To be honest, under the stewardship of Rishi Sunak when Chancellor, the whole country could be put under a Section 114 notice.
The biggest disaster is the Victoria Square development which was meant to create a new commercial and residential heart for Woking but the £750 million previous value has been downgraded to £200 million. For a Borough Council (not a unitary), the scale of the debt is extraordinary - I'm also forced to ask why this measure wasn't taken when the Conservative administration at the Town Hall was piling up these debts.
What the fuck?
Woking has run up £2bn in debts???
Population c. 100k. That's £20,000 each - much more if you exclude kids and non-workers.
Honestly, the irresponsibility of these Tory councils beggars belief.
I'm sure there are some pretty irresponsible Labour and LibDem councils too. But £2bn. That's insane.
Did no-one stop and think: you know, this is a lot of money. Did no-one ask, what would happen if interest rates went up?
I have no doubt that no one stopped to think. Slough council went bankrupt last year. This is an example of slough council in 2020....they owned a 4 floor building. They were on the ground floor.Our company rented the first floor, half the second floor was rented and the third floor had been empty for four years. Our lease came up for renewal. The company said we want a reduction (think 150k a year to 100k). Council went no its going to be 300k so we went fuck off and moved builiding so they the had 2.5 floors unrented
To be honest, under the stewardship of Rishi Sunak when Chancellor, the whole country could be put under a Section 114 notice.
The biggest disaster is the Victoria Square development which was meant to create a new commercial and residential heart for Woking but the £750 million previous value has been downgraded to £200 million. For a Borough Council (not a unitary), the scale of the debt is extraordinary - I'm also forced to ask why this measure wasn't taken when the Conservative administration at the Town Hall was piling up these debts.
What the fuck?
Woking has run up £2bn in debts???
I cannot quite conceive how some councils have managed to run up such huge debts. It should be impossible to manage that if they were trying to do it!
Woking is not the only one. But it is absolutely appalling that a Borough Council of perhaps 70,000 voters has managed to run up debt of £2bn.
Let that sink in for a second.
If the Council had borrowed £1,000 for each of those potential voters, it would be £70m. If they'd borrowed £10,000, it would be £700m.
The Council has run up debts equivalent to £30,000 per voter.
How on earth was this allowed to happen? There's no way Council tax per voter exceeds £1,000. But let's pretend that it is. Even in that scenario its debts are 30x its tax receipts. Absolute madness.
Worse than that. Being a District / Borough, proposed Band D council tax rises is to £263 per year.
Yet both the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil and gas developments, with only the Conservatives in favour
Scotland is the second most in favour of a ban, at 40%, second only to London on 46%.
Also, your figures seem to be wrong. Scotland is 36%, not 39% opposed to a ban.
Scotland is marginally IN FAVOUR of such a ban according to your figures.
Still more Scots are opposed to a ban on new oil developments than the 32% opposed to a ban in the UK overall. (Northerners are as supportive of a ban as Scots but both still significantly less than Londoners are).
Yet BOTH the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil developments with only the Conservatives standing up for the more than a third of Scots who oppose a ban on new oil and gas developments in the North Sea
I'll do this as a picture so you can understand it better:
figures for Scotland
yes, ban it: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
no ban please: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
don't know: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤
And that No Ban group is over a third of Scottish voters and more than the UK average, yet ONLY the Scottish Conservatives are standing up for those who don't want a ban on new oil and gas extraction from the North Sea
Of course, in Indy-Scotland it wouldn't matter a jot what Westminster politicians think.
In Indy Scotland Scots would have an SNP government more in tune with Londoners than Scots on North Sea Oil extraction. Thankfully however the SNP support in Scotland is falling rapidly and Scottish Conservative support is far more resilient than UK Conservative support at present
Starmer's fall in his Scotland ratings are likely for some to be his ban on further oil licences especially in the North East, but I would suggest his stance on Brexit is not helping as we see the SNP calling him out as a Brexiteer
As I said earlier the SNP do appear to have stabilised their position and a lot will depend on the result of the police investigations
Even on today's poll the SNP vote is still down 8% on 2019
It would not have been unreasonable to see a double digit fall
The Rutherglen by election will be interesting as will the result of the police investigations
While support for independence has fallen it still remains in the mid forties and the SNP retain considerable support
I'm note sure independence support has fallen. The last 4 R&W have shown YES 42, 44, 42, 43 NO 51, 50, 52, 50 (Mar, Apr, May, Jun)
That looks static to me. The last one before R&W was Ipsos, which showed YES 51 NO 45 but Ipsos tends to show higher YES in general, so you probably shouldn't try to make trends between Ipsos and R&W polls.
“We are now dangerously close to nuclear war The dam attack is a turning point. The West must act urgently to stop Putin seeing unconventional warfare as a viable option”
We probably are dangerously close to nuclear war, but where was Hamish when Ukraine cut most of the water supply to the Crimea during 2014-22 by closing the North Crimean Canal? If it's a war crime it must be a war crime whichever side does it. Since when was blowing up a dam unconventional anyway? And it's not at all clear who did it yet, although if the Russian assertion that Ukraine shelled it is anywhere near the truth they will probably furnish evidence within a few days...and if they don't...
Someone needs to bang Putin and Zelensky's heads together.
Zelenskyy was not president of Ukraine until 2019
Did I blame Zelensky for cutting the water supply to Crimea in 2014?
“We are now dangerously close to nuclear war The dam attack is a turning point. The West must act urgently to stop Putin seeing unconventional warfare as a viable option”
Now he’s saying that we need to focus on an impending nuclear war? Which is it?
I’ve no idea. He has a ridiculous name
However I think his point here is valid. If Putin blew the dam - and the evidence points that way - it suggests he is prepared to keep escalating - and there aren’t many further steps he can take before he reaches the nuclear level
That doesn’t mean a bomb. Could be an “accident” at ZPP
The prime military significance of the dam event may well turn out to be ZPP-related.
You say "if Putin blew the dam", but a similar conclusion follows from "if Zelensky blew the dam".
It could be that both of these f*cking nutters probably with very short penises are pushing the world in the same direction.
(Yes I have started drinking again under Armageddo-stress after many years of quiet abstention.)
On the bright side a nuclear war will put lots of dust in the atmosphere and counteract the warming effect
Every cloud. The idea of a nuclear winter has been dumped, though, as probable Soviet propaganda, even though when I were a lad it was being pushed out by the authorities in Britain something rotten,
The idea of a nuclear winter has not been dumped its a known fact that a high density of particulate matter in the atmosphere reduces solar forcing. Trying to claim otherwise shows you are an idiot
You just have to read even the Wikipedia article on nuclear winter and compare it with what was propagandised in say Britain in say 1980. You can insult me as much as you like, but the nuclear war causes nuclear winter hypothesis is not advanced anywhere near as much as it was in the 1980s. It has in fact been blamed on KGB propaganda. I am looking for a source to show you that.
Edit: here you go, and this is by no means the only source:
Gosh so we have millenia of proof that volcanoes throwing dust into the atmosphere cools the atmosphere......yet you quote that....I insult you because you dont do science. It is the whole science behind the KT boundary you idiot
K-t the k-pg is the same thing just two different names for the same thing
Yes, KT is the old terminology
So different names but same thing....I learnt it as KT so sue me
I'm just letting you know your information is a bit dated. You don't need to make a song and dance about it, it wasn't a criticism.
You said
"K–Pg, not KT. Meteorite impact, not volcanoes."
which implies k-pg was meteorite impact and kt was volcano's
meteorite impact is the closest analog to massive nuclear warheads detonating which was my point
Although you did mention volcanoes and not meteors tbf.
I mentioned volcanos as part of the same point, both meteors and volcano's put a lot of shit in the atmosphere which has a cooling effect. Are they the same no. But they both have a cooling effect
On that we are agreed. The question is would a full-scale nuclear war lead to a multi-year 'winter'?
I don't know. And on balance I don't care either as we'll all be screwed with or without that winter.
“We are now dangerously close to nuclear war The dam attack is a turning point. The West must act urgently to stop Putin seeing unconventional warfare as a viable option”
We probably are dangerously close to nuclear war, but where was Hamish when Ukraine cut most of the water supply to the Crimea during 2014-22 by closing the North Crimean Canal? If it's a war crime it must be a war crime whichever side does it. Since when was blowing up a dam unconventional anyway? And it's not at all clear who did it yet, although if the Russian assertion that Ukraine shelled it is anywhere near the truth they will probably furnish evidence within a few days...and if they don't...
Someone needs to bang Putin and Zelensky's heads together.
Zelenskyy was not president of Ukraine until 2019
Did I blame Zelensky for cutting the water supply to Crimea in 2014?
“We are now dangerously close to nuclear war The dam attack is a turning point. The West must act urgently to stop Putin seeing unconventional warfare as a viable option”
Now he’s saying that we need to focus on an impending nuclear war? Which is it?
I’ve no idea. He has a ridiculous name
However I think his point here is valid. If Putin blew the dam - and the evidence points that way - it suggests he is prepared to keep escalating - and there aren’t many further steps he can take before he reaches the nuclear level
That doesn’t mean a bomb. Could be an “accident” at ZPP
The prime military significance of the dam event may well turn out to be ZPP-related.
You say "if Putin blew the dam", but a similar conclusion follows from "if Zelensky blew the dam".
It could be that both of these f*cking nutters probably with very short penises are pushing the world in the same direction.
(Yes I have started drinking again under Armageddo-stress after many years of quiet abstention.)
On the bright side a nuclear war will put lots of dust in the atmosphere and counteract the warming effect
Every cloud. The idea of a nuclear winter has been dumped, though, as probable Soviet propaganda, even though when I were a lad it was being pushed out by the authorities in Britain something rotten,
The idea of a nuclear winter has not been dumped its a known fact that a high density of particulate matter in the atmosphere reduces solar forcing. Trying to claim otherwise shows you are an idiot
You just have to read even the Wikipedia article on nuclear winter and compare it with what was propagandised in say Britain in say 1980. You can insult me as much as you like, but the nuclear war causes nuclear winter hypothesis is not advanced anywhere near as much as it was in the 1980s. It has in fact been blamed on KGB propaganda. I am looking for a source to show you that.
Edit: here you go, and this is by no means the only source:
Gosh so we have millenia of proof that volcanoes throwing dust into the atmosphere cools the atmosphere......yet you quote that....I insult you because you dont do science. It is the whole science behind the KT boundary you idiot
K-t the k-pg is the same thing just two different names for the same thing
Yes, KT is the old terminology
So different names but same thing....I learnt it as KT so sue me
I'm just letting you know your information is a bit dated. You don't need to make a song and dance about it, it wasn't a criticism.
You said
"K–Pg, not KT. Meteorite impact, not volcanoes."
which implies k-pg was meteorite impact and kt was volcano's
meteorite impact is the closest analog to massive nuclear warheads detonating which was my point
Astonishingly, the energy released by the impact of the Chicxulub meteor is estimated to be equivalent to about 72 teratonnes of TNT, which has got to be far more than all the world's nukes combined.
About 35,000 times the yield of all the world's nukes....
Yet both the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil and gas developments, with only the Conservatives in favour
Scotland is the second most in favour of a ban, at 40%, second only to London on 46%.
Also, your figures seem to be wrong. Scotland is 36%, not 39% opposed to a ban.
Scotland is marginally IN FAVOUR of such a ban according to your figures.
Still more Scots are opposed to a ban on new oil developments than the 32% opposed to a ban in the UK overall. (Northerners are as supportive of a ban as Scots but both still significantly less than Londoners are).
Yet BOTH the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil developments with only the Conservatives standing up for the more than a third of Scots who oppose a ban on new oil and gas developments in the North Sea
I'll do this as a picture so you can understand it better:
figures for Scotland
yes, ban it: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
no ban please: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
don't know: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤
And that No Ban group is over a third of Scottish voters and more than the UK average, yet ONLY the Scottish Conservatives are standing up for those who don't want a ban on new oil and gas extraction from the North Sea
Of course, in Indy-Scotland it wouldn't matter a jot what Westminster politicians think.
