Legislators are there to directly reflect the opinions and interests of their constituents, judges are there to have expert knowledge of the law and how it applies to each case uniquely. The first needs some form of democratic mechanism to ensure that they represent people’s current opinions, the later needs a meritocratic mechanism to ensure they are experts in the correct fields.

If judges were the only element of a court I would agree that it would be problematic to have no democratic input, but in common law systems at least that element is represented by juries who are the most powerful element of a court case as they are unchallengable arbiters of fact and drawn through sortition which is even more democratic than election.

Judges shouldnt be elected for the same reasons surgeons shouldnt be elected.

I mentioned the smell merely as a way of showing that smoke fumes linger inside in a way they dont outside.

A) other than a few joints in my 20s I’ve never smoked, dont be an arse and make assumptions about people you dont know.

B) I really dont care that smokers often stink, I dont live with any. My point was that their cancer causing fumes dont linger outside for me to breathe in so I dont care that they are doing it to themselves. The opposite is true inside where they are affecting me, so I’m glad that’s banned.

Its incredibly subjective that smoke dissipates far faster outside where there is significant airflow than inside closed rooms?

Yes your clothes might smell if you’ve been smoking outside, but if you walk away from the spot there isn’t any smoke hanging around for other people to breathe in. That is the difference when it comes to health effects from second hand smoke.

Inside is very different to outside where smoke doesnt accumulate. You can instantly smell someone had a ciggarette inside even hours later, outside you cant tell (once the person has left) even a few seconds later.

Often as different benefits have different qualifying conditions. But the larger point against means testing (IMO) is that universal benefits are far less likely to be attacked and devalued over time. If something is just given to a small section of society, often a relatively powerless one, it is easy for politicians on the right to scrap that benefit or daemonize those who receive it. On the other hand universal benefits (like this one) see huge pushback when politicians try to take them away.

The better path forward is to make benefits universal, but make them taxable income and raise higher rates of income tax, that way most of the money given to higher earners naturally flows back to the treasury.

What do you use as a vm on an arm mac? I was looking into this a while back to run linux on my work m3 macbook but i couldnt find any good options

Pretty rich from someone who’s entire position is a strawman

Ah yes, totally got me there with the obvious logical link between liberals over egging Trumps link with Russia → no state has ever or will ever try to push narratives on the internet.

That’s nonsense, even if you pretend Taiwan is a part of China, which is clearly nothing more than a useful fiction for all parties, there is a space even at the narrowest point of the straight that is just EEZ. Which is a region that is free to navigate but the host country has exclusive rights to minerals, fishing etc within that region.

A brand new account whose only posts are pushing Russian narratives, hmmm I wonder what this could be?

Even the bastions of neo-liberal capitalism like the IMF are saying that the UK needs to significantly ramp up investment rather than stick to fiscal austerity. This is entirely a political decision because Starmer’s labour are incredibly timid and paranoid that doing anything more than continuing the status quo with more competence will lose them their massive polling lead.

I’ve literally never heard that or read anything suggesting that. Britain/Britons has been used to describe the islands and peoples of the north Atlantic archipelago since ancient times with great Britain simply referring to the largest island (i.e. England+Scotland+Wales), as per wiki

Written record

The first known written use of the word was an ancient Greek transliteration of the original P-Celtic term. It is believed to have appeared within a periplus written in about 325 BC by the geographer and explorer Pytheas of Massalia, but no copies of this work survive. The earliest existing records of the word are quotations of the periplus by later authors, such as those within Diodorus of Sicily’s history (c. 60 BC to 30 BC), Strabo’s Geographica (c. 7 BC to AD 19) and Pliny’s Natural History (AD 77).[10] According to Strabo, Pytheas referred to Britain as Bretannikē, which is treated a feminine noun.[11][12][13][14] Although technically an adjective (the Britannic or British) it may have been a case of noun ellipsis, a common mechanism in ancient Greek. This term along with other relevant ones, subsequently appeared inter alia in the following works:

Pliny referred to the main island as Britannia, with Britanniae describing the island group.[15][16]
Catullus also used the plural Britanniae in his Carmina.[17][18]
Avienius used insula Albionum in his Ora Maritima.[19]
Orosius used the plural Britanniae to refer to the islands and Britanni to refer to the people thereof.[20]
Diodorus referred to Great Britain as Prettanikē nēsos and its inhabitants as Prettanoi.[21][22]
Ptolemy, in his Almagest, used Brettania and Brettanikai nēsoi to refer to the island group and the terms megale Brettania (Great Britain) and mikra Brettania (little Britain) for the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, respectively.[23] However, in his Geography, he referred to both Alwion (Great Britain) and Iwernia (Ireland) as a nēsos Bretanikē, or British island.[24]

I’m confused, do you think international waters, like shipping lanes leaving the Red sea, are a thing or do you believe might makes right and if you can exert force you control it? If the the former then the US and the Houthis are both in the wrong, if the latter then they are both fine. So which is it?

So you’re saying the Houthis are as bad as the US?

Yes they do. I presume from your stance you are in favour of the US seizing or sinking Iranian ships when they are in waters the US controls just like the Houthis are attempting to do?

It’s right there in the summary that they hit a military base and radar installation near the airport. Shit headline but you don’t even have to click the link to get that.

No, how was I supposed to infer that you were fine with non-commercial AI from your two letter response to why you were licencing your comment?

I think its fairly naive to think that linking to a licence will do anything to stop commercial AI but not open ones, but you go for it if you think it’s worthwhile.

I think you’re missing my point. You are giving people more rights to use your comments by putting them under CC licence than not putting them under any.