A rare day off so some exploring this morning including my first trip on the Elizabeth Line from Woolwich to Whitechapel. Very pleasant and comfortable - trains every 5 minutes - and I now have about four different ways to get to Woolwich (including the clipper from the new Barking Riverside Pier).
On wider matters - there's something more than a bit devotional indeed spiritual about The Queue. There are analogies with the long journeys pilgrims took in often inclement weather across hundreds of miles of pathways and tracks to visit shrines such as Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela (and others).
Part of the experience was the journey - the test of faith in the conditions, the fellowship of meeting with other pilgrims and sharing the journey and the experience. a 5-mile walk from Southwark Bridge to Westminster Hall may not be quite the same as a trek across the Downs or the mountains of Northern Spain but the sense of fellowship from talking and walking with those alongside you must be of a similar nature.
I understand it and I respect it and to be honest admire those who do it - Mrs Stodge's colleague, having spent the thick end of 12 hours getting to and from Westminster Hall, logged on at 8.30am for his day's work.
It's not for me - here I'm going to be honest but blunt. The late Queen's passing hasn't evoked the same emotional response in me as it has in others - perhaps it will one day, I don't know but not at the moment.
This analogy to a pilgrimage, indeed a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, was made a couple of days ago in The Spectator. Are you plagiarising? Or just another sockpuppet of @Mysticrose?
"The queue for the lying-in-state is itself a medieval pilgrimage. The long painful queue is fundamental to the experience. There is no emotional gain from getting a taxi to Santiago de Compostela. You need to suffer to get the spiritual reward."
Loved it, even the queuing. The only hard bit was the snake which was extremely tedious, and everyone was struggling towards the end of that, but you get 5 seconds in front of the casket yourself to pay your respects, and it doesn't just last those 5 seconds - you reflect and dine on that moment for days, weeks and years after.
So absolutely worth it.
Bravo! 8 hours. Impressive
Yes I still vividly recall queueing for the Queen Mum, and I have forgotten any of the downsides, and therefore I am very glad I did it
The Queen Herself must be that times a hundred
So I confess a little jealousy!
It was great. The queuing and the journey was definitely part of it, as it allowed people to come together and experience something together, and the suspense got greater and greater as you got closer. It was exhilarating.
The atmosphere inside was almost otherworldly: holy, solemn and nearly metaphysical. Everyone seemed absorbed in thought as they contemplated the silence and the magnitude of the moment about to come.
The guards themselves were mesmerising and almost distracting: they're very tall, and perfectly turned out, but rocking ever so slightly to keep themselves going and you're never 100% sure they're wholly stable. Of course, they are.
The imperial state crown and orb draw your eye. They sparkle and have a glory of their own. I found I had to work to process the coffin, and who was in it, but once I had I could connect with the catafalque and the lady inside, who meant so much to me and millions (billions?) of others.
I had my personal moment: I bowed, closing my eyes briefly and thanking her, paid my respects for her soul, and left. At the end of Westminster Hall I looked back down, which is almost just as impressive a site because you get a long perspective on the whole event - like you're looking back on your own memory in real time.
Mate, I'm NEVER going to convert you to the joys of republicanism, but glad you enjoyed the whole experience yesterday/last night!.
That's full on barking mad. Late Stage Strasbourg Syndrome
He's one more bonkers theory from becoming an even louder Steve Bray
It has been a very bad week for Republicans. Long may that remain the case.
The weird thing is the way anti-monarchism is overlapping with Remoanerism
Like, if you are a Remoaner, nothing can be good about Britain, and nothing must be honoured or praised - including a dead Queen - because if you do this you are.... somehow accepting Brexit, or something? Fuck knows
It's a sad cul de sac to go down. TBF most of PB's Remainers are not taking this wrong turn
i think you can be in favour of a more slimmed down scandinavian type monarchy....for example i dont think the Queen should make a speech to Parliament for example
Both the Danish and Norwegian monarchs make speeches to parliament.
Which of course is even a bigger story than the fact there was life on Mars - as it means life has formed independently from that on Earth - that is staggering and must show the universe is teaming with life
Yes.
(Unless it doesn't because life travelled from one planet to the other, which is just about plausible.)
A rare day off so some exploring this morning including my first trip on the Elizabeth Line from Woolwich to Whitechapel. Very pleasant and comfortable - trains every 5 minutes - and I now have about four different ways to get to Woolwich (including the clipper from the new Barking Riverside Pier).
On wider matters - there's something more than a bit devotional indeed spiritual about The Queue. There are analogies with the long journeys pilgrims took in often inclement weather across hundreds of miles of pathways and tracks to visit shrines such as Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela (and others).
Part of the experience was the journey - the test of faith in the conditions, the fellowship of meeting with other pilgrims and sharing the journey and the experience. a 5-mile walk from Southwark Bridge to Westminster Hall may not be quite the same as a trek across the Downs or the mountains of Northern Spain but the sense of fellowship from talking and walking with those alongside you must be of a similar nature.
I understand it and I respect it and to be honest admire those who do it - Mrs Stodge's colleague, having spent the thick end of 12 hours getting to and from Westminster Hall, logged on at 8.30am for his day's work.
It's not for me - here I'm going to be honest but blunt. The late Queen's passing hasn't evoked the same emotional response in me as it has in others - perhaps it will one day, I don't know but not at the moment.
This analogy to a pilgrimage, indeed a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, was made a couple of days ago in The Spectator. Are you plagiarising? Or just another sockpuppet of @Mysticrose?
"The queue for the lying-in-state is itself a medieval pilgrimage. The long painful queue is fundamental to the experience. There is no emotional gain from getting a taxi to Santiago de Compostela. You need to suffer to get the spiritual reward."
Loved it, even the queuing. The only hard bit was the snake which was extremely tedious, and everyone was struggling towards the end of that, but you get 5 seconds in front of the casket yourself to pay your respects, and it doesn't just last those 5 seconds - you reflect and dine on that moment for days, weeks and years after.
So absolutely worth it.
Bravo! 8 hours. Impressive
Yes I still vividly recall queueing for the Queen Mum, and I have forgotten any of the downsides, and therefore I am very glad I did it
The Queen Herself must be that times a hundred
So I confess a little jealousy!
It was great. The queuing and the journey was definitely part of it, as it allowed people to come together and experience something together, and the suspense got greater and greater as you got closer. It was exhilarating.
The atmosphere inside was almost otherworldly: holy, solemn and nearly metaphysical. Everyone seemed absorbed in thought as they contemplated the silence and the magnitude of the moment about to come.
The guards themselves were mesmerising and almost distracting: they're very tall, and perfectly turned out, but rocking ever so slightly to keep themselves going and you're never 100% sure they're wholly stable. Of course, they are.
The imperial state crown and orb draw your eye. They sparkle and have a glory of their own. I found I had to work to process the coffin, and who was in it, but once I had I could connect with the catafalque and the lady inside, who meant so much to me and millions (billions?) of others.
I had my personal moment: I bowed, closing my eyes briefly and thanking her, paid my respects for her soul, and left. At the end of Westminster Hall I looked back down, which is almost just as impressive a site because you get a long perspective on the whole event - like you're looking back on your own memory in real time.
A lovely personal journey for you and I suspect many who are fortunate enough to make the journey and see the Queen lying in state will very much share your feelings
I am so pleased for you and hope it helps with closure
That's full on barking mad. Late Stage Strasbourg Syndrome
He's one more bonkers theory from becoming an even louder Steve Bray
I didn't know they were using a ticketing system. If they are, at what point do they give out tickets? Do they ask people's names?
Perhaps he's saying they should have had one, e.g. organised by surname. Certainly they must have thought about how to do it and decided this was the way they wanted to run with. It's possible that a decision taken several years ago and probably already reviewed a number of times was changed by the king a few days ago on a whim. Whatever. They are certainly capitalising on the death and promoting the "national outpouring" meme.
I think this dates from Dan Snow's comments on Channel 4 the other day, that the queue and flow of people could have been managed slightly differently.
why not just have a ticketing system where you are allocated a 10 minute slot....no need to queue then
That's full on barking mad. Late Stage Strasbourg Syndrome
He's one more bonkers theory from becoming an even louder Steve Bray
I didn't know they were using a ticketing system. If they are, at what point do they give out tickets? Do they ask people's names?
Perhaps he's saying they should have had one, e.g. organised by surname. Certainly they must have thought about how to do it and decided this was the way they wanted to run with. It's possible that a decision taken several years ago and probably already reviewed a number of times was changed by the king a few days ago on a whim. Whatever. They are certainly capitalising on the death and promoting the "national outpouring" meme.
yes hence the conspiracy theories that its a plot by the establishment to make the monarchy seem more popular than it really is
I think this dates from Dan Snow's comments on Channel 4 the other day, that the queue and flow of people could have been managed slightly differently.
why not just have a ticketing system where you are allocated a 10 minute slot....no need to queue then
You're missing the point. It's a pilgrimage, not a dentist's appointment.
I think this dates from Dan Snow's comments on Channel 4 the other day, that the queue and flow of people could have been managed slightly differently.
why not just have a ticketing system where you are allocated a 10 minute slot....no need to queue then
with the sheer volumes there would have likely then been build up of crowds around Westminster
I think this dates from Dan Snow's comments on Channel 4 the other day, that the queue and flow of people could have been managed slightly differently.
why not just have a ticketing system where you are allocated a 10 minute slot....no need to queue then
In a single day at least 5 Russian-installed officials have been killed on occupied Ukrainian territory. Two in Luhansk, one in Kherson, & two more in Berdyansk. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility but this is sure to undermine Russian morale just as Kyiv presses its offensive
A rare day off so some exploring this morning including my first trip on the Elizabeth Line from Woolwich to Whitechapel. Very pleasant and comfortable - trains every 5 minutes - and I now have about four different ways to get to Woolwich (including the clipper from the new Barking Riverside Pier).
On wider matters - there's something more than a bit devotional indeed spiritual about The Queue. There are analogies with the long journeys pilgrims took in often inclement weather across hundreds of miles of pathways and tracks to visit shrines such as Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela (and others).
Part of the experience was the journey - the test of faith in the conditions, the fellowship of meeting with other pilgrims and sharing the journey and the experience. a 5-mile walk from Southwark Bridge to Westminster Hall may not be quite the same as a trek across the Downs or the mountains of Northern Spain but the sense of fellowship from talking and walking with those alongside you must be of a similar nature.
I understand it and I respect it and to be honest admire those who do it - Mrs Stodge's colleague, having spent the thick end of 12 hours getting to and from Westminster Hall, logged on at 8.30am for his day's work.
It's not for me - here I'm going to be honest but blunt. The late Queen's passing hasn't evoked the same emotional response in me as it has in others - perhaps it will one day, I don't know but not at the moment.
This analogy to a pilgrimage, indeed a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, was made a couple of days ago in The Spectator. Are you plagiarising? Or just another sockpuppet of @Mysticrose?
"The queue for the lying-in-state is itself a medieval pilgrimage. The long painful queue is fundamental to the experience. There is no emotional gain from getting a taxi to Santiago de Compostela. You need to suffer to get the spiritual reward."
On the religious aspect: I've just been to Aston upon Mersey, a suburban village in Greater Manchester with about 40-odd businesses on tge High Street. Every single one had a picture of the Queen in the window. The fact that in most cases it was a relatively unobtrusive picture - an icon - made it all the more moving.