In Indy Scotland Scots would have an SNP government more in tune with Londoners than Scots on North Sea Oil extraction. Thankfully however the SNP support in Scotland is falling rapidly and Scottish Conservative support is far more resilient than UK Conservative support at present
Starmer's fall in his Scotland ratings are likely for some to be his ban on further oil licences especially in the North East, but I would suggest his stance on Brexit is not helping as we see the SNP calling him out as a Brexiteer
As I said earlier the SNP do appear to have stabilised their position and a lot will depend on the result of the police investigations
Even on today's poll the SNP vote is still down 8% on 2019
It would not have been unreasonable to see a double digit fall
The Rutherglen by election will be interesting as will the result of the police investigations
While support for independence has fallen it still remains in the mid forties and the SNP retain considerable support
I'm note sure independence support has fallen. The last 4 R&W have shown YES 42, 44, 42, 43 NO 51, 50, 52, 50 (Mar, Apr, May, Jun)
That looks static to me. The last one before R&W was Ipsos, which showed YES 51 NO 45 but Ipsos tends to show higher YES in general, so you probably shouldn't try to make trends between Ipsos and R&W polls.
It has a 'wee' bit but not decisively and certainly today's Scottish poll is better for the SNP then they could have expected
To be honest, under the stewardship of Rishi Sunak when Chancellor, the whole country could be put under a Section 114 notice.
The biggest disaster is the Victoria Square development which was meant to create a new commercial and residential heart for Woking but the £750 million previous value has been downgraded to £200 million. For a Borough Council (not a unitary), the scale of the debt is extraordinary - I'm also forced to ask why this measure wasn't taken when the Conservative administration at the Town Hall was piling up these debts.
What the fuck?
Woking has run up £2bn in debts???
Population c. 100k. That's £20,000 each - much more if you exclude kids and non-workers.
Honestly, the irresponsibility of these Tory councils beggars belief.
I'm sure there are some pretty irresponsible Labour and LibDem councils too. But £2bn. That's insane.
Did no-one stop and think: you know, this is a lot of money. Did no-one ask, what would happen if interest rates went up?
Yes, of course I was making a political point. But frankly, I'm not aware of a Labour or Lib Dem authority being quite so imprudent as to run up debts of £2bn on what is, in effect, a modestly-sized town council. It's preposterous.
To be honest, under the stewardship of Rishi Sunak when Chancellor, the whole country could be put under a Section 114 notice.
The biggest disaster is the Victoria Square development which was meant to create a new commercial and residential heart for Woking but the £750 million previous value has been downgraded to £200 million. For a Borough Council (not a unitary), the scale of the debt is extraordinary - I'm also forced to ask why this measure wasn't taken when the Conservative administration at the Town Hall was piling up these debts.
What the fuck?
Woking has run up £2bn in debts???
I cannot quite conceive how some councils have managed to run up such huge debts. It should be impossible to manage that if they were trying to do it!
Woking is not the only one. But it is absolutely appalling that a Borough Council of perhaps 70,000 voters has managed to run up debt of £2bn.
Let that sink in for a second.
If the Council had borrowed £1,000 for each of those potential voters, it would be £70m. If they'd borrowed £10,000, it would be £700m.
The Council has run up debts equivalent to £30,000 per voter.
How on earth was this allowed to happen? There's no way Council tax per voter exceeds £1,000. But let's pretend that it is. Even in that scenario its debts are 30x its tax receipts. Absolute madness.
Worse than that. Being a District / Borough, proposed Band D council tax rises is to £263 per year.
Core funding for Woking council is £16 million a year.
Yet both the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil and gas developments, with only the Conservatives in favour
Scotland is the second most in favour of a ban, at 40%, second only to London on 46%.
Also, your figures seem to be wrong. Scotland is 36%, not 39% opposed to a ban.
Scotland is marginally IN FAVOUR of such a ban according to your figures.
Still more Scots are opposed to a ban on new oil developments than the 32% opposed to a ban in the UK overall. (Northerners are as supportive of a ban as Scots but both still significantly less than Londoners are).
Yet BOTH the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil developments with only the Conservatives standing up for the more than a third of Scots who oppose a ban on new oil and gas developments in the North Sea
I'll do this as a picture so you can understand it better:
figures for Scotland
yes, ban it: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
no ban please: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
don't know: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤
And that No Ban group is over a third of Scottish voters and more than the UK average, yet ONLY the Scottish Conservatives are standing up for those who don't want a ban on new oil and gas extraction from the North Sea
Of course, in Indy-Scotland it wouldn't matter a jot what Westminster politicians think.
In Indy Scotland Scots would have an SNP government more in tune with Londoners than Scots on North Sea Oil extraction. Thankfully however the SNP support in Scotland is falling rapidly and Scottish Conservative support is far more resilient than UK Conservative support at present
Starmer's fall in his Scotland ratings are likely for some to be his ban on further oil licences especially in the North East, but I would suggest his stance on Brexit is not helping as we see the SNP calling him out as a Brexiteer
As I said earlier the SNP do appear to have stabilised their position and a lot will depend on the result of the police investigations
Even on today's poll the SNP vote is still down 8% on 2019
It would not have been unreasonable to see a double digit fall
The Rutherglen by election will be interesting as will the result of the police investigations
While support for independence has fallen it still remains in the mid forties and the SNP retain considerable support
I'm note sure independence support has fallen. The last 4 R&W have shown YES 42, 44, 42, 43 NO 51, 50, 52, 50 (Mar, Apr, May, Jun)
That looks static to me. The last one before R&W was Ipsos, which showed YES 51 NO 45 but Ipsos tends to show higher YES in general, so you probably shouldn't try to make trends between Ipsos and R&W polls.
So all have R & W have Yes even below the 45% it got in 2014, while current Holyrood polls give a Unionist majority in 2026, which would kill off hopes of indyref2 anytime soon
“We are now dangerously close to nuclear war The dam attack is a turning point. The West must act urgently to stop Putin seeing unconventional warfare as a viable option”
We probably are dangerously close to nuclear war, but where was Hamish when Ukraine cut most of the water supply to the Crimea during 2014-22 by closing the North Crimean Canal? If it's a war crime it must be a war crime whichever side does it. Since when was blowing up a dam unconventional anyway? And it's not at all clear who did it yet, although if the Russian assertion that Ukraine shelled it is anywhere near the truth they will probably furnish evidence within a few days...and if they don't...
Someone needs to bang Putin and Zelensky's heads together.
Zelenskyy was not president of Ukraine until 2019
Did I blame Zelensky for cutting the water supply to Crimea in 2014?
“We are now dangerously close to nuclear war The dam attack is a turning point. The West must act urgently to stop Putin seeing unconventional warfare as a viable option”
Now he’s saying that we need to focus on an impending nuclear war? Which is it?
I’ve no idea. He has a ridiculous name
However I think his point here is valid. If Putin blew the dam - and the evidence points that way - it suggests he is prepared to keep escalating - and there aren’t many further steps he can take before he reaches the nuclear level
That doesn’t mean a bomb. Could be an “accident” at ZPP
The prime military significance of the dam event may well turn out to be ZPP-related.
You say "if Putin blew the dam", but a similar conclusion follows from "if Zelensky blew the dam".
It could be that both of these f*cking nutters probably with very short penises are pushing the world in the same direction.
(Yes I have started drinking again under Armageddo-stress after many years of quiet abstention.)
On the bright side a nuclear war will put lots of dust in the atmosphere and counteract the warming effect
Every cloud. The idea of a nuclear winter has been dumped, though, as probable Soviet propaganda, even though when I were a lad it was being pushed out by the authorities in Britain something rotten,
The idea of a nuclear winter has not been dumped its a known fact that a high density of particulate matter in the atmosphere reduces solar forcing. Trying to claim otherwise shows you are an idiot
You just have to read even the Wikipedia article on nuclear winter and compare it with what was propagandised in say Britain in say 1980. You can insult me as much as you like, but the nuclear war causes nuclear winter hypothesis is not advanced anywhere near as much as it was in the 1980s. It has in fact been blamed on KGB propaganda. I am looking for a source to show you that.
Edit: here you go, and this is by no means the only source:
Gosh so we have millenia of proof that volcanoes throwing dust into the atmosphere cools the atmosphere......yet you quote that....I insult you because you dont do science. It is the whole science behind the KT boundary you idiot
K-t the k-pg is the same thing just two different names for the same thing
Yes, KT is the old terminology
So different names but same thing....I learnt it as KT so sue me
I'm just letting you know your information is a bit dated. You don't need to make a song and dance about it, it wasn't a criticism.
To be fair it was always dated... and wrong. Though that is no criticism of Pagan. It was lazy geologists who couldn't be bothered to correct the original mistake.
The K stands for Cretaceous Period which is the last period within the Mezozoic Era. The Mezozoic was followed by the Cenozoic which was also originally known as the Tertiary - the T in K-T. And the first period of the Cenozoic was the Paleogene.
So for consistency the boundary should either have been based on the Eras - in which case it would have been M-C (or M-T in old money) or based on periods - which is where we have settled and why it is now called the K-Pg.
The argument over meteorites vs volcanoes goes back and forward every few decades. mostly because there were both meteorties and volcanoes of the scale to cause extniction events very close to each other in time. And getting an accurate fix from 65 million years away is, well, not very accurate.
It could have been a comet.
Yes, a meteorite can be from a comet. It's just a generic term for something hard from space that makes it to surface. Probably makes no difference to you if you're underneath it.
A comet would give you that kind of kinetic energy.
Yet both the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil and gas developments, with only the Conservatives in favour
Scotland is the second most in favour of a ban, at 40%, second only to London on 46%.
Also, your figures seem to be wrong. Scotland is 36%, not 39% opposed to a ban.
Scotland is marginally IN FAVOUR of such a ban according to your figures.
Still more Scots are opposed to a ban on new oil developments than the 32% opposed to a ban in the UK overall. (Northerners are as supportive of a ban as Scots but both still significantly less than Londoners are).
Yet BOTH the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil developments with only the Conservatives standing up for the more than a third of Scots who oppose a ban on new oil and gas developments in the North Sea
I'll do this as a picture so you can understand it better:
figures for Scotland
yes, ban it: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
no ban please: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
don't know: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤
And that No Ban group is over a third of Scottish voters and more than the UK average, yet ONLY the Scottish Conservatives are standing up for those who don't want a ban on new oil and gas extraction from the North Sea
Of course, in Indy-Scotland it wouldn't matter a jot what Westminster politicians think.
In Indy Scotland Scots would have an SNP government more in tune with Londoners than Scots on North Sea Oil extraction. Thankfully however the SNP support in Scotland is falling rapidly and Scottish Conservative support is far more resilient than UK Conservative support at present
Starmer's fall in his Scotland ratings are likely for some to be his ban on further oil licences especially in the North East, but I would suggest his stance on Brexit is not helping as we see the SNP calling him out as a Brexiteer
As I said earlier the SNP do appear to have stabilised their position and a lot will depend on the result of the police investigations
Even on today's poll the SNP vote is still down 8% on 2019
It would not have been unreasonable to see a double digit fall
The Rutherglen by election will be interesting as will the result of the police investigations
While support for independence has fallen it still remains in the mid forties and the SNP retain considerable support
I'm note sure independence support has fallen. The last 4 R&W have shown YES 42, 44, 42, 43 NO 51, 50, 52, 50 (Mar, Apr, May, Jun)
That looks static to me. The last one before R&W was Ipsos, which showed YES 51 NO 45 but Ipsos tends to show higher YES in general, so you probably shouldn't try to make trends between Ipsos and R&W polls.
So all have R & W have Yes even below the 45% it got in 2014, while current Holyrood polls give a Unionist majority in 2026, which would kill off hopes of indyref2 anytime soon
Yes got 38% in 2014 if you include people who didn't vote. If you don't include them, then R&W have YES on 45.1%, slightly up on the 44.7% in the actual referendum.
Please do make sure you are comparing like with like, I know you wouldn't want to be thought of dishonest, manipulative, or stupid.
To be honest, under the stewardship of Rishi Sunak when Chancellor, the whole country could be put under a Section 114 notice.
