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

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  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,095
    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,095
    edited November 2021
    rpjs said:


    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 could get hijacked by the Jacobites.
    Personally I would have no problem with the monarch refusing to sign and vetoing any bill Parliament put forward that was not in the manifesto of the elected government if they disagreed with it.

    Though I recognise that may be a minority view
  • 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!
    And one of these days we are going to have to realise that we have been wasting a hugely valuable and finite resource and that whatever the rights and wrongs of the current debate, unnecessarily burning a finite resource stuff to keep warm when there are viable alternatives is a bloody stupid thing to do.
  • Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    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.
    So what? Natural processes will eventually undo you and me and everybody else. That isn't generally regarded as an argument against the practise of medicine, which is merely a huge exercise in delaying the inevitable.
  • Apple the best. They are causing Facebook real pain.

    Apple’s decision to change the privacy settings of iPhones caused an estimated $9.85bn of revenues to evaporate in the second half of this year at Snap, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as their advertising businesses were shaken by the new rules.

    Apple introduced its App Tracking Transparency policy in April, which forced apps to ask for permission before they tracked the behaviour of users to serve them personalised ads.

    Most users have opted out, leaving advertisers in the dark about how to target them. Advertisers have responded by cutting back their spending at Snap, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and diverted their budgets elsewhere: in particular to Android phone users and to Apple’s own growing ad business.


    https://on.ft.com/3bs7XsV
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,049
    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,095
    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    If you can afford an Aston Martin you almost certainly can afford to convert it to electric.

    Monarchs in my view can advocate anything they want as long as they do not veto any bills which were in the elected government's manifesto
  • IshmaelZ said:

    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.
    So what? Natural processes will eventually undo you and me and everybody else. That isn't generally regarded as an argument against the practise of medicine, which is merely a huge exercise in delaying the inevitable.
    The point being argued is that it is possible to prevent either isostatic or eustatic sea level changes. It isn't. So your medicine argument is a straw man with nothing to do with this discussion.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,747

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

    Hope he doesn't start waffling on about the Roman Empire. WTF was that about? Guy seems to think he's some 'amusing' raconteur down the pub half the time. You know the type. Mile wide, inch deep.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    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.
    So what? Natural processes will eventually undo you and me and everybody else. That isn't generally regarded as an argument against the practise of medicine, which is merely a huge exercise in delaying the inevitable.
    The point being argued is that it is possible to prevent either isostatic or eustatic sea level changes. It isn't. So your medicine argument is a straw man with nothing to do with this discussion.
    Utter nonsense. Eustatics includes the melting of the ice caps and glaciers. Are you seriously claiming we have no influence on that?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040
    Farooq said:

    HYUFD said:

    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

    Agreed, that's smart rhetoric.
    Both are more likely to be destroyed by hurricanes or typhoons than flooding and much sooner.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,747
    HYUFD said:

    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!
    Well, there's this view that it cost her, but I don't know. Sometimes you have to be brave, and maybe next time, if it's Harris, she'll double down and hit the jackpot.
  • TOPPING said:

    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.
    One doesn't, one aspires to get energy through alternative means.

    We're getting it through wind. Other nations can get it from solar. The point is that energy is achievable by any nation instead of relying upon the Saudis or oil that happens to be under your turf.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040
    Bugger, negotiations to dispense with tomorrow's proof in Glasgow have failed.

    I have the feeling that my views on climate protesters may well have hardened by this time tomorrow.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,747
    IshmaelZ said:

    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
    Ha, exactly! Hard to say something truly original and again I fail.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,747
    Cookie said:

    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
    No, I haven't. Thanks for the tip.
  • DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    And Teesside is going to be a leading manufacturer of it too.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,832
    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    There is, though, a certain irony to a Prince of Wales committed to employing local people while he himself is English and lives in England. The Royal Family even went for overseas talent for the Duchess of Sussex and then proceeded to offshore that entire operation.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,049
    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    If you can afford an Aston Martin you almost certainly can afford to convert it to electric.

    Monarchs in my view can advocate anything they want as long as they do not veto any bills which were in the elected government's manifesto
    I understand. And your views are wrong. They are not allowed to do certain things which include any reference to the disparity of wealth between them and the country. Advocating a particular lifestyle is one such.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,981
    "Jeff Bezos's £48m Gulf Stream leads parade of 400 private jets into COP26 including Prince Albert of Monaco, scores of royals and dozens of 'green' CEOs- as huge traffic jam forces empty planes to fly 30 miles to park"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    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
    No, I haven't. Thanks for the tip.
    It's OK, but I would strongly recommend https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Watchmaker-Richard-Dawkins-ebook/dp/B00DH4VZG4 for more and better argued theory
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,095
    edited November 2021
    Selebian said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    There is, though, a certain irony to a Prince of Wales committed to employing local people while he himself is English and lives in England. The Royal Family even went for overseas talent for the Duchess of Sussex and then proceeded to offshore that entire operation.
    The Prince of Wales also has a house in Wales,Llwynywermod, near Llandovery in Carmarthenshire.

    Prince Charles also studied at Aberystwyth University for a period
  • TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    If you can afford an Aston Martin you almost certainly can afford to convert it to electric.

    Monarchs in my view can advocate anything they want as long as they do not veto any bills which were in the elected government's manifesto
    I understand. And your views are wrong. They are not allowed to do certain things which include any reference to the disparity of wealth between them and the country. Advocating a particular lifestyle is one such.
    I'm happy for Charles to advocate whatever lifestyle he wants.

    He should be running for Parliament in order to do so.

    I'm certain our own @Charles would be outraged at someone not in Parliament advocating politics given his loathing of Rashford doing so. I'm sure its not just successful footballers but also Princes of the land that should be running for Parliament if they wish to engage in politics.

    Certainly its much worse to have unelected monarchs being political than footballers.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,095
    edited November 2021
    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    If you can afford an Aston Martin you almost certainly can afford to convert it to electric.

    Monarchs in my view can advocate anything they want as long as they do not veto any bills which were in the elected government's manifesto
    I understand. And your views are wrong. They are not allowed to do certain things which include any reference to the disparity of wealth between them and the country. Advocating a particular lifestyle is one such.
    Of course they are, climate change is a problem for everyone, rich, poor or in the middle.

    Plus even the royal families' private wealth does not make them billionaires
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,109
    Andy_JS said:

    "Jeff Bezos's £48m Gulf Stream leads parade of 400 private jets into COP26 including Prince Albert of Monaco, scores of royals and dozens of 'green' CEOs- as huge traffic jam forces empty planes to fly 30 miles to park"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

    Can anyone explain why they didn't use Prestwick?
  • maaarshmaaarsh Posts: 3,591
    Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    Yes, I get slightly irritated by the 'nothing is being done' meme. The progress of the UK over the last 20-odd years has been extraordinary, and is to the credit of the governments of all hues who have achieved it. There are trade offs, and it has led to more expensive and less reliable electricity than might otherwise be the case, but to deny the progress that has been made is daft. And further developments are in the pipeline.
    We will have a day in the next few years where we need no gas at all.
    We already reverse the interchanges everytime that comes near as turning off the last couple of GW of gas is very expensive. Regardless I'm far more worried about the far more common days in the next few years where we'll need 15-20GW of gas and struggle to get it.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,832
    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    There is, though, a certain irony to a Prince of Wales committed to employing local people while he himself is English and lives in England. The Royal Family even went for overseas talent for the Duchess of Sussex and then proceeded to offshore that entire operation.
    The Prince of Wales also has a house in Wales,Llwynywermod, near Llandovery in Carmarthenshire.