The first two (and I think the third, but harder to tell) have the same picture at the same size - makes it look like an organised rather than spontaneous thing. Is that the case, do you think?
'Organised' could of course be as simple as the local print shop having offered the portraits to any business that would care to show them.
Most were the same picture. I asked about it: some enterprising small local charity for disadvantaged kids was asking for a £5 contribution for one. Most shops had at least one of these. Though that wasn't evident from just looking.
I think this dates from Dan Snow's comments on Channel 4 the other day, that the queue and flow of people could have been managed slightly differently.
why not just have a ticketing system where you are allocated a 10 minute slot....no need to queue then
It would be chaos as people “arrived early” to “make sure”. It would be open to abuse online. The site would have crashed. You’d probably have people selling tickets for profit - hideous. You’d still need a queue to process security. And so on
What they’ve done is what they’ve always done for 100 years. A queue down the south bank. It’s fair, it’s simple and it works. And more importantly it is SEEN to be fair. As with david beckham queuing for 12 hours like everyone else
That's full on barking mad. Late Stage Strasbourg Syndrome
He's one more bonkers theory from becoming an even louder Steve Bray
I didn't know they were using a ticketing system. If they are, at what point do they give out tickets? Do they ask people's names?
Perhaps he's saying they should have had one, e.g. organised by surname. Certainly they must have thought about how to do it and decided this was the way they wanted to run with. It's possible that a decision taken several years ago and probably already reviewed a number of times was changed by the king a few days ago on a whim. Whatever. They are certainly capitalising on the death and promoting the "national outpouring" meme.
yes hence the conspiracy theories that its a plot by the establishment to make the monarchy seem more popular than it really is
Given that only 1% of the country is going to actually go there that’s a pretty crap way of doing it. Opinion polls are all you need on this topic.
I think this dates from Dan Snow's comments on Channel 4 the other day, that the queue and flow of people could have been managed slightly differently.
why not just have a ticketing system where you are allocated a 10 minute slot....no need to queue then
with the sheer volumes there would have likely then been build up of crowds around Westminster
no do it online...we have something called the internet now
I think this dates from Dan Snow's comments on Channel 4 the other day, that the queue and flow of people could have been managed slightly differently.
why not just have a ticketing system where you are allocated a 10 minute slot....no need to queue then
with the sheer volumes there would have likely then been build up of crowds around Westminster
no do it online...we have something called the internet now
Where do all the people waiting for their slot wait? Perhaps in a queue?
Random sample looking this minute at the live stream (for @thart if he's still with us).
Asian woman White bloke (a rev as it turns out) White couple White woman White woman White woman White woman White bloke White bloke White woman White woman
OK I am prepared to say that the queue to pay respect is pretty white.
Don't like this double line business either. Would be well stressed if I was on the outer line.
Anyway, enough with queues.
11 out of 12 white, 91%. National total is 86% so not ridiculously out of line, if you'll forgive the pun. Especially considering that the queue almost certainly skews older than the population as a whole.
86% was at the 2011 census. Net migration has average around 300000 a year since. Thats about 3,300,000 extra ethnic minorities over 11 years. That accounts to an extra 5%. So now likely around 81% white british. And of course London much lower. So well out of line
Net migration is nowhere near 100% non-white.
In fact, I would be very surprised if it was more than 40% non-white.
A rare day off so some exploring this morning including my first trip on the Elizabeth Line from Woolwich to Whitechapel. Very pleasant and comfortable - trains every 5 minutes - and I now have about four different ways to get to Woolwich (including the clipper from the new Barking Riverside Pier).
On wider matters - there's something more than a bit devotional indeed spiritual about The Queue. There are analogies with the long journeys pilgrims took in often inclement weather across hundreds of miles of pathways and tracks to visit shrines such as Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela (and others).
Part of the experience was the journey - the test of faith in the conditions, the fellowship of meeting with other pilgrims and sharing the journey and the experience. a 5-mile walk from Southwark Bridge to Westminster Hall may not be quite the same as a trek across the Downs or the mountains of Northern Spain but the sense of fellowship from talking and walking with those alongside you must be of a similar nature.
I understand it and I respect it and to be honest admire those who do it - Mrs Stodge's colleague, having spent the thick end of 12 hours getting to and from Westminster Hall, logged on at 8.30am for his day's work.
It's not for me - here I'm going to be honest but blunt. The late Queen's passing hasn't evoked the same emotional response in me as it has in others - perhaps it will one day, I don't know but not at the moment.
This analogy to a pilgrimage, indeed a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, was made a couple of days ago in The Spectator. Are you plagiarising? Or just another sockpuppet of @Mysticrose?
"The queue for the lying-in-state is itself a medieval pilgrimage. The long painful queue is fundamental to the experience. There is no emotional gain from getting a taxi to Santiago de Compostela. You need to suffer to get the spiritual reward."
On the religious aspect: I've just been to Aston upon Mersey, a suburban village in Greater Manchester with about 40-odd businesses on tge High Street. Every single one had a picture of the Queen in the window. The fact that in most cases it was a relatively unobtrusive picture - an icon - made it all the more moving.
The first two (and I think the third, but harder to tell) have the same picture at the same size - makes it look like an organised rather than spontaneous thing. Is that the case, do you think?
'Organised' could of course be as simple as the local print shop having offered the portraits to any business that would care to show them.
Most were the same picture. I asked about it: some enterprising small local charity for disadvantaged kids was asking for a £5 contribution for one. Most shops had at least one of these. Though that wasn't evident from just looking.
Ah, that explains it.
Wonder whether they checked the copyright... Although it would be a stupid brave rights-holder who would go after a charity for using an image of the Queen at this time, without permission.
Edit: looks like this one and that doesn't look among permitted use without permission, but, well, see above. Doubt KCIII will be taking them to court over it. Curse of having worked in intellectual property for a time that these things occur to me
Even before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) sent two planes full of asylum seekers to the summer haven this week to make a political point by funneling migrants to liberal communities, the dearth of affordable housing on the Vineyard had pushed the year-round community to a breaking point. Policymakers have chronically underinvested in affordable housing and allowed investment properties and short-term rentals to proliferate unchecked." source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/16/marthas-vineyard-housing-rentals-crisis/?itid=hp-top-table-main-t-5
The Vineyard community responded to having a bunch of asylum seekers dumped on them by being very welcoming and helpful towards them. As someone on Twitter observed, it's like the story of the good Samaritan.
Random sample looking this minute at the live stream (for @thart if he's still with us).
Asian woman White bloke (a rev as it turns out) White couple White woman White woman White woman White woman White bloke White bloke White woman White woman
OK I am prepared to say that the queue to pay respect is pretty white.
Don't like this double line business either. Would be well stressed if I was on the outer line.
Anyway, enough with queues.
11 out of 12 white, 91%. National total is 86% so not ridiculously out of line, if you'll forgive the pun. Especially considering that the queue almost certainly skews older than the population as a whole.
86% was at the 2011 census. Net migration has average around 300000 a year since. Thats about 3,300,000 extra ethnic minorities over 11 years. That accounts to an extra 5%. So now likely around 81% white british. And of course London much lower. So well out of line
Net migration is nowhere near 100% non-white.
In fact, I would be very surprised if it was more than 40% non-white.
I think it will be a real struggle for the Dems to hold the House. The Senate looks much better for them although some of the races are likely to be very close .
The deal between the Unions and Rail companies was a massive relief for the WH . A strike would have been a disaster for the economy and the Dems would have been blamed ,
That deal still has to be ratified by union members , the voting is not due to be completed until mid October . Even if the deal is rejected by one or more Unions it’s unlikely there would be an immediate strike with more time for negotiations so for the mid terms the possibility for a freight strike now looks unlikely to happen before those .
Of course the GOP were desperate for the strike !
Two things:
In 2020, 538 overestimated the Dems by one seat net: they thought they would win Maine and North Carolina; and thought they would lose one of the Georgia seats. My personal take away from this is that (a) pollsters still tend to overestimate the Dems a little, and (b) they tend to understate incumbents.
With such a lot of close races, I think we are underestimating the possibility of quite extreme results in the Senate. It's far from impossible that the Republicans have a good night, hold everything they're defending (maybe even including Pennsylvania), and pick up Arizona, Nevada and Georgia. (New Hampshire is also potentially vulnerable.)
Conversely, if the Dems do 1-2% better than expected, then they could gain Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin and maybe even Ohio.
That's full on barking mad. Late Stage Strasbourg Syndrome
He's one more bonkers theory from becoming an even louder Steve Bray
I didn't know they were using a ticketing system. If they are, at what point do they give out tickets? Do they ask people's names?
Perhaps he's saying they should have had one, e.g. organised by surname. Certainly they must have thought about how to do it and decided this was the way they wanted to run with. It's possible that a decision taken several years ago and probably already reviewed a number of times was changed by the king a few days ago on a whim. Whatever. They are certainly capitalising on the death and promoting the "national outpouring" meme.
yes hence the conspiracy theories that its a plot by the establishment to make the monarchy seem more popular than it really is
They really don't have to "fake a long unnecessary queue" to pretend that the Queen is - was! - enormously popular
She was beloved. Even Republicans venerated her. She scarcely put a foot wrong in 96 years. An extraordinary performance
Again on the Senate races: it's possible Peter Thiel will end up costing the Republicans two seats. He ploughed a ton of money into Arizona and Ohio to get his two favourite candidates the Republican nominations: both JD Vance and Blake Masters worked for Thiel's VC firm, Thiel Capital. (Albeit only Masters wrote a fawning book about how amazing Peter Thiel is.)
After Blake and Maters won their nominations, the money stopped.
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
That's full on barking mad. Late Stage Strasbourg Syndrome
He's one more bonkers theory from becoming an even louder Steve Bray
I didn't know they were using a ticketing system. If they are, at what point do they give out tickets? Do they ask people's names?
Perhaps he's saying they should have had one, e.g. organised by surname. Certainly they must have thought about how to do it and decided this was the way they wanted to run with. It's possible that a decision taken several years ago and probably already reviewed a number of times was changed by the king a few days ago on a whim. Whatever. They are certainly capitalising on the death and promoting the "national outpouring" meme.
yes hence the conspiracy theories that its a plot by the establishment to make the monarchy seem more popular than it really is
They really don't have to "fake a long unnecessary queue" to pretend that the Queen is - was! - enormously popular
She was beloved. Even Republicans venerated her. She scarcely put a foot wrong in 96 years. An extraordinary performance
This is tragic conspiratorial nonsense
the Queen was loved agreed....but the views on Charles are much more mixed and that is what the establishment are worried about if these theories have any truth
That's full on barking mad. Late Stage Strasbourg Syndrome
He's one more bonkers theory from becoming an even louder Steve Bray
I didn't know they were using a ticketing system. If they are, at what point do they give out tickets? Do they ask people's names?
Perhaps he's saying they should have had one, e.g. organised by surname. Certainly they must have thought about how to do it and decided this was the way they wanted to run with. It's possible that a decision taken several years ago and probably already reviewed a number of times was changed by the king a few days ago on a whim. Whatever. They are certainly capitalising on the death and promoting the "national outpouring" meme.
yes hence the conspiracy theories that its a plot by the establishment to make the monarchy seem more popular than it really is
They really don't have to "fake a long unnecessary queue" to pretend that the Queen is - was! - enormously popular
She was beloved. Even Republicans venerated her. She scarcely put a foot wrong in 96 years. An extraordinary performance
This is tragic conspiratorial nonsense
the Queen was loved agreed....but the views on Charles are much more mixed and that is what the establishment are worried about if these theories have any truth
I think it will be a real struggle for the Dems to hold the House. The Senate looks much better for them although some of the races are likely to be very close .