The biggest disaster is the Victoria Square development which was meant to create a new commercial and residential heart for Woking but the £750 million previous value has been downgraded to £200 million. For a Borough Council (not a unitary), the scale of the debt is extraordinary - I'm also forced to ask why this measure wasn't taken when the Conservative administration at the Town Hall was piling up these debts.
What the fuck?
Woking has run up £2bn in debts???
Population c. 100k. That's £20,000 each - much more if you exclude kids and non-workers.
Honestly, the irresponsibility of these Tory councils beggars belief.
I'm sure there are some pretty irresponsible Labour and LibDem councils too. But £2bn. That's insane.
Did no-one stop and think: you know, this is a lot of money. Did no-one ask, what would happen if interest rates went up?
Yes, of course I was making a political point. But frankly, I'm not aware of a Labour or Lib Dem authority being quite so imprudent as to run up debts of £2bn on what is, in effect, a modestly-sized town council. It's preposterous.
Quick Google skim has Croydon and Thurrock on about 1.5 billion each and Slough on 750 million. But they're all variants on unitary authorities. Woking is a second tier district, free from the OMG Social Care thing.
“We are now dangerously close to nuclear war The dam attack is a turning point. The West must act urgently to stop Putin seeing unconventional warfare as a viable option”
We probably are dangerously close to nuclear war, but where was Hamish when Ukraine cut most of the water supply to the Crimea during 2014-22 by closing the North Crimean Canal? If it's a war crime it must be a war crime whichever side does it. Since when was blowing up a dam unconventional anyway? And it's not at all clear who did it yet, although if the Russian assertion that Ukraine shelled it is anywhere near the truth they will probably furnish evidence within a few days...and if they don't...
Someone needs to bang Putin and Zelensky's heads together.
Zelenskyy was not president of Ukraine until 2019
Did I blame Zelensky for cutting the water supply to Crimea in 2014?
“We are now dangerously close to nuclear war The dam attack is a turning point. The West must act urgently to stop Putin seeing unconventional warfare as a viable option”
Now he’s saying that we need to focus on an impending nuclear war? Which is it?
I’ve no idea. He has a ridiculous name
However I think his point here is valid. If Putin blew the dam - and the evidence points that way - it suggests he is prepared to keep escalating - and there aren’t many further steps he can take before he reaches the nuclear level
That doesn’t mean a bomb. Could be an “accident” at ZPP
The prime military significance of the dam event may well turn out to be ZPP-related.
You say "if Putin blew the dam", but a similar conclusion follows from "if Zelensky blew the dam".
It could be that both of these f*cking nutters probably with very short penises are pushing the world in the same direction.
(Yes I have started drinking again under Armageddo-stress after many years of quiet abstention.)
On the bright side a nuclear war will put lots of dust in the atmosphere and counteract the warming effect
Every cloud. The idea of a nuclear winter has been dumped, though, as probable Soviet propaganda, even though when I were a lad it was being pushed out by the authorities in Britain something rotten,
The idea of a nuclear winter has not been dumped its a known fact that a high density of particulate matter in the atmosphere reduces solar forcing. Trying to claim otherwise shows you are an idiot
You just have to read even the Wikipedia article on nuclear winter and compare it with what was propagandised in say Britain in say 1980. You can insult me as much as you like, but the nuclear war causes nuclear winter hypothesis is not advanced anywhere near as much as it was in the 1980s. It has in fact been blamed on KGB propaganda. I am looking for a source to show you that.
Edit: here you go, and this is by no means the only source:
Gosh so we have millenia of proof that volcanoes throwing dust into the atmosphere cools the atmosphere......yet you quote that....I insult you because you dont do science. It is the whole science behind the KT boundary you idiot
K-t the k-pg is the same thing just two different names for the same thing
Yes, KT is the old terminology
So different names but same thing....I learnt it as KT so sue me
I'm just letting you know your information is a bit dated. You don't need to make a song and dance about it, it wasn't a criticism.
To be fair it was always dated... and wrong. Though that is no criticism of Pagan. It was lazy geologists who coldn't be bothered to correct the original mistake.
The K stands for Cretaceous Period which is the last period within the Mezozoic Era. The Mezozoic was followed by the Cenozoic which was also originally known as the Tertiary - the T in K-T. And the first period of the Cenozoic was the Paleogene.
So for consistency the boundary should either have been based on the Eras - in which case it would have been M-C (or M-T in old money) or based on periods - which is where we have settled and why it is now called the K-Pg.
The argument over meteorites vs volcanoes goes back and forward every few decades. mostly because there were both meteorties and volcanoes of the scale to cause extniction events very close to each other in time. And getting an accurate fix from 65 million years away is, well, not very accurate.
I'll defer to your greater knowledge and training on this. It was my understanding that something like a consensus was formed now around meteorite impact being the main driver but if you think that volcanism is still "in play" I accept your verdict.
The argument comes about not because of the question of whther it was a meteorite or vulcanism but because many people believe it was both. Again the distance in time makes it difficult to be sure but it looks like the extinctions were well underway before the strike. And this may well have been because of the vulcanism. We are dealing with vanisingly small exposures of rock from that specific point in time (even if you take that point as being, say, half a million years) so realy this is just an argument that will bat back and forth for ever more.
To be honest, under the stewardship of Rishi Sunak when Chancellor, the whole country could be put under a Section 114 notice.
The biggest disaster is the Victoria Square development which was meant to create a new commercial and residential heart for Woking but the £750 million previous value has been downgraded to £200 million. For a Borough Council (not a unitary), the scale of the debt is extraordinary - I'm also forced to ask why this measure wasn't taken when the Conservative administration at the Town Hall was piling up these debts.
What the fuck?
Woking has run up £2bn in debts???
I cannot quite conceive how some councils have managed to run up such huge debts. It should be impossible to manage that if they were trying to do it!
Woking is not the only one. But it is absolutely appalling that a Borough Council of perhaps 70,000 voters has managed to run up debt of £2bn.
Let that sink in for a second.
If the Council had borrowed £1,000 for each of those potential voters, it would be £70m. If they'd borrowed £10,000, it would be £700m.
The Council has run up debts equivalent to £30,000 per voter.
How on earth was this allowed to happen? There's no way Council tax per voter exceeds £1,000. But let's pretend that it is. Even in that scenario its debts are 30x its tax receipts. Absolute madness.
Worse than that. Being a District / Borough, proposed Band D council tax rises is to £263 per year.
Core funding for Woking council is £16 million a year.
“We are now dangerously close to nuclear war The dam attack is a turning point. The West must act urgently to stop Putin seeing unconventional warfare as a viable option”
We probably are dangerously close to nuclear war, but where was Hamish when Ukraine cut most of the water supply to the Crimea during 2014-22 by closing the North Crimean Canal? If it's a war crime it must be a war crime whichever side does it. Since when was blowing up a dam unconventional anyway? And it's not at all clear who did it yet, although if the Russian assertion that Ukraine shelled it is anywhere near the truth they will probably furnish evidence within a few days...and if they don't...
Someone needs to bang Putin and Zelensky's heads together.
Zelenskyy was not president of Ukraine until 2019
Did I blame Zelensky for cutting the water supply to Crimea in 2014?
“We are now dangerously close to nuclear war The dam attack is a turning point. The West must act urgently to stop Putin seeing unconventional warfare as a viable option”
Now he’s saying that we need to focus on an impending nuclear war? Which is it?
I’ve no idea. He has a ridiculous name
However I think his point here is valid. If Putin blew the dam - and the evidence points that way - it suggests he is prepared to keep escalating - and there aren’t many further steps he can take before he reaches the nuclear level
That doesn’t mean a bomb. Could be an “accident” at ZPP
The prime military significance of the dam event may well turn out to be ZPP-related.
You say "if Putin blew the dam", but a similar conclusion follows from "if Zelensky blew the dam".
It could be that both of these f*cking nutters probably with very short penises are pushing the world in the same direction.
(Yes I have started drinking again under Armageddo-stress after many years of quiet abstention.)
On the bright side a nuclear war will put lots of dust in the atmosphere and counteract the warming effect
Every cloud. The idea of a nuclear winter has been dumped, though, as probable Soviet propaganda, even though when I were a lad it was being pushed out by the authorities in Britain something rotten,
The idea of a nuclear winter has not been dumped its a known fact that a high density of particulate matter in the atmosphere reduces solar forcing. Trying to claim otherwise shows you are an idiot
You just have to read even the Wikipedia article on nuclear winter and compare it with what was propagandised in say Britain in say 1980. You can insult me as much as you like, but the nuclear war causes nuclear winter hypothesis is not advanced anywhere near as much as it was in the 1980s. It has in fact been blamed on KGB propaganda. I am looking for a source to show you that.
Edit: here you go, and this is by no means the only source:
Gosh so we have millenia of proof that volcanoes throwing dust into the atmosphere cools the atmosphere......yet you quote that....I insult you because you dont do science. It is the whole science behind the KT boundary you idiot
K-t the k-pg is the same thing just two different names for the same thing
Yes, KT is the old terminology
So different names but same thing....I learnt it as KT so sue me
I'm just letting you know your information is a bit dated. You don't need to make a song and dance about it, it wasn't a criticism.
To be fair it was always dated... and wrong. Though that is no criticism of Pagan. It was lazy geologists who coldn't be bothered to correct the original mistake.
The K stands for Cretaceous Period which is the last period within the Mezozoic Era. The Mezozoic was followed by the Cenozoic which was also originally known as the Tertiary - the T in K-T. And the first period of the Cenozoic was the Paleogene.
So for consistency the boundary should either have been based on the Eras - in which case it would have been M-C (or M-T in old money) or based on periods - which is where we have settled and why it is now called the K-Pg.
The argument over meteorites vs volcanoes goes back and forward every few decades. mostly because there were both meteorties and volcanoes of the scale to cause extniction events very close to each other in time. And getting an accurate fix from 65 million years away is, well, not very accurate.
I'll defer to your greater knowledge and training on this. It was my understanding that something like a consensus was formed now around meteorite impact being the main driver but if you think that volcanism is still "in play" I accept your verdict.
The argument comes about not because of the question of whther it was a meteorite or vulcanism but because many people believe it was both. Again the distance in time makes it difficult to be sure but it looks like the extinctions were well underway before the strike. And this may well have been because of the vulcanism. We are dealing with vanisingly small exposures of rock from that specific point in time (even if you take that point as being, say, half a million years) so realy this is just an argument that will bat back and forth for ever more.
I made a special trip to Stevns in Denmark from a visit to Copenhagen, just to see the exposed K-Pg. Really excellent place to visit if you're a nerd like me.
Yet both the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil and gas developments, with only the Conservatives in favour
Scotland is the second most in favour of a ban, at 40%, second only to London on 46%.
Also, your figures seem to be wrong. Scotland is 36%, not 39% opposed to a ban.
Scotland is marginally IN FAVOUR of such a ban according to your figures.
Still more Scots are opposed to a ban on new oil developments than the 32% opposed to a ban in the UK overall. (Northerners are as supportive of a ban as Scots but both still significantly less than Londoners are).
Yet BOTH the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil developments with only the Conservatives standing up for the more than a third of Scots who oppose a ban on new oil and gas developments in the North Sea
I'll do this as a picture so you can understand it better:
figures for Scotland
yes, ban it: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
no ban please: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
don't know: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤
And that No Ban group is over a third of Scottish voters and more than the UK average, yet ONLY the Scottish Conservatives are standing up for those who don't want a ban on new oil and gas extraction from the North Sea
2014 when people like you were telling all and sundry that North Sea oil was an exhausted resource seems an awfully long time ago.
Yet both the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil and gas developments, with only the Conservatives in favour
Scotland is the second most in favour of a ban, at 40%, second only to London on 46%.
Also, your figures seem to be wrong. Scotland is 36%, not 39% opposed to a ban.
Scotland is marginally IN FAVOUR of such a ban according to your figures.
Still more Scots are opposed to a ban on new oil developments than the 32% opposed to a ban in the UK overall. (Northerners are as supportive of a ban as Scots but both still significantly less than Londoners are).
