There are a lot of things to attack Polanski on, this is just irresistibly salacious for the tabloids.
And frankly, this kind of attack is par for the course. Ed Miliband got relentlessly mocked for things like "awkwardly eating a sandwich" and "kissing his wife in a way thought ungainly".
Kamala complaining about his debate performance puzzles me as well. He wasn't super sharp, but he did reasonably well:
POLITICO poll: Americans divided on VP debate winner - POLITICO www.politico.com/news/2024/10...
JD Vance narrow winner over Tim Walz at VP debate: share.google/XxdSNkfCuh1k...
* Hastily hides Ed shrine *
Photo of an estate agent branded as a Conservative Campaign stunt
"What do voters like?"
"Erm... estate agents?"
An MEU is being dispatched, per the WSJ.
This entire thread is full of people getting angry and self-righteous with Duncan because he dared to express the view that Polanski is a bit of a chancer.
"From Hell's heart I stab at thee: for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!"
People should be able to take criticism of their favourite political figure or political party without declaring that everything is a smear.
It's bad for democratic scrutiny when people develop a parasocial relationship with their political idols. James, Tom and I are all Labour voters, but we all have pretty robustly critical opinions about the current leadership. Much GPEW content on here borders on the adulatory, and it concerns me.
The problem is that a fairly sizeable number of people on here are taking criticism of Polanski as a personal attack and are reflexively hostile to any scrutiny of his conduct and policies. It's very reminiscent of Corbyn's time as Labour leader.
It's important to predominantly blame the USA for its current actions. Israel is committing dreadful crimes at the behest of its criminal leader, but they would be of only local rather than global significance if it wasn't for the USA's own criminal leader, voted for by a majority of USA voters
whether people like this or not parliamentary democracy has a much better record of incremental progress not being destroyed by the change of administration than literally any other form of government
*Constantinople
I'm married to a Greek Orthodox Christian who has Greek family members and I assure you that the word 'Turkey' is rarely uttered without some form of disparagement attached, and people insist on still saying "Constantinopole" and "Smyrna", rather than Istanbul and Izmir. So I can believe it.
A normal person posts: I meet with, I would estimate, several hundred people a year. Surprisingly, I do not endorse all of them. A very strange person replies: you "meet with" several hundred people a year? and i'm supposed to think more of you, not less?
Absolutely gone laughing at this.
“Reeves has been ratcheting up the rhetoric on closer EU relations which she described as the “biggest prize” in trade”
If only we’d acknowledged this BEFORE we threw it away in a fit of arrogant prejudice. Getting back in the room is far harder than flouncing off
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Can this be a solution?
Perennial reminder that Annie Jacobsen's book about Area 51 posited that the Roswell crash was an experimental aircraft piloted by dwarves created through medical experiments by Josef Mengele:
Everything about the scenario she depicts in the book is absurd and she leans heavily on Ted Postol, who was a bit of a crank.
📉 Wait lists have fallen again by 43k in January - 374k in 18 months.
🚑 Fastest ambulance response in 5 years, down to less than 29 mins for heart attacks and stroke
🏥 A&E waits the shortest for four years despite a hugely demanding winter
Lots done, lots more to do.
My grandfather, who worked on Blue Streak, never forgave Macmillan for cancelling it.
jesus man
“$100 a barrel for first time since X” discussions rarely adjust for inflation
Which is odd
Site here lets you do so, with mildly soothing results www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-o...
Interventions such as cycle lanes, uptake of electric cars and restrictions on polluting vehicles had helped to drive the improvements across 19 cities in reducing air pollution.
Beijing and Warsaw reduced fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) by more than 45%
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
New post just out:
"Fighting back"
Labour is a deep hole, with the Greens now ahead in some polls.
What political strategy do they need to get out of this cycle of decline?
(£/free trial)
open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/f...
It's annoying just how right Baudrillard was.
i would like to have people take war seriously
Think there is a corollary to the "Nothing is true and everything is possible" nihilism which is rooted in the idea that nothing is serious.
We should reject it. Fight against it. It's inhuman and at the heart of the slide into neo-authoritarianism.
Trump has tremendous difficulty with principled people (even if as with the Iranian regime, the principles are bad). He assumes everyone is a transactional fraud like him. Works well with rich Americans and poorly with idealists of any stripe
