Shapps is probably also a “One Nation Tory” if we are counting. Albeit a slightly raffish example of the type
Ugh, he's a ghastly grammar schoolboy.
This one nation Tory cannot vote for him.
It’s not a direct read-across, the class aspect.
But it is notable that the post-Thatcherite thing I wrote about tends to be a lower middle class thing (as is Brexit).
True patricians tend to be One Nationers, yes.
++++++++
Really not true. As a Kiwi you are by definition at best middle middle class. Bourgeois with aspirations if you’re lucky
The richest, poshest people I know - and I am talking vastly wealthy and incredibly posh - are all Leave. Like the Queen
Above is by Leon (IIRC) blockquote thingy didn't work for some reason, rest is SSI
Perhaps IF the Conservatives had NOT sold Heligoland and the loyal Heligolanders to Kaiser Bill for a pound of past-due Braunschweiger and a slightly-used dirndl, of a size that could NEVER have fit QV) then maybe her great-great-granddaughter QEII would be of a more European mind-set? Seeing as how she clearly cherishes 99.46% of the Commonwealth and remaining bits & pieces of palm and pine remaining to her direct sovereignty. As opposed to her indirect suzerainty. (Whatever THAT means.)
Re: the one-percenters at the top of the greasy poll net-worth-wise, based on a few occasional sightings, am guessing there is a wide variety, depending in part of national culture, society and wealth, plus individual connections & predilections? In other words, small sample with high randomization.
On a personal level, any way you might be able to introduce a fellow PBer to some of the more charming, intelligent, good-hearted, warm-blooded AND near-sighted women of quasi-appropriate age? For mutual-enjoyable discussions on wide range of psephelogical topics, for example possible affects of Ranked-Choice Voting in future Montenegrin municipal elections.
I have a feeling that, were it not for The Fall of Boris, the clusterfuck that is American politics atm, and Ukraine, we'd all be obsessing about Sri Lanka.
Utterly off topic, if your flavour of Netflix currently has High Plains Drifter on it watch the first 3 minutes just to see Clint's horse. Horses in westerns are usually completely unschooled kick n go types, this one looks like an advanced eventer. Walks down hill so nicely I am tempted to show it to my horses as an example to follow, then canters through a graveyard doing tempi changes between each tombstone.
Whole film is worth seeing actually, though John Wayne thought it was so nasty he declined ever to work with CE.
High Plains Drifter is a great deconstruction of the Western genre. That's my pet theory as to why Wayne hated it so much. It hit him in the goolies and he had no reply to it.
The more I think about Kemi for PM, the more I like it.
She’s an intelligent, articulate, charismatic, attractive, young, Conservative, black woman. She castrates so many of the traditional attacks against the “traditional” Conservative Party, while still being impressive enough to have been picked on merit.
It might be too soon for her, but if the Tories want a proper break from Boris/Eton/Oxford they could do a hell of a lot worse.
Essex seat. What's her views on levelling up the North?
She was the Minister for Levelling Up.
Doesn't really answer my question
Her whole platform is about reducing the size of the state so, no, she is not a leveller upper.
Well, unless she's planning to massively cut spending in the south-east and allocate remaining state resources elsewhere. I doubt it somehow.
If you’re Shapps, you sort of have to stand to keep a seat in Cabinet afterwards I think.
Is that fair? Shapps's main problem is he looks about 12, rather than any egregious cock-ups in government that I can recall. Good enough to be a minister but not PM material.
He does always remind me of a little boy who's made a mess of his parents cupboards, got dressed up in his fathers suit then been found and scolded by his mother.
Her day in the sun at least. Sunak yesterday - the one to beat. Kemi today - the newcomer. Truss tomorrow - the members choice.
Interesting to see if Badenoch gets the 'fresh candidate' momentum.
Aren’t Kemi and Suella fishing in the same pool to some extent? I think if one of them wants to at least be assured of making the ballot and serving up a respectable performance one will have to make way (Suella).
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Sex is one of those things that proves we're all capitalists, and proves the ruthlessness of capitalism at the same time.
In sex, there's no redistribution. There's no "look at those poor people over there, they aren't getting any, we should take some partners off the people who are getting loads and give them to the poor deprived people." We lionise the billionares of the sex world. The most beautiful. The most active. The most - dare I say it - privileged.
I'm not saying I disagree with any of that, by the way. Just making the point that even the staunchest communist, who would be willing to redistribute income, food, housing, practically everything else to make people equal - would find the idea of sexual "equality" absurd.
Without commenting on the substance of what you're saying, redistribution and capitalism go together quite nicely. Capitalism does not imply a lack of redistribution, and, I firmly believe, cannot possibly survive without redistribution.
Which is why our attitudes to sex are all the more remarkable. The sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalism, rapacious capitalism, ayn-rand-style-tyranny-of-the-market-capitalism.
The idea of redistribution in the sexual marketplace is repugnant to us. The notion of coercion, abhorrent. We are happy to have 40% of our incomes taken off us, but 40% of our sexual partners given to those unluckier in love than we are would be ridiculous.
The sexual marketplace accepts absolutely zero compulsion, whether that's being forced to sleep with an ugly person, or a person whose bits you aren't attracted to.
As I say, it says something fascinating about human nature.
Vive.
One corollary for a happy society. The big rule which arises from this in decent societies is to maximally apply the convention of, in the long run, one man each and one woman each, whether serially or for life.
In stable societies this gives opportunity for the awkward, the ugly, the dim, the shy, the different etc. There being about equal numbers of all these across genders. Look around you. It usually works.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you there. In olden days, when you had to go to bars, or even older, when you were more or less societally expected to marry the girl you met at the village dance and have babies at 21, it was probably a lot easier for people to find partners.
But now we live in a world where, pretty much anyone with a phone anywhere in the world can set up an instagram account (or tinder, if you must), post a couple of selfies and, if they're hot enough, will have dozens of potential suitors within the hour.
Same for those in a break-up. Set up a new account, have a half dozen potential candidates in your DMs an hour later. All without lifting a finger.
Of course if you're not hot enough, you can post dozens of selfies, and have nothing back for weeks, months, or even years. Which is where the whole incel thing comes from. People who have essentially been rejected by the entire world (and who are too fat and lazy to join a gym).
But this is what I mean when I say that the sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalistic. You may not like it, you may not agree with it - but you can't deny how human beings behave when given the opportunity.
I would never try to meet anyone using online tools. Too toxic.
The more I think about Kemi for PM, the more I like it.
She’s an intelligent, articulate, charismatic, attractive, young, Conservative, black woman. She castrates so many of the traditional attacks against the “traditional” Conservative Party, while still being impressive enough to have been picked on merit.
It might be too soon for her, but if the Tories want a proper break from Boris/Eton/Oxford they could do a hell of a lot worse.
Essex seat. What's her views on levelling up the North?
She was the Minister for Levelling Up.
Doesn't really answer my question
Her whole platform is about reducing the size of the state so, no, she is not a leveller upper.
Well, unless she's planning to massively cut spending in the south-east and allocate remaining state resources elsewhere. I doubt it somehow.
The Level Uppers are Shapps and I think Mordaunt. Tugendhat and Hunt at a push.
Shapps cut HS2 because he lost an argument with Treasury.
I have a feeling that, were it not for The Fall of Boris, the clusterfuck that is American politics atm, and Ukraine, we'd all be obsessing about Sri Lanka.
I think we should see how the PB votes are piling up for the Tory leadership contest.
I've only been counting Kemi declarations and I'm up to three (me, @wooliedyed and @Andy_JS )
Yes indeedy! The Kemi kids are the cool kids for sure. The Tories have a chance here, to ditch the privilege, money, stale Eton and Oxford establishment party they are and aim for freshness, youth, vibrancy, the party of dynamism. Rishi is too rich to be PM durimg economic misery. He will become a lightning rod for anger beyond ths usual. Like puffy faced well fed twat Cameron and his 'all in it together' nonsense
I have a feeling that, were it not for The Fall of Boris, the clusterfuck that is American politics atm, and Ukraine, we'd all be obsessing about Sri Lanka.
Utterly off topic, if your flavour of Netflix currently has High Plains Drifter on it watch the first 3 minutes just to see Clint's horse. Horses in westerns are usually completely unschooled kick n go types, this one looks like an advanced eventer. Walks down hill so nicely I am tempted to show it to my horses as an example to follow, then canters through a graveyard doing tempi changes between each tombstone.
Whole film is worth seeing actually, though John Wayne thought it was so nasty he declined ever to work with CE.
High Plains Drifter is a great deconstruction of the Western genre. That's my pet theory as to why Wayne hated it so much. It hit him in the goolies and he had no reply to it.
If I had to pick one of the right-wingers it would be Javid (who voted against Brexit and shows signs of learning) or Kemi (who has pulled herself up through sheet vim).
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Sex is one of those things that proves we're all capitalists, and proves the ruthlessness of capitalism at the same time.
In sex, there's no redistribution. There's no "look at those poor people over there, they aren't getting any, we should take some partners off the people who are getting loads and give them to the poor deprived people." We lionise the billionares of the sex world. The most beautiful. The most active. The most - dare I say it - privileged.
I'm not saying I disagree with any of that, by the way. Just making the point that even the staunchest communist, who would be willing to redistribute income, food, housing, practically everything else to make people equal - would find the idea of sexual "equality" absurd.
Without commenting on the substance of what you're saying, redistribution and capitalism go together quite nicely. Capitalism does not imply a lack of redistribution, and, I firmly believe, cannot possibly survive without redistribution.
Which is why our attitudes to sex are all the more remarkable. The sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalism, rapacious capitalism, ayn-rand-style-tyranny-of-the-market-capitalism.
The idea of redistribution in the sexual marketplace is repugnant to us. The notion of coercion, abhorrent. We are happy to have 40% of our incomes taken off us, but 40% of our sexual partners given to those unluckier in love than we are would be ridiculous.
The sexual marketplace accepts absolutely zero compulsion, whether that's being forced to sleep with an ugly person, or a person whose bits you aren't attracted to.
As I say, it says something fascinating about human nature.
Vive.
