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It’s always the shy types – politicalbetting.com
It’s always the shy types – politicalbetting.com
Some Tories are anxious about "shy" switchersPrevious Conservative voters who on the doorstep say they'll vote for them again, but at the ballot box abandon them for Labour / the Lib DemsAre they right to be worried? Is there something in it?https://t.co/itGhLMPwh6
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This happened a lot in the 1997 election campaign. I spoke to a couple of Conservative activists some weeks after the poll and they both told me the doorstep reception had generally been very polite and civil, even friendly, with the odd exception.
When the ballot boxes were opened, the scale of what had happened became apparent and for some on the Conservative side it was a genuine surprise.
Other than that, no, people don't say they'll vote for you, when they plan to vote for the opposition. When they don't want to hurt your feelings, they'll say "I haven't made up my mind yet." They might say they'll vote for you, and then not turn up on the day.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/taxpayers-given-more-time-for-voluntary-national-insurance-contributions
Anyone who’s not worked continuously in the UK full-time since their early 20s, or is married to someone in that situation, should take a look.
There's even a vignette of David Davis phoning GB after the polls had closed telling him "you'll be fine" (he really really wasn't).
This [covid inquiry] inquisition is not going to be a dry and bloodless exercise. The formidable judge is adopting a take-no-prisoners approach. We know this from the advance questions the inquiry team has been sending out to those who will be examined.
Lady Hallett correctly intends to bring an intense scrutiny to the conduct of our rulers and the calibre of the UK state during the pandemic. Some of the participants may emerge with their status burnished; others have ample reason to be fearful of the impact on their reputations of remorseless evidence-gathering about the many things that went wrong during a crisis that cost so many lives. Tories shiver that the inquiry, which is not due to complete its oral hearings until the summer of 2026, will haunt their party for years to come.
No one I have spoken to can think of a precedent for a government seeking to thwart a request for evidence from an official inquiry that the government itself set up. Ministers must think something huge is at stake to launch a gambit that looks so dreadful.
The disgraced former prime minister [Johnson; other names are available….] probably has less to fear from this inquiry than some others, if only because his reputation has already hit rock bottom. There is a settled consensus that the pandemic was deadlier than it need have been because he was so useless at making decisions and presided over such a chaotically dysfunctional regime at Number 10.
“My hunch is that Sunak or someone else still in government feels at risk,” remarks a former member of the cabinet.
Which, of course, usually means they won't be voting for you.
This kind of attitude makes me furious. The government needs to trust the Judge that things that are irrelevant won’t get out. The media needs to wait for report before deciding the outcome.
Kings and Generals: What is Prigozhin’s Game?
Prigozhin is the leader of the Wagner Group, mercenaries working for Russia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXyonEl1uzQ
In 2005 the opinion polls mostly underestimated the Tory vote relative to Labour
In 2010 the opinion polls mostly overestimated the Tory vote relative to Labour
In 2015 the opinion polls mostly underestimated the Tory vote relative to Labour
In 2017 the opinion polls mostly overestimated the Tory vote relative to Labour
In 2019 the opinion polls mostly underestimated the Tory vote relative to Labour
In 2024.....?
Is there a pattern emerging here? Could it be that the polling companies have got into a habit of overcorrecting for the factors that they collectively got wrong at each election, by assuming that too much of the error was systematic and likely to recur in subsequent elections?
If so, then in 2024 they may be on course to overestimate the Tory vote in relative terms.
Yes, I know that the pattern breaks down before 2005. But still....
"That was a very sobering article.
Either Europe's centrist parties get a grip on this issue or, eventually, we'll see European polities collapse into autocracy and dictatorship as they become overwhelmed with the problem."
++++
I reckon it is too late. The numbers of migrants are too big and the waves will come too fast
Brace. I expect several countries to veer into far right politics, or, to be more precise, populism with a large dollop of xenophobia (the actual economics might well be "left"), and regimes prepared to shoot people or sink boats
We're already there in Hungary, Poland, maybe Greece, possibly Italy if Meloni can't get a grip
It's perfectly polite, and they then leave you alone (no knocking up on the day, or second canvass etc).