The deal between the Unions and Rail companies was a massive relief for the WH . A strike would have been a disaster for the economy and the Dems would have been blamed ,
That deal still has to be ratified by union members , the voting is not due to be completed until mid October . Even if the deal is rejected by one or more Unions it’s unlikely there would be an immediate strike with more time for negotiations so for the mid terms the possibility for a freight strike now looks unlikely to happen before those .
Of course the GOP were desperate for the strike !
Two things:
In 2020, 538 overestimated the Dems by one seat net: they thought they would win Maine and North Carolina; and thought they would lose one of the Georgia seats. My personal take away from this is that (a) pollsters still tend to overestimate the Dems a little, and (b) they tend to understate incumbents.
With such a lot of close races, I think we are underestimating the possibility of quite extreme results in the Senate. It's far from impossible that the Republicans have a good night, hold everything they're defending (maybe even including Pennsylvania), and pick up Arizona, Nevada and Georgia. (New Hampshire is also potentially vulnerable.)
Conversely, if the Dems do 1-2% better than expected, then they could gain Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin and maybe even Ohio.
You're making the mistake of, in effect, double-counting. The 538 headline figures are for their 'deluxe' (i.e. complicated) model. The polls-only figures in their model give the Democrats much better chances in both House and Senate, but the delux model moves that down slightly - in part because of the reasonbale assumption that the Democrats could underperform the polling.
So you start from a position that 'it'll be worse for the Dems because they underperform the polling figures' and then you apply that to figures that already account for that!
Secondly, over the past few months - admittedly a small sample - since the SC abortion decision, the Democrats have _over_performed the polls, consistently, and in some cases by quite a lot.
Nate S. has a piece on this, and other issues, up on 538 at the moment.
That's full on barking mad. Late Stage Strasbourg Syndrome
He's one more bonkers theory from becoming an even louder Steve Bray
I didn't know they were using a ticketing system. If they are, at what point do they give out tickets? Do they ask people's names?
Perhaps he's saying they should have had one, e.g. organised by surname. Certainly they must have thought about how to do it and decided this was the way they wanted to run with. It's possible that a decision taken several years ago and probably already reviewed a number of times was changed by the king a few days ago on a whim. Whatever. They are certainly capitalising on the death and promoting the "national outpouring" meme.
yes hence the conspiracy theories that its a plot by the establishment to make the monarchy seem more popular than it really is
They really don't have to "fake a long unnecessary queue" to pretend that the Queen is - was! - enormously popular
She was beloved. Even Republicans venerated her. She scarcely put a foot wrong in 96 years. An extraordinary performance
This is tragic conspiratorial nonsense
the Queen was loved agreed....but the views on Charles are much more mixed and that is what the establishment are worried about if these theories have any truth
Chuck is not his mum - who is? - but he'll be fine. They'll smooth or hide his petulant errors. The monarchy will endure. The Queen in retrospect will become a kind of secular goddess - just you watch
I predict there will eventually be a grand reconciliation between Princes Hal and Wills, because the former's Californian celeb status will wane and they will want to come back into the Windsor fold
And now I am going to read about the Spanish empire in the Spanish sun. Hasta
That's full on barking mad. Late Stage Strasbourg Syndrome
He's one more bonkers theory from becoming an even louder Steve Bray
I didn't know they were using a ticketing system. If they are, at what point do they give out tickets? Do they ask people's names?
Perhaps he's saying they should have had one, e.g. organised by surname. Certainly they must have thought about how to do it and decided this was the way they wanted to run with. It's possible that a decision taken several years ago and probably already reviewed a number of times was changed by the king a few days ago on a whim. Whatever. They are certainly capitalising on the death and promoting the "national outpouring" meme.
yes hence the conspiracy theories that its a plot by the establishment to make the monarchy seem more popular than it really is
They really don't have to "fake a long unnecessary queue" to pretend that the Queen is - was! - enormously popular
She was beloved. Even Republicans venerated her. She scarcely put a foot wrong in 96 years. An extraordinary performance
This is tragic conspiratorial nonsense
the Queen was loved agreed....but the views on Charles are much more mixed and that is what the establishment are worried about if these theories have any truth
Not sure of the logic there, given the queues are to pay tribute to the late Queen why would that boost Charles?
The size of the crowds at Charles' coronation next year will be far more relevant for that
I think this dates from Dan Snow's comments on Channel 4 the other day, that the queue and flow of people could have been managed slightly differently.
why not just have a ticketing system where you are allocated a 10 minute slot....no need to queue then
Of course you and others know better than those organising London Bridge over decades and the near daily cobras meetings
Frankly I trust those organising this enormous event than those sitting on the side lines just want to carp
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Grover Cleveland of course served 2 non consecutive terms....if Trump does this he will only be the 2nd President in history to achieve this feat
That's full on barking mad. Late Stage Strasbourg Syndrome
He's one more bonkers theory from becoming an even louder Steve Bray
I didn't know they were using a ticketing system. If they are, at what point do they give out tickets? Do they ask people's names?
Perhaps he's saying they should have had one, e.g. organised by surname. Certainly they must have thought about how to do it and decided this was the way they wanted to run with. It's possible that a decision taken several years ago and probably already reviewed a number of times was changed by the king a few days ago on a whim. Whatever. They are certainly capitalising on the death and promoting the "national outpouring" meme.
yes hence the conspiracy theories that its a plot by the establishment to make the monarchy seem more popular than it really is
They really don't have to "fake a long unnecessary queue" to pretend that the Queen is - was! - enormously popular
She was beloved. Even Republicans venerated her. She scarcely put a foot wrong in 96 years. An extraordinary performance
This is tragic conspiratorial nonsense
the Queen was loved agreed....but the views on Charles are much more mixed and that is what the establishment are worried about if these theories have any truth
Chuck is not his mum - who is? - but he'll be fine. They'll smooth or hide his petulant errors. The monarchy will endure. The Queen in retrospect will become a kind of secular goddess - just you watch
I predict there will eventually be a grand reconciliation between Princes Hal and Wills, because the former's Californian celeb status will wane and they will want to come back into the Windsor fold
And now I am going to read about the Spanish empire in the Spanish sun. Hasta
I assume the usual suspects don't have any problem with @mrjamesob suggesting that the crowds on the Royal Mile showed overwhelming support for the Union.
I think this dates from Dan Snow's comments on Channel 4 the other day, that the queue and flow of people could have been managed slightly differently.
why not just have a ticketing system where you are allocated a 10 minute slot....no need to queue then
It would be chaos as people “arrived early” to “make sure”. It would be open to abuse online. The site would have crashed. You’d probably have people selling tickets for profit - hideous. You’d still need a queue to process security. And so on
What they’ve done is what they’ve always done for 100 years. A queue down the south bank. It’s fair, it’s simple and it works. And more importantly it is SEEN to be fair. As with david beckham queuing for 12 hours like everyone else
It would not be beyond the wit of man to do a queueing system that worked with tickets.
You have a place where the 2pm queue started, a place where the 3pm queue started, etc. Tickets could be allocated by mobile phone.
Really, it wouldn't be that hard.
But you can't really implement it later. You'd have needed to have done it before her demise, so everything was ready.
You know what: the queue is an amazing spectacle. The people involved aren't stupid. Maybe O'Brien isn't wrong in this instance?
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
How did things work out for him against an elderly incumbent?
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
How did things work out for him against an elderly incumbent?
He lost, I doubt Carter would have done much better either
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
How did things work out for him against an elderly incumbent?
yes but Reagan had the advantage of a booming economy...Biden has no such advantage
I think this dates from Dan Snow's comments on Channel 4 the other day, that the queue and flow of people could have been managed slightly differently.
why not just have a ticketing system where you are allocated a 10 minute slot....no need to queue then
It would be chaos as people “arrived early” to “make sure”. It would be open to abuse online. The site would have crashed. You’d probably have people selling tickets for profit - hideous. You’d still need a queue to process security. And so on
What they’ve done is what they’ve always done for 100 years. A queue down the south bank. It’s fair, it’s simple and it works. And more importantly it is SEEN to be fair. As with david beckham queuing for 12 hours like everyone else
It would not be beyond the wit of man to do a queueing system that worked with tickets.
You have a place where the 2pm queue started, a place where the 3pm queue started, etc. Tickets could be allocated by mobile phone.
Really, it wouldn't be that hard.
But you can't really implement it later. You'd have needed to have done it before her demise, so everything was ready.
You know what: the queue is an amazing spectacle. The people involved aren't stupid. Maybe O'Brien isn't wrong in this instance?
No indeed, and why shouldn't they. Modern monarchy, and some extent ancient monarchy too, is public spectacle. Guy Debord and the Situationists would understand.
Went through the queue overnight. Joined 10pm in Southwark Park, got to Westminster Hall just before 9am. Good atmosphere and well-managed, though the stop at around 4am for the rehearsal was painful!
It's definitely a potentially dangerous environment for those lacking in stamina - I saw paramedics needing to help people several times overnight
bondgezou said: "The Vineyard community responded to having a bunch of asylum seekers dumped on them by being very welcoming and helpful towards them. As someone on Twitter observed, it's like the story of the good Samaritan."
After decades of the "community" blocking affordable housing on the island. So they would be like a good Samaritan who for decades, let me repeat, for decades, blocked affordable housing, but then was smart enough to make a political statement by helping a few new ones. Temporarily.
You are more easily impressed than I am.
If, for example, the Obamas were to buy a bunch of trailers and set them up on their estate, for the poor people who already live there -- and some of the asylum seekers -- that would impress me. Or, if Bernie Sanders allowed some of them to live in one of his three houses.
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Grover Cleveland of course served 2 non consecutive terms....if Trump does this he will only be the 2nd President in history to achieve this feat
Grover Cleveland, however, is one of only two Presidents to win the popular vote three times.
If Trump were (God forbid) to somehow win again, he would be the first ever president to serve two terms without winning the popular vote, and the first major party candidate to lose the popular vote three times.
(This assumes he would lose the popular vote again but I am sure that is a safe assumption.)
I think this dates from Dan Snow's comments on Channel 4 the other day, that the queue and flow of people could have been managed slightly differently.
why not just have a ticketing system where you are allocated a 10 minute slot....no need to queue then
It would be chaos as people “arrived early” to “make sure”. It would be open to abuse online. The site would have crashed. You’d probably have people selling tickets for profit - hideous. You’d still need a queue to process security. And so on
What they’ve done is what they’ve always done for 100 years. A queue down the south bank. It’s fair, it’s simple and it works. And more importantly it is SEEN to be fair. As with david beckham queuing for 12 hours like everyone else
It would not be beyond the wit of man to do a queueing system that worked with tickets.
You have a place where the 2pm queue started, a place where the 3pm queue started, etc. Tickets could be allocated by mobile phone.
Really, it wouldn't be that hard.
But you can't really implement it later. You'd have needed to have done it before her demise, so everything was ready.
You know what: the queue is an amazing spectacle. The people involved aren't stupid. Maybe O'Brien isn't wrong in this instance?
