Steven P

He's not a man I know much about, but there are 2 news stories about him... both inappropriate comments... I think your right.

Of course, forget the 'threat' of Chinese innovation, lets kill that part of the thread with an unrelated post. anyway, sorry to burst your bubble, but coffee shops, small businesses and leisure centres - in fact ANY business have never been obliged to accept cash. Many businesses accepting crypto only. For example If I want to trade and accept only firewood and mushrooms then that is my prerogative. A non article posted to further your political goals I am afraid to say... or a non article showing your basic awareness of the world is lacking.

That's a lot of words to read Mark, I wonder how many will? They certainly fit the public persona that I see of Musk... a good hatchet job.. or written with a fair bit of knowledge - I'll opt for the 2nd option. Suspect the naysayers will try to argue that it is a slight on the first-bestie of the US I suspect, or try to move the conversation on to something less awkward for themselves.

Smoke and fire with Evans I think.

20th wedding anniversary for DJT... China... only saying...

as they say, when the US sneezes, the world wipes their noses. Which is what is worrying, and can be seen above in this thread how idolising The Rapist is blinding people to repeat of history. I don't go down the Nazi / WW2 path often but on the anniversary of 80 years of Auschwitz it is a fitting lesson to look back at history and the rhetoric of the Nazi party.. to how it started.. divide and conquer... and how it ended. Preventing that is a fight worth fighting. To me this stems from a basic respect that a person is a person regardless of race, colour, religious, sexuality wealth or birthright. No one is born better or worse than any other. We're just born. Hatred is a thing we learn, and is a thing we pass on to our children. just a lesson to look to history to see our future.

Sneaky gits! But fascinating all the same. An update 8 years later that we had a bumper crop this year so whatever they were doing was OK. Can't do Honeypot ant - suspect the west coast here isn't arid enough

Did you notice the wind on Friday? If you are happy to cut, split and store them there are loads oh homeowners about just now... a walk will give you chainsaw noises and a polite request might get some logs. If you want dry logs our coal man does them in bulk bags, but there are loads of bulk suppliers out there - not everyone wants to cut and dry their own

As side story to add to Peds - noticed a few years ago that ants were all over my apple tree (Well, technically Mrs Ps), was about to nuke them, but a google suggested the ants were after aphids on the tree.... nuke the ants and the aphids are munching away all happy... moral there, nature has a cure if you look for it, lady birds in your case. Note - if you catch some lady birds put them on the tree safe at night else they just fly away. At night they wake up hungry and just start eating there and then

'Let it go'.. several times... only happens when JohnsonD knows he is wrong and wants to end the conversation. Why would it be that you want to end a conversation about your prejudices and intolerances? Why would that be?

Brianna Ghey ring any bells? Murdered because of intolerance. The same intolerance that Trump is spewing.

The crux of it is this last bit: The respect for the other person, if they are happy to dress how they dress, to behave how they behave then we, as a society, should respect that. There is no harm done to me, you or anyone whether Jodie wants to be called Jodie or James. End of really. I take it in the case of JohnsonDs daughters all the brain washing in school you are sooo afraid I am guessing that the school is full of transgender children... or is it just the one and the rest have had no adverse affect on their lives? However with Trumps rhetoric that there is no respect for other sexualities in the US this is going to cause hardship and suffering to those who are not straight. Noting also that intolerances have shown kids being murdered for trying to express who they feel that are. Do you want that on your collective consciences - 'our' view of the world causing enough anger and hate within an individual that they go out and kill another.... simply because they wear a dress or trousers when they are 'not meant to' ? really? It is a divisive policy, designed to create hatred within the US.. and that is what Trump thrives on. Anger, divide and conquer, he would not be where he is today with his negative view of the world politics. Editity... As for criminalising sex crimes... being gay is now one of them... Trump is on very thin ground if no one is up to speed on my views of the 'man'

