frankPodmore
@frankPodmore@slrpnk.net
London-based writer. Often climbing.
- Comment on There's a heatwave forecast for much of the UK this week, so here's the NHS page on symptoms of dehydration 29 minutes ago:
Whoa.
- There's a heatwave forecast for much of the UK this week, so here's the NHS page on symptoms of dehydrationwww.nhs.uk ↗Submitted 1 hour ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 3 comments
- 'A significant moment': UK's latest floating solar farm powers up at Cheshire quarrywww.businessgreen.com ↗Submitted 2 weeks ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 2 comments
- Comment on Police in Nowak murder row force ‘pressured’ by diversity course 2 weeks ago:
Agreed. As I said, I’m not defending the police.
- Comment on Police in Nowak murder row force ‘pressured’ by diversity course 2 weeks ago:
what the actual fuck were these officers thinking?
This is a fair question, but it does have an answer: people often lie to the police about being injured in order to try and get out of restraints. It was too dark for the police to see the chest wound. Novak had a visible, but not serious, facial wound, though, and the police seem to have assumed this was the injury he was referring to.
Additionally, in this case, the actual perpetrator’s brother was the one who’d called the police. It is very unusual for a murderer or an accomplice to call the police (my understanding is we still don’t actually know why the killer’s brother did this). The police believed they were attending a one-sided assault. When they arrived, two ‘witnesses’, including the person who’d called the police, pointed out Novak as the ‘perpetrator’, corroborating one another’s stories. The police didn’t realise they were lying until too late.
I am not excusing any of the above. The police routinely treat suspects poorly and that’s what happened here. However, they did have good reason to believe Novak had committed a crime, and that belief had nothing to do with anyone’s race.
- Comment on Widow of gambling addict takes Betfair to court in possible landmark UK case 2 weeks ago:
I hope she smashes them.
- Submitted 2 weeks ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 0 comments
- Comment on UK police under pressure after dying student was handcuffed as he lay dying from stab wounds after his killer falsely alleged a racist attack 2 weeks ago:
Yeah. Unfortunately it is a long time when you’re bleeding to death. It’s possible he’d have died even with immediate first aid because you really don’t have that long once you’re bleeding from a major artery.
I think this shows the police need to change their practice when it comes to how they treat suspects, though, especially those under restraint.
- Comment on UK police under pressure after dying student was handcuffed as he lay dying from stab wounds after his killer falsely alleged a racist attack 2 weeks ago:
How long did it take them to realise that he was injured?
He was handcuffed for about one minute before the police began CPR, according to the judge.
- Comment on UK police under pressure after dying student was handcuffed as he lay dying from stab wounds after his killer falsely alleged a racist attack 2 weeks ago:
A long time
From the sentencing remarks as quoted in the FT:
[Novak] was handcuffed for about a minute before his condition further deteriorated and the arresting officer began CPR.
- Comment on UK police under pressure after dying student was handcuffed as he lay dying from stab wounds after his killer falsely alleged a racist attack 2 weeks ago:
I wouldn’t jump to assume race is the first thing the police go to.
This is correct: it wasn’t the false racist slur that made the police ignore Novak, it was the fact that the murderer had a witness to back up his line that he was attacked.
Unfortunately, people who are handcuffed often fake injury or distress in order to get the police to free them so that they can then either escape or attack somebody. Tragically, the officers here wrongly believed that’s what Novak was doing. He had a visible minor injury and they assumed that’s what he was referring to, and that such a minor injury wasn’t something for them to worry about. Possibly the police should change their procedures in order to properly medically assess detainees who claim to be injured.
- Comment on Hasan Piker, Cenk Uygur Denied Entry to UK Over Palestine Support 2 weeks ago:
Well, I actually agree with you, but actually the first quote was from The Times and the second quote was from Labour MP David Taylor.
I just thought it was fair to extrapolate that the reasons the government banned him were the same as those who publicly called for the ban, not separate reasons that no one who actually supports the decision has cited.
- Comment on Hasan Piker, Cenk Uygur Denied Entry to UK Over Palestine Support 2 weeks ago:
Isn’t it nicer when we all get along?
- Comment on Hasan Piker, Cenk Uygur Denied Entry to UK Over Palestine Support 2 weeks ago:
I actually agree with Novara that Piker shouldn’t be barred from entering the UK but this headline is very misleading.
