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Climate change: The huge opinion gap in the US – politicalbetting.com

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  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375
    tlg86 said:

    That Razzell case sounds very odd:

    https://insidetime.org/the-case-of-glyn-razzell/

    Either the switching of cars was part of a very cunning plan, or the police stitched him up good and proper.

    It is completely bizarre, he managed to drive past 25 CCTV cameras both ways and was never caught on any of them.

    He managed to abduct his wife from a busy walkway at 9 a.m. on a workday morning with no one seeing him or the car before, after or during the abduction.

    If he was as cunning as they say then he would have made sure there was no blood left and would never have abducted her in his friends car (he owned up to the police staright away that he had borrowed his friends car on the day of the abduction)

    And police scientists took three attempts to find blood that was easily seen with the naked eye in a car that had been valetted after the police's first two attempts to find stuff had yielded nothing.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,420
    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Speciation is one of the hardest parts of evolutionary theory to explain, because to survive a species has to procreate a lot, but to split into two species you have to prevent two populations of one species from procreating with each other for a long time.

    The secret ballot will be enough to prevent speciation from happening.
    Yes, speciation almost always happens where there is a geographical separation. Often caused by some sort of climate change. And it takes a long, long, long time.
    The Asian populations who crossed the Bering straits to the Americas were separated from other humans for around 10,000 years, I think? (Including, ISTR, 1000 years for which they were marooned in an area the size of half a Canadian province which was surrounded by solid ice. That must have been one of pre-history's grimmer periods.) But this wasn't nearly enough for them to evolve into a separate species. Even the 40-60,000 years for which Australian aborigines were separated from the rest of humanity wasn't enough (though there, there was probably some contact between aborigines and melanesians).
    I think some environmental pressures are needed as well. And of course that which applies to the Native Australians also applies to their dogs. AIUI dingoes can and do mate with dogs brought by Europeans.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,726

    Selebian said:

    darkage said:

    Charles said:

    Totally O/T, I see Glyn Razzell has had his parole request turned down under Helen's Law as he would not identify where he buried his wife's body as he continues to plead his innocence and states he does not know where she is.

    This is truly one of the oddest cases in legal history as there is no evidence that his wife is in fact dead. The only thing that convicted him was that police found her blood in a car he was using, but only found it on their third look. They had it for four days on the 2nd time they looked and returned the car to the owner, who then had it valetted due to the state the police left it in with fingerprint powder everywhere. When they took it in for the third time they found a few bloodspots that was visible to the naked eye in the boot. There is no explanation as to how the police missed these in their first 2 looks. No other DNA from his wife was found.

    No one saw him abduct her from a busy Swindon street, none of the 25 CCTV cameras videoed his vehicle on his drive to the abduction site, and none videoed him on his drive to whereever he buried her. His neighbour confirmed that the vehicle was on Razell's driveway just 45 minutes after the alleged abduction.

    Razzell also provided a decent alibi to the police. He claimed to have walked by a police station at the time of the abduction which had numerous CCTV cameras that would have videoed him. All were out of order (which Razzell would not have known).

    If he gave up the place he buried his wife he would probably be realeased by now as he has been a model prisoner.

    Just imagine if he has not killed her, he will not know where her body is and therefore will probably never be released.

    http://www.mojuk.org.uk/Portia/archive 12/razzell.html

    Juries have their own dynamic but I suspect there was more to the story than you have just laid out otherwise I don’t think there would have been a conviction
    This is a thought process we are all guilty of - ah, it is probably more complicated than it looks, lets move on. Juries are not infallible, there are lots of dodgy convictions.

    There are positives and negatives to this. On the one hand, the law will motivate murderers to reveal what actually happened after they have given up on appealing their convictions, but this is at the expense of the genuinely innocent who get a defacto whole life sentence, unless they give a false confession or make up a story about where the body is in order to eventually get out of jail.

    I would argue that the negatives outweigh the positives, but it was clearly a politically irresistable law. There will be lots of perverse and unfair outcomes.
    Making up a story about where the body is would be hard as I’m fairly certain someone would check.
    Indeed, but there's presumably an out if you describe something that cannot be verified, such as dumped at sea, fed to the local crocodiles etc.

    Of course, if the person subsequently turns up alive, would you then be liable for something? Perjury, possibly? (not sure of the legal weight of such a statement). Providing false information?

    Would really suck to be wrongly imprisoned for murder, then imprisoned again for lying about where the body was when it turned out the person was in fact alive!
    I expect you would get away with time served.

    Anyway, must get back to staff training…
    Quite possibly. Make you wonder whether you could also get away with that for topping the newly discovered alive person who had set you up, particularly given the mitigating circumstances. "Yes, your honour, I did kill the deceased, but I would like to point out that I've already done the time; now I have simply done the crime"
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,344
    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    At some point, millions of years ago, a few pieces of stinking slime crawled from the Sea and shouted to the Heavens "I am Man!"

    Much more recently than that.
    And wasn't it "...Trump !" ?
    A couple of years ago, a friend of mine went to a Republican barbecue in Texas, thinking it would be much the same as a Conservative barbecue in this country.

    Wrong! He said that almost every conversation he had with them was completely outlandish.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,776

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Speciation is one of the hardest parts of evolutionary theory to explain, because to survive a species has to procreate a lot, but to split into two species you have to prevent two populations of one species from procreating with each other for a long time.

    The secret ballot will be enough to prevent speciation from happening.
    Yes, speciation almost always happens where there is a geographical separation. Often caused by some sort of climate change. And it takes a long, long, long time.
    The Asian populations who crossed the Bering straits to the Americas were separated from other humans for around 10,000 years, I think? (Including, ISTR, 1000 years for which they were marooned in an area the size of half a Canadian province which was surrounded by solid ice. That must have been one of pre-history's grimmer periods.) But this wasn't nearly enough for them to evolve into a separate species. Even the 40-60,000 years for which Australian aborigines were separated from the rest of humanity wasn't enough (though there, there was probably some contact between aborigines and melanesians).
    I think some environmental pressures are needed as well. And of course that which applies to the Native Australians also applies to their dogs. AIUI dingoes can and do mate with dogs brought by Europeans.
    Well crossing the Bering Strait was a response to an environmental opportunity, which then disappeared as sea levels rose. And crossing to Australia from possibly Timor was also a response to low sea levels, which rose, cutting the travellers off.
    Environmental pressures can be push factors towards encouraging populations to move - but there are also pull factors (i.e. economic opportunities).
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,420

    tlg86 said:

    That Razzell case sounds very odd:

    https://insidetime.org/the-case-of-glyn-razzell/

    Either the switching of cars was part of a very cunning plan, or the police stitched him up good and proper.

    It is completely bizarre, he managed to drive past 25 CCTV cameras both ways and was never caught on any of them.

    He managed to abduct his wife from a busy walkway at 9 a.m. on a workday morning with no one seeing him or the car before, after or during the abduction.

    If he was as cunning as they say then he would have made sure there was no blood left and would never have abducted her in his friends car (he owned up to the police staright away that he had borrowed his friends car on the day of the abduction)

    And police scientists took three attempts to find blood that was easily seen with the naked eye in a car that had been valetted after the police's first two attempts to find stuff had yielded nothing.
    And yet the BBC researcher who examined the case later expressed herself satisfied. I certainly feel that there's more than was reported in the piece you posted.
  • On isolation: there's a fascinating and now rare whistling language developed by one group or other in what today (I think) is South Africa.

    Language is quite an interesting topic because it's one of very few things that has no genetic influence and is solely down to environmental causes.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,726

    Selebian said:

    darkage said:

    Charles said:

    Totally O/T, I see Glyn Razzell has had his parole request turned down under Helen's Law as he would not identify where he buried his wife's body as he continues to plead his innocence and states he does not know where she is.

    This is truly one of the oddest cases in legal history as there is no evidence that his wife is in fact dead. The only thing that convicted him was that police found her blood in a car he was using, but only found it on their third look. They had it for four days on the 2nd time they looked and returned the car to the owner, who then had it valetted due to the state the police left it in with fingerprint powder everywhere. When they took it in for the third time they found a few bloodspots that was visible to the naked eye in the boot. There is no explanation as to how the police missed these in their first 2 looks. No other DNA from his wife was found.

    No one saw him abduct her from a busy Swindon street, none of the 25 CCTV cameras videoed his vehicle on his drive to the abduction site, and none videoed him on his drive to whereever he buried her. His neighbour confirmed that the vehicle was on Razell's driveway just 45 minutes after the alleged abduction.

    Razzell also provided a decent alibi to the police. He claimed to have walked by a police station at the time of the abduction which had numerous CCTV cameras that would have videoed him. All were out of order (which Razzell would not have known).

    If he gave up the place he buried his wife he would probably be realeased by now as he has been a model prisoner.

    Just imagine if he has not killed her, he will not know where her body is and therefore will probably never be released.

    http://www.mojuk.org.uk/Portia/archive 12/razzell.html

    Juries have their own dynamic but I suspect there was more to the story than you have just laid out otherwise I don’t think there would have been a conviction
    This is a thought process we are all guilty of - ah, it is probably more complicated than it looks, lets move on. Juries are not infallible, there are lots of dodgy convictions.

    There are positives and negatives to this. On the one hand, the law will motivate murderers to reveal what actually happened after they have given up on appealing their convictions, but this is at the expense of the genuinely innocent who get a defacto whole life sentence, unless they give a false confession or make up a story about where the body is in order to eventually get out of jail.

    I would argue that the negatives outweigh the positives, but it was clearly a politically irresistable law. There will be lots of perverse and unfair outcomes.
    Making up a story about where the body is would be hard as I’m fairly certain someone would check.
    Indeed, but there's presumably an out if you describe something that cannot be verified, such as dumped at sea, fed to the local crocodiles etc.

    Of course, if the person subsequently turns up alive, would you then be liable for something? Perjury, possibly? (not sure of the legal weight of such a statement). Providing false information?

    Would really suck to be wrongly imprisoned for murder, then imprisoned again for lying about where the body was when it turned out the person was in fact alive!
    There's the Muriel McKay case, of course, where the body has never been found although it's generally assumed that she's dead.
    There comes a point, of course, at which you can be pretty safe in assuming that. She'd be 107 now? So not completely nailed on, but very likely.
  • DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    tlg86 said:

    Well..


    To be fair, they have gathered in Scotland. He just happens to be in a different bit of it.

    Edit to add: to Americans the 40 or so miles that he is out by might seem trivial.
    I wonder how many delegates are staying in Edinburgh? Must be tempting.
    Quite a lot. Not enough accommodation in Glasgow.
    I am supposed to be doing a proof in Glasgow for the next 2 days. I was quoted around £1000 for 2 nights so its an early train journey for me.
    I'm debating going to a gig in Glasgow tomorrow night. Would stay over but every hotel in the central belt is full of COPpers.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,009
    Selebian said:

    MattW said:

    Selebian said:

    Farooq said:

    Very depressed to hear on the radio this morning that this COP26 thing is going on for 12 days. I'm already bored of hearing what such important voices as Archbishops think will be a good result from the conference.

    Thank goodness we're on the verge of war with the Frogs to keep things at least slightly interesting!

    So about diplomacy.. It comes to English in the late 18C, (unsurprisingly) from the French diplomatie, formed from diplomate the same way aristocratie was from aristocrate. The French diplomate was from Modern Latin diplomaticus, which game from the genitive case diplomatis of diploma - an official document.