    Prince Charles also studied at Aberystwyth University for a period
    Thanks, you never disappoint :smile:
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,049
    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    If you can afford an Aston Martin you almost certainly can afford to convert it to electric.

    Monarchs in my view can advocate anything they want as long as they do not veto any bills which were in the elected government's manifesto
    I understand. And your views are wrong. They are not allowed to do certain things which include any reference to the disparity of wealth between them and the country. Advocating a particular lifestyle is one such.
    Of course they are, climate change is a problem for everyone, rich, poor or in the middle.

    Plus even the royal families' private wealth does not make them billionaires
    As @Philip_Thompson notes, if they want to change our lifestyles then they can run for parliament and we can decide whether to accept their advice. Indeed it would become law if they were voted in.

    Until then, whoever or whatever any hobby horse of theirs affects, they cannot advocate it if it will increase costs for people in the country.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,095
    edited November 2021

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    If you can afford an Aston Martin you almost certainly can afford to convert it to electric.

    Monarchs in my view can advocate anything they want as long as they do not veto any bills which were in the elected government's manifesto
    I understand. And your views are wrong. They are not allowed to do certain things which include any reference to the disparity of wealth between them and the country. Advocating a particular lifestyle is one such.
    I'm happy for Charles to advocate whatever lifestyle he wants.

    He should be running for Parliament in order to do so.

    I'm certain our own @Charles would be outraged at someone not in Parliament advocating politics given his loathing of Rashford doing so. I'm sure its not just successful footballers but also Princes of the land that should be running for Parliament if they wish to engage in politics.

    Certainly its much worse to have unelected monarchs being political than footballers.
    Charles will be our monarch and our Head of State by grace of God.

    He is perfectly entitled therefore to give political opinions as long as he does not prevent manifesto commitments of the elected government going into law.

    Rashford will not be our Head of State, I have no problem with him giving his views however even if I often disagree with them
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,462
    Selebian said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    There is, though, a certain irony to a Prince of Wales committed to employing local people while he himself is English and lives in England. The Royal Family even went for overseas talent for the Duchess of Sussex and then proceeded to offshore that entire operation.
    He's called the Duke of Rothesay in Scotland, oddly enough. Not very logical that he has the same name in 2 out of the three GB nations but a different name in the third. One title or three titles would make better sense.
  • Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    Yes, I get slightly irritated by the 'nothing is being done' meme. The progress of the UK over the last 20-odd years has been extraordinary, and is to the credit of the governments of all hues who have achieved it. There are trade offs, and it has led to more expensive and less reliable electricity than might otherwise be the case, but to deny the progress that has been made is daft. And further developments are in the pipeline.
    We will have a day in the next few years where we need no gas at all.
    As recently as 2012 a plurality of our energy came from coal, let alone gas.

    Now coal is all but eradicated and its very rare for any getting burnt. Having years driving past the now-discontinued Fiddler's Ferry power station and more regularly having to get my car washed very regularly due to all the soot that landed on it, its incredible what a turnaround has happened.

    People like Greta banging on that the UK is a "climate villain" are idiots that should be ignored. We are on the right path and need to keep doing what we're doing to get there.

    And for anyone who thinks wind turbines are "ugly" I say you're crazy. The area around Fiddlers Ferry is now covered in lots and lots of turbines, there's so many turbines near the M56 its almost ridiculous but they're quite elegant and beautiful compared to something like Fiddlers Ferry dropping soot on you.
  • HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    If you can afford an Aston Martin you almost certainly can afford to convert it to electric.

    Monarchs in my view can advocate anything they want as long as they do not veto any bills which were in the elected government's manifesto
    I understand. And your views are wrong. They are not allowed to do certain things which include any reference to the disparity of wealth between them and the country. Advocating a particular lifestyle is one such.
    I'm happy for Charles to advocate whatever lifestyle he wants.

    He should be running for Parliament in order to do so.

    I'm certain our own @Charles would be outraged at someone not in Parliament advocating politics given his loathing of Rashford doing so. I'm sure its not just successful footballers but also Princes of the land that should be running for Parliament if they wish to engage in politics.

    Certainly its much worse to have unelected monarchs being political than footballers.
    Charles will be our monarch and our Head of State by grace of God.

    He is perfectly entitled therefore to give political opinions as long as he does not prevent manifesto commitments of the elected government going into law.

    Rashford will not be our Head of State, I have no problem with him giving his views however even if I often disagree with them
    Everyone is entitled to give their political opinions but Charles is the one person along with HMQ and William who should not.

    The Queen has been successful precisely because she kept her counsel. If Charles wants to be political, then there's Parliament for that.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,095
    edited November 2021

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    If you can afford an Aston Martin you almost certainly can afford to convert it to electric.

    Monarchs in my view can advocate anything they want as long as they do not veto any bills which were in the elected government's manifesto
    I understand. And your views are wrong. They are not allowed to do certain things which include any reference to the disparity of wealth between them and the country. Advocating a particular lifestyle is one such.
    I'm happy for Charles to advocate whatever lifestyle he wants.

    He should be running for Parliament in order to do so.

    I'm certain our own @Charles would be outraged at someone not in Parliament advocating politics given his loathing of Rashford doing so. I'm sure its not just successful footballers but also Princes of the land that should be running for Parliament if they wish to engage in politics.

    Certainly its much worse to have unelected monarchs being political than footballers.
    Charles will be our monarch and our Head of State by grace of God.

    He is perfectly entitled therefore to give political opinions as long as he does not prevent manifesto commitments of the elected government going into law.

    Rashford will not be our Head of State, I have no problem with him giving his views however even if I often disagree with them
    Everyone is entitled to give their political opinions but Charles is the one person along with HMQ and William who should not.

    The Queen has been successful precisely because she kept her counsel. If Charles wants to be political, then there's Parliament for that.
    He is perfectly entitled to give political opinions.

    The fact the Queen chose not to was her personal choice, there is nothing constitutionally to stop future monarchs doing so as long as they do not veto manifesto commitments of the party which formed the government in the elected Parliament being passed into law.

    You cannot however constitutionally be monarch and be an elected representative in Parliament, the government operates in your own name but you cannot be PM or a member of it as monarch either
  • Carnyx said:

    Selebian said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    There is, though, a certain irony to a Prince of Wales committed to employing local people while he himself is English and lives in England. The Royal Family even went for overseas talent for the Duchess of Sussex and then proceeded to offshore that entire operation.
    He's called the Duke of Rothesay in Scotland, oddly enough. Not very logical that he has the same name in 2 out of the three GB nations but a different name in the third. One title or three titles would make better sense.
    Not just that anymore..

    His Royal Highness The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Chester, Earl of Carrick, Earl of Merioneth, Baron of Renfrew, Baron Greenwich, Lord of the Isles, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, KG, KT, GCB, OM, AK, QSO, CC, PC, ADC
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,228
    Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    Yes, I get slightly irritated by the 'nothing is being done' meme. The progress of the UK over the last 20-odd years has been extraordinary, and is to the credit of the governments of all hues who have achieved it. There are trade offs, and it has led to more expensive and less reliable electricity than might otherwise be the case, but to deny the progress that has been made is daft. And further developments are in the pipeline.
    We will have a day in the next few years where we need no gas at all.
    Sigh.