Yet BOTH the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil developments with only the Conservatives standing up for the more than a third of Scots who oppose a ban on new oil and gas developments in the North Sea
I'll do this as a picture so you can understand it better:
figures for Scotland
yes, ban it: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
no ban please: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
don't know: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤
And that No Ban group is over a third of Scottish voters and more than the UK average, yet ONLY the Scottish Conservatives are standing up for those who don't want a ban on new oil and gas extraction from the North Sea
Of course, in Indy-Scotland it wouldn't matter a jot what Westminster politicians think.
In Indy Scotland Scots would have an SNP government more in tune with Londoners than Scots on North Sea Oil extraction. Thankfully however the SNP support in Scotland is falling rapidly and Scottish Conservative support is far more resilient than UK Conservative support at present
Starmer's fall in his Scotland ratings are likely for some to be his ban on further oil licences especially in the North East, but I would suggest his stance on Brexit is not helping as we see the SNP calling him out as a Brexiteer
As I said earlier the SNP do appear to have stabilised their position and a lot will depend on the result of the police investigations
Even on today's poll the SNP vote is still down 8% on 2019
It would not have been unreasonable to see a double digit fall
The Rutherglen by election will be interesting as will the result of the police investigations
While support for independence has fallen it still remains in the mid forties and the SNP retain considerable support
I'm note sure independence support has fallen. The last 4 R&W have shown YES 42, 44, 42, 43 NO 51, 50, 52, 50 (Mar, Apr, May, Jun)
That looks static to me. The last one before R&W was Ipsos, which showed YES 51 NO 45 but Ipsos tends to show higher YES in general, so you probably shouldn't try to make trends between Ipsos and R&W polls.
It has a 'wee' bit but not decisively and certainly today's Scottish poll is better for the SNP then they could have expected
I get the impression Starmer's Daily Express column may have damaged him north of the border. I think he perhaps need to listen to Deborah Mattinson maybe a bit less.
Yet both the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil and gas developments, with only the Conservatives in favour
Scotland is the second most in favour of a ban, at 40%, second only to London on 46%.
Also, your figures seem to be wrong. Scotland is 36%, not 39% opposed to a ban.
Scotland is marginally IN FAVOUR of such a ban according to your figures.
Still more Scots are opposed to a ban on new oil developments than the 32% opposed to a ban in the UK overall. (Northerners are as supportive of a ban as Scots but both still significantly less than Londoners are).
Yet BOTH the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil developments with only the Conservatives standing up for the more than a third of Scots who oppose a ban on new oil and gas developments in the North Sea
I'll do this as a picture so you can understand it better:
figures for Scotland
yes, ban it: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
no ban please: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
don't know: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤
And that No Ban group is over a third of Scottish voters and more than the UK average, yet ONLY the Scottish Conservatives are standing up for those who don't want a ban on new oil and gas extraction from the North Sea
Of course, in Indy-Scotland it wouldn't matter a jot what Westminster politicians think.
In Indy Scotland Scots would have an SNP government more in tune with Londoners than Scots on North Sea Oil extraction. Thankfully however the SNP support in Scotland is falling rapidly and Scottish Conservative support is far more resilient than UK Conservative support at present
Starmer's fall in his Scotland ratings are likely for some to be his ban on further oil licences especially in the North East, but I would suggest his stance on Brexit is not helping as we see the SNP calling him out as a Brexiteer
As I said earlier the SNP do appear to have stabilised their position and a lot will depend on the result of the police investigations
Even on today's poll the SNP vote is still down 8% on 2019
It would not have been unreasonable to see a double digit fall
The Rutherglen by election will be interesting as will the result of the police investigations
While support for independence has fallen it still remains in the mid forties and the SNP retain considerable support
I'm note sure independence support has fallen. The last 4 R&W have shown YES 42, 44, 42, 43 NO 51, 50, 52, 50 (Mar, Apr, May, Jun)
That looks static to me. The last one before R&W was Ipsos, which showed YES 51 NO 45 but Ipsos tends to show higher YES in general, so you probably shouldn't try to make trends between Ipsos and R&W polls.
So all have R & W have Yes even below the 45% it got in 2014, while current Holyrood polls give a Unionist majority in 2026, which would kill off hopes of indyref2 anytime soon
Yes got 38% in 2014 if you include people who didn't vote. If you don't include them, then R&W have YES on 45.1%, slightly up on the 44.7% in the actual referendum.
Please do make sure you are comparing like with like, I know you wouldn't want to be thought of dishonest, manipulative, or stupid.
Plenty of DKs will vote and in 2014 they went No.
As stated, Redfield and other pollsters are also forecasting a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026 anyway, which would kill off indyref2 talk indefinitely
As I said yesterday: is the problem American sobriety? British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
Here is how Seattle Times is reporting Pence's statement:
"Pence opens presidential bid with denunciation of Trump over Jan. 6 insurrection and abortion"
Get the feeling that many UKer PBers - along with many in USA - will be unimpressed by anything other than unequivocal anti-Trump candidate(s) for 2024 Republican nomination.
HOWEVER, while 2022 midterms gave plenty of evidence that swing voters AND many Republicans are of that mindset, they also showed that running AGAINST Trump was NOT a great strategy for winning GOP nomination for whatever.
THUS the reluctance (or at least major share of it) to do a Lynn Cheney for 2024.
Note that goodly chunk of Republicans (including leaners (who either oppose Trump outright, or are seriously allergic to him, are skeptical (for some reason) that it's possible for 1001% anti-45er to win the Republican nomination.
Yet both the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil and gas developments, with only the Conservatives in favour
Scotland is the second most in favour of a ban, at 40%, second only to London on 46%.
Also, your figures seem to be wrong. Scotland is 36%, not 39% opposed to a ban.
Scotland is marginally IN FAVOUR of such a ban according to your figures.
Still more Scots are opposed to a ban on new oil developments than the 32% opposed to a ban in the UK overall. (Northerners are as supportive of a ban as Scots but both still significantly less than Londoners are).
Yet BOTH the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil developments with only the Conservatives standing up for the more than a third of Scots who oppose a ban on new oil and gas developments in the North Sea
I'll do this as a picture so you can understand it better:
figures for Scotland
yes, ban it: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
no ban please: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
don't know: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤
And that No Ban group is over a third of Scottish voters and more than the UK average, yet ONLY the Scottish Conservatives are standing up for those who don't want a ban on new oil and gas extraction from the North Sea
2014 when people like you were telling all and sundry that North Sea oil was an exhausted resource seems an awfully long time ago.
As I said yesterday: is the problem American sobriety? British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
It’s a whole combination of things. The innate American love of the suburb and the car. The loathing of public transport. The big houses that are nice to WFH in. The general fucked up nature of American city centers - drugs, homeless, urbanscapes ruined by car lots and shit buildings
But this is an enormous problem and I’m encountering it everywhere. Denver last year. Cincinnati now. Multiple other places
It’s desolate. Ffs this is a city twice the size of Manchester and this is the buzzing heart. On a beautiful balmy evening of about 25C
Here is how Seattle Times is reporting Pence's statement:
"Pence opens presidential bid with denunciation of Trump over Jan. 6 insurrection and abortion"
Get the feeling that many UKer PBers - along with many in USA - will be unimpressed by anything other than unequivocal anti-Trump candidate(s) for 2024 Republican nomination.
HOWEVER, while 2022 midterms gave plenty of evidence that swing voters AND many Republicans are of that mindset, they also showed that running AGAINST Trump was NOT a great strategy for winning GOP nomination for whatever.
THUS the reluctance (or at least major share of it) to do a Lynn Cheney for 2024.
Note that goodly chunk of Republicans (including leaners (who either oppose Trump outright, or are seriously allergic to him, are skeptical (for some reason) that it's possible for 1001% anti-45er to win the Republican nomination.
Just sayin'.
I would probably vote for Pence, both for the GOP nomination and in the general election next year if I was American, however unless Trump or DeSantis collapse I don't see him getting very far
As I said yesterday: is the problem American sobriety? British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
It’s a whole combination of things. The innate American love of the suburb and the car. The loathing of public transport. The big houses that are nice to WFH in. The general fucked up nature of American city centers - drugs, homeless, urbanscapes ruined by car lots and shit buildings
But this is an enormous problem and I’m encountering it everywhere. Denver last year. Cincinnati now. Multiple other places
It’s desolate. Ffs this is a city twice the size of Manchester and this is the buzzing heart. On a beautiful balmy evening of about 25C
But this is not new.
I remember visiting LA in 1999, being downtown, and thinking "wait, wtf?"
Yet both the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil and gas developments, with only the Conservatives in favour
Scotland is the second most in favour of a ban, at 40%, second only to London on 46%.
Also, your figures seem to be wrong. Scotland is 36%, not 39% opposed to a ban.
Scotland is marginally IN FAVOUR of such a ban according to your figures.
Still more Scots are opposed to a ban on new oil developments than the 32% opposed to a ban in the UK overall. (Northerners are as supportive of a ban as Scots but both still significantly less than Londoners are).
Yet BOTH the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil developments with only the Conservatives standing up for the more than a third of Scots who oppose a ban on new oil and gas developments in the North Sea
I'll do this as a picture so you can understand it better:
figures for Scotland
yes, ban it: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
no ban please: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
don't know: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤
And that No Ban group is over a third of Scottish voters and more than the UK average, yet ONLY the Scottish Conservatives are standing up for those who don't want a ban on new oil and gas extraction from the North Sea
Of course, in Indy-Scotland it wouldn't matter a jot what Westminster politicians think.
In Indy Scotland Scots would have an SNP government more in tune with Londoners than Scots on North Sea Oil extraction. Thankfully however the SNP support in Scotland is falling rapidly and Scottish Conservative support is far more resilient than UK Conservative support at present
Starmer's fall in his Scotland ratings are likely for some to be his ban on further oil licences especially in the North East, but I would suggest his stance on Brexit is not helping as we see the SNP calling him out as a Brexiteer
As I said earlier the SNP do appear to have stabilised their position and a lot will depend on the result of the police investigations
Even on today's poll the SNP vote is still down 8% on 2019
It would not have been unreasonable to see a double digit fall
The Rutherglen by election will be interesting as will the result of the police investigations
While support for independence has fallen it still remains in the mid forties and the SNP retain considerable support
I'm note sure independence support has fallen. The last 4 R&W have shown YES 42, 44, 42, 43 NO 51, 50, 52, 50 (Mar, Apr, May, Jun)
That looks static to me. The last one before R&W was Ipsos, which showed YES 51 NO 45 but Ipsos tends to show higher YES in general, so you probably shouldn't try to make trends between Ipsos and R&W polls.
So all have R & W have Yes even below the 45% it got in 2014, while current Holyrood polls give a Unionist majority in 2026, which would kill off hopes of indyref2 anytime soon
Yes got 38% in 2014 if you include people who didn't vote. If you don't include them, then R&W have YES on 45.1%, slightly up on the 44.7% in the actual referendum.
Please do make sure you are comparing like with like, I know you wouldn't want to be thought of dishonest, manipulative, or stupid.
Plenty of DKs will vote and in 2014 they went No.
As stated, Redfield and other pollsters are also forecasting a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026 anyway, which would kill off indyref2 talk indefinitely
But the DKs in that poll are far fewer than the DNV in 2014. So unless you think another indy ref will have a turnout in excess of 93%, which it obviously won't, you're flat wrong. Again.
Nobody lives Downtown - they’re all out in the suburbs. When I used to go there for work at corporate events Dinners would start at 18.00 and at 19.30 someone would announce “that concludes this evenings event” and you couldn’t clear the room faster if you’d hit the fire alarm - leaving a few bemused Europeans stranded at empty tables wondering where the fiddle everyone had gone…
As I said yesterday: is the problem American sobriety? British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
It’s a whole combination of things. The innate American love of the suburb and the car. The loathing of public transport. The big houses that are nice to WFH in. The general fucked up nature of American city centers - drugs, homeless, urbanscapes ruined by car lots and shit buildings
But this is an enormous problem and I’m encountering it everywhere. Denver last year. Cincinnati now. Multiple other places
It’s desolate. Ffs this is a city twice the size of Manchester and this is the buzzing heart. On a beautiful balmy evening of about 25C
Cincinnati city centre, at least, doesn't looked fucked up. Looks quite nice, in a 'but where are the pubs' way. Just horribly deserted.
