Cycling UK Forum

I find the idea that opinions opposite to some on here are less worthy. I know I fit into that category a lot but I do not care.

If you are taking your own personal experiences and turning them into an argument that it is the universal experience then that is plain wrong IMHO. My grandad died at home of complications cancer related. He had the most amazing treatment by so many different people and organisations. Macmillan nurse was hated by him but she was a glue that kept everything together IMHO. She knew more about cancer treatment than the GP signing the scripts. In fact if she saw a need for something she would march into the GP's treatment room with a pre-written script and never left without it being formally signed off. As I was told she had a power over GPs and other doctors. Not one would go against her.

They had all the treatment and palliative care he needed. That is not to say my gran and as much as she could my mum did not do a lot. My gran was the other bit of glue holding it all together. Then there were the various district nurses and carers who came in. All good in what they did and lovely people with it. Or the volunteer carers from a local charity. These were fully vetted people who had been in my gran's situation before and now want to help. My grandad had a really nice guy in his early 40s I think who sat with him overnight so my gran at least had a good night's sleep. There were so much more going on that I do not have the time to write.

Where was I when this was happening? I was living with them while I was at uni doing my masters. I was the single bit of normality that they clung to and gave them not so much hope but peace. I also sat a lot with my grandad watching sport with him. We had lots of discussions about WWF, cricket and football. Not what I was into but he was. He was american but still got cricket!!

This is my experience. I also experienced my gran who with dementia was not such a good experience. However the care was as good as it was needed to be.

The other point I find a bit wrong is the idea that politicians can not express their views especially if they are ministers. We elected them to represent us but in certain fields they are able to have a free vote and opinion. This is certainly right IMHO and part of this should be our right to understand the opinions and reasons behind our MP's or our minister's POV on such matters. We might not agree but it is right that such contentious issues are matters of conscience. That is my POV. I also think that Wes Streeting has been nothing but consistent and reasoned in his position. He might have voted for it in the past but he has a lot more awareness and understanding not least from his role in government. I also think he is on of Labour's best performers in government so far. If he was my MP he'd even get my vote and as someone who is naturally centre right politically I think that is something.

My view on assisted dying is that whether we like it or not there is pressure on people to go down that route. What are those pressures? The condition they are in, the quality of life, the standard of palliative care, the pressure they feel due to relying on other especially their family or friends, etc. This is all pressure.I struggle to see how this can all be removed from the decision the patient makes and be factored in to the decisions needed over whether the patient is eligible for assisted death. I know my grandad did not seem to feel this pressure and lived his life to the end. I also know that my gran did feel this pressure despite dementia and wanted to end it all. I can not support any system that has not got this all sorted and as it is not possible to sort yet I can not support any such legislation. I do however believe that there needs to be this option. It needs more thought and research to happen before I believe it is a right step to take.

The issue with palliative care that Streeting comments on is valid. There simply isn't a good system. It is however only one of the issues I have. It is the issue that streeting knows most about however so I think that it is right that he is talking about it and not going on about other issues.It is all part of the discussion.

One final point. Wasn't there advice to the cabinet by a top civil servant saying that they should not get involved in the public debate by giving their comments or POV? I find that a bit problematic. Legal or systemic advice is good but if it was basically an instruction to an elected minister then I feel the advisory role of civil service is a little over stepped. I also wonder if he was influenced by the PM who is publically quoted as supporting this bill. Ok for him but not for others in his government?

This is all so emotive and since death affects us all before it affects us the most we all have opinions. We should respect all opinions even if we are diametrically opposed to them. I feel with this emotive topic some struggle with the free vote or conscience nature of this. resorting to tropes such as fuedal system, rich vs poor, etc says more about us than the towards the discussion.

Sorry to pick on your post @djnotts I am not making it personal It was just the first post scrolling back that I found comments that I personally view as not helpful in creating an open discussion of such emnotive nature. I wish I had time to find other examples so I am not "picking on" your post. I do however appreciate your POV even though I might not agree and find the tone of certain comments problematic for me. I hope you do not take offence (in my defence I have spent too long here and I am supposed to be working from home).

pete75 wrote: ↑12 Nov 2024, 4:01pm

cycle tramp wrote: ↑3 Nov 2024, 9:21am

pwa wrote: ↑2 Nov 2024, 7:05pm
The masons I have known have been the most ordinary people you could imagine.

Indeed, I have found the same with some druids.

Druids? I thought the Romans did for them.

No! Some people made up a religion based on what they imagined Druids to believe in and called themselves Druids. This means they are Druids right??!!

