Husband is serving time in prison. He is being pressured to convert religion. I don't know what to do. : r/LegalAdviceUK - "My husband is currently in prison. Total time will be 4 years. We're hoping 2 with good behaviour. He has only been in for 2 months so far and he is being targeted by a group trying to force him to convert his religion. He told me that he has a prison guard appointed to him that he is supposed to be table to talk to about issues, but when he brought the pressure to convert his religion up with this guard the group of men somehow found out the next day. He has been beaten up twice and required stitches. What can I do? Is this something a lawyer can fix? Could we get him moved to another prison?"
Muslim gangs ‘take control’ of drug-ridden prison - "Muslim gangs have gained unchecked control of one of the most drug-ridden violent prisons in Britain, watchdogs have warned... throughout the year, there had also been evidence of rival gangs battling over control and drugs, racist comments and discrimination against Jewish prisoners. Violence, they said, was a “constant theme” and the “manufacturing of bladed weapons on site is ominous”. “The comments [by prisoners] reflect a consistent pattern of serious concerns about safety, corruption and poor management at the prison,” they added... Mr Taylor revealed six inmates were assaulted or stabbed on their first night in the jail. Prison inspectors heard from inmates at the Category B jail who were too frightened to go to health appointments or use the gym because of fears of violence. In a letter to Mr Lammy placing the prison in special measures, Mr Taylor described “very high levels of violence” as affecting every aspect of prison life, with a third of prisoners surveyed saying they had been assaulted and three-quarters reporting they felt unsafe. Drug-taking was rife, drones were regularly dropping contraband into the prison, including knives, and inspectors also saw widespread graffiti, fire damage, broken furniture and mouldy showers."
Time to jail the watchdogs for anti-Muslim hatred
Why swearing makes you stronger - "“In many situations, people hold themselves back—consciously or unconsciously—from using their full strength,” said study author Richard Stephens, PhD, of Keele University in the U.K. “Swearing is an easily available way to help yourself feel focused, confident and less distracted, and ‘go for it’ a little more.” The article was published in the journal American Psychologist."
Swearing has ruined the nation - "what the report fails to recognise is that in swearing – which appeals to the lowest common denominator and offers only temporary release in the most base of language – we diminish both ourselves and society. The leap to embrace the simplest form of words, the most vulgar articulation of expression, diminishes our intellect, putting us simply on a par with an animal who can growl rather than our supposed superior species, which has developed a complex vocabulary for billions of years... That swearing now fails to shock goes hand in hand with the sloppiness so many seem to have when it comes to keeping standards. Just look at how people dress, or rather don’t dress – I shudder as I write at the spectacle of some in supermarkets clad in grey trackies. Suits are now outfits for funerals or court appearances, while hats on ladies’ heads are nothing but tickets to get drunk at the races. Likewise, our descent into base vocab is a depressing symbol of the age not helped by having a man in the White House who appears to know of no adjectives beyond “very”, “extremely”, or indeed “very, very”."
Zipcar's demise is another victory for Sadiq Khan's war on motorists - "With its fleet of mostly battery powered vehicles, based on sharing instead of owning, Zipcar was in many ways as close to a collective enterprise as a private business can get. You might think that London’s socialist Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan would be among its greatest champions. You would, however, be badly mistaken. Instead, by hitting it with extra taxes, the Mayor has effectively closed it down – and the capital’s economy will be in even worse shape as a result... It was already losing money as battery charging costs went up, and, after Christmas, its fleet will be liable for a £13.50 charge every time one of them is driven into the centre of town. This is thanks to Khan’s removal of electric vehicles’ exemption from London’s congestion charge from January 2. The numbers no longer added up, and the parent company has pulled the plug. Khan’s decision to impose what is in effect a tax on EVs has claimed its first victim, and it hasn’t even started yet. True, companies disappear all the time. And yet, Zipcar’s demise is just the latest skirmish in the ongoing war on motorists. There is hardly any form of motor transport the Mayor does not want to fine, tax or regulate out of existence. In 2023, he expanded the ULEZ charging zone to all 32 London boroughs, with charges for “high-pollution” vehicles. The main congestion charge itself has been steadily increased, and will rise to £18 a day from next month, up from £15, way ahead of the rate of inflation. He has enthusiastically encouraged “Low Traffic Neighbourhoods”, even where they are opposed by local residents. And he has allowed London’s councils to ramp up fines to such a punitive level that last year 10 million penalties were issued to drivers – more than there are people – raking in £1bn in revenue. Driving in London now means navigating a complex maze of rules and restrictions that regularly catch out the most law-abiding motorists. If all this was matched by better public transport, it might make sense. Yet we see tube drivers holding TFL to ransom, and we learnt last week that the average speed on London’s buses has fallen to nine miles per hour, down from 10.4 four years ago. Even Lime bikes have been banned in several London boroughs. There are not yet any fines for walking but it is probably only a matter of time. It often seems as if the Mayor won’t be happy until everyone just sits at home all day. The trouble is, it is impossible to have a great city without great transport... Khan has waged a relentless war on motorists, with Zipcar’s users the latest victims. He still hasn’t offered any compelling alternative vision of how the city will function – and the capital is starting to pay a heavy price for that."