A pedant notes, however, that the Cincinnati metropolitan area is has a population of 1.7m. So smaller than Manchester, whose Metropolitan population is approaching 3m. Closer to Glasgow, I think. Still, your point stands.
“We are now dangerously close to nuclear war The dam attack is a turning point. The West must act urgently to stop Putin seeing unconventional warfare as a viable option”
We probably are dangerously close to nuclear war, but where was Hamish when Ukraine cut most of the water supply to the Crimea during 2014-22 by closing the North Crimean Canal? If it's a war crime it must be a war crime whichever side does it. Since when was blowing up a dam unconventional anyway? And it's not at all clear who did it yet, although if the Russian assertion that Ukraine shelled it is anywhere near the truth they will probably furnish evidence within a few days...and if they don't...
Someone needs to bang Putin and Zelensky's heads together.
Zelenskyy was not president of Ukraine until 2019
Did I blame Zelensky for cutting the water supply to Crimea in 2014?
“We are now dangerously close to nuclear war The dam attack is a turning point. The West must act urgently to stop Putin seeing unconventional warfare as a viable option”
Now he’s saying that we need to focus on an impending nuclear war? Which is it?
I’ve no idea. He has a ridiculous name
However I think his point here is valid. If Putin blew the dam - and the evidence points that way - it suggests he is prepared to keep escalating - and there aren’t many further steps he can take before he reaches the nuclear level
That doesn’t mean a bomb. Could be an “accident” at ZPP
The prime military significance of the dam event may well turn out to be ZPP-related.
You say "if Putin blew the dam", but a similar conclusion follows from "if Zelensky blew the dam".
It could be that both of these f*cking nutters probably with very short penises are pushing the world in the same direction.
(Yes I have started drinking again under Armageddo-stress after many years of quiet abstention.)
On the bright side a nuclear war will put lots of dust in the atmosphere and counteract the warming effect
Every cloud. The idea of a nuclear winter has been dumped, though, as probable Soviet propaganda, even though when I were a lad it was being pushed out by the authorities in Britain something rotten,
The idea of a nuclear winter has not been dumped its a known fact that a high density of particulate matter in the atmosphere reduces solar forcing. Trying to claim otherwise shows you are an idiot
You just have to read even the Wikipedia article on nuclear winter and compare it with what was propagandised in say Britain in say 1980. You can insult me as much as you like, but the nuclear war causes nuclear winter hypothesis is not advanced anywhere near as much as it was in the 1980s. It has in fact been blamed on KGB propaganda. I am looking for a source to show you that.
Edit: here you go, and this is by no means the only source:
Gosh so we have millenia of proof that volcanoes throwing dust into the atmosphere cools the atmosphere......yet you quote that....I insult you because you dont do science. It is the whole science behind the KT boundary you idiot
K-t the k-pg is the same thing just two different names for the same thing
Yes, KT is the old terminology
So different names but same thing....I learnt it as KT so sue me
I'm just letting you know your information is a bit dated. You don't need to make a song and dance about it, it wasn't a criticism.
To be fair it was always dated... and wrong. Though that is no criticism of Pagan. It was lazy geologists who coldn't be bothered to correct the original mistake.
The K stands for Cretaceous Period which is the last period within the Mezozoic Era. The Mezozoic was followed by the Cenozoic which was also originally known as the Tertiary - the T in K-T. And the first period of the Cenozoic was the Paleogene.
So for consistency the boundary should either have been based on the Eras - in which case it would have been M-C (or M-T in old money) or based on periods - which is where we have settled and why it is now called the K-Pg.
The argument over meteorites vs volcanoes goes back and forward every few decades. mostly because there were both meteorties and volcanoes of the scale to cause extniction events very close to each other in time. And getting an accurate fix from 65 million years away is, well, not very accurate.
I'll defer to your greater knowledge and training on this. It was my understanding that something like a consensus was formed now around meteorite impact being the main driver but if you think that volcanism is still "in play" I accept your verdict.
Possible for the two to be linked - Deccan Traps eruptiuon is suspiciously close in time and precisely opposite in place (diametrically across the globe) to be a sort of contre-coup effect of the Yucatan impact.
Here's a recent paper presenting evidence of just that:
Yet both the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil and gas developments, with only the Conservatives in favour
Scotland is the second most in favour of a ban, at 40%, second only to London on 46%.
Also, your figures seem to be wrong. Scotland is 36%, not 39% opposed to a ban.
Scotland is marginally IN FAVOUR of such a ban according to your figures.
Still more Scots are opposed to a ban on new oil developments than the 32% opposed to a ban in the UK overall. (Northerners are as supportive of a ban as Scots but both still significantly less than Londoners are).
Yet BOTH the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil developments with only the Conservatives standing up for the more than a third of Scots who oppose a ban on new oil and gas developments in the North Sea
I'll do this as a picture so you can understand it better:
figures for Scotland
yes, ban it: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
no ban please: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
don't know: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤
And that No Ban group is over a third of Scottish voters and more than the UK average, yet ONLY the Scottish Conservatives are standing up for those who don't want a ban on new oil and gas extraction from the North Sea
Of course, in Indy-Scotland it wouldn't matter a jot what Westminster politicians think.
In Indy Scotland Scots would have an SNP government more in tune with Londoners than Scots on North Sea Oil extraction. Thankfully however the SNP support in Scotland is falling rapidly and Scottish Conservative support is far more resilient than UK Conservative support at present
Starmer's fall in his Scotland ratings are likely for some to be his ban on further oil licences especially in the North East, but I would suggest his stance on Brexit is not helping as we see the SNP calling him out as a Brexiteer
As I said earlier the SNP do appear to have stabilised their position and a lot will depend on the result of the police investigations
Even on today's poll the SNP vote is still down 8% on 2019
It would not have been unreasonable to see a double digit fall
The Rutherglen by election will be interesting as will the result of the police investigations
While support for independence has fallen it still remains in the mid forties and the SNP retain considerable support
I'm note sure independence support has fallen. The last 4 R&W have shown YES 42, 44, 42, 43 NO 51, 50, 52, 50 (Mar, Apr, May, Jun)
That looks static to me. The last one before R&W was Ipsos, which showed YES 51 NO 45 but Ipsos tends to show higher YES in general, so you probably shouldn't try to make trends between Ipsos and R&W polls.
So all have R & W have Yes even below the 45% it got in 2014, while current Holyrood polls give a Unionist majority in 2026, which would kill off hopes of indyref2 anytime soon
Yes got 38% in 2014 if you include people who didn't vote. If you don't include them, then R&W have YES on 45.1%, slightly up on the 44.7% in the actual referendum.
Please do make sure you are comparing like with like, I know you wouldn't want to be thought of dishonest, manipulative, or stupid.
Plenty of DKs will vote and in 2014 they went No.
As stated, Redfield and other pollsters are also forecasting a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026 anyway, which would kill off indyref2 talk indefinitely
But the DKs in that poll are far fewer than the DNV in 2014. So unless you think another indy ref will have a turnout in excess of 93%, which it obviously won't, you're flat wrong. Again.
85% voted in indyref2014, anything is possible. Though as mentioned and you again ignored the forecast Unionist majority in 2026 means there may never be an indyref2 anyway and most likely certainly not this decade
As I said yesterday: is the problem American sobriety? British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
It’s a whole combination of things. The innate American love of the suburb and the car. The loathing of public transport. The big houses that are nice to WFH in. The general fucked up nature of American city centers - drugs, homeless, urbanscapes ruined by car lots and shit buildings
But this is an enormous problem and I’m encountering it everywhere. Denver last year. Cincinnati now. Multiple other places
It’s desolate. Ffs this is a city twice the size of Manchester and this is the buzzing heart. On a beautiful balmy evening of about 25C
But this is not new.
I remember visiting LA in 1999, being downtown, and thinking "wait, wtf?"
Yet both the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil and gas developments, with only the Conservatives in favour
Scotland is the second most in favour of a ban, at 40%, second only to London on 46%.
Also, your figures seem to be wrong. Scotland is 36%, not 39% opposed to a ban.
Scotland is marginally IN FAVOUR of such a ban according to your figures.
Still more Scots are opposed to a ban on new oil developments than the 32% opposed to a ban in the UK overall. (Northerners are as supportive of a ban as Scots but both still significantly less than Londoners are).
Yet BOTH the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil developments with only the Conservatives standing up for the more than a third of Scots who oppose a ban on new oil and gas developments in the North Sea
I'll do this as a picture so you can understand it better:
figures for Scotland
yes, ban it: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
no ban please: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
don't know: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤
And that No Ban group is over a third of Scottish voters and more than the UK average, yet ONLY the Scottish Conservatives are standing up for those who don't want a ban on new oil and gas extraction from the North Sea
2014 when people like you were telling all and sundry that North Sea oil was an exhausted resource seems an awfully long time ago.
I do wonder why the BBC and other organisations ever gave a moments notice to these idiots. Anyone who actually knew anything at all about the North Sea knew it was utter BS. The only way North Sea oil 'runs out' in our lifetimes is when it becomes so cheap it is no longer worth the effort to drill for it. And given that that wasn't the case even at 9 dollars a barrel, the only thing that will actually spell the end of North Sea oil is lack of demand. (Excepting the lunacy of Governments sticking their noses in)
As I said yesterday: is the problem American sobriety? British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
It’s a whole combination of things. The innate American love of the suburb and the car. The loathing of public transport. The big houses that are nice to WFH in. The general fucked up nature of American city centers - drugs, homeless, urbanscapes ruined by car lots and shit buildings
But this is an enormous problem and I’m encountering it everywhere. Denver last year. Cincinnati now. Multiple other places
It’s desolate. Ffs this is a city twice the size of Manchester and this is the buzzing heart. On a beautiful balmy evening of about 25C
But this is not new.
I remember visiting LA in 1999, being downtown, and thinking "wait, wtf?"
As I said yesterday: is the problem American sobriety? British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
It’s a whole combination of things. The innate American love of the suburb and the car. The loathing of public transport. The big houses that are nice to WFH in. The general fucked up nature of American city centers - drugs, homeless, urbanscapes ruined by car lots and shit buildings
But this is an enormous problem and I’m encountering it everywhere. Denver last year. Cincinnati now. Multiple other places
It’s desolate. Ffs this is a city twice the size of Manchester and this is the buzzing heart. On a beautiful balmy evening of about 25C
But this is not new.
I remember visiting LA in 1999, being downtown, and thinking "wait, wtf?"
6.26 PM is the tail-end of rush hour in most US cities.
AND empty downtowns in US cities after working hours is NOT a new development. Many decades old.
Ain't saying it's a plus. But not sign of impending doom.
ADDENDUM - So WHY are you hanging around in downtown this evening, when the REAL Cincinnati is clearly elsewhere.
Suggest you head up the hill, toward the U of Cincinnati, AND check out Taft's bathtub!
No this is bollocks. As is the comment by @rcs1000
All the offices are empty. For Lease
Open your eyes. Urban America is dying
I am sure if you went to Manhattan or downtown Chicago or Seattle or Boston or Miami you would find it a bit busier, Cincanniti is really a lot of office blocks with a few restaurants for lunch surrounded by suburbia
Here is how Seattle Times is reporting Pence's statement:
"Pence opens presidential bid with denunciation of Trump over Jan. 6 insurrection and abortion"
Get the feeling that many UKer PBers - along with many in USA - will be unimpressed by anything other than unequivocal anti-Trump candidate(s) for 2024 Republican nomination.
HOWEVER, while 2022 midterms gave plenty of evidence that swing voters AND many Republicans are of that mindset, they also showed that running AGAINST Trump was NOT a great strategy for winning GOP nomination for whatever.
THUS the reluctance (or at least major share of it) to do a Lynn Cheney for 2024.
Note that goodly chunk of Republicans (including leaners (who either oppose Trump outright, or are seriously allergic to him, are skeptical (for some reason) that it's possible for 1001% anti-45er to win the Republican nomination.
Just sayin'.
I think we're all well aware of why Pence and others have been tip toeing around their criticisms, and even the direct attacks tend to get rolled back, thanks. It's depressing to see because we understand why they know they have to do it, not that we don't understand it - it's not rocket science.