    It's Tory Progress. Which doesn't count.
  • Carnyx said:

    Selebian said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    There is, though, a certain irony to a Prince of Wales committed to employing local people while he himself is English and lives in England. The Royal Family even went for overseas talent for the Duchess of Sussex and then proceeded to offshore that entire operation.
    He's called the Duke of Rothesay in Scotland, oddly enough. Not very logical that he has the same name in 2 out of the three GB nations but a different name in the third. One title or three titles would make better sense.
    Not just that anymore..

    His Royal Highness The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Chester, Earl of Carrick, Earl of Merioneth, Baron of Renfrew, Baron Greenwich, Lord of the Isles, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, KG, KT, GCB, OM, AK, QSO, CC, PC, ADC
    Under the mechanism of Crusader Kings II he'd be getting a penalty for too many titles.
  • maaarshmaaarsh Posts: 3,591
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    If you can afford an Aston Martin you almost certainly can afford to convert it to electric.

    Monarchs in my view can advocate anything they want as long as they do not veto any bills which were in the elected government's manifesto
    I understand. And your views are wrong. They are not allowed to do certain things which include any reference to the disparity of wealth between them and the country. Advocating a particular lifestyle is one such.
    I'm happy for Charles to advocate whatever lifestyle he wants.

    He should be running for Parliament in order to do so.

    I'm certain our own @Charles would be outraged at someone not in Parliament advocating politics given his loathing of Rashford doing so. I'm sure its not just successful footballers but also Princes of the land that should be running for Parliament if they wish to engage in politics.

    Certainly its much worse to have unelected monarchs being political than footballers.
    Charles will be our monarch and our Head of State by grace of God.

    He is perfectly entitled therefore to give political opinions as long as he does not prevent manifesto commitments of the elected government going into law.

    Rashford will not be our Head of State, I have no problem with him giving his views however even if I often disagree with them
    Everyone is entitled to give their political opinions but Charles is the one person along with HMQ and William who should not.

    The Queen has been successful precisely because she kept her counsel. If Charles wants to be political, then there's Parliament for that.
    He is perfectly entitled to do so.

    The fact the Queen chose not to was her personal choice, there is nothing constitutionally to stop future monarchs doing so as long as they do not veto manifesto commitments of the party which formed the government in the elected Parliament being passed into law.

    You cannot however be monarch and be an elected representative in Parliament, the government operates in your own name but you cannot be PM or a member of it as monarch either
    But they can veto things which weren't in the manifesto?

    Back on planet earth, England lose the toss so have a nice chance to practice winning by batting first.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,832

    Carnyx said:

    Selebian said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    There is, though, a certain irony to a Prince of Wales committed to employing local people while he himself is English and lives in England. The Royal Family even went for overseas talent for the Duchess of Sussex and then proceeded to offshore that entire operation.
    He's called the Duke of Rothesay in Scotland, oddly enough. Not very logical that he has the same name in 2 out of the three GB nations but a different name in the third. One title or three titles would make better sense.
    Not just that anymore..

    His Royal Highness The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Chester, Earl of Carrick, Earl of Merioneth, Baron of Renfrew, Baron Greenwich, Lord of the Isles, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, KG, KT, GCB, OM, AK, QSO, CC, PC, ADC
    And here was me thinking Lord of the Isles was just a ferry!
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,049
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    If you can afford an Aston Martin you almost certainly can afford to convert it to electric.

    Monarchs in my view can advocate anything they want as long as they do not veto any bills which were in the elected government's manifesto
    I understand. And your views are wrong. They are not allowed to do certain things which include any reference to the disparity of wealth between them and the country. Advocating a particular lifestyle is one such.
    I'm happy for Charles to advocate whatever lifestyle he wants.

    He should be running for Parliament in order to do so.

    I'm certain our own @Charles would be outraged at someone not in Parliament advocating politics given his loathing of Rashford doing so. I'm sure its not just successful footballers but also Princes of the land that should be running for Parliament if they wish to engage in politics.

    Certainly its much worse to have unelected monarchs being political than footballers.
    Charles will be our monarch and our Head of State by grace of God.

    He is perfectly entitled therefore to give political opinions as long as he does not prevent manifesto commitments of the elected government going into law.

    Rashford will not be our Head of State, I have no problem with him giving his views however even if I often disagree with them
    Everyone is entitled to give their political opinions but Charles is the one person along with HMQ and William who should not.

    The Queen has been successful precisely because she kept her counsel. If Charles wants to be political, then there's Parliament for that.
    The fact the Queen chose not to was her personal choice
    No it isn't.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,747
    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    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
    No, I haven't. Thanks for the tip.
    It's OK, but I would strongly recommend https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Watchmaker-Richard-Dawkins-ebook/dp/B00DH4VZG4 for more and better argued theory
    Ta. If I can rediscover the reading habit - which is a goal - it'll be no problem to include that one. I read his God Delusion a few years ago. Polemic not science, that, though. Enjoyed it but found it a bit 'breaking butterfly on wheel' if you know what I mean.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,046
    maaarsh said:

    The format and structure of this conference makes pretty clear it's purpose is to make everyone involved feel important. If they wanted to achieve anything they wouldn't design them like this.

    If they really wanted to achieve anything, they’d have done it at the UN, where China and Russia would have had little choice but to attend.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,095
    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    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
    No, I haven't. Thanks for the tip.
    It's OK, but I would strongly recommend https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Watchmaker-Richard-Dawkins-ebook/dp/B00DH4VZG4 for more and better argued theory
    Yes, the blind watchmaker is stronger on the theory - the ancestor's tale has more of a narrative.
    I preferred the latter perhaps only because I read it first. I remember I was listening to a lot of Nick Cave at the time, which seemed to be a good soundtrack to discussions of events far, far away in history.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,049
    edited November 2021
    kinabalu said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    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
    No, I haven't. Thanks for the tip.
    It's OK, but I would strongly recommend https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Watchmaker-Richard-Dawkins-ebook/dp/B00DH4VZG4 for more and better argued theory
    Ta. If I can rediscover the reading habit - which is a goal - it'll be no problem to include that one. I read his God Delusion a few years ago. Polemic not science, that, though. Enjoyed it but found it a bit 'breaking butterfly on wheel' if you know what I mean.
    Interesting that people read those books. I think we are all aware of the role that religion has played throughout history but to read a book about the existence of god is strange.

    If you believe, then you wouldn't read it because god exists and if you don't believe, then you wouldn't read it because god doesn't exist.

    A 500-page book wouldn't work in either case.
  • ChelyabinskChelyabinsk Posts: 502
    edited November 2021
    Aslan said:

    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.
    Sorry to interject some realism into the discussion, but when asked the question "How much do you feel it is justifed for people to use violence to pursue their political goals in this country?" the groups most likely to say "Not at all" are white people and Republicans. In fact, under Trump's presidency conservatives became more likely to say "Not at all" and liberals less likely. Ironically this was almost all down to white liberals becoming radicalised, as 'very liberal' people plunged from 87% saying "not at all" to 67% (therefore reflecting almost two fifths of the group being willing to use violence).
  • Sandpit said:

    maaarsh said:

    The format and structure of this conference makes pretty clear it's purpose is to make everyone involved feel important. If they wanted to achieve anything they wouldn't design them like this.

    If they really wanted to achieve anything, they’d have done it at the UN, where China and Russia would have had little choice but to attend.
    Nah the UN is a powerless body.

    China and Russia are attending, just the heads of state aren't - and there's no obligation on Xi to attend at the UN either, he can and does send a representative there too.

