Leon is right in a way, most of us most of the time are unable (or at least unwilling to make the effort needed) to know whether people we maybe rightly regard as experts in their field are saying things that might be a load of cobblers or not.
Personally I think he's got a bit overexcited about aliens, this seems like nothing new. People have always seen UFOs, or the Virgin Mary or statues of Ganesh drinking milk. All to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Hard to see Somerton and Frome as anything other than a LD hold. Was LD held from 1997 to 2010 with Jacob Rees Mogg's siste Annunziata Conservative candidate in 2010 when she narrowly lost it by just three per cent
She may have narrowly lost it but the Lib Dems increased their majority from the previous election so she really didn’t do that well.
It's ok though, because it was heat of the moment.
Huh? I suspect few on here have ever assaulted anyone in that way. If I tried that, I would expect to be both subsequently eating through a straw and summoned for an appointment with a magistrate.
Last time I was in Lexington, I arrived on a Greyhound bus from Ashland in eastern KY.
The Lex bus "station" turned out to be a convenience store on the outer fringes, had to take a couple city buses to get to downtown. Took about three hours, winding our way through mucho suburbia.
Downtown was pretty nice, actually, at least to my untutored eye, some nice old building plus a few biggish office buildings and hotels, etc. Mary Todd Lincoln house, U of KY campus, Transylvania U, couple of used bookstores.
Still had to get my sorry butt to the LEX airport. Which proved to be impossible via the burg's rudimentary public transit.
So thinking quickly, I went to one of the hotels . . . and caught their shuttle to the airport.
I was the only passenger, and confessed to the driver that I had NOT been a guest at the hotel, go could I give him whatever to cover cost? He said, don't worry about it, he was on the clock anyway.
Hope that Leon can have at least half as positive a visit!
I have found a very nice breezy Italian restaurant. About a block from the scary fentanyl addicts
It’s most odd. It’s like a rather prosperous if weirdly car centric and modern European city - Lyon or munich - but with zombies
Lyon’s not car centric apart from the ridiculous motorway through the middle and the tunnel fourviere, which could easily have been bypassed by a motorway to the West through Tassin and the western suburbs.
Lyon would be a world class city if it had a bit more edge.
I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.
The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain
The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.
Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”
Fraser’s monthly mortgage payments have gone up from £8,300 a month to £20,000. “If things were to carry on this way, we would be looking to pull our three kids out of school – which costs us £45,000 a year – and possibly be looking to sell the house too.”
How come the stupid bastard didn't go for a long term fixed rate?
I saw this coming eighteen months ago and I'm no expert. Is he an investment fund manager or something if he's that dim and overpaid?
It's completely idiotic and I have zero sympathy. I do feel for people on average incomes who over extended themselves to buy a normal house in our crazy housing market, but anyone with that kind of money can afford a decent home without going massively into unaffordable debt. I used a decade of good earnings to pay off our mortgage on our perfectly nice but not huge or luxurious house completely rather than leveraging myself up to the eyeballs to buy a show home I can barely afford. Interest rates go up as well as down. Now he has to take his kids out of private school? Oh no, how will they cope! What an over entitled prick.
But probably a labour voter
With a £7mn house in Berkshire and three kids in private school? Doubtful.
Anyway, on the topic of art and science it’s open studios weekend in 2 weeks’ time and my wife has been hanging up her pieces today, all based in some way on either physics or meteorology, and I get to be the proud husband plying visitors with free wine.
I'm currently in Salem. MA. Which, confusing, is only about 30 miles from Salem, NH.
It's charming and busy. Lots of pretty houses, a surprisingly great museum that dates back to the late 1700s.
And, yes, there are lots of silly witch exhibits. But it's hard to see this as anything other than a bustling little town on the edge of a big metropolis.
It is, however, raining.
I wonder if in hundreds of years the location of Trump's trial will be a similar monument.
“I’m not against the homeless, I’m a social worker, and I’ve worked with the homeless about 15 years. But this is different, this is a different kind of homeless” said Mallory.
Billie Mallory says her concerns are with people at the Third Street and Martin Luther King corner and Third Street and Elm Tree corner.
She says she has seen an increase in property damage, loitering, and violence.
“They’re all over this neighborhood and they’re just, they’re very threatening” said Mallory.“
East End = predominately African American, historically and today. (Tpoff being corner of 3rd and MLK.)
Always been deprived area. Even more so by COVID and post-pandemic fentanyl-homeless epidemic.
But downtown itself feels sketchy and uncomfortable. I wouldn’t bring kids here. It’s faintly but discernibly menacing - and this is a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon!