    This was from Ancient Greek δίπλωμα, which means "twice folded thing" and was the word for an official document, but also for the parallel streams of the milky way, the foetal position, or a double pot for boiling unguents.

    In modern Greek δίπλωμα has the common modern meaning of diploma in English, but still retains its 'double folded' sense, meaning "the folding of, say, a map - especially in half".

    Let's hope these holders of double folded official documents don't act like climate diplodocuses! (diplodocus - means 'double beamed' which is (surprisingly to me) nothing to with its long neck, and is to do with the shape of chevron bones in the tail)

    In some old novels, the word "diplomat" is rendered as "diplomatist", which is an arrestingly ugly word for reasons I can't quite fathom.
    Sounds more like someone who discriminates against those without proof of education :wink:
    I quite like bicyclist and vegetableist, which seem to fit some.
    Are you a bicyclist? No, I'm heterosexual.

    Are you a transpenninine train driver? No, I'm cis.
    Transpire

    A TERF-themed bonfire night.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,800
    darkage said:

    Charles said:

    Totally O/T, I see Glyn Razzell has had his parole request turned down under Helen's Law as he would not identify where he buried his wife's body as he continues to plead his innocence and states he does not know where she is.

    This is truly one of the oddest cases in legal history as there is no evidence that his wife is in fact dead. The only thing that convicted him was that police found her blood in a car he was using, but only found it on their third look. They had it for four days on the 2nd time they looked and returned the car to the owner, who then had it valetted due to the state the police left it in with fingerprint powder everywhere. When they took it in for the third time they found a few bloodspots that was visible to the naked eye in the boot. There is no explanation as to how the police missed these in their first 2 looks. No other DNA from his wife was found.

    No one saw him abduct her from a busy Swindon street, none of the 25 CCTV cameras videoed his vehicle on his drive to the abduction site, and none videoed him on his drive to whereever he buried her. His neighbour confirmed that the vehicle was on Razell's driveway just 45 minutes after the alleged abduction.

    Razzell also provided a decent alibi to the police. He claimed to have walked by a police station at the time of the abduction which had numerous CCTV cameras that would have videoed him. All were out of order (which Razzell would not have known).

    If he gave up the place he buried his wife he would probably be realeased by now as he has been a model prisoner.

    Just imagine if he has not killed her, he will not know where her body is and therefore will probably never be released.

    http://www.mojuk.org.uk/Portia/archive 12/razzell.html

    Juries have their own dynamic but I suspect there was more to the story than you have just laid out otherwise I don’t think there would have been a conviction
    This is a thought process we are all guilty of - ah, it is probably more complicated than it looks, lets move on. Juries are not infallible, there are lots of dodgy convictions.

    There are positives and negatives to this. On the one hand, the law will motivate murderers to reveal what actually happened after they have given up on appealing their convictions, but this is at the expense of the genuinely innocent who get a defacto whole life sentence, unless they give a false confession or make up a story about where the body is in order to eventually get out of jail.

    I would argue that the negatives outweigh the positives, but it was clearly a politically irresistable law. There will be lots of perverse and unfair outcomes.
    We had a case locally where the police failed to notice the body chopped up in the bath whilst searching a 1 bedroom flat. It was only when the bits had been taken out of the bath and put in black plastic bags for collection on the curb that someone else noted that there was something rather odd about them. So missing blood stains in the boot is maybe not that surprising.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    darkage said:

    Charles said:

    Totally O/T, I see Glyn Razzell has had his parole request turned down under Helen's Law as he would not identify where he buried his wife's body as he continues to plead his innocence and states he does not know where she is.

    This is truly one of the oddest cases in legal history as there is no evidence that his wife is in fact dead. The only thing that convicted him was that police found her blood in a car he was using, but only found it on their third look. They had it for four days on the 2nd time they looked and returned the car to the owner, who then had it valetted due to the state the police left it in with fingerprint powder everywhere. When they took it in for the third time they found a few bloodspots that was visible to the naked eye in the boot. There is no explanation as to how the police missed these in their first 2 looks. No other DNA from his wife was found.

    No one saw him abduct her from a busy Swindon street, none of the 25 CCTV cameras videoed his vehicle on his drive to the abduction site, and none videoed him on his drive to whereever he buried her. His neighbour confirmed that the vehicle was on Razell's driveway just 45 minutes after the alleged abduction.

    Razzell also provided a decent alibi to the police. He claimed to have walked by a police station at the time of the abduction which had numerous CCTV cameras that would have videoed him. All were out of order (which Razzell would not have known).

    If he gave up the place he buried his wife he would probably be realeased by now as he has been a model prisoner.

    Just imagine if he has not killed her, he will not know where her body is and therefore will probably never be released.

    http://www.mojuk.org.uk/Portia/archive 12/razzell.html

    Juries have their own dynamic but I suspect there was more to the story than you have just laid out otherwise I don’t think there would have been a conviction
    This is a thought process we are all guilty of - ah, it is probably more complicated than it looks, lets move on. Juries are not infallible, there are lots of dodgy convictions.

    There are positives and negatives to this. On the one hand, the law will motivate murderers to reveal what actually happened after they have given up on appealing their convictions, but this is at the expense of the genuinely innocent who get a defacto whole life sentence, unless they give a false confession or make up a story about where the body is in order to eventually get out of jail.

    I would argue that the negatives outweigh the positives, but it was clearly a politically irresistable law. There will be lots of perverse and unfair outcomes.
    Making up a story about where the body is would be hard as I’m fairly certain someone would check.
    No need to worry, they thought about that when baking it up.

    "The proposals also take into account instances where, for example, a murderer may genuinely not know the location of a victim’s body if it has been moved."

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/helen-s-law-receives-royal-assent
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,132
    The article posted earlier re: Aberdeen is interesting:
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/nov/01/the-road-to-net-zero-aberdeen-looks-to-a-future-without-oil

    Becoming a centre offshore wind is good - and there's still loads of opportunity around Scotland.

    And I think it's time that we developed an idea about long-term oil requirements, which are not going away completely any time soon.

    I do not see Electric Eurofighters being a thing...
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,420
    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    darkage said:

    Charles said:

    Totally O/T, I see Glyn Razzell has had his parole request turned down under Helen's Law as he would not identify where he buried his wife's body as he continues to plead his innocence and states he does not know where she is.

    This is truly one of the oddest cases in legal history as there is no evidence that his wife is in fact dead. The only thing that convicted him was that police found her blood in a car he was using, but only found it on their third look. They had it for four days on the 2nd time they looked and returned the car to the owner, who then had it valetted due to the state the police left it in with fingerprint powder everywhere. When they took it in for the third time they found a few bloodspots that was visible to the naked eye in the boot. There is no explanation as to how the police missed these in their first 2 looks. No other DNA from his wife was found.

    No one saw him abduct her from a busy Swindon street, none of the 25 CCTV cameras videoed his vehicle on his drive to the abduction site, and none videoed him on his drive to whereever he buried her. His neighbour confirmed that the vehicle was on Razell's driveway just 45 minutes after the alleged abduction.

    Razzell also provided a decent alibi to the police. He claimed to have walked by a police station at the time of the abduction which had numerous CCTV cameras that would have videoed him. All were out of order (which Razzell would not have known).

    If he gave up the place he buried his wife he would probably be realeased by now as he has been a model prisoner.

    Just imagine if he has not killed her, he will not know where her body is and therefore will probably never be released.

    http://www.mojuk.org.uk/Portia/archive 12/razzell.html

    Juries have their own dynamic but I suspect there was more to the story than you have just laid out otherwise I don’t think there would have been a conviction
    This is a thought process we are all guilty of - ah, it is probably more complicated than it looks, lets move on. Juries are not infallible, there are lots of dodgy convictions.

    There are positives and negatives to this. On the one hand, the law will motivate murderers to reveal what actually happened after they have given up on appealing their convictions, but this is at the expense of the genuinely innocent who get a defacto whole life sentence, unless they give a false confession or make up a story about where the body is in order to eventually get out of jail.

    I would argue that the negatives outweigh the positives, but it was clearly a politically irresistable law. There will be lots of perverse and unfair outcomes.
    Making up a story about where the body is would be hard as I’m fairly certain someone would check.
    Indeed, but there's presumably an out if you describe something that cannot be verified, such as dumped at sea, fed to the local crocodiles etc.

    Of course, if the person subsequently turns up alive, would you then be liable for something? Perjury, possibly? (not sure of the legal weight of such a statement). Providing false information?

    Would really suck to be wrongly imprisoned for murder, then imprisoned again for lying about where the body was when it turned out the person was in fact alive!
    There's the Muriel McKay case, of course, where the body has never been found although it's generally assumed that she's dead.
    There comes a point, of course, at which you can be pretty safe in assuming that. She'd be 107 now? So not completely nailed on, but very likely.
    True; however the question now is how long has she been dead? And, where is the body.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,800
    Carnyx said:

    Well..


    To be fair, they have gathered in Scotland. He just happens to be in a different bit of it.

    Edit to add: to Americans the 40 or so miles that he is out by might seem trivial.
    Our own Philip Thompson would not understand. Great Scottish Central Desert separating the two (and admittedly, what is much worse, what sauce to put on chips if any).
    I am about as much of an east coaster as you can get but I absolutely draw the line at putting sauce on your chips. C3COOH is the way for all civilised people.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,355
    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Speciation is one of the hardest parts of evolutionary theory to explain, because to survive a species has to procreate a lot, but to split into two species you have to prevent two populations of one species from procreating with each other for a long time.

    The secret ballot will be enough to prevent speciation from happening.
    Yes, speciation almost always happens where there is a geographical separation. Often caused by some sort of climate change. And it takes a long, long, long time.
    The Asian populations who crossed the Bering straits to the Americas were separated from other humans for around 10,000 years, I think? (Including, ISTR, 1000 years for which they were marooned in an area the size of half a Canadian province which was surrounded by solid ice. That must have been one of pre-history's grimmer periods.) But this wasn't nearly enough for them to evolve into a separate species. Even the 40-60,000 years for which Australian aborigines were separated from the rest of humanity wasn't enough (though there, there was probably some contact between aborigines and melanesians).
    Geographical separation is the textbook explanation, but it's a bit lacking in many respects. How does it explain speciation in the oceans, or among birds, where geographically splitting a previously homogenous population will be much harder to achieve?

    I think there's some very interesting science to be done to work it out.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,800

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    tlg86 said:

    Well..


    To be fair, they have gathered in Scotland. He just happens to be in a different bit of it.

    Edit to add: to Americans the 40 or so miles that he is out by might seem trivial.
    I wonder how many delegates are staying in Edinburgh? Must be tempting.
    Quite a lot. Not enough accommodation in Glasgow.
    I am supposed to be doing a proof in Glasgow for the next 2 days. I was quoted around £1000 for 2 nights so its an early train journey for me.
    I'm debating going to a gig in Glasgow tomorrow night. Would stay over but every hotel in the central belt is full of COPpers.
    I honestly wouldn't. It looks like there are going to be streets shut off and lots of self important people posturing everywhere.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    tlg86 said:

    darkage said:

    Charles said:

    Totally O/T, I see Glyn Razzell has had his parole request turned down under Helen's Law as he would not identify where he buried his wife's body as he continues to plead his innocence and states he does not know where she is.

