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 Ian Sturrock wrote:
I was referring to all the blokes on here who have been quick to jump in with the same advice. But yeah. The judge is also an insensitive idiot.

No, just no.

You're activity looking out for something to trigger a response.

What the judge said was that if you put yourself in bad situations, bad things are more likely to happen to you. Its a fact. No one is blaming the victim, but if someone was out looking for sex and they come across a barely comprehensible person, then it is far easier to rape them than it would be to rape someone who is at full cognitive ability.

But hey, as a 'bloke' what do I know? Well how about vehicles! Blokes love vehicles.

So if your out on a Sunday drive and some geezer pulls out in front of you at a junction and you end up ramming them. Whose fault is it? Well it is the person who pulled out.

But, if you are doing 90mph in a 70mph zone and some geezer pulls out of you at a junction, then whose fault is it? Well it is still the guy who pulled outs fault, but this time you contributed to your own accident. The same thing happened with a Biker a few years ago, he was doing 90 down a 70 road and someone pulled out and he crashed and killed himself. What did the judge say at the trail? That even though the Biker helped to cause his own accident the blame still lay with the driver who cut him up.

Any chance we could leave the rape/ gender politics gubbins to another thread gents?

Back to Brexit,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39245298

I thought "we" were "taking back control", but apparently David Davis thinks it means the Govt is the one who should be taking back control.

I've come to loathe that phrase, alongside "the will of the people" anyone who uses those phrases immediately drops irrevocably in my estimation and makes their argument gain the same credibility as anything written by the Daily Mail.
Ie, completely without evidence, and based on their feelings rather than any actual thought.

At the moment I have very little faith that May and her Govt have any intention but to negotiate the absolutely worst possible situation for the UK through their own inept brinkmanship and bungling arrogance. It still makes me bloody furious that there appears to be no solid opposition except that which comes from the Lords.

 welshhoppo wrote:


So if your out on a Sunday drive and some geezer pulls out in front of you at a junction and you end up ramming them. Whose fault is it? Well it is the person who pulled out.

But, if you are doing 90mph in a 70mph zone and some geezer pulls out of you at a junction, then whose fault is it? Well it is still the guy who pulled outs fault, but this time you contributed to your own accident. The same thing happened with a Biker a few years ago, he was doing 90 down a 70 road and someone pulled out and he crashed and killed himself. What did the judge say at the trail? That even though the Biker helped to cause his own accident the blame still lay with the driver who cut him up.

That's not really an apt comparison because by driving at 90mph you are breaking the law (assuming we are in the UK anyway). Getting drunk is not against the law. A better comparison would be that the driver shouldn't go out on the road in the first place because that avoids the accident. However it does limit the drivers freedom, just as not getting drunk (and lets not forget people do it because they enjoy doing so) would be.

Effectively what the judge is saying is that women should not get drunk because of the risk, whereas men can because they are at less risk. It's partially passing the responsibility onto the victim to act more constrained (despite that they weren't doing anything illegal) rather than the people instigating the crime.

We do treat rape as a special case. If she had said the same but used a more general term to talk about victims of crime, for example people who are mugged or assaulted when drunk, the reaction would have been very different.

What really worries me about the way we treat rape as a special case is that rape is a crime of power. It's about having power over the other person, which is why it happens a lot in domestic violence and in war. The special status it is given in society gives the perpetrators more power and makes it worse, and IMO the reverence we give it makes the victims less likely to come forward rather than more. The reverence and gravitas we give to it makes me feel victims will feel they are singled out in a way that victims of other crimes are not, even if that singling out is well intentioned.

 Whirlwind wrote:


That's not really an apt comparison because by driving at 90mph you are breaking the law (assuming we are in the UK anyway). Getting drunk is not against the law. A better comparison would be that the driver shouldn't go out on the road in the first place because that avoids the accident. However it does limit the drivers freedom, just as not getting drunk (and lets not forget people do it because they enjoy doing so) would be.