One corollary for a happy society. The big rule which arises from this in decent societies is to maximally apply the convention of, in the long run, one man each and one woman each, whether serially or for life.
In stable societies this gives opportunity for the awkward, the ugly, the dim, the shy, the different etc. There being about equal numbers of all these across genders. Look around you. It usually works.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you there. In olden days, when you had to go to bars, or even older, when you were more or less societally expected to marry the girl you met at the village dance and have babies at 21, it was probably a lot easier for people to find partners.
But now we live in a world where, pretty much anyone with a phone anywhere in the world can set up an instagram account (or tinder, if you must), post a couple of selfies and, if they're hot enough, will have dozens of potential suitors within the hour.
Same for those in a break-up. Set up a new account, have a half dozen potential candidates in your DMs an hour later. All without lifting a finger.
Of course if you're not hot enough, you can post dozens of selfies, and have nothing back for weeks, months, or even years. Which is where the whole incel thing comes from. People who have essentially been rejected by the entire world (and who are too fat and lazy to join a gym).
But this is what I mean when I say that the sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalistic. You may not like it, you may not agree with it - but you can't deny how human beings behave when given the opportunity.
it’s very dangerous tho. A society where 10% of men sleep with 500 partners in a lifetime, and 50% of men get lZERO partners in a life, is a society headed for terrible trouble. It is, as you say, a kind of perverse hyper capitalism, where the 1% live in ultra luxury and half of society can barely feed themselves
Normally, we would intervene to correct these imbalances. The rich pay taxes so the poor don’t starve, for the benefit of all, but how does that work here?
You're not wrong. The woman-hating incels are the most visible problem (to use an economic term - externality?) you get from a hyper-capitalistic globalised sexual marketplace.
But I dare say there's an awful lot of young men who aren't misogynists who just switch off - can't get a girl, can't afford a house, etc, so they become less fit, less economically active ("what's the point in trying?")
I think in Japan it's called herbivore men, in China they call it "lying flat". People who have just gone "well, there's nothing in society for me, so I will do the least amount of work and participate only in what I need to in order to get by".
It's probably not sustainable - and you could also argue it ends when societies like ours are out-bred by those from more traditional cultures that value child-rearing and long-term monogamy.
There is a massive community in our society including the indigenous, that believes passionately in the value of child rearing and long term monogamy. Culturally it gets ignored, it features little in the modern novel or groundbreaking film, but it is huge.
As an infant school head said to me just this week 'It's that the others take up all our time'.
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Sex is one of those things that proves we're all capitalists, and proves the ruthlessness of capitalism at the same time.
In sex, there's no redistribution. There's no "look at those poor people over there, they aren't getting any, we should take some partners off the people who are getting loads and give them to the poor deprived people." We lionise the billionares of the sex world. The most beautiful. The most active. The most - dare I say it - privileged.
I'm not saying I disagree with any of that, by the way. Just making the point that even the staunchest communist, who would be willing to redistribute income, food, housing, practically everything else to make people equal - would find the idea of sexual "equality" absurd.
Without commenting on the substance of what you're saying, redistribution and capitalism go together quite nicely. Capitalism does not imply a lack of redistribution, and, I firmly believe, cannot possibly survive without redistribution.
Which is why our attitudes to sex are all the more remarkable. The sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalism, rapacious capitalism, ayn-rand-style-tyranny-of-the-market-capitalism.
The idea of redistribution in the sexual marketplace is repugnant to us. The notion of coercion, abhorrent. We are happy to have 40% of our incomes taken off us, but 40% of our sexual partners given to those unluckier in love than we are would be ridiculous.
The sexual marketplace accepts absolutely zero compulsion, whether that's being forced to sleep with an ugly person, or a person whose bits you aren't attracted to.
As I say, it says something fascinating about human nature.
Vive.
One corollary for a happy society. The big rule which arises from this in decent societies is to maximally apply the convention of, in the long run, one man each and one woman each, whether serially or for life.
In stable societies this gives opportunity for the awkward, the ugly, the dim, the shy, the different etc. There being about equal numbers of all these across genders. Look around you. It usually works.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you there. In olden days, when you had to go to bars, or even older, when you were more or less societally expected to marry the girl you met at the village dance and have babies at 21, it was probably a lot easier for people to find partners.
But now we live in a world where, pretty much anyone with a phone anywhere in the world can set up an instagram account (or tinder, if you must), post a couple of selfies and, if they're hot enough, will have dozens of potential suitors within the hour.
Same for those in a break-up. Set up a new account, have a half dozen potential candidates in your DMs an hour later. All without lifting a finger.
Of course if you're not hot enough, you can post dozens of selfies, and have nothing back for weeks, months, or even years. Which is where the whole incel thing comes from. People who have essentially been rejected by the entire world (and who are too fat and lazy to join a gym).
But this is what I mean when I say that the sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalistic. You may not like it, you may not agree with it - but you can't deny how human beings behave when given the opportunity.
it’s very dangerous tho. A society where 10% of men sleep with 500 partners in a lifetime, and 50% of men get lZERO partners in a life, is a society headed for terrible trouble. It is, as you say, a kind of perverse hyper capitalism, where the 1% live in ultra luxury and half of society can barely feed themselves
Normally, we would intervene to correct these imbalances. The rich pay taxes so the poor don’t starve, for the benefit of all, but how does that work here?
You're not wrong. The woman-hating incels are the most visible problem (to use an economic term - externality?) you get from a hyper-capitalistic globalised sexual marketplace.
But I dare say there's an awful lot of young men who aren't misogynists who just switch off - can't get a girl, can't afford a house, etc, so they become less fit, less economically active ("what's the point in trying?")
I think in Japan it's called herbivore men, in China they call it "lying flat". People who have just gone "well, there's nothing in society for me, so I will do the least amount of work and participate only in what I need to in order to get by".
It's probably not sustainable - and you could also argue it ends when societies like ours are out-bred by those from more traditional cultures that value child-rearing and long-term monogamy.
There is a massive community in our society including the indigenous, that believes passionately in the value of child rearing and long term monogamy. Culturally it gets ignored, it features little in the modern novel or groundbreaking film, but it is huge.
As an infant school head said to me just this week 'It's that the others take up all our time'.
Just such a shame so many pols give a bad example.
Feels wine o’clock (I did have a couple of beers at lunchtime, if anyone’s worried that I’m starting so late)
First bell of the second dog watch any moment now, and the sun is definitely over the yardarm, defined as the lowest of Mrs C's flower-supporting sticks. *goes off for some chilled rose and a nice read*
If the membership gets a say the loonier candidate wins
I think the 250 or so saner Tory MPs are going to diddle the competition to make sure that two paletable alternatives go through to the membership. There were a few suggestions to that mindset from anonymous Tory MPs on the BBC yesterday. They don't want to put someone in who is just going to trash their poll lead as much as big pupper. IMO that means that Braverman and I suspect Truss will get levered out fairly early. Badenoch probably also falls into this category. Hunt is the administratively smart choice but they won't go for him. Shapps is going out in the first round because no one likes him. My guess is that they'll put Sunak and one of either Mordaunt or Tugendhat to the membership based on who has declared to this point. Mordaunt would probably win at that point because she's a blank canvas that members can project whatever ideology they want onto.
I think we should see how the PB votes are piling up for the Tory leadership contest.
I've only been counting Kemi declarations and I'm up to three (me, @wooliedyed and @Andy_JS )
Yes indeedy! The Kemi kids are the cool kids for sure. The Tories have a chance here, to ditch the privilege, money, stale Eton and Oxford establishment party they are and aim for freshness, youth, vibrancy, the party of dynamism. Rishi is too rich to be PM durimg economic misery. He will become a lightning rod for anger beyond ths usual. Like puffy faced well fed twat Cameron and his 'all in it together' nonsense
Its Kemi time!
Yes, too stinking rich and a little shit for bringing down the people's favourite rascal Boris. The key role he played in that treachery seems to have been skipped over, but I doubt the membership will forgive. Think of Hezza and Maggie.
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Sex is one of those things that proves we're all capitalists, and proves the ruthlessness of capitalism at the same time.
In sex, there's no redistribution. There's no "look at those poor people over there, they aren't getting any, we should take some partners off the people who are getting loads and give them to the poor deprived people." We lionise the billionares of the sex world. The most beautiful. The most active. The most - dare I say it - privileged.
I'm not saying I disagree with any of that, by the way. Just making the point that even the staunchest communist, who would be willing to redistribute income, food, housing, practically everything else to make people equal - would find the idea of sexual "equality" absurd.
Without commenting on the substance of what you're saying, redistribution and capitalism go together quite nicely. Capitalism does not imply a lack of redistribution, and, I firmly believe, cannot possibly survive without redistribution.
Which is why our attitudes to sex are all the more remarkable. The sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalism, rapacious capitalism, ayn-rand-style-tyranny-of-the-market-capitalism.
The idea of redistribution in the sexual marketplace is repugnant to us. The notion of coercion, abhorrent. We are happy to have 40% of our incomes taken off us, but 40% of our sexual partners given to those unluckier in love than we are would be ridiculous.
The sexual marketplace accepts absolutely zero compulsion, whether that's being forced to sleep with an ugly person, or a person whose bits you aren't attracted to.
As I say, it says something fascinating about human nature.
Vive.
One corollary for a happy society. The big rule which arises from this in decent societies is to maximally apply the convention of, in the long run, one man each and one woman each, whether serially or for life.
In stable societies this gives opportunity for the awkward, the ugly, the dim, the shy, the different etc. There being about equal numbers of all these across genders. Look around you. It usually works.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you there. In olden days, when you had to go to bars, or even older, when you were more or less societally expected to marry the girl you met at the village dance and have babies at 21, it was probably a lot easier for people to find partners.
But now we live in a world where, pretty much anyone with a phone anywhere in the world can set up an instagram account (or tinder, if you must), post a couple of selfies and, if they're hot enough, will have dozens of potential suitors within the hour.
Same for those in a break-up. Set up a new account, have a half dozen potential candidates in your DMs an hour later. All without lifting a finger.
