13.” I have yet to see a child glued to a device”. Lmao that’s because there’s like no children in London because people can’t afford to have them. Not because we have some miracle hack.
Some thoughts on London as someone visiting from Toronto:
1. I truly do not understand how young people make it here without family wealth. Housing and food are so expensive and salaries are lower to boot.
2. Globalism has made it extremely easy to eat "authentic" cuisines in any decently-sized city around the world. As such, I have no interest in eating "really good Vietnamese". I have that at home. What's the thing I can only eat here? What actually makes you unique in this world?
3. British food gets a worse rap than it deserves. When it's good it's great. Full english breakfasts, meat pies, pasties, Sunday roasts. The problem is that it's easy to make, and frequently experienced, as mediocre.
4. They consistently know how to make good potatoes here. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside.
5. I truly believe that you have experience things yourself to really understand it. For example, you might hear someone say "the beans really bring the whole thing together" and nod along, but it's not until you eat a proper full english breakfast that you're like "mm yes the beans really do bring the whole thing together."
6. It's incredibly grounding to be surrounded by layers and layers and layers of history. So much has come before us to bring us to where we are.
7. It is quite a moving place to be around Remembrance Day. To visit the war museum, see sites of historical importance, watch the ceremonies. The poppy takes on an entirely different meaning. Not only is it to commemorate veterans, but its a symbol of unity. Two sides of an ocean, Canadians and Brits wear poppies, remembering that our countries fought side-by-side, from the very beginning, together.
8. The urbanism is fantastic. Pedestrian-friendly, mature tree-lined streets, beautiful facades. Canadians may wave this away and say, "These cities were built before cars." But even new neighbourhoods like Canary Wharf are very pleasantly designed. Planning in Toronto is very broken. The guidelines and rules we've set lead to bad results. And the frustrating this is that it's all a choice.
9. It is wonderful to be able to pick two neighbourhoods on a map and have a decent transit connection between them.
10. You never see anti-social behaviour on transit. They are constantly running these PSAs over the speakers to text a number if you see anything. "See it. Say it. Sorted." I love it so much. Particularly the "sorted" and the accountability that the system takes on. Interestingly, I also heard a PSA that was like, "If someone asks you for money, donate to a charity instead." Extremely based to encourage the public to deter this behaviour.
11. There is no consensus for if pedestrians should walk on the right or the left. Maddening.
12. I do not understand how Brits get the reputation for loving to queue. I had some downright egregious experiences. Canadians are way more polite and respectful.
13. I have yet to see a child glued to a device. On transit, they're looking out the window, reading, or drawing. Curious if anyone knows why?
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solobolo22 retweeted
imagine spending your whole life sleeping wherever you could find shelter and then discovering what a soft, warm bed feels like for the first time
You wouldn’t be the first mixed/black woman with a father wound. Note how most didn’t have a Neo nazi/slavemaster phase. No excuse. Sorry that kind of stain can’t be wiped away
I hated myself because my fuckin dad left me and it scarred me for life. I didn’t hate black people or that fact that I am black. I hated myself as a woman because that’s what my fuckin brothers and father taught me. So fuck you and fuck what you heard. How fuckin dare you.
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The answer is to date women who think for themselves. The issue most men have is they actually repelled by women like this when they realise these women aren’t stereotypically feminine and won’t play passive role most ditsy women do. Both men and women play the cat and mouse game
The issue here wasn’t the cannabis. You’d have substituted the cannabis for another addiction, people do it through alcohol, work, porn, gaming, sex. You were seeking escape because you hated yourself. Millions of us do.
Callum Turner says his cannabis addiction made him miss four years of his life, even while he was building his acting career.
Speaking in 2020, the actor described smoking daily between the ages of 18 and 26.
He said he never smoked on set, but once he got home, he behaved like “a real addict.”
“I definitely missed four years of my life,” he recalled.
Turner said he eventually stopped through compassion for himself and a determination to change, because he didn’t want to keep missing his own life.
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Why do our people enjoy nothing more than trying to tear down a smart, succesful black man
This quoted post is unavailable.
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solobolo22 retweeted
If it weren’t for racism, the Black church would’ve always been right wing.
The church by its very nature aligns with dominant and conservative forces. That’s why people were burned at the stake if they didn’t align with it.
solobolo22 retweeted
If a politician wrote “jumped-up [insert non-Black minority group]” this would be a racism scandal
solobolo22 retweeted
Under pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran. The target would be Pickax Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program. No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike. Netanyahu has been pushing hard for one. “Bibi calls Trump about it every day,” says an informed observer.
Netanyahu is cornered and desperate. After last week’s election results, he can’t form a government unless Trump intervenes directly in Israeli politics and brokers a deal with other parties that gives Netanyahu 61 seats in the Knesset. Otherwise, he is out as prime minister and on his way to ignominy, investigations and possibly jail. Netanyahu must stay close to Trump. He needs this war.