It's not 'disappointment' that they are not unequivocally anti-Trump, it's disappointment that being anti-Trump is a pretty good way of losing and the strategies of others shows that.
(I saw people doing this in a storefront in St Louis, beer in hand).
You can do that in Manchester. Just saying.
The first time I threw a javelin, at about age 13, it twisted and the back of it smacked me in the side of the head. So I'll steer clear of the axes...
Yet both the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil and gas developments, with only the Conservatives in favour
Scotland is the second most in favour of a ban, at 40%, second only to London on 46%.
Also, your figures seem to be wrong. Scotland is 36%, not 39% opposed to a ban.
Scotland is marginally IN FAVOUR of such a ban according to your figures.
Still more Scots are opposed to a ban on new oil developments than the 32% opposed to a ban in the UK overall. (Northerners are as supportive of a ban as Scots but both still significantly less than Londoners are).
Yet BOTH the SNP and Starmer Labour back a ban on new oil developments with only the Conservatives standing up for the more than a third of Scots who oppose a ban on new oil and gas developments in the North Sea
I'll do this as a picture so you can understand it better:
figures for Scotland
yes, ban it: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
no ban please: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤
don't know: 👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤 👤👤👤👤👤
And that No Ban group is over a third of Scottish voters and more than the UK average, yet ONLY the Scottish Conservatives are standing up for those who don't want a ban on new oil and gas extraction from the North Sea
2014 when people like you were telling all and sundry that North Sea oil was an exhausted resource seems an awfully long time ago.
I do wonder why the BBC and other organisations ever gave a moments notice to these idiots. Anyone who actually knew anything at all about the North Sea knew it was utter BS. The only way North Sea oil 'runs out' in our lifetimes is when it becomes so cheap it is no longer worth the effort to drill for it. And given that that wasn't the case even at 9 dollars a barrel, the only thing that will actually spell the end of North Sea oil is lack of demand. (Excepting the lunacy of Governments sticking their noses in)
This sort of thing fuelled a deep mistrust of the BBC back in 2014. It's a persuasive argument that they were printing bollocks like this for political reasons. Now I think there's a lot to be said for never assuming malice when incompetence is a possibility, but I watched sensible people turn away from institutions like the BBC during exactly this period of time, and I cannot blame them for doing so.
As I said yesterday: is the problem American sobriety? British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
It’s a whole combination of things. The innate American love of the suburb and the car. The loathing of public transport. The big houses that are nice to WFH in. The general fucked up nature of American city centers - drugs, homeless, urbanscapes ruined by car lots and shit buildings
But this is an enormous problem and I’m encountering it everywhere. Denver last year. Cincinnati now. Multiple other places
It’s desolate. Ffs this is a city twice the size of Manchester and this is the buzzing heart. On a beautiful balmy evening of about 25C
But this is not new.
I remember visiting LA in 1999, being downtown, and thinking "wait, wtf?"
6.26 PM is the tail-end of rush hour in most US cities.
AND empty downtowns in US cities after working hours is NOT a new development. Many decades old.
Ain't saying it's a plus. But not sign of impending doom.
ADDENDUM - So WHY are you hanging around in downtown this evening, when the REAL Cincinnati is clearly elsewhere.
Suggest you head up the hill, toward the U of Cincinnati, AND check out Taft's bathtub!
No this is bollocks. As is the comment by @rcs1000
All the offices are empty. For Lease
Open your eyes. Urban America is dying
Impact of COVID is undeniable, esp re: office workers (in burbs as well as downtowns) and related services.
But empty downtown storefronts and building in America cities and towns large, small and inbetween is NOT novel.
Yes it is. I’ve been travelling worldwide for 35 years and I’ve been to America maybe 30 times. I have never seen anything like this. And remember I have been all over America in the last two years. West coast. Deep South. Florida. Utah. Colorado. Arizona. Kentucky. Now Ohio. Probably more than you - let’s face it
Oh look, I can see someone a mile away. Maybe that’s the entertainment district
Downtown San Francisco has been dealt another blow after an investor in one of its largest hotels said it would stop paying its loans.
Park Hotels and Resorts, the investment firm that owns Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 hotels, said Monday that is has ceased payments on a $725 million loan as looks to reduce its presence in the city. The hotels have nearly 3,000 rooms, combined.
In a statement, the firm’s CEO, Thomas Baltimore, Jr., said that San Francisco’s “path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges” including office vacancies caused by companies letting employees work-from-home, a “weaker than expected citywide convention calendar” through 2027 and “concerns over street conditions.”
“Unfortunately, the continued burden on our operating results and balance sheet is too significant to warrant continuing to subsidize and own these assets,” he concluded. The hotels will be given back to the lender.
As I said yesterday: is the problem American sobriety? British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
It’s a whole combination of things. The innate American love of the suburb and the car. The loathing of public transport. The big houses that are nice to WFH in. The general fucked up nature of American city centers - drugs, homeless, urbanscapes ruined by car lots and shit buildings
But this is an enormous problem and I’m encountering it everywhere. Denver last year. Cincinnati now. Multiple other places
It’s desolate. Ffs this is a city twice the size of Manchester and this is the buzzing heart. On a beautiful balmy evening of about 25C
But this is not new.
I remember visiting LA in 1999, being downtown, and thinking "wait, wtf?"
6.26 PM is the tail-end of rush hour in most US cities.
AND empty downtowns in US cities after working hours is NOT a new development. Many decades old.
Ain't saying it's a plus. But not sign of impending doom.
ADDENDUM - So WHY are you hanging around in downtown this evening, when the REAL Cincinnati is clearly elsewhere.
Suggest you head up the hill, toward the U of Cincinnati, AND check out Taft's bathtub!
No this is bollocks. As is the comment by @rcs1000
All the offices are empty. For Lease
Open your eyes. Urban America is dying
Impact of COVID is undeniable, esp re: office workers (in burbs as well as downtowns) and related services.
But empty downtown storefronts and building in America cities and towns large, small and inbetween is NOT novel.
Yes it is. I’ve been travelling worldwide for 35 years and I’ve been to America maybe 30 times. I have never seen anything like this. And remember I have been all over America in the last two years. West coast. Deep South. Florida. Utah. Colorado. Arizona. Kentucky. Now Ohio. Probably more than you - let’s face it
Oh look, I can see someone a mile away. Maybe that’s the entertainment district
Just hope the local coppers do not respond aggressively to reports of a suspicious foreign man wandering about taking random photos of the downtown core.
As I said yesterday: is the problem American sobriety? British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
It’s a whole combination of things. The innate American love of the suburb and the car. The loathing of public transport. The big houses that are nice to WFH in. The general fucked up nature of American city centers - drugs, homeless, urbanscapes ruined by car lots and shit buildings
But this is an enormous problem and I’m encountering it everywhere. Denver last year. Cincinnati now. Multiple other places
It’s desolate. Ffs this is a city twice the size of Manchester and this is the buzzing heart. On a beautiful balmy evening of about 25C
Cincinnati city centre, at least, doesn't looked fucked up. Looks quite nice, in a 'but where are the pubs' way. Just horribly deserted.
A pedant notes, however, that the Cincinnati metropolitan area is has a population of 1.7m. So smaller than Manchester, whose Metropolitan population is approaching 3m. Closer to Glasgow, I think. Still, your point stands.
The problem is pretty much as you identified it: where are the restaraunts? the bars? the theatres? Even the shops?
The city centre existed for workers to come in, and to work in office buildings. In this way, it is curiously different from the UK, where the offices moved to the suburbs, and the cities remained retail and entertainment spaces.
When Covid came, and the office workers no longer had any reason to go into the centrem, then it ended up deserted.
It's a little sad. But it certainly doesn't deserve @Leon's "fucked" ephitet. Heck, if you went around Slough Business Center at 630pm, it would probably be similarly eerily quiet.
As I said yesterday: is the problem American sobriety? British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
It’s a whole combination of things. The innate American love of the suburb and the car. The loathing of public transport. The big houses that are nice to WFH in. The general fucked up nature of American city centers - drugs, homeless, urbanscapes ruined by car lots and shit buildings
But this is an enormous problem and I’m encountering it everywhere. Denver last year. Cincinnati now. Multiple other places
It’s desolate. Ffs this is a city twice the size of Manchester and this is the buzzing heart. On a beautiful balmy evening of about 25C
But this is not new.
I remember visiting LA in 1999, being downtown, and thinking "wait, wtf?"
6.26 PM is the tail-end of rush hour in most US cities.
AND empty downtowns in US cities after working hours is NOT a new development. Many decades old.
Ain't saying it's a plus. But not sign of impending doom.
ADDENDUM - So WHY are you hanging around in downtown this evening, when the REAL Cincinnati is clearly elsewhere.
Suggest you head up the hill, toward the U of Cincinnati, AND check out Taft's bathtub!
No this is bollocks. As is the comment by @rcs1000
All the offices are empty. For Lease
Open your eyes. Urban America is dying
I am sure if you went to Manhattan or downtown Chicago or Seattle or Boston or Miami you would find it a bit busier, Cincanniti is really a lot of office blocks with a few restaurants for lunch surrounded by suburbia
I found a nice historic quarter with all the churches
Downtown San Francisco has been dealt another blow after an investor in one of its largest hotels said it would stop paying its loans.
Park Hotels and Resorts, the investment firm that owns Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 hotels, said Monday that is has ceased payments on a $725 million loan as looks to reduce its presence in the city. The hotels have nearly 3,000 rooms, combined.
In a statement, the firm’s CEO, Thomas Baltimore, Jr., said that San Francisco’s “path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges” including office vacancies caused by companies letting employees work-from-home, a “weaker than expected citywide convention calendar” through 2027 and “concerns over street conditions.”
“Unfortunately, the continued burden on our operating results and balance sheet is too significant to warrant continuing to subsidize and own these assets,” he concluded. The hotels will be given back to the lender.
As I said yesterday: is the problem American sobriety? British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
It’s a whole combination of things. The innate American love of the suburb and the car. The loathing of public transport. The big houses that are nice to WFH in. The general fucked up nature of American city centers - drugs, homeless, urbanscapes ruined by car lots and shit buildings
But this is an enormous problem and I’m encountering it everywhere. Denver last year. Cincinnati now. Multiple other places
It’s desolate. Ffs this is a city twice the size of Manchester and this is the buzzing heart. On a beautiful balmy evening of about 25C
Cincinnati city centre, at least, doesn't looked fucked up. Looks quite nice, in a 'but where are the pubs' way. Just horribly deserted.
A pedant notes, however, that the Cincinnati metropolitan area is has a population of 1.7m. So smaller than Manchester, whose Metropolitan population is approaching 3m. Closer to Glasgow, I think. Still, your point stands.
The problem is pretty much as you identified it: where are the restaraunts? the bars? the theatres? Even the shops?
The city centre existed for workers to come in, and to work in office buildings. In this way, it is curiously different from the UK, where the offices moved to the suburbs, and the cities remained retail and entertainment spaces.
When Covid came, and the office workers no longer had any reason to go into the centrem, then it ended up deserted.
It's a little sad. But it certainly doesn't deserve @Leon's "fucked" ephitet. Heck, if you went around Slough Business Center at 630pm, it would probably be similarly eerily quiet.
This is not slough business centre ffs. This is a city with 2m people. Also in slough busines centre you would not encounter the issue that the ONLY people around are homeless zombies on tranq
Downtown San Francisco has been dealt another blow after an investor in one of its largest hotels said it would stop paying its loans.
Park Hotels and Resorts, the investment firm that owns Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 hotels, said Monday that is has ceased payments on a $725 million loan as looks to reduce its presence in the city. The hotels have nearly 3,000 rooms, combined.
In a statement, the firm’s CEO, Thomas Baltimore, Jr., said that San Francisco’s “path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges” including office vacancies caused by companies letting employees work-from-home, a “weaker than expected citywide convention calendar” through 2027 and “concerns over street conditions.”
“Unfortunately, the continued burden on our operating results and balance sheet is too significant to warrant continuing to subsidize and own these assets,” he concluded. The hotels will be given back to the lender.