Coming back to this one. Recording studio owning friend suggests: Rockwool bats are good sound insulators (as is rolls of it, the batts are easier to handle) Depends on the frequencies you want to block she suggests 100mm as reasonable - this is for a church hall environment, cutting out talking noise so might be different for music and a full range of frequencies. Make a frame however big you want, 150mm deep with slats over the front, the slats need to be thinner than the sound wave... about 5cm for talking frequencies... less for higher frequencies. Spacing between slats up to you - the bigger the spacing the better but you might loose some structural strength in the insulation. Under the slats hessian sacking - to hold the front of the insulation batts in place. Then 100mm insulation, then another support and a gap to the wall. She hasn't got as far as saying how many I need for my needs but for a studio enough to cover all the walls? Wood facing and you will get echos so you need the gaps I think. She then went about sound insulation factor - sound equivalent of insulation 'U' factor, I think she said 70 and above was decent? I was surprised, just rockwool will work (rockwool - fire proof)

Thing is the Trans issue, affects about 0.1% of the population, something like that, with about 1/3 of that 0.1% considering changing... and yet the politicians are making it into a massive issue - disproportionate. It is his style, divide, conquer, sow disinformation and the seeds of fear, then ride in on his white charger "I can fix it (but by the way, forgive my earlier transgressions and I might be setting womens rights back 100 years to do so)"

Wasn't sure if that was a wind up question, Tate being a divisive figure and how this forum likes to squabble.

30 years.. been pretty much 50-50 split in that time... so all political parties have had a finger in how affluent they are over there... 2 sides you see. Current incarnation wants tariffs on everything by way of example, the importers into the US aren't going to be taking a cut.. which will mean price rises in the US. He wants to raise a trillion somehow... again.. that's not coming from my pocket but from the pockets of Americans - price increases.

Junior. (Point I'm, making is that you can be one sided, biased if you like but if we all stood back and looked objectively at all sides of politics, and in fact all sides of society, we can find an event or story to back up what we are saying.)

Work are going mental, it is going to be windy, so far I've had 5 e-mails and 2 texts to tell me this. See what it looks like in the morning but nothing outdoors planned

Could ask the same about George W Bush too?

Again... you can't use that defence "Ahh, 'I' have done a bad thing, but look over there, that man did bad thing too so 'I' am absolved of all 'I' have done bad" Still did bad thing. Imagine this defence "You did murder" "Yes, but that man did murder twice" "Good point, case dismissed"... see? 'I' and 'That Man' can of course be interchanged with many politicians names.

and likewise stories going about of jobs being cancelled just now out of fear they have hired the best candidate... but they were women or coloured... and the companies are afraid of being fined or sanctioned now. Lives being ruined - given up jobs to take the new one that is cancelled at a stroke. End of the day, businesses have to make money, no one will hire someone who will be a burden and unprofitable - they'd fire the job advert out again if there were no suitable candidates.

It was the 1965 discrimination bill he scrapped. Nothing to do with diversity targets, just plain scrapping the legal protections of that.

But back on topic, the equal opportunities acts - and similar around the world are to stop basic discriminations, basic racism and to allow all to have a fair crack at the whip, a fair chance at getting any job.. This is a good thing. Larger companies will have a HR department monitoring these things and should be quick to ask hiring managers for example "Why do you only hire white men"... 60 years of US protection for workers and in all those 60 years no one has been shouting that it is unfair... then up steps Trump, a rash swish of the pen and womens rights have gone back to last century (along with the inferred allowable racism that you can scrap all CVs from other races, only interviewing your own (which of course favours the white man)). Discrimination is still discrimination whichever way it goes, but... your workforce should be representative of the local employee pool for the roles: So perhaps in Tree surgery and arboculture, fewer women wanting this career so you'd expect fewer in the workforce.. but they should get an even crack at it if they do apply for roles, and opposite to that, office workers should see a 50-50 mix men-women and an ethnic blend close to the local workforce - in Aberdeen for example, might be 95% white, in London might be 80% white. Fair an even for all. The law -was- there to help ensure this. It was a good thing.

Yup, though I'd shy away from checking if they are virgins though, that is probably a whole world of pain - though they reckon that is a translation issue and what they meant was 'unmarried'.

Wow, that's a big iceberg!