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Oh dear - here's what it may all be about.

'Mirvis described Johnson as a "longstanding friend".'

https://www.thecanary.co/opinion/2019/11/26/theres-one-crucial-sentence-missing-from-the-mainstream-medias-coverage-of-the-chief-rabbis-comments/

And, of course, there's no political dimension to this. It's a complete coincidence that this gets pushed back to the top of the news cycle on the day Labour launches a 'Faith and Race' manifesto.

[ate]

are there any projects you'd recommend for offsetting carbon?

Right. The average person in the UK is responsible for 9.5 tonnes of carbon emissions per year. The average emission for jet travel is 115g/km per passenger.

Let's say you're flying to... I dunno? Scandinavia? Let's say Stockholm. The flight's a round trip of 2800km.

2800 km x 0.000115 tonnes = 0.322 tonnes of carbon

So if you killed just one person aged, say, 40, that's probably 40 years of emissions you've saved, which is 380 tonnes of carbon.

Which means that you could fly a round trip to Stockholm almost every week for the next twenty-five years and still come out carbon-negative.

Wait! It gets better, though — imagine that instead of eating beef, you ate that person? Suddenly, we're well into carbon-negative territory.

You'd be saving the planet, man. The numbers don't lie. It would be irresponsible not to do it.

I've got a bad feeling about this....

Still, the needs of the many...

The media has been complicit in amplifying the voice of one section of the Jewish community (and pretending that Jews have a homogenous opinion on any subject is, in itself, an antisemitic trope) whilst dissenting Jewish voices feel very strongly that they have been silenced.

The primary source of accusations of anitsemitism come from:

The Labour Friends of Israel group... whose president, Joan Ryan, was filmed taking a million quid bung from a member of the Israeli embassy staff and whose membership lean very strongly towards the 'New' Labour right and, frankly, hate Corbyn. Another member, Louse Ellman, once claimed unchallenged on Radio 4 to be able to read Corbyn's mind, since she asserted that she was certain that he "had antisemitic thoughts."

The Jewish Chronicle... whose editor, Stephen Pollard, has unequivocally declared that the political left in Britain "is the enemy". All of them. Anyone doubting that he is cyncially exploiting this issue on political grounds should consider that the Chronicle was excoriating of Margaret Hodge right up until the point where she started throwing around wildly inaccurate accusations of antisemitism*, at which point she was suddenly wonderful.

The Jewish Labour Movement, an organisation that requires doesn't require its members to be either Jewish, or members of the Labour Party.

The Board of Deputies. Leaving aside the apparent political bias of the BoD (they effusively congratulated both Theresa May and Donald Trump on their election victories), it's worth remembering that their claim to "speak for" the Jewish community is highly dubious. Over half of Britain's Jews are secular/non-observant and thus not able to participate in the BoD's selection process or policy choices. A quarter of British Jews belong to the orthodox Charedi community which has been very vocal in support of Labour and specifically of Corbyn, declaring him to be a friend to their community. Which leaves about a quarter for whom the BoD probably speaks.

If you'd like to see an example of the silencing of dissenting voices, take a look at Michael Rosen's Twitter feed some time. Michael has been called "a cheerleader for George Soros", "Corbyn's useful idiot" and a "kapo"** ... by people who are, supposedly, concerned about antisemitism. If they were that concerned about it, they wouldn't heap antisemitic abuse on a Jewish man for the crime of disagreeing with them about what constitutes antisemitism.

*Her much-vaunted 'dossier' of 200+ antisemitic incidents turned out to relate to about 100 indivduals, 90-odd of whom weren't even members of the Labour Party.

** For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to Jews who collaborated with the Nazis in the concentration camps. I'm not Jewish, but I can't think of a worse thing one might call a Jewish person, never mind one like Rosen who lost a whole chunk of his parents' immediate family in those concentration camps.

Can someone please tell me if Corbyn is an anti-semite or not?

It's nonsense. There is literally no data to support the idea that antisemitism is more prevalent amongst Labour supporters than the general population and what data there is suggests it's far less prevalent, and decreases the further left you go politically.

Corbyn supports Palestinian rights and a two state solution in Israel, which has given a a chunk of the pro-Israel lobby (not code for "Jews" before anyone suggests it — there are lots of non-Jewish people in the pro-Israel lobby) and the political right a common cause and anti-semitism is the stick with which they've chosen to beat Labour in general and Corbyn in particular.

Corbyn personally has a long record of defending Jewish rights including, ironically, supporting a campaign to stop the sale (and in the view of orthodox Jews, desecration) of a Jewish cemetery to property developers when planning permission was granted by the council run by Margaret Hodge, who has been among the loudest voices screaming "antisemitism" at him.

I'm ignoring it and I loved TLJ -  I just can't work up any interest for a TV series based on one of the more boring of the secondary characters from the original movies, and it isn't even him just a clone that looks like him.

It's not a clone... and you're honestly missing a treat. Or you will be. When it comes out over here. So I'm told.

People calling him 'Mando' is one of my least favourite things about the series so far. Just sounds quite cheesy to my ears.

Surely this is a deliberate call-out to the spaghetti westerns the series is paying homage to?

That New Scientist article predates the recent announcement on koalas. They were in trouble before, but 80% of their habitat is now gone, thanks to climate exacerbated brush fires.

You really need to stop googling for something to support your knee jerk contrarianism and then posting the first link that looks like it might back up your point, Shark.

Definitely want to contribute but bear with me — I'm going to get the bloody thing(s) finished this time before I sign up, rather than getting scuppered by deadlines as the date approaches. :-/

OK... as disappointing as the last series turned out to be, this all looks fairly promising.

TRAILER.

TL; DR.

Now the entire election rests on whether Grant Morrison decides if he a) supported Corbyn at least three years before Moore did, or b) has a quick wank over a photo of Michael Gove to assure a Conservative victory.

I'm completely unfamiliar with the books, and I'm rather enjoying this, to the extent of actually watching it 'live', which we almost never do with anything these days.

Mrs IP: "So when did this series suddenly become Stargate?"

End of last season — do keep up! :-)

Ooh. Hello.

Season 4 trailer.

Roll on Dec 13th.