That also shows the dangers of private equity overleverage: $725m of debt for two hotels? The hotel business is dangerously low margin at the best of time, and they'd need to clear $250m in EBITDA just to avoid a technical default.
As I said yesterday: is the problem American sobriety? British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
It’s a whole combination of things. The innate American love of the suburb and the car. The loathing of public transport. The big houses that are nice to WFH in. The general fucked up nature of American city centers - drugs, homeless, urbanscapes ruined by car lots and shit buildings
But this is an enormous problem and I’m encountering it everywhere. Denver last year. Cincinnati now. Multiple other places
It’s desolate. Ffs this is a city twice the size of Manchester and this is the buzzing heart. On a beautiful balmy evening of about 25C
But this is not new.
I remember visiting LA in 1999, being downtown, and thinking "wait, wtf?"
6.26 PM is the tail-end of rush hour in most US cities.
AND empty downtowns in US cities after working hours is NOT a new development. Many decades old.
Ain't saying it's a plus. But not sign of impending doom.
ADDENDUM - So WHY are you hanging around in downtown this evening, when the REAL Cincinnati is clearly elsewhere.
Suggest you head up the hill, toward the U of Cincinnati, AND check out Taft's bathtub!
No this is bollocks. As is the comment by @rcs1000
All the offices are empty. For Lease
Open your eyes. Urban America is dying
I am sure if you went to Manhattan or downtown Chicago or Seattle or Boston or Miami you would find it a bit busier, Cincanniti is really a lot of office blocks with a few restaurants for lunch surrounded by suburbia
I found a nice historic quarter with all the churches
Head up a little ways north, and see the Taft House. And tell 'em your editor INSISTS you measure the bathtub.
The problem with zombie cities is as much social as economic. How can divisions be overcome if people don't mix?
Overcoming divisions is so turn of the millenium. Thesedays we're all about hyperfocus on differences and stoking up recrimination and division because we must atone for the sins of our ancestors or something.
(No I'm not saying there are not existing problems that need to be dealt with in society, but come on, some modern ideas don't even seem to have the intent to reduce division).
So is today's story from the PB content / click generator about going to a business district after work and finding it empty?
Then you’ll be glad to hear I have reached the hip new urban hood of Over the Rhine. Entertainment central, where all the cool kids hang out and the trendy restaurants proliferate
It reminds me of Shoreditch or Borough on a buzzy summer evening
No doubt Cincinnati is empty. Who in hell goes to Cincinnati?
There is a list of great American cities. That list does not include Cincinnati.
It’s like an American moaning about the lack of a Harrod’s in Reading.
Denver was exactly the same. I posted the photos here
Plus multiple other US cities I’ve been to, in different ways
Nobody cares about Denver. They care about Colorado. Essentially you’re a slightly higher class version of the English tourist in the Costa del Sol, complaining that the Spanish don’t eat egg and chips.
So is today's story from the PB content / click generator about going to a business district after work and finding it empty?
Amazingly, and coincidentally, this is indisputable evidence that confirms the writer's existing beliefs.
If only there was a name for that psychological phenomenon...
I, on the other hand, will be going to a soccer match this evening, where 25,000 screaming LAFC fans will be singing Jump for LA Football Club Ole! Ole!
Apropos of nothing (and who is up at this hour in the UK), there is a whole sun-genre of tweets about Rishi’s serial wardrobe misfunctions.
Boris of course was just a slob. But Rishi, who has all the money in the world, just seems to buy child’s clothing or something. Nothing seems to fit him properly.
So is today's story from the PB content / click generator about going to a business district after work and finding it empty?
Amazingly, and coincidentally, this is indisputable evidence that confirms the writer's existing beliefs.
If only there was a name for that psychological phenomenon...
I, on the other hand, will be going to a soccer match this evening, where 25,000 screaming LAFC fans will be singing Jump for LA Football Club Ole! Ole!
I came here absolutely prepared to have my grave anxieties about America dismissed. Indeed I rather wanted that. America is - still - the arsenal of democracy and the final citadel of the Free World. I was hoping all those images of fucked downtowns on social media were giving a false impression
They are not giving a false impression. To see such a great country in such absolute and obvious decline is painful
In the end you can’t ignore the most direct statistic of all. Life expectancy. Which in America is now lower than in Panama and Thailand. This decay is tangentially symptomised in the rotting of America’s urban centres
So is today's story from the PB content / click generator about going to a business district after work and finding it empty?
Amazingly, and coincidentally, this is indisputable evidence that confirms the writer's existing beliefs.
If only there was a name for that psychological phenomenon...
I, on the other hand, will be going to a soccer match this evening, where 25,000 screaming LAFC fans will be singing Jump for LA Football Club Ole! Ole!
I came here absolutely prepared to have my grave anxieties about America dismissed. Indeed I rather wanted that. America is - still - the arsenal of democracy and the final citadel of the Free World. I was hoping all those images of fucked downtowns on social media were giving a false impression
They are not giving a false impression. To see such a great country in such absolute and obvious decline is painful
In the end you can’t ignore the most direct statistic of all. Life expectancy. Which in America is now lower than in Panama and Thailand. This decay is tangentially symptomised in the rotting of America’s urban centres
Its kind of nonsense though. The collapsing life expectancy isn't due to urban areas. Its all the right wing retards that wouldn't take vaccines during an incredibly lethal pandemic.
The much better marker is fertility rate, where, yes, the US is doing badly. But it is doing a damn sight better than China.
As far as I know, the key points of interest in Cincinnati include
> the Ohio River which is one of the most beautiful rivers in the world, hence old French moniker 'la belle Riviere" (sp); check out riverwalk and possibly a boat ride.
> interesting museums, Cincinnati being an old money town (for example, the Tafts and Longworths) with some appreciate of high (and also low) culture.
> interesting old-school taverns and dive bars, featuring local delicacies such as Cincy chile washed down with ice-cold Hudepohl.
> storied major league sports teams, Bengals and Reds, esp. (at least for me) the latter; back in my misspent youth in the wilds of Appalachia, the Cincinnati Reds baseball team was THE team for about 98% of folks in southern West Virginia. Of course, that was back in their heyday, when Pete Rose was a Big Star and not a small turd. Though would NOT suggest saying THAT in WVa even today OR in Cincinnati.
On a pure population basis, Cincinnati has about as many people as Coventry.
Metro Cincinnati has a population of 2.3 million. 50% bigger than metro Liverpool.
Not sure about metro Liverpool, but in metro Cincinnati, large % of people hardly ever go to the city itself, except buzzing through on the way to the airport or suchlike.
And another large % work in the city but live in burbs and exurbs and are NOT in city outside working hours and commuting; traditionally these were dominated by white-collar professionals, but nowadays increasing blue-collar service workers.
On a pure population basis, Cincinnati has about as many people as Coventry.
Metro Cincinnati has a population of 2.3 million. 50% bigger than metro Liverpool.
Not sure about metro Liverpool, but in metro Cincinnati, large % of people hardly ever go to the city itself, except buzzing through on the way to the airport or suchlike.
And another large % work in the city but live in burbs and exurbs and are NOT in city outside working hours and commuting; traditionally these were dominated by white-collar professionals, but nowadays increasing blue-collar service workers.
Yes, and also America has dozens and dozens of big cities. At any point in time a bunch are growing and a bunch are shrinking. Go to Austin or Phoenix or Denver or Raleigh.
My own most memorable Cincinnati experience was - perhaps - typically American, in that I was cruising through the place on the interstate.
It was a summer night, I was driving from college to my hometown, and Cincinnati was on the way. Note that in addition to several interstate highways that go through the burg, there is an interstate ring road that's used by most of the through traffic.
However, for me the shortest route was right through downtown, then across the Ohio River into Kentucky, then BACK over the Ohio into State of same ilk, then away from the metro maze toward my final destination. AND would time my travel to avoid rush hours.
So anyway, it's a nice summer night, and I'm cruising along, with very little traffic, through downtown Cincinnati. Approaching the old Riverfront Stadium, home of Cincinnati Reds . . . while listening to broadcast of Red's home game on the car radio.
Just as I'm passing Riverfront, a Red's batter scored a home run. And suddenly fireworks erupted from stadium. Amazing, serendipitous sight.
So is today's story from the PB content / click generator about going to a business district after work and finding it empty?
Amazingly, and coincidentally, this is indisputable evidence that confirms the writer's existing beliefs.
If only there was a name for that psychological phenomenon...
I, on the other hand, will be going to a soccer match this evening, where 25,000 screaming LAFC fans will be singing Jump for LA Football Club Ole! Ole!
I came here absolutely prepared to have my grave anxieties about America dismissed. Indeed I rather wanted that. America is - still - the arsenal of democracy and the final citadel of the Free World. I was hoping all those images of fucked downtowns on social media were giving a false impression
They are not giving a false impression. To see such a great country in such absolute and obvious decline is painful
In the end you can’t ignore the most direct statistic of all. Life expectancy. Which in America is now lower than in Panama and Thailand. This decay is tangentially symptomised in the rotting of America’s urban centres
Its kind of nonsense though. The collapsing life expectancy isn't due to urban areas. Its all the right wing retards that wouldn't take vaccines during an incredibly lethal pandemic.
The much better marker is fertility rate, where, yes, the US is doing badly. But it is doing a damn sight better than China.
That is bollocks about US life expectancy decline being due to Covid. There are many reasons for the decline but they include obesity, diet, poor healthcare, opioids, overdoses and crime
“The researchers catalog what they call the "U.S. health disadvantage" – the fact that living in America is worse for your health and makes you more likely to die younger than if you lived in another rich country like the U.K., Switzerland or Japan.
"We went into this with an open mind as to why it is that the U.S. had a shorter life expectancy than people in other countries," says Woolf, who chaired the committee that produced the report. After looking across different age and racial and economic and geographic groups, he says, "what we found was that this problem existed in almost every category we looked at."”
On a pure population basis, Cincinnati has about as many people as Coventry.
Metro Cincinnati has a population of 2.3 million. 50% bigger than metro Liverpool.
Not sure about metro Liverpool, but in metro Cincinnati, large % of people hardly ever go to the city itself, except buzzing through on the way to the airport or suchlike.
And another large % work in the city but live in burbs and exurbs and are NOT in city outside working hours and commuting; traditionally these were dominated by white-collar professionals, but nowadays increasing blue-collar service workers.
Yes, and also America has dozens and dozens of big cities. At any point in time a bunch are growing and a bunch are shrinking. Go to Austin or Phoenix or Denver or Raleigh.
I went to Denver. Last year. It is also fucked. Downtown is deserted
One of the issues is definitions - is Birmingham "bigger" than Manchester? Depends on how you define it - one method is connectivity via public transport - which makes sense in the UK, but none whatsoever in most of the US.
My own most memorable Cincinnati experience was - perhaps - typically American, in that I was cruising through the place on the interstate.
It was a summer night, I was driving from college to my hometown, and Cincinnati was on the way. Note that in addition to several interstate highways that go through the burg, there is an interstate ring road that's used by most of the through traffic.
However, for me the shortest route was right through downtown, then across the Ohio River into Kentucky, then BACK over the Ohio into State of same ilk, then away from the metro maze toward my final destination. AND would time my travel to avoid rush hours.
So anyway, it's a nice summer night, and I'm cruising along, with very little traffic, through downtown Cincinnati. Approaching the old Riverfront Stadium, home of Cincinnati Reds . . . while listening to broadcast of Red's home game on the car radio.
Just as I'm passing Riverfront, a Red's batter scored a home run. And suddenly fireworks erupted from stadium. Amazing, serendipitous sight.
I don't drive, so I can only imagine what this is like.
.I absolutely confirm this information. Our volunteers report that people beg for help on their roofs. There are bodies in the water, mostly elderly people. Several UA volunteers try to help but it’s not enough.
