The Will Smith thing looks worse and worse in retrospect. His whole career tainted. It will probably be his epitaph. Madness
Why??
I may be totally off base here but I suspect people are over-analysing his decision and under-weighting the possible impact of alcohol in it. It's an award ceremony, there's lots of wine, he probably just did something stupid for the obvious reason.
Although I'm also going to put in writing that I don't think it will really hurt his career. It was a one-off and didn't leave any major damage. I think he'll apologise for it a couple more times in interviews and it will fade away.
1. He didn’t look remotely drunk
2. Just one of the videos of the slapping and its aftermath has been seen 80 million times. Bigger than his movies. It’s not going to fade away, he will always be the guy that did that bad stupid crazy thing at the Oscars. It’s a tragedy for him, I fear
Will Smith is a huge star, give it about a month and his next big movie will get announced. Nobody is going to remember this.
I disagree. The Academy has been forced to take steps, and this morning they are saying he might be expelled
Generally these things ARE forgotten. This feels different. We shall see
Nah, I know a very senior exec at one of the big studios, the feeling is that no one cares. Will Smith is a huge and bankable star, this doesn't change that one iota. The Academy are an irrelevant organisation, especially now that they've given him their highest acting accolade and are unlikely to take it back.
Lol. You’re not the only person who ‘knows people in Hollywood’
I sense genuine shock. And a feeling they have to do something serious. This can never be repeated so they have to take a stand
Will Smith’s career will not end, of course.
All this cancelling tendency in Hollywood is quite tedious, when set in context against the decades of fawning over child rapist Roman Polanski. Will Smith seems a good lad. He slapped a cheeky bugger who was telling tired jokes that punch down. He’ll be fine.
Polanski, and Weinstein too.
But that’s why I think this is bigger than people realise. It feels like a house of cards tumbling down, and it may be a ‘simple slap’ that starts it
Eg people are losing their shit over the sheer excess and entitlement of Hollywood and the celeb industry
Check this viral tweet.
‘Losing my mind over the items in the Oscar nominees’ gift bag this year. We truly are peasants to these people.’
Most of the stuff that makes up the $140,000 total is the equivalent of the rubbish money off vouchers for Virgin Wines that are stuffed into every subscription magazine.
A load of nonsense.
Indeed. I can't imagine Spielberg is going to be taking up his free liposuction offer tbh.
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
No. Check the videos of Chris Rock afterwards. Completely stunned. Definitely not staged
Also Chris Rock is a dude and a pro. To carry on with the show the way he did
It was a very ugly and very stupid joke. I would hope that his career is extinguished. Far more at fault than Smith.
It’s quite easy to make jokes at the expense of others. It’s why most of us do it to our mates down the pub, because we’re not pro comedians who can deploy more sophisticated humour. But most of us do it in a jovial friendly way and don’t seek to humiliate the target.
You’d expect far better than this punching down from a comedian of Chris Rock’s stature. Perhaps he’d have got away with knocking Will Smith himself down a peg or two, as part of a routine about all the best actor nominees. Easily done as others have said, given things like the excessive party bag. But to go for his wife over a medical condition was bizarre.
This idea of "punching up" vs "punching down" is an insidious concept that has crept into thinking of some in comedy and with a weird belief that everybody is on board with it. If you only punch up, a very successful comedians like Carr and Gervais routine would have to become taking the piss out literally the Queen and Boris.
Interestingly, the most popular British comedian online at the moment (by a country mile), his whole act is taking the piss out of normal folk in the audience. Some of it is incredibly brutal, but gets millions of hits and selling every show.
The Will Smith thing looks worse and worse in retrospect. His whole career tainted. It will probably be his epitaph. Madness
Why??
I may be totally off base here but I suspect people are over-analysing his decision and under-weighting the possible impact of alcohol in it. It's an award ceremony, there's lots of wine, he probably just did something stupid for the obvious reason.
Although I'm also going to put in writing that I don't think it will really hurt his career. It was a one-off and didn't leave any major damage. I think he'll apologise for it a couple more times in interviews and it will fade away.
1. He didn’t look remotely drunk
2. Just one of the videos of the slapping and its aftermath has been seen 80 million times. Bigger than his movies. It’s not going to fade away, he will always be the guy that did that bad stupid crazy thing at the Oscars. It’s a tragedy for him, I fear
Will Smith is a huge star, give it about a month and his next big movie will get announced. Nobody is going to remember this.
I disagree. The Academy has been forced to take steps, and this morning they are saying he might be expelled
Generally these things ARE forgotten. This feels different. We shall see
Nah, I know a very senior exec at one of the big studios, the feeling is that no one cares. Will Smith is a huge and bankable star, this doesn't change that one iota. The Academy are an irrelevant organisation, especially now that they've given him their highest acting accolade and are unlikely to take it back.
Lol. You’re not the only person who ‘knows people in Hollywood’
I sense genuine shock. And a feeling they have to do something serious. This can never be repeated so they have to take a stand
Will Smith’s career will not end, of course.
All this cancelling tendency in Hollywood is quite tedious, when set in context against the decades of fawning over child rapist Roman Polanski. Will Smith seems a good lad. He slapped a cheeky bugger who was telling tired jokes that punch down. He’ll be fine.
Polanski, and Weinstein too.
But that’s why I think this is bigger than people realise. It feels like a house of cards tumbling down, and it may be a ‘simple slap’ that starts it
Eg people are losing their shit over the sheer excess and entitlement of Hollywood and the celeb industry
Check this viral tweet.
‘Losing my mind over the items in the Oscar nominees’ gift bag this year. We truly are peasants to these people.’
Most of the stuff that makes up the $140,000 total is the equivalent of the rubbish money off vouchers for Virgin Wines that are stuffed into every subscription magazine.
A load of nonsense.
Quite. It's rubbish. I'd be looking for at least a high end Rolex for $140,000
They're failing because you can have self-ID or single sex spaces. You cannot have both. They are unwilling to make a choice. Or have made a choice which they know will be unpopular and are trying to hide it.
Labour are trying to be all things to all women (however defined) and are failing. They will continue to do so.
Surely the fundamental conflict you raise is between the primacy of single sex spaces and having *any* legal route to gender change that doesn't involve mandatory surgery. It's not in essence about how hard or easy the process is (important though that is).
Unless a physical sex change is on the critical path to the legal gender change you are always going to have male-bodied trans women and thus be faced with picking one of the following approaches:
(a) Trans women *are* women - so they can access women's spaces. The default is inclusion. Exceptions possible but must be justified.
(b) Trans women are *not* women - so they cannot access women's spaces. The default is exclusion. Exceptions possible but must be justified.
Forgetting about how we might disagree on what the answer should be, that's a correct framing, isn't it?
No. Not trying to be difficult here but the framing you have to look at is whether sex-based exemptions should exist at all. In order to make sense of your framing you first have to decide where the concept of "womens' spaces" comes from. Otherwise your framing is meaningless.
Pre-the Equality act there was no such concept in law. It was a matter of social convention. Then you have the Equality Act which says that people should not be discriminated against on the grounds of sex ie equal treatment for everyone but then specifically excluded certain areas because of sex ie women only spaces for certain purposes where they can be justified.
Currently, the framing for such sex-based exemptions is like your (b) ie the default is no discrimination unless there is a legitimate reason to discriminate and the method used is proportionate to that aim.
Transwomen are excluded from those exemptions not because they are not treated as women (legally) (they are) but because their sex has not changed and those exemptions exist because sex is key to why they are needed. (Bluntly the GRA introduces a polite legal fiction but comes up against the material reality of sex when it comes to the exemptions in the Equality Act.)
The framing that is now being proposed is not about whether transwomen are or are not treated as women but about the removal of the sex-based exemptions. Your position - and those of Stonewall and other trans charities - is very explicitly that those sex-based exemptions (and indeed sex as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act) should be removed in their entirety. Therefore there would be no such thing as womens' spaces ie spaces for those of the female sex with a female body at all.
In short, the question of inclusion or exclusion ie whether a transwoman could go into a female loo would not arise because there would be no female only loos.
Right, thanks.
I'm not arguing for the removal of sex-based exemptions. I'm persuaded of the case for a more streamlined gender transition process - with controls and with suitable guidance/rules in place for certain areas such as sports and prisons where sex has to be taken into account. I think such a reform will help trans people without in practice hurting anybody else. That's where I am on this. I'm not a TRA or Stonewall accolyte. They wouldn't have me.
But what I wanted to explore (because I think it's important) is you saying this -
"You can have self-ID or single sex spaces. You can't have both."
As if the fundamental conflict is between those 2 things. Which I can't see that it is. Self-Id is shorthand for a quicker easier demedicalized legal transition process. It's just that - a process.
Whereas the core 'in theory' conflict is not about a process it's about something more elemental - the divergence between sex and gender and which of these should normally prevail.
The only way to remove that conflict - and avoid the difficult questions being batted around - is to not have a divergence between sex and gender. And there are 2 ways to do this -
(a) Remove the legal route to a gender change. (b) Make a gender change conditional on a sex change.
Now there will be people in favour of one or other of these, but no political party is going anywhere near it. Because it's taking trans rights back decades.
Let's agree it's a non starter. I know you aren't arguing for it.
Leaving us back where we were. We DO have a conflict to resolve between sex and gender because we (legally) recognize transgenderism and we don't tie it to a sex change.
And then I think my framing works fine. What should the transition process be? What controls are needed? Should the default be trans exclusion or inclusion? What exceptions are needed either way?
Some people believe in gender. Many do not. It is like insisting that everyone has a soul. So we should not be trying to insist everyone has a gender.
What we should be doing is providing a route for those have gender dysphoria to change their legal status if they want to. That should not be conditional upon surgery (though it would in theory remove all the problems). Two reasons: (1) it is expensive, delayed, difficult & risky; (2) not everyone with dysphoria wants to transition physically.
What a change in legal status should be dependant on are 2 things: a medical diagnosis & proof & an intention that it's a permanent change. These are necessary to provide safeguards that the legal change is not abused by those who are not dysphoric at all.
Your legal status changes but if you retain the body you were born with you cannot have access to those places or situations where your physical body is relevant ie a man becoming a woman but retaining male genitalia does not get to be in a woman's rape refuge or changing room or loo. If they surgically transition they do.
(Sport is different: nothing can remove the advantages of male puberty so transgender sportspeople will have to have their own category or participate in their birth category in those sports where the physical body is relevant.)
That recognises the need for a legal gender change for those with this condition, builds in safeguards to prevent its abuse but recognises the importance of the physical body and keeps a male body out of female only spaces (and vice versa).
I fundamentally oppose a demedicalized process of changing gender. The issue only arises because there are people with this medical condition. So it is absolutely right that only those people with it should be able to do this. There is no basis at all for saying that anyone at all without gender dysphoria should be allowed to change gender for no reason at all, which is what self-ID means. None at all. Nor any need. A person can call themselves anything at all, wear what they want etc. A legal change is unnecessary. If anything self-ID is a bloody great loophole for those with evil intent.
Take for example the Scottish Bill. Under it a convicted sex offender in England could move to Scotland, change his name then declare he is a woman & after 3 months apply for a GRC & get it after a further 3 months. All his legal documents get changed at once. Now he/she can legally access places where women are. He/she of course is not a transgender person in any sense of the word.
