It's not really about the fish. A lot of the Brexit stuff was about disentangling the UK from Europe, nationalist sentiment stoked up by the media into a frenzy of xenophobia and 'this is our country, not yours!'. Fishing rights is not so much about fish as it is about 'this is our water! ours! get your foreign boats out of here!'.

Regarding your other point though, and not related to Brexit, no, there aren't enough fish in the water. Many fisheries around the world are hugely depleted and no longer sustainable. Overfishing is a massive global problem.

The Brexit agreement means that the EU share of fishing from British waters will be reduced by 25%, and that this will take place gradually over 5 years. The 'British negotiating triumph' is actually merely a minor realignment. In practice any trade agreement involves give and take.
The price for taking back full control would have been hugely economically damaging to the UK, and was something that even 'Trump-lite' Boris Johnson was unwilling to countenance.

But yes, you're right. Brexit was largely about reducing EU influence, so mission slightly accomplished in that regard. The mistake of course is in equating independence with power: Brexit, indisputably, weakens the UK. We are a small country on the edge of Europe, and are much stronger as a part of a larger bloc than when trying to stand on our own.

It's better than no deal, but no, it's not what many of us wanted, and it's not what I wanted. Brexit is a victory for xenophobia and for the racist flag-wavers who still cling to a delusion of British supremacy. The days of empire are thankfully long gone, but many people want it all back. 'Taking back control' is a nonsensical soundbite, as in practice the UK will need to remain aligned with EU legislation and standards. Control of immigration is nonsense, too, as the UK is heavily dependent on migrant workers in many sectors, for example seasonal agriculture and the NHS.

Brexit is perhaps the only trade deal in history where the aim has been to make trade more difficult and more expensive. It's a triumph for idiocy, bigotry, small-mindedness and prejudice, and is indicative of the state of modern politics.

Entirely unsurprisingly, this is being heralded as a UK 'victory'.


https://order-order.com/2020/12/24/exclusive-governments-own-deal-analysis-scorecard-reckons-uk-won-43-of-negotiating-issues-40-were-compromises-17-eu-wins/

Of course in reality the EU as the larger power has much greater control over the final terms. You can imagine a bargaining scenario like this:
UK: 10 billion!
EU: 30 billion.
UK: Alright, 15 billion.
EU: We'll grudgingly go to 29 billion.
UK: 20 billion is our final offer.
EU: Okay, 28 billion.
UK: 27 billion?
EU: Agreed just to shut you up. Thank god we got there in the end.
UK: We win! They accepted out terms! We wanted 27 billion and they agreed! Victory! Britain rules!

Christians aren't victims. Tax payers I suppose, yes, are victims of the ruling class.


Native Americans and slaves dragged over from Africa (and their descendants) have been horrendously mistreated for centuries. They are not your enemies. The people in charge are the enemy. Divide and conquer is a standard tactic. Get the common people to fight amongst themselves, and they won't notice the rich taking all the money.


Agree. US politics is a two party system where the two parties are almost identical. And this is the same in many countries. Democracy often gives an illusion of freedom and an illusion of choice.

Volatility is more of an issue over short timeframes. The longer the term you consider, the more there is a consistent upwards price movement.

• If you need the money now, of course cash out.
  
• If you don't need the money now, but think you can make a profit by selling and rebuying at a lower price point - then your success will depend largely on your trading skill, and only you can really judge your ability and chances of success here.
  
• If you don't need the money now, but are concerned that the price will drop and will never reach the current level again (or not for many years), then go to coinmarketcap, look at the 'all time' chart, and switch it to a log scale to get a clear perspective of historical price movements.

No, I disagree completely with what you've written. Bitcoin is a response to and an improvement upon the corruption and deficiencies of fiat.

Volatility is natural at the moment because we are still in the fairly early days, and many people just see bitcoin as a speculative asset. Volatility will decrease naturally as crypto matures, and as volumes increase. It is nothing to be concerned about.


No, it's not. Certainly there is money to be made, but that's not what it's about.

Generally, indigenous peoples around the world have been persecuted, disenfranchised, killed, and stripped of their ancestral lands by colonialists and other invaders - who are a better fit to the description of 'nazis, racists, vicious and hateful people'. Don't blame the victims.

Anecdotally, I've seen plenty of people here in the UK flouting rules, not wearing masks in shops and public transport, not social distancing, travelling to other areas. People in the UK are no better or worse than people elsewhere, they've just people. Some obey the rules, some don't. Some actively try to not spread the virus, others couldn't care less.

Given what we've seen here so far, I would expect the 'tier 4' lockdown to be only partially effective. There are also people who are angry that other countries won't let people from the UK in... but if we had a more responsible attitude, the UK should be pre-emptively closing its borders to stop this variant from getting out.