How about a motorbike filtering. Car does a U turn or pulls right without indicating. An accident that happens all the time, and the motorcyclists get blamed by the public all the time. Victim blaming is wrong in both cases, but again we treat the two very differently.

Also the legality of being drunk is questionable. We have plenty of laws against being drunk. Drunken disorderly, pubs are not supposed to serve drunk people, but we ignore them. Mostly for profit and because they are so routinely ignored enforcement would be impossible.

Yay, bad analogies, I love those!

It's perfectly possible in a road accident to find both parties somewhat at fault. Because it's an accident, ya know? Nobody goes out of their way to make it happen. Sorting out degrees of blame can happen at the court, sure.

There are no degrees of blame for a rape. It's 100% the attacker's fault. Some will prey on drunk people. Some will spike drinks. Some will snatch a sober victim at the park gates. There are a load of MOs, and dubious, moralising advice about not drinking too much is not a guaranteed rape protection, and a drunk person *is not responsible* for crimes committed upon them, though they might be responsible for committing crimes themselves. I don't see how that's so hard to understand.

Even the courts understand that. Even the idiot victim-blaming judges do. Because if they genuinely believed the victim was partly responsible, they would sentence the victim too. And that doesn't happen. They sometimes spout moralistic nonsense at them at the trial, because apparently being raped and then having to go through the court process isn't harsh enough -- we need to ensure their suffering is enhanced with a quick useless moral homily about the dangers of binge drinking. Sometimes a particularly idiotic judge will also reduce the sentence of the attacker if they feel the victim contributed by, ya know, departing from conventional morality by drinking beer, or wearing fishnets, or being a sex worker, or one of many other things that apparently make it OK for them to be raped, according to idiots.

 r_squared wrote:
Any chance we could leave the rape/ gender politics gubbins to another thread gents?

Back to Brexit,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39245298

I thought "we" were "taking back control", but apparently David Davis thinks it means the Govt is the one who should be taking back control.

I've come to loathe that phrase, alongside "the will of the people" anyone who uses those phrases immediately drops irrevocably in my estimation and makes their argument gain the same credibility as anything written by the Daily Mail.
Ie, completely without evidence, and based on their feelings rather than any actual thought.

At the moment I have very little faith that May and her Govt have any intention but to negotiate the absolutely worst possible situation for the UK through their own inept brinkmanship and bungling arrogance. It still makes me bloody furious that there appears to be no solid opposition except that which comes from the Lords.

I think we should see it as "very right element of Tory party takes back control". They basically sack anyone that disagrees (see Heseltine for example). If it's not full on "Brexit is going to be great" or you question the direction then its out the door or the mantra "of against the will of the people".

In a very "British" way we have seen a type of coup of the political system and they have Labour running scared of going against elements of their electorate rather than stand up and fight for a more rational debate (and which effectively limits any rebellion in the Tories own ranks).

This kind of "logic" is at least as spurious as the "hey, he played Call of Duty, are you surprised he later lost it and shot people IRL" nonsense the tabloids jump to whenever a mass shooting happens.

Edit: referring to the "some rape victims were drunk at the time, therefore women shouldn't drink" logic, or the "some rape victims were raped by their boyfriends, therefore women should stay single" logic, or the "some rape victims had their hair in ponytails which allowed the attacker to grab them more easily..." logic. Other posts happened while I was ranting..

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
..." Other posts happened while I was ranting..

Posts about politics?

Is that what it has come to?

Richard Dawkins has an interesting Viewpoint video on the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39218108

TL/DR: The mantra "The People Have Spoken" is being used by the government to ram through a lot of stuff that ought to be debated and decided by Parliament, probably after a General Election. He also has a good swipe at Cameron's incompetence.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Is that what it has come to?

Richard Dawkins has an interesting Viewpoint video on the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39218108

TL/DR: The mantra "The People Have Spoken" is being used by the government to ram through a lot of stuff that ought to be debated and decided by Parliament, probably after a General Election. He also has a good swipe at Cameron's incompetence.