The Scottish government was asked during consultation to put a block on sex offenders doing just this. And refused.
The current process is about right for something that is so significant & which affects others - spouses, children etc. The one thing which definitely does need considerable improvement is the time taken to get a medical diagnosis. But that is an issue of resources. Not law.
It really isn't so hard to work this out. Men, born as men, get to compete in the men's events. Noone else.
Women born as women get to do whatever it is that they do too
Any others - just do what you do and it's fine. Don't try to be man or woman though, because you're not, and that is precisely you.
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
No. Check the videos of Chris Rock afterwards. Completely stunned. Definitely not staged
Also Chris Rock is a dude and a pro. To carry on with the show the way he did
It was a very ugly and very stupid joke. I would hope that his career is extinguished. Far more at fault than Smith.
It’s quite easy to make jokes at the expense of others. It’s why most of us do it to our mates down the pub, because we’re not pro comedians who can deploy more sophisticated humour. But most of us do it in a jovial friendly way and don’t seek to humiliate the target.
You’d expect far better than this punching down from a comedian of Chris Rock’s stature. Perhaps he’d have got away with knocking Will Smith himself down a peg or two, as part of a routine about all the best actor nominees. Easily done as others have said, given things like the excessive party bag. But to go for his wife over a medical condition was bizarre.
This idea of "punching up" vs "punching down" is an insidious concept that has crept into thinking of some in comedy and with a weird belief that everybody is on board with it. If you only punch up, a very successful comedians like Carr and Gervais routine would have to become taking the piss out literally the Queen and Boris.
Interestingly, the most popular British comedian online at the moment (by a country mile), his whole act is taking the piss out of normal folk in the audience. Some of it is incredibly brutal, but gets millions of hits and selling every show.
He has 100s millions views on YouTube / Facebook etc, and basically every night he does are sold out well in advance with people knowing they are going to get ripped to shreds.
Putin really is the most boring of mass-murderers.
There hasn't been a good tyrant since Napoleon.
Wrong. D’Annunzio the dictator of Fiume. 1919
This is just how it BEGAN, and it got better
“After a necromantic ceremony with his mistress in a cemetery in Venice he set out to conquer Fiume,”
One excerpt:
‘According to Bey’s account: Artists, bohemians, adventurers, anarchists (D’Annunzio corresponded with Malatesta), fugitives and Stateless refugees, homosexuals, military dandies (the uniform was black with pirate skull-&-crossbones, later stolen by the SS), and crank reformers of every stripe (including Buddhists, Theosophists and Vedantists) began to show up at Fiume in droves. The party never stopped. Every morning D’Annunzio read poetry and manifestos from his balcony; every evening a concert, then fireworks. This made up the entire activity of the government.’
That's not as original as the claim that the Ukrainians were planting explosives in buildings and timing them to blow up as Russian peacekeepers flew overhead.
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Maybe CR has had a few slaps before. I remember with acute clarity the first time a fully grown man punched me in the face with serious intent when I was 18. It was so painful and shocking that it gave me dry heaves. Subsequent punchings over the years became gradually less traumatic until I didn't give a fuck.
Putin really is the most boring of mass-murderers.
There hasn't been a good tyrant since Napoleon.
Wrong. D’Annunzio the dictator of Fiume. 1919
This is just how it BEGAN, and it got better
“After a necromantic ceremony with his mistress in a cemetery in Venice he set out to conquer Fiume,”
One excerpt:
‘According to Bey’s account: Artists, bohemians, adventurers, anarchists (D’Annunzio corresponded with Malatesta), fugitives and Stateless refugees, homosexuals, military dandies (the uniform was black with pirate skull-&-crossbones, later stolen by the SS), and crank reformers of every stripe (including Buddhists, Theosophists and Vedantists) began to show up at Fiume in droves. The party never stopped. Every morning D’Annunzio read poetry and manifestos from his balcony; every evening a concert, then fireworks. This made up the entire activity of the government.’
Putin really is the most boring of mass-murderers.
There hasn't been a good tyrant since Napoleon.
Wrong. D’Annunzio the dictator of Fiume. 1919
This is just how it BEGAN, and it got better
“After a necromantic ceremony with his mistress in a cemetery in Venice he set out to conquer Fiume,”
One excerpt:
‘According to Bey’s account: Artists, bohemians, adventurers, anarchists (D’Annunzio corresponded with Malatesta), fugitives and Stateless refugees, homosexuals, military dandies (the uniform was black with pirate skull-&-crossbones, later stolen by the SS), and crank reformers of every stripe (including Buddhists, Theosophists and Vedantists) began to show up at Fiume in droves. The party never stopped. Every morning D’Annunzio read poetry and manifestos from his balcony; every evening a concert, then fireworks. This made up the entire activity of the government.’
‘Tory MPs vote through care cap ‘catastrophe’ for poor Brits despite revolt’
…Those with assets including their home of £75,000 to £150,000 face the biggest hit, the study found.
Someone with around £110,000 in assets could lose 78% of their total wealth even after the cap is in place, while someone with £500,000 could use up only 17%.
People in Red Wall seats in North East, Yorkshire and the Midlands, where wealth tends to be lower, would “see the biggest erosion of their protection against large care costs, as a result of the proposed amendment”, the report warned.
Convenient this is flying under the radar. It’s almost as if the levelling up rhetoric is all bullshit. A lot of these people will have gone Tory, cos Brexit. I hope they realise the error of their ways.
Supposedly they will ignore the financial beating they are taking, the lack of levelling up monies being spent and the growing disparity between the north and dahn sarf because she-cocked deviants are coming for our wives and daughters.
Tories stirring up the culture war because it’s the only thing they have left?
Be interesting to see how they square that with having a trans MP in their ranks.
*Wants to be* trans is the term that PBers seem to be fixated upon for reasons not entirely clear to me. Wouldn't surprise me if Jamie has been told that the party will support them(?) as long as horses aren't frightened, no in depth interviews in OK! etc.
I think the point is that he tests the limits of self-certification. I'm seeing a fat cowardly liar playing a card to get out of a fix of some kind; he is a less trustworthy Boris Johnson. "Want to be trans" is just slightly odd, surely more correctly he *is* btrans and wants to be a woman?
Let's look at a completely random scenario, and with absolutely nothing to do with any current or former MP's behaviour. If one had consumed a few beers in Cowbridge and made the foolish choice to drive one's own Mercedes home, most people would also have taken the quiet back roads route via Llanblethian. Had one crashed into a lamppost and fled the scene only to resurface when one was compos mentis, I think most people under the same circumstances would have taken a "not reporting an accident" rap with good grace, and left it at that.
Off topic, my wife is on her way to visit childhood friends in Kent. Chaos on the ECML means that after being sat going nowhere for an hour and a half her train was then terminated at Newark. Hopefully she'll reach her destination before the day is out. Either that or she'll be back home later!
Grand Central service sat down between Newark and Grantham. 1Z99 on its way to remove it. I assume some issue on the line in general as a result as there is a northbound LNER service in the same block that appears to have rusted to the rails its that late.
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Maybe CR has had a few slaps before. I remember with acute clarity the first time a fully grown man punched me in the face with serious intent when I was 18. It was so painful and shocking that it gave me dry heaves. Subsequent punchings over the years became gradually less traumatic until I didn't give a fuck.
Chris Rock was famously bullied and beaten as a child. He has a condition a bit like Asperger’s
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
‘Tory MPs vote through care cap ‘catastrophe’ for poor Brits despite revolt’
…Those with assets including their home of £75,000 to £150,000 face the biggest hit, the study found.
Someone with around £110,000 in assets could lose 78% of their total wealth even after the cap is in place, while someone with £500,000 could use up only 17%.
People in Red Wall seats in North East, Yorkshire and the Midlands, where wealth tends to be lower, would “see the biggest erosion of their protection against large care costs, as a result of the proposed amendment”, the report warned.
Convenient this is flying under the radar. It’s almost as if the levelling up rhetoric is all bullshit. A lot of these people will have gone Tory, cos Brexit. I hope they realise the error of their ways.
Supposedly they will ignore the financial beating they are taking, the lack of levelling up monies being spent and the growing disparity between the north and dahn sarf because she-cocked deviants are coming for our wives and daughters.
Tories stirring up the culture war because it’s the only thing they have left?
Be interesting to see how they square that with having a trans MP in their ranks.
*Wants to be* trans is the term that PBers seem to be fixated upon for reasons not entirely clear to me. Wouldn't surprise me if Jamie has been told that the party will support them(?) as long as horses aren't frightened, no in depth interviews in OK! etc.
I think the point is that he tests the limits of self-certification. I'm seeing a fat cowardly liar playing a card to get out of a fix of some kind; he is a less trustworthy Boris Johnson. "Want to be trans" is just slightly odd, surely more correctly he *is* btrans and wants to be a woman?
Let's look at a completely random scenario, and with absolutely nothing to do with any current or former MP's behaviour. If one had consumed a few beers in Cowbridge and made the foolish choice to drive one's own Mercedes home, most people would also have taken the quiet back roads route via Llanblethian. Had one crashed into a lamppost and fled the scene only to resurface when one was compos mentis, I think most people under the same circumstances would have taken a "not reporting an accident" rap with good grace, and left it at that.
You're not a real hoon unless you've fled from the law so I'll give him some respect for that.
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Maybe CR has had a few slaps before. I remember with acute clarity the first time a fully grown man punched me in the face with serious intent when I was 18. It was so painful and shocking that it gave me dry heaves. Subsequent punchings over the years became gradually less traumatic until I didn't give a fuck.
I don't mean to be rude, but the fact that Dura Ace has been repeatedly punched in the face over the course of a lifetime is curiously unsurprising. I don't think I've ever been punched by an adult male apart from in the limited context of a rugby match, when the blood is already up. Even then it's very rare, unless you're playing Widnes Sixth Form College.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Maybe CR has had a few slaps before. I remember with acute clarity the first time a fully grown man punched me in the face with serious intent when I was 18. It was so painful and shocking that it gave me dry heaves. Subsequent punchings over the years became gradually less traumatic until I didn't give a fuck.
Chris Rock was famously bullied and beaten as a child. He has a condition a bit like Asperger’s
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
It's the single worst bit of analysis I've seen on PB thus far.
The Red Cross doesn't seem to be doing its reputation any good in Ukraine after holding meetings with Lavrov and supporting the Kremlin line on bringing civilians to Russia.
@JimmySecUK Well that's just a lie. A UN report described the Aleppo evacuations that were overseen by the ICRC as a "war crime" of "forced displacement".
@ICRC To reiterate - we would never support any evacuation to anywhere that is against what people want.
We have never done this.
Our role is to help those who want to leave, to do so safely.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Guy can certainly take one. You'd be impressed no?
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Maybe CR has had a few slaps before. I remember with acute clarity the first time a fully grown man punched me in the face with serious intent when I was 18. It was so painful and shocking that it gave me dry heaves. Subsequent punchings over the years became gradually less traumatic until I didn't give a fuck.
I don't mean to be rude, but the fact that Dura Ace has been repeatedly punched in the face over the course of a lifetime is curiously unsurprising. I don't think I've ever been punched by an adult male apart from in the limited context of a rugby match, when the blood is already up. Even then it's very rare, unless you're playing Widnes Sixth Form College.