No, if you think about it - properly - anything other than what they did would have been hideously complex and open to abuse, and might not have worked. It also rules out old people who don't understand the net and so on and so forth. It would favour the young. Daft
This queueing has worked before, it is tried and trusted, it is simple and visibly fair, so they did it again. Why would you do anything else
Are they pleased there's a huge turnout and the public veneration for the Q is now a public spectacle of quasi-religious pilgrimage? Of course they are. But that's a fortunate by-product, a spandrel, it is not some evil scheme by Brexiteering lizard people
I think this dates from Dan Snow's comments on Channel 4 the other day, that the queue and flow of people could have been managed slightly differently.
why not just have a ticketing system where you are allocated a 10 minute slot....no need to queue then
It would be chaos as people “arrived early” to “make sure”. It would be open to abuse online. The site would have crashed. You’d probably have people selling tickets for profit - hideous. You’d still need a queue to process security. And so on
What they’ve done is what they’ve always done for 100 years. A queue down the south bank. It’s fair, it’s simple and it works. And more importantly it is SEEN to be fair. As with david beckham queuing for 12 hours like everyone else
It would not be beyond the wit of man to do a queueing system that worked with tickets.
You have a place where the 2pm queue started, a place where the 3pm queue started, etc. Tickets could be allocated by mobile phone.
Really, it wouldn't be that hard.
But you can't really implement it later. You'd have needed to have done it before her demise, so everything was ready.
You know what: the queue is an amazing spectacle. The people involved aren't stupid. Maybe O'Brien isn't wrong in this instance?
Timed entry simply wouldn't work given the constraints of the sites. There simply aren't enough suitable sites where people with timed tickets could linger. Also a 3am timed entry ticket isn't much use to someone whose last train is at midnight
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Grover Cleveland of course served 2 non consecutive terms....if Trump does this he will only be the 2nd President in history to achieve this feat
Grover Cleveland, however, is one of only two Presidents to win the popular vote three times.
If Trump were (God forbid) to somehow win again, he would be the first ever president to serve two terms without winning the popular vote, and the first major party candidate to lose the popular vote three times.
(This assumes he would lose the popular vote again but I am sure that is a safe assumption.)
if the us economy tanks Trump could win the popular vote
Went through the queue overnight. Joined 10pm in Southwark Park, got to Westminster Hall just before 9am. Good atmosphere and well-managed, though the stop at around 4am for the rehearsal was painful!
It's definitely a potentially dangerous environment for those lacking in stamina - I saw paramedics needing to help people several times overnight
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Grover Cleveland of course served 2 non consecutive terms....if Trump does this he will only be the 2nd President in history to achieve this feat
Grover Cleveland, however, is one of only two Presidents to win the popular vote three times.
If Trump were (God forbid) to somehow win again, he would be the first ever president to serve two terms without winning the popular vote, and the first major party candidate to lose the popular vote three times.
(This assumes he would lose the popular vote again but I am sure that is a safe assumption.)
if the us economy tanks Trump could win the popular vote
He certainly could if he gets some more help from some of our friends in the GRU.
Went through the queue overnight. Joined 10pm in Southwark Park, got to Westminster Hall just before 9am. Good atmosphere and well-managed, though the stop at around 4am for the rehearsal was painful!
It's definitely a potentially dangerous environment for those lacking in stamina - I saw paramedics needing to help people several times overnight
I think all PBers who complete the lying in state queue deserve a medal, like a mini London Marathon!
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
How did things work out for him against an elderly incumbent?
He lost, I doubt Carter would have done much better either
Reagan pounded Mondale like one of TSEs self employed port habitues. Mondale only just won his home state preventing a 50 state wipeout.
Went through the queue overnight. Joined 10pm in Southwark Park, got to Westminster Hall just before 9am. Good atmosphere and well-managed, though the stop at around 4am for the rehearsal was painful!
It's definitely a potentially dangerous environment for those lacking in stamina - I saw paramedics needing to help people several times overnight
I think all PBers who complete the lying in state queue deserve a medal, like a mini London Marathon!
We are close to a point when it will be too late to join. The wait is now 14 hours apparently, and going up all the time
I aim to return to London at the precise moment it is impossible to join the queue so I don’t feel guilty and disloyal to Her Maj
I will watch the funeral cortège in person however
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Grover Cleveland of course served 2 non consecutive terms....if Trump does this he will only be the 2nd President in history to achieve this feat
Grover Cleveland, however, is one of only two Presidents to win the popular vote three times.
If Trump were (God forbid) to somehow win again, he would be the first ever president to serve two terms without winning the popular vote, and the first major party candidate to lose the popular vote three times.
(This assumes he would lose the popular vote again but I am sure that is a safe assumption.)
if the us economy tanks Trump could win the popular vote
He wouldn't win the popular vote even if the American people are reduced to eating rats and debating passport colours.
But - crucial but - that actually helps him. His whole schtick is a 'them and us' mentality and he feeds the paranoia of the minority just where he needs to to win those states (aided by some vote rigging operations, not that they helped him last time).
This is one reason Hilary 'basket of deplorables' Clinton was the worst imaginable candidate to field against him and why Biden was, by contrast, a pretty comfortable winner.
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Grover Cleveland of course served 2 non consecutive terms....if Trump does this he will only be the 2nd President in history to achieve this feat
Grover Cleveland, however, is one of only two Presidents to win the popular vote three times.
If Trump were (God forbid) to somehow win again, he would be the first ever president to serve two terms without winning the popular vote, and the first major party candidate to lose the popular vote three times.
(This assumes he would lose the popular vote again but I am sure that is a safe assumption.)
if the us economy tanks Trump could win the popular vote
He wouldn't win the popular vote even if the American people are reduced to eating rats and debating passport colours.
But - crucial but - that actually helps him. His whole schtick is a 'them and us' mentality and he feeds the paranoia of the minority just where he needs to to win those states (aided by some vote rigging operations, not that they helped him last time).
This is one reason Hilary 'basket of deplorables' Clinton was the worst imaginable candidate to field against him and why Biden was, by contrast, a pretty comfortable winner.
your accusations of vote rigging by Trump seem to be going into conspiracy theory territory
Went through the queue overnight. Joined 10pm in Southwark Park, got to Westminster Hall just before 9am. Good atmosphere and well-managed, though the stop at around 4am for the rehearsal was painful!
It's definitely a potentially dangerous environment for those lacking in stamina - I saw paramedics needing to help people several times overnight
I think all PBers who complete the lying in state queue deserve a medal, like a mini London Marathon!
We are close to a point when it will be too late to join. The wait is now 14 hours apparently, and going up all the time
I aim to return to London at the precise moment it is impossible to join the queue so I don’t feel guilty and disloyal to Her Maj
I will watch the funeral cortège in person however
You'll need to make sure you get a spot very very early judging by this level of monarchism!
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Grover Cleveland of course served 2 non consecutive terms....if Trump does this he will only be the 2nd President in history to achieve this feat
Grover Cleveland, however, is one of only two Presidents to win the popular vote three times.
If Trump were (God forbid) to somehow win again, he would be the first ever president to serve two terms without winning the popular vote, and the first major party candidate to lose the popular vote three times.
(This assumes he would lose the popular vote again but I am sure that is a safe assumption.)
if the us economy tanks Trump could win the popular vote
He wouldn't win the popular vote even if the American people are reduced to eating rats and debating passport colours.
But - crucial but - that actually helps him. His whole schtick is a 'them and us' mentality and he feeds the paranoia of the minority just where he needs to to win those states (aided by some vote rigging operations, not that they helped him last time).
This is one reason Hilary 'basket of deplorables' Clinton was the worst imaginable candidate to field against him and why Biden was, by contrast, a pretty comfortable winner.
your accusations of vote rigging by Trump seem to be going into conspiracy theory territory
Really? What would you call refusing to allow the correct number of polling stations, urging the local returning officers to submit fraudulent returns, attempting to take out injunctions on perjured evidence, ordering your Vice President to reject the results and finally trying to use violence to prevent the results being recorded?
I'd call it vote rigging. But maybe that's an irregular verb. I call it vote rigging, you call it conspiracy theory, Trump calls it business methods.
Short version: the EU storage is now 85.7% full, (fractionally above normal for this time of year). and is filling at about 0.3% a day, again consistently above the normal for this time of year.
The Russians shutting off 'Nord Stream 1' may have made gas more expensive but does not seem to be affecting the filling of the storage.
Random sample looking this minute at the live stream (for @thart if he's still with us).
Asian woman White bloke (a rev as it turns out) White couple White woman White woman White woman White woman White bloke White bloke White woman White woman
OK I am prepared to say that the queue to pay respect is pretty white.
Don't like this double line business either. Would be well stressed if I was on the outer line.
Anyway, enough with queues.
11 out of 12 white, 91%. National total is 86% so not ridiculously out of line, if you'll forgive the pun. Especially considering that the queue almost certainly skews older than the population as a whole.
86% was at the 2011 census. Net migration has average around 300000 a year since. Thats about 3,300,000 extra ethnic minorities over 11 years. That accounts to an extra 5%. So now likely around 81% white british. And of course London much lower. So well out of line
Net migration is nowhere near 100% non-white.
In fact, I would be very surprised if it was more than 40% non-white.
But the top 5 countries of origin for people born outside the UK and now living in the UK are...
1. India 2. Poland 3. Pakistan 4. Ireland 5. Germany
But the top 5 nationalities for immigrants are...
1. Poland 2. India 3. Ireland 4. Italy 5. Romania
It is interesting that on TV you very frequently get Indian or Pakistani ethnic minority characters on shows etc, but its exceptionally rare it seems to get ethnically Polish or Romanian characters.
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Grover Cleveland of course served 2 non consecutive terms....if Trump does this he will only be the 2nd President in history to achieve this feat
Grover Cleveland, however, is one of only two Presidents to win the popular vote three times.
If Trump were (God forbid) to somehow win again, he would be the first ever president to serve two terms without winning the popular vote, and the first major party candidate to lose the popular vote three times.
(This assumes he would lose the popular vote again but I am sure that is a safe assumption.)
if the us economy tanks Trump could win the popular vote
He wouldn't win the popular vote even if the American people are reduced to eating rats and debating passport colours.
But - crucial but - that actually helps him. His whole schtick is a 'them and us' mentality and he feeds the paranoia of the minority just where he needs to to win those states (aided by some vote rigging operations, not that they helped him last time).
This is one reason Hilary 'basket of deplorables' Clinton was the worst imaginable candidate to field against him and why Biden was, by contrast, a pretty comfortable winner.
your accusations of vote rigging by Trump seem to be going into conspiracy theory territory
Really? What would you call refusing to allow the correct number of polling stations, urging the local returning officers to submit fraudulent returns, attempting to take out injunctions on perjured evidence, ordering your Vice President to reject the results and finally trying to use violence to prevent the results being recorded?
I'd call it vote rigging. But maybe that's an irregular verb. I call it vote rigging, you call it conspiracy theory, Trump calls it business methods.
there have been no accusations of vote rigging against Trump in the MSM...
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Grover Cleveland of course served 2 non consecutive terms....if Trump does this he will only be the 2nd President in history to achieve this feat
Grover Cleveland, however, is one of only two Presidents to win the popular vote three times.
If Trump were (God forbid) to somehow win again, he would be the first ever president to serve two terms without winning the popular vote, and the first major party candidate to lose the popular vote three times.
(This assumes he would lose the popular vote again but I am sure that is a safe assumption.)
if the us economy tanks Trump could win the popular vote
He wouldn't win the popular vote even if the American people are reduced to eating rats and debating passport colours.
