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Happy 80th birthday Joe Biden – politicalbetting.com
Happy 80th birthday Joe Biden – politicalbetting.com
Today is the 80th birthday of the US president Joe Biden and this comes at a time when there’s a lot of speculation about whether he’ll seek to run again in 2024. Clear age is a factor here and if the was nominated again and won he would remain at the White House till January 2029 when he would be in his late 80s.
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“There are pros and cons” of Brexit says Steve Barclay - twice.
Essentially an admission that trade has indeed suffered. @SophyRidgeSky
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1594249172596785152
I've made this point a lot. With the exception of a few mouth-foamers, most Brexit voters believed that Brexit would make them richer. Better jobs with more money, better money for services, better trade to make everyone richer.
They aren't going to accept getting poorer and "this is what you voted for." It isn't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y74oWon5VTo
However, beyond that another debate is firing up. Is Brexit or the Pandemic to blame. Farage and co blame the pandemic pointing to Sweden, but conveniently forgetting that countries that locked down harder are doing better. It will be interesting to see how the mythology develops.
We just become something else.
The question is: who's the reserve?
It won't be Michelle Obama.
No Sunday lunch either. Mrs DA has taken the Ukrainians to Istanbul.
Personally, I'd prefer a little forgetfulness to insurrection and dictatorship.
The long-awaited Budget – in all but name – has now arrived, but the public could be forgiven for not realising the extent to which it is a Brexit budget, given the near taboo in the Conservative and Labour parties on mentioning the economic consequences of Brexit…
… this Budget is the latest instalment of the so-called ‘punishment budget’, much mocked by Brexiters as ‘hysterical’ and ‘Project Fear’, that George Osborne warned would be necessary if the UK voted to leave the EU.. It didn’t happen in the immediate way Osborne had threatened, but has developed more gradually, and actually we can now see how modest his proposals were compared with the scale of damage Brexit has done…
Brexit was sold on the basis that it would positive for the country. In that sense, the clearest indictment of its failure is that literally no-one is suggesting that Britain’s fiscal position is better as a result of Brexit.
…one of this week’s louder admissions of Brexit failure, the wholesale denunciation of the UK’s trade deals with Australia and New Zealand by George Eustice… the UK’s capacity to make its own free trade agreements is not just any old aspect of Brexit. It is repeatedly and vociferously claimed by Brexiters to be amongst the most crucial of Brexit dividends, and these two trade deals are so far the entirety of that dividend... the critics were right, and that both… deals conceded British interests, especially farming interests, with no compensating return… solely in order to ‘prove’ to the public that Brexit had Benefits…
It's important to differentiate two aspects of the damage Brexit is doing, albeit that they interact. One, encapsulated by the budget, and shown almost daily by the growing economic evidence, is to do with what has been lost – especially in trade, investment, and labour market flexibility – by virtue of leaving the EU, and particularly the single market and customs union. The other is to do with the abject failure and utter incompetence of what is being created as an alternative to EU membership… In a sense, the issue is that there is simply no post-Brexit economic strategy at all or, to the extent that there is, it is wholly unrealistic… such strategy as there is has been based on boosterism…
Both the damage done ‘by Brexit’ and the damage created by what is being done ‘with Brexit’ can be traced back to the total ignorance, wilful dishonesty, and reckless irresponsibility of those who proposed and campaigned for Brexit without the tiniest understanding of how to do it… We saw their promises, their falsehoods, their evasions, and their lies, and they are all on record. On record, too, is all the spite and ridicule and bile they threw at those who warned them, who pleaded with them, not to inflict this on our country…
In matter terms a large proportion of your body is recreated several times over your lifetime. An interesting variation on the philosophical question of that Greek ship.
The classic mistake is to found your theological conclusions on obsolete science.
A democracy can cope with stupid politicians if they accept expert advice. Even better is smart politicians who can critique expert advice.
Brexit gave us stupid politicians who despise expertise of any form.
And here we are...