I loved a good swedge when I was younger. As I have been a sailor, a hunt sabber and a Leeds Utd fan I did not lack for opportunities.
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Maybe CR has had a few slaps before. I remember with acute clarity the first time a fully grown man punched me in the face with serious intent when I was 18. It was so painful and shocking that it gave me dry heaves. Subsequent punchings over the years became gradually less traumatic until I didn't give a fuck.
Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that 'another batch of Russians' had been taken to the 'Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel' for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant's workers said Russian soldiers' arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow's forces seized the site last month was 'suicidal'.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin's men had fallen ill because they failed to follow 'rules for dealing' with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
'With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,' he said, adding that radiation protection is 'mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.'
Those numbers are likely wrong, at least they don’t match sources I’ve found elsewhere, which suggest that the background radiation dose in the parts of Chernobyl immediately adjacent to the reactor (the “red forest“ can be /much/ higher than 10μSv/hr. According to the online sources I’ve seen, parts of the Red Forest still read levels of 10mSv/hr to this day. That’s a serious level of radiation - a level that you’d be fine with for an hour or two, but spend a few weeks there & you’re going to hit the LD50 radiation dose...
Worse, it sounds as if the Russian soldiers might have dug themselves in, which means a) they disturbed the topsoil and then b) slept on top of it. So they were potentially breathing in contaminated dust. This is much, much worse than just standing around near a radiation source.
I think the story is entirely plausible, but will wait for confirmation - I certainly wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand.
If they’ve been “digging in”, in the contamination zone close to the reactor, with no PPE against radiation, then their dose will have been very high over a period of weeks.
When they built the new containment structure, the biggest problem they had was getting enough trained people to work at the site, because of the strict limits on radiation exposure. In some places, each team could only work for a few minutes per day, even with extensive PPE.
I doubt the Russian army went in with Geiger counters and radiation monitor badges.
Read the linked tweets, this is discussed. They've raised their risk of getting cancer but nobody knowledgeable-sounding thinks they'd have got radiation sickness.
I would have thought the big risk would be ingesting alpha emitters, which are now sitting in the lungs and other organs.
Not going to kill you immediately... but highly likely to cause long term problems.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Inverness was my first guess, although that's relatively small. Or Dundee.
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Maybe CR has had a few slaps before. I remember with acute clarity the first time a fully grown man punched me in the face with serious intent when I was 18. It was so painful and shocking that it gave me dry heaves. Subsequent punchings over the years became gradually less traumatic until I didn't give a fuck.
Chris Rock was famously bullied and beaten as a child. He has a condition a bit like Asperger’s
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
I meant the MORE famous black actor, should have made that clear
As for the black vote in the South, they weren't all (scandalously) disenfranchised, I don't think
However - upon Googling - it seems that most were still Republican, anyway, they only shifted Democrat later.
My knowledge of historic US black voting preferences is poor. Apols. I presume they were Republican because Lincoln was a Republican
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
Looks like being in the Mississippi basin is a bigger determinant.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
How many 1920s voters do you think are still alive, let alone on Twitter?
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
It's the single worst bit of analysis I've seen on PB thus far.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Depending on your definitions and distances - Belfast, Hull, Aberdeen are also potentials.
Is it true that Will Smith was shown initially laughing at Chris Rock's joke, and it was only AFTER he saw the reaction on Jada's face that he got up to hit Rock?
Thats exactly what happened.
The camera cuts are such that it’s not possible to read the emotions in this way. Smith’s smile on his face may have been a carry over from the last joke before he realised what the new one was, or it could have been a well practiced game face that cracked when he saw his wife’s response. Or it could be as you insinuate, that he found the joke funny and was then shamed into action.
As for the Oscar’s brass asking him to leave but he refused. Sounds like a load of billy bullshit to me. They’ve got security haven’t they? I imagine it was more “are you feeling ok to remain in the auditorium sir?”.
Of course they should have forcibly ejected him, and fellow nominee Denzel Washington could have given the speech on his behalf instead. Would’ve been better for everyone actually.
They're failing because you can have self-ID or single sex spaces. You cannot have both. They are unwilling to make a choice. Or have made a choice which they know will be unpopular and are trying to hide it.
Labour are trying to be all things to all women (however defined) and are failing. They will continue to do so.
Surely the fundamental conflict you raise is between the primacy of single sex spaces and having *any* legal route to gender change that doesn't involve mandatory surgery. It's not in essence about how hard or easy the process is (important though that is).
Unless a physical sex change is on the critical path to the legal gender change you are always going to have male-bodied trans women and thus be faced with picking one of the following approaches:
(a) Trans women *are* women - so they can access women's spaces. The default is inclusion. Exceptions possible but must be justified.
(b) Trans women are *not* women - so they cannot access women's spaces. The default is exclusion. Exceptions possible but must be justified.
Forgetting about how we might disagree on what the answer should be, that's a correct framing, isn't it?
No. Not trying to be difficult here but the framing you have to look at is whether sex-based exemptions should exist at all. In order to make sense of your framing you first have to decide where the concept of "womens' spaces" comes from. Otherwise your framing is meaningless.
Pre-the Equality act there was no such concept in law. It was a matter of social convention. Then you have the Equality Act which says that people should not be discriminated against on the grounds of sex ie equal treatment for everyone but then specifically excluded certain areas because of sex ie women only spaces for certain purposes where they can be justified.
Currently, the framing for such sex-based exemptions is like your (b) ie the default is no discrimination unless there is a legitimate reason to discriminate and the method used is proportionate to that aim.
Transwomen are excluded from those exemptions not because they are not treated as women (legally) (they are) but because their sex has not changed and those exemptions exist because sex is key to why they are needed. (Bluntly the GRA introduces a polite legal fiction but comes up against the material reality of sex when it comes to the exemptions in the Equality Act.)
The framing that is now being proposed is not about whether transwomen are or are not treated as women but about the removal of the sex-based exemptions. Your position - and those of Stonewall and other trans charities - is very explicitly that those sex-based exemptions (and indeed sex as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act) should be removed in their entirety. Therefore there would be no such thing as womens' spaces ie spaces for those of the female sex with a female body at all.
In short, the question of inclusion or exclusion ie whether a transwoman could go into a female loo would not arise because there would be no female only loos.
Right, thanks.
I'm not arguing for the removal of sex-based exemptions. I'm persuaded of the case for a more streamlined gender transition process - with controls and with suitable guidance/rules in place for certain areas such as sports and prisons where sex has to be taken into account. I think such a reform will help trans people without in practice hurting anybody else. That's where I am on this. I'm not a TRA or Stonewall accolyte. They wouldn't have me.
But what I wanted to explore (because I think it's important) is you saying this -
"You can have self-ID or single sex spaces. You can't have both."
As if the fundamental conflict is between those 2 things. Which I can't see that it is. Self-Id is shorthand for a quicker easier demedicalized legal transition process. It's just that - a process.
Whereas the core 'in theory' conflict is not about a process it's about something more elemental - the divergence between sex and gender and which of these should normally prevail.
The only way to remove that conflict - and avoid the difficult questions being batted around - is to not have a divergence between sex and gender. And there are 2 ways to do this -
(a) Remove the legal route to a gender change. (b) Make a gender change conditional on a sex change.
Now there will be people in favour of one or other of these, but no political party is going anywhere near it. Because it's taking trans rights back decades.
Let's agree it's a non starter. I know you aren't arguing for it.
Leaving us back where we were. We DO have a conflict to resolve between sex and gender because we (legally) recognize transgenderism and we don't tie it to a sex change.
And then I think my framing works fine. What should the transition process be? What controls are needed? Should the default be trans exclusion or inclusion? What exceptions are needed either way?
Some people believe in gender. Many do not. It is like insisting that everyone has a soul. So we should not be trying to insist everyone has a gender.
What we should be doing is providing a route for those have gender dysphoria to change their legal status if they want to. That should not be conditional upon surgery (though it would in theory remove all the problems). Two reasons: (1) it is expensive, delayed, difficult & risky; (2) not everyone with dysphoria wants to transition physically.
What a change in legal status should be dependant on are 2 things: a medical diagnosis & proof & an intention that it's a permanent change. These are necessary to provide safeguards that the legal change is not abused by those who are not dysphoric at all.
Your legal status changes but if you retain the body you were born with you cannot have access to those places or situations where your physical body is relevant ie a man becoming a woman but retaining male genitalia does not get to be in a woman's rape refuge or changing room or loo. If they surgically transition they do.
(Sport is different: nothing can remove the advantages of male puberty so transgender sportspeople will have to have their own category or participate in their birth category in those sports where the physical body is relevant.)
That recognises the need for a legal gender change for those with this condition, builds in safeguards to prevent its abuse but recognises the importance of the physical body and keeps a male body out of female only spaces (and vice versa).
I fundamentally oppose a demedicalized process of changing gender. The issue only arises because there are people with this medical condition. So it is absolutely right that only those people with it should be able to do this. There is no basis at all for saying that anyone at all without gender dysphoria should be allowed to change gender for no reason at all, which is what self-ID means. None at all. Nor any need. A person can call themselves anything at all, wear what they want etc. A legal change is unnecessary. If anything self-ID is a bloody great loophole for those with evil intent.
Take for example the Scottish Bill. Under it a convicted sex offender in England could move to Scotland, change his name then declare he is a woman & after 3 months apply for a GRC & get it after a further 3 months. All his legal documents get changed at once. Now he/she can legally access places where women are. He/she of course is not a transgender person in any sense of the word.
The Scottish government was asked during consultation to put a block on sex offenders doing just this. And refused.
The current process is about right for something that is so significant & which affects others - spouses, children etc. The one thing which definitely does need considerable improvement is the time taken to get a medical diagnosis. But that is an issue of resources. Not law.
I'm more aligned with the Meeks view on this, which is broadly in line with you on an easier but still existent gender recognition process, with a little more, but not unfettered, flexibility on access to spaces.
Fundamentally, this separates out the definition of gender neutral or flexible spaces from women only spaces, toilets from prisons if you like.
A gender neutral toilet is not a novelty, they exist in small cafes, in our homes, in public spaces and stalls with shared washrooms in many countries. When you create a gender neutral toilet the mixing is immediate, any issues readily apparent, and good, robust study is possible. If the evidence says this has a positive effect for trans people with no aggregate disbenefit to the safety of women, just check the study is good and off you go.
Self-ID and prisons is a little more troublesome in this respect. On day 1 no trans people are in women's prisons, and nobody is trying to abuse the system. A study on day 1, day 100, might find no problem. Computer system exploits can lie undetected for years before becoming a massive deal, the knowledge of how the exploit can be used rather than the existence of the exploit is the key event.
Fundamentally, most opposition to self ID + access to women's spaces actually has absolutely nothing to do with trans people at all, it is about opposition to creating unregulated spaces and loopholes for non-trans abusers. And abusers do look for gaps, in 70s and, indeed later, children's homes, in the priesthood, abusers often turn up almost en masse in the most peculiar and fortuitous (for them) places, as if totally by chance. Would Jimmy Savile have been prepared to use loose self-ID rules to provide more opportunities for abuse? Rhetorical question: we know the answer.
