Microscopic particles emitted from brake pads can be more toxic than those emitted in diesel vehicle exhaust, a study has found. This research shows that even with a move to electric vehicles, pollution from cars may not be able to be eradicated.Because the real target wasn't diesel cars at all, it was private cars, full stop.
Exposure to pollution generated by cars, vans and lorries has been previously been linked to an increased risk of lung and heart disease. While past attention has mainly concentrated on exhaust emissions, particles are also released into the air from tyre, road and brake pad wear.These emissions are largely unregulated by legislation and the study found that these “non-exhaust” pollution sources are now responsible for the majority of vehicle particulate matter emissions in the UK and parts of Europe, with brake dust the main contributor among them.
Maybe the answer is, when that cyclist passes too close to you, or pedals out from a side road, don't brake?
Go on, do it for the environment! 😂
“Men and women are not interchangeable.” (Julia M, 1052 a.m., Thu Feb 27th)
“Vive la différence!“ (James Anatole France Higham, before turning commie)
You would be forgiven for thinking we were back at the Bullingdon Club, in the company of Jonty, Munty, Stiffy, Kipper, Chugger and, to use the polite version, Pig Botherer – only in this case it’s Big Balls and a guy with a history of racist tweeting. This is the sudden, startling emergence into American political life of a type deeply recognisable to Brits: that is, jaunty young men with juvenile nicknames and a firm belief they should be running the world.Well, this is Emma Brockes, after all, the 'Guardian' correspondent who was so dim she really thought Trump had lost the election and it was just the press were keeping it from the American people.
Let’s look at the lineup. The youngest of Musk’s Doge hires, Edward Coristine – online username, Big Balls – is a 19-year-old former intern at Neuralink, Musk’s neurotechnology company, who until recently appeared to be a first-year student at Northeastern University in Boston. Luke Farritor is a 23-year-old former SpaceX intern. Marko Elez, 25, used to work for X and SpaceX, and was revealed by the Wall Street Journal to have authored several since-removed tweets asserting, among other things, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.” (Elez briefly resigned before Musk announced he’d reinstate him.) And Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old who boosted a post on X by the white supremacist Nick Fuentes, and whose newly launched Substack this week highlighted the perils of skipping freshman English 101 with a post entitled “Why DOGE: Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America.”
So, they have the wrong opinions and the wrong sense of humour for Emma, but what about their boss, who surely even she must admit is a success?
Musk, a man with the emotional maturity of a cartoon bank robber, is leading a group of men most of whom have no government or management experience whatsoever, let alone expertise in fields governed by the agencies they have been tasked to reform.
And just perhaps, Emma, that's what's needed right now - someone who isn't steeped in the public sector ethos? Certainly seems so, anyway.
Anyway, we know how this ends. In the largest sense, with the cancellation of programmes mandated democratically in Congress by a bunch of unelected goons in puffer vests. And in the smallest sense, with one of these 22-year-old jerks spilling his Big Gulp cup of Mountain Dew over a keyboard at the Treasury and wiping the social security data of 70 million Americans.
Maybe argue the actual dangers that could exist, rather than the ones in your head.
Recent press comment about the role of the attorney general, Richard Hermer, referred to in your article (‘Deeply unfair’: how attorney general became lightning rod for criticism of Starmer, 13 February), overlooks the principle that those representing parties in contentious litigation have the right, and indeed the duty, to put forward the case for their clients without fear or favour, so that, as and when appropriate, the court or tribunal can itself independently decide whether such a case is or is not valid. As the great British advocate and judge Norman Birkett once pointed out in a radio talk about the art of advocacy, it is essential that a lawyer’s presentation of the case for a client is not perceived as an expression of the lawyer’s personal opinions.
With decisions as perverse as this one being made by them, that's going to be pretty difficulty to maintain, isn't it?
Not only would this be incorrect as a matter of fact, but it would also undermine our system of justice, under which the case for each side is fully and objectively presented before a decision is made by an impartial and independent tribunal.
Stories like this one aren't really helping are they?
Those who state or imply that, in doing this, the lawyers are advancing their own personal opinions, are doing immense and untold damage, not only to our legal system but to society as a whole. They are undermining the rule of law and opening a path towards a society in which the public no longer trust the legal system or the individuals who participate in it.
So, who is saying this?
Stephen Hockman KC and Sam Townend KC
Former chairs, Bar Council Christina Blacklaws and I Stephanie Boyce Former presidents, Law Society
Ah.
There are, imho, quite a few problems with this article in TDS:
… and the first is summed up in an old quote from the OUP:
”We believe a scientist because he can substantate his remarks, not because he is elegant and forcible in his enunciation. In fact we distrust him when he seems to be influencing us by his manner.”