If the referendum had been properly formatted in the first place would that still be the case?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Is that what it has come to?

Richard Dawkins has an interesting Viewpoint video on the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39218108

TL/DR: The mantra "The People Have Spoken" is being used by the government to ram through a lot of stuff that ought to be debated and decided by Parliament, probably after a General Election. He also has a good swipe at Cameron's incompetence.

That's all well and good, we all know why Cameron brought the referendum on, and it wasn't for the benefit of the UK. Insisting on a 2 thirds majority anywhere in the referendum would have resulted in howls from UKIP and Tory eurosceptics, and settled nothing, which is why Cameron gambled, not out of sense of fairness, but because he wanted to shut that wing of the Tory party up, and destroy UKIP.

However, the real problem still is that we don't have an effective opposition holding the Govts feet to the fire to protect the interests of the UK against the recklessness of a Tory Govt who seem determined to enact a vision of Brexit that is only shared by the hardest core Brexiteers, and leaves everyone else understandably concerned.

First time I've agreed with Dawkins in several decades, I think!

Another snippet from views night that is at least hopeful,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-38849485

The Chinese have been investing heavily in Africa for decades and it is certainly paying out for them, whereas we have shied away from dealing with that continent to a great extent, possibly due to post-colonial guilt? Who knows, but we need to move past that.
Post Brexit, we need to be broadening our horizons, and maybe taking advantage of our expertise in certain areas and selling that to Africa.

 r_squared wrote:
Another snippet from views night that is at least hopeful,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-38849485

The Chinese have been investing heavily in Africa for decades and it is certainly paying out for them, whereas we have shied away from dealing with that continent to a great extent, possibly due to post-colonial guilt? Who knows, but we need to move past that.
Post Brexit, we need to be broadening our horizons, and maybe taking advantage of our expertise in certain areas and selling that to Africa.

Post colonial guilt plus the fact that post colonialism (A lot of European powers included) left unsuitable and unstable governments and ideology, with power vacums that resonate to this day.

AND then you have special interests from British and overseas businesses who are in the market to shore up whoever in power gives then the best deals no matter how many africans of whatever stripe may be dying in droves. or repressed.

I'm happy to see investment in Africa, I'll even take supporting regimes which may have 'eccentricities'. It cannot be avoided, many do want to go down that road.

The Chinese have no such qualms.

I for one am happy not to see us supporting people like Robert Mugabe, Teodora Mbasogo, Paul Biya, Idriss Deby,and so on. These people aren't nice as a rule of thumb.

The plain and simple fact is that the Chinese have a lot more money than us.

 Ketara wrote:
I for one am happy not to see us supporting people like Robert Mugabe, Teodora Mbasogo, Paul Biya, Idriss Deby,and so on. These people aren't nice as a rule of thumb.

Robert Mugabe isnt "nice". Bit of an understatement.

However, if you watch it, the video made no mention of dealing with those individuals, but rather made a case for broadening horizons beyond Europe. Seems a bit excessive to write off a whole continent because of some of the leaders of their constituent countries aren't nice. That's like writing off the American continent because of a distaste for Columbia.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
The plain and simple fact is that the Chinese have a lot more money than us.

Not sure what your point is?

They have more money than us so we should not invest in Africa?

 r_squared wrote:

Seems a bit excessive to write off a whole continent because of some of the leaders of their constituent countries aren't nice. That's like writing off the American continent because of a distaste for Columbia.

The problem with doing business in Africa is that it essentially relies on bribes, highly explotative (sometimes slave) labour, and overruling human rights. It's why the Chinese have been able to do it and we haven't. We screwed most of the continent over when we pulled out, handed them over to civil war and dictators, and due to colonialist guilt, can't bear to operate in the realpolitik sense we do in the rest of the world (i.e. Saudi Arabia).

And I for one, am okay with that.