I remember a discussion on an outdoors forum about a Peruvian who travelled the world performing Incan sun worship practises in or near local religious places (such as stone circles or similar). He tried to perform one in the middle of Castlerigg stone circle and got booted off as it is protected. He moved into the field next to it with the landowners permission and completed his ceremony to the applause of all the new age fairy botherers who had joined him.

The reason I told this was because there followed on the forum a discussion about whether the Peruvian was actually doing the Incan ceremony because the Incan religion died out or whether it was a real religion he was practising. Also, whether it is or not is it right to practise your beliefs in a site built or dersignated for another even if that site was for a dead belief system that nobody knows about?

It was all going nice and friendly until a new forum member who's first post was to lay into anyone who criticised the guy for trying to practise a south american religion ceremony copy in a British believed to be religious site. Her username was fairy rainbow unicorn something or other new age-ey type username. Not very new age / hippy attitude though!!

I see no harm in people practising what they think of as Druidism, I just have issues with them doing it in say a RC cathedral, Muslim mosque, synagogue or prehistoric stone circle.

I digress. I guess my point is that just because you take the name of a dead belief system does that make you the modern form of it or just a made up belief system calling itself an ancient name to claim credibility or because they could not get traction making their own name up?

I once got stopped by policeman and I really struggled to stop my laughter. It was a motorcycle cop and he had the handlebar moustache like the village people cop. Seriously I wanted to ask him Y(MCA) did he stop me? I had loads of comments I wanted to slip into the conversation but I somehow managed not to. It left me happy to be stopped.

Another time I got pulled over just before xmas as one headlight was slightly dimmer (actually we put the wrong bulb in as in I put an extra, extra bright one in when the other was just extra bright. Anyway I was sent into a carpark to be seen by VOSA and a female copper came over to sniff my breath to give her reason to breathalize me. I was well over a foot taller so stood straight up so she couldn't smell my breath (I had drunk one half about 2 hours previously so was confident I was ok). She laughed and told me she couldn't smell anything on my breath and waved me on. She knew what I did and found it funny rather than anything else. I was just taking the weewee when I did it. She wore what must be the heaviest boots you can get as they looked like if she was knocked over the boots would hold her in place and she would spring back. It amused me and overall I was not that bothered by the stop as well.

I think it is ok for a police stop when it is fun. Chatting about your unusual bike I would class as fun. I would see it as a good opportunity to raise awarness of cycling generally and recumbents specifically.

Latest update! Kyiv will revert back to Kiev after January 5th 2025. Full details of the agreement made with Putin will be annouced shortly!

I refuse to put a smillie in this as I do not think anyone could think I was being serious!!!

He was laying back while cycling. That is enough to raise interest. That and people telling your upright riding partner that it is good those people can get out like that. Those people being disabled (physically and mentally it seems judging by how the general public used to speak to my partner when I was laidback cycling).

Let us look at Trumps friends or the people he admire shall we?

He admires Putin, Kim Jong-Il, Chinese leader and he is friends with Netanyahu. On top of that his son in law is pretty much in bed with the heir to the Saudi Royal family who is also not a nice guy by all accounts.

The world is not in a good place right now.

In the meantime I am offering my services to tape up the next president's ripped up documents for a few hundred thousand dollars every night. I'm not a harvard grad lawyer type but I can do it just as easily and I will do it for a thousand dollars less a year. I've got a feeling the USA will need a lot of people who are good at taping things together that Trump tears apart in the future!!

Strap yourself in and hold on! The rodeo clown is in power and it'll be one hell of a chaotic ride!!!!!

For the first time since he won the presidency a good few years ago I actually watched a Trump rally today on BBC news. OMG! He was never that bad from what I recall.

The way he spoke about forcing Mexico putting more soldiers on their southern border to stop people getting into usa. Now he could mean stopping ppp traveling from further south but the way I heard him say is is that he thought the immigrant criminals went south of Mexico to get into USA. As in he thought Mexico was north of USA. I must have misheard him as he's not that dim or full of BS.

One thing I did hear well is that Biden, in Trumpist world view that means Harris, let in 21 million criminals into USA. Anyone know the official figures of immigrants into USA during the Biden presidency?

Loads of boasting about border patrol loving him. About how he used to call them all the time, several times a day. He told a story about calling and the border patrol told his colleagues, "it's the president again!".

Then boasted about giving the army 70 billion dollars, they loved him for that, but he took 10 billion back to pay for the border wall. Which Mexico paid for completely.

