It should also be noted that choosing not to choose, is also a choice, and not necessarily the lesser evil.
In other words, just because you didn’t choose for one of two poor options, doesn’t mean you didn’t make a choice for a third option you believe to be a lesser evil.
If the democrats were a genuinely left-wing party that took working class concerns seriously, whether that’s migration keeping wages artificially low, industrial decline, jobs moving abroad, stagnating wages, increasing inequality, or the disproportionate influence of the 1% and wallstreet on politics, they wouldn’t have lost as many voters to Trump or actually convinced them to turn up and vote.
A drowning man will grab on to a straw. Without a true left-wing party, plenty of working class voters took a gamble on the snake oil salesman, fell victim to the propaganda, or decided they wouldn’t vote against him. Union members voted for Trump in droves. That’s a damning indictment of the democratic party.
If the democratic party had been genuinely left-wing, those voters would have had less reason to take that gamble. Instead they have steadily moved further and further to the right on many issues, labouring under the false assumption that their base had no alternative but to vote for them, even if those voters were drowning.
To be clear, I think everyone can and should vote against fascism. But the democratic party failing to deliver for working class voters, while the rich got richer, made a populist demagogue an inevitability.
Learn the lessons of the Weimar Republic and how it fell.
Ending FPTP probably won’t necessarily solve the problem, as the German example shows.
The problem with the lesser evil argument is that voting for the lesser evil cycle after cycle ultimately resulted in Trump and possibly the end of American democracy.
I owned a Citroen with a 1.0TSI engine that was supposedly more efficient than the 1.4TSI in my VW. In reality the VW was and still is far more fuel efficient, even though it’s a significantly more powerful engine. Could be that the Citroen was shaped like a brick though. LOL.
I get why manufacturers did it.Wet belt perishes outside warranty or after the lease contract ends. Customer ends up footing the bill and increased cost over a dry belt. Lower emission under test conditions for regulatory compliance.
This being said, I just replaced the belt on my vw at less than 150k km/ 93k miles and coming up on 10 years. VW recommends it. Some markets they recommend replacing it much sooner. That’s arguably a shorter interval than some wet belts. But it is much cheaper to replace than a wet belt, much much cheaper than a new engine, so a no brainer. (400E/$)
I’ll be glad to move to an electric car. Hopefully be able to avoid some of that nonsense.
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
IME you should add “and laziness.” to that sentence.
It’s quite useful for getting what you want really. Make not doing what you want more effort. Most people are too lazy or tired to not give in for unimportant stuff.
Eg. when being stopped by the police, take your time finding your driving license. Chances are they’ll get bored and let you go on your way before you’ve found it.
Skin irritation, rash, potentially for toxins to be absorbed through the skin, but especially dangerous if you have a small cut or abrasion you may not have noticed. Touching your eyes or nose after handling is also problematic and an easy mistake to make if you’ve been around plants that easily cause irritation.
All the advice I’ve ever read says don’t touch. Don’t know of a grown adult who’s ever died doing so, but it’s nasty stuff. I googled (duckduckgod?). Eating 6 leaves is enough to kill you, seeds and roots even less.
Here’s a bbc countryfile article. The problem with some of these poisons is that it takes a while before you know you’ve been poisoned and even longer for you to die an unpleasant death.
Luckily it’s not as bad as the organometalics. Don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Karen Wetterhan. Chemistry professor who dropped one or two drops of dimethylmercury on her protective gloves. Thought nothing of it. Went through her latex glove, absorbed through her skin within 15 seconds, she didn’t notice it happening. Took her 10 months to die of mercury poisoning.
Shit’s no joke. I have two relatives who worked in the chemical industry. One has chronic leukemia. The other has Parkinson’s. Environmental exposure is likely to be a factor or have exacerbated things for both of them.
TLDR: wear gloves and protective gear when necessary.
As far as toxic to touch I don’t think I am aware of anything in the UK you are realistically going to come into contact with.
Giant hogweed (related to hemlock, looks a bit like parsley). Looks like normal hogweed, but far more toxic. Won’t kill you from touch alone, but not a great idea to handle it without gloves. Found all over the UK.
