MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
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User ID: 896
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
22hr ago
This is a business-to-consumer contract, so the law on unfair terms in consumer contracts applies. This is a hugely complex area of law (the official government guidance runs to 144 pages) where the statute and regulations were re-written in 2015 to bring British law in line with EU law (and not updated since Brexit) but most of the cases predate the new law.
But the key point is that Arsenham FC can enforce the term if it is "fair" and not if it is "unfair". Hidden terms are on the "greylist" of terms that will usually be unfair, but even if the rule "we can cancel your tickets without notice if you turn out not to be a fan" was clearly state, it would be invalid if substantially unfair.
The relevant section in the guidance is 5.16.3 on unequal cancellation rights
This applies particularly to terms which explicitly say that the trader can cancel at will, without having any valid reason. But it also applies to terms which permit cancellation for vaguely defined reasons, or in response to any breach of contract (however trivial) by the consumer. Such terms may be intended to allow the business to do no more than protect itself legitimately from problems beyond its control, or from serious misconduct by the consumer. But the potential effect as well as the purpose of terms is relevant to fairness, and if wording is loosely drafted and open to abuse it is liable to be seen as unbalancing the contract.
Cancelling a contract because the customer is not a fan would be a vaguely defined reason, meaning that the term is greylisted and therefore probably unfair. It might be fair under the circumstances if @Bartender_Venator had e.g. taken advantage of a discount specifically marketed at fans.
There is a separate point that the contract isn't formed until the business accepts the customer's offer. If you booked the flights and accommodation before getting a confirmation e-mail saying "your tickets are booked" and then unfortunately got a non-confirmation e-mail saying "please prove you are a fan before we will release your tickets" then you never had a contract and are SOL.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
1d ago
USA will always be on top, because of two huge oceans that are unmovable at least on human scales.
Oceans historically were, and in many ways still are, bridges, not barriers. When the Royal Navy pwned the US Navy, you were our bitch, to the point where we could casually loot and burn Washington DC as a side quest while fighting the Napoleonic Wars. The oceans give the US the option (just as the English Channel gave the UK the same option) of neglecting you land forces and being a pure sea power - as long as the US rules (or at least contests) the waves, you are indeed safe from invasion (as we were and probably still are).
The nature of late C20/early C21 air and sea power makes the oceans a barrier to attack even if the US wasn't a major naval power - sea power is carrier-based air power and land-based aircraft have a massive advantage over carrier-based aircraft with equivalent men and materiel. This means that the late C20/early C21 USA was impregnable because the USAF could defend the coasts against the navy of a somewhat superior adversary. (This is the "The Falklands War wasn't supposed to be winnable for the British" argument - the RN overperformed and the Argentinian Air Force underperformed). But that tech stack is obsolete, as Russia learned en route to the bottom of the Black Sea and the US is currently learning the hard way in the Gulf. Will the same logic apply in a world where sea power consists of drone carriers escorted by laser cruisers? I don't know.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
2d ago
Stop them from closing the straight? Genuinely impossible.
The Houthis are the proof of concept here, as are the Somali pirates. You can be a threat to shipping from a completely failed state.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
6d ago
This has been done - the more doctors at a cost of quality are nurse practitioners, physician assistants etc. "How should the healthcare system use midlevels and what is their appropriate scope of practice?" is a question where there has been a lot of jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction experimentation and where there is a lively debate within the healthcare world.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
6d ago
Odd standard, US military bases open your entire country to bombing.
It's the standard standard since time immemorial. Allowing military use of your territory is incompatible with neutrality.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
6d ago
Bergamo, where most of the viral images of overwhelmed hospitals came from, is a municipality of 120,000 people with a metro area population of c. 500,000, unless you consider the whole Bergamo area a suburb of Milan. The population within city limits is 25.4% over 65, which is only marginally more geriatric than Italy as a whole.
I don't know why Bergamo was such a mess, although I suspect the answer is "they were the first city other than Wuhan to be hit badly and had no clue what they were doing".
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
6d ago
extra-lockdown-loving Australia
The average Australian spent less time locked down that the average Brit or American - only Melbourne had an extra-long lockdown.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite
6d ago
There was 0 chance it wasn't going to go full epidemic eventually,
Plenty of countries where it didn't (Korea, Japan, Taiwan being the clear-cut cases). That no western country managed the pandemic as well as those three was a policy choice.
It would be bizarre to go out of you way to be polite to a dog or a horse, and the act of a despicable varlet to be deliberately cruel to one. Why should a servant be different?
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