I don’t think I’m imagining this
“Maybe social media has created civilian watchdogs; maybe more people care about what’s going on in their community. Many people are tired of having to avoid going out downtown and spending time with family and friends because the risk of getting assaulted, robbed or shot is there.
“This is just an observation I have made during my time living here in Lexington. It is so much different then when I was a naive kid making weekend trips with my family here”
I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview
It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training
And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!
As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?
Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true
Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged
I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be
A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.
And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.
"If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views. "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views
Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment
In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young
He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?
It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in
Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing
We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
Until some actual evidence of something comes out, I don't much care either way. Wake us up when it does.
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)
Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.
Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.
And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.
Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.
And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...
And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.
(As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science
Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho
Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy
Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting
The science. Lol
This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman
The issue is not science but how it is abused by politicians and journalists (including international scientists who spend more time lobbying and administering than anything else).
There are very few *Laws* in science - they qualify as “the science”
Even Evolution or General Relativity are just Theories (with a capital T) so are technically unproven although we are pretty damn sure they are right.
everything else is an idea that should’ve contested. Anyone who uses the phrase “the science” to support their argument is a charlatan of the highest order
Last time I was in Lexington, I arrived on a Greyhound bus from Ashland in eastern KY.
The Lex bus "station" turned out to be a convenience store on the outer fringes, had to take a couple city buses to get to downtown. Took about three hours, winding our way through mucho suburbia.
Downtown was pretty nice, actually, at least to my untutored eye, some nice old building plus a few biggish office buildings and hotels, etc. Mary Todd Lincoln house, U of KY campus, Transylvania U, couple of used bookstores.
Still had to get my sorry butt to the LEX airport. Which proved to be impossible via the burg's rudimentary public transit.
So thinking quickly, I went to one of the hotels . . . and caught their shuttle to the airport.
I was the only passenger, and confessed to the driver that I had NOT been a guest at the hotel, go could I give him whatever to cover cost? He said, don't worry about it, he was on the clock anyway.
Hope that Leon can have at least half as positive a visit!
I did drive through horse country - which is, as you say, idyllic and affluent. Very nice for horsey people
Last time I was in Lexington, I arrived on a Greyhound bus from Ashland in eastern KY.
The Lex bus "station" turned out to be a convenience store on the outer fringes, had to take a couple city buses to get to downtown. Took about three hours, winding our way through mucho suburbia.
Downtown was pretty nice, actually, at least to my untutored eye, some nice old building plus a few biggish office buildings and hotels, etc. Mary Todd Lincoln house, U of KY campus, Transylvania U, couple of used bookstores.
Still had to get my sorry butt to the LEX airport. Which proved to be impossible via the burg's rudimentary public transit.
So thinking quickly, I went to one of the hotels . . . and caught their shuttle to the airport.
I was the only passenger, and confessed to the driver that I had NOT been a guest at the hotel, go could I give him whatever to cover cost? He said, don't worry about it, he was on the clock anyway.
Hope that Leon can have at least half as positive a visit!
I have found a very nice breezy Italian restaurant. About a block from the scary fentanyl addicts
It’s most odd. It’s like a rather prosperous if weirdly car centric and modern European city - Lyon or munich - but with zombies
On Main Street? IF so, very near to Mary Todd Lincoln House. For what that's worth.
Bluegrass gentry, of the First Families of KY. Most of her kin folk supported and/or fought for the Confederacy.
She left Kentucky for the same reason as Abe Lincoln's daddy (no blue-blood he): could NOT abide slavery.
I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview
It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training
And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!
As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?
Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true
Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged
I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be
A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.
And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.
"If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views. "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views
Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment
In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young
He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?
It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in
Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing
We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
Until some actual evidence of something comes out, I don't much care either way. Wake us up when it does.
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)
Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.
Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.
And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.
Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.
And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...
And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.
(As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science
Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho
Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy
Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting
The science. Lol
This is why you need philosopher traveler with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman
That's not true, politicians masquerading as scientists said all that. Almost all of my university friends were on the lab leak side very early on, simply they work in labs and realise how difficult it is to maintain such a high level of biosecurity and that China's standards are lax.
Not true. Read the signatories of the Lancet letter or the authors of the Nature paper. Proper scientists - lying or deluded scientists, but scientists nonetheless
However you were indeed one of the smarter PBers who realised lab leak was likely from the get go. So kudos
IIRC you were convinced it was a deliberate leak and it took @Charles to convince you an accidental lab leak was much more likely
I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview
It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training
And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!
As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?
Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true
Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged
I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be
A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.
And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.
"If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views. "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views
Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment
In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young
He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?
It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in
Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing
We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
Until some actual evidence of something comes out, I don't much care either way. Wake us up when it does.
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)
Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.
Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.
And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.
Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.
And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...
And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.
(As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science
Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho
Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy
Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting
The science. Lol
This is why you need philosopher traveler with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman
That's not true, politicians masquerading as scientists said all that. Almost all of my university friends were on the lab leak side very early on, simply they work in labs and realise how difficult it is to maintain such a high level of biosecurity and that China's standards are lax.
Not true. Read the signatories of the Lancet letter or the authors of the Nature paper. Proper scientists - lying or deluded scientists, but scientists nonetheless
However you were indeed one of the smarter PBers who realised lab leak was likely from the get go. So kudos
IIRC you were convinced it was a deliberate leak and it took @Charles to convince you an accidental lab leak was much more likely
Last time I was in Lexington, I arrived on a Greyhound bus from Ashland in eastern KY.
The Lex bus "station" turned out to be a convenience store on the outer fringes, had to take a couple city buses to get to downtown. Took about three hours, winding our way through mucho suburbia.
Downtown was pretty nice, actually, at least to my untutored eye, some nice old building plus a few biggish office buildings and hotels, etc. Mary Todd Lincoln house, U of KY campus, Transylvania U, couple of used bookstores.
Still had to get my sorry butt to the LEX airport. Which proved to be impossible via the burg's rudimentary public transit.
So thinking quickly, I went to one of the hotels . . . and caught their shuttle to the airport.
I was the only passenger, and confessed to the driver that I had NOT been a guest at the hotel, go could I give him whatever to cover cost? He said, don't worry about it, he was on the clock anyway.
Hope that Leon can have at least half as positive a visit!
I did drive through horse country - which is, as you say, idyllic and affluent. Very nice for horsey people
Why your late Queen loved it. (God bless the old girl.)
Sorta doubt she got out (or rather in) to the East End much. Or at all. Though guessing she did mingle a bit with some East End residents, workers in the stables, etc.
I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview
It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training
And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!
As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?
Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true
Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged
I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be
A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.
And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.
"If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views. "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views
Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment
In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young
He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?
It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in
Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing
We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
Until some actual evidence of something comes out, I don't much care either way. Wake us up when it does.
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)
Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.
Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.
And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.
Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.
And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...
And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.
(As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science
Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho
Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy
Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting
The science. Lol
This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman
The issue is not science but how it is abused by politicians and journalists (including international scientists who spend more time lobbying and administering than anything else).
There are very few *Laws* in science - they qualify as “the science”
Even Evolution or General Relativity are just Theories (with a capital T) so are technically unproven although we are pretty damn sure they are right.
everything else is an idea that should’ve contested. Anyone who uses the phrase “the science” to support their argument is a charlatan of the highest order
That would include Anthony Fauci. Who claims that he personally embodies “the science”
It’s rather innocuous but, will no doubt, draw lots of confected anger from political opponents.
Will boost his support with RefUK voters though
I cannot see it moving anything to be honest. It will just occupy the news cycle for a day or so and then be quickly forgotten as it moves on.
I may well be wrong but all I expect is those on either extreme of the trans debate to get fired up about it. Most people will be more bothered about their mortgages, the cost of living, the state of rNHS etc etc.
@BlancheLivermore I'm trying to compete with you on my cycling trip. So far tonight, 1 litre of leffe, 1 bottle of Chablis, 2 glasses or port. Will sleep well before tomorrow cycling.
@BlancheLivermore I'm trying to compete with you on my cycling trip. So far tonight, 1 litre of leffe, 1 bottle of Chablis, 2 glasses or port. Will sleep well before tomorrow cycling.
I don’t believe that being on the skeptical, mocking side of the mad trans debate will do Sunak any harm at all
Well, he’s the PM. Backbenchers and possibly the home sec do this sort of thing. PMs act prime ministerial. Sunak is defined by not being Boris or Truss. It’s his only selling point. does more of this and he quietly loses the blue wall.
I don’t believe that being on the skeptical, mocking side of the mad trans debate will do Sunak any harm at all
Well, he’s the PM. Backbenchers and possibly the home sec do this sort of thing. PMs act prime ministerial. Sunak is defined by not being Boris or Truss. It’s his only selling point. does more of this and he quietly loses the blue wall.