    Xi answers to nobody but himself.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,747
    Farooq said:

    kinabalu said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    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
    Ha, exactly! Hard to say something truly original and again I fail.
    It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
    --Herman Melville
    Nice. But tell that to Liam Gallagher. He'll punch you out.
  • Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    Yes, I get slightly irritated by the 'nothing is being done' meme. The progress of the UK over the last 20-odd years has been extraordinary, and is to the credit of the governments of all hues who have achieved it. There are trade offs, and it has led to more expensive and less reliable electricity than might otherwise be the case, but to deny the progress that has been made is daft. And further developments are in the pipeline.
    We will have a day in the next few years where we need no gas at all.
    Hope that it coincides with one of the days when we have no gas.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    Cookie said:

    How interesting that Republican college grads and Democrat college grads are each representing extremes of their particular position. A sampling quirk, perhaps?

    I was thinking about my views on climate change the other day. My view is that it's happening, and it's man made. Of course that's my view. But it's a view which is increasingly challenging to hold in the face of the messianic fervour of its most vocal exponents. I don't think I'm alone in being generally suspicious of people trying to make me feel an emotion. I can't help wishing the climate change lobby would tone it down a bit.

    Unlikely a sampling quirk IMO. Rather college grads are more likely to be confident in their ability to assess the data and form their own opinions, and so are more likely to take definitive and firms stances on issues, resulting in them falling mainly at the extremes, rather than in the middle.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375
    TOPPING said:

    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?
    I dont think he will ever get out, he has to admit he did it to get parole, and he won't. He has been a model prisoner and has been in a open prison for a while now, which indicates that the Prison service do not see him as a threat. If he did admit it and give the location of the body then he would get released pretty quickly.

    If he didn't kill her then he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

    There is an excellent book The Nicholas Cases: Casualties of Justice by Bob Woffinden. Glyn Razzell's case is chapter 1
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,049

    TOPPING said:

    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?
    I dont think he will ever get out, he has to admit he did it to get parole, and he won't. He has been a model prisoner and has been in a open prison for a while now, which indicates that the Prison service do not see him as a threat. If he did admit it and give the location of the body then he would get released pretty quickly.

    If he didn't kill her then he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

    There is an excellent book The Nicholas Cases: Casualties of Justice by Bob Woffinden. Glyn Razzell's case is chapter 1
    But what was his original jail term? Doesn't that have a limit regardless of what he admits?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,747
    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    If you can afford an Aston Martin you almost certainly can afford to convert it to electric.

    Monarchs in my view can advocate anything they want as long as they do not veto any bills which were in the elected government's manifesto
    I understand. And your views are wrong. They are not allowed to do certain things which include any reference to the disparity of wealth between them and the country. Advocating a particular lifestyle is one such.
    Of course they are, climate change is a problem for everyone, rich, poor or in the middle.

    Plus even the royal families' private wealth does not make them billionaires
    Have people noticed this juxta on climate change?

    Regarding us - it's unfair to put the load on the poor, they can't afford it.

    Regarding others - it's the developing world who must pull their finger out, we're doing enough.
  • Aslan said:

    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.
    Sorry to interject some realism into the discussion, but when asked the question "How much do you feel it is justifed for people to use violence to pursue their political goals in this country?" the groups most likely to say "Not at all" are white people and Republicans. In fact, under Trump's presidency conservatives became more likely to say "Not at all" and liberals less likely - though ironically this was almost all down to white liberals becoming radicalised.
    As the foundation of the USA was a bloody revolution, rejecting the use of violence to pursue political goals is an interesting point of view, suggesting that the whole idea was a mistake...
  • TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    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?
    I dont think he will ever get out, he has to admit he did it to get parole, and he won't. He has been a model prisoner and has been in a open prison for a while now, which indicates that the Prison service do not see him as a threat. If he did admit it and give the location of the body then he would get released pretty quickly.

    If he didn't kill her then he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

    There is an excellent book The Nicholas Cases: Casualties of Justice by Bob Woffinden. Glyn Razzell's case is chapter 1
    But what was his original jail term? Doesn't that have a limit regardless of what he admits?
    Th term for life sentences is a minimum, it is up to that authorities if lifers are released.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    But the Duchy of Cornwall is profitable. How is that increasing the costs for the nation?
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,484
    edited November 2021
    Cricket post. Only 3/16 games thus far have been won by the side batting first. England are batting first. Sri Lanka have good bowlers. Ergo, I've had a bet on Sri Lanka at 11/4. I'll be out when the game finishes, so no need to tell me I wasted my money if I'm wrong.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,095

    Aslan said:

    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.
    Sorry to interject some realism into the discussion, but when asked the question "How much do you feel it is justifed for people to use violence to pursue their political goals in this country?" the groups most likely to say "Not at all" are white people and Republicans. In fact, under Trump's presidency conservatives became more likely to say "Not at all" and liberals less likely - though ironically this was almost all down to white liberals becoming radicalised.
    As the foundation of the USA was a bloody revolution, rejecting the use of violence to pursue political goals is an interesting point of view, suggesting that the whole idea was a mistake...
    Indeed, otherwise it would be King Charles IIIrd of the USA too
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,049

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    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?
    I dont think he will ever get out, he has to admit he did it to get parole, and he won't. He has been a model prisoner and has been in a open prison for a while now, which indicates that the Prison service do not see him as a threat. If he did admit it and give the location of the body then he would get released pretty quickly.

    If he didn't kill her then he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

    There is an excellent book The Nicholas Cases: Casualties of Justice by Bob Woffinden. Glyn Razzell's case is chapter 1
    But what was his original jail term? Doesn't that have a limit regardless of what he admits?
    Th term for life sentences is a minimum, it is up to that authorities if lifers are released.
    Ah thanks v much that explains it. And presumably Helen's Law means unless he fesses up to the whereabouts then he stays in.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,049
    TimT said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    But the Duchy of Cornwall is profitable. How is that increasing the costs for the nation?
    If he is saying, for example, that there should be a carbon tax on flights then that would increase costs for the nation.
  • FeersumEnjineeyaFeersumEnjineeya Posts: 4,501
    edited November 2021

    Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    Yes, I get slightly irritated by the 'nothing is being done' meme. The progress of the UK over the last 20-odd years has been extraordinary, and is to the credit of the governments of all hues who have achieved it. There are trade offs, and it has led to more expensive and less reliable electricity than might otherwise be the case, but to deny the progress that has been made is daft. And further developments are in the pipeline.
    We will have a day in the next few years where we need no gas at all.
    Sigh.

    It's Tory Progress. Which doesn't count.
    Well, not really. Since the Conservatives took sole control of government in 2015, the rate at which CO2 emissions have been falling has flattened out somewhat (aside from Covid-hit 2020). The real foundations for emissions reduction were set by the Labour and Con/LD governments (to, at times, great opposition from the right wingers). The Conservatives have been largely reaping the benefits since then.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,462
    TimT said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    But the Duchy of Cornwall is profitable. How is that increasing the costs for the nation?
    Depends on how much subsidy he gets, e.g. for farming. (OK, if he didn't, others would, but the same logic applies across the board ...).
  • HYUFD said:

    Aslan said:

    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.
    Sorry to interject some realism into the discussion, but when asked the question "How much do you feel it is justifed for people to use violence to pursue their political goals in this country?" the groups most likely to say "Not at all" are white people and Republicans. In fact, under Trump's presidency conservatives became more likely to say "Not at all" and liberals less likely - though ironically this was almost all down to white liberals becoming radicalised.
    As the foundation of the USA was a bloody revolution, rejecting the use of violence to pursue political goals is an interesting point of view, suggesting that the whole idea was a mistake...
    Indeed, otherwise it would be King Charles IIIrd of the USA too
    Interesting factoid: the UK has has a female head of state for more than half the time that the USA has been in existence, during which time they have had none.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    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.
    So what? Natural processes will eventually undo you and me and everybody else. That isn't generally regarded as an argument against the practise of medicine, which is merely a huge exercise in delaying the inevitable.
    The point being argued is that it is possible to prevent either isostatic or eustatic sea level changes. It isn't. So your medicine argument is a straw man with nothing to do with this discussion.
    Utter nonsense. Eustatics includes the melting of the ice caps and glaciers. Are you seriously claiming we have no influence on that?
    I am claiming that whether we do anything now or not it will still happen in the not too distant future as a natural process. As it has on so many occasions before. Even someone as slow and scientifically illiterate as you should be able to grasp that basic concept.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,484

    TOPPING said:

    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?
    I dont think he will ever get out, he has to admit he did it to get parole, and he won't. He has been a model prisoner and has been in a open prison for a while now, which indicates that the Prison service do not see him as a threat. If he did admit it and give the location of the body then he would get released pretty quickly.