Labour understood this - they are the party of the CRB check, little loved, by no means perfect or covering of all eventualities, clunky, but something that does a job of work and at least recognises how abusers operate. Applying a little of that thought process, whilst developing the best possible gender recognition process and ruleset for trans people themselves is exactly what a good Labour party should be about and I hope Labour settle to something along such lines.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
How many 1920s voters do you think are still alive, let alone on Twitter?
My comment was extremely dumb but it wasn't THAT extremely dumb
I was trying to work out - on the basis of that questionable map by The Hill - the mild correlation between those areas which "support" Smith and those which supported the Democrat candidate in the 1928 POTUS elex
As Cooke has educated me, it is almost certainly not ethnicity, or at least not in the way I supposed
But if this correlation is real, it is curious
The people who approve of The Slap on here tend to be Brexiteer types on the right. I noticed Scott Morrison in Oz also lending some sympathy to Smith
Maybe it is a GENDER thing. Or something else entirely.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Inverness was my first guess, although that's relatively small. Or Dundee.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Depending on your definitions and distances - Belfast, Hull, Aberdeen are also potentials.
Yes, those are good calls.
Basically, it seems that in order to have more than a quarter of a million people you need to have had either a port or a coal reserve.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
How many 1920s voters do you think are still alive, let alone on Twitter?
My comment was extremely dumb but it wasn't THAT extremely dumb
I was trying to work out - on the basis of that questionable map by The Hill - the mild correlation between those areas which "support" Smith and those which supported the Democrat candidate in the 1928 POTUS elex
As Cooke has educated me, it is almost certainly not ethnicity, or at least not in the way I supposed
But if this correlation is real, it is curious
The people who approve of The Slap on here tend to be Brexiteer types on the right. I noticed Scott Morrison in Oz also lending some sympathy to Smith
Maybe it is a GENDER thing. Or something else entirely.
My brother-in-law - who is not political, but is the voice of the common man - backs Smith. Based on this, until I hear otherwise, I will assume that backing Smith is the more common position.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Depending on your definitions and distances - Belfast, Hull, Aberdeen are also potentials.
Yes, those are good calls.
Basically, it seems that in order to have more than a quarter of a million people you need to have had either a port or a coal reserve.
On the port front, Liverpool? Is there any coalfield closer than the Wigan area ones?
EDIT: and them he looked at the coalfield map.
Even so, did they sink a mine head near Liverpool, he said, rowing?
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
It's the single worst bit of analysis I've seen on PB thus far.
"The young are dumber". Ahem.
Yes, not my finest hour
Never mind. If you can't speculate wildly on here, where can you do so?
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
How many 1920s voters do you think are still alive, let alone on Twitter?
My comment was extremely dumb but it wasn't THAT extremely dumb
I was trying to work out - on the basis of that questionable map by The Hill - the mild correlation between those areas which "support" Smith and those which supported the Democrat candidate in the 1928 POTUS elex
As Cooke has educated me, it is almost certainly not ethnicity, or at least not in the way I supposed
But if this correlation is real, it is curious
The people who approve of The Slap on here tend to be Brexiteer types on the right. I noticed Scott Morrison in Oz also lending some sympathy to Smith
Maybe it is a GENDER thing. Or something else entirely.
My brother-in-law - who is not political, but is the voice of the common man - backs Smith. Based on this, until I hear otherwise, I will assume that backing Smith is the more common position.
My friends divide about 90/10 Chris Rock over Team Smith, but they are an unusual bunch
I am genuinely intrigued by this. It's a bit like the Ukraine but marginally less depressing. Unexpected people have unexpected positions
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Depending on your definitions and distances - Belfast, Hull, Aberdeen are also potentials.
Yes, those are good calls.
Basically, it seems that in order to have more than a quarter of a million people you need to have had either a port or a coal reserve.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Depending on your definitions and distances - Belfast, Hull, Aberdeen are also potentials.
Yes, those are good calls.
Basically, it seems that in order to have more than a quarter of a million people you need to have had either a port or a coal reserve.
On the port front, Liverpool? Is there any coalfield closer than the Wigan area ones?
EDIT: and them he looked at the coalfield map.
Even so, did they sink a mine head near Liverpool, he said, rowing?
I think in the modern era the closest pits to Liverpool were between Huyton and St. Helens. So quite close.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Depending on your definitions and distances - Belfast, Hull, Aberdeen are also potentials.
Yes, those are good calls.
Basically, it seems that in order to have more than a quarter of a million people you need to have had either a port or a coal reserve.
Despite being by the sea, I don't think that Brighton and Hove - which is surprisingly large - counts as historically having a port (or a coal reserve obvs). It's basically just a Victorian seaside town which has kept growing...
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
How many 1920s voters do you think are still alive, let alone on Twitter?
My comment was extremely dumb but it wasn't THAT extremely dumb
I was trying to work out - on the basis of that questionable map by The Hill - the mild correlation between those areas which "support" Smith and those which supported the Democrat candidate in the 1928 POTUS elex
As Cooke has educated me, it is almost certainly not ethnicity, or at least not in the way I supposed
But if this correlation is real, it is curious
The people who approve of The Slap on here tend to be Brexiteer types on the right. I noticed Scott Morrison in Oz also lending some sympathy to Smith
Maybe it is a GENDER thing. Or something else entirely.
My brother-in-law - who is not political, but is the voice of the common man - backs Smith. Based on this, until I hear otherwise, I will assume that backing Smith is the more common position.
There actually IS a proper poll (of Americans). Superb
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Depending on your definitions and distances - Belfast, Hull, Aberdeen are also potentials.
Yes, those are good calls.
Basically, it seems that in order to have more than a quarter of a million people you need to have had either a port or a coal reserve.
Despite being by the sea, I don't think that Brighton and Hove - which is surprisingly large - counts as historically having a port (or a coal reserve obvs). It's basically just a Victorian seaside town which has kept growing...
Yes, well done. Not only growing, but absorbing its neighbour (i.e. Hove) - and that gets over the quarter of a million mark. Similarly Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. And the Blackpool urban area gets close.
Looking at the list of urban areas in the UK, the other examples which are not on coalfields and exceed quarter of a million are Preston and Teesside. (Teesside, of course, contains the Victorian seaside resorts of Redcar and Slatburn but I think it would be pushing it to say these are the reasons for its development.)
So the rule is you need to be a port, on a coalfield, a Victorian seaside resort, or be Preston or Teesside.
Which is not quite the geographical insight I thought I had discovered. (See @Leon ? Nothing wrong with a bit of wild speculation.)
NEW Defence Secretary @BWallaceMP says long range artillery and armoured vehicles (although not tanks) will be supplied to Ukraine as a result of today's donor conference.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
How many 1920s voters do you think are still alive, let alone on Twitter?
My comment was extremely dumb but it wasn't THAT extremely dumb
I was trying to work out - on the basis of that questionable map by The Hill - the mild correlation between those areas which "support" Smith and those which supported the Democrat candidate in the 1928 POTUS elex
As Cooke has educated me, it is almost certainly not ethnicity, or at least not in the way I supposed
But if this correlation is real, it is curious
The people who approve of The Slap on here tend to be Brexiteer types on the right. I noticed Scott Morrison in Oz also lending some sympathy to Smith
Maybe it is a GENDER thing. Or something else entirely.
My brother-in-law - who is not political, but is the voice of the common man - backs Smith. Based on this, until I hear otherwise, I will assume that backing Smith is the more common position.
There actually IS a proper poll (of Americans). Superb
Very narrowly favours Team Smith. Very interesting details: the poor, the young and the uneducated favour Smith. The older, smarter and richer: Rock
Also, women are noticeably more Smith, men are more Rock. That's intriguing
There is no correlation with politics, there is a slight correlation with ethnicity - whites are divided, blacks are Team Smith (to an extent)
That's interesting. That is actually the first really interesting - rather than entertaining - feature of the whole imbroglio. The poor/rich split is perhaps as you would expect (honour is a thing typically much more hotly defended by those who have little more than honour to defend), the male/female split isn't. The correlation with ethnicity may just be a feature of the correlation with poor/rich.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Depending on your definitions and distances - Belfast, Hull, Aberdeen are also potentials.
Yes, those are good calls.
Basically, it seems that in order to have more than a quarter of a million people you need to have had either a port or a coal reserve.
Despite being by the sea, I don't think that Brighton and Hove - which is surprisingly large - counts as historically having a port (or a coal reserve obvs). It's basically just a Victorian seaside town which has kept growing...
Yes, well done. Not only growing, but absorbing its neighbour (i.e. Hove) - and that gets over the quarter of a million mark. Similarly Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. And the Blackpool urban area gets close.
Looking at the list of urban areas in the UK, the other examples which are not on coalfields and exceed quarter of a million are Preston and Teesside. (Teesside, of course, contains the Victorian seaside resorts of Redcar and Slatburn but I think it would be pushing it to say these are the reasons for its development.)
So the rule is you need to be a port, on a coalfield, a Victorian seaside resort, or be Preston or Teesside.
Which is not quite the geographical insight I thought I had discovered. (See @Leon ? Nothing wrong with a bit of wild speculation.)
Isn't Teesside a port though? And Preston wasn't on a coalfield. But it was bloody close to a huge one. And another in Burnley. Preston was also historically a port. It only closed in 1982. After being one for centuries.
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Guy can certainly take one. You'd be impressed no?
I was impressed.
imo perhaps the main distinguishing difference, for example, between recreational (ie white collar) boxers and professionals or amateurs is the way they respond to being hit. White collar types are almost always stopped in their tracks and perhaps the red mist might descend; proper boxers don't even notice aside perhaps from realising they have left an opening, or putting themselves there to take it in order to counter.
Punters generally don't get hit in the face and if they do it prompts a reaction which was unlike Rock's. Perhaps, as @Dura noted, he has been slapped plenty of times.
The first time I was punched in the face full on as a discrete event rather than as part of some kind of melee or where my adrenalin wasn't high was at a football match (by a policeman - don't ask) and, as designed, it had the desired effect.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Depending on your definitions and distances - Belfast, Hull, Aberdeen are also potentials.
Yes, those are good calls.
Basically, it seems that in order to have more than a quarter of a million people you need to have had either a port or a coal reserve.
Despite being by the sea, I don't think that Brighton and Hove - which is surprisingly large - counts as historically having a port (or a coal reserve obvs). It's basically just a Victorian seaside town which has kept growing...
Yes, well done. Not only growing, but absorbing its neighbour (i.e. Hove) - and that gets over the quarter of a million mark. Similarly Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. And the Blackpool urban area gets close.
Looking at the list of urban areas in the UK, the other examples which are not on coalfields and exceed quarter of a million are Preston and Teesside. (Teesside, of course, contains the Victorian seaside resorts of Redcar and Slatburn but I think it would be pushing it to say these are the reasons for its development.)
So the rule is you need to be a port, on a coalfield, a Victorian seaside resort, or be Preston or Teesside.
Which is not quite the geographical insight I thought I had discovered. (See @Leon ? Nothing wrong with a bit of wild speculation.)
Hm, Teesside got an artificial reduction in the 15mi distance to coalfields unfairly early. Stockton & Darlington Rly.
Getting punched at rugby was routine but I'm not sure I'd take have kindly to being slapped. Not by another man - that would guarantee a rugby boot in the testicles. I can understand Smith doing it, but only if it was meant as an insult. Also punching someone in the face can damage your knuckles. I'm far too old now for that sort of nonsense.