But - crucial but - that actually helps him. His whole schtick is a 'them and us' mentality and he feeds the paranoia of the minority just where he needs to to win those states (aided by some vote rigging operations, not that they helped him last time).
This is one reason Hilary 'basket of deplorables' Clinton was the worst imaginable candidate to field against him and why Biden was, by contrast, a pretty comfortable winner.
your accusations of vote rigging by Trump seem to be going into conspiracy theory territory
You're not paranoid if they're actually out to get you, and its not a conspiracy theory when the evidence is out in the open.
Short version: the EU storage is now 85.7% full, (fractionally above normal for this time of year). and is filling at about 0.3% a day, again consistently above the normal for this time of year.
The Russians shutting off 'Nord Stream 1' may have made gas more expensive but does not seem to be affecting the filling of the storage.
I suspect Europeans are being a lot more sparing with gas and consuming rather less than September last year.
I think it will be a real struggle for the Dems to hold the House. The Senate looks much better for them although some of the races are likely to be very close .
The deal between the Unions and Rail companies was a massive relief for the WH . A strike would have been a disaster for the economy and the Dems would have been blamed ,
That deal still has to be ratified by union members , the voting is not due to be completed until mid October . Even if the deal is rejected by one or more Unions it’s unlikely there would be an immediate strike with more time for negotiations so for the mid terms the possibility for a freight strike now looks unlikely to happen before those .
Of course the GOP were desperate for the strike !
Two things:
In 2020, 538 overestimated the Dems by one seat net: they thought they would win Maine and North Carolina; and thought they would lose one of the Georgia seats. My personal take away from this is that (a) pollsters still tend to overestimate the Dems a little, and (b) they tend to understate incumbents.
With such a lot of close races, I think we are underestimating the possibility of quite extreme results in the Senate. It's far from impossible that the Republicans have a good night, hold everything they're defending (maybe even including Pennsylvania), and pick up Arizona, Nevada and Georgia. (New Hampshire is also potentially vulnerable.)
Conversely, if the Dems do 1-2% better than expected, then they could gain Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin and maybe even Ohio.
You're making the mistake of, in effect, double-counting. The 538 headline figures are for their 'deluxe' (i.e. complicated) model. The polls-only figures in their model give the Democrats much better chances in both House and Senate, but the delux model moves that down slightly - in part because of the reasonbale assumption that the Democrats could underperform the polling.
So you start from a position that 'it'll be worse for the Dems because they underperform the polling figures' and then you apply that to figures that already account for that!
Secondly, over the past few months - admittedly a small sample - since the SC abortion decision, the Democrats have _over_performed the polls, consistently, and in some cases by quite a lot.
Nate S. has a piece on this, and other issues, up on 538 at the moment.
Sure: but 538 models - in national elections - have tended to overstate Democrat chances.
The only election where their model was spot on, IIRC, was the House election in 2018. Other than that, the Dems have underperformed and the Reps have outperformed. Now, sure, the gaps are typically small. But their consistency is telling: since 2016, that's two Presidential elections, four sets of House races and four sets of Senate races.
Short version: the EU storage is now 85.7% full, (fractionally above normal for this time of year). and is filling at about 0.3% a day, again consistently above the normal for this time of year.
The Russians shutting off 'Nord Stream 1' may have made gas more expensive but does not seem to be affecting the filling of the storage.
The swings in the gas price over the past couple of weeks have been extraordinary
Which of course is even a bigger story than the fact there was life on Mars - as it means life has formed independently from that on Earth - that is staggering and must show the universe is teaming with life
Short version: the EU storage is now 85.7% full, (fractionally above normal for this time of year). and is filling at about 0.3% a day, again consistently above the normal for this time of year.
The Russians shutting off 'Nord Stream 1' may have made gas more expensive but does not seem to be affecting the filling of the storage.
The swings in the gas price over the past couple of weeks have been extraordinary
we are getting demand destruction as the economy slows
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Grover Cleveland of course served 2 non consecutive terms....if Trump does this he will only be the 2nd President in history to achieve this feat
Grover Cleveland, however, is one of only two Presidents to win the popular vote three times.
If Trump were (God forbid) to somehow win again, he would be the first ever president to serve two terms without winning the popular vote, and the first major party candidate to lose the popular vote three times.
(This assumes he would lose the popular vote again but I am sure that is a safe assumption.)
if the us economy tanks Trump could win the popular vote
He wouldn't win the popular vote even if the American people are reduced to eating rats and debating passport colours.
But - crucial but - that actually helps him. His whole schtick is a 'them and us' mentality and he feeds the paranoia of the minority just where he needs to to win those states (aided by some vote rigging operations, not that they helped him last time).
This is one reason Hilary 'basket of deplorables' Clinton was the worst imaginable candidate to field against him and why Biden was, by contrast, a pretty comfortable winner.
your accusations of vote rigging by Trump seem to be going into conspiracy theory territory
Really? What would you call refusing to allow the correct number of polling stations, urging the local returning officers to submit fraudulent returns, attempting to take out injunctions on perjured evidence, ordering your Vice President to reject the results and finally trying to use violence to prevent the results being recorded?
I'd call it vote rigging. But maybe that's an irregular verb. I call it vote rigging, you call it conspiracy theory, Trump calls it business methods.
there have been no accusations of vote rigging against Trump in the MSM...
All of those accusations have been made against Trump and the wider Republican party in the MSM. And some of them, in front of Congress.
If they chose not to call it vote rigging, that is up to them. We're back to our irregular verbs.
But it was an attempt to fraudulently alter the result of a democratic vote using unlawful methods.
A rare day off so some exploring this morning including my first trip on the Elizabeth Line from Woolwich to Whitechapel. Very pleasant and comfortable - trains every 5 minutes - and I now have about four different ways to get to Woolwich (including the clipper from the new Barking Riverside Pier).
On wider matters - there's something more than a bit devotional indeed spiritual about The Queue. There are analogies with the long journeys pilgrims took in often inclement weather across hundreds of miles of pathways and tracks to visit shrines such as Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela (and others).
Part of the experience was the journey - the test of faith in the conditions, the fellowship of meeting with other pilgrims and sharing the journey and the experience. a 5-mile walk from Southwark Bridge to Westminster Hall may not be quite the same as a trek across the Downs or the mountains of Northern Spain but the sense of fellowship from talking and walking with those alongside you must be of a similar nature.
I understand it and I respect it and to be honest admire those who do it - Mrs Stodge's colleague, having spent the thick end of 12 hours getting to and from Westminster Hall, logged on at 8.30am for his day's work.
It's not for me - here I'm going to be honest but blunt. The late Queen's passing hasn't evoked the same emotional response in me as it has in others - perhaps it will one day, I don't know but not at the moment.
This analogy to a pilgrimage, indeed a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, was made a couple of days ago in The Spectator. Are you plagiarising? Or just another sockpuppet of @Mysticrose?
"The queue for the lying-in-state is itself a medieval pilgrimage. The long painful queue is fundamental to the experience. There is no emotional gain from getting a taxi to Santiago de Compostela. You need to suffer to get the spiritual reward."
On the religious aspect: I've just been to Aston upon Mersey, a suburban village in Greater Manchester with about 40-odd businesses on tge High Street. Every single one had a picture of the Queen in the window. The fact that in most cases it was a relatively unobtrusive picture - an icon - made it all the more moving.
The first two (and I think the third, but harder to tell) have the same picture at the same size - makes it look like an organised rather than spontaneous thing. Is that the case, do you think?
'Organised' could of course be as simple as the local print shop having offered the portraits to any business that would care to show them.
Most were the same picture. I asked about it: some enterprising small local charity for disadvantaged kids was asking for a £5 contribution for one. Most shops had at least one of these. Though that wasn't evident from just looking.
Ah, that explains it.
Wonder whether they checked the copyright... Although it would be a stupid brave rights-holder who would go after a charity for using an image of the Queen at this time, without permission.
Edit: looks like this one and that doesn't look among permitted use without permission, but, well, see above. Doubt KCIII will be taking them to court over it. Curse of having worked in intellectual property for a time that these things occur to me
Don't know. Depends if the donation was compulsory. "Here's a nice pic of Her Maj. No, squire, free." "Ta." "I happen to be collecting for the kids charity so if you are in a good mood and have a fiver ..."
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Grover Cleveland of course served 2 non consecutive terms....if Trump does this he will only be the 2nd President in history to achieve this feat
Grover Cleveland, however, is one of only two Presidents to win the popular vote three times.
If Trump were (God forbid) to somehow win again, he would be the first ever president to serve two terms without winning the popular vote, and the first major party candidate to lose the popular vote three times.
(This assumes he would lose the popular vote again but I am sure that is a safe assumption.)
if the us economy tanks Trump could win the popular vote
He wouldn't win the popular vote even if the American people are reduced to eating rats and debating passport colours.
But - crucial but - that actually helps him. His whole schtick is a 'them and us' mentality and he feeds the paranoia of the minority just where he needs to to win those states (aided by some vote rigging operations, not that they helped him last time).
This is one reason Hilary 'basket of deplorables' Clinton was the worst imaginable candidate to field against him and why Biden was, by contrast, a pretty comfortable winner.
your accusations of vote rigging by Trump seem to be going into conspiracy theory territory
Really? What would you call refusing to allow the correct number of polling stations, urging the local returning officers to submit fraudulent returns, attempting to take out injunctions on perjured evidence, ordering your Vice President to reject the results and finally trying to use violence to prevent the results being recorded?
I'd call it vote rigging. But maybe that's an irregular verb. I call it vote rigging, you call it conspiracy theory, Trump calls it business methods.
there have been no accusations of vote rigging against Trump in the MSM...
All of those accusations have been made against Trump and the wider Republican party in the MSM. And some of them, in front of Congress.
If they chose not to call it vote rigging, that is up to them. We're back to our irregular verbs.
But it was an attempt to fraudulently alter the result of a democratic vote using unlawful methods.
Or, as we call it round my way - vote rigging.
You're dealing with someone who thinks that Putin is democratically elected and entitled to invade Ukraine, and that people going to see the Queen lying in state is evidence of racism in the UK.
Or, as we call it round my way - don't feed the troll.
The market remains extremely volatile suggesting that it is still being dominated by speculation. It was sharply up yesterday and sharply down today. The changes remain extreme, often, as in the last 2 days, more than 10% in a single day. The trend, however, has been downwards since 26th August. It would be very helpful to know what the break even point is for the government's guarantee but I can't find it.
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Grover Cleveland of course served 2 non consecutive terms....if Trump does this he will only be the 2nd President in history to achieve this feat
Grover Cleveland, however, is one of only two Presidents to win the popular vote three times.
If Trump were (God forbid) to somehow win again, he would be the first ever president to serve two terms without winning the popular vote, and the first major party candidate to lose the popular vote three times.
(This assumes he would lose the popular vote again but I am sure that is a safe assumption.)
if the us economy tanks Trump could win the popular vote
He wouldn't win the popular vote even if the American people are reduced to eating rats and debating passport colours.
But - crucial but - that actually helps him. His whole schtick is a 'them and us' mentality and he feeds the paranoia of the minority just where he needs to to win those states (aided by some vote rigging operations, not that they helped him last time).
This is one reason Hilary 'basket of deplorables' Clinton was the worst imaginable candidate to field against him and why Biden was, by contrast, a pretty comfortable winner.
your accusations of vote rigging by Trump seem to be going into conspiracy theory territory
Really? What would you call refusing to allow the correct number of polling stations, urging the local returning officers to submit fraudulent returns, attempting to take out injunctions on perjured evidence, ordering your Vice President to reject the results and finally trying to use violence to prevent the results being recorded?