    If he didn't kill her then he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

    There is an excellent book The Nicholas Cases: Casualties of Justice by Bob Woffinden. Glyn Razzell's case is chapter 1
    I've read your posts on this, including the blog you linked to.

    It looks very dodgy to me. But surely, if what you've posted/I've read is totally accurate, the judge would have directed the jury that the evidence for murder is just too thin to convict? I feel as if there is something missing, though obviously I don't know what.
  • Aslan said:

    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.
    Sorry to interject some realism into the discussion, but when asked the question "How much do you feel it is justifed for people to use violence to pursue their political goals in this country?" the groups most likely to say "Not at all" are white people and Republicans. In fact, under Trump's presidency conservatives became more likely to say "Not at all" and liberals less likely - though ironically this was almost all down to white liberals becoming radicalised.
    As the foundation of the USA was a bloody revolution, rejecting the use of violence to pursue political goals is an interesting point of view, suggesting that the whole idea was a mistake...
    Given that the question is "in this country," presumably they don't believe that a "a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism," but do believe that "Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes".
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,462
    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    If you can afford an Aston Martin you almost certainly can afford to convert it to electric.

    Monarchs in my view can advocate anything they want as long as they do not veto any bills which were in the elected government's manifesto
    I understand. And your views are wrong. They are not allowed to do certain things which include any reference to the disparity of wealth between them and the country. Advocating a particular lifestyle is one such.
    I'm happy for Charles to advocate whatever lifestyle he wants.

    He should be running for Parliament in order to do so.

    I'm certain our own @Charles would be outraged at someone not in Parliament advocating politics given his loathing of Rashford doing so. I'm sure its not just successful footballers but also Princes of the land that should be running for Parliament if they wish to engage in politics.

    Certainly its much worse to have unelected monarchs being political than footballers.
    Charles will be our monarch and our Head of State by grace of God.

    He is perfectly entitled therefore to give political opinions as long as he does not prevent manifesto commitments of the elected government going into law.

    Rashford will not be our Head of State, I have no problem with him giving his views however even if I often disagree with them
    By grace of God? You really are going all James VI and I on us. I can recommend Buchanan 'De jure regni apud Scotos' for the counterargument.
  • Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    Yes, I get slightly irritated by the 'nothing is being done' meme. The progress of the UK over the last 20-odd years has been extraordinary, and is to the credit of the governments of all hues who have achieved it. There are trade offs, and it has led to more expensive and less reliable electricity than might otherwise be the case, but to deny the progress that has been made is daft. And further developments are in the pipeline.
    We will have a day in the next few years where we need no gas at all.
    Sigh.

    It's Tory Progress. Which doesn't count.
    Well, not really. Since the Conservatives took sole control of government in 2015, the rate at which CO2 emissions have been falling has flattened out somewhat (aside from Covid-hit 2020). The real foundations for emissions reduction were set by the Labour and Con/LD governments (to, at times, great opposition from the right wingers). The Conservatives have been largely reaping the benefits since then.
    Wait: do you mean the CO2 emissions have flattened, or that the rate at which they are declining have flattened? If the latter, what is the problem?
  • JohnOJohnO Posts: 4,291
    The inescapable conclusion from his comments is that HYFUD is arguably the site's most fervent republican.

    The notion that the Crown could veto legislation, irrespective of manifesto contents, beyond defending our democracy in extremis (govt extending life of a Parliament except in war, declaring one party state etc) is bewilderingly grotesque. There's a reason why the last veto was in 1708.

    Such an action would be a direct assault on our constitution. No party would even conceive of supporting it: a Republic established within 12 months max. It ain't going to happen.

    Charles will be a model constitutional monarch. That really is the end of it.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,747
    edited November 2021
    Farooq said:

    kinabalu said:

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

    Hope he doesn't start waffling on about the Roman Empire. WTF was that about? Guy seems to think he's some 'amusing' raconteur down the pub half the time. You know the type. Mile wide, inch deep.
    It was a dog whistle to all those kipper types who fetishise Rome and think that complex multi-generation historical events can be explained by saying "forrners bad". He knows what he's doing and he is an arsehole for doing it.
    In the interview I saw he was referencing "open door immigration" in Rome's fall. Free movement. So, yes, now we've tightened up on that, we can return to our Glory Days. Oh dear.

    In general, what I hate is this patina of cod "ancient learning" he sprays about. Guess some like it, find it illuminating or impressive, but I'm totally Shania Twain about it - and him.
  • Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    Yes, I get slightly irritated by the 'nothing is being done' meme. The progress of the UK over the last 20-odd years has been extraordinary, and is to the credit of the governments of all hues who have achieved it. There are trade offs, and it has led to more expensive and less reliable electricity than might otherwise be the case, but to deny the progress that has been made is daft. And further developments are in the pipeline.
    We will have a day in the next few years where we need no gas at all.
    Sigh.

    It's Tory Progress. Which doesn't count.
    Well, not really. Since the Conservatives took sole control of government in 2015, the rate at which CO2 emissions have been falling has flattened out somewhat (aside from Covid-hit 2020). The real foundations for emissions reduction were set by the Labour and Con/LD governments (to, at times, great opposition from the right wingers). The Conservatives have been largely reaping the benefits since then.
    Wait: do you mean the CO2 emissions have flattened, or that the rate at which they are declining have flattened? If the latter, what is the problem?
    I mean the rate at which they are falling has diminished, smartarse :-)
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,049
    edited November 2021
    JohnO said:

    The inescapable conclusion from his comments is that HYFUD is arguably the site's most fervent republican.

    As he is not a proper Tory he has to work harder in other areas.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,462
    JohnO said:

    The inescapable conclusion from his comments is that HYFUD is arguably the site's most fervent republican.

    The notion that the Crown could veto legislation, irrespective of manifesto contents, beyond defending our democracy in extremis (govt extending life of a Parliament except in war, declaring one party state etc) is bewilderingly grotesque. There's a reason why the last veto was in 1708.

    Such an action would be a direct assault on our constitution. No party would even conceive of supporting it: a Republic established within 12 months max. It ain't going to happen.

    Charles will be a model constitutional monarch. That really is the end of it.

    And HYUFD is also advocating the Divine Right of Kings, too. See my post a moment ago.
  • Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    Yes, I get slightly irritated by the 'nothing is being done' meme. The progress of the UK over the last 20-odd years has been extraordinary, and is to the credit of the governments of all hues who have achieved it. There are trade offs, and it has led to more expensive and less reliable electricity than might otherwise be the case, but to deny the progress that has been made is daft. And further developments are in the pipeline.
    We will have a day in the next few years where we need no gas at all.
    Sigh.