Of course if you're not hot enough, you can post dozens of selfies, and have nothing back for weeks, months, or even years. Which is where the whole incel thing comes from. People who have essentially been rejected by the entire world (and who are too fat and lazy to join a gym).
But this is what I mean when I say that the sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalistic. You may not like it, you may not agree with it - but you can't deny how human beings behave when given the opportunity.
I would never try to meet anyone using online tools. Too toxic.
It reduces people to the physical, which isn't healthy. I certainly have a "type" and I usually only swipe/contact girls who match that type. Yet when I've met people in real life at parties and asked for their number, they've been totally out of that "type" by height, colour etc. Because I've had time to interact with the person and become attracted to them for who they are. "Online tools" don't allow us that same latitude.
The problem is that tinder isn't the world's biggest dating app, it's instagram.
I have seen my ex's instagram inbox. She could have dumped me thirty times a day, in many cases for a man better looking and richer than I (and, in the end, she did). My point is you do not need to be active on dating apps in order to be plugged into the global sexual marketplace. Only be on social media and have a vaguely good looking profile pic (look at the number of pervs approaching young women on linkedin, etc).
I have a feeling that, were it not for The Fall of Boris, the clusterfuck that is American politics atm, and Ukraine, we'd all be obsessing about Sri Lanka.
The situation there is deteriorating rapidly. A Sri Lankan friend posted a picture of him and a mate smoking a joint inside the grounds of the Presidential residence. It's still at the exuberant phase of the unrest but with fuel running low and rampant inflation there is the potential for this to turn nasty and properly anarchic quite quickly. Meanwhile, tourist revenue will dry up completely - we were meant to be going in October but that looks unlikely now. Hopefully ethnic tensions won't emerge again, but that can't be ruled out. The public want the entire political class cleaned out, but then who will run the place? I am guessing the army will step in soon.
I have a feeling that, were it not for The Fall of Boris, the clusterfuck that is American politics atm, and Ukraine, we'd all be obsessing about Sri Lanka.
Leon got out of Sri Lanka just in time.
Maybe we should track Leon against global flashpoints, like we used to do with not-a-spy Rory.
If the membership gets a say the loonier candidate wins
You say that but the track record doesn't agree.
First time they did, IDS over Clarke.
Second time they didn't, Cameron over Davis. The membership comprehensively went for the less loony option.
Third time they wouldn't have, May over Leadsom. The membership got denied a vote, but they would have overwhelmingly gone for May.
Fourth time they didn't, under the circumstances. Normal circumstances Hunt would be better than Johnson, but Boris had a plan and ability to get the UK out of the Article 50 quagmire and Hunt didn't. So Johnson was, as the Biden advert put it, acceptable under the circumstances. Members made the right choice, which matched the MPs vote too.
So only one out of the four times have or would the members have voted for the loony candidate, although I'd say neither candidate was loony in 2019.
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Sex is one of those things that proves we're all capitalists, and proves the ruthlessness of capitalism at the same time.
In sex, there's no redistribution. There's no "look at those poor people over there, they aren't getting any, we should take some partners off the people who are getting loads and give them to the poor deprived people." We lionise the billionares of the sex world. The most beautiful. The most active. The most - dare I say it - privileged.
I'm not saying I disagree with any of that, by the way. Just making the point that even the staunchest communist, who would be willing to redistribute income, food, housing, practically everything else to make people equal - would find the idea of sexual "equality" absurd.
Without commenting on the substance of what you're saying, redistribution and capitalism go together quite nicely. Capitalism does not imply a lack of redistribution, and, I firmly believe, cannot possibly survive without redistribution.
Which is why our attitudes to sex are all the more remarkable. The sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalism, rapacious capitalism, ayn-rand-style-tyranny-of-the-market-capitalism.
The idea of redistribution in the sexual marketplace is repugnant to us. The notion of coercion, abhorrent. We are happy to have 40% of our incomes taken off us, but 40% of our sexual partners given to those unluckier in love than we are would be ridiculous.
The sexual marketplace accepts absolutely zero compulsion, whether that's being forced to sleep with an ugly person, or a person whose bits you aren't attracted to.
As I say, it says something fascinating about human nature.
Vive.
One corollary for a happy society. The big rule which arises from this in decent societies is to maximally apply the convention of, in the long run, one man each and one woman each, whether serially or for life.
In stable societies this gives opportunity for the awkward, the ugly, the dim, the shy, the different etc. There being about equal numbers of all these across genders. Look around you. It usually works.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you there. In olden days, when you had to go to bars, or even older, when you were more or less societally expected to marry the girl you met at the village dance and have babies at 21, it was probably a lot easier for people to find partners.
But now we live in a world where, pretty much anyone with a phone anywhere in the world can set up an instagram account (or tinder, if you must), post a couple of selfies and, if they're hot enough, will have dozens of potential suitors within the hour.
Same for those in a break-up. Set up a new account, have a half dozen potential candidates in your DMs an hour later. All without lifting a finger.
Of course if you're not hot enough, you can post dozens of selfies, and have nothing back for weeks, months, or even years. Which is where the whole incel thing comes from. People who have essentially been rejected by the entire world (and who are too fat and lazy to join a gym).
But this is what I mean when I say that the sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalistic. You may not like it, you may not agree with it - but you can't deny how human beings behave when given the opportunity.
I would never try to meet anyone using online tools. Too toxic.
It reduces people to the physical, which isn't healthy. I certainly have a "type" and I usually only swipe/contact girls who match that type. Yet when I've met people in real life at parties and asked for their number, they've been totally out of that "type" by height, colour etc. Because I've had time to interact with the person and become attracted to them for who they are. "Online tools" don't allow us that same latitude.
The problem is that tinder isn't the world's biggest dating app, it's instagram.
I have seen my ex's instagram inbox. She could have dumped me thirty times a day, in many cases for a man better looking and richer than I (and, in the end, she did). My point is you do not need to be active on dating apps in order to be plugged into the global sexual marketplace. Only be on social media and have a vaguely good looking profile pic (look at the number of pervs approaching young women on linkedin, etc).
I really think this is one of those cases where there is a good argument for competition. Time is of the essence and if the selfish **** had let Raab take over for now we could have given it a few extra weeks. Still even if candidates like Hunt, Tugendhat and Badenoch leave the race fairly early they may get some of the others to up their game.
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Sex is one of those things that proves we're all capitalists, and proves the ruthlessness of capitalism at the same time.
In sex, there's no redistribution. There's no "look at those poor people over there, they aren't getting any, we should take some partners off the people who are getting loads and give them to the poor deprived people." We lionise the billionares of the sex world. The most beautiful. The most active. The most - dare I say it - privileged.
I'm not saying I disagree with any of that, by the way. Just making the point that even the staunchest communist, who would be willing to redistribute income, food, housing, practically everything else to make people equal - would find the idea of sexual "equality" absurd.
Without commenting on the substance of what you're saying, redistribution and capitalism go together quite nicely. Capitalism does not imply a lack of redistribution, and, I firmly believe, cannot possibly survive without redistribution.
Which is why our attitudes to sex are all the more remarkable. The sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalism, rapacious capitalism, ayn-rand-style-tyranny-of-the-market-capitalism.
The idea of redistribution in the sexual marketplace is repugnant to us. The notion of coercion, abhorrent. We are happy to have 40% of our incomes taken off us, but 40% of our sexual partners given to those unluckier in love than we are would be ridiculous.
The sexual marketplace accepts absolutely zero compulsion, whether that's being forced to sleep with an ugly person, or a person whose bits you aren't attracted to.
As I say, it says something fascinating about human nature.
Vive.
One corollary for a happy society. The big rule which arises from this in decent societies is to maximally apply the convention of, in the long run, one man each and one woman each, whether serially or for life.
In stable societies this gives opportunity for the awkward, the ugly, the dim, the shy, the different etc. There being about equal numbers of all these across genders. Look around you. It usually works.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you there. In olden days, when you had to go to bars, or even older, when you were more or less societally expected to marry the girl you met at the village dance and have babies at 21, it was probably a lot easier for people to find partners.
But now we live in a world where, pretty much anyone with a phone anywhere in the world can set up an instagram account (or tinder, if you must), post a couple of selfies and, if they're hot enough, will have dozens of potential suitors within the hour.
Same for those in a break-up. Set up a new account, have a half dozen potential candidates in your DMs an hour later. All without lifting a finger.
Of course if you're not hot enough, you can post dozens of selfies, and have nothing back for weeks, months, or even years. Which is where the whole incel thing comes from. People who have essentially been rejected by the entire world (and who are too fat and lazy to join a gym).
But this is what I mean when I say that the sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalistic. You may not like it, you may not agree with it - but you can't deny how human beings behave when given the opportunity.
it’s very dangerous tho. A society where 10% of men sleep with 500 partners in a lifetime, and 50% of men get lZERO partners in a life, is a society headed for terrible trouble. It is, as you say, a kind of perverse hyper capitalism, where the 1% live in ultra luxury and half of society can barely feed themselves
Normally, we would intervene to correct these imbalances. The rich pay taxes so the poor don’t starve, for the benefit of all, but how does that work here?
You're not wrong. The woman-hating incels are the most visible problem (to use an economic term - externality?) you get from a hyper-capitalistic globalised sexual marketplace.
But I dare say there's an awful lot of young men who aren't misogynists who just switch off - can't get a girl, can't afford a house, etc, so they become less fit, less economically active ("what's the point in trying?")
I think in Japan it's called herbivore men, in China they call it "lying flat". People who have just gone "well, there's nothing in society for me, so I will do the least amount of work and participate only in what I need to in order to get by".
It's probably not sustainable - and you could also argue it ends when societies like ours are out-bred by those from more traditional cultures that value child-rearing and long-term monogamy.
There is a massive community in our society including the indigenous, that believes passionately in the value of child rearing and long term monogamy. Culturally it gets ignored, it features little in the modern novel or groundbreaking film, but it is huge.
As an infant school head said to me just this week 'It's that the others take up all our time'.
100%. Bringing up a family with someone you love is probably the easiest route to life satisfaction. If your only goal is sexual conquest you will most likely never be happy.
I have a feeling that, were it not for The Fall of Boris, the clusterfuck that is American politics atm, and Ukraine, we'd all be obsessing about Sri Lanka.