    This is truly one of the oddest cases in legal history as there is no evidence that his wife is in fact dead. The only thing that convicted him was that police found her blood in a car he was using, but only found it on their third look. They had it for four days on the 2nd time they looked and returned the car to the owner, who then had it valetted due to the state the police left it in with fingerprint powder everywhere. When they took it in for the third time they found a few bloodspots that was visible to the naked eye in the boot. There is no explanation as to how the police missed these in their first 2 looks. No other DNA from his wife was found.

    No one saw him abduct her from a busy Swindon street, none of the 25 CCTV cameras videoed his vehicle on his drive to the abduction site, and none videoed him on his drive to whereever he buried her. His neighbour confirmed that the vehicle was on Razell's driveway just 45 minutes after the alleged abduction.

    Razzell also provided a decent alibi to the police. He claimed to have walked by a police station at the time of the abduction which had numerous CCTV cameras that would have videoed him. All were out of order (which Razzell would not have known).

    If he gave up the place he buried his wife he would probably be realeased by now as he has been a model prisoner.

    Just imagine if he has not killed her, he will not know where her body is and therefore will probably never be released.

    http://www.mojuk.org.uk/Portia/archive 12/razzell.html

    Juries have their own dynamic but I suspect there was more to the story than you have just laid out otherwise I don’t think there would have been a conviction
    This is a thought process we are all guilty of - ah, it is probably more complicated than it looks, lets move on. Juries are not infallible, there are lots of dodgy convictions.

    There are positives and negatives to this. On the one hand, the law will motivate murderers to reveal what actually happened after they have given up on appealing their convictions, but this is at the expense of the genuinely innocent who get a defacto whole life sentence, unless they give a false confession or make up a story about where the body is in order to eventually get out of jail.

    I would argue that the negatives outweigh the positives, but it was clearly a politically irresistable law. There will be lots of perverse and unfair outcomes.
    It's the sort of law our politicians are supposed to resist calls for.
    Yeah but the fact is that the people we have elected have rolled out reams and reams of bad law in recent decades. And you can guarantee that there is more on the way.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067
    Sean_F said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    At some point, millions of years ago, a few pieces of stinking slime crawled from the Sea and shouted to the Heavens "I am Man!"

    Much more recently than that.
    And wasn't it "...Trump !" ?
    A couple of years ago, a friend of mine went to a Republican barbecue in Texas, thinking it would be much the same as a Conservative barbecue in this country.

    Wrong! He said that almost every conversation he had with them was completely outlandish.
    Large elements of the party are in danger of becoming an American Taliban.

    Stunning survey gives grim view of flourishing anti-democratic opinions
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/579160-stunning-survey-gives-grim-view-of-flourishing-anti-democratic-opinions
    Those who buy into former President Trump’s lies over the 2020 election and those who watch the far-right channels that amplify his rhetoric are increasingly embracing anti-democratic opinions and even contemplating political violence, according to a new poll.

    The poll from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute paints a troubling portrait of a growing segment of the public that is increasingly unmoored from reality as it embraces conspiracy theories about child abduction and stolen elections.

    It found a deep divide between those who trust right-wing media outlets and the rest of the nation — and even a divide between those who trust Fox News and those who trust outlets like One America Network and Newsmax.

    The poll found about three in ten Americans, 31 percent, believe the 2020 elections were stolen from Trump, including two-thirds of Republicans and a whopping 82 percent of those who trust Fox News more than any other media outlet.

    Among those who trust far-right outlets like One America Network and Newsmax, 97 percent say they believe the election — which even Trump’s own cybersecurity and election security officials agreed was the safest and most secure ever conducted in the United States — was stolen.

    One in five Americans believe in the core tenet of the QAnon conspiracy that “there is a storm coming soon,” while one in six believe the United States government is controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking ring.

    The same share, 18 percent, say they agree with the statement that America has gotten so far off track that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”...
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,132
    I hope you are all up to date with the Cod War going on between the European Commission and Norway:

    https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-norway-arctic-fishing-post-brexit-rights/
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,355

    On isolation: there's a fascinating and now rare whistling language developed by one group or other in what today (I think) is South Africa.

    Language is quite an interesting topic because it's one of very few things that has no genetic influence and is solely down to environmental causes.

    Tell that to the poor dolphins who struggle without success to learn human language, but don't have the right genetic material to grow a larynx of the required shape...
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814
    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    Well..


    To be fair, they have gathered in Scotland. He just happens to be in a different bit of it.

    Edit to add: to Americans the 40 or so miles that he is out by might seem trivial.
    Our own Philip Thompson would not understand. Great Scottish Central Desert separating the two (and admittedly, what is much worse, what sauce to put on chips if any).
    I am about as much of an east coaster as you can get but I absolutely draw the line at putting sauce on your chips. C3COOH is the way for all civilised people.
    I wouldn't agree - not least because that chemical looks very unstable on a first glance. CH3COOH, now, that's proper Weegie juice.
  • I’m now reporting from Edinburgh in Scotland where 20,000 world leaders and delegates have gathered for the COP26 Climate Summit. COP, by the way, stands for “Conference of the Parties.” It’s the 26th time they have gathered to discuss and take action on this critical issue.

    https://twitter.com/wolfblitzer/status/1455118286736134149?s=20
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,953
    edited November 2021
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    tlg86 said:

    Well..


    To be fair, they have gathered in Scotland. He just happens to be in a different bit of it.

    Edit to add: to Americans the 40 or so miles that he is out by might seem trivial.
    I wonder how many delegates are staying in Edinburgh? Must be tempting.
    Quite a lot. Not enough accommodation in Glasgow.
    I am supposed to be doing a proof in Glasgow for the next 2 days. I was quoted around £1000 for 2 nights so its an early train journey for me.
    I'm debating going to a gig in Glasgow tomorrow night. Would stay over but every hotel in the central belt is full of COPpers.
    I honestly wouldn't. It looks like there are going to be streets shut off and lots of self important people posturing everywhere.
    Situation normal in Edinburgh surely?
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    At some point, millions of years ago, a few pieces of stinking slime crawled from the Sea and shouted to the Heavens "I am Man!"

    Much more recently than that.
    And wasn't it "...Trump !" ?
    A couple of years ago, a friend of mine went to a Republican barbecue in Texas, thinking it would be much the same as a Conservative barbecue in this country.

    Wrong! He said that almost every conversation he had with them was completely outlandish.
    Large elements of the party are in danger of becoming an American Taliban.

    Stunning survey gives grim view of flourishing anti-democratic opinions
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/579160-stunning-survey-gives-grim-view-of-flourishing-anti-democratic-opinions
    Those who buy into former President Trump’s lies over the 2020 election and those who watch the far-right channels that amplify his rhetoric are increasingly embracing anti-democratic opinions and even contemplating political violence, according to a new poll.

    The poll from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute paints a troubling portrait of a growing segment of the public that is increasingly unmoored from reality as it embraces conspiracy theories about child abduction and stolen elections.

    It found a deep divide between those who trust right-wing media outlets and the rest of the nation — and even a divide between those who trust Fox News and those who trust outlets like One America Network and Newsmax.

    The poll found about three in ten Americans, 31 percent, believe the 2020 elections were stolen from Trump, including two-thirds of Republicans and a whopping 82 percent of those who trust Fox News more than any other media outlet.

    Among those who trust far-right outlets like One America Network and Newsmax, 97 percent say they believe the election — which even Trump’s own cybersecurity and election security officials agreed was the safest and most secure ever conducted in the United States — was stolen.

    One in five Americans believe in the core tenet of the QAnon conspiracy that “there is a storm coming soon,” while one in six believe the United States government is controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking ring.

    The same share, 18 percent, say they agree with the statement that America has gotten so far off track that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”...
    And it's all evangelicals too. Once you start believing in stuff without evidence, you can be fed any lie. Despite the US being founded on Enlightenment principles, the rationalist spirit of the Enlightenment never took deep root in the US population as it did in Western Europe.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    tlg86 said:

    Well..


    To be fair, they have gathered in Scotland. He just happens to be in a different bit of it.

    Edit to add: to Americans the 40 or so miles that he is out by might seem trivial.
    I wonder how many delegates are staying in Edinburgh? Must be tempting.
    Quite a lot. Not enough accommodation in Glasgow.
    I am supposed to be doing a proof in Glasgow for the next 2 days. I was quoted around £1000 for 2 nights so its an early train journey for me.
    I'm debating going to a gig in Glasgow tomorrow night. Would stay over but every hotel in the central belt is full of COPpers.
    I honestly wouldn't. It looks like there are going to be streets shut off and lots of self important people posturing everywhere.
    Not just streets but whole areas. And huge pressure on trains in and out (lots of people are staying outside Glasgow - I'd suspect as far as Stirling certainly , perhaps Perth too).
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,952

    I’m now reporting from Edinburgh in Scotland where 20,000 world leaders and delegates have gathered for the COP26 Climate Summit. COP, by the way, stands for “Conference of the Parties.” It’s the 26th time they have gathered to discuss and take action on this critical issue.

    https://twitter.com/wolfblitzer/status/1455118286736134149?s=20

    Are they not meeting in Scotland?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,628
    edited November 2021
    Tottenham Hotspur are in advanced talks with Antonio Conte with a view to appointing the Italian as their new head coach after sacking Nuno Espírito Santo.

    Conte, 52, is on his way to London for discussions with Spurs over an 18-month deal to replace Nuno, who was dismissed only four months and ten Premier League games after being appointed.

    The club’s board held talks yesterday about the Portuguese’s future but were reluctant to dismiss him until they had a replacement lined up. However, the club are increasingly confident about convincing Conte to take over.

    Nuno arrived at Tottenham’s training ground this morning and was in line to take today’s session but positive talks with Conte, the former Chelsea manager, have accelerated his dismissal.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tottenham-in-talks-with-antonio-conte-after-sacking-nuno-esp-rito-santo-bcj6qqdrz

    Edit - The Telegraph have the story as well.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/11/01/tottenham-open-talks-antonio-conte-replacement-sacked-nuno-espirito/
  • MattW said:

    The article posted earlier re: Aberdeen is interesting:
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/nov/01/the-road-to-net-zero-aberdeen-looks-to-a-future-without-oil

    Becoming a centre offshore wind is good - and there's still loads of opportunity around Scotland.

    And I think it's time that we developed an idea about long-term oil requirements, which are not going away completely any time soon.

    I do not see Electric Eurofighters being a thing...

    I have no problem with this new oilfield being opened up providing that it is accompanied by big investments into renewables and hydrogen. The problem is that we look set to get more oil, very little for anything else and no CCS at St Fergus again. At which point I expect local Tories will try and claim their Westminster government is investing in the NE.
  • MattW said:

    I hope you are all up to date with the Cod War going on between the European Commission and Norway:

    https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-norway-arctic-fishing-post-brexit-rights/

    Has anything developed since then (9 Aug)?
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,344
    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    At some point, millions of years ago, a few pieces of stinking slime crawled from the Sea and shouted to the Heavens "I am Man!"

    Much more recently than that.
    And wasn't it "...Trump !" ?
    A couple of years ago, a friend of mine went to a Republican barbecue in Texas, thinking it would be much the same as a Conservative barbecue in this country.

    Wrong! He said that almost every conversation he had with them was completely outlandish.
    Large elements of the party are in danger of becoming an American Taliban.

