Off Topic Thread 5.0

Dog Botherer

[Deleted User] wrote: »

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-54965585

well he didn’t use some obscure slur for Scottish people so it’s already not as bad as i was expecting

Dog Botherer

Dog Botherer wrote: »

well he didn’t use some obscure slur for Scottish people so it’s already not as bad as i was expecting

Yeah but he's likely just taken a chunk of the people who value devolution and thrown them into the Independence camp.

It's a significant misstep - if it's not intentional.

stephen_n

kuang1 wrote: »

(apologies Thomond)

There could be worse to come in the US in 4 years time.

Imagine the scenario where Trump sets up his own TV station (very plausible, rumoured to be already under consideration according to CNN reports) soon after leaving the Whitehouse in January and runs for election in 2024.

A lot of his core supporters reported to have turned away from FOX now. (mainly due to them calling the election for Biden, and cutting off Kayleigh McEnany mid-stream last week)
There's a void there to be filled. A Trump run TV/news station would not have trouble with viewing figures.

And add to that a likely situation of Trump running against Kamala Harris...

That is a tinderbox sitting on a barrel of petrol perched on a truck filled with dynamite in a warehouse full of C4 in a city made of TNT in a country full of...well...let's face it, they like to smoke.

If Trump manages to get investors to back his TV station, it would probably be bankrupt by 2024 anyway.

Zzippy

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah but he's likely just taken a chunk of the people who value devolution and thrown them into the Independence camp.

It's a significant misstep - if it's not intentional.

If you took the Scottish MPs out of Westminster the Tories would have a permanent majority. I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted rid.

Dog Botherer

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Yeah but he's likely just taken a chunk of the people who value devolution and thrown them into the Independence camp.

It's a significant misstep - if it's not intentional.

oh i know, just a jape.

“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence” - Napoleon Bonaparte

bilston

Zzippy wrote: »

If you took the Scottish MPs out of Westminster the Tories would have a permanent majority. I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted rid.

The British PM who loses Scotland will not be remembered fondly in English/UK history books so I doubt he wants rid at all.

irishbucsfan

Dog Botherer wrote: »

oh i know, just a jape.

“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence” - Napoleon Bonaparte

That is definitely not a Napoleon quote! That's Hanlon's Razor


Although it did send me down an internet rabbit hole here, seems its been misattributed to a load of people and also a load of quotes have been misattributed to him.

Bazzo

irishbucsfan wrote: »

That is definitely not a Napoleon quote! That's Hanlon's Razor


Although it did send me down an internet rabbit hole here, seems its been misattributed to a load of people and also a load of quotes have been misattributed to him.

"Never attribute a quote accurately when any famous name will do" - Michael Collins

Dog Botherer

“Never mistake a badger for a bee, except on Tuesdays” - Winston Churchill

Dog Botherer

Dog Botherer wrote: »

“Never mistake a badger for a bee, except on Tuesdays” - Winston Churchill

ffs i made this joke then went to do more research and ****ing Churchill is credited with a variation of it. typical.

swiwi_

How does trump have the power to hire and fire at will? Is there no employment law in the US? He’s now fired the head of cyber security who said there was no evidence of electronic fraud. America is like an autocracy at the moment.

Burkie1203

awec wrote: »

The other elephant in the room is that schools remain open, and the chances of the virus spreading in those is much greater than anyone having a pint outdoors. But there is total reluctance to even acknowledge this. It is quite bizarre to hear them talk about there being no real evidence of spread in schools, so lets keep them open, on the other hand here's some total supposition about some people on the street, so lets ban that.

They even had to change the rules for schools and come up with a totally different definition of a close contact.

I completely agree with the approach of not closing schools due to the huge knock on effect that has, but it is just frustrating all the bullshit around it.

A few teachers I know have told me it's the parents hanging around in groups talking for 30+ minutes after they drop their kids off who have been the problem, not the kids, who they say have actually been really good. They even had to send an entire class home 3 days before mid term because 12 or so of the parents out of a class of 30 tested positive but not one of the kids did. They have since had to have gardai pay a visit to tell the parents to quit hanging around

My socialising since March involves coffee with friends locally one or two mornings a week. Can be 5 of 15 but there is a large green beside our local (independent) coffee shop and we make good use of it. Haven't had much alcohol since March either.

I think the alcohol thing comes down to evidence of house parties etc where obviously alcohol drops peoples awareness levels fuelling the transmission. The case recently were 1 became 56 or 57 began with an overseas trip but then centred on house party and other socialising with alcohol involved. South William Street in itself isn't a problem if people were in small groups but after a few do people start inter mingling etc or will the groups get bigger. Then they are either getting a bus or a taxi home? So the reach from 1 person very quickly becomes 10 or 15.

pickarooney

swiwi_ wrote: »

How does trump have the power to hire and fire at will? Is there no employment law in the US? He’s now fired the head of cyber security who said there was no evidence of electronic fraud. America is like an autocracy at the moment.

It's literally called 'at will employment' and most of the states have it.

errlloyd

Burkie1203 wrote: »

A few teachers I know have told me it's the parents hanging around in groups talking for 30+ minutes after they drop their kids off who have been the problem, not the kids, who they say have actually been really good. .

Back in September and October when they used to tell us how cases had been transmitted it would always be like "24 percent are from known clusters, 2 percent are from travel, 6 percent are from meat factories and the remaining 68 percent is community transmission".

So when they said they have evidence of house parties etc, it was because people at house parties know each other and people of house party going age often had the tracing app. So it was easy to contact trace all of the house party people. The stats do indicate that house parties are bad.