Utterly off topic, if your flavour of Netflix currently has High Plains Drifter on it watch the first 3 minutes just to see Clint's horse. Horses in westerns are usually completely unschooled kick n go types, this one looks like an advanced eventer. Walks down hill so nicely I am tempted to show it to my horses as an example to follow, then canters through a graveyard doing tempi changes between each tombstone.
Whole film is worth seeing actually, though John Wayne thought it was so nasty he declined ever to work with CE.
Thanks. I'll check it out. We have a truly fancy new baby (first colt in years) this year. But he's going to be big. A previous baby is now with a top Florida dressage barn going Grand Prix. He's pretty fancy too. Perhaps Olympics level.
Bhavani Foneseka, a prominent human rights lawyer in Colombo, has expressed fears that the situation in Sri Lanka could become "deadly". Speaking to the BBC she said there is a worry that there could be violence if people feel that their demands are not met and if the economic situation deteriorates further. "It's a very very uncertain time in Sri Lanka but also unprecedented," she said. She has stressed that a medical crisis is also facing the country. "So it's a combination of reasons that could result in violence and violence that could lead to a very deadly situation so there is a very real danger that things could unravel," she added."
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Sex is one of those things that proves we're all capitalists, and proves the ruthlessness of capitalism at the same time.
In sex, there's no redistribution. There's no "look at those poor people over there, they aren't getting any, we should take some partners off the people who are getting loads and give them to the poor deprived people." We lionise the billionares of the sex world. The most beautiful. The most active. The most - dare I say it - privileged.
I'm not saying I disagree with any of that, by the way. Just making the point that even the staunchest communist, who would be willing to redistribute income, food, housing, practically everything else to make people equal - would find the idea of sexual "equality" absurd.
Without commenting on the substance of what you're saying, redistribution and capitalism go together quite nicely. Capitalism does not imply a lack of redistribution, and, I firmly believe, cannot possibly survive without redistribution.
Which is why our attitudes to sex are all the more remarkable. The sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalism, rapacious capitalism, ayn-rand-style-tyranny-of-the-market-capitalism.
The idea of redistribution in the sexual marketplace is repugnant to us. The notion of coercion, abhorrent. We are happy to have 40% of our incomes taken off us, but 40% of our sexual partners given to those unluckier in love than we are would be ridiculous.
The sexual marketplace accepts absolutely zero compulsion, whether that's being forced to sleep with an ugly person, or a person whose bits you aren't attracted to.
As I say, it says something fascinating about human nature.
Vive.
One corollary for a happy society. The big rule which arises from this in decent societies is to maximally apply the convention of, in the long run, one man each and one woman each, whether serially or for life.
In stable societies this gives opportunity for the awkward, the ugly, the dim, the shy, the different etc. There being about equal numbers of all these across genders. Look around you. It usually works.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you there. In olden days, when you had to go to bars, or even older, when you were more or less societally expected to marry the girl you met at the village dance and have babies at 21, it was probably a lot easier for people to find partners.
But now we live in a world where, pretty much anyone with a phone anywhere in the world can set up an instagram account (or tinder, if you must), post a couple of selfies and, if they're hot enough, will have dozens of potential suitors within the hour.
Same for those in a break-up. Set up a new account, have a half dozen potential candidates in your DMs an hour later. All without lifting a finger.
Of course if you're not hot enough, you can post dozens of selfies, and have nothing back for weeks, months, or even years. Which is where the whole incel thing comes from. People who have essentially been rejected by the entire world (and who are too fat and lazy to join a gym).
But this is what I mean when I say that the sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalistic. You may not like it, you may not agree with it - but you can't deny how human beings behave when given the opportunity.
it’s very dangerous tho. A society where 10% of men sleep with 500 partners in a lifetime, and 50% of men get ZERO partners in a life, is a society headed for terrible trouble. It is, as you say, a kind of perverse hyper capitalism, where the 1% live in ultra luxury and half of society can barely feed themselves
Normally, we would intervene to correct these imbalances. The rich pay taxes so the poor don’t starve, for the benefit of all, but how does that work here?
Low status men have always struggled to find people willing to have sex with them.
And it's why San Francisco exists. A place with such a frighteningly high level of male homosexuality that even my friends can get laid without visiting a brothel.
I have a feeling that, were it not for The Fall of Boris, the clusterfuck that is American politics atm, and Ukraine, we'd all be obsessing about Sri Lanka.
Utterly off topic, if your flavour of Netflix currently has High Plains Drifter on it watch the first 3 minutes just to see Clint's horse. Horses in westerns are usually completely unschooled kick n go types, this one looks like an advanced eventer. Walks down hill so nicely I am tempted to show it to my horses as an example to follow, then canters through a graveyard doing tempi changes between each tombstone.
Whole film is worth seeing actually, though John Wayne thought it was so nasty he declined ever to work with CE.
Thanks. I'll check it out. We have a truly fancy new baby (first colt in years) this year. But he's going to be big. A previous baby is now with a top Florida dressage barn going Grand Prix. He's pretty fancy too. Perhaps Olympics level.
PS The ride down the mountain in the Man from Snowy Mountain is our favorite horse scene in films.
With the possible exception of Mordaunt, I no longer think Keir has a damn thing to worry about.
The contenders are all mad, bad, or dangerous to know.
Generally agree. But would add Badenoch. Facing either would be a dangerous and unpredictable ride. They could both make SKS look yesterday's man, and worthy but dull. He can eat the rest without trouble.
SKS's bigger problem is that he and his party are committed (by force, they have no real choice) to a Brexit they don't and can't believe in. It will come home to us in due course that the best government available to us (Lab/LD coalition) has the moral force, over the big issue of the decade, of Nicola Sturgeon trying to promote the interests of a 'better together' United Kingdom.
I must admit my lack of knowledge about most of the possible PM/Tory leader, can anyone enlighten me as to whether any would qualify as 'One Nation' tories, or is that a quaint idea nowadays?
Tugendhat and Hunt seem close. Remarkably Wallace looks like a stereotype one nation Tory, but isn't standing, and except for being fond of Armed Forces and weaponry doing loud things to Johnny Foreigner and big mate of Boris is a political blank slate.
In general the big recent qualification for 'ONT' is that you gently support the EU, support big stable capitalism, don't flaunt your wealth, don't believe in allowing the poor to starve or freeze themselves to death, agree with moderate Labour chappies about pretty much everything, and believe in Burkean organic societal development.
So its day may have gone.
Yes, I think you're right, Brexit has taken over the Tory party and booted out the One Nation Tories. That certainly seems to have happened in my constituency
Not Brexit, but hard neo-liberalism. See my comment about the prevailing ideologies.
The risk is that the country doesn’t really want to slash the state, so the temptation will be to try to bait people into it via culture wars.
Hence the dishonesty of 2016, and the ongoing impossibility of resolving it.
The Conservative right hate the EU because it's seen as a roadblock on state-slashing pseudo-American neo-liberalism. In their heads, that's what Brexit was about, and why Norway/Switzerland etc were an utter betrayal of the referendum. (Sorry, those of you who voted Leave to get Norway/Switzerland etc... you were had.)
But state-slashing pseudo-American neo-liberalism isn't about to win a general election, because it's not where the country is at. But it could do very well at an internal party election.
People voted Leave for different reasons - and some did so because they thought the EU was too protectionist, while others did it because they thought it was not protectionist enough.
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Sex is one of those things that proves we're all capitalists, and proves the ruthlessness of capitalism at the same time.
In sex, there's no redistribution. There's no "look at those poor people over there, they aren't getting any, we should take some partners off the people who are getting loads and give them to the poor deprived people." We lionise the billionares of the sex world. The most beautiful. The most active. The most - dare I say it - privileged.
I'm not saying I disagree with any of that, by the way. Just making the point that even the staunchest communist, who would be willing to redistribute income, food, housing, practically everything else to make people equal - would find the idea of sexual "equality" absurd.
Without commenting on the substance of what you're saying, redistribution and capitalism go together quite nicely. Capitalism does not imply a lack of redistribution, and, I firmly believe, cannot possibly survive without redistribution.
Which is why our attitudes to sex are all the more remarkable. The sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalism, rapacious capitalism, ayn-rand-style-tyranny-of-the-market-capitalism.
The idea of redistribution in the sexual marketplace is repugnant to us. The notion of coercion, abhorrent. We are happy to have 40% of our incomes taken off us, but 40% of our sexual partners given to those unluckier in love than we are would be ridiculous.
The sexual marketplace accepts absolutely zero compulsion, whether that's being forced to sleep with an ugly person, or a person whose bits you aren't attracted to.
As I say, it says something fascinating about human nature.
Vive.
One corollary for a happy society. The big rule which arises from this in decent societies is to maximally apply the convention of, in the long run, one man each and one woman each, whether serially or for life.
In stable societies this gives opportunity for the awkward, the ugly, the dim, the shy, the different etc. There being about equal numbers of all these across genders. Look around you. It usually works.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you there. In olden days, when you had to go to bars, or even older, when you were more or less societally expected to marry the girl you met at the village dance and have babies at 21, it was probably a lot easier for people to find partners.
But now we live in a world where, pretty much anyone with a phone anywhere in the world can set up an instagram account (or tinder, if you must), post a couple of selfies and, if they're hot enough, will have dozens of potential suitors within the hour.
Same for those in a break-up. Set up a new account, have a half dozen potential candidates in your DMs an hour later. All without lifting a finger.
Of course if you're not hot enough, you can post dozens of selfies, and have nothing back for weeks, months, or even years. Which is where the whole incel thing comes from. People who have essentially been rejected by the entire world (and who are too fat and lazy to join a gym).
But this is what I mean when I say that the sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalistic. You may not like it, you may not agree with it - but you can't deny how human beings behave when given the opportunity.
it’s very dangerous tho. A society where 10% of men sleep with 500 partners in a lifetime, and 50% of men get lZERO partners in a life, is a society headed for terrible trouble. It is, as you say, a kind of perverse hyper capitalism, where the 1% live in ultra luxury and half of society can barely feed themselves
Normally, we would intervene to correct these imbalances. The rich pay taxes so the poor don’t starve, for the benefit of all, but how does that work here?