Apparently there are elections later in the year. Yet all the major parties support the current position on Russia...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay48Hmzyx60
I don't have a car and do almost all of my personal travel by foot, bus and train
I do have to use a van at work, but I drive it as efficiently as if it were my own diesel going into it (eg I never leave it running when I get out, which all other posties seem to do, and I respect the 50mph speed limit for vans on all non-dual-carriage-way-or-motorway roads that they have - do people know about that btw?)
At work I drive about six miles a day, and walk about twelve. There are exceptions though. Yesterday I got sent to work in Faringdon and had to drive forty five miles, but only walk six
I live in an end of terrace house that'll leak more heat than a flat, but I only had my heating on for three months over the winter, and only turned it up above 16°C, to 18°C, on about ten evenings, and had it set to 12°C when I was out
I only keep the light nearest to me on when it's dark and I'm awake
Locality comes into my food shopping habits, but I think quality and price are more important (usually get the both high from local food). But if I need a high carbon footprint ingredient, I don't really care. I don't imagine I'd ever stop eating meat for environmental reasons
I cook mainly on my induction hob and in my air-fryer. When I use the oven, I try to make sure I use it for everything so I don't waste the heat
On my holiday I used 2x bus, train and ferry (and 2x more bus to go to Mont-Saint-Michel) to go two hundred and fifty miles, and travelled over seven hundred miles in total
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/06/a-shocking-number-of-birds-are-in-trouble/
"A shocking number of birds are in trouble
We know better than ever how to help endangered birds, with notable conservation successes.
...
The North American Breeding Bird Survey, organized by the US Geological Survey and Environment Canada, has enlisted thousands of participants to observe birds along roadsides each June since 1966. Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count, which began in 1900, encourages people to join a one-day bird tally scheduled in a three-week window during the holiday season. There are shorebird censuses and waterfowl surveys, all powered by citizen scientists.
This wealth of longitudinal recordings started to turn up signs of distress as far back as 1989, Marra says, when researchers analyzed data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey and concluded that declines were occurring among most of the species that breed in forests of the eastern United States and Canada, then migrate to the tropics.
Thirty years later, Marra and colleagues reassessed the situation using multiple bird-monitoring datasets from North America along with data on nocturnal bird migrations from weather radars. They found stunning losses. Since 1970, the team reported in Science in 2019, the number of birds in North America has declined by nearly 3 billion: a 29 percent loss of abundance. The paper used several methods for estimating changes in population sizes, Marra says, and “they all told us the same thing, which was that we’re watching the process of extinction happen.”"
I think Alan Clark explained it well. Most Conservatives had not canvassed since 1993 or 1995. They picked up a fair swing, compared to those years (the Tories actually gained County Council seats in 1997) , but they tended to overestimate it.
I remember being shocked on the day, when I asked my agent what result he was expecting in Hertsmere (I was thinking c.8,000 or so). He said 3,000, which was spot on. (In 1992, it was 18,000).
Thank you for the discussion on insect/bird collapse here and on FPT, which I found interesting
On domestic policy, they are approaching US Republicans vs Democrats.
No, seriously.
Johnson - gone. Hancock - gone. Patel - gone. Raaaaab - gone. Hunt was on the backbenches at the time.
There isn't really anyone else... is there? Does Simon Case count?
There is a hell of a lot to the criticise this government over, but IMHO, not all that much in relation to Covid. Yes, we'll get all the usual hype about how the government "murdered" tens of thousands of people, but nothing suggests to me that their response was materially worse than that of governments of countries with similar demographic profiles.
They would have expected to hand over memos, emails, minutes of meetings etc. But their phones? Probably not.
It must be quite horrific to realise that every nose scratch is preserved, without the onion to improve it.
For some reason, the "factory" after Hillsborough, where police officers lined their note books up with the official story, comes to mind.
It maybe that the government completely under prepared, and over reacted, or it may be that they were cavalier over the risks, or possibly even that they got the balance right*, we just don't know at present. I would like to see the audit trail of some of the purchasing decisions too.