But, the community transmission numbers are effectively the "we don't know" numbers. And they were always huge! When gym owners, restaurant owners and education ministers say "statistically we are fine" I want to slap them. The statistics could rule that some things were definitely bad. And they did. But they should not be used to decide what is safe unless we are successfully tracing 90 plus percent of contacts. And we are nowhere near that.

swiwi_

pickarooney wrote: »

It's literally called 'at will employment' and most of the states have it.

That sucks!

pickarooney

swiwi_ wrote: »

That sucks!

I don't know how people live like that. How can you get approved for a mortgage if you could lose your job at any moment for no reason and have no dole to fall back on?

Trump's catchphrase has always been "you're fired". Why anyone would expect that to change when he has the most powerful job going is a mystery.

Yeah_Right

Burkie1203 wrote: »

A few teachers I know have told me it's the parents hanging around in groups talking for 30+ minutes after they drop their kids off who have been the problem, not the kids, who they say have actually been really good. They even had to send an entire class home 3 days before mid term because 12 or so of the parents out of a class of 30 tested positive but not one of the kids did. They have since had to have gardai pay a visit to tell the parents to quit hanging around

They should ban parents taking their kids to school. Make the brats walk, cycle or get the bus. Like my generation did :mad:

My socialising since March involves coffee with friends locally one or two mornings a week. Can be 5 of 15 but there is a large green beside our local (independent) coffee shop and we make good use of it. Haven't had much alcohol since March either.

F***** hipster!! Get a Starbucks like normal people.

Dog Botherer

pickarooney wrote: »

I don't know how people live like that. How can you get approved for a mortgage if you could lose your job at any moment for no reason and have no dole to fall back on?

the US housing market is on the brink of collapse again because of this. if you’re under 40 here it’s incredibly difficult to get a mortgage, so people rent forever.

swiwi_

pickarooney wrote: »

I don't know how people live like that. How can you get approved for a mortgage if you could lose your job at any moment for no reason and have no dole to fall back on?

Trump's catchphrase has always been "you're fired". Why anyone would expect that to change when he has the most powerful job going is a mystery.

The other thing is holidays. I think they get 2 weeks or something like that per year. And in certain jobs (eg legal profession), if you take the full 2 weeks, well, you are lazy.

Dog Botherer

swiwi_ wrote: »

The other thing is holidays. I think they get 2 weeks or something like that per year. And in certain jobs (eg legal profession), if you take the full 2 weeks, well, you are lazy.

lol i have yet to work a job here that had pto

Yeah_Right

Dog Botherer wrote: »

lol i have yet to work a job here that had pto

The difference in terminology is interesting. Paid Time Off vs Annual Leave. One makes it sound like you should be grateful for getting time off AND getting paid for it while the other sounds more like a right.

The wife works for one of the big US tech companies in Dublin and everyone there uses PTO as well. Actually, I'll have to ask what the story is with holidays for the US offices. Here they 25 days per year, I wonder if its the same over there. Some of her friends have transferred to US offices and I can't imagine them accepting a reduction in holidays.

Dog Botherer

Yeah_Right wrote: »

The difference in terminology is interesting. Paid Time Off vs Annual Leave. One makes it sound like you should be grateful for getting time off AND getting paid for it while the other sounds more like a right.

The wife works for one of the big US tech companies in Dublin and everyone there uses PTO as well. Actually, I'll have to ask what the story is with holidays for the US offices. Here they 25 days per year, I wonder if its the same over there. Some of her friends have transferred to US offices and I can't imagine them accepting a reduction in holidays.

being familiar with the culture, i imagine they have similar leave plans but workers over here are under massively more pressure not to take it.

Stheno

Our lot use vacation

We get a couple of company days on top of annual leave which brings it to nearly thirty days a year

We can only carry forward a few days so there's a mad rush now to take all the days off before we lose them

We give 25 days holidays to new starters and anecdotally in my experience people who have a good level of time off perform better.

Even if there was data which suggested that this negatively impacted profits I wouldn't roll it back - would rather be human about it.

Dave_The_Sheep

Stheno wrote: »

We can only carry forward a few days so there's a mad rush now to take all the days off before we lose them

Side note, I've taken bugger all holiday days this year. As such I'm basically off from 11th December until the 11th Januay. Carrying a few days to take the first week of January off.

There's a lot of my colleagues in the same boat. December will be dead.

Stheno

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

Side note, I've taken bugger all holiday days this year. As such I'm basically off from 11th December until the 11th Januay. Carrying a few days to take the first week of January off.

There's a lot of my colleagues in the same boat. December will be dead.

Same here im out for 3 solid weeks

awec

Yeah_Right wrote: »

The difference in terminology is interesting. Paid Time Off vs Annual Leave. One makes it sound like you should be grateful for getting time off AND getting paid for it while the other sounds more like a right.

The wife works for one of the big US tech companies in Dublin and everyone there uses PTO as well. Actually, I'll have to ask what the story is with holidays for the US offices. Here they 25 days per year, I wonder if its the same over there. Some of her friends have transferred to US offices and I can't imagine them accepting a reduction in holidays.

It's probably less.

Not unusual for annual leave for new hires to be as little as 10 days a year in the US, even in the big tech companies with all their perks.

MaybeMaybe

between regular vacation days (26), paternity leave, time in lieu days (from working weekends) I think I have had about 45-50 days off this year and still have days to use. it's nice

edit: I've had 60 days off so far...

Paul Weller

The Republic of Ireland power on to a 0-0 win over Bulgaria!

pickarooney

I have a few days stocked up so can finally get a break this Christmas. Unlikely to be able to go anywhere but a bit of downtime will be grand and for the first time ever there's someone to cover my job so I won't come back to two weeks of ****e to deal with.