Westminstenders: PreGrades (Minority Report comes to the UK)

[RedToothBrush]

In Aug 2020, London, DC's prototype 'PreGrades' launched from the education department stops plebs before they go to university, reducing the social mobility rate to zero percent. Social mobility is predicted using specialized mutated humans, called "Teachers", who "predict" grades by marking shit lots of course work and exams over a period of years. Would-be social climbers are knocked down in a computer algorithm which distorts reality and hits the disadvantaged hardest. Central government is on the verge of adopting the controversial program nationwide by applying it in all departments from the DWP, the Home Office, the Department of Health and the Department of Justice to predict benefit fraud, getting sick asylum seeking and crime before it occurs.

DC's vision of the future is based on excellence being genetically ingrained into the elite but he must sell this vision to the unsuspecting public in a series of public votes which rely on the idea of the 'undeserving'. Little do they know that they too will be the victims of this plan until a mysterious bug appears and only the wealthy and well connected are able to get hold of adequate PPE and they are no longer able to buy bog roll nor retire to Spain as they had previously and endless queues for pizza form near Kent.

I've been organising a face to face Governance standards in Public Office meeting for next month.
It had been planned for June
and the extra examples of shit behaviour by the scumbags in Whitehall
mean I've had to get a bigger room !!!

Legal and courteous are not the same thing.

I can’t imagine not asking the landowner if I could camp on their land.

I can’t imagine not asking the landowner if I could camp on their land.
We are talking about the man who sorted his last divorce just in time for his girlfriend to give birth

Don’t think you can wild amp on enclosed land without permission though? And leaving out chairs from the rental cottage for climbing over the fence and campfire remains for your staff to clear up the mess is Johnson all over.

Shame there aren't any bears in Scotland.

@SabrinaThwaite

Don’t think you can wild amp on enclosed land without permission though? And leaving out chairs from the rental cottage for climbing over the fence and campfire remains for your staff to clear up the mess is Johnson all over.

Doesn’t look like it:

Thanks to the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 it is perfectly legal to wild camp in Scotland. Apart from a few exceptions (read on to find out more), you can pitch your tent pretty much anywhere you like as long as the land is unenclosed.13 Jan 2020

@TatianaBis Key word being “unenclosed”. The adjacent field were the tent was pitched was clearly enclosed.

Exactly. Hence angry farmer.

You can always tell the English people: having their picnic beside the road. The Scots would climb over the wall/fence and have it somewhere nicer - perfectly legally.

I think "enclosed" in that legal sense means something like a garden - not a field.

It's the long cherished Scottish "Right to Roam" which the 2003 Act codified but didn't fundamentally change.

Sorry, yes, I misread your previous post.

BTW: you lot know that I don't want to defend BJ

I think "enclosed" in that legal sense means something like a garden - not a field.

No, it includes fields.

The Astroturfers are back
but gunning for Biden / Harris
interesting

No Tories in this group !

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/aug/21/mps-threaten-to-sue-boris-johnson-unless-he-acts-over-russian-meddling-in-uk-polls

A cross-party group of MPs is threatening to sue Boris Johnson unless he orders an independent investigation into Russian interference in recent UK elections and the 2016 Brexit vote.

The MPs say the government’s refusal to investigate Kremlin meddling is a breach of the European convention on human rights, which enshrines the right to free elections in protocol 1.

The group says it will take the prime minister to court if he fails to implement what it describes as essential steps to protect future elections. It has sent him a pre-action letter, to which Downing Street has two weeks to respond.

Slimey toad trying to blame others

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/21/ofqual-chair-roger-taylor-quit-threat-gavin-williamson-a-levels-gcse-exams

The chair of Ofqual threatened to quit this week unless Gavin Williamson publicly backed the exams regulator
and admitted it was behind the U-turn that salvaged millions of student grades
.....
Roger Taylor’s ultimatum came after the education secretary tried to lay the blame for the exams fiasco at the door of Ofqual
following a humiliating climbdown that scrapped A-levels and GCSEs awarded by algorithm.

Taylor went directly to Williamson to demand a public statement of support or he would resign.
It came the day before hundreds of thousands of pupils in England received their GCSE results.

That comment about the cross-party group of MPs threatening to sue cheered me up. It sometimes feels like not a single one of our elected representatives cares (or if they do, cannot act).

I note that we are running out of time with Brexit. It's almost comfortingly predictable. There's a cliff and we can expect gravity to co-operate.

Seen elsewhere ...

www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/fife/1523617/135m-luxury-superyacht-one-of-largest-in-world-wows-onlookers-after-dropping-anchor-off-fife/

For some reason, Thursday, a retired lawyer wrote :

twitter.com/CliveWismayer/status/1296496902347816961

You know these superinjunction thingies. You get them by playing the kiddie card. In English law the interests of children are, by statute, paramount. So, say you have an affair & the regular partner is a bit upset & in revenge threatens to go to the press. Or maybe the bit ..

(thread continues)

It would be interesting to feed all this news into an algorithm I am working on, to see what deep learning it spots that is hidden to us mortals. That's pretty much the big-data/"AI" snake oil pitch isn't it ?

Probably better off not googling "superinjunction"

The MPs say the government’s refusal to investigate Kremlin meddling is a breach of the European convention on human rights, which enshrines the right to free elections in protocol 1.

sigh

Someone at no 10 will be rubbing his hands in glee at this.

Human Rights have ten years tops in the uk.

Keep your eyes open on what happens to the minimum wage in the coming couple of years in the face of a wave of mass unemployment.

The race to the bottom is only just getting started.

DGR IF Johnson has a (another) superinjunction in action it will be interesting to see play out.

Carrie would have a big decision to make, cos people will notice if she disappears off the face of the earth and theres no wedding!

Of course she could be in talks for a media role as first lady anyway. A 'Melania' who clearly is employed for public appearances and hates her husband. Nice role but pretty damn lonely. She wouldn't be able to have her own bit on the side of course.

Its all very Tudor Wives.

But then, there was some footballer who had a superinjunction, yet apparently all the 8 year old lads in the playground knew exactly who he was playing around with, and not playing in the football sense.

Wow.

How America works part 4653:

Emma Newburger @ emma_newburger
As fires spread through California, first responders lack a crucial part of their emergency response team this year: prison inmate firefighters

Covid-19 has infected many vulnerable California inmates, leaving fewer available to fight fires:
www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/08/21/california-fires-coronavirus-sidelines-prison-inmate-firefighters.html?__twitter_impression=true
As blazes spread, Covid-19 in California prisons hits crucial inmate firefighting force

Remind me again, what percentage of the prison population in the us is non-white? Modern slavery and indentured service has many forms.

How America really doesn't work any more....

The Unraveling of America
Anthropologist Wade Davis on how COVID-19 signals the end of the American era

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/

In a dark season of pestilence, COVID has reduced to tatters the illusion of American exceptionalism

At the height of the crisis, with more than 2,000 dying each day, Americans found themselves members of a failed state,
ruled by a dysfunctional and incompetent government largely responsible for death rates
that added a tragic coda to America’s claim to supremacy in the world.
.......
As American doctors and nurses eagerly awaited emergency airlifts of basic supplies from China,
the hinge of history opened to the Asian century.