Not to mention that there isn't really much business to be done.The people there don't have the money to buy what we sell, we don't manufacture goods and so don't need their raw materials, and they make nothing we don't buy elsewhere. Sure we could flog a few cars to whatever dictator just got around to tearing up his first constitution or a few crates of guns to whatever faction is pushing through the Congo/Sudan/insert appropriate civil war, but it's nowhere near sufficient to be worth any real economic attention. Not to mention that the instability that rages across practically every country periodically makes permanent links difficult.

On top of that, the markets are tiny. Seriously. Their top three biggest economies, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt combined have a lower combined GDP than Mexico. Put it all together, and we're better off forging trade links at this point in time with Sweden or Switzerland than Kenya or Libya.

 Ketara wrote:

On top of that, the markets are tiny.

They are tiny now. Now that they have begun to get their act together (to varying degrees of success) they will rapidly grow in economic and political power. I work with a lot of Africans and they tend to be driven and ambitious people. One the other hand large swathes of Africa will be poverty stricken backwaters for generations unfortunately.

A country like Sierra Leone which has a positive history with the UK and isn't that corrupt (comparatively) would be a good place to make some targeted long term investments.

On the Brexit front it was interesting to see Anna Soubry suggest that the UK could crash out of the EU "within 6-9 months" should the negotiations falter, and they probably will. I would provide a link but the only place I could find it is the Express and I'm not giving them the ad revenue.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

A country like Sierra Leone which has a positive history with the UK and isn't that corrupt (comparatively) would be a good place to make some targeted long term investments.

......in what? Investments in Africa have a 95% chance of heading straight back out into a Swiss bank account belonging to a local government official. Where do you think all the money the IMF and various charities pump into the place each year go? Even the more straight and narrow places like Kenya are absolutely riddled with corruption and favouritism.

 Ketara wrote:

On top of that, the markets are tiny. Seriously. Their top three biggest economies, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt combined have a lower combined GDP than Mexico. Put it all together, and we're better off forging trade links at this point in time with Sweden or Switzerland than Kenya or Libya.

But think about what we need and what we have. We have a lot of highly trained and skilled people. We may not mass manufacture cheap items but we still have strong manufacturing and development when it comes to technical and complex goods and projects. What we lack is resources and the cheap labour to process raw materials, something which many African countries have in spades.

We don't really have any skills or resources that Sweden or Switzerland lack or cannot (or does not) already get elsewhere, such as from the EU.

 r_squared wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
I for one am happy not to see us supporting people like Robert Mugabe, Teodora Mbasogo, Paul Biya, Idriss Deby,and so on. These people aren't nice as a rule of thumb.

Robert Mugabe isnt "nice". Bit of an understatement.

However, if you watch it, the video made no mention of dealing with those individuals, but rather made a case for broadening horizons beyond Europe. Seems a bit excessive to write off a whole continent because of some of the leaders of their constituent countries aren't nice. That's like writing off the American continent because of a distaste for Columbia.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
The plain and simple fact is that the Chinese have a lot more money than us.

Not sure what your point is?

They have more money than us so we should not invest in Africa?

They have more money than us so they simply can outspend us in Africa.

We apparently don't have enough money to build hospitals and schools in GB, and staff them, let alone do a lot of stuff in Africa.

 Ketara wrote:

 r_squared wrote:

Seems a bit excessive to write off a whole continent because of some of the leaders of their constituent countries aren't nice. That's like writing off the American continent because of a distaste for Columbia.

The problem with doing business in Africa is that it essentially relies on bribes, highly explotative (sometimes slave) labour, and overruling human rights. It's why the Chinese have been able to do it and we haven't. We screwed most of the continent over when we pulled out, handed them over to civil war and dictators, and due to colonialist guilt, can't bear to operate in the realpolitik sense we do in the rest of the world (i.e. Saudi Arabia).

And I for one, am okay with that.