I'd call it vote rigging. But maybe that's an irregular verb. I call it vote rigging, you call it conspiracy theory, Trump calls it business methods.
there have been no accusations of vote rigging against Trump in the MSM...
All of those accusations have been made against Trump and the wider Republican party in the MSM. And some of them, in front of Congress.
If they chose not to call it vote rigging, that is up to them. We're back to our irregular verbs.
But it was an attempt to fraudulently alter the result of a democratic vote using unlawful methods.
Or, as we call it round my way - vote rigging.
You're dealing with someone who thinks that Putin is democratically elected and entitled to invade Ukraine, and that people going to see the Queen lying in state is evidence of racism in the UK.
Or, as we call it round my way - don't feed the troll.
Random sample looking this minute at the live stream (for @thart if he's still with us).
Asian woman White bloke (a rev as it turns out) White couple White woman White woman White woman White woman White bloke White bloke White woman White woman
OK I am prepared to say that the queue to pay respect is pretty white.
Don't like this double line business either. Would be well stressed if I was on the outer line.
Anyway, enough with queues.
11 out of 12 white, 91%. National total is 86% so not ridiculously out of line, if you'll forgive the pun. Especially considering that the queue almost certainly skews older than the population as a whole.
86% was at the 2011 census. Net migration has average around 300000 a year since. Thats about 3,300,000 extra ethnic minorities over 11 years. That accounts to an extra 5%. So now likely around 81% white british. And of course London much lower. So well out of line
Net migration is nowhere near 100% non-white.
In fact, I would be very surprised if it was more than 40% non-white.
But the top 5 countries of origin for people born outside the UK and now living in the UK are...
1. India 2. Poland 3. Pakistan 4. Ireland 5. Germany
But the top 5 nationalities for immigrants are...
1. Poland 2. India 3. Ireland 4. Italy 5. Romania
It is interesting that on TV you very frequently get Indian or Pakistani ethnic minority characters on shows etc, but its exceptionally rare it seems to get ethnically Polish or Romanian characters.
People used to complain about loony left local education authorities blighting the lives of children but I wonder whether the academies system is in some cases* allowing the loony right to do the same.
*my kids all attend academies which are totally fine, so it is not a blanket criticism of the system; but I wonder if there is enough oversight, especially when academy trusts are run by politically connected people. FWIW I know someone who used to work for this Trust and the people in charge sounded like the last people you would entrust the education of your children to.
I hate Putin and I think the Queen stuff is now ridiculous. Come at me
It sounds as if you need to read a bit of Marina Hyde to help through to Monday. I support a bit of scepticism of the excessive parts, while broadly supporting the Queue as well.
"Could it be Morrisons, announcing that it had turned down the volume of its till beeps “out of respect”? Could it be pawnshop chain Cash Converters formally announcing its self-seclusion from social media? Or could it be – and this one’s the correct answer – Center Parcs decreeing that holidaymakers must be thrown out of its villages for the day of the Queen’s funeral “as a mark of respect”, before backtracking and permitting customers to remain on site, while ordering them to “remain in their lodges”?"
Yup, I’ve gone. Completely gone. If you’ve felt slightly “managed” by aspects of the relentlessly choreographed elements of the past week, then this really was your Triumph of the Corporate Will. It was, all of a sudden, simply impossible not to picture oneself in one’s wood-effect, lodge-effect detention hut, cowering by the forest-mural feature wall as village guards toured the site with loudhailers while screaming “REMAIN IN YOUR LODGES!
Thank heavens for a glimpse of the indomitable spirit of pisstake, as various online posters offered a masterclass in why brands really should avoid running their firms by the Pooterising diktats of social media. “Good luck removing guests from the parks,” ran one Twitter response to Center Parcs (heroically refusing to submit to the “parcs” affectation). “You’ve trained them in archery, shooting, swimming, canoeing and swinging through the trees like apes. You’ve basically got five village-loads of ninjas to clear out.”
People used to complain about loony left local education authorities blighting the lives of children but I wonder whether the academies system is in some cases* allowing the loony right to do the same.
*my kids all attend academies which are totally fine, so it is not a blanket criticism of the system; but I wonder if there is enough oversight, especially when academy trusts are run by politically connected people. FWIW I know someone who used to work for this Trust and the people in charge sounded like the last people you would entrust the education of your children to.
'Latin is the sole language taught at primary level, it is claimed, while history exercises allegedly ask children under the age of 11 to replicate university-standard essays.
Separately, the Guardian has seen one textbook used by primary pupils that required them to put themselves in the minds of historical figures about to kill themselves.
“Imagine that you are Seneca, in the process of committing suicide, in AD65”, read one ancient history exercise book. “Write your final words to be dictated by your scribe before you immerse yourself in a hot bath and bleed to death.”'
Bit difficult teaching computing when the Romans didn't have the zero.
Re; Ben Okri, I haven't followed his latest works, but looking up I saw that he's got too recent books out - "the age of magic" and "the freedom artist". I agree with you that he's a good, richly imaginative writer.
He wrote this quite nice piece about the Queen last week, which got very little exposure. I don't agree with everythng he says, but I think it's broadly good , and it's striking how he reveals more by taking such a different tone to the ultra-secular tone of the majority of modern society, but also remaining liberal and open. I haven't see a single other writer or journalist cover it in this sort of way.
"Queen Elizabeth ruled at a time when the spiritual energy of the world was moving from a male-centred universe to one desperately in need of feminine energies. After two world wars, after the toxicity of Nazism, which was male energy at its most disordered and insane, what the world truly needed, at the level of its subconscious, was a female force, a stable, balancing, presence."
Interesting that there are Okri fans on here - I thought Famished Road was one of most turgid things I had ever read, as did the friend who lent it to me. Another (bookshop-owning) friend finds his books sell to the sort of people she describews as 'shelf-decorators'.
Yes not for everyone. A bit like Mantel or, yes, Proust or even JJ himself. You've got to give yourself over completely to their world. If so much as your big toe remains outside it's all over.
And yet Mantel and Proust are fine for me (haven't read Joyce). The big modern worldbuilder for me is John Crowley. The Aegypt cycle is extremely dense and rewarding.
Are you saying that people have different tastes in literature???
I will have to give it a go never heard of him, embarrassing to say.
As for the "shelf-decorators" it begs two questions - first, are there really people who buy books just so they can have an impressive bookcase; and secondly, the more important question - what proportion of your books should you legitimately not have read and be planning to.
Re the shelf-decorators: yes, I can attest to this as a former bookseller myself. Keys are: they buy hardbacks; they won't buy more than one by any given author; prizewinners are important; the author's name needs to be very visible from a distance. I've heard people talk about who's getting 'demoted' to make room for a current big name. Mantel was v. popular because of the size of her Wolf Hall series.
What proportion of books can you have unread, but be planning to? For me it's currently running at around 5%: nearly 3000 books, of which around 150 are on the 'to be read' shelves.
Joyce: no, haven't got round to him yet. Even at around 100 books a year, there's only so much I can get through.
I use the Library Thing website to keep a track of my books. Currently just under 4000 of which I have read about 2/3rds. Like you, I try to read 100 books a year but rarely ever hit the target. Normally around 80-90. So I reckon that as long as I live a reasonably long life I still have plenty of time to finish all the books I own but have not yet read.
4000 is _very_impressive. I've known a lot of people who say they've got 'thousands of books', and when I go around... not quite so many.
I'm probably going to be around 80-90 this year, partly due to reading some chunky books - Don Quixote, Tom Jones and the like.
Have you come across the Japenese concept of 'tsundoku'? The library of books that you own, and will reads, but haven't yet. Considered a sign of an open mind.
The line between that and outright hoarding isn't too thin but still scarily easy to cross. Read three books a month and buy five. It adds up.
I know the feeling only too well. Though lockdown prompted me to start reading through my "new" books with some success.
Must have more than 50 metres of shelf space, some in double parking, and some in boxes, as a result of bringing home some of my late father's books. I am in the middle of a huge sort out and rationalisation over some months. Easier than expected as interests change and so on - Mervyn Peake no longer attracts me as much as it did my teenage self, for instance - but even so I'd estimate about 15++ wine boxes of books have gone to charity (specialist) or recycling for the disintegrating ones - with more to go. I'll wait on counting them till I have finished!
Finally got my unread books pile below 100! Making progress.
Right now we are getting 37% of our power from wind, 14.5% from solar and 7.6% from biomass, a total of 59.1% from renewables. Only 16.2% of our energy is coming from gas. This is really an astonishing achievement and it is going to get much better next year. Of course, it is pretty windy today.
I hate Putin and I think the Queen stuff is now ridiculous. Come at me
The amount people care about something is a variable X.
The amount of effort that people putting into doing something about X is another variable Y.
Both variables vary enormously from person to person. "Everyone must scream and wail and emote or they are a sociopath" is just as much garbage as "everyone must present a perfectly stiff upper lip when their best friends leg gets shot off in a particularly tense battle".
Given that there are hundreds of channels on TV not showing anything vaguely Royal, and 99% of the country is operating exactly as it did before, you can just let it pass by.
Being annoyed at other peoples likes and dislikes is a fools errand, mostly.
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Grover Cleveland of course served 2 non consecutive terms....if Trump does this he will only be the 2nd President in history to achieve this feat
Grover Cleveland, however, is one of only two Presidents to win the popular vote three times.
If Trump were (God forbid) to somehow win again, he would be the first ever president to serve two terms without winning the popular vote, and the first major party candidate to lose the popular vote three times.
(This assumes he would lose the popular vote again but I am sure that is a safe assumption.)
if the us economy tanks Trump could win the popular vote
He wouldn't win the popular vote even if the American people are reduced to eating rats and debating passport colours.
But - crucial but - that actually helps him. His whole schtick is a 'them and us' mentality and he feeds the paranoia of the minority just where he needs to to win those states (aided by some vote rigging operations, not that they helped him last time).
This is one reason Hilary 'basket of deplorables' Clinton was the worst imaginable candidate to field against him and why Biden was, by contrast, a pretty comfortable winner.
your accusations of vote rigging by Trump seem to be going into conspiracy theory territory
Really? What would you call refusing to allow the correct number of polling stations, urging the local returning officers to submit fraudulent returns, attempting to take out injunctions on perjured evidence, ordering your Vice President to reject the results and finally trying to use violence to prevent the results being recorded?
I'd call it vote rigging. But maybe that's an irregular verb. I call it vote rigging, you call it conspiracy theory, Trump calls it business methods.
there have been no accusations of vote rigging against Trump in the MSM...
For all the dithering off stages, incoherence and forgetting his words Biden or Biden's team have indeed played a blinder in Ukraine and the Trumpists look ever more absurd.
I think Biden himself seems to have good instincts. Pity he was not the 2012 candidate.
Re; Ben Okri, I haven't followed his latest works, but looking up I saw that he's got too recent books out - "the age of magic" and "the freedom artist". I agree with you that he's a good, richly imaginative writer.
He wrote this quite nice piece about the Queen last week, which got very little exposure. I don't agree with everythng he says, but I think it's broadly good , and it's striking how he reveals more by taking such a different tone to the ultra-secular tone of the majority of modern society, but also remaining liberal and open. I haven't see a single other writer or journalist cover it in this sort of way.