Man who let 14-year-old girl smoke meth and sexually assaulted her gets jail - "A drug abuser allowed a 14-year-old girl to smoke methamphetamine and had sex with her on three occasions. Muhammad Danial Hadri Mohamad Hidayat, 24, was jailed for more than five years and nine months... Danial, then 22, met the girl online in 2023. He had consensual sex with the minor on three occasions that year. On Jan 30, 2024, Danial and the girl smoked methamphetamine together using improvised drug utensils. He did not charge her for smoking his stash of the drug. He was arrested at a condominium in Tampines later that day. The girl was also arrested and the drug utensils – a plastic bottle and a glass pipe – were seized from her... Separately, Danial gave his SingPass credentials to his former neighbour, who used them to open two bank accounts in April 2023. Danial did this knowing that the new bank accounts would likely be used to scam other people... She also said that Danial was a "serial sexual offender" given his 10 previous charges of sexual penetration of a minor... Unauthorised disclosure of a computer access code is punishable with up to three years in jail, a fine of up to S$10,000 or both."
John Reese - Person of Interest on X - "I am old enough to remember what a big deal it was when the RNC attempted (unsuccessfully) to bug the DNC Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. A President was forced to resign in disgrace, even though, he was not even a part of the plan to carry it out. Now we had a President (Biden) and an Attorney General (Garland) who actually hired a Special Prosecutor (Smith) along with a co-conspirator Judge (Boasberg) who decided it would be a good idea to trap / trace the phone records of sitting members of Congress for no apparent lawful purpose."
American KitKat vs. Canadian KitKat : r/mildlyinteresting - "I wonder how Japan KitKat does it. They have the best KitKat flavors."
"Not using Hersey's chocolate helps a lot. Secondly, The name KitKat is similar to the Japanese phrase ""Kitto Katsu" which means "you will surely win". So they're considered lucky and are given as gifts before things like exams etc. They're very much woven into Japanese culture."
"They even often have a space on the wrapper where you can write a message to the person you give it to."
Can McDonald’s Cure Your Migraine? Debunking the Viral McMigraine Trend - "because migraines are so individualized, with each person having a somewhat unique experience with the condition, it is nearly impossible for there to be a single cure. As someone who’s had severe, frequent migraines for years (Hosna here!), I haven’t tried the McMigraine hack—not because it’s not tempting, but the nausea alone makes food unthinkable. I wouldn’t mind indulging if that weren’t the case. The McMigraine may help individuals whose migraines are influenced by caffeine and carbohydrate intake. Caffeine can play a complex role in migraine pain management. For some, it can provide relief during an attack, and for others, it is a trigger. This is why it is important for individuals to recognize how caffeine is a double-edged sword—capable of both helping and harming, depending on the person and the context. Additionally, Coke with its high-sugar content and fries in all their high-carbohydrate glory can help temporarily correct an electrolyte or blood sugar imbalance. For individuals who have migraine attacks triggered by skipped meals, this fast-food “hack” may just do the trick. This could be why some social media claims aren’t necessarily baseless; some people may truly find relief from this combination. But an anecdote should not be mistaken for a medically sound solution for all."
McMigraine: Does the TikTok migraine cola and fries 'cure' really work? - "For Kayleigh Webster, a 27-year-old who has had chronic migraines all her life, it's the salt on the chips that might slow down a migraine attack... She also warns that not only is fast food often ultra-processed and not conducive to a healthy diet, it can contain high levels of Tyramine, a natural compound commonly found in many foods, which can actually cause severe migraines."
The grim reason Romans couldn’t defend Hadrian’s Wall - "Defending Hadrian’s Wall may have been a tougher task than first thought because Roman soldiers were riddled with parasitic worms, a new study has suggested. An analysis of sewer drains at the Roman fort of Vindolanda, in Northumberland, has shown that the occupants were infected by three types of intestinal parasite – roundworm, whipworm and Giardia duodenalis. The bugs, spread through poor sanitation, would have caused outbreaks of nausea, cramping and diarrhoea, making the soldiers unfit for duty."