Not to mention that there isn't really much business to be done.The people there don't have the money to buy what we sell, we don't manufacture goods and so don't need their raw materials, and they make nothing we don't buy elsewhere. Sure we could flog a few cars to whatever dictator just got around to tearing up his first constitution or a few crates of guns to whatever faction is pushing through the Congo/Sudan/insert appropriate civil war, but it's nowhere near sufficient to be worth any real economic attention. Not to mention that the instability that rages across practically every country periodically makes permanent links difficult.

On top of that, the markets are tiny. Seriously. Their top three biggest economies, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt combined have a lower combined GDP than Mexico. Put it all together, and we're better off forging trade links at this point in time with Sweden or Switzerland than Kenya or Libya.

Well, the top 10 businesses in the UK comprise petrol/oil extraction, Banking, pharmaceuticals, phones and communication, chemicals and mining. Nigeria, Angola, and Algeria all produce considerably more barrels of oil than the UK, and are members of OPEC, are you saying that we couldn't legitimately invest in Africa in those business? That we couldn't find a market in oil, communications, pharmaceuticals and mining in Africa, and that it couldn't be lucrative?

I'm not saying prefer Africa over Europe, just broaden our horizons to include deals in our specialisations in that continent.
Did you watch the video out of interest?


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
...They have more money than us so they simply can outspend us in Africa.

We apparently don't have enough money to build hospitals and schools in GB, and staff them, let alone do a lot of stuff in Africa.

It's private UK business investing in Africa, led by the UK diplomatic service, we already send aid to countries in Africa. The British government doesn't need to outspend the Chinese, we just need to focus on what we do well, and what we can offer that the Chinese might not.

Anyway, this is all a bit out side my remit, I just thought it's was an interesting perspective.

Well, we offer a gateway to Europe oh wait

 Ketara wrote:
Investments in Africa have a 95% chance of heading straight back out into a Swiss bank account belonging to a local government official.

Hence "targetted"; throwing money into a Swiss bank account does no one any good but that's not the only way to invest...

A Town Called Malus wrote:
But think about what we need and what we have. We have a lot of highly trained and skilled people. We may not mass manufacture cheap items but we still have strong manufacturing and development when it comes to technical and complex goods and projects. What we lack is resources and the cheap labour to process raw materials, something which many African countries have in spades.

We don't generally buy raw resources, because we don't really have a manufacturing sector. The pharmaceuticals sector synthesises the base chemicals in labs, the construction sector has no need of specifically African raw materials (concrete from Poland and steel from China are a lot cheaper), and so on. With regards to Labour, the feeling in the UK at the moment generally is that there's too many foreigners here(hence Brexit). I doubt more would be appreciated. Not to mention the fact that we're not exactly lacking in manpower.

I repeat. They have nothing we want, and we have nothing they can afford. There's no real basis for business.

r_squared wrote:
Well, the top 10 businesses in the UK comprise petrol/oil extraction, Banking, pharmaceuticals, phones and communication, chemicals and mining. Nigeria, Angola, and Algeria all produce considerably more barrels of oil than the UK, and are members of OPEC, are you saying that we couldn't legitimately invest in Africa in those business? That we couldn't find a market in oil, communications, pharmaceuticals and mining in Africa, and that it couldn't be lucrative?

Yes. That is exactly what I'm saying. Christ knows the place would be swarming with entrepreneurs already if it were otherwise. They can't afford our drugs, giving loans that will never be repaid and embezzled is bad finance, and as we both have oil, we don't want theirs and they don't want ours (not to mention the oil market has crashed).


[s

Silent Puffin? wrote:
Hence "targetted"; throwing money into a Swiss bank account does no one any good but that's not the only way to invest...

And I repeat, targeted in what? Infrastructure? That's where the last umpteen trillion vanished in the name of before being diverted into Swiss bank accounts. The Government's can't be trusted with it.Small businesses? Most of them aren't even registered with their own governments. Large businesses? Hope you're prepared to pay bribes by the score, because otherwise the local political officials will try and shut you down for not letting them have a slice. And even then, large businesses in what?