Frau Merkel's reign is ageing less and less well. Closing down the nuclear options and attaching Germany's muzzle to the Soviet gas tit was a green triumph, no less.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Depending on your definitions and distances - Belfast, Hull, Aberdeen are also potentials.
Yes, those are good calls.
Basically, it seems that in order to have more than a quarter of a million people you need to have had either a port or a coal reserve.
Despite being by the sea, I don't think that Brighton and Hove - which is surprisingly large - counts as historically having a port (or a coal reserve obvs). It's basically just a Victorian seaside town which has kept growing...
Yes, well done. Not only growing, but absorbing its neighbour (i.e. Hove) - and that gets over the quarter of a million mark. Similarly Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. And the Blackpool urban area gets close.
Looking at the list of urban areas in the UK, the other examples which are not on coalfields and exceed quarter of a million are Preston and Teesside. (Teesside, of course, contains the Victorian seaside resorts of Redcar and Slatburn but I think it would be pushing it to say these are the reasons for its development.)
So the rule is you need to be a port, on a coalfield, a Victorian seaside resort, or be Preston or Teesside.
Which is not quite the geographical insight I thought I had discovered. (See @Leon ? Nothing wrong with a bit of wild speculation.)
Isn't Teesside a port though? And Preston wasn't on a coalfield. But it was bloody close to a huge one. And another in Burnley.
Yes, of course - slaps forehead. Of course it was. And as Carnyx notes, the S&D railway brought the coal close early.
But it is atypical of port towns and coalfield towns: I would argue that it grew as it did through iron steel and chemicals, comparatively late in the industrial revolution, and its location owes more to the location of iron ore in the Cleveland hills than anything else. Iron ore is just as hard to move as coal, if not more so - it's generally less costly to locate the manufacture close to the raw materials and export the finished goods, more so if the raw materials are heavy. But for the purposes of exporting the finished products the port location is also important. It didn't grow as a port-for-all-purposes like Liverpool or London or Southampton though.
And yes, Preston was close to the Lancashire coalfield; and also was a port, to a very limited extent. So maybe they can be included.
A map dividing America by those supporting Chris Rock and those on Team Smith
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Well good try - but there's not THAT much overlap. Four states appear on both maps, out of nine on the first and eight on the second.
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
It’s not as good as that famous coal mines Uk voting map. But still a curious echo
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Not sure whether you're being tongue-in-cheek? I'm not sure you got many black American voting at all in the south in the 1920s. It was, er, discouraged, I believe. And is Chris Rock not also black? (Granted many people may be making the same error that I initially did and confusing Chris Rock with Dwayne the Rock Johnson).
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Depending on your definitions and distances - Belfast, Hull, Aberdeen are also potentials.
Yes, those are good calls.
Basically, it seems that in order to have more than a quarter of a million people you need to have had either a port or a coal reserve.
Despite being by the sea, I don't think that Brighton and Hove - which is surprisingly large - counts as historically having a port (or a coal reserve obvs). It's basically just a Victorian seaside town which has kept growing...
Yes, well done. Not only growing, but absorbing its neighbour (i.e. Hove) - and that gets over the quarter of a million mark. Similarly Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. And the Blackpool urban area gets close.
Looking at the list of urban areas in the UK, the other examples which are not on coalfields and exceed quarter of a million are Preston and Teesside. (Teesside, of course, contains the Victorian seaside resorts of Redcar and Slatburn but I think it would be pushing it to say these are the reasons for its development.)
So the rule is you need to be a port, on a coalfield, a Victorian seaside resort, or be Preston or Teesside.
Which is not quite the geographical insight I thought I had discovered. (See @Leon ? Nothing wrong with a bit of wild speculation.)
Isn't Teesside a port though? And Preston wasn't on a coalfield. But it was bloody close to a huge one. And another in Burnley.
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Guy can certainly take one. You'd be impressed no?
I was impressed.
imo perhaps the main distinguishing difference, for example, between recreational (ie white collar) boxers and professionals or amateurs is the way they respond to being hit. White collar types are almost always stopped in their tracks and perhaps the red mist might descend; proper boxers don't even notice aside perhaps from realising they have left an opening, or putting themselves there to take it in order to counter.
Punters generally don't get hit in the face and if they do it prompts a reaction which was unlike Rock's. Perhaps, as @Dura noted, he has been slapped plenty of times.
The first time I was punched in the face full on as a discrete event rather than as part of some kind of melee or where my adrenalin wasn't high was at a football match (by a policeman - don't ask) and, as designed, it had the desired effect.
Last time I was hit was when I was about 19, when I made some unseemly (if flattering) remark about a girl's breasts. She slapped me hard, it was probably justified
I remember the total shock, tho I recovered quite quickly
The headline on the main Russian tabloid is currently "Mariupol is not Ukraine", so when they say they won't go to Ukraine, they first need to define Ukraine.
The Wisconsin GOP continue to plumb new lows. First heard about this months ago, didn't realise it was still ongoing. Appointee on fixed term has refused to leave the role for 11 months, GOP legislature refuses to allow replacement. This is now being replicated across multiple positions
NEW Defence Secretary @BWallaceMP says long range artillery and armoured vehicles (although not tanks) will be supplied to Ukraine as a result of today's donor conference.
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Guy can certainly take one. You'd be impressed no?
I was impressed.
imo perhaps the main distinguishing difference, for example, between recreational (ie white collar) boxers and professionals or amateurs is the way they respond to being hit. White collar types are almost always stopped in their tracks and perhaps the red mist might descend; proper boxers don't even notice aside perhaps from realising they have left an opening, or putting themselves there to take it in order to counter.
Punters generally don't get hit in the face and if they do it prompts a reaction which was unlike Rock's. Perhaps, as @Dura noted, he has been slapped plenty of times.
The first time I was punched in the face full on as a discrete event rather than as part of some kind of melee or where my adrenalin wasn't high was at a football match (by a policeman - don't ask) and, as designed, it had the desired effect.
Last time I was hit was when I was about 19, when I made some unseemly (if flattering) remark about a girl's breasts. She slapped me hard, it was probably justified
I remember the total shock, tho I recovered quite quickly
Taught me a lesson, probably the wrong lesson tho
I don't think I've ever been slapped but it "seems" like it would have an effect as you described.
People can be slapped, punched, kicked, all sorts and not feel or worry about a thing but that is usually when they are in the zone for it (mentally- either by necessity or voluntarily). The thing that struck me about Rock was that he was none of those things. Not ready for it, no adrenaline (perhaps save that of being on stage at the Oscars which might put you in some kind of zone, that said), and no reaction at all.
But as you linked, that backstage reaction looked 100% genuine.
The infamous "ideologist of the Russian World" Aleksandr Dugin has given a long interview to the Russian tabloid MK. If anyone in Russia has given up on capturing Kyiv, it is definitely not Dugin.
He says: Russia has been battling for Kyiv since the middle ages in a "conflict between Great Russians and the Galicians", so "Kyiv will be ours".
He says: "The siege of Kyiv is a battle for the unity of Eastern Slavs and the creation of a sovereign civilization of the Russian World, which is directed against the West."
He says: "We are waging an eschatological military operation, a special operation between Light and Darkness in the sitution of the end of times..."
He says: "Truth and God are on our side. We are fighting the absolute evil, embodied in Western civilization, its liberal-totalitarian hegemony, in Ukrainian Nazism..."
NEW Defence Secretary @BWallaceMP says long range artillery and armoured vehicles (although not tanks) will be supplied to Ukraine as a result of today's donor conference.
The infamous "ideologist of the Russian World" Aleksandr Dugin has given a long interview to the Russian tabloid MK. If anyone in Russia has given up on capturing Kyiv, it is definitely not Dugin.
He says: Russia has been battling for Kyiv since the middle ages in a "conflict between Great Russians and the Galicians", so "Kyiv will be ours".
He says: "The siege of Kyiv is a battle for the unity of Eastern Slavs and the creation of a sovereign civilization of the Russian World, which is directed against the West."
He says: "We are waging an eschatological military operation, a special operation between Light and Darkness in the sitution of the end of times..."
He says: "Truth and God are on our side. We are fighting the absolute evil, embodied in Western civilization, its liberal-totalitarian hegemony, in Ukrainian Nazism..."
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Guy can certainly take one. You'd be impressed no?
I was impressed.
imo perhaps the main distinguishing difference, for example, between recreational (ie white collar) boxers and professionals or amateurs is the way they respond to being hit. White collar types are almost always stopped in their tracks and perhaps the red mist might descend; proper boxers don't even notice aside perhaps from realising they have left an opening, or putting themselves there to take it in order to counter.
Punters generally don't get hit in the face and if they do it prompts a reaction which was unlike Rock's. Perhaps, as @Dura noted, he has been slapped plenty of times.
The first time I was punched in the face full on as a discrete event rather than as part of some kind of melee or where my adrenalin wasn't high was at a football match (by a policeman - don't ask) and, as designed, it had the desired effect.
Last time I was hit was when I was about 19, when I made some unseemly (if flattering) remark about a girl's breasts. She slapped me hard, it was probably justified
I remember the total shock, tho I recovered quite quickly
Taught me a lesson, probably the wrong lesson tho
Ha, I've just remembered being punched in the face by an ex-girlfriend at about that age who saw me snogging another woman in a nightclub. This was after ex-girlfriend had slapped another girl (a mutual friend) in an argument about whether ex-girlfriend should hit me. Which she did anyway. Fortunately, I was pretty drunk and therefore very relaxed indeed and my only reaction was a mildly quizzical expression. Which impressed new woman and infuriated ex-girlfriend still further. So a double win. She was a feisty one, that one. Interestingly I went on to be best man at her wedding and godfather to one of her sons.
Nathan Ruser continues to do stellar work on trying to map the situation on the ground. Red and blue are areas under control, white/grey represent loosely controlled/contested areas:
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Guy can certainly take one. You'd be impressed no?
I was impressed.
imo perhaps the main distinguishing difference, for example, between recreational (ie white collar) boxers and professionals or amateurs is the way they respond to being hit. White collar types are almost always stopped in their tracks and perhaps the red mist might descend; proper boxers don't even notice aside perhaps from realising they have left an opening, or putting themselves there to take it in order to counter.
Punters generally don't get hit in the face and if they do it prompts a reaction which was unlike Rock's. Perhaps, as @Dura noted, he has been slapped plenty of times.
The first time I was punched in the face full on as a discrete event rather than as part of some kind of melee or where my adrenalin wasn't high was at a football match (by a policeman - don't ask) and, as designed, it had the desired effect.
Last time I was hit was when I was about 19, when I made some unseemly (if flattering) remark about a girl's breasts. She slapped me hard, it was probably justified
I remember the total shock, tho I recovered quite quickly
Taught me a lesson, probably the wrong lesson tho
I don't think I've ever been slapped but it "seems" like it would have an effect as you described.
People can be slapped, punched, kicked, all sorts and not feel or worry about a thing but that is usually when they are in the zone for it (mentally- either by necessity or voluntarily). The thing that struck me about Rock was that he was none of those things. Not ready for it, no adrenaline (perhaps save that of being on stage at the Oscars which might put you in some kind of zone, that said), and no reaction at all.