You're not wrong. The woman-hating incels are the most visible problem (to use an economic term - externality?) you get from a hyper-capitalistic globalised sexual marketplace.
But I dare say there's an awful lot of young men who aren't misogynists who just switch off - can't get a girl, can't afford a house, etc, so they become less fit, less economically active ("what's the point in trying?")
I think in Japan it's called herbivore men, in China they call it "lying flat". People who have just gone "well, there's nothing in society for me, so I will do the least amount of work and participate only in what I need to in order to get by".
It's probably not sustainable - and you could also argue it ends when societies like ours are out-bred by those from more traditional cultures that value child-rearing and long-term monogamy.
Japan is a little different: there are *lots* of women who are desperate to meet men (and have babies), but the men are still living at their parents playing Call of the Wild.
There the involuntary celibates (incels) are the women.
I’d be surprised if Zahawi gets a cabinet position again, after his antics this week.
Who would trust him?
Zahawi had a good pandemic. Competence must count for something, even with this lot.
Competence is important, but bear in mind the thing that brought down Boris was character, not incompetence. Zahawi is no Boris, but his actions were pretty slimy.
With the possible exception of Mordaunt, I no longer think Keir has a damn thing to worry about.
The contenders are all mad, bad, or dangerous to know.
Generally agree. But would add Badenoch. Facing either would be a dangerous and unpredictable ride. They could both make SKS look yesterday's man, and worthy but dull. He can eat the rest without trouble.
SKS's bigger problem is that he and his party are committed (by force, they have no real choice) to a Brexit they don't and can't believe in. It will come home to us in due course that the best government available to us (Lab/LD coalition) has the moral force, over the big issue of the decade, of Nicola Sturgeon trying to promote the interests of a 'better together' United Kingdom.
I must admit my lack of knowledge about most of the possible PM/Tory leader, can anyone enlighten me as to whether any would qualify as 'One Nation' tories, or is that a quaint idea nowadays?
Tugendhat and Hunt seem close. Remarkably Wallace looks like a stereotype one nation Tory, but isn't standing, and except for being fond of Armed Forces and weaponry doing loud things to Johnny Foreigner and big mate of Boris is a political blank slate.
In general the big recent qualification for 'ONT' is that you gently support the EU, support big stable capitalism, don't flaunt your wealth, don't believe in allowing the poor to starve or freeze themselves to death, agree with moderate Labour chappies about pretty much everything, and believe in Burkean organic societal development.
So its day may have gone.
Yes, I think you're right, Brexit has taken over the Tory party and booted out the One Nation Tories. That certainly seems to have happened in my constituency
Not Brexit, but hard neo-liberalism. See my comment about the prevailing ideologies.
The risk is that the country doesn’t really want to slash the state, so the temptation will be to try to bait people into it via culture wars.
Hence the dishonesty of 2016, and the ongoing impossibility of resolving it.
The Conservative right hate the EU because it's seen as a roadblock on state-slashing pseudo-American neo-liberalism. In their heads, that's what Brexit was about, and why Norway/Switzerland etc were an utter betrayal of the referendum. (Sorry, those of you who voted Leave to get Norway/Switzerland etc... you were had.)
But state-slashing pseudo-American neo-liberalism isn't about to win a general election, because it's not where the country is at. But it could do very well at an internal party election.
People voted Leave for different reasons - and some did so because they thought the EU was too protectionist, while others did it because they thought it was not protectionist enough.
Yes but the earlier point in the thread to was that Badenoch, Rishi, Braverman, and Zahawi were all from the “too protectionist” tendency.
Probably Javid too if he hadn’t been so worried about his career, and Truss has managed to reconcile to Brexitism along the same lines.
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Sex is one of those things that proves we're all capitalists, and proves the ruthlessness of capitalism at the same time.
In sex, there's no redistribution. There's no "look at those poor people over there, they aren't getting any, we should take some partners off the people who are getting loads and give them to the poor deprived people." We lionise the billionares of the sex world. The most beautiful. The most active. The most - dare I say it - privileged.
I'm not saying I disagree with any of that, by the way. Just making the point that even the staunchest communist, who would be willing to redistribute income, food, housing, practically everything else to make people equal - would find the idea of sexual "equality" absurd.
Without commenting on the substance of what you're saying, redistribution and capitalism go together quite nicely. Capitalism does not imply a lack of redistribution, and, I firmly believe, cannot possibly survive without redistribution.
Which is why our attitudes to sex are all the more remarkable. The sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalism, rapacious capitalism, ayn-rand-style-tyranny-of-the-market-capitalism.
The idea of redistribution in the sexual marketplace is repugnant to us. The notion of coercion, abhorrent. We are happy to have 40% of our incomes taken off us, but 40% of our sexual partners given to those unluckier in love than we are would be ridiculous.
The sexual marketplace accepts absolutely zero compulsion, whether that's being forced to sleep with an ugly person, or a person whose bits you aren't attracted to.
As I say, it says something fascinating about human nature.
Vive.
One corollary for a happy society. The big rule which arises from this in decent societies is to maximally apply the convention of, in the long run, one man each and one woman each, whether serially or for life.
In stable societies this gives opportunity for the awkward, the ugly, the dim, the shy, the different etc. There being about equal numbers of all these across genders. Look around you. It usually works.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you there. In olden days, when you had to go to bars, or even older, when you were more or less societally expected to marry the girl you met at the village dance and have babies at 21, it was probably a lot easier for people to find partners.
But now we live in a world where, pretty much anyone with a phone anywhere in the world can set up an instagram account (or tinder, if you must), post a couple of selfies and, if they're hot enough, will have dozens of potential suitors within the hour.
Same for those in a break-up. Set up a new account, have a half dozen potential candidates in your DMs an hour later. All without lifting a finger.
Of course if you're not hot enough, you can post dozens of selfies, and have nothing back for weeks, months, or even years. Which is where the whole incel thing comes from. People who have essentially been rejected by the entire world (and who are too fat and lazy to join a gym).
But this is what I mean when I say that the sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalistic. You may not like it, you may not agree with it - but you can't deny how human beings behave when given the opportunity.
it’s very dangerous tho. A society where 10% of men sleep with 500 partners in a lifetime, and 50% of men get lZERO partners in a life, is a society headed for terrible trouble. It is, as you say, a kind of perverse hyper capitalism, where the 1% live in ultra luxury and half of society can barely feed themselves
Normally, we would intervene to correct these imbalances. The rich pay taxes so the poor don’t starve, for the benefit of all, but how does that work here?
You're not wrong. The woman-hating incels are the most visible problem (to use an economic term - externality?) you get from a hyper-capitalistic globalised sexual marketplace.
But I dare say there's an awful lot of young men who aren't misogynists who just switch off - can't get a girl, can't afford a house, etc, so they become less fit, less economically active ("what's the point in trying?")
I think in Japan it's called herbivore men, in China they call it "lying flat". People who have just gone "well, there's nothing in society for me, so I will do the least amount of work and participate only in what I need to in order to get by".
It's probably not sustainable - and you could also argue it ends when societies like ours are out-bred by those from more traditional cultures that value child-rearing and long-term monogamy.
Japan is a little different: there are *lots* of women who are desperate to meet men (and have babies), but the men are still living at their parents playing Call of the Wild.
There the involuntary celibates (incels) are the women.
Interesting. I did not know that.
So what makes the women unattractive to the unattached men?
In our culture, when guys say to me, why can't I get girls, I ask them if they're going to the gym and training regularly. Not so much for the musculature, but because it gives you a good framework for getting off your ass and applying yourself and having something to focus on that *isn't* girls. Plus a ready-made support group of other guys. And lo and behold once the guy has a bit of purpose and a bit of self confidence and some mates, the girls seem to happen naturally. As opposed to "learning pick up" and all that bull.
In Japan, what advice do you give to an unattached girl who can't find a man? What does she have to do or improve to make herself more desirable?
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Nearly all mixed relationships seem to involve a white person. How often do you see a black/Asian couple, even in very multicultural areas?
One of my best friends at primary school (this was back in 1980-87) was mixed Indian/Chinese.
One of my best friends at primary school was mixed Lebanese/Chinese. His baby sister spoke Levantine Arabic, Chinese and English, but hadn’t yet learnt that most people don’t know all 3. She’d start sentences in one and finish them in another. I’m sure she’s impressively trilingual today.
That is still the everyday experience in Lebanon, although the more traditional mix is Arabic, French and English within the same sentence. "Hello bonjour aalaykum."
I must dans la Zimmer gehen.
In USA (and elsewhere I'd imagine) pretty common for native English speakers in small, distinct regions to speak English in ways that show clear impact of their ancestors' foreign lingo.
For example
> in southern Louisiana, "How ya makin?" to mean, what's happening? how's it going? Common with folks of Acadian aka Cajun roots; French grammar, English vocabulary.
> in Pennsylvania Dutch (actually German) country, "Outen the light" is classic, indeed staple of tourist-trap knick-knacks but still authentic; German gram., English vocab, with many other examples albeit fast dying out.
> in Appalachia generally "young'ins" = German "jungend" and is pronounced nearly identically; testifying to strong & long-lasting impact of 18th-century immigrants from the Rhineland and other parts of Germany upon the speech patterns of their Scots-Irish neighbors, fellow settlers and descendants in the backwoods of (then) British North America.
Also worth noting use of Spanglish in USA by (mostly) native Spanish speakers. And ran across a YouTube where young German woman said that Denglish is popular among many young Germans who enjoy dropping words like "scary" into their talk and txts.
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Nearly all mixed relationships seem to involve a white person. How often do you see a black/Asian couple, even in very multicultural areas?
One of my best friends at primary school (this was back in 1980-87) was mixed Indian/Chinese.
One of my best friends at primary school was mixed Lebanese/Chinese. His baby sister spoke Levantine Arabic, Chinese and English, but hadn’t yet learnt that most people don’t know all 3. She’d start sentences in one and finish them in another. I’m sure she’s impressively trilingual today.
That is still the everyday experience in Lebanon, although the more traditional mix is Arabic, French and English within the same sentence. "Hello bonjour aalaykum."