    It's Tory Progress. Which doesn't count.
    Well, not really. Since the Conservatives took sole control of government in 2015, the rate at which CO2 emissions have been falling has flattened out somewhat (aside from Covid-hit 2020). The real foundations for emissions reduction were set by the Labour and Con/LD governments (to, at times, great opposition from the right wingers). The Conservatives have been largely reaping the benefits since then.
    Do you have the data for that?

    The ONS' capture of territorial omissions suggests that these have declined at a steady rate from 2007/08, that is, Lab, Coalition, and Conservative.

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/972583/2020_Provisional_emissions_statistics_report.pdf

    If the extra-territorial omissions did not do likewise that would be interesting in and of itself I think.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,046

    Office for National Statistics (ONS)
    @ONS
    ·
    2h
    The age-adjusted risk of deaths involving #COVID19 was 32 times greater in unvaccinated people than in fully vaccinated individuals between 2 Jan and 24 Sept 2021 http://ow.ly/xaaY50GC9RH

    THAT is the sort of statistic we need to see get some publicity!
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,297
    edited November 2021

    Aslan said:

    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.
    Sorry to interject some realism into the discussion, but when asked the question "How much do you feel it is justifed for people to use violence to pursue their political goals in this country?" the groups most likely to say "Not at all" are white people and Republicans. In fact, under Trump's presidency conservatives became more likely to say "Not at all" and liberals less likely - though ironically this was almost all down to white liberals becoming radicalised.
    As the foundation of the USA was a bloody revolution, rejecting the use of violence to pursue political goals is an interesting point of view, suggesting that the whole idea was a mistake...
    Given that the question is "in this country," presumably they don't believe that a "a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism," but do believe that "Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes".
    Well there was also that little scuffle over whether it was legal for states to suceed (sp?) from the union back in the 1860s. I think that counts as "using violence to pursue political goals". (The fact that I agree with the Union's war aims are not important here).
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,462
    kinabalu said:

    Farooq said:

    kinabalu said:

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

    Hope he doesn't start waffling on about the Roman Empire. WTF was that about? Guy seems to think he's some 'amusing' raconteur down the pub half the time. You know the type. Mile wide, inch deep.
    It was a dog whistle to all those kipper types who fetishise Rome and think that complex multi-generation historical events can be explained by saying "forrners bad". He knows what he's doing and he is an arsehole for doing it.
    In the interview I saw he was referencing "open door immigration" in Rome's fall. Free movement. So, yes, now we've tightened up on that, we can return to our Glory Days. Oh dear.

    In general, what I hate is this patina of cod "ancient learning" he sprays about. Guess some like it, find it illuminating or impressive, but I'm totally Shania Twain about it - and him.
    Hmm, the Romans had a rather better organised response to mass immigration if they didn't like it. Vide C. Julius Caesar and many others, re: crossings of the Rhine and Danube. Not to mention T. Aelius Hadrianus.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,792
    England need 170 to be confident here.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,228
    Carnyx said:

    kinabalu said:

    Farooq said:

    kinabalu said:

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

    Hope he doesn't start waffling on about the Roman Empire. WTF was that about? Guy seems to think he's some 'amusing' raconteur down the pub half the time. You know the type. Mile wide, inch deep.
    It was a dog whistle to all those kipper types who fetishise Rome and think that complex multi-generation historical events can be explained by saying "forrners bad". He knows what he's doing and he is an arsehole for doing it.
    In the interview I saw he was referencing "open door immigration" in Rome's fall. Free movement. So, yes, now we've tightened up on that, we can return to our Glory Days. Oh dear.

    In general, what I hate is this patina of cod "ancient learning" he sprays about. Guess some like it, find it illuminating or impressive, but I'm totally Shania Twain about it - and him.
    Hmm, the Romans had a rather better organised response to mass immigration if they didn't like it. Vide C. Julius Caesar and many others, re: crossings of the Rhine and Danube. Not to mention T. Aelius Hadrianus.
    Who paid for Hadrians... wall? :-)
  • Scott_xP said:

    Whatever you make of the substance here, just imagine how it will go down with the UK’s ambassadors around the world to learn that their private conversations with the Foreign Secretary are now regarded as fair game for briefings to the newspapers. https://twitter.com/DPMcBride/status/1455091576087134212/photo/1

    D P McBride?

    That initial makes him sound both unbiased and trustworthy!
  • Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    Yes, I get slightly irritated by the 'nothing is being done' meme. The progress of the UK over the last 20-odd years has been extraordinary, and is to the credit of the governments of all hues who have achieved it. There are trade offs, and it has led to more expensive and less reliable electricity than might otherwise be the case, but to deny the progress that has been made is daft. And further developments are in the pipeline.
    We will have a day in the next few years where we need no gas at all.
    Sigh.

    It's Tory Progress. Which doesn't count.
    Well, not really. Since the Conservatives took sole control of government in 2015, the rate at which CO2 emissions have been falling has flattened out somewhat (aside from Covid-hit 2020). The real foundations for emissions reduction were set by the Labour and Con/LD governments (to, at times, great opposition from the right wingers). The Conservatives have been largely reaping the benefits since then.
    Do you have the data for that?

    The ONS' capture of territorial omissions suggests that these have declined at a steady rate from 2007/08, that is, Lab, Coalition, and Conservative.

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/972583/2020_Provisional_emissions_statistics_report.pdf

    If the extra-territorial omissions did not do likewise that would be interesting in and of itself I think.
    The graph on that link illustrates my point exactly. Note how the downward-pointing bars have been shrinking over the past few years (aside from 2020).
  • Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    Yes, I get slightly irritated by the 'nothing is being done' meme. The progress of the UK over the last 20-odd years has been extraordinary, and is to the credit of the governments of all hues who have achieved it. There are trade offs, and it has led to more expensive and less reliable electricity than might otherwise be the case, but to deny the progress that has been made is daft. And further developments are in the pipeline.
    We will have a day in the next few years where we need no gas at all.
    Sigh.

    It's Tory Progress. Which doesn't count.
    Well, not really. Since the Conservatives took sole control of government in 2015, the rate at which CO2 emissions have been falling has flattened out somewhat (aside from Covid-hit 2020). The real foundations for emissions reduction were set by the Labour and Con/LD governments (to, at times, great opposition from the right wingers). The Conservatives have been largely reaping the benefits since then.
    Wait: do you mean the CO2 emissions have flattened, or that the rate at which they are declining have flattened? If the latter, what is the problem?
    I mean the rate at which they are falling has diminished, smartarse :-)
    I'm a physics teacher: you would be amazed how many people have a problem with the difference between an amount and the rate of change of that amount.

    You have now said the rate at which they are falling has diminished: that is not what your original comment said.
  • Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    Yes, I get slightly irritated by the 'nothing is being done' meme. The progress of the UK over the last 20-odd years has been extraordinary, and is to the credit of the governments of all hues who have achieved it. There are trade offs, and it has led to more expensive and less reliable electricity than might otherwise be the case, but to deny the progress that has been made is daft. And further developments are in the pipeline.
    We will have a day in the next few years where we need no gas at all.
    Sigh.