But as you linked, that backstage reaction looked 100% genuine.
His composure afterwards - despite being obviously shocked and stunned - was phenomenal. I think he leaned into Smith because he genuinely thought it was some kind of joke or prank, so the blow was even more astonishing
Given his history of being bullied as a kid, being bullied again, live, at the Oscars, in front of 40 million worldwide viewers, might be harrowing. Photos of him since show him looking haunted
The Will Smith thing looks worse and worse in retrospect. His whole career tainted. It will probably be his epitaph. Madness
Why??
People will forget it in a week or still defend him on the basis "I'd be mad if someone insulted my partner" type nonsense. Mel Gibson still gets work, and many others.
More embarrassing is the phony apology from him and the hand wringing from the Academy about it. The truth lies in the action - if you're important enough you can assault people and people wont even care in the moment, let alone later. Even Guido reader polls knew better on this issue.
‘Fuck me. So If you’re white and you think Will Smith is a cock for punching someone then you’re anti black. Fuck off the Guardian, you socially-regressive, race-baiting rag.’
Well when you start from Thomas the Tank Engine is a tyrannical totalitarian nightmare full of classism, sexism, anti-environmentalism bordering on racism, this is where you end up....
I am not making this is up, the Guardian have published more than one article claiming this.
Have you read them? We are talking about a series where a character was bricked up alive for the sin of refusing to work here after all.
The Rev Awdry liked his fictional societies constructed so that everyone knew their place & that place was defined by their class & gender. This is surely uncontroversial stuff?
They're failing because you can have self-ID or single sex spaces. You cannot have both. They are unwilling to make a choice. Or have made a choice which they know will be unpopular and are trying to hide it.
Labour are trying to be all things to all women (however defined) and are failing. They will continue to do so.
Surely the fundamental conflict you raise is between the primacy of single sex spaces and having *any* legal route to gender change that doesn't involve mandatory surgery. It's not in essence about how hard or easy the process is (important though that is).
Unless a physical sex change is on the critical path to the legal gender change you are always going to have male-bodied trans women and thus be faced with picking one of the following approaches:
(a) Trans women *are* women - so they can access women's spaces. The default is inclusion. Exceptions possible but must be justified.
(b) Trans women are *not* women - so they cannot access women's spaces. The default is exclusion. Exceptions possible but must be justified.
Forgetting about how we might disagree on what the answer should be, that's a correct framing, isn't it?
No. Not trying to be difficult here but the framing you have to look at is whether sex-based exemptions should exist at all. In order to make sense of your framing you first have to decide where the concept of "womens' spaces" comes from. Otherwise your framing is meaningless.
Pre-the Equality act there was no such concept in law. It was a matter of social convention. Then you have the Equality Act which says that people should not be discriminated against on the grounds of sex ie equal treatment for everyone but then specifically excluded certain areas because of sex ie women only spaces for certain purposes where they can be justified.
Currently, the framing for such sex-based exemptions is like your (b) ie the default is no discrimination unless there is a legitimate reason to discriminate and the method used is proportionate to that aim.
Transwomen are excluded from those exemptions not because they are not treated as women (legally) (they are) but because their sex has not changed and those exemptions exist because sex is key to why they are needed. (Bluntly the GRA introduces a polite legal fiction but comes up against the material reality of sex when it comes to the exemptions in the Equality Act.)
The framing that is now being proposed is not about whether transwomen are or are not treated as women but about the removal of the sex-based exemptions. Your position - and those of Stonewall and other trans charities - is very explicitly that those sex-based exemptions (and indeed sex as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act) should be removed in their entirety. Therefore there would be no such thing as womens' spaces ie spaces for those of the female sex with a female body at all.
In short, the question of inclusion or exclusion ie whether a transwoman could go into a female loo would not arise because there would be no female only loos.
Right, thanks.
I'm not arguing for the removal of sex-based exemptions. I'm persuaded of the case for a more streamlined gender transition process - with controls and with suitable guidance/rules in place for certain areas such as sports and prisons where sex has to be taken into account. I think such a reform will help trans people without in practice hurting anybody else. That's where I am on this. I'm not a TRA or Stonewall accolyte. They wouldn't have me.
But what I wanted to explore (because I think it's important) is you saying this -
"You can have self-ID or single sex spaces. You can't have both."
As if the fundamental conflict is between those 2 things. Which I can't see that it is. Self-Id is shorthand for a quicker easier demedicalized legal transition process. It's just that - a process.
Whereas the core 'in theory' conflict is not about a process it's about something more elemental - the divergence between sex and gender and which of these should normally prevail.
The only way to remove that conflict - and avoid the difficult questions being batted around - is to not have a divergence between sex and gender. And there are 2 ways to do this -
(a) Remove the legal route to a gender change. (b) Make a gender change conditional on a sex change.
Now there will be people in favour of one or other of these, but no political party is going anywhere near it. Because it's taking trans rights back decades.
Let's agree it's a non starter. I know you aren't arguing for it.
Leaving us back where we were. We DO have a conflict to resolve between sex and gender because we (legally) recognize transgenderism and we don't tie it to a sex change.
And then I think my framing works fine. What should the transition process be? What controls are needed? Should the default be trans exclusion or inclusion? What exceptions are needed either way?
Some people believe in gender. Many do not. It is like insisting that everyone has a soul. So we should not be trying to insist everyone has a gender.
What we should be doing is providing a route for those have gender dysphoria to change their legal status if they want to. That should not be conditional upon surgery (though it would in theory remove all the problems). Two reasons: (1) it is expensive, delayed, difficult & risky; (2) not everyone with dysphoria wants to transition physically.
What a change in legal status should be dependant on are 2 things: a medical diagnosis & proof & an intention that it's a permanent change. These are necessary to provide safeguards that the legal change is not abused by those who are not dysphoric at all.
Your legal status changes but if you retain the body you were born with you cannot have access to those places or situations where your physical body is relevant ie a man becoming a woman but retaining male genitalia does not get to be in a woman's rape refuge or changing room or loo. If they surgically transition they do.
(Sport is different: nothing can remove the advantages of male puberty so transgender sportspeople will have to have their own category or participate in their birth category in those sports where the physical body is relevant.)
That recognises the need for a legal gender change for those with this condition, builds in safeguards to prevent its abuse but recognises the importance of the physical body and keeps a male body out of female only spaces (and vice versa).
I fundamentally oppose a demedicalized process of changing gender. The issue only arises because there are people with this medical condition. So it is absolutely right that only those people with it should be able to do this. There is no basis at all for saying that anyone at all without gender dysphoria should be allowed to change gender for no reason at all, which is what self-ID means. None at all. Nor any need. A person can call themselves anything at all, wear what they want etc. A legal change is unnecessary. If anything self-ID is a bloody great loophole for those with evil intent.
Take for example the Scottish Bill. Under it a convicted sex offender in England could move to Scotland, change his name then declare he is a woman & after 3 months apply for a GRC & get it after a further 3 months. All his legal documents get changed at once. Now he/she can legally access places where women are. He/she of course is not a transgender person in any sense of the word.
The Scottish government was asked during consultation to put a block on sex offenders doing just this. And refused.
The current process is about right for something that is so significant & which affects others - spouses, children etc. The one thing which definitely does need considerable improvement is the time taken to get a medical diagnosis. But that is an issue of resources. Not law.
None of this supports the assertion I was disputing - that Self-Id and single sex spaces cannot co-exist. They can. You can change the gender transition process but leave the law on single sex spaces alone. Or you can change the law on single sex spaces and leave the transition process alone. Or you can change both. Or neither. The one does not mandate the other. They are not necessarily linked. Neither practically nor conceptually.
And yes I know you oppose reforming the process so it becomes based more around self-Id. You think the benefits to trans people are outweighed by the risks to women due to likely abuse by bad actors. We disagree on this but I do get where you're coming from.
We've swapped overall takes a few times so can we instead look at this specific point of Female Spaces?
You argue that trans women who haven't had surgery should be excluded from women's toilets and changing rooms.
Questions on this if I may.
Would this be policed and if so how?
The transition process (as is) mandates living in your target gender for a time. If M/F, a key part of this is being able to navigate female spaces. How can you achieve this if you're prohibited from using them?
The headline on the main Russian tabloid is currently "Mariupol is not Ukraine", so when they say they won't go to Ukraine, they first need to define Ukraine.
The Russians are absolutely right that the conscripts won't go to Ukraine. We all know there really is no, nor ever was, a Ukraine.
The Will Smith thing looks worse and worse in retrospect. His whole career tainted. It will probably be his epitaph. Madness
Why??
People will forget it in a week or still defend him on the basis "I'd be mad if someone insulted my partner" type nonsense. Mel Gibson still gets work, and many others.
More embarrassing is the phony apology from him and the hand wringing from the Academy about it. The truth lies in the action - if you're important enough you can assault people and people wont even care in the moment, let alone later. Even Guido reader polls knew better on this issue.
‘Fuck me. So If you’re white and you think Will Smith is a cock for punching someone then you’re anti black. Fuck off the Guardian, you socially-regressive, race-baiting rag.’
Well when you start from Thomas the Tank Engine is a tyrannical totalitarian nightmare full of classism, sexism, anti-environmentalism bordering on racism, this is where you end up....
I am not making this is up, the Guardian have published more than one article claiming this.
Have you read them? We are talking about a series where a character was bricked up alive for the sin of refusing to work here after all.
The Rev Awdry liked his fictional societies constructed so that everyone knew their place & that place was defined by their class & gender. This is surely uncontroversial stuff?
Hm, yes, but the characters were trains. And I hope we do live in a world in which trains know their place.
The Will Smith thing looks worse and worse in retrospect. His whole career tainted. It will probably be his epitaph. Madness
Why??
People will forget it in a week or still defend him on the basis "I'd be mad if someone insulted my partner" type nonsense. Mel Gibson still gets work, and many others.
More embarrassing is the phony apology from him and the hand wringing from the Academy about it. The truth lies in the action - if you're important enough you can assault people and people wont even care in the moment, let alone later. Even Guido reader polls knew better on this issue.
‘Fuck me. So If you’re white and you think Will Smith is a cock for punching someone then you’re anti black. Fuck off the Guardian, you socially-regressive, race-baiting rag.’
Well when you start from Thomas the Tank Engine is a tyrannical totalitarian nightmare full of classism, sexism, anti-environmentalism bordering on racism, this is where you end up....
I am not making this is up, the Guardian have published more than one article claiming this.
Have you read them? We are talking about a series where a character was bricked up alive for the sin of refusing to work here after all.
The Rev Awdry liked his fictional societies constructed so that everyone knew their place & that place was defined by their class & gender. This is surely uncontroversial stuff?
Hm, yes, but the characters were trains. And I hope we do live in a world in which trains know their place.
What?!!! Oh, trains. I thought we were still on trans ...
The Will Smith thing looks worse and worse in retrospect. His whole career tainted. It will probably be his epitaph. Madness
Why??
People will forget it in a week or still defend him on the basis "I'd be mad if someone insulted my partner" type nonsense. Mel Gibson still gets work, and many others.
More embarrassing is the phony apology from him and the hand wringing from the Academy about it. The truth lies in the action - if you're important enough you can assault people and people wont even care in the moment, let alone later. Even Guido reader polls knew better on this issue.