Loud American accents irritate Britons – but can you tell them apart? - "A 2014 YouGov survey found that just 11 per cent of Britons said they found American accents attractive – far fewer than the 35 per cent of Americans who said they found British accents sexy. There is, however, one consistent complaint: volume. It is no secret that Americans tend to speak louder and more forcefully than some other English speakers – and, at times, that can cause issues. Earlier this year, the British athlete and Olympic medallist Keely Hodgkinson fired off an angry TikTok from a restaurant in Tokyo, accusing American tourists of being unnecessarily loud and having irritating accents. The video quickly went viral, polarising opinion on both sides of the Atlantic. But did Hodgkinson have a point? Polls suggest she is not alone in her view. Over the summer, a cross-continental survey asked Europeans to name the traits they most associate with American tourists. Topping the list was volume, with 70 per cent of respondents saying they felt Americans were excessively boisterous. What drives this great volume gap? “Volume is very much a cultural consideration,” says the etiquette expert William Hanson. The extent to which we raise our voices is shaped by habit. “Americans will often stand further apart than Brits when conversing, for example, so they raise their voices to bridge the gap,” he explains... Tolerance may also depend on the accent in question. Research into which American accents are considered most irritating tends to put familiar East Coast voices at the top of the list. One recent survey named New York and Boston as the most annoying, with nearby New Jersey close behind... New Jerseyans may have themselves to blame. Surveys suggest the state produces some of the loudest talkers in America, just behind Louisiana and Florida. So there you have it: not only one of the country’s most irritating dialects, but one delivered at full volume."
Husband is charged with murdering Miss Switzerland finalist mother-of-two who was 'strangled, "pureed" in a blender and had womb cut out' - "The 41-year-old, who was named in local media by the pseudonym of Thomas due to Swiss privacy laws, is accused of decapitating Kristina Joksimovic and cutting out her womb... An autopsy report also showed that Thomas had also allegedly 'carefully removed' Joksimovic's womb, which was the only organ cut out of her torso. Some of his wife's body parts were said to have then been forced into a powerful industrial blender, in which he allegedly 'pureed' them, as well as dissolving some in a chemical solution. Investigators found that while allegedly cutting up the mother-of-two's body, Thomas played YouTube videos on his phone... A closer examination of Joksimovic's head revealed wounds indicating that some of her hair was ripped out. The experts who analysed the dismemberment of her body said Thomas used a jigsaw, a knife and a pair of garden shears to dismember Kristina, before either throwing 'various body parts' into an industrial blender or dissolving them in a chemical solution. Investigators found 'a large number' of skin flaps, 'some with attached muscles' as well as 'a large number of pieces of muscle, some with attached pieces of bone'. The autopsy revealed that before Thomas allegedly dismembered her, he broke Kristina's hip joints out of their sockets and went on to disarticulation - which is the removal of a bone from its joint, like an amputation - with her left upper arm, forearms and right lower leg. He is then believed to have 'roughly severed' Joksimovic's upper spine to decapitate her and further split her torso in half above her pelvis... Describing what happened before the killing, Thomas said that the couple had a 'positive' conversation before Joksimovic 'suddenly attacked him with a knife'. He had previously claimed that he 'found his wife dead' by the stairs in their family home, but later said that he strangled her in self-defence against the alleged knife attack."
How a school helped a young girl move in with 'predator teacher grooming her while keeping parents in the dark' - "A Colorado school helped a teacher allegedly groom a 17-year-old student by helping the girl move into her instructor's home while keeping her parents in the dark. Former Social Studies teacher, Leann Kearney, allegedly groomed a then-17-year-old female student at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, school district investigators said... The unidentified student was allegedly involved in an inappropriate relationship with Kearney at the time and had been working with school officials to file federal paperwork to declare her homeless despite living with her parents."
High-fat cheese linked to lower risk of dementia, Swedish study finds
Nutritional epidemiology strikes again
Pat Stedman | Dating & Relationship Coach for Men on X - "One of my (white) childhood friends got into University of Michigan Aerospace Engineering for his masters Except he actually didn't. A few months later they said his GPA - from an elite American college that unusually didn't inflate grades - was too low, that they made a mistake accepting him, and tried to withdraw his acceptance Moral hazard though was such that they had to honor it, since by then he had rejected other colleges Anyway 80% of his graduate classmates were international, mostly Indian, Pakistani, and Chinese. They all cheated. He understood the material better but his grades were worse because he refused on principle not to cheat He did fine but not enough compared to his classmates. This cost him a PhD in the field and he switched to medical sciences after graduation A lot of stories I heard like this when I was younger I never processed. They only take on greater significance as I get older."