But why is this happening? Let me suggest that one factor is the contempt for expertise that filtered into the Tory ranks during the 2016 EU referendum. I remember during that campaign someone using the phrase “Ah, but you’re an expert” not as a compliment but as an insult.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/down-the-tory-rabbit-hole-comment-economic-plan-liz-truss-jk6029l7k
“Simpletons! Yes, yes! I'm a simpleton! Are you a simpleton? We'll build a town and we'll name it Simple Town, because by then all the smart bastards that caused all this, they'll be dead! Simpletons! Let's go! This ought to show 'em! Anybody here not a simpleton? Get the bastard, if there is!”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz
http://www.booktryst.com/2010/07/isaac-e-leibowitz-monastery-of-rare.html
One of Biden's skills in his former careers was being able to reach across the aisle, albeit in less partisan and hostile times. I see this potentially going two different ways. If he succeeds in getting some of his legislation through, even with compromises, and if he gets a SC nominee then he may feel that his job is done. If he doesn't then he may want to have another go.
A lot, of course, depends on his health. He is at an age now where even minor setbacks can be hard to get over.
Also, it seems you have an interest in the relationship between particle physics and theology - have you read or listened to anything by John Polkinghorne? If not I recommend him - Google will find articles or talks he has done.
Usually.
At least 2 recent TV shows have touched on this.
The Good Place decided in the end that eternity is no fun
And the Sandman featured an immortal human who was not entirely happy with his lot
Other than Covid, which was unavoidable, nothing has distracted the government from analysing and resolving our problems more than Brexit.
https://twitter.com/Simon_Nixon/status/1594265157290565634
I'm sure someone will challenge, the question is if anyone serious will. His fate seems tied to Trump's progress with his own nomination, as OGH suggests.
The thing about Trump is everything is about him and his own legal battles. So far he's successfully persuaded people his problems are America's, but if I were them I'd want a candidate who will do more than whinge about how mean people are to them all time.
Going to be interesting to see, as the evidence mounts and mounts and becomes ever more incontrovertible, how the response evolves. Though I paraphrase, we’ve already had instances on here from the more enthusiastic Brexiters of what is rapidly becoming a classic - ‘Not the Brexit I voted for’.
I think he has been a steady, sensible president in the main.
It'll be really good
It is good
It would be good if it weren't for all those Remoaner ****s
It's neutral
IT'S TERRIBLE, WHO VOTED FOR THIS CRAP?!
What was the replacement of May by Johnson if it wasn't the triumph of a simplistic ideological solution to the question of "How to Brexit?" over a painful nervous balance of mandate, risks and benefits?
One of the problems the UK has had in recent years is being run by the second team (under May), then the third (under Johnson) then the fourth (under Truss). Belief and purity have been the selection criteria. That wasn't inevitable after 2016, but it's blooming hard to see how it could have been avoided.
The Rejoiners want rejoin. Now.
If the two groups come together have more votes than Leave. But they won’t.
The other thing they haven’t done, is start a positive campaign *for* Europe.
The reason, in fact, that it's entirely rational, is that the same people who have been advocating for Brexit for 32 years are exactly the same people who've favoured a low-skill, footloose, low-regulation, and heavily financialised economy, and not only that, but have publicly railed against the EU because it was seen as preventing these things.
A strange extended rant (from my view). He's trying to pretend that Covid, the Ukraine War and all the rest don't exist.
Endorsed by Annette Dittert, who has written some bizarre pieces, for Brexit commentary. Ardent praise of Caroline Lucas. Ouch.
I am fine with both. But talking with many people, they cling to the idea of the “natural cycle” etc. The idea that a few decades from now we are.likely to be rolling back the effects of aging is not seen as positive, by them. Perhaps because they won’t be there for it.
And the rejoiners only answer is to return to freedom of movement, a sleight of hand perpetrated by the rich to create the illusion of prosperity via a system that keeps wages depressed for the lowest paid through an essentially infinitely elastic supply curve, creating an ever increasing gap between rich and poor. There were many good things about EU membership - freedom of movement was not one of them.
Rising labour costs are hardly ideal in an inflationary crisis. However artificially suppressing wages for the poorest paid is hardly an ideal solution, either.
The UK has a structural problem with its economy that FoM was used to paper over the cracks. Returning to papering over the cracks seems easier than doing anything about the problem, but it's worth remembering why so many people voted to leave in the first place - the situation pre-Brexit was far from ideal.
FoM is, and will always be, the sticking point for any rejoin campaign. Sensible parties might look at what a closer relationship with the EU looks like without FoM. However - we are well beyond the point of being sensible.
Right, off to church.
As for being nothing special, that's fine too. Politically and even philosophically, I feel I'm part of a movement to make a better world, and if I do what I can (whether it's direct action or simply giving money to others) I'm content with that. Why do we need to be special to enjoy life?
Whether or not we allow free movement the solution to our economic problems is not going to be lots of low skilled migration which is just a palliative.