I must dans la Zimmer gehen.
In USA (and elsewhere I'd imagine) pretty common for native English speakers in small, distinct regions to speak English in ways that show clear impact of their ancestors' foreign lingo.
For example
> in southern Louisiana, "How ya makin?" to mean, what's happening? how's it going? Common with folks of Acadian aka Cajun roots; French grammar, English vocabulary.
> in Pennsylvania Dutch (actually German) country, "Outen the light" is classic, indeed staple of tourist-trap knick-knacks but still authentic; German gram., English vocab, with many other examples albeit fast dying out.
> in Appalachia generally "young'ins" = German "jungend" and is pronounced nearly identically; testifying to strong & long-lasting impact of 18th-century immigrants from the Rhineland and other parts of Germany upon the speech patterns of their Scots-Irish neighbors, fellow settlers and descendants in the backwoods of (then) British North America.
Also worth noting use of Spanglish in USA by (mostly) native Spanish speakers. And ran across a YouTube where young German woman said that Denglish is popular among many young Germans who enjoy dropping words like "scary" into their talk and txts.
If Zahawi had not become Chancellor and got a gold medal for duplicity he would have had a better chance .
I thought the idea was that someone had to be CoE or there'd be a run on the pound when the markets opened. Perhaps he was just doing his duty.
The true story of what happened between Boris and Zahawi is going to be fascinating when it comes out (and it will).
The rumours the day before BoJo resigned were that Zahawi had essentially told him he’d quit cabinet unless Boris made him Chancellor (Boris was apparently thinking of reshuffling Truss into that role too). Then Zahawi told him to go anyway.
Of course a lot of that could be false rumour and speculation. But I do think Zahawi comes out of it badly regardless.
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Nearly all mixed relationships seem to involve a white person. How often do you see a black/Asian couple, even in very multicultural areas?
One of my best friends at primary school (this was back in 1980-87) was mixed Indian/Chinese.
One of my best friends at primary school was mixed Lebanese/Chinese. His baby sister spoke Levantine Arabic, Chinese and English, but hadn’t yet learnt that most people don’t know all 3. She’d start sentences in one and finish them in another. I’m sure she’s impressively trilingual today.
That is still the everyday experience in Lebanon, although the more traditional mix is Arabic, French and English within the same sentence. "Hello bonjour aalaykum."
I must dans la Zimmer gehen.
In USA (and elsewhere I'd imagine) pretty common for native English speakers in small, distinct regions to speak English in ways that show clear impact of their ancestors' foreign lingo.
For example
> in southern Louisiana, "How ya makin?" to mean, what's happening? how's it going? Common with folks of Acadian aka Cajun roots; French grammar, English vocabulary.
> in Pennsylvania Dutch (actually German) country, "Outen the light" is classic, indeed staple of tourist-trap knick-knacks but still authentic; German gram., English vocab, with many other examples albeit fast dying out.
> in Appalachia generally "young'ins" = German "jungend" and is pronounced nearly identically; testifying to strong & long-lasting impact of 18th-century immigrants from the Rhineland and other parts of Germany upon the speech patterns of their Scots-Irish neighbors, fellow settlers and descendants in the backwoods of (then) British North America.
Also worth noting use of Spanglish in USA by (mostly) native Spanish speakers. And ran across a YouTube where young German woman said that Denglish is popular among many young Germans who enjoy dropping words like "scary" into their talk and txts.
Isn't this how Catalan was invented?
Isn’t Catalan one of the oldest in the region, older than Spanish?
No sooner had Boris Johnson announced his resignation last week after a series of scandals rocked Downing Street than the fresh mud-slinging begun.
The bitter civil war engulfing the Conservatives looks set to deepen as the party braces for what is likely to become the dirtiest leadership campaign in history.
So divided is the party that at least two rival leadership campaign teams have passed the Labour Party a digital dossier containing a series of lurid allegations about their potential opponents. Last week tongues were set wagging when a prominent supporter of one of the frontrunners in the race was seen meeting a senior Labour official at the White Horse pub in Soho, central London.
The documents include a catalogue of claims about the likely runners and riders, including allegations about their private lives and financial arrangements, among them the use of tax dodges and loans. At least one private investigator has been hired to dig into some of the candidates’ financial arrangements. There are also claims of drug taking and the use of prostitutes.
A senior Tory party source said: “There are rumours being widely circulated about candidates getting involved in bondage, domination and sadomasochism, claims of inappropriate relationships and compromising explicit photographs that could be used as kompromat.
With the possible exception of Mordaunt, I no longer think Keir has a damn thing to worry about.
The contenders are all mad, bad, or dangerous to know.
Generally agree. But would add Badenoch. Facing either would be a dangerous and unpredictable ride. They could both make SKS look yesterday's man, and worthy but dull. He can eat the rest without trouble.
SKS's bigger problem is that he and his party are committed (by force, they have no real choice) to a Brexit they don't and can't believe in. It will come home to us in due course that the best government available to us (Lab/LD coalition) has the moral force, over the big issue of the decade, of Nicola Sturgeon trying to promote the interests of a 'better together' United Kingdom.
I must admit my lack of knowledge about most of the possible PM/Tory leader, can anyone enlighten me as to whether any would qualify as 'One Nation' tories, or is that a quaint idea nowadays?
Tugendhat and Hunt seem close. Remarkably Wallace looks like a stereotype one nation Tory, but isn't standing, and except for being fond of Armed Forces and weaponry doing loud things to Johnny Foreigner and big mate of Boris is a political blank slate.
In general the big recent qualification for 'ONT' is that you gently support the EU, support big stable capitalism, don't flaunt your wealth, don't believe in allowing the poor to starve or freeze themselves to death, agree with moderate Labour chappies about pretty much everything, and believe in Burkean organic societal development.
So its day may have gone.
Yes, I think you're right, Brexit has taken over the Tory party and booted out the One Nation Tories. That certainly seems to have happened in my constituency
Not Brexit, but hard neo-liberalism. See my comment about the prevailing ideologies.
The risk is that the country doesn’t really want to slash the state, so the temptation will be to try to bait people into it via culture wars.
Hence the dishonesty of 2016, and the ongoing impossibility of resolving it.
The Conservative right hate the EU because it's seen as a roadblock on state-slashing pseudo-American neo-liberalism. In their heads, that's what Brexit was about, and why Norway/Switzerland etc were an utter betrayal of the referendum. (Sorry, those of you who voted Leave to get Norway/Switzerland etc... you were had.)
But state-slashing pseudo-American neo-liberalism isn't about to win a general election, because it's not where the country is at. But it could do very well at an internal party election.
People voted Leave for different reasons - and some did so because they thought the EU was too protectionist, while others did it because they thought it was not protectionist enough.
The only two takes from 2016: One, we are split down the middle. Two: the 52% agreed at that moment only on leaving; all issues arising from that were and are for parliament.
It was only a collective choice about sovereignty. This is still tricky because remainers often pretend it wasn't an issue as we hadn't lost it (!).
Bhavani Foneseka, a prominent human rights lawyer in Colombo, has expressed fears that the situation in Sri Lanka could become "deadly". Speaking to the BBC she said there is a worry that there could be violence if people feel that their demands are not met and if the economic situation deteriorates further. "It's a very very uncertain time in Sri Lanka but also unprecedented," she said. She has stressed that a medical crisis is also facing the country. "So it's a combination of reasons that could result in violence and violence that could lead to a very deadly situation so there is a very real danger that things could unravel," she added."
If Zahawi had not become Chancellor and got a gold medal for duplicity he would have had a better chance .
I thought the idea was that someone had to be CoE or there'd be a run on the pound when the markets opened. Perhaps he was just doing his duty.
The true story of what happened between Boris and Zahawi is going to be fascinating when it comes out (and it will).
The rumours the day before BoJo resigned were that Zahawi had essentially told him he’d quit cabinet unless Boris made him Chancellor (Boris was apparently thinking of reshuffling Truss into that role too). Then Zahawi told him to go anyway.
Of course a lot of that could be false rumour and speculation. But I do think Zahawi comes out of it badly regardless.
Some might see that as ruthlessness that is both self-serving and in a good cause. Not sure this will damage his chances as lancing the Boris boil is increasingly going to be seen as essential to Tory electoral prospects.
If it wasn't for Chris Pincher, this story would have finished off Boris Johnson.
Boris Johnson lobbied for a job for a young woman who claims he abused his power to have a sexual relationship with her.
The then London mayor and MP for Henley advocated for her to get a job in City Hall weeks after meeting her and bringing her back to his parliamentary office.
The appointment was blocked because Johnson’s colleague, the newly appointed Cabinet Office minister Kit Malthouse, said they appeared to have an inappropriately close relationship.
That's the only reason I can think of for backing Sunak.
Er, no, particularly as I've recently been elected Chair of the SCC Cons Group. Sir Graham has been giving me valuable tips.....
Don't think my electoral fate would be adversely affected by Sunak. I'd be toast with Johnson. Anyway I'm not up until 2025 so beyond the next GE.
In US we'd call that a free ride IF you decided to run for MP. Provided you didn't have to quit as councillor UNLESS you got elected to Parliament.
For example, in WA State, no sitting state representative (2-year term) has a free ride IF they want to run for US House or US Senator or Governor or other statewide office.
On other hand, while state senators here (4-year term) have no free ride re: US House, they may for US Senate depending on THAT schedule (6-year term). AND while half of state senators NEVER get a free ride for Gov or other state office, the other half of the seats ALWAYS do.
Ambitious AND canny politicos can make personal plans accordingly. With of course varying degrees of success.
How many more are going to declare? Such a ridiculous number of candidates
We’ve got Liz and Penny to come for sure (unless Penny withdraws. No way will Liz not run). Nadine was threatening to run too. Javid will unless he has done a deal. So we could be looking at 10 candidates.
If it wasn't for Chris Pincher, this story would have finished off Boris Johnson.
Boris Johnson lobbied for a job for a young woman who claims he abused his power to have a sexual relationship with her.
The then London mayor and MP for Henley advocated for her to get a job in City Hall weeks after meeting her and bringing her back to his parliamentary office.