There must be some substance to the speculation. I'm starting to think that he will pardon Joe Exotic. And he'll then fill the White House with tigers, so that Biden can't get in.
Actually, there's probably a decent chance that one of the more belligerent of the tigers will get appointed SecDef. I know it's customarily hawks, but I know which animal I'd prefer to have my back in a fight. And after all, such things aren't unprecedented. Caligula did make his horse a senator. And before you say that's apocryphal, no it wasn't, it was Incitatus.

I've just noticed that we have six votes in the poll for Arsenal to be champions this season. Their performances have been so far below expectation this season, it's shocking. They're quite good on paper, but awful on grass.
I wonder how many people now consider them to be realistic relegation contenders? There's a lot of pressure on 'big' teams, and when things start going wrong, confidence can evaporate entirely, big names can lose interest and start looking for a way to get a transfer out. If you're going to be in a relegation scrap, then the one attribute you need from your players is absolute commitment to the cause. Not sure Arsenal have that. Their freefall may continue.

Snowden is a hero and should definitely be pardoned. I'm disappointed but not remotely surprised that the Democrats are remaining silent on the matter. How any of his actions can be construed as criminal is utterly beyond me.

I do, not sure about the OP

Yes. 2021 looks quite predictable: Constructors' champions? Mercedes. Drivers' championship? 1) Hamilton, 2/3) Bottas/Verstappen, 4) Perez.

The biggest unknown for me is the impact Perez will have. If Red Bull can have both drivers challenging the Mercedes, then that reduces the Merc 2-1 advantage that means they can always run a split strategy to keep one car ahead of Red Bull. Perez performing well puts huge pressure on Bottas.

And 2022 is when it should get more exciting, with hopefully closer racing and no single team dominating so much. But still, you'd have to be brave to bet against Mercedes coming out on top again.

The poor will be affected much more severely than the rich, as is always the case.
Poor people within rich countries tend to live in cramped housing, and have jobs that can't be performed remotely, which exposes them to higher risk of contracting the virus. They are also more likely to have untreated health problems, which increases the severity of the symptoms if they do catch it.
And with countries bidding against one another to get their hands on the vaccine, poorer countries lose out and will be at the back of the queue.

The Big Bang isn't a theory of the creation of the universe, it's a theory of the history of the universe.
The Big Bang happened in the universe, it didn't create the universe.

We can trace things back to the Big Bang with an impressive degree of certainty. Cosmological redshift and the CMB help us to do this.

"What happened before the Big Bang?" cannot currently be answered, because we don't have an understanding of the physics at such high energies and small sizes. Certainly quantum effects become vastly more important, though, and we are entering a realm of exotic fields and complex probability densities rather than the familiar realm of objects. At this scale, cause and effect may be thrown into question; we just don't know.

But the argument that "this can't be explained, therefore this caused it" isn't convincing.
"What happened before time began?" also makes no sense, and is akin to asking "what's north of the north pole?".

The only realistic pathway to victory for Trump is to stand again in 2024.
The 2020 election is done. Everyone except Trump knows that. He can shout and threaten and sue all he likes, but he won't get anywhere that way.

Religion is a method of social control. And an extremely effective one, too, particularly in early civilisations. God as an invisible policeman. You don't need someone to constantly be checking up on you to make sure you are obeying the laws and being a good citizen... not if God can see everything you do, and punish you for your transgressions. Create a God, create some God-given laws, sit back and watch everyone behave as you want them to.

It's worth considering that Mercedes were so far ahead of the rest in the early part of the season, that they took the decision to stop development of the 2020 car entirely, and move focus to the 2021 car. But other teams, including Red Bull, continued to develop their 2020 car during the latter part of the season. This is why Red Bull closed up to Mercedes - they were getting better whilst the Merc was remaining the same.

I strongly suspect that once we start the 2021 season, Mercedes will suddenly have a development advantage again after all the work they've done so far on the 2021 car during 2020.

No.

The value of one unit of a currency relative to one unit of another currency is irrelevant. How that value changes is important, but the value itself is not.
Just look at cryptocurrencies to see why this is. Sometimes coins will go through a token swap, where say supply drops x10, and each 10 coins are swapped to 1 of the 'new' coin. One of your 'new' coins is worth x10 what one of your old coins was worth... but you are not suddenly x10 richer, and the project is not suddenly x10 more successful.

God-of-the-gaps makes his valiant last stand!

In the far future, when we have scientific understanding of the entire universe, but perhaps are still unable to explain why the universe came into being... there will still be someone claiming this means that God did it.
Human scientific achievement is incredible. We can trace the universe back almost to the instant of its creation... and yet we can't explain that creation itself. We can theorise, we can extrapolate, but science relies on evidence and so far there is no real evidence of what caused the big bang. It's an absurd argument to suggest that the absence of knowledge here invalidates proven, experimentally verifiable and reproducible evidence for all or any human scientific achievement.
"We can't explain it, therefore God did it" is utter nonsense. God-of-the-gaps is utter nonsense.