-I.A.Richards, Science and Poetry, 1926, in the Oxford Quick Reference Quotations, Ed. Susan Ratcliffe, OUP, 1999.
The problems then continue in the linked article where the author, Chris Morrison, writes:
“Needless to say, there has been no mention of these finding(s) in narrative-driven mainstream media. In fact one Nature pre-publication peer-reviewer commented on the clear danger the paper presented to this important climate scares promoting the Net Zero fantasy. “I see this paper as potentially being used by deniers of climate change impacts,” the reviewer notes. “Consider if possible some rephrasing to put even more emphasis on impact rather than on burned area,” is the suggestion. In other words, concentrate on the emotional impact of individual fires, allowing legacy media, aided by junk computer modelled attribution studies, to concentrate on speculation and fearmongering rather than the facts. Another clear example of what might be termed Ultra Processed News, designed to make the individual consumer sick with worry and induce mass climate psychosis.”
The problem with that piece of prose, aside from being unclear on the goodies and baddies unless Chris defines which are which … is that he himself opened with similar:
“Sensational Findings Published in Nature Blow Politicised Wildfire Climate Scam Out of the Water”
He redeems himself to a point, quoting Anthony Watts, but the Milliband “fanatics” are simply going to trot out their own “scientists” …. hundreds of them … in less fanatical language, projecting “junk” stats as Chris writes and thus the classic adversarial camps scenario is set up, where only one side’s “stats” are used and no mention is made of false meteorological station readings, for example, which were widely reported in soc-med in the past two years.
On a different topic but the methodology by the “Demonrats” v ICE is similar … there’s always straight projection onto the whistleblowing side by the called-out side, as Vox Day mentioned long ago … to the extent that the key Deep State miscreants actually call themselves The Resistance … really? Resistance to what, pray tell? To “far-right, racist disinformation crims” (us), whilst the Deep State apparatchiks occupy the “middle ground” through the MSM, “defending our Democracy”?
An example of this use of the calling-out side’s, the whistleblowing side’s, own vocab store of expressions and projecting it back, was in a Gladstone quote in the OUP book quoted near the top:
”I absorb the vapour and return it as a flood.”
-W.A.Gladstone, on public speaking, in Lord Riddell, Some Things that Matter (1927 Ed.)
The methodology we prefer … but it takes huge wallops of ethics, a lack of fear of what we’ll find, plus a willingness to concede some points but then cite others counter to that … is to see the snippets of data and opinion all laid out on a large table after a brainstorming session by those of all persuasions … with varying theories of interpretation also laid out on said table …
… but I fear that that model is a product of wishful thinking … how long in that room before the headbutting starts between the orators of the two camps? Always two, note, on any given bone of contention, as if it must be, by definition, a zero sum argument, one side “demolishing” the other as Badenough and the Llama-Harmer imagine they do at PMQs, to the headshaking of Reform.
Rand Paul tried to “@DOGE” the Senate Budget last night with a $1.5 trillion Spending Cut Amendment, but it crashed 24-76. All Democrats voted NO, joined by 29 RINOs like McConnell, Graham, Cornyn, Tillis, and Thune – thwarting his attempt to reduce inflation and debt.
Here are the 29 “Republicans” who joined every Democrat in voting this down:
Banks (R-IN) – 2030 (Elected 2024) Blackburn (R-TN) – 2030 (Elected 2024) Boozman (R-AR) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Budd (R-NC) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Capito (R-WV) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Collins (R-ME) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Cornyn (R-TX) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Cotton (R-AR) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Cramer (R-ND) – 2030 (Elected 2024) Crapo (R-ID) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Fischer (R-NE) – 2030 (Elected 2024) Graham (R-SC) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Grassley (R-IA) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Hawley (R-MO) – 2030 (Elected 2024) Hoeven (R-ND) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Hyde-Smith (R-MS) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Lankford (R-OK) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Marshall (R-KS) – 2026 (Elected 2020) McConnell (R-KY) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Moran (R-KS) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Mullin (R-OK) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Murkowski (R-AK) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Ricketts (R-NE) – 2030 (Elected 2024) Rounds (R-SD) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Scott (R-SC) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Sullivan (R-AK) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Thune (R-SD) – 2028 (Elected 2022) Tillis (R-NC) – 2026 (Elected 2020) Wicker (R-MS) – 2030 (Elected 2024)
*NOTE: These dates assume no resignations, special elections, or other unforeseen changes.
All right … the context for non-Americans and for Americans unaware:
Yes and no … the combined House and Executive does have a say and POTUS does have the right of veto on actual bills … which one would assume he would use with Thune’s big-spending bill, inc. the Ukraine money Zelensky demanded.