    It's Tory Progress. Which doesn't count.
    Well, not really. Since the Conservatives took sole control of government in 2015, the rate at which CO2 emissions have been falling has flattened out somewhat (aside from Covid-hit 2020). The real foundations for emissions reduction were set by the Labour and Con/LD governments (to, at times, great opposition from the right wingers). The Conservatives have been largely reaping the benefits since then.
    Do you have the data for that?

    The ONS' capture of territorial omissions suggests that these have declined at a steady rate from 2007/08, that is, Lab, Coalition, and Conservative.

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/972583/2020_Provisional_emissions_statistics_report.pdf

    If the extra-territorial omissions did not do likewise that would be interesting in and of itself I think.
    Consumption figures to 2018 (latest release) do not show any trend correlated to the colour of the government, but it is a bit more "wavey".

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,095
    edited November 2021
    JohnO said:

    The inescapable conclusion from his comments is that HYFUD is arguably the site's most fervent republican.

    The notion that the Crown could veto legislation, irrespective of manifesto contents, beyond defending our democracy in extremis (govt extending life of a Parliament except in war, declaring one party state etc) is bewilderingly grotesque. There's a reason why the last veto was in 1708.

    Such an action would be a direct assault on our constitution. No party would even conceive of supporting it: a Republic established within 12 months max. It ain't going to happen.

    Charles will be a model constitutional monarch. That really is the end of it.

    It wouldn't. We do not have a written constitution, our constitution is based on the sovereignty of Crown in Parliament in lawmaking.

    The English civil war and the glorious revolution merely asserted that Parliament had to be used to make laws and raise taxes and make wars, we could not be governed by the divine right of Kings alone.

    However it did not mean that the monarch could have no role in lawmaking whatsoever. If the monarch vetoed a bill which was not in the manifesto of the elected government it would not be unconstitutional even if maybe not advisable. Whatever the parties in Parliament thought about it they could not stop it.

    However even if Charles is unlikely to do even that there is certainly absolutely nothing in our constitution to stop the monarch giving their personal views on matters of policy or politics, which was my original point
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    Carnyx said:

    JohnO said:

    The inescapable conclusion from his comments is that HYFUD is arguably the site's most fervent republican.

    The notion that the Crown could veto legislation, irrespective of manifesto contents, beyond defending our democracy in extremis (govt extending life of a Parliament except in war, declaring one party state etc) is bewilderingly grotesque. There's a reason why the last veto was in 1708.

    Such an action would be a direct assault on our constitution. No party would even conceive of supporting it: a Republic established within 12 months max. It ain't going to happen.

    Charles will be a model constitutional monarch. That really is the end of it.

    And HYUFD is also advocating the Divine Right of Kings, too. See my post a moment ago.
    He has also supported Northern Irish Protestant population taking up arms in the event of a border poll not going their way. And the Republican House majority overruling a presidential election that doesn't go their way.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,992
    edited November 2021

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    "A leader" is fine, though making it in the "Offshore wind" sector makes it stronger.

    Uk was 1st in the world for offshore wind investment each year from approx 2015-2019; I think china overtook UK in 2020.

    For offshore wind, as of 2020 we had about 29% (10.5 GW) of installed offshore capacity - China at 28%. With another 20GW going in in UK by 2030.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_wind_power

    "Saudi Arabia of Wind" is imo a touch hyperbolic, but we may reverse the direction of all those interconnnectors a bit more often.

    BTW UK offshore windpower Capacity Factor is now 47%, but it's about maximising energy and perhaps ROI, not maximising how often the turbine is spinning.
    https://energynumbers.info/capacity-factor-of-wind
    https://energynumbers.info/uk-offshore-wind-capacity-factors
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,228

    Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    Yes, I get slightly irritated by the 'nothing is being done' meme. The progress of the UK over the last 20-odd years has been extraordinary, and is to the credit of the governments of all hues who have achieved it. There are trade offs, and it has led to more expensive and less reliable electricity than might otherwise be the case, but to deny the progress that has been made is daft. And further developments are in the pipeline.
    We will have a day in the next few years where we need no gas at all.
    Sigh.

    It's Tory Progress. Which doesn't count.
    Well, not really. Since the Conservatives took sole control of government in 2015, the rate at which CO2 emissions have been falling has flattened out somewhat (aside from Covid-hit 2020). The real foundations for emissions reduction were set by the Labour and Con/LD governments (to, at times, great opposition from the right wingers). The Conservatives have been largely reaping the benefits since then.
    Do you have the data for that?

    The ONS' capture of territorial omissions suggests that these have declined at a steady rate from 2007/08, that is, Lab, Coalition, and Conservative.

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/972583/2020_Provisional_emissions_statistics_report.pdf

    If the extra-territorial omissions did not do likewise that would be interesting in and of itself I think.
    The graph on that link illustrates my point exactly. Note how the downward-pointing bars have been shrinking over the past few years (aside from 2020).
    Hmmm

    image

    The data on percentage change peer year (which I think you are referring to) looks rather random to be drawing such a conclusion.
  • kinabalu said:

    Farooq said:

    kinabalu said:

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

    Hope he doesn't start waffling on about the Roman Empire. WTF was that about? Guy seems to think he's some 'amusing' raconteur down the pub half the time. You know the type. Mile wide, inch deep.
    It was a dog whistle to all those kipper types who fetishise Rome and think that complex multi-generation historical events can be explained by saying "forrners bad". He knows what he's doing and he is an arsehole for doing it.
    In the interview I saw he was referencing "open door immigration" in Rome's fall. Free movement. So, yes, now we've tightened up on that, we can return to our Glory Days. Oh dear.

    In general, what I hate is this patina of cod "ancient learning" he sprays about. Guess some like it, find it illuminating or impressive, but I'm totally Shania Twain about it - and him.
    I have long thought that Johnson is a stupid person's idea of what an intelligent person looks like.
  • DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    And every single one of those turbines was imported. We need to design and manufacture and then export, not buy from Vestas.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375

    TOPPING said:

    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?
    I dont think he will ever get out, he has to admit he did it to get parole, and he won't. He has been a model prisoner and has been in a open prison for a while now, which indicates that the Prison service do not see him as a threat. If he did admit it and give the location of the body then he would get released pretty quickly.

    If he didn't kill her then he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

    There is an excellent book The Nicholas Cases: Casualties of Justice by Bob Woffinden. Glyn Razzell's case is chapter 1
    I've read your posts on this, including the blog you linked to.

    It looks very dodgy to me. But surely, if what you've posted/I've read is totally accurate, the judge would have directed the jury that the evidence for murder is just too thin to convict? I feel as if there is something missing, though obviously I don't know what.
    The blood convicted him, without that there is nothing. The story that the prosecution went with is just not possible. Someone or a camera would have seen him or the car. To abduct someone from a busy street in broad daylight and drive away leaving absolutely no record of the event and to have your car back on your driveway 20 minutes later when it is at least a 20 minute drive away is fantasy land.

    Another thing that was ignored was that his wife's friend testified that she saw her and waved at her the day after her disappearance.

    Two other very strange murder convictions in Hampshire are Roger Kearney and Matthew Hamlen (who was the first case of double jeopardy).
  • DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    And every single one of those turbines was imported. We need to design and manufacture and then export, not buy from Vestas.
    From the point of view of our economy I agree. From the point of view of reducing our CO2 production, why does it matter?
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454
    edited November 2021

    Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    Yes, I get slightly irritated by the 'nothing is being done' meme. The progress of the UK over the last 20-odd years has been extraordinary, and is to the credit of the governments of all hues who have achieved it. There are trade offs, and it has led to more expensive and less reliable electricity than might otherwise be the case, but to deny the progress that has been made is daft. And further developments are in the pipeline.
    We will have a day in the next few years where we need no gas at all.
    Sigh.