    Stunning survey gives grim view of flourishing anti-democratic opinions
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/579160-stunning-survey-gives-grim-view-of-flourishing-anti-democratic-opinions
    Those who buy into former President Trump’s lies over the 2020 election and those who watch the far-right channels that amplify his rhetoric are increasingly embracing anti-democratic opinions and even contemplating political violence, according to a new poll.

    The poll from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute paints a troubling portrait of a growing segment of the public that is increasingly unmoored from reality as it embraces conspiracy theories about child abduction and stolen elections.

    It found a deep divide between those who trust right-wing media outlets and the rest of the nation — and even a divide between those who trust Fox News and those who trust outlets like One America Network and Newsmax.

    The poll found about three in ten Americans, 31 percent, believe the 2020 elections were stolen from Trump, including two-thirds of Republicans and a whopping 82 percent of those who trust Fox News more than any other media outlet.

    Among those who trust far-right outlets like One America Network and Newsmax, 97 percent say they believe the election — which even Trump’s own cybersecurity and election security officials agreed was the safest and most secure ever conducted in the United States — was stolen.

    One in five Americans believe in the core tenet of the QAnon conspiracy that “there is a storm coming soon,” while one in six believe the United States government is controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking ring.

    The same share, 18 percent, say they agree with the statement that America has gotten so far off track that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”...
    The ones to really worry about are those who tell you that The Day of the Rope is coming.
  • DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    tlg86 said:

    Well..


    To be fair, they have gathered in Scotland. He just happens to be in a different bit of it.

    Edit to add: to Americans the 40 or so miles that he is out by might seem trivial.
    I wonder how many delegates are staying in Edinburgh? Must be tempting.
    Quite a lot. Not enough accommodation in Glasgow.
    I am supposed to be doing a proof in Glasgow for the next 2 days. I was quoted around £1000 for 2 nights so its an early train journey for me.
    I'm debating going to a gig in Glasgow tomorrow night. Would stay over but every hotel in the central belt is full of COPpers.
    I honestly wouldn't. It looks like there are going to be streets shut off and lots of self important people posturing everywhere.
    Would need to be a clear night. Was bad enough driving the 50 minutes back from Aberdeen last night racing Noah in his Ark. Wouldn't do the drive back from Glasgow in torrential rain...
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,628
    edited November 2021
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    Aslan said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    At some point, millions of years ago, a few pieces of stinking slime crawled from the Sea and shouted to the Heavens "I am Man!"

    Much more recently than that.
    And wasn't it "...Trump !" ?
    A couple of years ago, a friend of mine went to a Republican barbecue in Texas, thinking it would be much the same as a Conservative barbecue in this country.

    Wrong! He said that almost every conversation he had with them was completely outlandish.
    Large elements of the party are in danger of becoming an American Taliban.

    Stunning survey gives grim view of flourishing anti-democratic opinions
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/579160-stunning-survey-gives-grim-view-of-flourishing-anti-democratic-opinions
    Those who buy into former President Trump’s lies over the 2020 election and those who watch the far-right channels that amplify his rhetoric are increasingly embracing anti-democratic opinions and even contemplating political violence, according to a new poll.

    The poll from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute paints a troubling portrait of a growing segment of the public that is increasingly unmoored from reality as it embraces conspiracy theories about child abduction and stolen elections.

    It found a deep divide between those who trust right-wing media outlets and the rest of the nation — and even a divide between those who trust Fox News and those who trust outlets like One America Network and Newsmax.

    The poll found about three in ten Americans, 31 percent, believe the 2020 elections were stolen from Trump, including two-thirds of Republicans and a whopping 82 percent of those who trust Fox News more than any other media outlet.

    Among those who trust far-right outlets like One America Network and Newsmax, 97 percent say they believe the election — which even Trump’s own cybersecurity and election security officials agreed was the safest and most secure ever conducted in the United States — was stolen.

    One in five Americans believe in the core tenet of the QAnon conspiracy that “there is a storm coming soon,” while one in six believe the United States government is controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking ring.

    The same share, 18 percent, say they agree with the statement that America has gotten so far off track that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”...
    And it's all evangelicals too. Once you start believing in stuff without evidence, you can be fed any lie. Despite the US being founded on Enlightenment principles, the rationalist spirit of the Enlightenment never took deep root in the US population as it did in Western Europe.
    See also the denial of biological reality apparent on the left; the willingness to embrace the idea that everything is socially constructed; and which is at the root of much woke thinking. It really isn't all that different.
  • Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    tlg86 said:

    Well..


    To be fair, they have gathered in Scotland. He just happens to be in a different bit of it.

    Edit to add: to Americans the 40 or so miles that he is out by might seem trivial.
    I wonder how many delegates are staying in Edinburgh? Must be tempting.
    Quite a lot. Not enough accommodation in Glasgow.
    I am supposed to be doing a proof in Glasgow for the next 2 days. I was quoted around £1000 for 2 nights so its an early train journey for me.
    I'm debating going to a gig in Glasgow tomorrow night. Would stay over but every hotel in the central belt is full of COPpers.
    I honestly wouldn't. It looks like there are going to be streets shut off and lots of self important people posturing everywhere.
    Not just streets but whole areas. And huge pressure on trains in and out (lots of people are staying outside Glasgow - I'd suspect as far as Stirling certainly , perhaps Perth too).
    I believe the whole Armadillo/SECC area is officially UN territory for the duration.
    How many divisions of neds does the UN have is what I want to know.
  • Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    darkage said:

    Charles said:

    Totally O/T, I see Glyn Razzell has had his parole request turned down under Helen's Law as he would not identify where he buried his wife's body as he continues to plead his innocence and states he does not know where she is.

    This is truly one of the oddest cases in legal history as there is no evidence that his wife is in fact dead. The only thing that convicted him was that police found her blood in a car he was using, but only found it on their third look. They had it for four days on the 2nd time they looked and returned the car to the owner, who then had it valetted due to the state the police left it in with fingerprint powder everywhere. When they took it in for the third time they found a few bloodspots that was visible to the naked eye in the boot. There is no explanation as to how the police missed these in their first 2 looks. No other DNA from his wife was found.

    No one saw him abduct her from a busy Swindon street, none of the 25 CCTV cameras videoed his vehicle on his drive to the abduction site, and none videoed him on his drive to whereever he buried her. His neighbour confirmed that the vehicle was on Razell's driveway just 45 minutes after the alleged abduction.

    Razzell also provided a decent alibi to the police. He claimed to have walked by a police station at the time of the abduction which had numerous CCTV cameras that would have videoed him. All were out of order (which Razzell would not have known).

    If he gave up the place he buried his wife he would probably be realeased by now as he has been a model prisoner.

    Just imagine if he has not killed her, he will not know where her body is and therefore will probably never be released.

    http://www.mojuk.org.uk/Portia/archive 12/razzell.html

    Juries have their own dynamic but I suspect there was more to the story than you have just laid out otherwise I don’t think there would have been a conviction
    This is a thought process we are all guilty of - ah, it is probably more complicated than it looks, lets move on. Juries are not infallible, there are lots of dodgy convictions.

    There are positives and negatives to this. On the one hand, the law will motivate murderers to reveal what actually happened after they have given up on appealing their convictions, but this is at the expense of the genuinely innocent who get a defacto whole life sentence, unless they give a false confession or make up a story about where the body is in order to eventually get out of jail.

    I would argue that the negatives outweigh the positives, but it was clearly a politically irresistable law. There will be lots of perverse and unfair outcomes.
    Making up a story about where the body is would be hard as I’m fairly certain someone would check.
    Indeed, but there's presumably an out if you describe something that cannot be verified, such as dumped at sea, fed to the local crocodiles etc.

    Of course, if the person subsequently turns up alive, would you then be liable for something? Perjury, possibly? (not sure of the legal weight of such a statement). Providing false information?

    Would really suck to be wrongly imprisoned for murder, then imprisoned again for lying about where the body was when it turned out the person was in fact alive!
    I expect you would get away with time served.

    Anyway, must get back to staff training…
    Quite possibly. Make you wonder whether you could also get away with that for topping the newly discovered alive person who had set you up, particularly given the mitigating circumstances. "Yes, your honour, I did kill the deceased, but I would like to point out that I've already done the time; now I have simply done the crime"
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Jeopardy_(1999_film)
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,105
    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    At some point, millions of years ago, a few pieces of stinking slime crawled from the Sea and shouted to the Heavens "I am Man!"
    ... "and things are gonna change around here"

    Which they did. Oh yes.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,897
    edited November 2021
    Aslan said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    At some point, millions of years ago, a few pieces of stinking slime crawled from the Sea and shouted to the Heavens "I am Man!"

    Much more recently than that.
    And wasn't it "...Trump !" ?
    A couple of years ago, a friend of mine went to a Republican barbecue in Texas, thinking it would be much the same as a Conservative barbecue in this country.

    Wrong! He said that almost every conversation he had with them was completely outlandish.
    Large elements of the party are in danger of becoming an American Taliban.

    Stunning survey gives grim view of flourishing anti-democratic opinions
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/579160-stunning-survey-gives-grim-view-of-flourishing-anti-democratic-opinions
    Those who buy into former President Trump’s lies over the 2020 election and those who watch the far-right channels that amplify his rhetoric are increasingly embracing anti-democratic opinions and even contemplating political violence, according to a new poll.

    The poll from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute paints a troubling portrait of a growing segment of the public that is increasingly unmoored from reality as it embraces conspiracy theories about child abduction and stolen elections.

    It found a deep divide between those who trust right-wing media outlets and the rest of the nation — and even a divide between those who trust Fox News and those who trust outlets like One America Network and Newsmax.

    The poll found about three in ten Americans, 31 percent, believe the 2020 elections were stolen from Trump, including two-thirds of Republicans and a whopping 82 percent of those who trust Fox News more than any other media outlet.

    Among those who trust far-right outlets like One America Network and Newsmax, 97 percent say they believe the election — which even Trump’s own cybersecurity and election security officials agreed was the safest and most secure ever conducted in the United States — was stolen.

    One in five Americans believe in the core tenet of the QAnon conspiracy that “there is a storm coming soon,” while one in six believe the United States government is controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking ring.

    The same share, 18 percent, say they agree with the statement that America has gotten so far off track that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”...
    And it's all evangelicals too. Once you start believing in stuff without evidence, you can be fed any lie. Despite the US being founded on Enlightenment principles, the rationalist spirit of the Enlightenment never took deep root in the US population as it did in Western Europe.
    Not all evangelicals are QAnon though and indeed plenty of black evangelicals will have voted for Biden-Harris.

    30-35% of the US population are evangelical Christians ie about a third, only 20% believe in QAnon theories and 18% believe in potential use of violence based on the above
    https://web.archive.org/web/20160130062242/http://www.wheaton.edu/ISAE/Defining-Evangelicalism/How-Many-Are-There
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814
    edited November 2021

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    tlg86 said:

    Well..


    To be fair, they have gathered in Scotland. He just happens to be in a different bit of it.

