jaywalker

brandy (childhood memories ...)

My observation is that large healthy cats terrify urban-sized foxes (and they run away): my cat is 8kg (although on a diet ...) and goes into a kind of whirlwind if he sees a fox (I would certainly run). A cat can do a great deal of damage to a fox. Large rural sized foxes definitely eat older/smaller cats from time to time. But a rural fox can be more than twice the size of an urban one. Urban foxes are becoming increasingly friendly. Perhaps they have learnt this from cats :-) Rats and cats is also an interesting speculation. Cats are not our children. If they want to go out then we should let them. I think we over-invest: a cat is a cat. For the most part they only simulate participation in our worlds: they have their own.

See that Lib Dem membership is rising exponentially - there could be surprises yet. Meanwhile, anti-intellectualism is a condensation of multiple factors (i.e. it over-determined): it rains a lot here (cold water on abstract ideas), we style ourselves as practical people of affairs, the industrial revolution made us self-certain about our practicality, we are protestant and have that ethic, we have an ambivalent relation to the French (whose language is more precise and whose tradition is more cerebral (thought) whilst yet also more visceral (cuisine)), we won against the Germans so their philosophy is rubbish, we took from the Scottish enlightenment a certain scepticism (Hume) without understanding its depth, the ruling class survived the late C18th, we established no great artistic traditions (in music between the great Purcell and the great Britten, in painting between cave dwellers and Bacon), the public school phenomenon, we stifled women's voices until very recently, we are in train to the special idiocies of American pragmatism, the Church of England, we still believe in monarchies, cricket. Perhaps above all, we established English as a universal language, so thought that it expressed the universal (oh dear oh dear; whereas the French were able to problematize their own categories of thought). A certain na?ve positivism and honest pragmatism amounting to no more than bad faith and cultivated stupidity.

surprise

Tiger

Great shooting herself in the foot moment from May today over foreign aid. The promise to keep it appeals to cosmopolitans (like me) who she said she was moving away from (oh dear, is she afraid of the Lib Dems all of a sudden :-)). This will alienate in droves the UKIP supporters she was wooing (see posts by the rabid brexiters that post on the BBC HYS website). Combined with the policy to abandon tax limitation, and particularly the end of the 'triple lock' on pensioners incomes, means she could find herself in big trouble (at least if we had ANY kind of opposition).

It became clear in the last 24 hours of campaigning that: 1 We are not leaving the EU at all (to paraphrase a Eurosceptic Tory MP were we to "give in" to the understandable demands of the EU that we maintain ECJ rights for EU citizens here as a condition of any deal, and not least because the Tories have now signalled that immigration cannot be controlled without destroying the economy - so there will be quotas for those industries which need them). 2 The Lib Dems are raising record funds (so crucial for national advertising in our so called democracy). I wonder if the new looseness on immigration is because Tory business donors are being a bit reluctant to cough up. Either we have a hard brexit (which May knows would be catastrophic) or we have an illusion of brexit: no small surprise no TV debates then.

plutocracy

pato Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/20 > 17/apr/12/theresa-may-is-more-dangerous-than-donal > d-trump-opinion-video This is terribly weak centre-ground criticism. It is psychologistic (identifying her as a Fox, as if her actions are principally determined by her personal makeup) and inept (it is stupid to accuse May of being happy about migrant deaths for example). It preserves intact the bovine cowardice of the Tory parliamentary party by focusing on the qualities of their current leader. Above all, it does not attempt to locate the dreadful possibility of a May in the structural circumstances in which she found herself able to take office.

I have observed the following language from my cat: distinct Meows: play with me, feed me (not distinguished by meow but by location and kind of purr) i am going to be sick there is another cat in my territory there is a pigeon in my territory (only pigeons elicit this particular meow for some reason) accompany me as i patrol my territory i don't like going to the vets (and other stress situations) distinct gestures: sits very close to me (stroke me/brush me according to location) head butt (wake up it is time to feed me) pawing carpet (feed me urgently) pawing me - gesture to elicit milk from mother(feed me NOW) gift of toy mouse (look what I've gone and hunted for you, feed me again!) gift of real live mouse from garden (this is fun!) tail up (hallo) simulated bite (its ok, its only play m8) cold shoulder - sitting looking away from me (where have you been, i need you here) scent marking my foot in the morning (you are part of my pride) tail expands to a brush (fox or aggressive cat in immediate area) burying action on food dish (this food is shit, give me something else) Unlike Stringvest's, my cat is far too intelligent to watch CCTV, and the only TV he likes is David Attenborough (understandably), although I suspect he takes the narrative a little literally judging by the half hour search for the giant shrew that the endoscope showed coming out of its burrow through the television screen a few months ago.

pretence

No. Dogs bark because they are intelligent, have many things to say, and cannot: the anatomy of their vocal chords and palate not having evolved in a way that would afford speech. Stupid humans then reduce their multiple communicative sensibilities to 'dog'. It is a sad irony that humans, so limited in so many ways, acquired the power of speech: then found they had nothing to say, so set about killing each other instead.

I feel that dbboy has spotted an antimony. IF freedom/liberty of speech/action is desirable, THEN what are the constraints? We are constantly told by our rulers that freedom is of the essence. But then we see/experience the administration of mind. Our rulers are strangely inarticulate when it comes to spelling out the limits of those constraints. So in that sense, dbboy is absolutely right to insist on the limit case (even though it is an incoherent position).

In purely game-theoretic terms (please read this literally) Trump is acting with some acuity. He has become unpredictable. Putin and Xi will have taken note. See endless poker simulations where programmes win against their stupid (even though world-ranked) human 'interpreters' by defying interpretation. I believe this is current orthodoxy in game-theory terms. (PS, probably N Korea (though certainly neither Russia nor China) is too stupid to realise - we might fear this, really quite a lot).

This is already an obsolete post. The new business model for car manufacturers (e.g. BMW) is, over the next decade or so, to produce automated shared cars - you simply pay to rent for your specific journey the model you think reflects your status :-). Car ownership will go the same way as house ownership (or more prosaically, software or music ownership). It is of some interest that late capitalism eviscerates the subject (their groundedness in the things they own) in this way, in favour of an idealised 'rationality'-thought-to-exist-beyond-the-incarnate-social (that extends already to zero-hour contracts for example).

mask

Envelopes that you are invited to lick, but which don't stick.

keano77 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What would a united London signify? If independent (in alliance with other City States) a passport to be proud of?

chrysanthemum

???? said "crap" if what you want to do is get rid of some aggression, then why not go and kick a ball around the park?

reprieve

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Anyway nice to see the good old EU using > Gibraltans as bargaining chips - where's the > outrage EDF or are we inconsistent and > hypocritical in our hate on this sort of > disgusting behaviour - moral high ground lost EU > (not a surprise given their form/integrity though) hate? disgusting? now there was I thinking the UK had triggered a divorce that the other party did not want at all. One based on stupidity: xenophobia, a misunderstanding of the nature of trade, an atavistic fear of immigration not to mention the culture of the other. A paradigmatic expression of ressentiment of cosmopolitanism, liberal values, and a modern understanding of the way the economy works. So yes, I guess your words express ressentiment with some precision.

Townleygreen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > malumbu, Wales voted for Brexit. > > God knows why. Lost in translation?

malumbu Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > We could also support a united Ireland. this has now become a mainstream possibility: see the reviews in the FT today. Dublin has (after a taboo of 15 years or so) begun to talk about it explicitly. It may be this or a wall (hard brexit would demand one). should we not now try to support a united London? The M25 is not a bad sketch for a wall.

uncleglen, do you know what the word 'displacement' means?