    It's Tory Progress. Which doesn't count.
    Well, not really. Since the Conservatives took sole control of government in 2015, the rate at which CO2 emissions have been falling has flattened out somewhat (aside from Covid-hit 2020). The real foundations for emissions reduction were set by the Labour and Con/LD governments (to, at times, great opposition from the right wingers). The Conservatives have been largely reaping the benefits since then.
    Do you have the data for that?

    The ONS' capture of territorial omissions suggests that these have declined at a steady rate from 2007/08, that is, Lab, Coalition, and Conservative.

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/972583/2020_Provisional_emissions_statistics_report.pdf

    If the extra-territorial omissions did not do likewise that would be interesting in and of itself I think.
    The graph on that link illustrates my point exactly. Note how the downward-pointing bars have been shrinking over the past few years (aside from 2020).
    I downloaded the figures.

    If you give the election year to both governments
    :
    -1.0% T (1991-7)
    -1.7% L
    -2.5% Co
    -2.9% T

    To the Incoming gov't only

    T -0.6%
    L -2.0%
    Co -2.3%
    T -2.9%

    Outgoing:

    T -1.0%
    L -1.6%
    Co -3.4%
    T -2.8%


    You can do Q figures if you want, but I can't see much that supports your point
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,095
    HYUFD said:

    JohnO said:

    The inescapable conclusion from his comments is that HYFUD is arguably the site's most fervent republican.

    The notion that the Crown could veto legislation, irrespective of manifesto contents, beyond defending our democracy in extremis (govt extending life of a Parliament except in war, declaring one party state etc) is bewilderingly grotesque. There's a reason why the last veto was in 1708.

    Such an action would be a direct assault on our constitution. No party would even conceive of supporting it: a Republic established within 12 months max. It ain't going to happen.

    Charles will be a model constitutional monarch. That really is the end of it.

    It wouldn't. We do not have a written constitution, our constitution is based on the sovereignty of Crown in Parliament in lawmaking.

    The English civil war and the glorious revolution merely asserted that Parliament had to be used to make laws and raise taxes and make wars, we could not be governed by the divine right of Kings alone.

    However it did not mean that the monarch could have no role in lawmaking whatsoever. If the monarch vetoed a bill which was not in the manifesto of the elected government it would not be unconstitutional even if maybe not advisable. Whatever the parties in Parliament thought about it they could not stop it.

    However even if Charles is unlikely to do even that there is certainly absolutely nothing in our constitution to stop the monarch giving their personal views on matters of policy or politics, which was my original point
    I think you're confusing what is technically the case with what would be an acceptable basis for the monarchy to continue.
    You are technically correct that King Charles III could make whatever pronouncements he likes.

    But if he does start to go off the nuttier end of the spectrum, support for the concept of the monarchy would be bound to fall. And if it fell below a certain point, the monarchy ends.
    There may be no specific mechanism for abolishing the British monarchy, but that doesn't mean it can't or won't happen. Realistically - whatever the law may say - the monarchy only persists with the consent of the people.
  • DavidL said:

    Nothing wrong with the PM aspiring to be a global leader in wind power generation. So what is he going to do to advance that? We need to R&D the shit out this thing so that we can design build and export.

    Start? We are generating 12.5GW of wind power right now.
    And every single one of those turbines was imported. We need to design and manufacture and then export, not buy from Vestas.
    From the point of view of our economy I agree. From the point of view of reducing our CO2 production, why does it matter?
    I suppose it depends on where they are being imported from and what their environmental standards are like. The EU or US etc probably fine - except of course for the transport environmental costs - but if they are coming from some other countries with poor environmental and social controls then that would be a cause for concern.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,958
    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    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!
    Well, there's this view that it cost her, but I don't know. Sometimes you have to be brave, and maybe next time, if it's Harris, she'll double down and hit the jackpot.
    The way to excise Trumpism from the body politic is for Democrats to split the Republicans and win the support of the third of Republicans who accept the democratic process.

    If I knew how to pull off a political manoeuvre like that then I'd have been giving the opening address to COP 26, but I would guess that a strong component would have to be revulsion at the anti-democratic behaviour of the Trumpists. Though you have to add something welcoming into the mix too.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    Carnyx said:

    TimT said:

    TOPPING said:

    HYUFD said:

    TOPPING said:

    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.
    They are.

    The Prince of Wales practices what he preaches, he produces organic food, the Duchy of Cornwall creates communities like Pundbury based on traditional architecture and employing local people.

    Don't be absurd. Not everyone can afford to have their Aston Martin converted to electric. Monarchs are not allowed to advocate anything that might increase costs for the nation.
    But the Duchy of Cornwall is profitable. How is that increasing the costs for the nation?
    Depends on how much subsidy he gets, e.g. for farming. (OK, if he didn't, others would, but the same logic applies across the board ...).
    The point I am making is that going organic does not require subsidy. I have a friend locally who became the first organic tree nursery in the USA. He grows both organic and not organic trees on his farm. And he found that his organic trees are way more profitable. Yes, he can charge a premium (note, that is a market price, not a subsidy). But he also found that the practices that made the growing organic we just good practices in general, leading to healthier, faster growing trees. Even if he only charged the non-organic price for those trees grown organically, he'd be making more money than on the non-organic trees.

    People have this view that doing things in a morally or environmentally right way is necessarily more expensive and a drag on the economy. It is simply not true as a blanket statement.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,095
    Aslan said:

    Carnyx said:

    JohnO said:

    The inescapable conclusion from his comments is that HYFUD is arguably the site's most fervent republican.

    The notion that the Crown could veto legislation, irrespective of manifesto contents, beyond defending our democracy in extremis (govt extending life of a Parliament except in war, declaring one party state etc) is bewilderingly grotesque. There's a reason why the last veto was in 1708.

    Such an action would be a direct assault on our constitution. No party would even conceive of supporting it: a Republic established within 12 months max. It ain't going to happen.

    Charles will be a model constitutional monarch. That really is the end of it.

    And HYUFD is also advocating the Divine Right of Kings, too. See my post a moment ago.
    He has also supported Northern Irish Protestant population taking up arms in the event of a border poll not going their way. And the Republican House majority overruling a presidential election that doesn't go their way.
    No, I merely stated peace in Northern Ireland will not come with direct rule from Dublin over Antrim anymore than it did with direct rule from London over Nationalist areas of NI before the GFA.

    I did not advocate overturning an EC result, I merely pointed out it would not be unconstitutional for both the elected House and elected Senate to object to EC results and it needs objections from both chambers to sustain them, not just one
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,095

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    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!
    Well, there's this view that it cost her, but I don't know. Sometimes you have to be brave, and maybe next time, if it's Harris, she'll double down and hit the jackpot.
    The way to excise Trumpism from the body politic is for Democrats to split the Republicans and win the support of the third of Republicans who accept the democratic process.

    If I knew how to pull off a political manoeuvre like that then I'd have been giving the opening address to COP 26, but I would guess that a strong component would have to be revulsion at the anti-democratic behaviour of the Trumpists. Though you have to add something welcoming into the mix too.
    If they did that then the AOC and Bernie Sanders wing of the Democrats would also split off and form their own party
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    I don't understand the empty stadiums at the T20s

    Is this Covid? Or just apathy? Or are tickets £400?

    I can't imagine a nicer thing to do of a warm Emirates evening than going to see some lively international cricket...

This discussion has been closed.