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A tribute to Sir David Butler – politicalbetting.com
A tribute to Sir David Butler – politicalbetting.com
This tribute from Times Radio to Sir David Butler, who died earlier on this week, is well worth watching. For those of us who follow elections and analyse them the work of Sir David Butler helped us understand them a lot better. The Guardian wrote on Wednesday
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RIP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egN8CjfQkxc
@SenMarkey
A @washingtonpost reporter was able to create a verified account impersonating me—I’m asking for answers from @elonmusk who is putting profits over people and his debt over stopping disinformation. Twitter must explain how this happened and how to prevent it from happening again.
@elonmusk
Perhaps it is because your real account sounds like a parody?
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1591813228119855104
Lead back to six
Very exciting stuff
"On November 6, 2012, King won the Senate race with 53%[31] of the vote, beating Democrat Cynthia Dill and Republican Charlie Summers.[32][33] The following week, King announced that he would caucus with Senate Democrats, explaining not only that it made more sense to affiliate with the party that had a clear majority, but that he would have been largely excluded from the committee process had he not caucused with a party.[34][35] King said he had not ruled out caucusing with the Republicans if they took control of the Senate in 2014 United States Senate elections,[36] but when Republicans did win the majority that year, he remained in the Democratic caucus.[37] King remained in the Democratic caucus after the 2016, 2018, and the 2020 elections, the first two of which also resulted in Republican Senate majorities and the last of which produced a 50–50 tie."
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_King
Now did he say he might join the Republicans to increase his bargaining power, was he really considering it, or both? He's a smart fellow, so I think the first and the third are more likely than the second.
(There are three ways in which he is more a Republican than a Democrat: He has five children and six grandchildren, he's an Episcopalian, and he rides a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
Some will be amused to learn that he, with a partner, established a wind energy company, when he was between political offices.)
I never feel I've read a fully satisfactory account of British strategy during the American Revolutionary War and I think I'd find it fascinating.
Now I've looked it up, I realise it's an absolutely absurd comment:
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-denomination/episcopal-church/party-affiliation/
Bastardisation and revisionism mean modern works can be as bad or worse as older works for bias.
Edited extra bit: I also read a Norse myth book (recent) including a section on the historical Ivar the Boneless which suggested his lack of bones was indicative of a more forward thinking Viking sentiment with less reliance on physical prowess. Except Justin Pollard in his biography of Alfred the Great explains the nickname may simply be a mistranslation (I forget of what) which means the author is either deliberately omitting a relevant fact as it's inconvenient to their agenda or they know less than me, the reader, which also does not seem very reassuring.
Edited extra bit 2: I also stopped watching one history YouTube channel when the chap behind it described sex-determined roles in medieval farming as being due to outdated gender stereotypes. Sure. Because men being twice as strong as women and other biologically caused and observable facts are just *so* 14th century.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-sunak-corbyn-conspiracy-lies-unites-starmer-government
He’s right. It is surely not ok to outright lie to parliament, knowing that it’s not in the interests of your opponent to correct you.
It’s a shitty political strategy that demeans parliament. Our politics should be better than this. Johnson dragged the tories into the gutter, and there they remain.
It's also the 13th November.
It's all fucked.
Chris, you may need to be as old as King and I are -- I was born in 1943, he in 1944 -- to understand that. Until 1960 or so, Episcopalians were very Republican, so much so the people joked back then that American Jews earned like Episcopalians, and voted like Puerto Ricans.
Being the principled free speech absolutist that he is.
Thirty years later have the entire set, from 1945 (when DB was a leading contributor) to 2019.
Check out link below for example of Sir David's election-night analysis:
1955 General Election (BBC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl8OeeLZCuE
Nothing wrong with that; neither Marxism nor feminism existed at the time but the fundamental emotions that drive them (mainly a yearning for fairness) surely did?
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush#Personal_life
Except that it was 11C rather than the 4C you'd expect...
As we come to terms with the heat death of our civilisation, it seems there are other more pressing matters as I glance at our printed press and once again despair at the consequences of free speech which are infinitely preferable to the alternative.
The Mail on Sunday has decided, after the immigration numbers, Albanians are the new "enemy within" - makes a change from "lefties" and "scroungers". They have apparently defaced and defiled a statue to the greatest Briton of them all, WSC, by hanging a flag near it. The immediate deportation of all Albanian citizens is clearly the only piece of legislation which would make a Sunak Government "conservative" in the eyes of the MoS.
Then we have the Sunday Express which tells us Thatcherism is back - apparently cutting spending and raising taxes is the Thatcherite answer to a large deficit - I must admit I'm not a great follower of monetarist theory, Hayek and the Austrian School but I'm pretty sure I'd have remembered if the monetarists had recommended raising taxes.