The appointment was blocked because Johnson’s colleague, the newly appointed Cabinet Office minister Kit Malthouse, said they appeared to have an inappropriately close relationship.
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Sex is one of those things that proves we're all capitalists, and proves the ruthlessness of capitalism at the same time.
In sex, there's no redistribution. There's no "look at those poor people over there, they aren't getting any, we should take some partners off the people who are getting loads and give them to the poor deprived people." We lionise the billionares of the sex world. The most beautiful. The most active. The most - dare I say it - privileged.
I'm not saying I disagree with any of that, by the way. Just making the point that even the staunchest communist, who would be willing to redistribute income, food, housing, practically everything else to make people equal - would find the idea of sexual "equality" absurd.
Without commenting on the substance of what you're saying, redistribution and capitalism go together quite nicely. Capitalism does not imply a lack of redistribution, and, I firmly believe, cannot possibly survive without redistribution.
Which is why our attitudes to sex are all the more remarkable. The sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalism, rapacious capitalism, ayn-rand-style-tyranny-of-the-market-capitalism.
The idea of redistribution in the sexual marketplace is repugnant to us. The notion of coercion, abhorrent. We are happy to have 40% of our incomes taken off us, but 40% of our sexual partners given to those unluckier in love than we are would be ridiculous.
The sexual marketplace accepts absolutely zero compulsion, whether that's being forced to sleep with an ugly person, or a person whose bits you aren't attracted to.
As I say, it says something fascinating about human nature.
Vive.
One corollary for a happy society. The big rule which arises from this in decent societies is to maximally apply the convention of, in the long run, one man each and one woman each, whether serially or for life.
In stable societies this gives opportunity for the awkward, the ugly, the dim, the shy, the different etc. There being about equal numbers of all these across genders. Look around you. It usually works.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you there. In olden days, when you had to go to bars, or even older, when you were more or less societally expected to marry the girl you met at the village dance and have babies at 21, it was probably a lot easier for people to find partners.
But now we live in a world where, pretty much anyone with a phone anywhere in the world can set up an instagram account (or tinder, if you must), post a couple of selfies and, if they're hot enough, will have dozens of potential suitors within the hour.
Same for those in a break-up. Set up a new account, have a half dozen potential candidates in your DMs an hour later. All without lifting a finger.
Of course if you're not hot enough, you can post dozens of selfies, and have nothing back for weeks, months, or even years. Which is where the whole incel thing comes from. People who have essentially been rejected by the entire world (and who are too fat and lazy to join a gym).
But this is what I mean when I say that the sexual marketplace is hyper-capitalistic. You may not like it, you may not agree with it - but you can't deny how human beings behave when given the opportunity.
it’s very dangerous tho. A society where 10% of men sleep with 500 partners in a lifetime, and 50% of men get ZERO partners in a life, is a society headed for terrible trouble. It is, as you say, a kind of perverse hyper capitalism, where the 1% live in ultra luxury and half of society can barely feed themselves
Normally, we would intervene to correct these imbalances. The rich pay taxes so the poor don’t starve, for the benefit of all, but how does that work here?
Low status men have always struggled to find people willing to have sex with them.
And it's why San Francisco exists. A place with such a frighteningly high level of male homosexuality that even my friends can get laid without visiting a brothel.
6.2% is “frighteningly high”?
Gallup’s poll of the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. found that 6.2% of San Franciscans identify as LGBT, which is 2.6 percentage points higher than the national average. The city, named the “Gay Capital of the U.S.” by LIFE magazine in 1964, has a long history of a politically active LGBT community
No. If you are going to do ruthlessness, you need a certain class about it. Zahawi's moves were much too brazen. It's also unclear whether anything will come out about him from his business days.
If Zahawi had not become Chancellor and got a gold medal for duplicity he would have had a better chance .
I thought the idea was that someone had to be CoE or there'd be a run on the pound when the markets opened. Perhaps he was just doing his duty.
The true story of what happened between Boris and Zahawi is going to be fascinating when it comes out (and it will).
The rumours the day before BoJo resigned were that Zahawi had essentially told him he’d quit cabinet unless Boris made him Chancellor (Boris was apparently thinking of reshuffling Truss into that role too). Then Zahawi told him to go anyway.
Of course a lot of that could be false rumour and speculation. But I do think Zahawi comes out of it badly regardless.
Some might see that as ruthlessness that is both self-serving and in a good cause. Not sure this will damage his chances as lancing the Boris boil is increasingly going to be seen as essential to Tory electoral prospects.
How many more are going to declare? Such a ridiculous number of candidates
It’s likely A high number of signatures like 20 to get into the first round, so declaring and being in are two different things.
It’s only Rishi, Truss, Tom and Penny we can be sure are on the first ballot right now I think. Once we are talking about 25 to 40 signatory to be in one of the ballots, then just those 4?
I also will have a vote in the Conservative Party leadership election (if it gets to the members). I've voted twice before - 2005 for Cameron and 2019 for Hunt.
Waiting to see who declares, what people actually say they will do and hope to get to a hustings before deciding which way I will vote.
I have a feeling that, were it not for The Fall of Boris, the clusterfuck that is American politics atm, and Ukraine, we'd all be obsessing about Sri Lanka.
Utterly off topic, if your flavour of Netflix currently has High Plains Drifter on it watch the first 3 minutes just to see Clint's horse. Horses in westerns are usually completely unschooled kick n go types, this one looks like an advanced eventer. Walks down hill so nicely I am tempted to show it to my horses as an example to follow, then canters through a graveyard doing tempi changes between each tombstone.
Whole film is worth seeing actually, though John Wayne thought it was so nasty he declined ever to work with CE.
Thanks. I'll check it out. We have a truly fancy new baby (first colt in years) this year. But he's going to be big. A previous baby is now with a top Florida dressage barn going Grand Prix. He's pretty fancy too. Perhaps Olympics level.
PS The ride down the mountain in the Man from Snowy Mountain is our favorite horse scene in films.
"What do you make of the argument that if, say, someone could never, ever be attracted to a person of a significantly different skin colour, we might affirm their personal choice and yet still suggest that they harboured a societal prejudice? And that a similar prejudice is on display for someone (whatever their sexual orientation) that would not ever consider having sex with a trans person?
Is (a) the idea this is prejudiced wrong? (b) correct, but not applicable to the case of trans people because of the physical difference in genitalia? (c) something else going on?"
My answer is that to confuse a sexual preference with societal prejudice is to make a fundamental category mistake.
A sexual preference is innate & strongly correlated with a person's body. If you're gay you want to have sex with people of the same sex. If you're straight you want sex with the opposite sex. It is the sex of the partner which is key. Body and sex are intimately connected.
So a gay man is not prejudiced against women because he does not want to have sex with them. There is no prejudice or bigotry. The basic sexual attraction simply does not exist. Ditto with a lesbian not wanting to have sex with a man. It is not societal preferences which determine this but your own sexuality.
Now TRAs have got themselves into a pickle because while they may well feel themselves to be a different sex, their actual body has not changed. (The overwhelming majority of transpeople do not have surgery so retain the body they were born with.) Whatever they may feel however genuinely, the factual reality is that a lesbian is not going to be sexually attracted to a male body. Similarly a gay man is not going to be attracted a trans man retaining their female body. That is not prejudice or bigotry. It is a consequence of their sexuality.
TRAs are not willing to accept this because it undermines their claim that, say, a TW is just like any other woman. She isn't & in a very fundamental way. Sex is the rock on which the belief TRAs have crashes and founders. Rather than accept this, they describe a normal sexual preference as bigotry & preference belittle & demean lesbians by claiming that men are lesbians. It is aggressive, upsetting & infused with a rape mentality - a coercive approach which assumes that they are entitled to sex with women & any woman refusing this has no business doing so.
If a white person is only attracted to other white people, is that prejudice?
I agree that what genitals you are attracted to is not a prejudice, but does that generalise to other features?
Nearly all mixed relationships seem to involve a white person. How often do you see a black/Asian couple, even in very multicultural areas?
One of my best friends at primary school (this was back in 1980-87) was mixed Indian/Chinese.
One of my best friends at primary school was mixed Lebanese/Chinese. His baby sister spoke Levantine Arabic, Chinese and English, but hadn’t yet learnt that most people don’t know all 3. She’d start sentences in one and finish them in another. I’m sure she’s impressively trilingual today.
That is still the everyday experience in Lebanon, although the more traditional mix is Arabic, French and English within the same sentence. "Hello bonjour aalaykum."
I must dans la Zimmer gehen.
In USA (and elsewhere I'd imagine) pretty common for native English speakers in small, distinct regions to speak English in ways that show clear impact of their ancestors' foreign lingo.
For example
> in southern Louisiana, "How ya makin?" to mean, what's happening? how's it going? Common with folks of Acadian aka Cajun roots; French grammar, English vocabulary.
> in Pennsylvania Dutch (actually German) country, "Outen the light" is classic, indeed staple of tourist-trap knick-knacks but still authentic; German gram., English vocab, with many other examples albeit fast dying out.
> in Appalachia generally "young'ins" = German "jungend" and is pronounced nearly identically; testifying to strong & long-lasting impact of 18th-century immigrants from the Rhineland and other parts of Germany upon the speech patterns of their Scots-Irish neighbors, fellow settlers and descendants in the backwoods of (then) British North America.
Also worth noting use of Spanglish in USA by (mostly) native Spanish speakers. And ran across a YouTube where young German woman said that Denglish is popular among many young Germans who enjoy dropping words like "scary" into their talk and txts.
Isn't this how Catalan was invented?
Isn’t Catalan one of the oldest in the region, older than Spanish?
Just my little joke. Catalan is part of a continuum of romance languages including Sicilian, Tuscan, Piedmontese, Occitan, Catalan and various flavours of Spanish. Each blends into its neighbour at the intersection.
These Sunday Papers already looking brutal for a few candidates 😟 how long has some of this stuff been sat on by papers, or now leaked by someone else sitting on it?