...It looks like villages on the left bank, the occupied side, are being blocked by the Russian occupiers. People sit on their roofs and beg for help, but no one is coming. We see them on drone footage, but we cannot help. International organizations must interfere ASAP. https://twitter.com/vamelina/status/1666512864738156551
Murder by other means: “Russian forces are actively preventing 🇺🇦 authorities from rescuing ppl trapped by flooding in occupied areas…Local civilians are the only hope for many residents, with Russians barring 🇺🇦 rescue services & outsiders from the area” https://twitter.com/berlin_bridge/status/1666559226037121025
Not Kakhovka Dam alone: Russia destroys dams in occupied Zaporizhzhia oblast 08.06.2023 Halya Coynash While western media largely ‘play safe’ and report that Kyiv and Moscow ‘are blaming each other’ for the horrific disaster, the Russian invaders are actively destroying other dams in occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia oblast https://khpg.org/en/1608812358
you are experiencing the worst man-made disaster in your country since Chornobyl fighting the biggest war in Europe since the Second World War, but the leading discussion is: we don't know who could have done it, we have no ideas, it must be nature itself... https://twitter.com/ermineah/status/1666333208495915008 ...
Comments
YES 42, 44, 42, 43
NO 51, 50, 52, 50
(Mar, Apr, May, Jun)
That looks static to me.
The last one before R&W was Ipsos, which showed YES 51 NO 45 but Ipsos tends to show higher YES in general, so you probably shouldn't try to make trends between Ipsos and R&W polls.
I don't know. And on balance I don't care either as we'll all be screwed with or without that winter.
If you don't include them, then R&W have YES on 45.1%, slightly up on the 44.7% in the actual referendum.
Please do make sure you are comparing like with like, I know you wouldn't want to be thought of dishonest, manipulative, or stupid.
Astonishingly, unless you look at the Balance Sheet at the end of the document, you would have no idea of the scale of the Council's debts.
This is a “busy” city of 2m people
As stated, Redfield and other pollsters are also forecasting a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026 anyway, which would kill off indyref2 talk indefinitely
British city centres are doing ok because the British need to drink, and therefore need somewhere they can get to without driving. So even if they're not actually working in town, they're coming there afterwards for a drink. But if your evening consists of soft drinks and a drive home, city centres hold no particular advantage.
"Pence opens presidential bid with denunciation of Trump over Jan. 6 insurrection and abortion"
Get the feeling that many UKer PBers - along with many in USA - will be unimpressed by anything other than unequivocal anti-Trump candidate(s) for 2024 Republican nomination.
HOWEVER, while 2022 midterms gave plenty of evidence that swing voters AND many Republicans are of that mindset, they also showed that running AGAINST Trump was NOT a great strategy for winning GOP nomination for whatever.
THUS the reluctance (or at least major share of it) to do a Lynn Cheney for 2024.
Note that goodly chunk of Republicans (including leaners (who either oppose Trump outright, or are seriously allergic to him, are skeptical (for some reason) that it's possible for 1001% anti-45er to win the Republican nomination.
Just sayin'.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27435624
But this is an enormous problem and I’m encountering it everywhere. Denver last year. Cincinnati now. Multiple other places
It’s desolate. Ffs this is a city twice the size of Manchester and this is the buzzing heart. On a beautiful balmy evening of about 25C
I remember visiting LA in 1999, being downtown, and thinking "wait, wtf?"
AND empty downtowns in US cities after working hours is NOT a new development. Many decades old.
Ain't saying it's a plus. But not sign of impending doom.
ADDENDUM - So WHY are you hanging around in downtown this evening, when the REAL Cincinnati is clearly elsewhere.
Suggest you head up the hill, toward the U of Cincinnati, AND check out Taft's bathtub!
A pedant notes, however, that the Cincinnati metropolitan area is has a population of 1.7m. So smaller than Manchester, whose Metropolitan population is approaching 3m. Closer to Glasgow, I think. Still, your point stands.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aac7549
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-Rhine
Dodgy as heck when I used to visit but since gentrified
All the offices are empty. For Lease
Open your eyes. Urban America is dying
https://urbanaxes.com/locations/cincinnati
(I saw people doing this in a storefront in St Louis, beer in hand).
But empty downtown storefronts and building in America cities and towns large, small and inbetween is NOT novel.
It's not 'disappointment' that they are not unequivocally anti-Trump, it's disappointment that being anti-Trump is a pretty good way of losing and the strategies of others shows that.
Just saying.
It has pretty period buildings - and more people - but unfortunately it is still dodgy as fuck
Fifa made false statements about the reduced environmental impact of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, a Swiss regulator has said.
Football's world governing body claimed the tournament would be the first "fully carbon-neutral World Cup".
Advertising regulator the Swiss Fairness Commission (SLK) has upheld complaints from five European nations.
"Fifa was not able to provide proof that the claims were accurate during the proceedings," the SLK said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65834022
Oh look, I can see someone a mile away. Maybe that’s the entertainment district
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/06/business/san-francisco-hotels-loan/index.html
Downtown San Francisco has been dealt another blow after an investor in one of its largest hotels said it would stop paying its loans.
Park Hotels and Resorts, the investment firm that owns Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 hotels, said Monday that is has ceased payments on a $725 million loan as looks to reduce its presence in the city. The hotels have nearly 3,000 rooms, combined.
In a statement, the firm’s CEO, Thomas Baltimore, Jr., said that San Francisco’s “path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges” including office vacancies caused by companies letting employees work-from-home, a “weaker than expected citywide convention calendar” through 2027 and “concerns over street conditions.”
“Unfortunately, the continued burden on our operating results and balance sheet is too significant to warrant continuing to subsidize and own these assets,” he concluded. The hotels will be given back to the lender.
The city centre existed for workers to come in, and to work in office buildings. In this way, it is curiously different from the UK, where the offices moved to the suburbs, and the cities remained retail and entertainment spaces.
When Covid came, and the office workers no longer had any reason to go into the centrem, then it ended up deserted.
It's a little sad. But it certainly doesn't deserve @Leon's "fucked" ephitet. Heck, if you went around Slough Business Center at 630pm, it would probably be similarly eerily quiet.
No wonder they are prepared to vote for Trump
(No I'm not saying there are not existing problems that need to be dealt with in society, but come on, some modern ideas don't even seem to have the intent to reduce division).
It reminds me of Shoreditch or Borough on a buzzy summer evening
Bourbon tasting room does NOT count. Esp. when populated by Kentucky Briars NOT Ohio Buckeyes.
Who in hell goes to Cincinnati?
There is a list of great American cities.
That list does not include Cincinnati.
It’s like an American moaning about the lack of a Harrod’s in Reading.
Its heyday ended when railroads and freight cars, overtook steamboats and barges.
Thereafter, relative decline of Cincinnati, St Louis & New Orleans matched by rise of Chicago and Kansas City.
Cincinnati? Famous for its pork lard. In about 1850.
I’m frankly amazed there is a direct flight to London.
Plus multiple other US cities I’ve been to, in different ways
It has a "whispering gallery" effect round the great arch
Essentially you’re a slightly higher class version of the English tourist in the Costa del Sol, complaining that the Spanish don’t eat egg and chips.
If only there was a name for that psychological phenomenon...
I, on the other hand, will be going to a soccer match this evening, where 25,000 screaming LAFC fans will be singing Jump for LA Football Club Ole! Ole!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKAyfwcHHw0&ab_channel=LAFC
Boris of course was just a slob.
But Rishi, who has all the money in the world, just seems to buy child’s clothing or something. Nothing seems to fit him properly.
https://twitter.com/generalboles/status/1666469965967380485?s=46&t=L9g_woCIqbo1MTuBFCK0xg
https://www.moving.com/tips/largest-cities-in-us/
Colchester is the 64th in the UK:
http://www.geoba.se/population.php?cc=GB&page=1
On a pure population basis, Cincinnati has about as many people as Coventry.
They are not giving a false impression. To see such a great country in such absolute and obvious decline is painful
In the end you can’t ignore the most direct statistic of all. Life expectancy. Which in America is now lower than in Panama and Thailand. This decay is tangentially symptomised in the rotting of America’s urban centres
The much better marker is fertility rate, where, yes, the US is doing badly. But it is doing a damn sight better than China.
> the Ohio River which is one of the most beautiful rivers in the world, hence old French moniker 'la belle Riviere" (sp); check out riverwalk and possibly a boat ride.
> interesting museums, Cincinnati being an old money town (for example, the Tafts and Longworths) with some appreciate of high (and also low) culture.
> interesting old-school taverns and dive bars, featuring local delicacies such as Cincy chile washed down with ice-cold Hudepohl.
> storied major league sports teams, Bengals and Reds, esp. (at least for me) the latter; back in my misspent youth in the wilds of Appalachia, the Cincinnati Reds baseball team was THE team for about 98% of folks in southern West Virginia. Of course, that was back in their heyday, when Pete Rose was a Big Star and not a small turd. Though would NOT suggest saying THAT in WVa even today OR in Cincinnati.
And another large % work in the city but live in burbs and exurbs and are NOT in city outside working hours and commuting; traditionally these were dominated by white-collar professionals, but nowadays increasing blue-collar service workers.
It was a summer night, I was driving from college to my hometown, and Cincinnati was on the way. Note that in addition to several interstate highways that go through the burg, there is an interstate ring road that's used by most of the through traffic.
However, for me the shortest route was right through downtown, then across the Ohio River into Kentucky, then BACK over the Ohio into State of same ilk, then away from the metro maze toward my final destination. AND would time my travel to avoid rush hours.
So anyway, it's a nice summer night, and I'm cruising along, with very little traffic, through downtown Cincinnati. Approaching the old Riverfront Stadium, home of Cincinnati Reds . . . while listening to broadcast of Red's home game on the car radio.
Just as I'm passing Riverfront, a Red's batter scored a home run. And suddenly fireworks erupted from stadium. Amazing, serendipitous sight.
“The researchers catalog what they call the "U.S. health disadvantage" – the fact that living in America is worse for your health and makes you more likely to die younger than if you lived in another rich country like the U.K., Switzerland or Japan.
"We went into this with an open mind as to why it is that the U.S. had a shorter life expectancy than people in other countries," says Woolf, who chaired the committee that produced the report. After looking across different age and racial and economic and geographic groups, he says, "what we found was that this problem existed in almost every category we looked at."”
Even the rich die younger. America is fucked
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/25/1164819944/live-free-and-die-the-sad-state-of-u-s-life-expectancy
https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/largest-cities-by-population
Metro Liverpool/Birkenhead is 2.2M:
https://citymonitor.ai/infrastructure/where-are-largest-cities-britain-1404
One of the issues is definitions - is Birmingham "bigger" than Manchester? Depends on how you define it - one method is connectivity via public transport - which makes sense in the UK, but none whatsoever in most of the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Hills_Supper_Club_fire
Prince Harry today admitted to a judge he was not aware of 'any evidence' he had been hacked by a tabloid news group.
But he said it would be an 'injustice' if he was denied victory in his High Court phone-hacking case against the publisher of the Mirror.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12171325/Barrister-aware-evidence-hacking-Prince-Harry-No.html
Please follow @novakakhovka_ua for live updates....
https://twitter.com/a_is_for_anna_/status/1666538905896730629
...It looks like villages on the left bank, the occupied side, are being blocked by the Russian occupiers. People sit on their roofs and beg for help, but no one is coming. We see them on drone footage, but we cannot help.
International organizations must interfere ASAP.
https://twitter.com/vamelina/status/1666512864738156551
“Russian forces are actively preventing 🇺🇦 authorities from rescuing ppl trapped by flooding in occupied areas…Local civilians are the only hope for many residents, with Russians barring 🇺🇦 rescue services & outsiders from the area”
https://twitter.com/berlin_bridge/status/1666559226037121025
08.06.2023
Halya Coynash
While western media largely ‘play safe’ and report that Kyiv and Moscow ‘are blaming each other’ for the horrific disaster, the Russian invaders are actively destroying other dams in occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia oblast
https://khpg.org/en/1608812358
As flood waters from the Dnipro River continue to rise, an army of boats have gone out to save people and their pets
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/07/rescue-operation-after-dam-collapse-shows-ukrainians-resilient-spirit
https://twitter.com/ermineah/status/1666333208495915008
...
He is under investigation for concealing reams of classified information at his private estate and orchestrating a scheme to prevent federal authorities from finding them.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/07/trump-notified-that-he-is-the-target-of-an-ongoing-criminal-investigation-00100920