The UK government has said the ban is because of his use of ‘“antisemitic tropes, such as the claim that Israel controls America” and comments about grooming gangs he made on Piers Morgan’s YouTube show’ and because of his support of a ‘proscribed terror group’ (i.e., Hamas). Nothing to do with his support of Palestine (I don’t think that Hamas represents Palestinian.s any more than I think that Putin’s party represents Russians).
- Comment on Farmer jailed for stealing hundreds of sheep 5 weeks ago:
Sheep rustling is such an old-school crime. It’s like being a train robber or a highwayman.
- Submitted 2 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 0 comments
- Too many drivers see road safety rules as a personal affront. It’s time to tighten up UK laws | Sally Kydwww.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 2 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 1 comment
- Submitted 2 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 0 comments
- 'I've been focused on ensuring we become a co-operative country' | Co-op Party general secretary Joe Fortune talks about Labour’s bid to grow the UK co-operative sectorwww.thenews.coop ↗Submitted 2 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 0 comments
- Comment on Green conference votes AGAINST energy company nationalisation 2 months ago:
Interesting that The Canary is now publishing this type of nonsense about the Greens. I always suspected they were more committed to ragebait than to any specific politics. This is evidence in favour of that thesis.
- Comment on Why do all night show hosts sit and have their desk to the left of the interviewee? 2 months ago:
Supposedly this is also the reason that most 2D platforming videogames scroll left-to-right.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x10 "Rubincon" 3 months ago:
Yeah, I can just about fill in the handwaving myself, but it still felt a bit too vague for me. I guess I’ve never really been sold on telepathy as part of the Star Trek universe, so the more they use it (and the more powerful and plot crucial it gets), the less I like it. Still, I can’t deny that it is part of the universe, so maybe I should get over it.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x10 "Rubincon" 3 months ago:
Only think that didn’t work for me was the Caleb/Tarima telepathy working like a psychic airtag for Anisha. Needed more explanation than ‘They have a connection,’ IMO.
- Comment on Annotations for *Star Trek: Starfleet Academy* 1x010: “Rubincon” 3 months ago:
Graffiti’d on the wall in the Atrium are the words “Break. Burn. Build.” Other visible graffiti include “Liberation”, “Take Change” and “Never Again”.
There’s also ‘Veni, vidi, vici, Venari’, which is a modification of Julius Caesar’s famous phrase meaning ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’. With ‘venari’ added it could be translated as ‘I came, I saw, I conquered, I hunt’.
It’s also thematically relevant to the title, as it was Caesar who crossed the Rubicon (on his way back from conquering), and became dictator of Rome, similarnto what Nus Braka was trying to do in this episode.
- Comment on What should've been the point or points for society to throw up their hands and stop supporting the government? 3 months ago:
I think when they just said ‘Yes, LLMs can steal your work’. That showed they don’t even care about property rights, which is the one thing the right have always pretended was their raison d’être.
- Comment on Head of Police Federation of England and Wales arrested on suspicion of corruption 3 months ago:
I guess well done for not doing that?
- Comment on Most Reform UK members believe non-white British citizens should be forced or encouraged to leave, poll finds 3 months ago:
Agreed, I’ve also seen and heard a lot of this attitude, going back decades now.
In addition, I think that Islamophobia is very widespread in the UK, including among ethnic minority groups. Both white and non-white Islamophobes see anti-immigrant polices as a way to persecute Muslims and prevent more of them coming to the UK.
- Head of Police Federation of England and Wales arrested on suspicion of corruptionwww.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 3 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 2 comments
- Comment on Annotations for *Star Trek: Starfleet Academy* 1x08: “The Life of the Stars” 3 months ago:
I thought it was interesting that the Doctor didn’t want to mentor Sam after he was so enthusiastic about taking the same role for Seven of Nine. This episode gave a solid explanation!
- Comment on If someone tells you that communism has led to famines in the USSR and China, that it doesn't have any incentives and that anyone who supports it use products of capitalism, how do you counter this? 3 months ago:
Even if you use open source software exclusively, the hardware you run it on was still manufactured under capitalism, the hardware it was built on was manufactured under capitalism, the electricity you’re powering your hardware with was provided by capitalism, and the very economic system that allowed the devs to build and maintain the software… was capitalism.
None of this is in capitalism’s favour. That there’s no getting away from it is, for Marxists, a key argument against it.