"Queen Elizabeth ruled at a time when the spiritual energy of the world was moving from a male-centred universe to one desperately in need of feminine energies. After two world wars, after the toxicity of Nazism, which was male energy at its most disordered and insane, what the world truly needed, at the level of its subconscious, was a female force, a stable, balancing, presence."
Interesting that there are Okri fans on here - I thought Famished Road was one of most turgid things I had ever read, as did the friend who lent it to me. Another (bookshop-owning) friend finds his books sell to the sort of people she describews as 'shelf-decorators'.
Yes not for everyone. A bit like Mantel or, yes, Proust or even JJ himself. You've got to give yourself over completely to their world. If so much as your big toe remains outside it's all over.
And yet Mantel and Proust are fine for me (haven't read Joyce). The big modern worldbuilder for me is John Crowley. The Aegypt cycle is extremely dense and rewarding.
Are you saying that people have different tastes in literature???
I will have to give it a go never heard of him, embarrassing to say.
As for the "shelf-decorators" it begs two questions - first, are there really people who buy books just so they can have an impressive bookcase; and secondly, the more important question - what proportion of your books should you legitimately not have read and be planning to.
Re the shelf-decorators: yes, I can attest to this as a former bookseller myself. Keys are: they buy hardbacks; they won't buy more than one by any given author; prizewinners are important; the author's name needs to be very visible from a distance. I've heard people talk about who's getting 'demoted' to make room for a current big name. Mantel was v. popular because of the size of her Wolf Hall series.
What proportion of books can you have unread, but be planning to? For me it's currently running at around 5%: nearly 3000 books, of which around 150 are on the 'to be read' shelves.
Joyce: no, haven't got round to him yet. Even at around 100 books a year, there's only so much I can get through.
I use the Library Thing website to keep a track of my books. Currently just under 4000 of which I have read about 2/3rds. Like you, I try to read 100 books a year but rarely ever hit the target. Normally around 80-90. So I reckon that as long as I live a reasonably long life I still have plenty of time to finish all the books I own but have not yet read.
4000 is _very_impressive. I've known a lot of people who say they've got 'thousands of books', and when I go around... not quite so many.
I'm probably going to be around 80-90 this year, partly due to reading some chunky books - Don Quixote, Tom Jones and the like.
Have you come across the Japenese concept of 'tsundoku'? The library of books that you own, and will reads, but haven't yet. Considered a sign of an open mind.
The line between that and outright hoarding isn't too thin but still scarily easy to cross. Read three books a month and buy five. It adds up.
I know the feeling only too well. Though lockdown prompted me to start reading through my "new" books with some success.
Must have more than 50 metres of shelf space, some in double parking, and some in boxes, as a result of bringing home some of my late father's books. I am in the middle of a huge sort out and rationalisation over some months. Easier than expected as interests change and so on - Mervyn Peake no longer attracts me as much as it did my teenage self, for instance - but even so I'd estimate about 15++ wine boxes of books have gone to charity (specialist) or recycling for the disintegrating ones - with more to go. I'll wait on counting them till I have finished!
Finally got my unread books pile below 100! Making progress.
often start reading a book...get 50 pages in think this is rubbish...then discard it
What will it do that the old one didn't? What is the impact on the planet of keeping buying new phones that do what the last one did?
Judging by that photo it offers a direct gate to the next world
The idiocy comes with the compulsion to upgrade every single time things change. I buy a new phone about once every half decade. And I think that is quite frequent, really.
A rare day off so some exploring this morning including my first trip on the Elizabeth Line from Woolwich to Whitechapel. Very pleasant and comfortable - trains every 5 minutes - and I now have about four different ways to get to Woolwich (including the clipper from the new Barking Riverside Pier).
On wider matters - there's something more than a bit devotional indeed spiritual about The Queue. There are analogies with the long journeys pilgrims took in often inclement weather across hundreds of miles of pathways and tracks to visit shrines such as Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela (and others).
Part of the experience was the journey - the test of faith in the conditions, the fellowship of meeting with other pilgrims and sharing the journey and the experience. a 5-mile walk from Southwark Bridge to Westminster Hall may not be quite the same as a trek across the Downs or the mountains of Northern Spain but the sense of fellowship from talking and walking with those alongside you must be of a similar nature.
I understand it and I respect it and to be honest admire those who do it - Mrs Stodge's colleague, having spent the thick end of 12 hours getting to and from Westminster Hall, logged on at 8.30am for his day's work.
It's not for me - here I'm going to be honest but blunt. The late Queen's passing hasn't evoked the same emotional response in me as it has in others - perhaps it will one day, I don't know but not at the moment.
This analogy to a pilgrimage, indeed a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, was made a couple of days ago in The Spectator. Are you plagiarising? Or just another sockpuppet of @Mysticrose?
"The queue for the lying-in-state is itself a medieval pilgrimage. The long painful queue is fundamental to the experience. There is no emotional gain from getting a taxi to Santiago de Compostela. You need to suffer to get the spiritual reward."
On the religious aspect: I've just been to Aston upon Mersey, a suburban village in Greater Manchester with about 40-odd businesses on tge High Street. Every single one had a picture of the Queen in the window. The fact that in most cases it was a relatively unobtrusive picture - an icon - made it all the more moving.
The first two (and I think the third, but harder to tell) have the same picture at the same size - makes it look like an organised rather than spontaneous thing. Is that the case, do you think?
'Organised' could of course be as simple as the local print shop having offered the portraits to any business that would care to show them.
Most were the same picture. I asked about it: some enterprising small local charity for disadvantaged kids was asking for a £5 contribution for one. Most shops had at least one of these. Though that wasn't evident from just looking.
Ah, that explains it.
Wonder whether they checked the copyright... Although it would be a stupid brave rights-holder who would go after a charity for using an image of the Queen at this time, without permission.
Edit: looks like this one and that doesn't look among permitted use without permission, but, well, see above. Doubt KCIII will be taking them to court over it. Curse of having worked in intellectual property for a time that these things occur to me
Don't know. Depends if the donation was compulsory. "Here's a nice pic of Her Maj. No, squire, free." "Ta." "I happen to be collecting for the kids charity so if you are in a good mood and have a fiver ..."
I remember my brother recounting a story (likely apocryphal) of a shed retailer that sought to get around English Sunday trading laws by on Sunday opening only the coffee shop, which was permitted. Some of the more expensive (three or four figures) coffees on the menu entitled the buyer to a free shed, which was delivered a day or two later. In the story the relevant authorities took a dim view of the scheme.
That's full on barking mad. Late Stage Strasbourg Syndrome
He's one more bonkers theory from becoming an even louder Steve Bray
It has been a very bad week for Republicans. Long may that remain the case.
The weird thing is the way anti-monarchism is overlapping with Remoanerism
Like, if you are a Remoaner, nothing can be good about Britain, and nothing must be honoured or praised - including a dead Queen - because if you do this you are.... somehow accepting Brexit, or something? Fuck knows
It's a sad cul de sac to go down. TBF most of PB's Remainers are not taking this wrong turn
i think you can be in favour of a more slimmed down scandinavian type monarchy....for example i dont think the Queen should make a speech to Parliament for example
Aw, but without that there'd be no reason for the symbolic door closure to Black Rod. Very symbolic, wouldnt want that lost.
Good. Until they get over Trump they are not fit to govern anything.
It is virtually unprecedented in modern times for a party that has won the White House for the first time not to win it a second time, only Carter and Trump himself were the exceptions to that rule since the start of the 20th Century.
Its virtually unprecedented in recent years for the House not to switch in the first term that a new party has the White House. 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 being an obvious exception to the rule.
Hopefully this year is another exception and helps make the point to sensible GOPers that Trump and Trumpists are the problem and not the solution.
Bush I ?
Bush I was the third time his Party held the White House, following Reagan I and Reagan II.
Of 12 occasions that the White House switched party since the start of the 20th Century, in 10/12 times the party that had just gained the White House at the previous occasion kept it at the next one. Carter and Trump are the only exceptions to that rule.
Can you imagine if Carter, having been shellacked by Reagan in 1980, came back for a second swing in 1984?
It's quite astonishing how about one-in-four of the US electorate (i.e. the uber Trump fans) is able to completely fuck up politics.
Carter's VP in 1980, Mondale, ended up being the Democratic candidate in 1984
Poor old Fritz. Years later he was persuaded to run for the Senate in his home state -Minnesota - at short notice only to go on to unexpectedly lose. Ironically,Minnesota was the only state he won against Reagan in 84.
I hate Putin and I think the Queen stuff is now ridiculous. Come at me
i dont think thats allowed...if you are slightly against the monarchy you are obviously pro Putin according to some on here
People seem to be calling you a troll because they don’t have anything to actually debate you with, pathetic.
No, he's a troll because he's been trolling for the past 24 hours and is seriously trying to claim that there's no evidence of Trump engaging in vote rigging.
Trump is on the record, repeatedly, trying to rig the last election. I thought you knew that?
Right now we are getting 37% of our power from wind, 14.5% from solar and 7.6% from biomass, a total of 59.1% from renewables. Only 16.2% of our energy is coming from gas. This is really an astonishing achievement and it is going to get much better next year. Of course, it is pretty windy today.
How much better, and why? What is coming on stream?
Just got one step further towards solar panels on my house today - hopefully from next Spring my draw on the grid will be minimal. So that will help too!
A rare day off so some exploring this morning including my first trip on the Elizabeth Line from Woolwich to Whitechapel. Very pleasant and comfortable - trains every 5 minutes - and I now have about four different ways to get to Woolwich (including the clipper from the new Barking Riverside Pier).
On wider matters - there's something more than a bit devotional indeed spiritual about The Queue. There are analogies with the long journeys pilgrims took in often inclement weather across hundreds of miles of pathways and tracks to visit shrines such as Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela (and others).
Part of the experience was the journey - the test of faith in the conditions, the fellowship of meeting with other pilgrims and sharing the journey and the experience. a 5-mile walk from Southwark Bridge to Westminster Hall may not be quite the same as a trek across the Downs or the mountains of Northern Spain but the sense of fellowship from talking and walking with those alongside you must be of a similar nature.
I understand it and I respect it and to be honest admire those who do it - Mrs Stodge's colleague, having spent the thick end of 12 hours getting to and from Westminster Hall, logged on at 8.30am for his day's work.
It's not for me - here I'm going to be honest but blunt. The late Queen's passing hasn't evoked the same emotional response in me as it has in others - perhaps it will one day, I don't know but not at the moment.
This analogy to a pilgrimage, indeed a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, was made a couple of days ago in The Spectator. Are you plagiarising? Or just another sockpuppet of @Mysticrose?
"The queue for the lying-in-state is itself a medieval pilgrimage. The long painful queue is fundamental to the experience. There is no emotional gain from getting a taxi to Santiago de Compostela. You need to suffer to get the spiritual reward."
On the religious aspect: I've just been to Aston upon Mersey, a suburban village in Greater Manchester with about 40-odd businesses on tge High Street. Every single one had a picture of the Queen in the window. The fact that in most cases it was a relatively unobtrusive picture - an icon - made it all the more moving.
The first two (and I think the third, but harder to tell) have the same picture at the same size - makes it look like an organised rather than spontaneous thing. Is that the case, do you think?
'Organised' could of course be as simple as the local print shop having offered the portraits to any business that would care to show them.
Most were the same picture. I asked about it: some enterprising small local charity for disadvantaged kids was asking for a £5 contribution for one. Most shops had at least one of these. Though that wasn't evident from just looking.