‘Fuck me. So If you’re white and you think Will Smith is a cock for punching someone then you’re anti black. Fuck off the Guardian, you socially-regressive, race-baiting rag.’
Well when you start from Thomas the Tank Engine is a tyrannical totalitarian nightmare full of classism, sexism, anti-environmentalism bordering on racism, this is where you end up....
I am not making this is up, the Guardian have published more than one article claiming this.
Have you read them? We are talking about a series where a character was bricked up alive for the sin of refusing to work here after all.
The Rev Awdry liked his fictional societies constructed so that everyone knew their place & that place was defined by their class & gender. This is surely uncontroversial stuff?
Total bollox. They are sweet stories that have given huge pleasure to millions of kids. The problem with militant lefties is they are the mirror image of McCarthists: they desperately want to see what they hate in every innocent aspect of people's daily lives so they can say "ooooooo" and feign outrage. Actually probably more akin to a mirror of Mary Whitehouse and her so-called Viewers and Listeners Association. Small minded and sad with sexual repression thrown in for good measure
NEW Defence Secretary @BWallaceMP says long range artillery and armoured vehicles (although not tanks) will be supplied to Ukraine as a result of today's donor conference.
The Will Smith thing looks worse and worse in retrospect. His whole career tainted. It will probably be his epitaph. Madness
Why??
People will forget it in a week or still defend him on the basis "I'd be mad if someone insulted my partner" type nonsense. Mel Gibson still gets work, and many others.
More embarrassing is the phony apology from him and the hand wringing from the Academy about it. The truth lies in the action - if you're important enough you can assault people and people wont even care in the moment, let alone later. Even Guido reader polls knew better on this issue.
‘Fuck me. So If you’re white and you think Will Smith is a cock for punching someone then you’re anti black. Fuck off the Guardian, you socially-regressive, race-baiting rag.’
Well when you start from Thomas the Tank Engine is a tyrannical totalitarian nightmare full of classism, sexism, anti-environmentalism bordering on racism, this is where you end up....
I am not making this is up, the Guardian have published more than one article claiming this.
The Will Smith thing looks worse and worse in retrospect. His whole career tainted. It will probably be his epitaph. Madness
Why??
People will forget it in a week or still defend him on the basis "I'd be mad if someone insulted my partner" type nonsense. Mel Gibson still gets work, and many others.
More embarrassing is the phony apology from him and the hand wringing from the Academy about it. The truth lies in the action - if you're important enough you can assault people and people wont even care in the moment, let alone later. Even Guido reader polls knew better on this issue.
‘Fuck me. So If you’re white and you think Will Smith is a cock for punching someone then you’re anti black. Fuck off the Guardian, you socially-regressive, race-baiting rag.’
Well when you start from Thomas the Tank Engine is a tyrannical totalitarian nightmare full of classism, sexism, anti-environmentalism bordering on racism, this is where you end up....
I am not making this is up, the Guardian have published more than one article claiming this.
Have you read them? We are talking about a series where a character was bricked up alive for the sin of refusing to work here after all.
The Rev Awdry liked his fictional societies constructed so that everyone knew their place & that place was defined by their class & gender. This is surely uncontroversial stuff?
Hm, yes, but the characters were trains. And I hope we do live in a world in which trains know their place.
What?!!! Oh, trains. I thought we were still on trans ...
Always had my doubts about the strangely androgynous Percy the Small Engine...
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Guy can certainly take one. You'd be impressed no?
I was impressed.
imo perhaps the main distinguishing difference, for example, between recreational (ie white collar) boxers and professionals or amateurs is the way they respond to being hit. White collar types are almost always stopped in their tracks and perhaps the red mist might descend; proper boxers don't even notice aside perhaps from realising they have left an opening, or putting themselves there to take it in order to counter.
Punters generally don't get hit in the face and if they do it prompts a reaction which was unlike Rock's. Perhaps, as @Dura noted, he has been slapped plenty of times.
The first time I was punched in the face full on as a discrete event rather than as part of some kind of melee or where my adrenalin wasn't high was at a football match (by a policeman - don't ask) and, as designed, it had the desired effect.
Last time I was hit was when I was about 19, when I made some unseemly (if flattering) remark about a girl's breasts. She slapped me hard, it was probably justified
I remember the total shock, tho I recovered quite quickly
Taught me a lesson, probably the wrong lesson tho
I don't think I've ever been slapped but it "seems" like it would have an effect as you described.
People can be slapped, punched, kicked, all sorts and not feel or worry about a thing but that is usually when they are in the zone for it (mentally- either by necessity or voluntarily). The thing that struck me about Rock was that he was none of those things. Not ready for it, no adrenaline (perhaps save that of being on stage at the Oscars which might put you in some kind of zone, that said), and no reaction at all.
But as you linked, that backstage reaction looked 100% genuine.
His composure afterwards - despite being obviously shocked and stunned - was phenomenal. I think he leaned into Smith because he genuinely thought it was some kind of joke or prank, so the blow was even more astonishing
Given his history of being bullied as a kid, being bullied again, live, at the Oscars, in front of 40 million worldwide viewers, might be harrowing. Photos of him since show him looking haunted
I agree completely. He was assaulted and humiliated (which is often the point with such a bullying incident - not that it hurts, so much as that you won't dare respond), and has to put up with people excusing it all (he may even want to just get past it himself), but kept on with the show.
The Will Smith thing looks worse and worse in retrospect. His whole career tainted. It will probably be his epitaph. Madness
Why??
People will forget it in a week or still defend him on the basis "I'd be mad if someone insulted my partner" type nonsense. Mel Gibson still gets work, and many others.
More embarrassing is the phony apology from him and the hand wringing from the Academy about it. The truth lies in the action - if you're important enough you can assault people and people wont even care in the moment, let alone later. Even Guido reader polls knew better on this issue.
‘Fuck me. So If you’re white and you think Will Smith is a cock for punching someone then you’re anti black. Fuck off the Guardian, you socially-regressive, race-baiting rag.’
Well when you start from Thomas the Tank Engine is a tyrannical totalitarian nightmare full of classism, sexism, anti-environmentalism bordering on racism, this is where you end up....
I am not making this is up, the Guardian have published more than one article claiming this.
Have you read them? We are talking about a series where a character was bricked up alive for the sin of refusing to work here after all.
The Rev Awdry liked his fictional societies constructed so that everyone knew their place & that place was defined by their class & gender. This is surely uncontroversial stuff?
Hm, yes, but the characters were trains. And I hope we do live in a world in which trains know their place.
What?!!! Oh, trains. I thought we were still on trans ...
Always had my doubts about the strangely androgynous Percy the Small Engine...
Percy the Small Engine is a thin disguise for Putin the small Put-in.
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Guy can certainly take one. You'd be impressed no?
I was impressed.
imo perhaps the main distinguishing difference, for example, between recreational (ie white collar) boxers and professionals or amateurs is the way they respond to being hit. White collar types are almost always stopped in their tracks and perhaps the red mist might descend; proper boxers don't even notice aside perhaps from realising they have left an opening, or putting themselves there to take it in order to counter.
Punters generally don't get hit in the face and if they do it prompts a reaction which was unlike Rock's. Perhaps, as @Dura noted, he has been slapped plenty of times.
The first time I was punched in the face full on as a discrete event rather than as part of some kind of melee or where my adrenalin wasn't high was at a football match (by a policeman - don't ask) and, as designed, it had the desired effect.
Last time I was hit was when I was about 19, when I made some unseemly (if flattering) remark about a girl's breasts. She slapped me hard, it was probably justified
I remember the total shock, tho I recovered quite quickly
Taught me a lesson, probably the wrong lesson tho
I don't think I've ever been slapped but it "seems" like it would have an effect as you described.
People can be slapped, punched, kicked, all sorts and not feel or worry about a thing but that is usually when they are in the zone for it (mentally- either by necessity or voluntarily). The thing that struck me about Rock was that he was none of those things. Not ready for it, no adrenaline (perhaps save that of being on stage at the Oscars which might put you in some kind of zone, that said), and no reaction at all.
But as you linked, that backstage reaction looked 100% genuine.
His composure afterwards - despite being obviously shocked and stunned - was phenomenal. I think he leaned into Smith because he genuinely thought it was some kind of joke or prank, so the blow was even more astonishing
Given his history of being bullied as a kid, being bullied again, live, at the Oscars, in front of 40 million worldwide viewers, might be harrowing. Photos of him since show him looking haunted
I agree completely. He was assaulted and humiliated (which is often the point with such a bullying incident - not that it hurts, so much as that you won't dare respond), and has to put up with people excusing it all (he may even want to just get past it himself), but kept on with the show.
As others have pointed out, to make it worse, no one approached Rock to see if he was OK. The guy has just been publicly assaulted, and everyone simply sat there. So he got on with the job.
Then Rock had to watch his assailant come up and take his Oscar, make a self pitying speech (without apologising to Rock) and then receive a standing ovation. That's quite fucked up
It also turns out that the Academy made no attempt to eject Smith (as someone suggested downthread - the Academy lied about this later to conceal their incompetence). There was, apparently, a furious debate about Smith's continued presence, but in the end the only thing that happened was some senior dude went up to Smith and asked him if HE was alright to carry on
What a sordid mess
Not a big deal in the wider scheme but it does not shine a fine light on celebrity culture, despite all the efforts they have supposedly made
Looking and looking at it and without the effing and jeffing afterwards from Smith it all looked like a stunt. Rock leaning forward and remarkably unfazed by the actual slap. An unexpected slap to the face is a deeply discombobulating thing and Rock didn't miss a beat.
The swearing and the feud suggests it was real but it didn't otherwise look it.
Guy can certainly take one. You'd be impressed no?
I was impressed.
imo perhaps the main distinguishing difference, for example, between recreational (ie white collar) boxers and professionals or amateurs is the way they respond to being hit. White collar types are almost always stopped in their tracks and perhaps the red mist might descend; proper boxers don't even notice aside perhaps from realising they have left an opening, or putting themselves there to take it in order to counter.
Punters generally don't get hit in the face and if they do it prompts a reaction which was unlike Rock's. Perhaps, as @Dura noted, he has been slapped plenty of times.
The first time I was punched in the face full on as a discrete event rather than as part of some kind of melee or where my adrenalin wasn't high was at a football match (by a policeman - don't ask) and, as designed, it had the desired effect.
This is why I fight the bag. It can't hit me back.
Comments
Mortgages and not rent, petrol and not public transport.
It's clear Starmer's Labour doesn't give a flying **** about the CHBs of this land.,
A map of the 1928 Hoover-Smith POTUS election
Women born as women get to do whatever it is that they do too
Any others - just do what you do and it's fine. Don't try to be man or woman though, because you're not, and that is precisely you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5c5aaRKf8g
He has 100s millions views on YouTube / Facebook etc, and basically every night he does are sold out well in advance with people knowing they are going to get ripped to shreds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pike:_Gabriele_D'Annunzio,_Poet,_Seducer_and_Preacher_of_War
Appalling and compelling by turns
When he was an MP in Rome he styled himself “the Honourable Tribune for the Constituency of Love”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10666393/Chris-Rock-opened-bullied-letting-people-walk-recent-podcast.html
The whole Will Smith thing doesn’t get any better on examination. Apparently Smith was asked to leave - and simply refused
This must be one for yougov - they've got so much data that we must be able to find some spurious correlations. Do people who prefer Trad Jazz support Rock and those who prefer modern jazz support Smith? Do people who prefer scrambled eggs prefer Rock and those who prefer boiled Smith? Come on yougov - this is surely what you are for.
