Best Of

TPSI poll | 6/8 LV

US Senate Maine 2026
🟥Susan Collins 43.7% (incumbent)
🟦Graham Platner 43.1%
Undecided 13.2%
—
When voters are informed of Graham Platner’s scandals
🟦Graham Platner 48.2%
🟥Susan Collins 40.1% (incumbent)
Undecided 11.7%
https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2064338493321466318

Huh. Is it even a scandal if it helps?

Seemingly so, if the scandal is that he hates Jews. He has the tattoo of a Nazi concentration camp guard on his chest.

Looking at his Wikipedia page, it does look like the Dems haven't exactly chosen the best candidate.

Of course if he was Republican he could just shout "Fake News" over and over and it'll be fine.

"FAKE NEWS from the RADICAL LEFT LUNATIC CatMan! Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

FPT, in reply to @ydoethur :

Cyclists piss me right off.

Specially designed cycle paths on the hill out of Brixham and towards Paignton. Specifically introduced to help cyclist safety from large articulated fish lorries, and seasonal traffic.

Cyclists generally ignore it, block traffic cause gridlock.

Many with more fecking cameras on them than GCHQ... Ready to report you for yelling "get on the fucking cycle path" as you drive past.

There are three types of cycle path.

1. Well-designed cycle paths that make cycling better - cyclists will use these paths.
2. Badly-designed cycle paths that make cycling more dangerous, or less convenient - cyclists will not use these paths.
3. Paint on the road surface - car drivers will ignore these.

Which category are the ones you are talking about?

Much though I hate to defend that poster, that's not altogether true. Next to the A449 from Wolverhampton to Penkridge (on both sides) is a cycleway that's beautifully laid out. It's wide, straight, surfaced properly, grade separated, no pedestrians and has pelican crossings so you can navigate safely. It must be the best cycleway in the whole Midlands.

Some utter twat persists, every day, in cycling rather slowly up the middle of the nearside lane of the dual carriageway, causing total chaos.

There is no excuse for that other than to be a total arsehole. Unless this person is such a total idiot he has not noticed the cycleway signs literally at his elbow, in which case he should probably not be allowed out without an escort.

If that total idiot was in a car he would not be causing traffic either.

This is what our can't misguided think-beyond-their-own-experiences city dwellers fail to comprehend. Roads that typically travel at or about the speed limit can be seriously damaged by one individual who is not doing the limit that then snarls everyone behind them until they can get into a different lane to overtake.

Whether that one individual be an agricultural vehicle, the bin lorry, a cyclist or an elderly driver afraid to drive properly.

Shared spaces mean they can all be on the road, but the idea its great that they are and should be celebrated is not necessarily correct and depends upon the circumstances.

It's not a matter of celebrating that one is stuck behind someone driving more slowly than you are comfortable doing. It's a matter of co-operating with other road users so everyone gets to their final destination in one piece.

There are too many drivers who seem to have either a death wish, or believe that they are invincible, or in their rage at being slightly inconvenienced and delayed lose all sense of proportion and put everyone else on the road in the vicinity at risk of death or serious injury.

My 14-year old daughter* is doing a sponsored coast to coast bike ride the weekend after next, so I have an unusually heightened sense of cycle safety at the moment (not least after the headmaster at her school was killed cycling home a couple of months back). I'm generally fairly relaxed about sharing a road with vehicle traffic, but you notice driver behaviour a lot more when your daughter is on the road.
My perspective is that almost all drivers are pretty considerate, especially in towns or on small country lanes. Trying to force an overtake which isn't there is very rare; they will almost always wait to be waved on. The roads which worry me though are country A roads. With my daughter, I will go a long way out of my way to avoid these. It's not even that I blame the drivers: but if the expectation is that you can be travelling at 60mph, you can very quickly be on a slow moving vehicle you didn't expect to be there.

*actually the two of us - but she is the one fundraising; I'm just there to keep an eye.

Good luck to her (and you, of course!) Who is she fundraising for?

Thank you! She's doing a Camps International trip in 2027 to Cambodia - one of those where teenagers go and Do Practical and Useful Things for Impoverished Communities - so it's fundraising for that.
We've been doing a fair bit of training, so - while it's considerably further than she's been before, and further than I've been before come to that - I'm feeling broadly confident. Well, broadly confident of her cycling ability. I'm still worried about weather, possible mechanical issues, making the train connections and packing two people's stuff in my saddlebags!

