Samuel

Interest in Realism (IR),
Clactonian,
CfE

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

The UK government seems to leave the taps running on some schemes and not a civil servant or politicians remembers to suggest turning it off for 5 YEARS when labelled late applicants start growing

Neil O'brien doing much needed work as ever

[Neil O'Brien @NeilDotObrien]

9) Over 160,000 “late applicants” have been granted settled status after the deadline, along with a further 54,000 family members joining them, so 220,000 people. And 124,000 people applying after the deadline got *pre-settled* status, with 202,000 family members joining them.

[Neil O'Brien @NeilDotObrien]

8) EU Settled Status was supposed to be a one-off. We'd maintain the rights of EU nationals already here & they would do the same for Brits in Europe. Fine. But the Home Office *still* allows late applications five YEARS after the deadline. In fact new grants are going UP again:

[T. 📚☕️ @levantophile]

Unfortunately, the campaign against the Druze presence in Syria continues. This time, it took the form of a terrorist attack targeting a minibus in Jaramana, a Damascus suburb that is home to the capital region’s largest Druze community.

Caught between the existential trauma of last summer’s massacres and the continued state repression that followed those events, on the one hand, and the ongoing wave of kidnappings, random killings, and other acts of terror targeting Druze civilians, on the other, Syria’s Druze population is likely to decline precipitously in the years ahead.

Over the past year, there has already been a steady stream of Syrian Druze leaving for Lebanon or emigrating to established Druze diaspora communities, particularly in the Gulf states and West Africa. Their rapid disappearance from their ancestral homeland may come to resemble the fate of Iraq’s Christians, who constituted roughly 3% of Iraq’s population on the eve of the Iraq War, similar to the proportion Druze represent in Syria today.

That said, the future of the Druze in Syria, and their fate as a people as a whole, hinges largely on what happens in Suwayda. The outcome there will determine whether the Druze remain primarily rooted in their ancestral homelands in the Levant, as they have been for the past millennium, or whether they become a predominantly diasporic people dispersed across the world.

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

It's giving

[Timeproof Games @timeproofgames]

Muscle March (Wii, Namco Bandai, 2009)

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

I'm not against the style. I would perhaps think that we could try a bit better with using less of the land for more density.

Ideally, we shouldn't touch the green spaces if the population wasn't exploding and we could use up some terrible housing to build Haussmannian style housing.

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

Increasingly given more worry that the UK will quickly head towards something of a generator economy

What do I mean? Everyone privately going out their way to provide their own utilities. In this case, a Westminster school has its own water retention system but we have decent international examples.

Lebanon started failing back in the 2010s and apartment blocks, shops, houses adapted by buying fuel powered generators. Hospitals had already invested heavily in to these as the power system was almost always intermittent.

South Africa also has gained this feature due to frequent brown outs. Caused by an overstretched and poorly managed energy grid thanks to the uncompetitive and crooked government contracting system who favoured paying higher prices for terrible service at tax payer expense so to line African National Congress friend's pockets.

Developing economies have it from the start as an easier way of facilitating energy expansion but what has been interesting is seeing countries go backwards.

It all costs both in the short term and long term - fuel deliveries must be paid for, storage tanks made and maintained, more emissions for goods to be received and used inefficiently. Power plants are far more favourable than everyone running 4 stroke engines non-stop.

For water this isn't as expensive or risky, but the costs being diverted from the common good to just another private expense is one that removes money from growth and investment of what could otherwise be a public asset.

You can already see councils such as Tower Hamlets have shut water off in properties prone to leaking, forcing residents to fill their toilets with bottled water.

In short, the UK keeps giving signs of decline and the warning signals are there. The solution is obvious, either we make building easier across both the state or private sector, or people will not have enough time to wait for new reservoirs before drought hits.

[Geoff Barraclough @w9maidavale]

Seriously? Water is scarce. London is in drought but just look at Westminster School's playing fields in Vincent Square. This is not a reasonable use of fast dropping water resources.

[Duncan Hegan @DuncanHegan1]

1) State fails to perform basic function
2) private sector picks up the slack at no cost to anyone else
3) private sector is seen to be successful, is assumed to be ripping us all off, gets attacked for being competent
Result: competence discouraged
Many such cases.

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

@agw1437 Syria and Lebanon are both very dear to my medieval and historical heart, but I fear many of the sites I wanted to see are war-torn or just unsafe to see now.

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

Wars in the Middle East have cost Palmyra and Krak Des Chevaliers severely in Syria, let alone plenty of sites in Iraq. Human life and historic sites have been pulled in to war.

Now maybe even Crusader Era Beaufort Castle may have been damaged in Lebanon:

https://t.co/8m97ds35ts

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

Reading on Palantir lately given the EU and the UK government are trying to kick it

Two observations:

The UK has nothing replace it except inhouse building which can be productive but if you look at the Civil service, it is requiring many new hires.

EU has alternatives but not as comprehensive as Palantir, such as Poland's DataWalk and ChapsVision.

Overall: Classic case of all in one optimisation vs bespoke product creation. You pay for an easy win with use of public data or pay via staffing and investment for inhouse creation that your economy might not be within typical state structures.

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

Your ancestors thought the future would be flying cars but your reality is just Ai slop for consumerism

[Capital-O Opinions @damespjuffy]

The future of entertainment is here.

[Ferenc Hörcher @HorcherF]

Plato's Philosopher.

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

@Starvecrowfeast I'm not going to lie. I love reading Dominic but the amount of time I remember to commit to his bunker busting articles is rare as gold dust for me

[Louis Mosley @louismosley]

Big day over at the Guardian. They've uncovered a company paying its staff.

Today's exposé reveals Palantir's latest diabolical scheme: give employees shares, watch employees pay tax on them at HIGHER rates than corporation tax, hand the Treasury MORE money overall. As tax dodges go, I’ll admit it needs work.

The legal instrument behind this outrage? A relief introduced by the previous Labour Government to encourage employee ownership and collect more tax overall. The Guardian has bravely blown the whistle on the UK tax code.

As only the Grauniad can pull off, the facts that dismantle their own headline can be found at the bottom of the article: Palantir paid $148m in UK employment taxes last year.

@DanNeidle - who regularly seems to end actual tax avoiders' careers for sport - looked at this claim and called it “the worst tax avoidance scheme ever.”

We’ll await the Guardian’s correction with the usual confidence.

[Starvecrow @Starvecrowfeast]

Utterly extraordinary - Dom Cummings publicly confesses to having arranged for Blair ally Philip Gould’s bins to be regularly raided for a whole year to obtain secret info - and afaics not one journo has ever reported on it. He published this in 2023, I’ve only just read it.

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

Never think you can know who is going to like your post.

The algorithm works in mysterious ways

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

Our family home has been hit by the largest amount of by election literature I have seen at once

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

@TomosGRY Your wish is my command

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

@tomwhx I'm quite aware. I wouldn't expect all would be bothering to do it. This many bothering shows people how ridiculous the system is.

[Samuel @SamuelCLT_OTT]

Our family home has been hit by the largest amount of by election literature I have seen at once