*my opinion on what we know already FWIW is that most of the decisions were about right in a fast moving and uncertain evolving situation. Perhaps ending the restrictions, particularly for outdoors was delayed too long, also better attention to the societal costs of closing schools and universities for such prolonged too.
“ James White, 33, from Warwickshire, was charged by police with ‘displaying threatening or abusive writing likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress’.”
For the past couple of years our canvassers have been getting a consistent story from shaky Tories: not sure we can vote LD, Lab or Green, but we'll definitely not vote Tory. So what happened on May 4? Tory vote down 22% on 2019: anti-Tory vote up 7%, LD vote up 29%.
No doubt some Tory deserters wouldn't admit it to Tory canvassers: but the far bigger story right now is that there are NO Tory canvassers (or tellers): their activists are dead or utterly disillusioned. And enough former Tory voters are simply staying at home for - mostly - the LDs to win through, or when tactical voting calls for some other non-Tory, the Tories to lose seats anyway.
And in Cameron's day, the Tories really did hold practically every local and parliamentary seat in the county. Now there's a serious prospect they'll hold no Westminster seat or County or District council in Oxfordshire come 2024.
So many crises all at once. AI to climate change to extinction to Covid to Ukraine-and-Putin to ALIENS
Are they all somehow linked?
A clever dude I met last week said "I get the feeling these are indeed the End Times, but they are also, let's face it, Really Interesting Times"
Any resemblance to a mob of vigilantes looking to lynch someone is purely coincidental.
Though I suggest that any paediatricians board up their offices now, just in case.
Daniel Ellsberg Is Dying. And He Has Some Final Things to Say.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/04/daniel-ellsberg-final-advice-00099639
Note, that doesn't mean I walrus agree with him.
...At the same time, Horton believes that Ellsberg, like other whistleblowers, occasionally sees conspiracy and government perfidy when the evidence is scant. During the course of our hour- and-20-minute interview, Ellsberg contended America still runs a “covert empire” around the world, embodied in the U.S. domination of NATO. He believes Washington deliberately provoked Vladimir Putin into invading Ukraine by pushing its seat of power eastward toward Russia’s borders; that the mainstream media is “complicit” in allowing the government to keep secrets it has no right to withhold; and that any notion Americans are ever the “good guys” abroad “has always been false.”..
SCENES
Sikorski, who was and is notably pro-Western, argued that the system would enable the government to malign or (if the amendmets weren't accepted) exclude all opponents. The L&J MEP was as terrifying as Trump - essentially said that they had a big majority so they are merely delivering what voters want, and by the way, that Sikorski, he has Russian friends.
"95% loss of wildflower meadows since 1950 - silly humans"
Developed world countries are faced with having an ever smaller number of working age people paying for ever greater numbers of oldies, while at the same time we need to pay more for commodities, because it's not just the developed world buying them now, we need to compete with China, India, etc.
Add in a dollop of AI taking a bunch more jobs, and you have a recipe for political instability across the entire developed world.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/65805317
My first non internet meeting with a Pber (my efforts thwarted by broken legs at the last get together which I was going to attend).
That will get the tongues wagging. Is NP joining the LD. Is kjh converting to Labour. Nope, neither. Just a nice lunch and NP kindly doing kjh a favour.
It's a permanent recored of the policy making process.
Of course it ought not to be mixed up with personal communications, but that's the responsibility of the policy makers.
If they wish to separate the two things, it's perfectly possible to set up systems to do so.
Like seeing conspiracy and perfidy where evidence is scant I think such types also occasionally see things that are very much in the open as some kind of secret to be revealed by those brave enough to speak it (ie themselves), as well as interpreting bog standard power dynamics and international relations as some kind of uniquely perverse action.
I don't walrus agree with that though.
I thought the Trans Gay NATO Illegal Immigrant Alien AIs were responsible for *everything* ?
But you're right that's what it sounds like regarding Ukraine.
With football, that isn't how it works.
Coca-Cola, global brand.
McDonald's, global brand.
Newton Heath Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway FC, local club.
NATO isn’t what it used to be...