Chapeau for attempting it in a weekend, I hope the weather and motorists are kind.
Proper shorts and chamois cream applied before anything gets sore is the best tip. There were some nice cafes on the route when I did it years ago.

Cyclists piss me right off.

Specially designed cycle paths on the hill out of Brixham and towards Paignton. Specifically introduced to help cyclist safety from large articulated fish lorries, and seasonal traffic.

Cyclists generally ignore it, block traffic cause gridlock.

Many with more fecking cameras on them than GCHQ... Ready to report you for yelling "get on the fucking cycle path" as you drive past.

There are three types of cycle path.

1. Well-designed cycle paths that make cycling better - cyclists will use these paths.
2. Badly-designed cycle paths that make cycling more dangerous, or less convenient - cyclists will not use these paths.
3. Paint on the road surface - car drivers will ignore these.

Which category are the ones you are talking about?

Much though I hate to defend that poster, that's not altogether true. Next to the A449 from Wolverhampton to Penkridge (on both sides) is a cycleway that's beautifully laid out. It's wide, straight, surfaced properly, grade separated, no pedestrians and has pelican crossings so you can navigate safely. It must be the best cycleway in the whole Midlands.

Some utter twat persists, every day, in cycling rather slowly up the middle of the nearside lane of the dual carriageway, causing total chaos.

There is no excuse for that other than to be a total arsehole. Unless this person is such a total idiot he has not noticed the cycleway signs literally at his elbow, in which case he should probably not be allowed out without an escort.

If that total idiot was in a car he would not be causing traffic either.

This is what our can't misguided think-beyond-their-own-experiences city dwellers fail to comprehend. Roads that typically travel at or about the speed limit can be seriously damaged by one individual who is not doing the limit that then snarls everyone behind them until they can get into a different lane to overtake.

Whether that one individual be an agricultural vehicle, the bin lorry, a cyclist or an elderly driver afraid to drive properly.

Shared spaces mean they can all be on the road, but the idea its great that they are and should be celebrated is not necessarily correct and depends upon the circumstances.

It's not a matter of celebrating that one is stuck behind someone driving more slowly than you are comfortable doing. It's a matter of co-operating with other road users so everyone gets to their final destination in one piece.

There are too many drivers who seem to have either a death wish, or believe that they are invincible, or in their rage at being slightly inconvenienced and delayed lose all sense of proportion and put everyone else on the road in the vicinity at risk of death or serious injury.

My 14-year old daughter* is doing a sponsored coast to coast bike ride the weekend after next, so I have an unusually heightened sense of cycle safety at the moment (not least after the headmaster at her school was killed cycling home a couple of months back). I'm generally fairly relaxed about sharing a road with vehicle traffic, but you notice driver behaviour a lot more when your daughter is on the road.
My perspective is that almost all drivers are pretty considerate, especially in towns or on small country lanes. Trying to force an overtake which isn't there is very rare; they will almost always wait to be waved on. The roads which worry me though are country A roads. With my daughter, I will go a long way out of my way to avoid these. It's not even that I blame the drivers: but if the expectation is that you can be travelling at 60mph, you can very quickly be on a slow moving vehicle you didn't expect to be there.

*actually the two of us - but she is the one fundraising; I'm just there to keep an eye.

Yes. Most car drivers are fine. But even if it's only ~1% of car drivers who are reckless, they put other people at risk.

In a similar way, most cyclists don't want to be in anyone else's way. But there's a pervasive attitude - which is what started this conversation - that they are being deliberately difficult and in some way deserve what's coming to them. I've experienced a lot of hostility from car drivers which basically boils down to them being enraged that I dare to be on the road (which actually I generally don't anymore, eventually I just couldn't take the worry).

It's bizarre, otherwise kind and normal people are really aggressive about this.

I am neither a motorist or a cyclist, so I have no axe to grind, but one thing I have noticed is this:
Motorists are encouraged to leave a certain space when passing cyclists, but cyclists will often deliberately try to squeeze through gaps much smaller than that.