Clearly not… Still ‘my’ 400 MHz NMR spectrometer though!
Brexit was a mistake and now more and more people are recognising that. Surely it must be possible for the country to change its mind.
https://institute.global/policy/moving-how-british-public-views-brexit-and-what-it-wants-future-relationship-european-union
I don't see how anyone rational can read the results of that survey and think "people really want to rejoin the EU".
In medical terms, most of the time, experts get things right. But not always. The story of H. pylori and stomach ulcers is a classic case. Few believed that ulcers were caused by bacteria, until a rogue expert caused them in himself.
I think Conservatives see more issues with experts because expertise and ideas change. The comfortable world view you form coming into adulthood gets challenged. See woke for example.
Experts are not always right, but when there is a lot of evidence supporting their view, they probably are.
Being able to challenge experts, probe their opinions, challenge their assertions, debate their conclusions, is the ideal.
What the Tories did is deny expertise, debase it, decry it.
They went from "not all experts should be implicitly trusted" to "all experts must be explicitly discounted"
Gove said it, but the entire party embraced it, embodied it.
It came about just after a meeting at DfE where an education expert demanded a massive increase in budget. For schools I think. On being asked, the expert couldn’t say where the billions he wanted would be spent. He couldn’t give any idea of what would improve, potentially. On further enquiry, the expert had no actual education experience - purely academic.
It says a lot about the experts that are being wheeled in to brief ministers. There are many other examples.
I discovered that one of the government experts on tidal ponds, was briefing that they would be built as concrete gravity dams - zillions of tons of concrete. When no-one has proposed that. Strangely, it makes all such schemes unaffordable and have a huge CO2 footprint.
The comedy of ammunition for the British Army was another. The experts were replaced by experts who simply bought the cheapest shit in the market. Which caused even M2 machine guns to jam.
Despite all he thinks that our politics is now better balanced, even though it is stuck in the morass and we need more vision from our politicians.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001f5kt
Virtual is the way forward, think Ready Player One.
He's a dealmaker. I think that's what a divided America needs.
Off for a walk in the autumn sun.
I don't blame the EU for this. It's their prerogative to say if they want every whelk to have its own barcode - that should just make us really shit hot at exporting. Skills that also come in handy for the rest of the world. It's the deliberate foot dragging incompetence on our part that needs to go.
I suspect a lot of the Fixers think rejoining will open up too many wounds. If a third of the population spend the next twenty years thinking they've been screwed over, then that could mess up our democracy.
Surely the best solution has to be closer ties with Europe that allow the leavers to consider they still 'won', while mitigating as many of the issues as possible. So, coming together with the less strident leavers/remainers makes more sense to me, than choosing a side and trying to "beat" the other side.
If only a previous PM had been able to negotiate some kind of deal with the EU which would have allowed us to opt out of the political project if we wanted and had other protections against ever closer union that people seemed to think we needed.
Clearly, cryogenic freezing just wasn't an option in ancient Egypt for technological reasons. But the fear that failure to keep the body intact would bar the deceased from life eternal was essentially the same.
The same is true of death rites and practices in a wide range of religions and cultures - there is a driving fear of the finality of death.
It is true that these things relied on some form of faith in a higher power. But is reliance on a belief that science will become able to revive dead but frozen cells at some point really any different? And wouldn't these cultures have adopted cryogenic freezing if it had been a technology that existed?
A funny moment in the Star Trek episode where they revive people from such a cryonics system. The doctor doesn’t even realise these people are dead and fixes them as part of defrosting them. The comedy comes when the Captain of the ship tells them that cryonics was a fraud…
As far as I can tell, all current cryonics stuff does far too much damage to make resurrection possible without magic level tech.
As to eternal life. There won’t be one pill for that. It will creep up on us. Vast sums are being expended on research into controlling muscle growth, bone density etc. Much is for the fitness industry - get a six pack with little or no effort etc. But applied to the problems of aging.. Cancer will be squeezed into a smaller and smaller percentage of deaths. Brain degeneration is another big one - again fixes may be found.
We are not going to wake up one morning, living for ever with no aging. But if we progressively remove the causes of degeneration and death…
The reason Brexiteers need to "lose" and be seen to lose is to avoid the situation in the future where voting for unicorns is seen as a reasonable thing instead of outright lunacy.
Brexit can't make us richer just cos we voted for it.
To deny that is to deny reality.