I have no idea if he's mentally ill, unstable or got the beginnings of dementia. Whatever it is he doesn't have much connection to reality during this rally speech.

I am hoping that the polling is completely wrong in the favour of a Harris landslide! There is a chance. Last election the polling was far out and Trump got more votes than polling. Apparently the pollsters have done a lot of research into why this was so and have adjusted their models accordingly. I am sincerely hoping they went too far the other way and there is a bigger difference between them to Harris' favour.

I can bit dream until the results are through. After listening for 10 minutes to a guy who could have the codes for the nuclear football who is as mad as a box of frogs!

Jdsk wrote: ↑4 Nov 2024, 12:17pm

Tangled Metal wrote: ↑4 Nov 2024, 12:11pm My concern is that cash to pay for IHT may not be there. I know from friends that money comes in at certain times of year, when your crops are ready. If you are a month or so before the next crop you can be really counting the pennies. Add in that the kids might only be paid or rather take a salary of say £25k and are possibly living in out of the way places that makes the cost of living more expensive too. I see from people I know that farming is not a job for family farm owners and their kids who are part of it, but a kind of vocation.
...

That implies that it isn't possible to plan. But it is. If you choose to keep the assets as personal estate until you die then inheritance tax is payable. But many other options are available. As is professional advice.

Jonathan

Interesting idea. Assets in a farm is in property and equipment mostly. Plan your way out of that, it would be interesting to know how.

roubaixtuesday wrote: ↑4 Nov 2024, 11:56am

Tangled Metal wrote: ↑4 Nov 2024, 11:52am

roubaixtuesday wrote: ↑4 Nov 2024, 11:14am Why the IHT change should be good for small farmers

https://timleunig.substack.com/p/how-to ... amily-farm

This blogger says give the farm to the next generation to avoud IHT if you live 7 years afterwards. I thought you could only give away £3000 per tax year. Can you really transfer the whole farm business over to avoud IHT like that?

AIUI there is no IHT on gifts more than 7 years into the past at death.

But I'm not a tax expert.

My point is that I thought there is a limit on what you can give away the cash gift it is £3k per year with 7 years of life after gift was made. not enough for a £2.65m farm really is it?

I know with houses it is possible to take advantage of the £300k or so allowance when say one parent dies leaving half the property value to the child. Then IIRC the surviving parent lives 7 years and then can leave another £300k or so allowance when the other half goes to the child. Not a tax expert but I know with legal limitations added to the will and no doubt the right paperwork this works. If both parents have this same mirror will in effect it can reduce the risk of IHT somewhat. I have family who had a fear of IHT and did that. In the end they were only likely to pay a little IHT, but at the time with the rising house prices they feared IHT.

My concern is that cash to pay for IHT may not be there. I know from friends that money comes in at certain times of year, when your crops are ready. If you are a month or so before the next crop you can be really counting the pennies. Add in that the kids might only be paid or rather take a salary of say £25k and are possibly living in out of the way places that makes the cost of living more expensive too. I see from people I know that farming is not a job for family farm owners and their kids who are part of it, but a kind of vocation.

I read somewhere that it is not a big burden because they can pay it over 10 years. Nice of Labour government that is. In the same article it said interest is charged at 9%. Oh, not as nice as it sounded then.

I am not surprised by anything any of our governments do these days. It is clear to me for decades that all governments help those that are more likely to vote for them and hit those that are less likely to vote for them. The corruption of democracy in the western world. It is only Labour's turn to do it. Why are people surprised and getting upset by it? It is the great game of political power. I think it will stay like that until true consensus politics hit our form of democracy. PR or other system where there are no majorities unless you have a lot of smaller parties joining in with powers in coalition. We should never have a system where power switches between just two parties.

roubaixtuesday wrote: ↑4 Nov 2024, 11:14am Why the IHT change should be good for small farmers

https://timleunig.substack.com/p/how-to ... amily-farm

This blogger says give the farm to the next generation to avoud IHT if you live 7 years afterwards. I thought you could only give away £3000 per tax year. Can you really transfer the whole farm business over to avoud IHT like that?

My POV on honesty in politics is that it should be legislated for. Basically any official or unofficial release by a politician can be fact checked and checked for misleading wording or other ways they mislead. In a kind of ASA style asssessment with teeth and consequences including a ban from any political position if it is serious.

I think we can not leave the politicians and their party people to be honest so we need something independent to enforce honesty. It would be fun to see MPs so afraid of consequences that they become the most honest people in the country!!!