Ambiguous traffic signals in DC : r/CrappyDesign
Why driving in the US sucks
The French are cracking down on nudity - "The golden era of French cinema – that is, the sun-drenched, rose-tinted idyll of the 1960s and 70s, where flesh was for feasting the eyes on, and censorship and #problematic themes were non-existent – was hallmarked by the nation’s eagerness towards disrobing. So what those icons would say today at a recent clamping down on revealing attire, even in the sultry heat of summer, would no doubt raise some expletives over the Gitanes and pastis. A few weeks ago, The Telegraph reported that local councils in the country’s more sunkissed locales are banning exposed flesh. So our destination expert reports, it’s a problem endemic to loutish tourists and applies particularly to those who freely go undressed off the beach, with local councils issuing fines for beer bellies on display and bosoms in the breeze... a beach in the South of France ordered women to put their bikini tops back on, to huge outcry. This summer, a cloud (or rather, a long-sleeved gown) cast a shadow over the dress code at the Cannes Film Festival when it was decreed that revealing outfits would not be allowed on accounts of ‘decency’. Sacré bleu, the bare backside cheek of it all. Which is a curiosité, non? Given that French fashion’s particular nous has always been about provocation and seduction, reveal and conceal, barely there and yet unattainable, it’s strange to begin decreeing in 2025 how much flesh someone can expose... French fashion has always been enthral to a sense of seduction and the art of the titivating reveal without Eurotrash-era full frontal vulgarity... To Pauline Cochet Dallet, a French fashion PR and brand consultant (and former Paris resident), it’s a matter of ease rather than overt sexualisation; “French women tend to dress in a way that’s sexy but comfortable, in a way that’s for them rather than dressing for a man,” she says. “It’s a natural kind of seduction, rather than something that’s planned out and try hard. It’s more about bare make-up, and showing some skin by wearing a linen shirt with the bra just showing. It’s not trussed up and about being ‘done’. French women are generally confident in their skin and with their bodies, it’s about celebrating what’s natural, the opposite of vulgarity.” She also, as is the received wisdom around Gen Z, pointed to the fact that the younger generation are rather more conservative in this regard"
Thread by @rustbeltenjoyer on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Even though it's a surname and not an English word, the Quebec French language laws won't let Starbucks be "Starbucks" because it's not a French surname, so it's "Cafè Starbucks" instead. Oh, and if you were wondering, Starbucks in France is just "Starbucks" or "Starbucks Coffee"."
Daniel Foubert 🇫🇷🇵🇱 on X - "France had a competent technocratic elite. Then they decided to create a special National School of Administration (ENA) that ruined the country by TEACHING INCOMPETENCE. In 1945, General de Gaulle, a man who generally preferred action to paperwork, founded the École Nationale d'Administration (ENA) with a noble, republican goal: to break the nepotistic stronghold of the Parisian bourgeoisie and replace it with a meritocratic "state nobility." It was intended to be the grand equalizer of the Republic. Instead, France accidentally invented a machine for cloning people who believe that the solution to any crisis is a well-formatted memo. Before ENA, France was built by engineers (from the École Polytechnique) who knew how to build bridges that didn't fall down. ENA replaced them with administrators who know how to explain, in eloquent subjunctive, why the bridge was never built in the first place. The curriculum focuses less on solving problems and more on the "Note de Synthèse"—the art of compressing complex reality into two pages. The ENA graduate is trained to view the world through the lens of the "Plan in Two Parts and Two Sub-parts" (I. A, I. B, II. A, II. B). If a problem cannot be divided into two symmetric arguments, the Enarch concludes that the problem does not exist. They are masters of a specific dialect of French where verbs are decorative and accountability is grammatically impossible. The school became a hotbed for pensée unique (groupthink). By forcing every aspiring high official to digest the same textbooks, pass the same conformist exams, and socialize in the same cafeteria in Strasbourg, the state ensured that no matter who you voted for—Socialist or Conservative—you ended up with a Minister of Finance who had the same roommate in 1974. It is a closed loop of intellectual incest. They possess a terrifying confidence derived from being told at age 24 that they are the smartest people in the room, a conviction that persists even as they drive the national deficit into the stratosphere. Perhaps the most egregious sin of the system is "pantouflage" (literally, putting on one's slippers). This is the mechanism by which ENA graduates, having spent a decade mismanaging public funds, slide effortlessly into the private sector to mismanage shareholder funds. The state pays for their elite education, and in return, they