    Edit to add: to Americans the 40 or so miles that he is out by might seem trivial.
    I wonder how many delegates are staying in Edinburgh? Must be tempting.
    Quite a lot. Not enough accommodation in Glasgow.
    I am supposed to be doing a proof in Glasgow for the next 2 days. I was quoted around £1000 for 2 nights so its an early train journey for me.
    I'm debating going to a gig in Glasgow tomorrow night. Would stay over but every hotel in the central belt is full of COPpers.
    I honestly wouldn't. It looks like there are going to be streets shut off and lots of self important people posturing everywhere.
    Not just streets but whole areas. And huge pressure on trains in and out (lots of people are staying outside Glasgow - I'd suspect as far as Stirling certainly , perhaps Perth too).
    I believe the whole Armadillo/SECC area is officially UN territory for the duration.
    How many divisions of neds does the UN have is what I want to know.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-59089946

    has a map. I think the Blue Zone is UKG but the Green Zone is Scottish Gmt. Certainly in origina,l planning.

    Edit: more maps here

    https://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/cop26-road-closures-congestion-maps-show-how-glasgow-travel-will-be-significantly-impacted-3384625
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,274
    edited November 2021
    Well it isn't just that America has a massive partisan divide on CC. They have a massive partisan divide on pretty much everything.

    As I've said before they look like a country in serious trouble to me although the one thing they have going for them is the Constitution which dealt with Trump remarkably well and seems to be coping with Biden too.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,782
    HYUFD said:

    Aslan said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    At some point, millions of years ago, a few pieces of stinking slime crawled from the Sea and shouted to the Heavens "I am Man!"

    Much more recently than that.
    And wasn't it "...Trump !" ?
    A couple of years ago, a friend of mine went to a Republican barbecue in Texas, thinking it would be much the same as a Conservative barbecue in this country.

    Wrong! He said that almost every conversation he had with them was completely outlandish.
    Large elements of the party are in danger of becoming an American Taliban.

    Stunning survey gives grim view of flourishing anti-democratic opinions
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/579160-stunning-survey-gives-grim-view-of-flourishing-anti-democratic-opinions
    Those who buy into former President Trump’s lies over the 2020 election and those who watch the far-right channels that amplify his rhetoric are increasingly embracing anti-democratic opinions and even contemplating political violence, according to a new poll.

    The poll from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute paints a troubling portrait of a growing segment of the public that is increasingly unmoored from reality as it embraces conspiracy theories about child abduction and stolen elections.

    It found a deep divide between those who trust right-wing media outlets and the rest of the nation — and even a divide between those who trust Fox News and those who trust outlets like One America Network and Newsmax.

    The poll found about three in ten Americans, 31 percent, believe the 2020 elections were stolen from Trump, including two-thirds of Republicans and a whopping 82 percent of those who trust Fox News more than any other media outlet.

    Among those who trust far-right outlets like One America Network and Newsmax, 97 percent say they believe the election — which even Trump’s own cybersecurity and election security officials agreed was the safest and most secure ever conducted in the United States — was stolen.

    One in five Americans believe in the core tenet of the QAnon conspiracy that “there is a storm coming soon,” while one in six believe the United States government is controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking ring.

    The same share, 18 percent, say they agree with the statement that America has gotten so far off track that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”...
    And it's all evangelicals too. Once you start believing in stuff without evidence, you can be fed any lie. Despite the US being founded on Enlightenment principles, the rationalist spirit of the Enlightenment never took deep root in the US population as it did in Western Europe.
    Not all evangelicals are QAnon though and indeed plenty of black evangelicals will have voted for Biden-Harris.

    30-35% of the US population are evangelical Christians ie about a third, only 20% believe in QAnon theories and 18% believe in potential use of violence based on the above
    https://web.archive.org/web/20160130062242/http://www.wheaton.edu/ISAE/Defining-Evangelicalism/How-Many-Are-There
    They are very scarily high percentages though.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,105

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Speciation is one of the hardest parts of evolutionary theory to explain, because to survive a species has to procreate a lot, but to split into two species you have to prevent two populations of one species from procreating with each other for a long time.

    The secret ballot will be enough to prevent speciation from happening.
    Yep, although there is the oft quoted stat about brainy young women refusing to date a Trumper. It's pretty fascinating, our origins, when you get into it. Eg apparently there was plenty of dating between early humans and late neanderthals. The Kinks were wrong on this one. They made a flawed (and arguably offensive) assumption.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,701
    edited November 2021

    HYUFD said:

    Aslan said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    At some point, millions of years ago, a few pieces of stinking slime crawled from the Sea and shouted to the Heavens "I am Man!"

    Much more recently than that.
    And wasn't it "...Trump !" ?
    A couple of years ago, a friend of mine went to a Republican barbecue in Texas, thinking it would be much the same as a Conservative barbecue in this country.

    Wrong! He said that almost every conversation he had with them was completely outlandish.
    Large elements of the party are in danger of becoming an American Taliban.

    Stunning survey gives grim view of flourishing anti-democratic opinions
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/579160-stunning-survey-gives-grim-view-of-flourishing-anti-democratic-opinions
    Those who buy into former President Trump’s lies over the 2020 election and those who watch the far-right channels that amplify his rhetoric are increasingly embracing anti-democratic opinions and even contemplating political violence, according to a new poll.

    The poll from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute paints a troubling portrait of a growing segment of the public that is increasingly unmoored from reality as it embraces conspiracy theories about child abduction and stolen elections.

    It found a deep divide between those who trust right-wing media outlets and the rest of the nation — and even a divide between those who trust Fox News and those who trust outlets like One America Network and Newsmax.

    The poll found about three in ten Americans, 31 percent, believe the 2020 elections were stolen from Trump, including two-thirds of Republicans and a whopping 82 percent of those who trust Fox News more than any other media outlet.

    Among those who trust far-right outlets like One America Network and Newsmax, 97 percent say they believe the election — which even Trump’s own cybersecurity and election security officials agreed was the safest and most secure ever conducted in the United States — was stolen.

    One in five Americans believe in the core tenet of the QAnon conspiracy that “there is a storm coming soon,” while one in six believe the United States government is controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking ring.

    The same share, 18 percent, say they agree with the statement that America has gotten so far off track that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”...
    And it's all evangelicals too. Once you start believing in stuff without evidence, you can be fed any lie. Despite the US being founded on Enlightenment principles, the rationalist spirit of the Enlightenment never took deep root in the US population as it did in Western Europe.
    Not all evangelicals are QAnon though and indeed plenty of black evangelicals will have voted for Biden-Harris.

    30-35% of the US population are evangelical Christians ie about a third, only 20% believe in QAnon theories and 18% believe in potential use of violence based on the above
    https://web.archive.org/web/20160130062242/http://www.wheaton.edu/ISAE/Defining-Evangelicalism/How-Many-Are-There
    'ONLY.....20% believe in QAnon theories and 18% believe in potential use of violence based on the above"

    And nearly all of the 20% would take up arms!

    That's, quite frankly, terrifying.
    No wonder Biden brought US troops home from Afghanistan. They'll be needed to handle the civil war following 2024 election at this rate.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375

    tlg86 said:

    That Razzell case sounds very odd:

    https://insidetime.org/the-case-of-glyn-razzell/

    Either the switching of cars was part of a very cunning plan, or the police stitched him up good and proper.

    It is completely bizarre, he managed to drive past 25 CCTV cameras both ways and was never caught on any of them.

    He managed to abduct his wife from a busy walkway at 9 a.m. on a workday morning with no one seeing him or the car before, after or during the abduction.

    If he was as cunning as they say then he would have made sure there was no blood left and would never have abducted her in his friends car (he owned up to the police staright away that he had borrowed his friends car on the day of the abduction)

    And police scientists took three attempts to find blood that was easily seen with the naked eye in a car that had been valetted after the police's first two attempts to find stuff had yielded nothing.
    And yet the BBC researcher who examined the case later expressed herself satisfied. I certainly feel that there's more than was reported in the piece you posted.
    There is more but nothing that benefits the prosecution case. If he did do it he pulled off an incredible series of events.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    HYUFD said:

    Aslan said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    At some point, millions of years ago, a few pieces of stinking slime crawled from the Sea and shouted to the Heavens "I am Man!"

    Much more recently than that.
    And wasn't it "...Trump !" ?
    A couple of years ago, a friend of mine went to a Republican barbecue in Texas, thinking it would be much the same as a Conservative barbecue in this country.

    Wrong! He said that almost every conversation he had with them was completely outlandish.
    Large elements of the party are in danger of becoming an American Taliban.

    Stunning survey gives grim view of flourishing anti-democratic opinions
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/579160-stunning-survey-gives-grim-view-of-flourishing-anti-democratic-opinions
    Those who buy into former President Trump’s lies over the 2020 election and those who watch the far-right channels that amplify his rhetoric are increasingly embracing anti-democratic opinions and even contemplating political violence, according to a new poll.

    The poll from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute paints a troubling portrait of a growing segment of the public that is increasingly unmoored from reality as it embraces conspiracy theories about child abduction and stolen elections.

    It found a deep divide between those who trust right-wing media outlets and the rest of the nation — and even a divide between those who trust Fox News and those who trust outlets like One America Network and Newsmax.

    The poll found about three in ten Americans, 31 percent, believe the 2020 elections were stolen from Trump, including two-thirds of Republicans and a whopping 82 percent of those who trust Fox News more than any other media outlet.

    Among those who trust far-right outlets like One America Network and Newsmax, 97 percent say they believe the election — which even Trump’s own cybersecurity and election security officials agreed was the safest and most secure ever conducted in the United States — was stolen.

    One in five Americans believe in the core tenet of the QAnon conspiracy that “there is a storm coming soon,” while one in six believe the United States government is controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking ring.

    The same share, 18 percent, say they agree with the statement that America has gotten so far off track that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”...
    And it's all evangelicals too. Once you start believing in stuff without evidence, you can be fed any lie. Despite the US being founded on Enlightenment principles, the rationalist spirit of the Enlightenment never took deep root in the US population as it did in Western Europe.
    Not all evangelicals are QAnon though and indeed plenty of black evangelicals will have voted for Biden-Harris.

    30-35% of the US population are evangelical Christians ie about a third, only 20% believe in QAnon theories and 18% believe in potential use of violence based on the above
    https://web.archive.org/web/20160130062242/http://www.wheaton.edu/ISAE/Defining-Evangelicalism/How-Many-Are-There
    While an authoritarian like yourself may regard a fifth of a group willing to use violence as small, that is a crazy high number to those of us that value democracy. It is getting up towards numbers in the Muslim world.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    "Temporary"
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,605
    That may not be quite what it seems as the French were complaining about 75 licences being refused alongside the 66 that were previously granted. It's not clear whether the 49 temporary licences are from that group of 75 or another set of applications.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited November 2021
    Fishy timing on the extension date, looks like a face-saving compromise for Macron.

    "Give us temporary permits to get to the other side of my re-election and then we will drop it."
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Charles said:

    Totally O/T, I see Glyn Razzell has had his parole request turned down under Helen's Law as he would not identify where he buried his wife's body as he continues to plead his innocence and states he does not know where she is.

    This is truly one of the oddest cases in legal history as there is no evidence that his wife is in fact dead. The only thing that convicted him was that police found her blood in a car he was using, but only found it on their third look. They had it for four days on the 2nd time they looked and returned the car to the owner, who then had it valetted due to the state the police left it in with fingerprint powder everywhere. When they took it in for the third time they found a few bloodspots that was visible to the naked eye in the boot. There is no explanation as to how the police missed these in their first 2 looks. No other DNA from his wife was found.