I don't think I've ever been punched by an adult male apart from in the limited context of a rugby match, when the blood is already up. Even then it's very rare, unless you're playing Widnes Sixth Form College.
Presumably it’s black Americans who voted democrat in the 1920s and support famous black actor Will Smith now?
However the methodology of the first map is dodgy. A sample of tweets and hashtags. So caveat emptor
Something he has in common with Boris "Partygate" Johnson.
"The young are dumber". Ahem.
@JimmySecUK
Well that's just a lie. A UN report described the Aleppo evacuations that were overseen by the ICRC as a "war crime" of "forced displacement".
@ICRC
To reiterate - we would never support any evacuation to anywhere that is against what people want.
We have never done this.
Our role is to help those who want to leave, to do so safely.
https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1509538950716735488
Still, it would be fascinating to get some actual data on who supports whom on this.
The coal mining map is very good. Though obviously correlation <> causation. A question I often ponder: after London, what is Britain's biggest city more than, say, 15 miles from a coalfield? Possibly Plymouth? The reason being, I suppose, is that coalfields allow industry, which in turn attracts population growth. And which leads to dense cities, which leads to labour votes even after the mining has long gone.
Not going to kill you immediately... but highly likely to cause long term problems.
In England, Norwich?
As for the black vote in the South, they weren't all (scandalously) disenfranchised, I don't think
However - upon Googling - it seems that most were still Republican, anyway, they only shifted Democrat later.
My knowledge of historic US black voting preferences is poor. Apols. I presume they were Republican because Lincoln was a Republican
As for the Oscar’s brass asking him to leave but he refused. Sounds like a load of billy bullshit to me. They’ve got security haven’t they? I imagine it was more “are you feeling ok to remain in the auditorium sir?”.
Of course they should have forcibly ejected him, and fellow nominee Denzel Washington could have given the speech on his behalf instead. Would’ve been better for everyone actually.
Fundamentally, this separates out the definition of gender neutral or flexible spaces from women only spaces, toilets from prisons if you like.
A gender neutral toilet is not a novelty, they exist in small cafes, in our homes, in public spaces and stalls with shared washrooms in many countries. When you create a gender neutral toilet the mixing is immediate, any issues readily apparent, and good, robust study is possible. If the evidence says this has a positive effect for trans people with no aggregate disbenefit to the safety of women, just check the study is good and off you go.
Self-ID and prisons is a little more troublesome in this respect. On day 1 no trans people are in women's prisons, and nobody is trying to abuse the system. A study on day 1, day 100, might find no problem. Computer system exploits can lie undetected for years before becoming a massive deal, the knowledge of how the exploit can be used rather than the existence of the exploit is the key event.
Fundamentally, most opposition to self ID + access to women's spaces actually has absolutely nothing to do with trans people at all, it is about opposition to creating unregulated spaces and loopholes for non-trans abusers. And abusers do look for gaps, in 70s and, indeed later, children's homes, in the priesthood, abusers often turn up almost en masse in the most peculiar and fortuitous (for them) places, as if totally by chance. Would Jimmy Savile have been prepared to use loose self-ID rules to provide more opportunities for abuse? Rhetorical question: we know the answer.
Labour understood this - they are the party of the CRB check, little loved, by no means perfect or covering of all eventualities, clunky, but something that does a job of work and at least recognises how abusers operate. Applying a little of that thought process, whilst developing the best possible gender recognition process and ruleset for trans people themselves is exactly what a good Labour party should be about and I hope Labour settle to something along such lines.
I was trying to work out - on the basis of that questionable map by The Hill - the mild correlation between those areas which "support" Smith and those which supported the Democrat candidate in the 1928 POTUS elex
As Cooke has educated me, it is almost certainly not ethnicity, or at least not in the way I supposed
But if this correlation is real, it is curious
The people who approve of The Slap on here tend to be Brexiteer types on the right. I noticed Scott Morrison in Oz also lending some sympathy to Smith
Maybe it is a GENDER thing. Or something else entirely.
This map is quite fun. I had no idea there was a Munster coalfield.
https://www.nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/coal-mining-in-the-british-isles/
Basically, it seems that in order to have more than a quarter of a million people you need to have had either a port or a coal reserve.
EDIT: and them he looked at the coalfield map.
Even so, did they sink a mine head near Liverpool, he said, rowing?
I am genuinely intrigued by this. It's a bit like the Ukraine but marginally less depressing. Unexpected people have unexpected positions
So I'm off to the pub instead. Hopefully no fighting.
https://twitter.com/davidshor/status/1508774997246058502
Very narrowly favours Team Smith. Very interesting details: the poor, the young and the uneducated favour Smith. The older, smarter and richer: Rock
Also, women are noticeably more Smith, men are more Rock. That's intriguing
There is no correlation with politics, there is a slight correlation with ethnicity - whites are divided, blacks are Team Smith (to an extent)
Similarly Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. And the Blackpool urban area gets close.
Looking at the list of urban areas in the UK, the other examples which are not on coalfields and exceed quarter of a million are Preston and Teesside. (Teesside, of course, contains the Victorian seaside resorts of Redcar and Slatburn but I think it would be pushing it to say these are the reasons for its development.)
So the rule is you need to be a port, on a coalfield, a Victorian seaside resort, or be Preston or Teesside.
Which is not quite the geographical insight I thought I had discovered. (See @Leon ? Nothing wrong with a bit of wild speculation.)
https://twitter.com/carldinnen/status/1509553524824326150
The poor/rich split is perhaps as you would expect (honour is a thing typically much more hotly defended by those who have little more than honour to defend), the male/female split isn't.
The correlation with ethnicity may just be a feature of the correlation with poor/rich.
Cases - Down. Looks like we are at the peak here.
In Hospital - UP
MV Beds - UP
Admissions - UP. R is still flat at 1.1
Deaths - UP
And Preston wasn't on a coalfield. But it was bloody close to a huge one. And another in Burnley.
Preston was also historically a port. It only closed in 1982. After being one for centuries.
imo perhaps the main distinguishing difference, for example, between recreational (ie white collar) boxers and professionals or amateurs is the way they respond to being hit. White collar types are almost always stopped in their tracks and perhaps the red mist might descend; proper boxers don't even notice aside perhaps from realising they have left an opening, or putting themselves there to take it in order to counter.
Punters generally don't get hit in the face and if they do it prompts a reaction which was unlike Rock's. Perhaps, as @Dura noted, he has been slapped plenty of times.
The first time I was punched in the face full on as a discrete event rather than as part of some kind of melee or where my adrenalin wasn't high was at a football match (by a policeman - don't ask) and, as designed, it had the desired effect.
https://twitter.com/phildstewart/status/1509531545891078154
Sounds as though he's planning to settle in for the long haul, then.
Frau Merkel's reign is ageing less and less well. Closing down the nuclear options and attaching Germany's muzzle to the Soviet gas tit was a green triumph, no less.
But it is atypical of port towns and coalfield towns: I would argue that it grew as it did through iron steel and chemicals, comparatively late in the industrial revolution, and its location owes more to the location of iron ore in the Cleveland hills than anything else. Iron ore is just as hard to move as coal, if not more so - it's generally less costly to locate the manufacture close to the raw materials and export the finished goods, more so if the raw materials are heavy. But for the purposes of exporting the finished products the port location is also important.
It didn't grow as a port-for-all-purposes like Liverpool or London or Southampton though.
And yes, Preston was close to the Lancashire coalfield; and also was a port, to a very limited extent. So maybe they can be included.
I remember the total shock, tho I recovered quite quickly
Taught me a lesson, probably the wrong lesson tho
https://twitter.com/prowag/status/1509502046570954756
People can be slapped, punched, kicked, all sorts and not feel or worry about a thing but that is usually when they are in the zone for it (mentally- either by necessity or voluntarily). The thing that struck me about Rock was that he was none of those things. Not ready for it, no adrenaline (perhaps save that of being on stage at the Oscars which might put you in some kind of zone, that said), and no reaction at all.
But as you linked, that backstage reaction looked 100% genuine.
The infamous "ideologist of the Russian World" Aleksandr Dugin has given a long interview to the Russian tabloid MK. If anyone in Russia has given up on capturing Kyiv, it is definitely not Dugin.
He says: Russia has been battling for Kyiv since the middle ages in a "conflict between Great Russians and the Galicians", so "Kyiv will be ours".
He says: "The siege of Kyiv is a battle for the unity of Eastern Slavs and the creation of a sovereign civilization of the Russian World, which is directed against the West."
He says: "We are waging an eschatological military operation, a special operation between Light and Darkness in the sitution of the end of times..."
He says: "Truth and God are on our side. We are fighting the absolute evil, embodied in Western civilization, its liberal-totalitarian hegemony, in Ukrainian Nazism..."
It's been shit.
T64s - You 'ad T64s?
Luuuuuuuuuxurrrryyyyyyy
We had to invade Ukraine with T18s. Made of cheese.
{/Fake Yorkshire Accent}
Seriously - looking at the losses, tons of T55s.
She was a feisty one, that one. Interestingly I went on to be best man at her wedding and godfather to one of her sons.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPLlzIcaUAIPdC9?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
His gif on changes in the last week (2nd map down in the thread) is particularly useful.
https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/1509520929084547073
Given his history of being bullied as a kid, being bullied again, live, at the Oscars, in front of 40 million worldwide viewers, might be harrowing. Photos of him since show him looking haunted
The chancellor compared his feelings to those of film star Will Smith, whose own wife was mocked at the Oscars.
But he joked: "At least I didn't get up and slap anybody, which is good."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60941902
Not having a good war
The Rev Awdry liked his fictional societies constructed so that everyone knew their place & that place was defined by their class & gender. This is surely uncontroversial stuff?
And yes I know you oppose reforming the process so it becomes based more around self-Id. You think the benefits to trans people are outweighed by the risks to women due to likely abuse by bad actors. We disagree on this but I do get where you're coming from.
We've swapped overall takes a few times so can we instead look at this specific point of Female Spaces?
You argue that trans women who haven't had surgery should be excluded from women's toilets and changing rooms.
Questions on this if I may.
Would this be policed and if so how?
The transition process (as is) mandates living in your target gender for a time. If M/F, a key part of this is being able to navigate female spaces. How can you achieve this if you're prohibited from using them?
Robert Habeck told local broadcaster ZDF that there will be costs for the German society but the price is incomparable to the sufferings in Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1509506498195509250
Encouraging.
Delay repay time!
Then Rock had to watch his assailant come up and take his Oscar, make a self pitying speech (without apologising to Rock) and then receive a standing ovation. That's quite fucked up
It also turns out that the Academy made no attempt to eject Smith (as someone suggested downthread - the Academy lied about this later to conceal their incompetence). There was, apparently, a furious debate about Smith's continued presence, but in the end the only thing that happened was some senior dude went up to Smith and asked him if HE was alright to carry on
What a sordid mess
Not a big deal in the wider scheme but it does not shine a fine light on celebrity culture, despite all the efforts they have supposedly made