Interesting - Wiktionary says that the phrase was originally “heels over head”, which makes sense when conveying the sense of tumbling over. I guess that became corrupted, resulting in “head over heels”. Maybe I should start saying “heels over head” then.

So I should accept people saying “could care less” when they mean the exact opposite? Not sure I can do that.

I think TikTok is bad. But maybe the reason young Americans condemn Israel is because of Israel’s actions (bombing Gaza, starving Gaza, withholding medicines from Gaza, trying to deny Palestinian statehood).

I think Hamas’s attack on Israeli civilians in 2023 was not in any way justified. Civilians should not be attacked. But if we’re going to say that, then it also means that Palestinian civilians should not be attacked.

I don’t want to be too pedantic but it’s actually a milkshake. “Milkshaking” (throwing a milkshake at someone, usually as a political protest) has happened a few times in the UK to prominent political figures (usually right-wing figures). Milkshaking even has a Wikipedia page.

a few million people WISH they could do things like this but it costs money to survive

I don’t think money is the only issue. You’re also having to take so much time away from family and friends. I think many people would rather have a pretty normal life instead of dedicating years and years to a massive expedition. Hats off to the guy though, it’s quite an achievement.

Maybe. But I think it’s worrying if young people are now feeling more emboldened about being racist.

Good answer. Many posts are people saying “my approach is the right one, other people are irredeemable morons who should burn in hell”, but you’re right, it depends on your perspective.

For me it’s the top one. In a web browser, when using CSS and JavaScript, x is the horizontal axis, y is the vertical axis, and z is for depth. Hence the z-index CSS property which determines depth.

I would say the bottom one only makes sense if the stick figure were to hover in the air and look downwards. Then the z axis would be depth for him.

Yeah I think Ireland’s system is pretty good. They have the Taoiseach, the equivalent of our prime minister. Then they have a president who is mostly ceremonial.

Ah yes, British democracy. The bringer of Brexit, Boris Johnson.

Arguably though, if the UK was even more democratic, then those two phenomena may have turned out differently. E.g. Boris only won 43.6% of the votes in the 2019 election, which of course is a minority. If the UK had proportional representation then I guess we’d be more likely to see consensus-building leaders ruling the country. Germany has some degree of proportional representation and they have been led by coalitions between the two main blocs (centre-right Union and centre-left SPD) for much of the last 20 years.

With Brexit, maybe there should have been a second referendum to determine what sort of Brexit would be implemented, since that question was not asked in the first referendum. The UK could have taken a path similar to Norway or Iceland, being outside the EU, but still taking part in the single market.

I haven’t checked my account on here for a while but now I’ve seen your replies.

Maybe we will just have different views on the monarchy. If you like the monarchy then fair enough. I think I would prefer an elected official having command over the armed forces and police (which is surely already de facto the case) instead of a monarch. The elected official would probably be somewhat competent because they have had to win the backing of the British people in an election.

Reform UK is only supported by about a third of the electorate at the moment. More than any other single party, but if there was an election for a British head of state, and that election ended up being a choice between Farage and one other person, Farage could very well lose.

Also you said in another post that “President Farage could remove elections”. I think that if we have an elected head of state then they should only have similar powers to what the King has now. Parliament should still be sovereign.

I think one of the best aspects of the UK is political freedom. Perhaps I am a subject of the King (I don’t know if that’s legally true but it might be), but in any case, I can still say that I hope the UK will get rid of the monarchy and replace it with a democratically elected head of state.

Fair enough, but according to a couple of sites that Wikipedia refers to, Churchill originally didn’t know that the outward facing gesture was rude until he was told about it. If true then I guess his gesture was intended to mean “here is a V for victory” instead of “fuck off you lot” or “fuck the Germans”.

It depends on the context doesn’t it. Lots of people will fly the England flag or wear an England shirt during a football tournament, and all they mean by that is “I support the England team” without a further political meaning. But the meaning of the current flag-flying from lamp posts seems to essentially be “we don’t want immigrants in the UK” which can make the flags intimidating (which is probably the exact intention).

Here’s another example of context changing meaning. Churchill used to give a two-fingered salute (see picture below), and his intended meaning of that salute was that it was a “V” for “victory” in WW2. But of course these days, that same outwards two-fingered salute means “fuck off”. Context changes the meaning.

Absolutely true. I didn’t mean to imply that you said that. I was just thinking about people on the left (not necessarily yourself) who didn’t vote for Kamala because she wasn’t critical enough of Israel. In America’s political system, especially in swing states, not voting for the Democrat candidate makes it more likely that the Republican candidate will win.

I hope the US doesn’t invade other countries. But I would say I can be wary of both the US and China at the same time.

Politicians can change their mind though if there is enough political pressure on them. I just think it’s weird logic to think “I don’t like what is happening in Gaza so I would rather see Trump elected to the White House than Kamala Harris”. Since Trump has a history of being strongly pro-Israel and he doesn’t seem to have a lot of sympathy for civilians who are suffering.

Almost immediately after coming to power in 2014, the Ukrainian government started banning opposition parties

There were still big pro-Russia parties so Ukrainians who liked the idea of stronger ties with Russia had parties they could vote for.

The whole situation is a tragedy and a mess.

That’s very true.

they were shut out of the political process by having their parties banned

The banning of pro-Russia parties apparently happened after Russia launched its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, so the banning can’t be a justification for the invasion.

we’re talking about grabbing people off the streets, giving them a rifle, and forcing them to the front

I hope that doesn’t happen and I hope Ukrainian people can choose whether they want to fight or not. I also think though that Russia shouldn’t be taking land and lives by force, and they also shouldn’t be trying to install their own puppet regime in Kyiv.

If you thought Kamala wasn’t paying enough attention to suffering in Palestine, you could have protested and lobbied her to pay more attention to this issue, while still voting for her as president, on the basis that Trump is even more pro-Israel and even less sympathetic to Palestinians.