To that end, he’s applied maximum pressure to his closest allies in the administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper. Both oppose a negotiated settlement to the war they’ve so grievously mismanaged; both are pushing to restart major combat operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe are also following Netanyahu’s lead, as are leaders of the Democratic Party. In a recent meeting on the subject, former president Barack Obama said he opposes the current Iran peace deal being drafted in Doha.
The rest of America’s longtime allies in the Middle East are terrified by the prospect of more war. On September 27th, Netanyahu flew secretly to Abu Dhabi to enlist the UAE in his lobbying effort for a final attack on Iran. The Emiratis refused. After eight months of conflict, Gulf economies are teetering. So are global energy and fertilizer markets. They won’t recover soon. Globally, there are a total of about 850 supertankers used to transport oil from producers to the rest of the world. In October alone, 11 of them were badly damaged in Hormuz. At this pace, a global depression is imminent. A nuclear strike would radically accelerate the destruction. Fallout from a ground explosion at Pickax Mountain would contaminate the Persian Gulf, poisoning the water supply for 100 million people.
And those are just some of the immediate consequences for the region. The rest of the world is every bit as exposed. No country other than the United States has ever used a nuclear weapon in war. Some would like to. An American nuclear attack on Iran would set a new precedent. The Russians have already told at least two other governments that an American nuclear strike on Iran would free them to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Pakistan and India would be tempted to do the same against each other, as would North Korea against Seoul. After the first nuclear strike, World War Three is inevitable. That war would be short and final.
We’ve been sleepwalking toward this moment for months. Since February, the administration has quietly rewritten America’s nuclear doctrine to make first use of so-called “battlefield nukes” easier and therefore more likely. No one in Washington in either party seems bothered by this. Now we’re on the brink of it.
Close observers say Trump is likely to decide by next weekend whether or not to use nuclear weapons. That would be November 7, six days from now. To his credit, he’s hesitating. At the moment, Trump is listening to his vice president, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made.
They’re right, though it won’t be simple. The Iranians are famously frustrating to negotiate with under any circumstances, and elements of that government have become more radical since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family were killed in February. After decades of isolation, even relatively moderate Iranian leaders seem confused by how decisions are made in the West. (There is a widespread belief in Tehran, for example, that the United States government controls Israel.) But overall, people who have spoken to decision-makers in Iran say there is consensus there that more war is bad for everyone and a deal is worth making.
One group that hasn’t been consulted so far is the global population — the hundreds of millions of people who will be killed along with their children if Trump is pushed by Netanyahu into launching a nuclear strike next week. Now would be the time for them to speak up.
Nigerians didn’t only sell other Africans into slavery that changed the course of the entire world, they’re now the same ones denying those slaves descendants their fare dues. On a global stage. Sorry Nigerians you need to hold this one. God forbid
Slavery was an evil in which people from every continent and region participated. We should be honest about the whole history, not select the parts that are politically convenient today, especially given Britain's leading role in ending the transatlantic slave trade.
If Caribbean countries are asking Britain for a formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, will they also be asking the same of the descendants of African kingdoms, rulers and merchants who captured, sold and profited from the trade?
On demands for reparations, whether through cash or debt relief, we have been down this track before. Twenty-five years ago, Jubilee 2000, Drop the Debt and Make Poverty History argued that cancelling the debts of poorer countries would give them a fresh start. More than $100 billion of debt was eventually written off, but many of those countries have since built up even bigger debts. Labour are already spending too much on Britain's welfare state, now is not the time for Andy Burnham to be providing global welfare.
There is no reason British taxpayers today should be held financially responsible for things that happened generations before any of us were born. And I have even less patience for political elites in commonwealth countries who don’t know how to make their own citizens prosperous now looking for another opportunity to blame Britain.
As Prime Minister, Andy Burnham should be Britain’s greatest defender. Instead, he is writing articles saying we need to confront our history (as if we haven't done enough of that) and considering another formal historical apology. Tony Blair already expressed Britain’s deep sorrow and regret for our role in the slave trade nearly twenty years ago. There is no need to do so again.
This is all another navel-gazing distraction. The Commonwealth should be looking forward, not endlessly backwards. That means economic partnerships to make us all richer and deeper military and security cooperation against common threats. If every Commonwealth summit becomes an exercise in presenting Britain with demands for cash then we need to start asking if it is worth the effort.
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solobolo22 retweeted
Wow. Our petition for a public inquiry into Britain’s complicity in genocide has now surpassed 50k.
We are half way there to forcing a debate in Parliament.
Make it happen by signing the petition now: petition.parliament.uk/petit…
The fact that America made him their president and has kept him there so long is unfortunately a reflection of it
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solobolo22 retweeted
Our petition for a public inquiry into Britain’s involvement in Gaza has now surpassed 30,000.
Let’s get it to 100k to force a debate in Parliament.
We are not giving up until we have exposed the truth. Sign here: petition.parliament.uk/petit…