    No one saw him abduct her from a busy Swindon street, none of the 25 CCTV cameras videoed his vehicle on his drive to the abduction site, and none videoed him on his drive to whereever he buried her. His neighbour confirmed that the vehicle was on Razell's driveway just 45 minutes after the alleged abduction.

    Razzell also provided a decent alibi to the police. He claimed to have walked by a police station at the time of the abduction which had numerous CCTV cameras that would have videoed him. All were out of order (which Razzell would not have known).

    If he gave up the place he buried his wife he would probably be realeased by now as he has been a model prisoner.

    Just imagine if he has not killed her, he will not know where her body is and therefore will probably never be released.

    http://www.mojuk.org.uk/Portia/archive 12/razzell.html

    Juries have their own dynamic but I suspect there was more to the story than you have just laid out otherwise I don’t think there would have been a conviction
    This is a thought process we are all guilty of - ah, it is probably more complicated than it looks, lets move on. Juries are not infallible, there are lots of dodgy convictions.

    There are positives and negatives to this. On the one hand, the law will motivate murderers to reveal what actually happened after they have given up on appealing their convictions, but this is at the expense of the genuinely innocent who get a defacto whole life sentence, unless they give a false confession or make up a story about where the body is in order to eventually get out of jail.

    I would argue that the negatives outweigh the positives, but it was clearly a politically irresistable law. There will be lots of perverse and unfair outcomes.
    We had a case locally where the police failed to notice the body chopped up in the bath whilst searching a 1 bedroom flat. It was only when the bits had been taken out of the bath and put in black plastic bags for collection on the curb that someone else noted that there was something rather odd about them. So missing blood stains in the boot is maybe not that surprising.
    I was once asked by the police to carry bags of evidence down from a crime scene to their van.
  • Aslan said:

    "Temporary"
    It is a capitatulation as I was assured on here the French were in the wrong, the EU wasn't backing them, and the treaties/laws backed Jersey.
  • Fishy timing on the extension date, looks like a face-saving compromise for Macron.

    "Give us temporary permits to get to the other side of my re-election and then we will drop it."
    Hmm, considering his election is long after the extension date I fear you're wrong.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,605

    Fishy timing on the extension date, looks like a face-saving compromise for Macron.

    "Give us temporary permits to get to the other side of my re-election and then we will drop it."
    The election is in April.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,420

    tlg86 said:

    That Razzell case sounds very odd:

    https://insidetime.org/the-case-of-glyn-razzell/

    Either the switching of cars was part of a very cunning plan, or the police stitched him up good and proper.

    It is completely bizarre, he managed to drive past 25 CCTV cameras both ways and was never caught on any of them.

    He managed to abduct his wife from a busy walkway at 9 a.m. on a workday morning with no one seeing him or the car before, after or during the abduction.

    If he was as cunning as they say then he would have made sure there was no blood left and would never have abducted her in his friends car (he owned up to the police staright away that he had borrowed his friends car on the day of the abduction)

    And police scientists took three attempts to find blood that was easily seen with the naked eye in a car that had been valetted after the police's first two attempts to find stuff had yielded nothing.
    And yet the BBC researcher who examined the case later expressed herself satisfied. I certainly feel that there's more than was reported in the piece you posted.
    There is more but nothing that benefits the prosecution case. If he did do it he pulled off an incredible series of events.
    Case as stated, agreed. And, to be fair, even offered the chance of release, he's said he can't help.
  • Gutted that war France is now off.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,988
    in the future, every available Portuguese coach will manage Tottenham for 15 minutes
    https://twitter.com/henrymance/status/1455111323403042816
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,776
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Speciation is one of the hardest parts of evolutionary theory to explain, because to survive a species has to procreate a lot, but to split into two species you have to prevent two populations of one species from procreating with each other for a long time.

    The secret ballot will be enough to prevent speciation from happening.
    Yep, although there is the oft quoted stat about brainy young women refusing to date a Trumper. It's pretty fascinating, our origins, when you get into it. Eg apparently there was plenty of dating between early humans and late neanderthals. The Kinks were wrong on this one. They made a flawed (and arguably offensive) assumption.
    As another example, we have been here before: plenty of religious monomaniacs throughout history will have refused to breed with someone from another creed. And yet, Catholics and Protestants, Muslims and Christians, all remain the same species.
  • Fishy timing on the extension date, looks like a face-saving compromise for Macron.

    "Give us temporary permits to get to the other side of my re-election and then we will drop it."
    Hmm, considering his election is long after the extension date I fear you're wrong.
    Oh I misread it. Nevermind. Going to have to get my eyes checked at this rate.

    OK another 3 month extension in January to get through to the election and then its over is my prediction.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,605
    edited November 2021

    Gutted that war France is now off.

    War back on:

    "This was announced on 28 Oct. Doesn't affect the current dispute"

    https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1455148164080717831
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,242

    Fishy timing on the extension date, looks like a face-saving compromise for Macron.

    "Give us temporary permits to get to the other side of my re-election and then we will drop it."
    Hmm, considering his election is long after the extension date I fear you're wrong.
    It seems like a rather sensible piece of can kicking.

    If nothing else, denying a license only after x number of extensions*, requests for evidence etc etc would go down well in any arbitration scenario.

    *It has been stated that for the licenses in question, there have already been a number of extensions, while waiting for supporting evidence.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,776
    tlg86 said:

    Someone arriving from New Foundland...

    https://www.flightradar24.com/N122GB/29b4fbc1

    Via quite a strange route. That's not a great circle.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,952

    tlg86 said:

    That Razzell case sounds very odd:

    https://insidetime.org/the-case-of-glyn-razzell/

    Either the switching of cars was part of a very cunning plan, or the police stitched him up good and proper.

    It is completely bizarre, he managed to drive past 25 CCTV cameras both ways and was never caught on any of them.

    He managed to abduct his wife from a busy walkway at 9 a.m. on a workday morning with no one seeing him or the car before, after or during the abduction.

    If he was as cunning as they say then he would have made sure there was no blood left and would never have abducted her in his friends car (he owned up to the police staright away that he had borrowed his friends car on the day of the abduction)

    And police scientists took three attempts to find blood that was easily seen with the naked eye in a car that had been valetted after the police's first two attempts to find stuff had yielded nothing.
    And yet the BBC researcher who examined the case later expressed herself satisfied. I certainly feel that there's more than was reported in the piece you posted.
    There is more but nothing that benefits the prosecution case. If he did do it he pulled off an incredible series of events.
    One of the reports said he was jailed for "a minimum of 16 years". Will he ever get out if he doesn't say where the body is? Surely there is a defined jail term isn't there?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,257

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Speciation is one of the hardest parts of evolutionary theory to explain, because to survive a species has to procreate a lot, but to split into two species you have to prevent two populations of one species from procreating with each other for a long time.

    The secret ballot will be enough to prevent speciation from happening.
    Yes, speciation almost always happens where there is a geographical separation. Often caused by some sort of climate change. And it takes a long, long, long time.
    The Asian populations who crossed the Bering straits to the Americas were separated from other humans for around 10,000 years, I think? (Including, ISTR, 1000 years for which they were marooned in an area the size of half a Canadian province which was surrounded by solid ice. That must have been one of pre-history's grimmer periods.) But this wasn't nearly enough for them to evolve into a separate species. Even the 40-60,000 years for which Australian aborigines were separated from the rest of humanity wasn't enough (though there, there was probably some contact between aborigines and melanesians).
    Geographical separation is the textbook explanation, but it's a bit lacking in many respects. How does it explain speciation in the oceans, or among birds, where geographically splitting a previously homogenous population will be much harder to achieve?

    I think there's some very interesting science to be done to work it out.
    There was a theory - now maybe too Unwoke to be spoken - that the Khoisan, aka the Bushmen of the Kalahari, are sufficiently genetically different from all their neighbours as to constitute a separate human species
  • Gutted that war France is now off.

    War back on:

    "This was announced on 28 Oct. Doesn't affect the current dispute"

    https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1455148164080717831
    Hurrah.
  • Gutted that war France is now off.

    Personally I'm not gutted, or even filleted.

    But parking the issue for 3 months should suit the UK just fine, because for the moment we have bigger fish to fry in NI.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,009
    Can Bozo deliver a speech to COP without being an embarrassment to the nation?
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664
    Cookie said:

    tlg86 said:

    Someone arriving from New Foundland...

    https://www.flightradar24.com/N122GB/29b4fbc1

    Via quite a strange route. That's not a great circle.
    Might be following the jet stream though.
  • Can Bozo deliver a speech to COP without being an embarrassment to the nation?

    Impressive so far
  • Mr. Eagles, you'll just have to find something else to occupy your Tuesday.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,355
    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Speciation is one of the hardest parts of evolutionary theory to explain, because to survive a species has to procreate a lot, but to split into two species you have to prevent two populations of one species from procreating with each other for a long time.

    The secret ballot will be enough to prevent speciation from happening.
    Yes, speciation almost always happens where there is a geographical separation. Often caused by some sort of climate change. And it takes a long, long, long time.
    The Asian populations who crossed the Bering straits to the Americas were separated from other humans for around 10,000 years, I think? (Including, ISTR, 1000 years for which they were marooned in an area the size of half a Canadian province which was surrounded by solid ice. That must have been one of pre-history's grimmer periods.) But this wasn't nearly enough for them to evolve into a separate species. Even the 40-60,000 years for which Australian aborigines were separated from the rest of humanity wasn't enough (though there, there was probably some contact between aborigines and melanesians).
    Geographical separation is the textbook explanation, but it's a bit lacking in many respects. How does it explain speciation in the oceans, or among birds, where geographically splitting a previously homogenous population will be much harder to achieve?

    I think there's some very interesting science to be done to work it out.
    There was a theory - now maybe too Unwoke to be spoken - that the Khoisan, aka the Bushmen of the Kalahari, are sufficiently genetically different from all their neighbours as to constitute a separate human species
    Well that opens a whole scientific can of worms as to how you define two species as being distinct. Imposing a dividing line on a continuous process will necessarily involve a degree of arbitrariness.
  • Mr. Eagles, you'll just have to find something else to occupy your Tuesday.

    I have my diabetic retinopathy scheduled for tomorrow,.

    Would much rather prefer war with France if I'm honest.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,643

    Can Bozo deliver a speech to COP without being an embarrassment to the nation?

    After "The Saudi Arabia of wind" and being in Downing Street in 2060, I'm going with no.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,549

    It has finally happened, Laurence Fox has come out with a good idea.

    'No more Charles!' Laurence Fox makes brutal dig as he claims Queen should be last monarch

    https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/1514370/Laurence-Fox-twitter-prince-charles-queen-G20-summit-rome-speech-cop26-news

    I agree. If the royals can't stay out of politics, we might as well have an elected president instead.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,174
    This bloke is on Politics Live:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Read

    As much of a nut job as the climate change deniers. Unfortunately, the running on this subject is made by the loony left.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814

    Can Bozo deliver a speech to COP without being an embarrassment to the nation?

    Now blaming James Watt. No mention of Boulton ...
  • Mr. Eagles, I hope your medical procedure is as pleasant as it can be.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Speciation is one of the hardest parts of evolutionary theory to explain, because to survive a species has to procreate a lot, but to split into two species you have to prevent two populations of one species from procreating with each other for a long time.