Ah, that explains it.
Wonder whether they checked the copyright... Although it would be a stupid brave rights-holder who would go after a charity for using an image of the Queen at this time, without permission.
Edit: looks like this one and that doesn't look among permitted use without permission, but, well, see above. Doubt KCIII will be taking them to court over it. Curse of having worked in intellectual property for a time that these things occur to me
Don't know. Depends if the donation was compulsory. "Here's a nice pic of Her Maj. No, squire, free." "Ta." "I happen to be collecting for the kids charity so if you are in a good mood and have a fiver ..."
I remember my brother recounting a story (likely apocryphal) of a shed retailer that sought to get around English Sunday trading laws by on Sunday opening only the coffee shop, which was permitted. Some of the more expensive (three or four figures) coffees on the menu entitled the buyer to a free shed, which was delivered a day or two later. In the story the relevant authorities took a dim view of the scheme.
Just imagine if the shed was defective, going to Mastercard and saying that I bought this coffee for £1500 and it was crap and I want my money back ...
On topic... I saw that NH Senate candidate and far right psycho Don Bolduc had swiftly resiled from his election fraud position and acknowldged that Biden is POTUS. He was deep MAGAworld and if he's turned things must be desperate.
There's a lot of reverse ferreting going on on the American Right.
Bolduc has repudiated his electoral theft position. Something, weirdly, that he believed in just a few weeks ago in the Republican Senatorial debates.
Masters won the Republican Primary in Arizona on a "life begins at conception" platform. Indeed, he characterized his opponent (who had a rather nuanced position) as abortion rights advocate. Now he's the candidate, all traces of his previous views have been scrubbed from his website, and when asked about abortion, he said that he "like most Americans" was against "late term abortions".
It's hard to know exactly what impact these (violent) shifts in views will have.
But if I were the Democratic opponent of either of these candidates, I'd make it a "question of honesty".
What will it do that the old one didn't? What is the impact on the planet of keeping buying new phones that do what the last one did?
Judging by that photo it offers a direct gate to the next world
The idiocy comes with the compulsion to upgrade every single time things change. I buy a new phone about once every half decade. And I think that is quite frequent, really.
Actually, I am currently contemplating a possible problem - my phone is absolutely fine but is now old enough that it's not being updated at all software or security wise. I don't use it for anything other than evanescent 6-digit codes for tw-factor authentication, but am not too happy as Mrs C has an identical one and she uses it a lot more than I use mine.
Comments
(Unless it doesn't because life travelled from one planet to the other, which is just about plausible.)
I am so pleased for you and hope it helps with closure
All the best
Perhaps he's saying they should have had one, e.g. organised by surname. Certainly they must have thought about how to do it and decided this was the way they wanted to run with. It's possible that a decision taken several years ago and probably already reviewed a number of times was changed by the king a few days ago on a whim. Whatever. They are certainly capitalising on the death and promoting the "national outpouring" meme.
https://twitter.com/mjluxmoore/status/1570732420063981571
It would be chaos as people “arrived early” to “make sure”. It would be open to abuse online. The site would have crashed. You’d probably have people selling tickets for profit - hideous. You’d still need a queue to process security. And so on
What they’ve done is what they’ve always done for 100 years. A queue down the south bank. It’s fair, it’s simple and it works. And more importantly it is SEEN to be fair. As with david beckham queuing for 12 hours like everyone else
But the top 5 countries of origin for people born outside the UK and now living in the UK are...
1. India
2. Poland
3. Pakistan
4. Ireland
5. Germany
But the top 5 nationalities for immigrants are...
1. Poland
2. India
3. Ireland
4. Italy
5. Romania
Wonder whether they checked the copyright... Although it would be a stupid brave rights-holder who would go after a charity for using an image of the Queen at this time, without permission.
Edit: looks like this one and that doesn't look among permitted use without permission, but, well, see above. Doubt KCIII will be taking them to court over it. Curse of having worked in intellectual property for a time that these things occur to me
LOL
In 2020, 538 overestimated the Dems by one seat net: they thought they would win Maine and North Carolina; and thought they would lose one of the Georgia seats. My personal take away from this is that (a) pollsters still tend to overestimate the Dems a little, and (b) they tend to understate incumbents.
With such a lot of close races, I think we are underestimating the possibility of quite extreme results in the Senate. It's far from impossible that the Republicans have a good night, hold everything they're defending (maybe even including Pennsylvania), and pick up Arizona, Nevada and Georgia. (New Hampshire is also potentially vulnerable.)
Conversely, if the Dems do 1-2% better than expected, then they could gain Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin and maybe even Ohio.
She was beloved. Even Republicans venerated her. She scarcely put a foot wrong in 96 years. An extraordinary performance
This is tragic conspiratorial nonsense
After Blake and Maters won their nominations, the money stopped.
So, now both are underfunded in difficult races.
(Of course, Ohio should not be a difficult race.)
So you start from a position that 'it'll be worse for the Dems because they underperform the polling figures' and then you apply that to figures that already account for that!
Secondly, over the past few months - admittedly a small sample - since the SC abortion decision, the Democrats have _over_performed the polls, consistently, and in some cases by quite a lot.
Nate S. has a piece on this, and other issues, up on 538 at the moment.
I predict there will eventually be a grand reconciliation between Princes Hal and Wills, because the former's Californian celeb status will wane and they will want to come back into the Windsor fold
And now I am going to read about the Spanish empire in the Spanish sun. Hasta
The size of the crowds at Charles' coronation next year will be far more relevant for that
Frankly I trust those organising this enormous event than those sitting on the side lines just want to carp
You have a place where the 2pm queue started, a place where the 3pm queue started, etc. Tickets could be allocated by mobile phone.
Really, it wouldn't be that hard.
But you can't really implement it later. You'd have needed to have done it before her demise, so everything was ready.
You know what: the queue is an amazing spectacle. The people involved aren't stupid. Maybe O'Brien isn't wrong in this instance?
It's definitely a potentially dangerous environment for those lacking in stamina - I saw paramedics needing to help people several times overnight
After decades of the "community" blocking affordable housing on the island. So they would be like a good Samaritan who for decades, let me repeat, for decades, blocked affordable housing, but then was smart enough to make a political statement by helping a few new ones. Temporarily.
You are more easily impressed than I am.
If, for example, the Obamas were to buy a bunch of trailers and set them up on their estate, for the poor people who already live there -- and some of the asylum seekers -- that would impress me. Or, if Bernie Sanders allowed some of them to live in one of his three houses.
If Trump were (God forbid) to somehow win again, he would be the first ever president to serve two terms without winning the popular vote, and the first major party candidate to lose the popular vote three times.
(This assumes he would lose the popular vote again but I am sure that is a safe assumption.)
This queueing has worked before, it is tried and trusted, it is simple and visibly fair, so they did it again. Why would you do anything else
Are they pleased there's a huge turnout and the public veneration for the Q is now a public spectacle of quasi-religious pilgrimage? Of course they are. But that's a fortunate by-product, a spandrel, it is not some evil scheme by Brexiteering lizard people
I aim to return to London at the precise moment it is impossible to join the queue so I don’t feel guilty and disloyal to Her Maj
I will watch the funeral cortège in person however
But - crucial but - that actually helps him. His whole schtick is a 'them and us' mentality and he feeds the paranoia of the minority just where he needs to to win those states (aided by some vote rigging operations, not that they helped him last time).
This is one reason Hilary 'basket of deplorables' Clinton was the worst imaginable candidate to field against him and why Biden was, by contrast, a pretty comfortable winner.
I'd call it vote rigging. But maybe that's an irregular verb. I call it vote rigging, you call it conspiracy theory, Trump calls it business methods.
I've been following the Gas storage rates every day for the passed couple of weeks, on this website:
https://gas.kyos.com/gas/eu
Short version: the EU storage is now 85.7% full, (fractionally above normal for this time of year). and is filling at about 0.3% a day, again consistently above the normal for this time of year.
The Russians shutting off 'Nord Stream 1' may have made gas more expensive but does not seem to be affecting the filling of the storage.
The only election where their model was spot on, IIRC, was the House election in 2018. Other than that, the Dems have underperformed and the Reps have outperformed. Now, sure, the gaps are typically small. But their consistency is telling: since 2016, that's two Presidential elections, four sets of House races and four sets of Senate races.
If they chose not to call it vote rigging, that is up to them. We're back to our irregular verbs.
But it was an attempt to fraudulently alter the result of a democratic vote using unlawful methods.
Or, as we call it round my way - vote rigging.
Or, as we call it round my way - don't feed the troll.
Clearly, I am not spending enough time on PB.
People used to complain about loony left local education authorities blighting the lives of children but I wonder whether the academies system is in some cases* allowing the loony right to do the same.
*my kids all attend academies which are totally fine, so it is not a blanket criticism of the system; but I wonder if there is enough oversight, especially when academy trusts are run by politically connected people. FWIW I know someone who used to work for this Trust and the people in charge sounded like the last people you would entrust the education of your children to.
"Could it be Morrisons, announcing that it had turned down the volume of its till beeps “out of respect”? Could it be pawnshop chain Cash Converters formally announcing its self-seclusion from social media? Or could it be – and this one’s the correct answer – Center Parcs decreeing that holidaymakers must be thrown out of its villages for the day of the Queen’s funeral “as a mark of respect”, before backtracking and permitting customers to remain on site, while ordering them to “remain in their lodges”?"
Yup, I’ve gone. Completely gone. If you’ve felt slightly “managed” by aspects of the relentlessly choreographed elements of the past week, then this really was your Triumph of the Corporate Will. It was, all of a sudden, simply impossible not to picture oneself in one’s wood-effect, lodge-effect detention hut, cowering by the forest-mural feature wall as village guards toured the site with loudhailers while screaming “REMAIN IN YOUR LODGES!
Thank heavens for a glimpse of the indomitable spirit of pisstake, as various online posters offered a masterclass in why brands really should avoid running their firms by the Pooterising diktats of social media. “Good luck removing guests from the parks,” ran one Twitter response to Center Parcs (heroically refusing to submit to the “parcs” affectation). “You’ve trained them in archery, shooting, swimming, canoeing and swinging through the trees like apes. You’ve basically got five village-loads of ninjas to clear out.”
Separately, the Guardian has seen one textbook used by primary pupils that required them to put themselves in the minds of historical figures about to kill themselves.
“Imagine that you are Seneca, in the process of committing suicide, in AD65”, read one ancient history exercise book. “Write your final words to be dictated by your scribe before you immerse yourself in a hot bath and bleed to death.”'
Bit difficult teaching computing when the Romans didn't have the zero.
The amount of effort that people putting into doing something about X is another variable Y.
Both variables vary enormously from person to person. "Everyone must scream and wail and emote or they are a sociopath" is just as much garbage as "everyone must present a perfectly stiff upper lip when their best friends leg gets shot off in a particularly tense battle".
Given that there are hundreds of channels on TV not showing anything vaguely Royal, and 99% of the country is operating exactly as it did before, you can just let it pass by.
Being annoyed at other peoples likes and dislikes is a fools errand, mostly.
Privy counsellors if you must but not MPs
"“So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have." DJ Trump
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/03/trump-georgia-raffensperger-call-biden-washington-post
Trump is on the record, repeatedly, trying to rig the last election. I thought you knew that?
Just got one step further towards solar panels on my house today - hopefully from next Spring my draw on the grid will be minimal. So that will help too!