There is a very specific reason that rapacious Western capitalism ignores Africa, and it's nothing to do with postcolonial guilt, or the Americans would be grubbing all over it even if we weren't. The sad answer is that there's no security, no stability, no infrastructure, few reliable workforces that aren't literally slaves, no money, and therefore no point in trying to do anything other than the most limited of business there.

Unless of course, you're prepared to grease every palm necessary, provide your own armed security, bring in your own workers, and have no ethics whatsoever. Then you can probably squeeze some of the raw materials out of the place. But otherwise? Nobody bothers.

 Ketara wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:
But think about what we need and what we have. We have a lot of highly trained and skilled people. We may not mass manufacture cheap items but we still have strong manufacturing and development when it comes to technical and complex goods and projects. What we lack is resources and the cheap labour to process raw materials, something which many African countries have in spades.

We don't generally buy raw resources, because we don't really have a manufacturing sector. The pharmaceuticals sector synthesises the base chemicals in labs, the construction sector has no need of specifically African raw materials (concrete from Poland and steel from China are a lot cheaper), and so on. With regards to Labour, the feeling in the UK at the moment generally is that there's too many foreigners here(hence Brexit). I doubt more would be appreciated. Not to mention the fact that we're not exactly lacking in manpower.

I repeat. They have nothing we want, and we have nothing they can afford. There's no real basis for business.

Gold? Cobalt? Platinum? Palladium? Manganese?

There are more resources than just iron and concrete.

 Ketara wrote:

And I repeat, targeted in what?

I don't know, but someone in the FCO or DEFRA will have at least a reasonable idea.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:
But think about what we need and what we have. We have a lot of highly trained and skilled people. We may not mass manufacture cheap items but we still have strong manufacturing and development when it comes to technical and complex goods and projects. What we lack is resources and the cheap labour to process raw materials, something which many African countries have in spades.

We don't generally buy raw resources, because we don't really have a manufacturing sector. The pharmaceuticals sector synthesises the base chemicals in labs, the construction sector has no need of specifically African raw materials (concrete from Poland and steel from China are a lot cheaper), and so on. With regards to Labour, the feeling in the UK at the moment generally is that there's too many foreigners here(hence Brexit). I doubt more would be appreciated. Not to mention the fact that we're not exactly lacking in manpower.

I repeat. They have nothing we want, and we have nothing they can afford. There's no real basis for business.

Gold? Cobalt? Platinum? Palladium? Manganese?

There are more resources than just iron and concrete.

Arent most of thsoe resources already being raped and pillaged by the likes of Rio Tinto? Businesses rather than nation states.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Gold? Cobalt? Platinum? Palladium? Manganese?

There are more resources than just iron and concrete.

Yeah, and you're a century too late. We don't generally screw around with metal alloys these days, so that's the manganese out. Gold? Why would we buy gold? We're not on the gold standard anymore, and clearly nobody cares enough to start a large trade in it between us or it would already exist. Not to mention its scarcity. It's useful in a number of computer components, but those aren't manufactured here en masse, they're made primarily in other parts of the world. Platinum? Same again. Palladium? Mate, the only sources for that are Russia and South Africa who already export as much of it as they can. There's no more room for expansion in that market.

Not to mention that if we're going into mining in africa, it's usually done by slave workers. I mean, that might not matter to you, but I'm not massively keen on promoting children toiling away down holes for blood diamonds or suchlike.

You can keep trying to find some amazing plan that will allow western investment to pour into Africa and revolutionise it, and bring trade and prosperity to all our people, but I maintain. If it were possible, it would have happened by now. The places that got lucky with mineral wealth are hellholes for the people who extract it, and all the money poured into Africa disappears into Swiss bank accounts far faster than anywhere else. The simple fact is that Africa is a bad place to do business, and a terrible place to invest if you want a return on your money.