    The secret ballot will be enough to prevent speciation from happening.
    Yes, speciation almost always happens where there is a geographical separation. Often caused by some sort of climate change. And it takes a long, long, long time.
    The Asian populations who crossed the Bering straits to the Americas were separated from other humans for around 10,000 years, I think? (Including, ISTR, 1000 years for which they were marooned in an area the size of half a Canadian province which was surrounded by solid ice. That must have been one of pre-history's grimmer periods.) But this wasn't nearly enough for them to evolve into a separate species. Even the 40-60,000 years for which Australian aborigines were separated from the rest of humanity wasn't enough (though there, there was probably some contact between aborigines and melanesians).
    Geographical separation is the textbook explanation, but it's a bit lacking in many respects. How does it explain speciation in the oceans, or among birds, where geographically splitting a previously homogenous population will be much harder to achieve?

    I think there's some very interesting science to be done to work it out.
    There was a theory - now maybe too Unwoke to be spoken - that the Khoisan, aka the Bushmen of the Kalahari, are sufficiently genetically different from all their neighbours as to constitute a separate human species
    Well that opens a whole scientific can of worms as to how you define two species as being distinct. Imposing a dividing line on a continuous process will necessarily involve a degree of arbitrariness.
    I had always understood the definition for separate species to be "so different they cannot mate and create fertile offspring". So donkeys and horses are separate species, but chihuahuas and German shepherds are not.
  • Mr. Eagles, I hope your medical procedure is as pleasant as it can be.

    It renders me blind as a bat for an hour or so and sensitive to light for a couple hours thereafter.

    The drops they put in my eyes sting like a mofo.
  • Jonathan said:

    Can Bozo deliver a speech to COP without being an embarrassment to the nation?

    After "The Saudi Arabia of wind" and being in Downing Street in 2060, I'm going with no.
    Oh you are a bore aren't you?

    What on earth is wrong with saying the Saudi Arabia of wind. Its quite an appropriate thing to say.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,257

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Speciation is one of the hardest parts of evolutionary theory to explain, because to survive a species has to procreate a lot, but to split into two species you have to prevent two populations of one species from procreating with each other for a long time.

    The secret ballot will be enough to prevent speciation from happening.
    Yes, speciation almost always happens where there is a geographical separation. Often caused by some sort of climate change. And it takes a long, long, long time.
    The Asian populations who crossed the Bering straits to the Americas were separated from other humans for around 10,000 years, I think? (Including, ISTR, 1000 years for which they were marooned in an area the size of half a Canadian province which was surrounded by solid ice. That must have been one of pre-history's grimmer periods.) But this wasn't nearly enough for them to evolve into a separate species. Even the 40-60,000 years for which Australian aborigines were separated from the rest of humanity wasn't enough (though there, there was probably some contact between aborigines and melanesians).
    Geographical separation is the textbook explanation, but it's a bit lacking in many respects. How does it explain speciation in the oceans, or among birds, where geographically splitting a previously homogenous population will be much harder to achieve?

    I think there's some very interesting science to be done to work it out.
    There was a theory - now maybe too Unwoke to be spoken - that the Khoisan, aka the Bushmen of the Kalahari, are sufficiently genetically different from all their neighbours as to constitute a separate human species
    Well that opens a whole scientific can of worms as to how you define two species as being distinct. Imposing a dividing line on a continuous process will necessarily involve a degree of arbitrariness.
    Yes. Speciation is fascinatingly complex

    I believe there is a bird species (the tern?) which changes gradually as you go around the world, it is black or grey or orange or whatever in California, then slightly less orange in Texas, then orange with blue in Bermuda, and so on, until, when you reach China it is red and purple with no orange and it is an entirely different species. Unable to breed with the tern back in California

    But at what point does the new species actually begin or end?

    Humanity is probably like that
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,523
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    tlg86 said:

    Well..


    To be fair, they have gathered in Scotland. He just happens to be in a different bit of it.

    Edit to add: to Americans the 40 or so miles that he is out by might seem trivial.
    I wonder how many delegates are staying in Edinburgh? Must be tempting.
    Quite a lot. Not enough accommodation in Glasgow.
    I am supposed to be doing a proof in Glasgow for the next 2 days. I was quoted around £1000 for 2 nights so its an early train journey for me.
    I'm debating going to a gig in Glasgow tomorrow night. Would stay over but every hotel in the central belt is full of COPpers.
    I honestly wouldn't. It looks like there are going to be streets shut off and lots of self important people posturing everywhere.
    Not just streets but whole areas. And huge pressure on trains in and out (lots of people are staying outside Glasgow - I'd suspect as far as Stirling certainly , perhaps Perth too).
    I believe the whole Armadillo/SECC area is officially UN territory for the duration.
    How many divisions of neds does the UN have is what I want to know.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-59089946

    has a map. I think the Blue Zone is UKG but the Green Zone is Scottish Gmt. Certainly in origina,l planning.

    Edit: more maps here

    https://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/cop26-road-closures-congestion-maps-show-how-glasgow-travel-will-be-significantly-impacted-3384625
    No, the other way round, is my understanding (Blue/Green). We have a stand in the (internal) Blue Zone, and have been dealing with the company to whom the UN outsourced the arrangements. To give an illustration of how well-organised they are, they sent me a demand for payment for our stand at 1 am yesterday (Sunday) morning, with a deadline of last night - their invoice had arrived on Tuesday, with no mention of a deadline, and we were planning payment today. (I reasoned with them and they've relented)
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,643

    Jonathan said:

    Can Bozo deliver a speech to COP without being an embarrassment to the nation?

    After "The Saudi Arabia of wind" and being in Downing Street in 2060, I'm going with no.
    Oh you are a bore aren't you?

    What on earth is wrong with saying the Saudi Arabia of wind. Its quite an appropriate thing to say.
    Does anyone really want to aspire to be the Saudi Arabia of anything?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,105
    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Evolution is a ruthlessly eugenic process; it is more the differential extermination of the unfit than the survival of the fit. Characteristics are preserved and transmitted only by individuals who survive to adulthood, and breed. We all survive to adulthood these days because Our Wonderful NHS so that filter goes out of the window. That leaves breeding, so if we are evolving at all it should be in the direction of being sexier, more prolific etc. Even that doesn't work very well because there is no marked imbalance of the sexes, here at any rate.
    Still I do like the idea of us in the future becoming creatures who will look back at us and go, "aw sweet". Such an interesting topic, evolution. My sense is it's one of those understood by relatively few but often kind of misrepresented because many more than those few are also interested - since it IS so interesting - and think they have the gist of it when they haven't, quite. (Don't mean you, btw, I mean everyone). I really am tempted to devote some proper time to it rather than using a 10 minute skim surf to write a sideways PB post. If I devote some proper time to it, I reckon I can get to a point where I think I've got the gist of it and almost certainly haven't, quite.
  • Mr. Eagles, I hope your medical procedure is as pleasant as it can be.

    It renders me blind as a bat for an hour or so and sensitive to light for a couple hours thereafter.

    The drops they put in my eyes sting like a mofo.
    I too have a medical procedure tomorrow: a flexible cystoscopy. Google it at your own risk.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,897
    edited November 2021
    Andy_JS said:

    It has finally happened, Laurence Fox has come out with a good idea.

    'No more Charles!' Laurence Fox makes brutal dig as he claims Queen should be last monarch

    https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/1514370/Laurence-Fox-twitter-prince-charles-queen-G20-summit-rome-speech-cop26-news

    I agree. If the royals can't stay out of politics, we might as well have an elected president instead.
    I disagree, there is nothing wrong with the royals speaking on matters where there is general agreement, like tackling climate change.

    Indeed Prince Charles has been campaigning for the environment for decades, even before it was fashionable.

    I have no problem with Charles speaking out a bit more on issues than his mother did when he takes the throne, Parliament still decides and makes the laws but no reason the Head of State cannot make remarks on issues like climate change.

    The difference with an elected Head of State like the French or US President however is they directly propose legislation to their legislature and send troops to war and in the US of course the President can veto and amend legislation passed by Congress, even popular bills.

    The monarch in the UK has not done that since the English civil war and glorious revolution
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,105

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Like it.
    A basket of Neanderthals*; they're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it.

    *though I get that they have received a very bad 'winners' press
    Now there's a killer line for Harris when she battles Trump for WH24!
  • Mr. Eagles, yikes. Still, at least you know what to expect and can steel your manly resolve to cope with it.
  • Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    Can Bozo deliver a speech to COP without being an embarrassment to the nation?

    After "The Saudi Arabia of wind" and being in Downing Street in 2060, I'm going with no.
    Oh you are a bore aren't you?

    What on earth is wrong with saying the Saudi Arabia of wind. Its quite an appropriate thing to say.
    Does anyone really want to aspire to be the Saudi Arabia of anything?
    Definitely, yes.

    Saudi Arabia has been the world's leading energy provider for the past half a century.

    Saying that we can generate our own energy, via spinning turbines, instead of having to import from Saudi Arabia, is very impressive and even without environmental concerns would be a sensible thing for us to do!
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,897
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Like it.
    A basket of Neanderthals*; they're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it.

    *though I get that they have received a very bad 'winners' press
    Now there's a killer line for Harris when she battles Trump for WH24!
    Of course it worked so well for Hillary in 2016, she is now in her second term!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,257
    Aslan said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Speciation is one of the hardest parts of evolutionary theory to explain, because to survive a species has to procreate a lot, but to split into two species you have to prevent two populations of one species from procreating with each other for a long time.

    The secret ballot will be enough to prevent speciation from happening.
    Yes, speciation almost always happens where there is a geographical separation. Often caused by some sort of climate change. And it takes a long, long, long time.
    The Asian populations who crossed the Bering straits to the Americas were separated from other humans for around 10,000 years, I think? (Including, ISTR, 1000 years for which they were marooned in an area the size of half a Canadian province which was surrounded by solid ice. That must have been one of pre-history's grimmer periods.) But this wasn't nearly enough for them to evolve into a separate species. Even the 40-60,000 years for which Australian aborigines were separated from the rest of humanity wasn't enough (though there, there was probably some contact between aborigines and melanesians).
    Geographical separation is the textbook explanation, but it's a bit lacking in many respects. How does it explain speciation in the oceans, or among birds, where geographically splitting a previously homogenous population will be much harder to achieve?

    I think there's some very interesting science to be done to work it out.
    There was a theory - now maybe too Unwoke to be spoken - that the Khoisan, aka the Bushmen of the Kalahari, are sufficiently genetically different from all their neighbours as to constitute a separate human species
    Well that opens a whole scientific can of worms as to how you define two species as being distinct. Imposing a dividing line on a continuous process will necessarily involve a degree of arbitrariness.
    I had always understood the definition for separate species to be "so different they cannot mate and create fertile offspring". So donkeys and horses are separate species, but chihuahuas and German shepherds are not.
    That is one of the classic definitions of ‘different species’ but it is not always the case. Successful hybridization is known in nature. It almost certainly happened in our own past when homo sapiens successfully bred with Neanderthals
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,523
    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    It has finally happened, Laurence Fox has come out with a good idea.

    'No more Charles!' Laurence Fox makes brutal dig as he claims Queen should be last monarch

    https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/1514370/Laurence-Fox-twitter-prince-charles-queen-G20-summit-rome-speech-cop26-news

    I agree. If the royals can't stay out of politics, we might as well have an elected president instead.
    I disagree, there is nothing wrong with the royals speaking on matters where there is general agreement, like tackling climate change.