Remember that this just now was a vote against a bill, not a bill in itself … in other words, the Senate “vetoed” (voted against) Rand Paul’s amendment. POTUS therefore will instead veto (hopefully) the Thune bill itself to stop it becoming law … the one which bypassed the House proposed bill, backed by POTUS.
Are there any mitigating circumstances for those Republicans above voting with the demonrats?
Well there may be. If House plus POTUS already have a way to kill the bill later, then the Rand Paul amendment might have just been an opening play to flush out the RINOs … or else certain Senators knew of the later play (to come) and did not impede it … it’s a wafer thin argument imho and who am I … not an expert in US division of powers.
But to employ that overused word … the optics certainly look bad to MAGA eyes. They, MAGA, and the RINO GOP, are certainly a house divided, as Lincoln put it long ago. I’ll be interested to see Mike Davis’s comment, though he’s judiciary.
Now, let’s jump across the pond to us and the Llama-Harmer’s latest, as reported and commented on by Vance and one other (Musk? Bondi?):
Also, this comment below appears to be on part of Vance’s speech at CPAC:
The US MAGA govt seems here to be going in to bat for the common folk across Britain and Europe, against their govts.
As strange as it may sound, Rugeley felt like a good place to feel the global shock waves from the inauguration of Donald Trump – dutifully attended, let’s not forget, by the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos – and to find out what people thought about his style of politics. Last summer, the result in the local constituency of Cannock Chase saw the first stirrings of a change that has since gripped national politics: Labour and the Tories finished on 36% and 29% of the vote respectively, while the Anglo-Trumpers of Reform UK took a very impressive 27%.
And if it were run right now, Labour would be lucky to get into double figures, wouldn’t they?
As this shift has played out, there have been recent suggestions that any British appetite for Trump-style politics is bound to be limited.
Well, maybe you shouldn’t believe all you’re told.
In Rugeley, it did not feel like that.
See?
Our first stop was a bustling community centre, where a parent and toddler group was happening next to a weekly lunch for pensioners – and we got a sharp sense of how the quiet privations and disappointments of 21st-century English lives have opened people to the specious promises of hard-right populism.
What 'hard - right populism', John?
We had a long conversation with Emma and Cian, a couple who had come with their baby. “This is a very, very quiet town – it always has been,” she said. “Not a lot goes on around here … and nothing lasts long.” To most people, Cian told me, the arrival and eventual winding-down of the Amazon warehouse had barely registered. He didn’t know anyone who had worked there. “It’s just a big blue building at the end of the town that’ll be gone soon.” I wondered: when the government changed last year, did it make them feel any different about the future? “No,” said Emma, wearily. “We don’t expect anything out of what we’re told.”
Not exactly the fires of revolution, but maybe those aren't too far off...
What if a Trump-type figure promised to make Britain great again? She laughed, and glanced at her partner. “We’ve got different opinions on that,” she said. “I kind of like what he’s doing. I wish more would be put into the UK. I think we need someone with a bit more of … an oomph about them.”Oh dear! Seizing on a brown face like a drowning man seizing a lifebelt, John tries again:
Nearby, we met Kenan, a Turkish-born Just Eat driver – forced into the world of endless delivery shifts, he said, when his IT business went bust during the pandemic. When I mentioned Trump, his face lit up.
“He’s the man,” he said. “He’s the man.” “He’s reckless,” he told me, and he was not using that word as a pejorative. “He does what he says, not like other politicians. They say they’re going to do something with the economy, and they don’t do it. But Donald Trump does.” Did it feel strange to be bigging up someone so set against immigration? “As a foreigner,” he said, “I’ve seen people only using the system. And I’m working 12 or 13 hours a day.”
Heh! And why shouldn't he be aggrieved by that, John? Why should he feel solidarity with them?
As darkness fell, we sat in a car park, listening to the first Trump speech of inauguration day with one of the car windows down.
The locals probably thought you were dogging….
A white transit van pulled up next to us: inside was a father and his three kids. He began telling us the details of his life before we even asked about them. “My dad was in world war two,” he said. “When he left the navy, he had three cement wagons, and he put the concrete in Spaghetti Junction in Birmingham.” His daily existence, by contrast, was a mess of financial hardship, the impossibility of combining childcare with work, a dire shortage of mental health provision and the impossibilities of the benefits system. Four days a week, he said, he hardly ate. He was now 50: he had voted only once in his life, and it was for Reform UK. “Some of the things Trump says, some of the things Elon Musk says, some of the things Reform UK say – they sound good,” he said. “But it’s action you want in this country.”
I fear one day we'll see it, and it won't be something John will be rushing out to cover....