That is probably true, but there is a difference between squeezing past when stationary, and overtaking at speed.

And it isn't encouragement I believe, drivers are supposed to leave more space now, something like a cars width. If there is not room to leave that space they either do it anyway, or they wait and often get furious that a cyclist is using the road at all.

I don't mind if a car comes a bit closer than that if they're only going a little faster than me. It can actually be a little annoying when a motorist is cautiously creeping along behind me while we're travelling uphill and refusing to slowly overtake until they can give a full car's width of clearance, even though they're only going to be passing at 10-15 mph. On the other hand, it can be quite terrifying when some idiot shoots past closely but much faster than me. The speed differential is critical.

FPT, in reply to @ydoethur :

Cyclists piss me right off.

Specially designed cycle paths on the hill out of Brixham and towards Paignton. Specifically introduced to help cyclist safety from large articulated fish lorries, and seasonal traffic.

Cyclists generally ignore it, block traffic cause gridlock.

Many with more fecking cameras on them than GCHQ... Ready to report you for yelling "get on the fucking cycle path" as you drive past.

There are three types of cycle path.

1. Well-designed cycle paths that make cycling better - cyclists will use these paths.
2. Badly-designed cycle paths that make cycling more dangerous, or less convenient - cyclists will not use these paths.
3. Paint on the road surface - car drivers will ignore these.

Which category are the ones you are talking about?

Much though I hate to defend that poster, that's not altogether true. Next to the A449 from Wolverhampton to Penkridge (on both sides) is a cycleway that's beautifully laid out. It's wide, straight, surfaced properly, grade separated, no pedestrians and has pelican crossings so you can navigate safely. It must be the best cycleway in the whole Midlands.

Some utter twat persists, every day, in cycling rather slowly up the middle of the nearside lane of the dual carriageway, causing total chaos.

There is no excuse for that other than to be a total arsehole. Unless this person is such a total idiot he has not noticed the cycleway signs literally at his elbow, in which case he should probably not be allowed out without an escort.

If that total idiot was in a car he would not be causing traffic either.

This is what our can't misguided think-beyond-their-own-experiences city dwellers fail to comprehend. Roads that typically travel at or about the speed limit can be seriously damaged by one individual who is not doing the limit that then snarls everyone behind them until they can get into a different lane to overtake.

Whether that one individual be an agricultural vehicle, the bin lorry, a cyclist or an elderly driver afraid to drive properly.

Shared spaces mean they can all be on the road, but the idea its great that they are and should be celebrated is not necessarily correct and depends upon the circumstances.

It's not a matter of celebrating that one is stuck behind someone driving more slowly than you are comfortable doing. It's a matter of co-operating with other road users so everyone gets to their final destination in one piece.

There are too many drivers who seem to have either a death wish, or believe that they are invincible, or in their rage at being slightly inconvenienced and delayed lose all sense of proportion and put everyone else on the road in the vicinity at risk of death or serious injury.

My 14-year old daughter* is doing a sponsored coast to coast bike ride the weekend after next, so I have an unusually heightened sense of cycle safety at the moment (not least after the headmaster at her school was killed cycling home a couple of months back). I'm generally fairly relaxed about sharing a road with vehicle traffic, but you notice driver behaviour a lot more when your daughter is on the road.
My perspective is that almost all drivers are pretty considerate, especially in towns or on small country lanes. Trying to force an overtake which isn't there is very rare; they will almost always wait to be waved on. The roads which worry me though are country A roads. With my daughter, I will go a long way out of my way to avoid these. It's not even that I blame the drivers: but if the expectation is that you can be travelling at 60mph, you can very quickly be on a slow moving vehicle you didn't expect to be there.

*actually the two of us - but she is the one fundraising; I'm just there to keep an eye.

Good luck to her (and you, of course!) Who is she fundraising for?

Thank you! She's doing a Camps International trip in 2027 to Cambodia - one of those where teenagers go and Do Practical and Useful Things for Impoverished Communities - so it's fundraising for that.
We've been doing a fair bit of training, so - while it's considerably further than she's been before, and further than I've been before come to that - I'm feeling broadly confident. Well, broadly confident of her cycling ability. I'm still worried about weather, possible mechanical issues, making the train connections and packing two people's stuff in my saddlebags!