    Indeed Prince Charles has been campaigning for the environment for decades, even before it was fashionable.

    I have no problem with Charles speaking out a bit more on issues than his mother did when he takes the throne, Parliament still decides and makes the laws but no reason the Head of State cannot make remarks on issues like climate change.

    The difference with an elected Head of State like the French or US President however is they directly propose legislation to their legislature and send troops to war and in the US of course the President can veto and amend legislation passed by Congress, even popular bills.

    The monarch in the UK has not done that since the English civil war and glorious revolution
    Yes, I broadly agree, but the difficluty is in identifying issues where there is general agreement. When I was an MP I wrote to Charles to express concern about his reported opposition to a hunting ban, which was then a very controversial issue. I had a nice two-page reply from his political secretary, which said very much as you do that he tries to avoid controversial issues, and I'd note that he'd not referred to hunting recently since it has become a hot issue.

    Perhaps an issue one which the main parties agreed could be the test of "general agreement"? That would still leave some issues where a small minority felt very differently - climate change being an example.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kinabalu said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Evolution is a ruthlessly eugenic process; it is more the differential extermination of the unfit than the survival of the fit. Characteristics are preserved and transmitted only by individuals who survive to adulthood, and breed. We all survive to adulthood these days because Our Wonderful NHS so that filter goes out of the window. That leaves breeding, so if we are evolving at all it should be in the direction of being sexier, more prolific etc. Even that doesn't work very well because there is no marked imbalance of the sexes, here at any rate.
    Still I do like the idea of us in the future becoming creatures who will look back at us and go, "aw sweet". Such an interesting topic, evolution. My sense is it's one of those understood by relatively few but often kind of misrepresented because many more than those few are also interested - since it IS so interesting - and think they have the gist of it when they haven't, quite. (Don't mean you, btw, I mean everyone). I really am tempted to devote some proper time to it rather than using a 10 minute skim surf to write a sideways PB post. If I devote some proper time to it, I reckon I can get to a point where I think I've got the gist of it and almost certainly haven't, quite.
    “A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it.” Jacques Monod
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,952
    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    It has finally happened, Laurence Fox has come out with a good idea.

    'No more Charles!' Laurence Fox makes brutal dig as he claims Queen should be last monarch

    https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/1514370/Laurence-Fox-twitter-prince-charles-queen-G20-summit-rome-speech-cop26-news

    I agree. If the royals can't stay out of politics, we might as well have an elected president instead.
    I disagree, there is nothing wrong with the royals speaking on matters where there is general agreement, like tackling climate change.

    Indeed Prince Charles has been campaigning for the environment for decades, even before it was fashionable.

    I have no problem with Charles speaking out a bit more on issues than his mother did when he takes the throne, Parliament still decides and makes the laws but no reason the Head of State cannot make remarks on issues like climate change.

    The difference with an elected Head of State like the French or US President however is they directly propose legislation to their legislature and send troops to war and in the US of course the President can veto and amend legislation passed by Congress, even popular bills.

    The monarch in the UK has not done that since the English civil war and glorious revolution
    Nope.

    Our monarch is not allowed to opine on anyone's lifestyle especially if they are advocating a lifestyle which is likely to increase costs or deny certain people access on account of financial privation.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,897
    edited November 2021

    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    It has finally happened, Laurence Fox has come out with a good idea.

    'No more Charles!' Laurence Fox makes brutal dig as he claims Queen should be last monarch

    https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/1514370/Laurence-Fox-twitter-prince-charles-queen-G20-summit-rome-speech-cop26-news

    I agree. If the royals can't stay out of politics, we might as well have an elected president instead.
    I disagree, there is nothing wrong with the royals speaking on matters where there is general agreement, like tackling climate change.

    Indeed Prince Charles has been campaigning for the environment for decades, even before it was fashionable.

    I have no problem with Charles speaking out a bit more on issues than his mother did when he takes the throne, Parliament still decides and makes the laws but no reason the Head of State cannot make remarks on issues like climate change.

    The difference with an elected Head of State like the French or US President however is they directly propose legislation to their legislature and send troops to war and in the US of course the President can veto and amend legislation passed by Congress, even popular bills.

    The monarch in the UK has not done that since the English civil war and glorious revolution
    Yes, I broadly agree, but the difficluty is in identifying issues where there is general agreement. When I was an MP I wrote to Charles to express concern about his reported opposition to a hunting ban, which was then a very controversial issue. I had a nice two-page reply from his political secretary, which said very much as you do that he tries to avoid controversial issues, and I'd note that he'd not referred to hunting recently since it has become a hot issue.

    Perhaps an issue one which the main parties agreed could be the test of "general agreement"? That would still leave some issues where a small minority felt very differently - climate change being an example.
    That may be one solution.

    Personally though I would have no problem with King Charles III speaking out on any issues he feels strongly about whatever the topic. As long as he does not go so far as to refuse to sign legislation which was in the manifesto of the elected government
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,952

    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    Can Bozo deliver a speech to COP without being an embarrassment to the nation?

    After "The Saudi Arabia of wind" and being in Downing Street in 2060, I'm going with no.
    Oh you are a bore aren't you?

    What on earth is wrong with saying the Saudi Arabia of wind. Its quite an appropriate thing to say.
    Does anyone really want to aspire to be the Saudi Arabia of anything?
    Definitely, yes.

    Saudi Arabia has been the world's leading energy provider for the past half a century.

    Saying that we can generate our own energy, via spinning turbines, instead of having to import from Saudi Arabia, is very impressive and even without environmental concerns would be a sensible thing for us to do!
    "World's leading energy provider" = the oil happened to be under their soil.

    How does one aspire to have oil found naturally under one's sovereign turf.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,776
    kinabalu said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all, that's shocking data in the header, isn't it? Or maybe not, because I recall something similar on evolution. Lots of Republicans in the US don't believe in that either. And speaking of evolution, I think there may lie the answer.

    In my (new) quest to become more generally knowledgeable (not hard given my startpoint) I was brushing up yesterday on how we humans came to be. Turns out it was a longish process, about 10 million years, soup to nuts, where the earliest uprights were the soup and we are the nuts. This is how it read to me anyway. We have Got Evolution Done. That the process is ongoing, that we are still evolving, didn't seem to feature, but I'd have thought we are. Or at least we might be.

    In which case, why should there not be a repeat of something that has happened before and which was key to us being what we are today? I refer to the Big Fork, when our lineage split into 2 streams, one (I forget the exact name) went with bigger jaws and the other with bigger brains, the latter further evolving over deep time into us, the former into something else. We then achieved dominance due to that "choice". It was the brains wot won it. Hard to credit, looking at much of what goes on, but there you go. Still true.

    So, what I'm wondering, seeing these bizarre (to me) mindsets on climate change, is whether we might be seeing the very first inklings of such a seismic event taking place now and, like the financial crisis, like most things, starting in America. If this is the case, the schism between these 2 "tribes", Democrats and Republicans, takes on a much deeper significance than just its potential impact on next year's midterms and the betting implications thereof.

    Evolution is a ruthlessly eugenic process; it is more the differential extermination of the unfit than the survival of the fit. Characteristics are preserved and transmitted only by individuals who survive to adulthood, and breed. We all survive to adulthood these days because Our Wonderful NHS so that filter goes out of the window. That leaves breeding, so if we are evolving at all it should be in the direction of being sexier, more prolific etc. Even that doesn't work very well because there is no marked imbalance of the sexes, here at any rate.
    Still I do like the idea of us in the future becoming creatures who will look back at us and go, "aw sweet". Such an interesting topic, evolution. My sense is it's one of those understood by relatively few but often kind of misrepresented because many more than those few are also interested - since it IS so interesting - and think they have the gist of it when they haven't, quite. (Don't mean you, btw, I mean everyone). I really am tempted to devote some proper time to it rather than using a 10 minute skim surf to write a sideways PB post. If I devote some proper time to it, I reckon I can get to a point where I think I've got the gist of it and almost certainly haven't, quite.
    Have you read this book? I found it utterly thrilling, and still the best book I have read on evolution with a particular focus on how humans came about.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ancestor's_Tale
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,897
    edited November 2021
    Boris being very canny in his speech, saying Miami and Shanghai could disappear underwater if climate change is not solved, that should make the US and China take not
  • moonshine said:

    dixiedean said:

    World is screwed. Will continue to be screwed. We have,no right to survive.

    World is not screwed. World will be fine, at least until the sun gets too hot.

    500 million years ago, the Earth was almost entirely covered in ice. If it hadn't been for a few volcanoes emitting CO2, it would have been stuck as an ice world pretty much forever.

    50 million years ago, there was a period when it was about 10 degrees warmer than the present day. The _increase_ in biological activity this caused eventually brought the temperature down by dumping carbon in the deep oceans.

    There's no runaway happening here - either way - otherwise such a thing would already have happened.


    The big issue for _us_ is what happens when a large proportion of the world's cities are flooded and lots of people have to move.

    Perhaps the empty spaces of Siberia will become easier to live in...
    Something which is going to be a problem fairly soon (historically speaking) with or without man doing anything.

    We suffer from having short racial memories and a short history. We have lived through a relatively stable period that has allowed civilisation to grow in an extremely unusual period of climate stability. This has meant we have planted much of our population in places where we should not have done. Places that would flood in the not too distant future even if man had never appeared on the planet. Moreover our failure to understand or ignore processes such as isostatic readjustment - and to take steps that have made it even worse in places like New Orleans means that we have simply added to our woes.

    We are a short lived species lacking a proper sense of how much the world changes of its own accord. As such we will continue to believe we can do something to change it and will remain woefully unprepared for when it is finally realised that we can't.
    There are sound economic reasons why human society has developed largely around coasts and rivers. How exactly do you propose to undo that?
    You can't. We just have to accept that natural processes will eventually undo it for us with or without our agreement.
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787
    edited November 2021
    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    It has finally happened, Laurence Fox has come out with a good idea.

    'No more Charles!' Laurence Fox makes brutal dig as he claims Queen should be last monarch

    https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/1514370/Laurence-Fox-twitter-prince-charles-queen-G20-summit-rome-speech-cop26-news

    I agree. If the royals can't stay out of politics, we might as well have an elected president instead.
    I disagree, there is nothing wrong with the royals speaking on matters where there is general agreement, like tackling climate change.

    Indeed Prince Charles has been campaigning for the environment for decades, even before it was fashionable.

    I have no problem with Charles speaking out a bit more on issues than his mother did when he takes the throne, Parliament still decides and makes the laws but no reason the Head of State cannot make remarks on issues like climate change.

    The difference with an elected Head of State like the French or US President however is they directly propose legislation to their legislature and send troops to war and in the US of course the President can veto and amend legislation passed by Congress, even popular bills.

    The monarch in the UK has not done that since the English civil war and glorious revolution
    The President of the United States can only veto whole bills and joint resolutions (Congress’s other method of legislating) and cannot amend such. Congress did enact a Presidential line-item veto in the 1990s but that was swiftly struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

    The last use of the royal veto in Britain was a couple of decades after the Glorious Revolution, in 1708. Crucially Queen Anne exercised it on the advice of her ministers, who had got cold feet after Parliament had passed a bill for creating a militia in Scotland, the administration fearing that such a body might be hijacked by the Jacobites.
This discussion has been closed.