leave the civil service in their 40s to become bankers or CEOs, leveraging their Rolodex rather than their business acumen. It created a perverse incentive where the regulator and the regulated are not just friends; they are quite literally the same person at different stages of their career. The ultimate achievement of ENA was the creation of a ruling class that is "hors-sol" (soilless)—completely detached from the organic reality of the country they govern. An Enarch can be parachuted into a rural province as a Prefect, managing agriculture and industry without ever having grown a tomato or tightened a bolt. They view France not as a collection of human beings, but as a spreadsheet to be optimized The story of ENA is a tragedy performed by people who believe they are in a heroic biopic. The school succeeded in its unspoken mission: to create a caste so cohesive that it became immune to the consequences of its own decisions. It produced an elite that treats the French Republic not as a nation to be served, but as a case study to be managed. They are the captains of a ship who, upon hitting an iceberg, immediately form a committee to discuss the theoretical implications of ice on maritime structural integrity, while the passengers quietly drown in the steerage. When Emmanuel Macron—the ultimate ENA cyborg—announced the school's closure, it was the most "Enarque" move possible. He didn't actually fire the incompetents or burn the curriculum; he simply renamed the building. ENA has been replaced by the Institut National du Service Public (INSP). It is a classic bureaucratic sleight of hand: changing the label on a bottle of vinegar and selling it as Grand Cru. The walls may have a new coat of paint, but inside, the same people are teaching the same students how to write the same two-part memos and make sure France keeps failing."
Russell Crowe criticises Gladiator sequel - "Russell Crowe has criticised the creators of the Gladiator sequel for failing to understand “what made the first one special”. The 61-year-old actor, who played the lead character Maximus Decimus Meridius in Sir Ridley Scott’s original epic, accused Gladiator II of lacking a “moral core”... Crowe recalled that, in the wake of the sequel’s release, he would often have people come up to him in restaurants around Europe to complain. He said: “It’s like, ‘Hey, it wasn’t me! I didn’t do it’.”"
What music students of today could learn from my fusty Oxford degree - "It’s hard to imagine anything more apparently useless than mastering the rules of 16th-century counterpoint, or 18th-century fugue. That’s one reason why university management is sceptical about these courses. They’re hard to sell to students in search of “relevance” (actually I think it’s the management who are obsessed with relevance, not the students, but I’ll let that pass). Then there’s the emphatically Western, rational nature of these rules, and their rootedness in the Christian liturgy, both serious embarrassments to heads of department keen to “decolonise” music curricula. Last, but hardly least, there’s the extraordinary difficulty of these techniques, and their cruel objectivity. Either you get it right, or you don’t. That seems intolerable in an age when subjectivity and the proud proclamation of “my truth” are now the preferred criteria of value. Speaking for myself, I discovered that learning something “from the inside”, by actually doing it, gives you a knowledge that no amount of book-learning can ever achieve. Beyond that, it teaches you that something has a perennial value for anyone who wants to compose: musical material has a solid reality, a “grain” which you have to respect. It’s the same in every art form. A piece of marble or sheet metal or glass fibre resists the attempt to shape it, but also suggests possibilities. Human bodies suggest ideas to a choreographer, but also impose limits. This need to work within limits – real or self-imposed – is a perennial truth about creativity. This is why disciplines which you might think have been consigned to history still survive in higher education: life drawing in art schools, classical technique in dance schools, and Renaissance counterpoint in music departments of universities. Granted, the stylistic range of those techniques in my day was overly narrow: they could have benefitted from being broadened to include other styles where the criteria of success are rigorous: composing a swing variation on a jazz standard for instance, or a piece of hardcore minimalism. With a few adjustments of this kind, it would be easy to make a good case for mastering musical styles that aren’t one’s own. Doing this would be a wonderful antidote to that scourge of humanities, “presentism” – the belief that the past only matters as a way of confirming our contemporary ideological prejudices... Don’t take my word for it that these ancient techniques are in fact deeply relevant to music students, especially those who want to compose. Take the word of the great co-founder of minimalism Steve Reich, who once had a reputation as a die-hard radical. When asked what young composers should do to improve their craft, he said without hesitation “study harmony and counterpoint”. Amen to that."