"Ms Reeves, have you gone back on your pledges?" asks a member of the audience on QT. To which she replies "Yes I have!". At which point tv news political journalists realise that anyone can do their job now with a simple question in a public arena. QT might be a fun programme seeing MPs squirming. Pure fantasy I know but I still like the idea. Kind of like the film about everyone waking up unavble to lie and one guy could. He ended up kind of powerful as as result of being able to lie!!

If subjective decisions are somehow removed from moderation, by whatever method, then the moderation act would not identify the moderator anyway. What is the purpose of identifying the moderator anyway? Moderation is supposed to be unbiased and probably is in the most part, but identification of the moderator adds nothing to that.

What is wrong with one Moderator Id and password to be shared with the mod team. It could be changed when one mod leaves of course so there is no more risk to one account all mods use than having separate identifiable mod accounts.

IMHO identifiable mod accounts with separate personal accounts would have little benefit because the mod account and the personal account are linked by the person who have both. What is the point of a moderator posting an opinion on a contentious thread by their personal account then later on using their moderator account to moderate the thread they have been part of? If a mod is having a private spat with another private poster then moids the thread the separate mod account has no benefit surely? Can mods do that now? Mod threads they have been heavily involved in?

In some ways a single mod account can be viewed by the pure quality of the moderation it does. If in the same situataion the mod posts actively in a congtentious thread in their own account then use the joint account to mod the thread they were active in you would still be able to see if the moderation has bias I reckon even if you have no private name linked to the joint accouint. It is an idea.

I think the point at issue is the way an active poster has the abilithy to change the thread they have been actively part of as a mod. Perhaps there is a need for a degree of separation. Perhaps such cases the mods that have not been active in the thread moderates. However I do agree the mods mostly do a good job and a lot of this is really window dressing in the most part. I think the instance that triggered the first mod thread is a rare situation of contention to some. I just feel that we should not be able to identify mod action to a private poster via a joint mod account. There are some clever and observant people on here who could see differences in mod action and perhaps identify the mod in this case. There are even more who could see that there is bias in a mod action even if the mod is not identifiable to call it out. So IMHO is mod naming needed?

I think suggestion 4 should not be for a separate ID for each moderator but one ID for all moderators so there is only one identity for moderation.

As part of that I think moderation needs moderation in an academic sense. Namely that principles that the moderators use is homnogenised as much as possible to try and ensure two mods tacking the same issue would result in the same action.

I do think moderation should be rules based with fewer opportunities for subjective judgement if that is possible. Ideally you would not know which moderator made the moderation decision.

I think openesss in moderation is a good thing. Principles of moderation or an idea as to how the moderators agree on the principles would be of interest to the regulars and probably new posters.

There are pile ons for certain. Political threads are as bad as the controversial cycling topics. I have expressed views how to help this but the regulars are against it so I do not see how it would be stopped. BTW when there is an echo chamber on a topic the majority sometimes do not realise they are in a pile on situation. For the recipient it can be pretty unpleasant. I would hope that everyone understands how bad it can become and would not want that.

One random thought. Is it at all possible to mark a thread as controversial and as a result all posts get a timned delay before becoming public. The idea would be to freeze the post screen to allow the poster to go away, cool down and reread it a little later to hopefully edit it to a more pleasant presentation of opinions. Probably not possible so perhaps it is up to us to do that ourselves.

Pebble wrote: ↑27 Oct 2024, 12:53am I suspect that was the case long before the recent troubles, Israel are surrounded by nations who hate everything about them, they want them gone, from the river to the sea as they say

There is no solution out there, they will be slaughtering each other for eternity. If Israel don't defend themselves with great brutality, they themselves will be stamped out of existence.

It is Iran that needs sorting out, but we can't do that as it might affect oil prices, can't have that, could slow down global warming, a path we are hell bent in following.

Off topic but the river to the sea is a phrase used by Israelis too over the years. It also used by the proponents of single state democratic for both Jewish and Palestinian Arab citizens.

To summarise this phrase has been used by groups wanting the end to the Jewish state, the end of Palestinians in the former Mandate Palestine land and a single state with both groups living together democratically with equal rights in safety. The only group for whom it can't be used by are the two state supporters obviously.

So as a phrase it does not necessarily mean they're calling for the ethnic cleansing or genocide of the other but it might mean that depending on who is using it. Imho the more right wing and militant Israeli zionists are as distasteful as hamas in their use of the phrase. Unfortunately those ppl are in Netanyahu government with the IDF to carry out their beliefs.

Does trump lie or is he deluded and just say what comes out of his brain's creative processes?