Like wondering why sparrow numbers have decreased as the number of the magnificent sparrowhawks have increased.
Or the way any number of species are dying to extinction in China, but the Panda gets millions thrown at it (presumably bundled up in bamboo)
Edit: IANAE, but I'm concerned that charities and people concentrate on the 'sexy' animals; often large and apex ones, and not the entire ecosystem.
I do wonder, on a sociological level, whether every society/group/tribe generates conspiracy theorists, because they are somewhat useful for the survival of the society/group/tribe.
They may be wrong most of the time, but being right, even very occasionally - and maybe just being sceptical of the agreed truth, has broader benefits, for the rest of us.
As for the walrus….
It is a genuinely idiotic thing to have done but tbh having to spend the rest of his life being his idiotic self is probably punishment enough.
I love football, but despair of football fan culture sometimes.
Also some of the papers exploring ideas for GPT/LLM's and the "Tree of Thoughts" are giving really quite impressive gains. Also quite a good paper exploring why adding "Let's work this out step-by-step to get the correct answer." to the end of a prompt improves the accuracy so much (and work on making it even better)
https://openai.com/research/improving-mathematical-reasoning-with-process-supervision
https://cdn.openai.com/improving-mathematical-reasoning-with-process-supervision/Lets_Verify_Step_by_Step.pdf
Offence? Fine.
Gratuitous offence? Probably fine.
Incitement to violence? Not fine.
There was also an MC fan spotted in the ground yesterday waving around an inflatable aeroplane, which is a slightly-more-subtle reference to the Munich disaster.
Personally, I’m not sure that wearing an offensive t-shirt should be a criminal offence by itself, but it should be a provocation factor in the defence of anyone who had assaulted him. Naming and shaming him, is going to be punishment in itself. Perhaps he gets community service in Liverpool, there’s a memorial and a graveyard which could be cleaned.
Good point about his age, he wasn’t born when the Hillsborough disaster happened. It’s like the student socialists still railing against Thatcher.
We are on the cusp of a singularity. IF I was an AI drone sent out by the dudes on Andromeda Cluster: Exoplanet 9 I'd pause and take a peek at us
Had drinks with a friend yesterday in beautiful Ted LAsso-land, and he told me an AI expert mate of his is speculating that AI's are not always "hallucinating" when they get things wrong, what we are seeing might be genuine qualia: this is the AI actively and consciously wondering, out loud
My friend has gone from total AI skeptic to Fuck they could be sentient: in about two weeks
Spooky
The current ML/AI tech is a vast distance away from *the singularity*.
The real danger is idiots believing the current tech is somehow *wonderous*, and trusting it.
The most likely big singularity for humanity is an end to aging.
1. Covid was coming (I think that's probably accepted already, TBF)
2. It came from the lab
3. The bomb was in was a bloody truck, FFS
4. Even if aliens aren't here (and they might be) the US government is going mad with weirdness
5. What3Words is brilliant
6. Spartacus is the 3rd best drama ever made
7. The necklace, the necklace
8. AI approaches sentience
9. Brexit is like having a baby
10. Mosquitoes are disappearing
11. Everything else I have ever claimed or predicted, apart from the Liz Truss upside thing
Probably easier to justify the inference => chatbots are almost as stupid as humans.
13. We are all figments of one of Leon's drug-induced hallucinations; he is still lying in a ditch somewhere on a South American mountain.
14. Josias Jessop is actually a 19th Century engineer, communicating via an Ouija Board.
I see plentiful evidence of this
I've also now spoken to lots and lots of people with great experience in this field, AI. Quite a few remain skeptical like you, but there are plenty of others who believe AI will be sentient soon, in the next 5-20 years, or it is sentient already, OR - and this is important - it will shortly so resemble a sentient mind we won't have any way of knowing if it is sentient or not - it is a black box and we cannot look inside - so we will be forced to treat it as sentient, rendering the entire debate moot and irrelevant
If cabbages started talking to us in perfect English and asked for presents at Christmas and offered to drive the car when we are drinking, we would soon start treating them as equals, and cease chopping them up to be boiled