1. You will read today many ignorant assertions, of this ilk ...

https://t.co/5d5jgqVDqI

... to the effect that the EU has introduced "significant barriers to free trade e.g. customs and regulatory checks".

But the EU has introduced no new barriers.

2. Simply, the UK has redefined itself as a "third country" and positioned itself outside the EU's existing regulatory wall...
.
https://t.co/5d5jgqVDqI
3. As a third country, it will now have to deal with all the pre-existing regulatory barriers that have been erected over time, which apply (to a greater or lesser extent) to other third countries.
4. The degree to which this trade deal is effective can be measured by the extent to which these entry is handicapped by these pre-existing barriers, and what steps have been agreed to mitigate the effects.
5. However, as long as the UK is a third country, outside the Single Market, traders will have to deal with significant entry barriers when sending goods to the EU. These are an unavoidable consequence of leaving the Single Market.
6. In particular, traders will have to get used to the fact that the Single Market is not a free trade area - it is a regulatory union, where the members agree to be bound by a common regulatory code. It is this which permits cross-border trade without checks.
7. Thus, third country goods to gain entry to the Single Market, there must be an "importer" established within the EU who will take legal responsibility for ensuring that those goods conform with Single Market regulations.
8. The greater the degree of divergence between the third country regulatory code and the Single Market acquis, the more stringent will need to be the checks to ensure the conformity of goods.
9. On that basis, most modern trade deals seek to agree regulatory harmonisation, and cooperation, with a view to adopting common standards. "Free trade" is a misnomer. It is "regulated trade". The greater the degree of commonality, the freer the flow of trade.
10. Expect, therefore, the UK's insistence on divergence to hamper the flow of trade. The "freedom" to diverge is the freedom to hamper trade flows and to make it more difficult and expensive to export.
11. The ignorance of this assertion, therefore, tells you a great deal about the level of comprehension in the higher reaches of government ..,.

https://t.co/igW17d26dH

Commentators such as this lack the intellectual architecture to understand the concept of the Single Market.

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A brief analysis and comparison of the CSS for Twitter's PWA vs Twitter's legacy desktop website. The difference is dramatic and I'll touch on some reasons why.

Legacy site *downloads* ~630 KB CSS per theme and writing direction.

6,769 rules
9,252 selectors
16.7k declarations
3,370 unique declarations
44 media queries
36 unique colors
50 unique background colors
46 unique font sizes
39 unique z-indices

https://t.co/qyl4Bt1i5x


PWA *incrementally generates* ~30 KB CSS that handles all themes and writing directions.

735 rules
740 selectors
757 declarations
730 unique declarations
0 media queries
11 unique colors
32 unique background colors
15 unique font sizes
7 unique z-indices

https://t.co/w7oNG5KUkJ


The legacy site's CSS is what happens when hundreds of people directly write CSS over many years. Specificity wars, redundancy, a house of cards that can't be fixed. The result is extremely inefficient and error-prone styling that punishes users and developers.

The PWA's CSS is generated on-demand by a JS framework that manages styles and outputs "atomic CSS". The framework can enforce strict constraints and perform optimisations, which is why the CSS is so much smaller and safer. Style conflicts and unbounded CSS growth are avoided.
The UN just voted to condemn Israel 9 times, and the rest of the world 0.

View the resolutions and voting results here:

The resolution titled "The occupied Syrian Golan," which condemns Israel for "repressive measures" against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights, was adopted by a vote of 151 - 2 - 14.

Israel and the U.S. voted 'No'
https://t.co/HoO7oz0dwr


The resolution titled "Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people..." was adopted by a vote of 153 - 6 - 9.

Australia, Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and the U.S. voted 'No' https://t.co/1Ntpi7Vqab


The resolution titled "Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan" was adopted by a vote of 153 – 5 – 10.

Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and the U.S. voted 'No'
https://t.co/REumYgyRuF


The resolution titled "Applicability of the Geneva Convention... to the
Occupied Palestinian Territory..." was adopted by a vote of 154 - 5 - 8.

Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and the U.S. voted 'No'
https://t.co/xDAeS9K1kW