Variants of hemlock are also abundant in parts of the UK. Quick google turned up a story about it growing near a school. Obviously parents panicked, which is silly because it grows all over the place. Hemlock water dropwort is the super poisonous one, found all over the place but I doubt most people’d realise. Left is hemlock and right is cow parsley:
Obviously the person holding them is touching the hemlock with bare hands, which is a bad idea.
Most people think they might get a bit ill or have a bit of stomach issues. Perhaps they know to avoid oleander or foxglove. Most don’t realise they’d die a painful and entirely unpreventable death after eating a relatively small amount of leaves or seeds of other common garden plants.
Hell, I was trimming my yew (taxus baccata) a few years ago and even the small amount of needles I accidentally got in my mouth made me quite ill. No antidote, so you’ll die a painful and prolonged death.
Then there’s the whole hemlock thing, where people confuse it with carrots or parsley. Also no antidote, just a long and painful death.
All too often, you’ll see people trimming or burning highly toxic plants or not wearing gloves while dealing with plants which contain toxins which can be absorbed through the skin.
And then there’s the people who think wood is wood, and toss whatever on the fire.
To be fair the driver was either black-out drunk or on their phone, so it’s fair to say they weren’t really driving at the time.
I remember a world where this man was rarely on television and any mention of him was easily avoidable.
I will never live to see that world that world again.
Unsurprising. A lot of ‘natural’ additives are actually worse for you than the synthetic alternative.
The most obvious example I can think of is almond flavouring. The natural variant often contains traces of cyanide, which is not great even in small quantities.
Bit of a tangent, but I think most people would be surprised how many of the plants in their garden are deadly. And because I don’t want to give anyone any ideas, usually that death is slow, incredibly painful, and involve you shitting yourself endlessly. Wear gloves and don’t burn stuff you don’t recognise.
I don’t know if I’ve told this joke in this community before, but here goes. A man is driving through Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. He comes across a fallen tree and stops. Before he knows what’s happening, men in balaclavas and with automatic rifles are shouting at him and banging on the window of his car.
“Are you a catholic or a protestant?” One of the masked men asks. The man in the car, knows the wrong answer could get him shot.
“I’m an atheist.” Says the man.
“Are you catholic atheist or a protestant atheist?” Shouts the masked man.
I strongly suspect a lot of American Christians aren’t particularly religious. Instead they’re using religious affiliation, and Christian symbols, as signifiers of an ethnic/sectarian identity. That’s why the man in the post above, doesn’t care about non-white Christians, doesn’t care about what the bible says he should do, and likely doesn’t care that his leaders are often immoral people who regularly commit blasphemy and heresy. For him being a Christian means belonging to a white protestant American ethnic group, that God is on their side, and not much more.
It’s fundamentally not that different to Ratko Mladić, who had previously been a longstanding and reputable member of the communist party, and who people said wasn’t religious, claiming he was defending Christianity against Islam when he became the Butcher of Bosnia. Or Putin, the former KGB operative, claiming he’s defending Christian values against Western decadence in Ukraine.
The comment above which started this discussion was complementary, and you admitted as much in your reply to it.
Others have also said and provided examples of the phrase sometimes being complementary.
You yourself moved from saying:
It is always cynical to describe someone as a “political operator,” because that phrase is inherently negative.
To:
It usually is, as in, more often than not.
Ie. sometimes it is positive.
You were wrong about a phrase sometimes having a different connotation, it happens, who gives a shit?
You’re right about the smooth bit. Don’t know how that happened.
In any case, operator isn’t necessarily negative, neither is political operator. It can be and often is, but not necessarily. I often see it being used as a compliment.
I did a google, here’s an example from NPR, which is clearly complimentary:
Street — who calls Obama “one of the biggest celebrities on the planet at the moment” — notes that he is “always able to put a distance between himself and whatever performance he’s giving. He knows he’s playing a game. He knows this is a bit of light relief, a bit of entertainment, but he keeps his dignity … and that seems to me a very clever trick. It speaks to him as a very sharp political operator.”
Luckily BBC news is increasingly irrelevant in the social media age. Although the alternatives aren’t always better.
Not yet.
The Israeli far-right, who form part of the Israeli government, have been openly talking about settling Gaza after removing the Palestinians.
I suspect we won’t have to wait long after the end of october(?) Israeli elections.
While complaining that the reason no one’s helping is because we’re all to busy helping the <insert marginalised group epithet>