Comments
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Really not true. As a Kiwi you are by definition at best middle middle class. Bourgeois with aspirations if you’re lucky
The richest, poshest people I know - and I am talking vastly wealthy and incredibly posh - are all Leave. Like the Queen
Above is by Leon (IIRC) blockquote thingy didn't work for some reason, rest is SSI
Perhaps IF the Conservatives had NOT sold Heligoland and the loyal Heligolanders to Kaiser Bill for a pound of past-due Braunschweiger and a slightly-used dirndl, of a size that could NEVER have fit QV) then maybe her great-great-granddaughter QEII would be of a more European mind-set? Seeing as how she clearly cherishes 99.46% of the Commonwealth and remaining bits & pieces of palm and pine remaining to her direct sovereignty. As opposed to her indirect suzerainty. (Whatever THAT means.)
Re: the one-percenters at the top of the greasy poll net-worth-wise, based on a few occasional sightings, am guessing there is a wide variety, depending in part of national culture, society and wealth, plus individual connections & predilections? In other words, small sample with high randomization.
On a personal level, any way you might be able to introduce a fellow PBer to some of the more charming, intelligent, good-hearted, warm-blooded AND near-sighted women of quasi-appropriate age? For mutual-enjoyable discussions on wide range of psephelogical topics, for example possible affects of Ranked-Choice Voting in future Montenegrin municipal elections.
Just sayin'
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ffqemZ-YOi7AvAw8HbxmMd0vIbsOXLZ7KpAmNQPD2r8/edit#gid=0
Shapps cut HS2 because he lost an argument with Treasury.
The Tories have a chance here, to ditch the privilege, money, stale Eton and Oxford establishment party they are and aim for freshness, youth, vibrancy, the party of dynamism.
Rishi is too rich to be PM durimg economic misery. He will become a lightning rod for anger beyond ths usual. Like puffy faced well fed twat Cameron and his 'all in it together' nonsense
Its Kemi time!
I count @HYUFD, @TSE, @MarqueeMark, @Sean_F (I think), @Mortimer @CarlottaVance (?) and me.
At present, I'm for Sunak.
As an infant school head said to me just this week 'It's that the others take up all our time'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Conservative_Party_leadership_election_(UK)
https://conservativehome.com/2022/07/08/next-tory-leader-whos-backing-whom-our-working-list/
The problem is that tinder isn't the world's biggest dating app, it's instagram.
I have seen my ex's instagram inbox. She could have dumped me thirty times a day, in many cases for a man better looking and richer than I (and, in the end, she did). My point is you do not need to be active on dating apps in order to be plugged into the global sexual marketplace. Only be on social media and have a vaguely good looking profile pic (look at the number of pervs approaching young women on linkedin, etc).
The public want the entire political class cleaned out, but then who will run the place? I am guessing the army will step in soon.
That's the only reason I can think of for backing Sunak.
Who would trust him?
First time they did, IDS over Clarke.
Second time they didn't, Cameron over Davis. The membership comprehensively went for the less loony option.
Third time they wouldn't have, May over Leadsom. The membership got denied a vote, but they would have overwhelmingly gone for May.
Fourth time they didn't, under the circumstances. Normal circumstances Hunt would be better than Johnson, but Boris had a plan and ability to get the UK out of the Article 50 quagmire and Hunt didn't. So Johnson was, as the Biden advert put it, acceptable under the circumstances. Members made the right choice, which matched the MPs vote too.
So only one out of the four times have or would the members have voted for the loony candidate, although I'd say neither candidate was loony in 2019.
Such symmetry
We're still together.
Bhavani Foneseka, a prominent human rights lawyer in Colombo, has expressed fears that the situation in Sri Lanka could become "deadly". Speaking to the BBC she said there is a worry that there could be violence if people feel that their demands are not met and if the economic situation deteriorates further. "It's a very very uncertain time in Sri Lanka but also unprecedented," she said. She has stressed that a medical crisis is also facing the country. "So it's a combination of reasons that could result in violence and violence that could lead to a very deadly situation so there is a very real danger that things could unravel," she added."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-asia-62105967
And it's why San Francisco exists. A place with such a frighteningly high level of male homosexuality that even my friends can get laid without visiting a brothel.
Don't think my electoral fate would be adversely affected by Sunak. I'd be toast with Johnson. Anyway I'm not up until 2025 so beyond the next GE.
We need a Tom tally, a Rishi register, and maybe a Penny pile
Any volunteers for those jobs?
And does anybody else want to declare for the Kemi count?
There the involuntary celibates (incels) are the women.
Probably Javid too if he hadn’t been so worried about his career, and Truss has managed to reconcile to Brexitism along the same lines.
Sunak for the betting slip/eternal humility.
Truss I think ideologically would be the best though.
The final two are Sunak and Badenoch, and you are given a loaded revolver. Who do you shoot?
Yourself. Because that is the only rational option.
So what makes the women unattractive to the unattached men?
In our culture, when guys say to me, why can't I get girls, I ask them if they're going to the gym and training regularly. Not so much for the musculature, but because it gives you a good framework for getting off your ass and applying yourself and having something to focus on that *isn't* girls. Plus a ready-made support group of other guys. And lo and behold once the guy has a bit of purpose and a bit of self confidence and some mates, the girls seem to happen naturally. As opposed to "learning pick up" and all that bull.
In Japan, what advice do you give to an unattached girl who can't find a man? What does she have to do or improve to make herself more desirable?
For example
> in southern Louisiana, "How ya makin?" to mean, what's happening? how's it going? Common with folks of Acadian aka Cajun roots; French grammar, English vocabulary.
> in Pennsylvania Dutch (actually German) country, "Outen the light" is classic, indeed staple of tourist-trap knick-knacks but still authentic; German gram., English vocab, with many other examples albeit fast dying out.
> in Appalachia generally "young'ins" = German "jungend" and is pronounced nearly identically; testifying to strong & long-lasting impact of 18th-century immigrants from the Rhineland and other parts of Germany upon the speech patterns of their Scots-Irish neighbors, fellow settlers and descendants in the backwoods of (then) British North America.
Also worth noting use of Spanglish in USA by (mostly) native Spanish speakers. And ran across a YouTube where young German woman said that Denglish is popular among many young Germans who enjoy dropping words like "scary" into their talk and txts.
The rumours the day before BoJo resigned were that Zahawi had essentially told him he’d quit cabinet unless Boris made him Chancellor (Boris was apparently thinking of reshuffling Truss into that role too). Then Zahawi told him to go anyway.
Of course a lot of that could be false rumour and speculation. But I do think Zahawi comes out of it badly regardless.
Now he’s officially thrown his hat into the ring, presumably Zahawi has to resign as Chancellor?
No sooner had Boris Johnson announced his resignation last week after a series of scandals rocked Downing Street than the fresh mud-slinging begun.
The bitter civil war engulfing the Conservatives looks set to deepen as the party braces for what is likely to become the dirtiest leadership campaign in history.
So divided is the party that at least two rival leadership campaign teams have passed the Labour Party a digital dossier containing a series of lurid allegations about their potential opponents. Last week tongues were set wagging when a prominent supporter of one of the frontrunners in the race was seen meeting a senior Labour official at the White Horse pub in Soho, central London.
The documents include a catalogue of claims about the likely runners and riders, including allegations about their private lives and financial arrangements, among them the use of tax dodges and loans. At least one private investigator has been hired to dig into some of the candidates’ financial arrangements. There are also claims of drug taking and the use of prostitutes.
A senior Tory party source said: “There are rumours being widely circulated about candidates getting involved in bondage, domination and sadomasochism, claims of inappropriate relationships and compromising explicit photographs that could be used as kompromat.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dirty-dossiers-on-s-amp-m-and-affairs-as-tory-rivals-turn-on-each-other-3jtd5dbsc
There’s no evidence the country was excitedly waiting for a Rishi Premiership.
It was only a collective choice about sovereignty. This is still tricky because remainers often pretend it wasn't an issue as we hadn't lost it (!).
Then it all went wrong.
Boris Johnson lobbied for a job for a young woman who claims he abused his power to have a sexual relationship with her.
The then London mayor and MP for Henley advocated for her to get a job in City Hall weeks after meeting her and bringing her back to his parliamentary office.
The appointment was blocked because Johnson’s colleague, the newly appointed Cabinet Office minister Kit Malthouse, said they appeared to have an inappropriately close relationship.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-pushed-for-woman-to-get-city-hall-job-during-abuse-of-power-relationship-nzxsfjmq6
For example, in WA State, no sitting state representative (2-year term) has a free ride IF they want to run for US House or US Senator or Governor or other statewide office.
On other hand, while state senators here (4-year term) have no free ride re: US House, they may for US Senate depending on THAT schedule (6-year term). AND while half of state senators NEVER get a free ride for Gov or other state office, the other half of the seats ALWAYS do.
Ambitious AND canny politicos can make personal plans accordingly. With of course varying degrees of success.
So could we scan the list of pledges and trust/not trust them for betting advantage?
Gallup’s poll of the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. found that 6.2% of San Franciscans identify as LGBT, which is 2.6 percentage points higher than the national average. The city, named the “Gay Capital of the U.S.” by LIFE magazine in 1964, has a long history of a politically active LGBT community
https://time.com/3752220/lgbt-san-francisco/
In any case - haven’t many of the gays been driven out by Silicon Valley $$$?
Approval Voting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting
NOTE that initiative calling for use of AV mark 2 in city election will be on Seattle ballot this Fall.
https://seattleapproves.org/
Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs under investigation by HMRC
Exclusive: Revelation comes as Mr Zahawi launches bid to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chancellor-nadhim-zahawi-tax-investigation-hmrc-b2119590.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
It’s only Rishi, Truss, Tom and Penny we can be sure are on the first ballot right now I think. Once we are talking about 25 to 40 signatory to be in one of the ballots, then just those 4?
Waiting to see who declares, what people actually say they will do and hope to get to a hustings before deciding which way I will vote.
Congrats and best wishes for the foal
The thing to look out for is that (shades of Jeremy Corbyn!) a minimum number of backers might be needed even to get on the ballot.
By the way, Sir Beer Korma was a superb Johnsonism.
AND that brown splotch on the wall looks suspiciously like a space alien from distant galaxy!!!