Apparently, I was wrong - Thatcherism is about raising taxes and cutting spending. It's amazing how the perspective of 40 years distorts history (and some on here worry about hundreds of years of British history).
I suppose it could be the attempt of a newspaper pandering to a demographic among its readers who regard Margaret Thatcher as the second greatest Briton of all time (I've mentioned who is the greatest) to convince said readers the current Government is the re-incarnation of the administrations of the Blessed Margaret rather than the truth which is arguably that the current Government is arguably slightly more the higher tax and spending option of the two main social democratic parties.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reciprocity-Ritual-Developing-City-State-Paperbacks/dp/0198150369
I think the ideological approach can be fruitful. If you start from the hypothesis that some bugger is exploiting some other bugger, as per uncle Karl, and go out looking for oppressive exploitation it can yield useful insights. In my case, and had had the energy to turn this into a book or at least paper, that the ancient Greek world was one fucking great garment sweatshop, the workers being every single woman who wasn't a priestess or a prostitute. They are all spinning or weaving 24/7 in plays and on vases and in Homer.
Because Bush the Elder (and Better)'s changing stand on abortion (and especially Planned Parenthood) had LESS to do with theology, and WAY more with politics.
Key reason why "Moral Majority" and "religious right" never trusted GHWB any farther than they could throw him.
Certainly NOT common in my lifetime, my guess is that "osterize" was likely an East Coast usage, current for a few decade
However . . .
Bonnie Raitt - Blender Blues (full version) - Live in the Rainbow Room, Philadephia 1972
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD6ued71jqE
BLENDER BLUES
Bonnie Raitt
Let me be your blender, baby
Don't ya know I can whip, chop and puree
Won't you let me be your blender, baby
Honey, I can whip, chop and puree
I'm gonna whip you to a jelly honey
I'm gonna chop it up today
Model is so special, honey
Gives you everything you need
Guaranteed to blend it right
It's built for comfort, not for speed
My motor's most unique
There's a style for every size
You push the right track, honey,
Sit back and watch me Osterize
Let me be your blender, baby
Don't ya know I can whip, chop and puree
Won't you let me be your blender, baby
Honey, I can whip, chop and puree
I'm gonna whip you to a jelly honey
I'm gonna chop it up today . . .
Nothing wrong with the study of surface, though, even through time. It's thinking the surface is the underlying that's ideological (and stupid). As for "yes, 'we' need that way of looking at things and several other ways too", that's super-stupid and can also be amusing - a case of academics admiring their own reflections while carefully avoiding stepping on each other's toes.
Marxism absolutely does NOT go well with anything that's academic whatsoever. That was part of the original downfall in the 1871-1914 period in Germany with the SPD. (Nice symbol you use here, though, Dura.)
David and Gareth - such a contribution to politics and history.
@FrankLuntz
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20h
Ron DeSantis now has a 7-point lead over Trump along GOP voters nationwide in a 2024 primary matchup.
Last month, Trump held the 7-point margin.
There were some roles that tended to be taken more by men, and others more by women, but there weren't actual rules about it.
I would have said if anyone wants a more fruitful field to look at silly nonsense about the medieval period, most medieval history of science prior to about 1980 is a pack of lies dreamed up in the later nineteenth century by Andrew Dickson White and William Draper. But it's still enormously influential. For example, their work despite being known to be fraudulent underpins GCSE Medicine Through Time, which is taught in around 50% of schools. Write an accurate answer in that unit on medieval science and it gets marked as wrong.
It also underpins the work of Catherine Nixey to a great extent although I suppose technically that was to do with culture rather than science.
We could leave it to a children's book from 100 years ago to save us the bother of having to think about any of it further.
Bravo Sir!
ETA that’s the penultimate song on the Bonnie Raitt video (YouTube but not actually a video) I posted the other night - and was listening to when I posted about the Osterizer
It just doesn't work as a political philosophy because it essentially assumes people act according to mathematical formulas. And they don't.
There were a number of occasions where the Americans were very very lucky. Classic black swan
Easy to say, but harder (for variety of factors good, bad & indifferent) to actually do.
Have no idea how JM marked his own ballot. However, fact that he was on PB last night, celebrating the victory of Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez over Putinist Joe Kent in WA 3rd Congressional District.
JM disagree about lots of stuff - but THAT is damn sure good enough for me!
Personally, and IF I'd had a vote down there in SW WA, would have cast it in the August primary for Republican incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler, because of her courage AND principled consistency in voting to impeach Trump after 1/6. Something that many Democrats actually did in the primary, which JHB lost by narrrow margin to JK.
Then would have turned about and voted for MGP in the general. In company with a significant - indeed decisive - share of Republican voters.
Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake (R) claims the state’s elections are being run “like we’re in some Banana Republic”:
“The people didn’t vote for [Katie Hobbs] … this is ridiculous.”
https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1590812263434268673
Most of the outstanding races are on the Democrat west coast, where states lean over backwards to be accommodating to voters and prevent disenfranchisement. We've already seen how the vote in Nevada swung back towards the Democrats when they started to count the dribs and drabs of votes that weren't cast in person on polling day and were only finalised at the end, such as polling day drop offs of PVs, late arriving PVs, votes that had to be "cured" etc etc. It's also in my mind that in the 2016 presidential election Trump fell further and further behind as the late votes from California and Oregon were eventually counted. So I think it's more likely than not that the Democrats will close the gap a bit in most of the outstanding races, although in some the gap may prove too much.
As things stand, the Republicans only need 7 out of the remaining 18 with the current balance being 206 Dem v 211 Rep, so it's still a big ask for the Democrats. I would hazard a guess that the Republicans should be just about favourites to take the House by a wafer thin margin, but that the outcome of them getting under 220 seats should also be favourite.
Sitting outside.
With no coat on.
And it was beautiful. You'd be happy with that weather in August.
But as @Theuniondivvie rightly says it's still fucked, and the thought it's fucking Putin is only small consolation.
She was very happy to tax the poor
BTW, am still sad that he's totally abandoned his thrill for his previous toxic US rightwing wonder-woman, namely Sarah Palin.
Who looks sure to tank yet again in America's Last Frontier.
Given that a LARGE share of the Begich voters will NOT transfer to her, meaning that yet again (following special election) Palin & (least we forget) Trump have pissed away a US House seat that Republicans should and COULD have won IF she was NOT on the ballot.
US Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) strongly reminds me of my current favorite PBS kids cartoon character:
Molly of Denali
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwX9rbRIIzQ
He became a Voodoo Pole!
Though does make sense IF he's getting his "polling" numbers from entrails of misfortunate chickens!
She's forced back to another pointless echo chamber (Newsmax) to peddle her sour grapes.
There have been a very few exceptions, e.g. Antonio Negri in Italy (but look what happened to him - he self-pillockised), and even some extremely occasional stuff in Britain which necessarily lasts about five minutes. In short, you can't fight the system from within. I don't remember seeing even a bright guy such as Christopher Hill on any barricades.
Most academic "Marxism" is a joke. "Cultural Marxism" is a joke. The Frankfurt school were a bunch of bourgeois w*nkers. Theodore Adorno called the cops on student protesters. (Herbert Marcuse at least deserves respect for supporting Angela Davis, and his "one-dimensional man" thesis is essentially correct but hardly original and was as if deprived of a firing-pin.) Paulo Freire may have had a heart, but he didn't understand much either. Zizek is an an absolute idiot as can be seen from reading even a page or two of his scribblings. Others study largely irrelevant crap which, OK, let them, it's good for a person to have some hobbies and, sure, their hobbies, which is to say what they do as an amateur in the genuine sense of that term, can give them insights that are applicable more generally. But academia isn't where the theoretical understanding of struggle comes from, Ydoethur. All the big contributions to such understanding come from outside academia.
Any truly radical critique that may arise inside or connected with the academic environment soon gets the hell out of there. Here obviously isn't the place to give examples. There haven't been many.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yng5CTT8Ogk
More seriously, although they are quite expensive they are by far the best fast food outlets around that area and they are far cheaper than any outlet for comparable quality. So you could get a meal that was somewhat better at the George at Cambridge, But you would have to wait 40 minutes for it if you haven't booked in advance forget it. Also, they charge you more for it. Meanwhile there are other cheap and cheerful restaurants around where you might get a meal for between five and seven quid, but the quality is rubbish.
So although I do not go there often because they are not cheap, I will go there when I have the opportunity and when I was going to have to eat out anyway.
Heh
English girl singing Mexican music with a Mexican/Spanish band. Kind of like Eric Burdon with WAR!
Its not a lie to point out unfortunate truths. The way Corbyn was described is entirely honest, even if Middle East Eye doesn't like it.
Today England WON THE WORLD CUP and then I went for a long lovely walk in warm, sunlit Burnham Beeches with my 16 year old senior daughter, who revealed, to my intense surprise, that her favourite architecture is "eco-brutalism", that two years ago she was obsessed with the movie THREADS, and that her favourite comedy show is the first four seasons of "Community", which is also my exact favourite: the first four seasons of Community
My older daughter, it turns out, is seriously intellectual, and has exquisite taste (she's also very funny, but I already knew that). It was like watching a rose suddenly bloom
Always make the most of the happy days, because there are plenty of sad ones. This is a good one
1. Dems retain House - still theoretically possible, but I admit very unlikely
2. Kari Lake defeated - I'm quite hopeful on this
3. Lauren Boebert defeated - Less likely, but possible. Looks like there will be a recount no matter who is leading.
4. Sen Warnock reelected in Georgia runoff - I think this will happen.
Even if all 4 fail it's still been a pretty great set of results.