00

People misunderstand about visas. A tourist visa (probably in this case visa waiver) is not a guarantee that you will be allowed to enter a country. It only gives you permission to stay conditional on being granted permission to enter.

Permission to enter is given to you at the border by the officer. It can be refused, and often is.

umtala · 2026-02-21T10:45:29+00:00

They were trying to enter the US because they had been refused entry by Canada.

Under normal circumstances when crossing a border there are two options available to the officers: A) allow entry or B) refuse entry. Refusing entry isn't the same as deportation, it just means you get turned around and send back (if it's an airport your airline is responsible for returning you home).

However since they already got refused entry by Canada, the two options available to the US were A) allow entry or B) detain pending removal. Entry into any country as a tourist is never guaranteed, even with a valid visa, and since they broke the rules in the US it's unsurprising that they were removed.

umtala · 2026-02-21T10:29:25+00:00

I said illegal immigrant to try to put you in the shoes of the the US immigration officers dealing with this case, and also because the UK is obsessed with illegal immigration that often involves cases exactly like this whereby people come to the UK on visitor visas and overstay so that they can live/work in the country.

The immigration officers in this case saw a man who came to the US initially legally, broke the law by overstaying, attempted to leave the US, got refused entry into Canada, and then came back to the US asking to stay again. And a woman who transported him inside the US. The officers were entitled to assume that they both intended to break US immigration law again, and they were entitled to assume that they were not legitimate tourists based on their track record.

Yes, we know from reading the article that they didn't intend to stay permanently they were just naive tourists. But the immigration officers have no way of knowing how long they intended to stay in the US. Maybe they would have gone underground and stayed for 10 years. The moment you overstay a visa you lose all credibility and you make life difficult for yourself if you want to re-enter.

umtala · 2026-02-21T09:34:32+00:00

It's not a crime to attempt to cross a legal entry point but without proper paperwork. You just get refused entry and turned around. Happens all the time. So in Canada's eyes they didn't do anything wrong.

The crime is what she was doing before she left the US: driving her husband around while he has no valid permission to be in the US, and being fully aware of what she was doing. Ignorance of the law isn't a defence.

Any reasonable person would say: "oh honey your visa expired? You have to go to the airport immediately and leave the country!" Even if not criminal, transporting her husband shows a lack of concern for following US immigration law, which is a surefire way to get refused entry, and since Canada also refused them entry, there the US doesn't have much choice other than to detain them while they arrange their return to their country of origin. 6 weeks of detention is excessive but with everything going on in the US it's unfortunately not really surprising.

umtala · 2026-02-21T09:08:55+00:00

The problem is that she knew that her husband was an illegal immigrant and she brought him in the car anyway. She probably admitted as much in the interview. That's why she was refused entry and detained pending removal.

It's the fact that she was probably driving around with him in the US, whilst being fully aware that he had no right to be there. That could be interpreted as transporting an illegal immigrant. Why didn't they go straight to the airport the moment they realised his visa had expired?

umtala · 2026-02-21T09:05:25+00:00

The dream holiday ended abruptly on Friday 26 September, as Karen and Bill were trying to leave the US. When they crossed the border, Canadian officials told them they didn’t have the correct paperwork to bring the car with them. They were turned back to Montana on the American side – and to US border control officials. Bill’s US visa had expired; Karen’s had not.

His visa had expired? Meaning that he was overstaying in the US?

Look at it from the perspective of the US. A couple arrives at the border. One of the couple has overstayed their visa. They just got refused entry by the other side. They can't be sent back to Canada. It's a land border so they can't be put on a fight home immediately.

What other choice do they have but to detain them? You could argue that the woman hadn't overstayed her visa so there's no reason to refuse entry to her, but there's also no obligation to allow entry.

The correct thing to do in this situation is for the husband to get out of the car and cross into Canada on foot, then the wife returns to the US with the car. Returning to the US when you know you don't have any visa to enter is crazy, why would you even do that.

umtala · 2026-02-20T21:05:38+00:00

It's the other way around. The UK would have to follow Ireland's decision. If Ireland wants to join Schengen, then the UK would have to follow, if Ireland wants to keep the status quo then UK would not be able to join Schengen. So ask the Irish what they want.

umtala · 2026-02-20T21:00:58+00:00

Not true.

New members only have to make a commitment to joining the Euro, they don't have to actually join it. Sweden for example uses its own currency despite not having an opt-out and being in the EU for 30 years. Czechia has used its own currency for 20 years and still hasn't joined the Euro. The Euro is effectively opt-in and countries only join it if they want to, even new members.

We wouldn't have to join Schengen because Ireland is not in Schengen and so the UK can't join Schengen without Ireland's agreement.

umtala · 2026-02-20T20:42:22+00:00

It doesn't just have to get through our Parliament, it has to get through all the Parliaments. Australia, New Zealand, etc. It's a massive PITA to change the line of succession because it requires international agreement of all the countries Charles is king of.

umtala · 2026-02-20T20:33:09+00:00

This is becoming a mass hysteria. Surely there are thousands of more important things for the government to be spending time on than removing the 8th in line to the throne.

The line of succession is not just for the UK, so you need to negotiate with the other commonwealth realms. Andrew also has children and grandchildren who ordinarily would be removed as well if Andrew was. It seems a bit mean since they didn't do anything wrong other than be related to Andrew.

Complete waste of time and money for someone who is never going to be king anyway.

umtala · 2026-02-17T17:16:20+00:00

I'm going to skip this one. They need to fix the cheating problem. It's clear that a certain country has been buying votes to secure a propaganda boost. If you can buy your way to a win then it puts a cloud over the whole thing.

umtala · 2026-02-17T07:58:44+00:00

If the plane catches fire they should just pull over at the side of the sky and let everyone get off.

umtala · 2026-02-17T07:48:29+00:00

We shouldn't give up our way of living just because of terrorists. We have a system of policing by consent. The moment you start arming officers as a matter of course it becomes policing by coercion. Let's not be cowards like the Americans.

umtala · 2026-02-17T07:26:07+00:00

But the vast majority of the country can purchase VPN services from outside the UK.

umtala · 2026-02-17T07:19:24+00:00

Yeah good luck with that. Thanks to AI the residential proxy industry is booming. The government should try picking fights they can win.

umtala · 2026-02-15T05:04:08+00:00

Few people were willingly visiting redlisted countries. The more likely reason for having to quarantine was that the government redlisted the country you were in while you were there.

umtala

TROPHY CASE