Sorry to butt in with my own irreleventia, but I just wanted to report a brilliant day at the T20 Blast. It may be twice the price it was last year, but it's still the best value sporting entertainment out there. Almost every match I've been to has hung in the balance until the last over. It is the favourite sporting spectacle of my sport-mad middle daughter (who, by the way, continues her now 11-game 100% record of seeing a victory for 'her' team in every live sports event she has watched), and also the favourite spectacle of my sports-indifferent youngest daughter, who doesn't really follow the nuances of run rates or Duckworth Lewis methods but likes watching A Lot Of Stuff Happening. I confess that the Hundred can be entertaining. But it can't hold a candle to this.
I also love that here is a sporting event which isn't football which regularly attracts 12,000+ people. Makes me feel lucky to come from Trafford. Lancashire, by the way, ended up winning a finely balanced contest after creeping ahead of Duckworth Lewis par in the 16th over, shortly before the heavens opened. But that was by way of being the icing on the cake; the result was less important than the entertainment. We'd still have had a good day had Lancashire lost. And isn't that how sport should be?
Rishi Sunak's joke as crap as everything else he does.
True, on his death bed he will be bemoaning having had a crap education, a crap career that delivered no success and riches, a crap second career where he was Chancellor of the exchequer then PM, a crap marriage to a billionaire and most likely a crap existence after politics. His final words will be “if only I had been less crap and as successful as FF43.”
Sorry to butt in with my own irreleventia, but I just wanted to report a brilliant day at the T20 Blast. It may be twice the price it was last year, but it's still the best value sporting entertainment out there. Almost every match I've been to has hung in the balance until the last over. It is the favourite sporting spectacle of my sport-mad middle daughter (who, by the way, continues her now 11-game 100% record of seeing a victory for 'her' team in every live sports event she has watched), and also the favourite spectacle of my sports-indifferent youngest daughter, who doesn't really follow the nuances of run rates or Duckworth Lewis methods but likes watching A Lot Of Stuff Happening. I confess that the Hundred can be entertaining. But it can't hold a candle to this.
I also love that here is a sporting event which isn't football which regularly attracts 12,000+ people. Makes me feel lucky to come from Trafford. Lancashire, by the way, ended up winning a finely balanced contest after creeping ahead of Duckworth Lewis par in the 16th over, shortly before the heavens opened. But that was by way of being the icing on the cake; the result was less important than the entertainment. We'd still have had a good day had Lancashire lost. And isn't that how sport should be?
God, when was the last one who even tried? Cameron? May is arguably a good person but couldn't bring gravitas to the table to save her life, Boris is FLSOJ, and Sunak is the kid from Inbetweeners.
Rishi Sunak's joke as crap as everything else he does.
Yes and the polite laughs showed that.
He’s hardly the laughter guzzler.
Starmer v Sunak v Ed will be a charisma vacuum.
The sad, very sad and disgusting, but 100% true thing is this: Boris Johnson has good comic timing and until recently was able to get away with saying all sorts of things unbecoming to a prime minister as a result. Sunak does not, nor do Braverman, Hunt, Badenoch or any of the others.
Rishi Sunak's joke as crap as everything else he does.
True, on his death bed he will be bemoaning having had a crap education, a crap career that delivered no success and riches, a crap second career where he was Chancellor of the exchequer then PM, a crap marriage to a billionaire and most likely a crap existence after politics. His final words will be “if only I had been less crap and as successful as FF43.”
Ah, the Rishi Sunak fan club has arrived. Found a second member yet?
God, when was the last one who even tried? Cameron? May is arguably a good person but couldn't bring gravitas to the table to save her life, Boris is FLSOJ, and Sunak is the kid from Inbetweeners.
It’s why they all failed, by the sword of their own party.
For all their faults Brown, Major, Callaghan, Eden and various other underwhelming PMs still had the gravitas.
I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview
It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training
And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!
As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?
Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true
Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged
I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be
A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.
And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.
"If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views. "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views
Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment
In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young
He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?
It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in
Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing
We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
Until some actual evidence of something comes out, I don't much care either way. Wake us up when it does.
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)
Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.
Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.
And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.
Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.
And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...
And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.
(As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science
Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho
Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy
Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting
The science. Lol
This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman
The issue is not science but how it is abused by politicians and journalists (including international scientists who spend more time lobbying and administering than anything else).
There are very few *Laws* in science - they qualify as “the science”
Even Evolution or General Relativity are just Theories (with a capital T) so are technically unproven although we are pretty damn sure they are right.
everything else is an idea that should’ve contested. Anyone who uses the phrase “the science” to support their argument is a charlatan of the highest order
FWIW it seems to me that the area of total reality science rightly has a grip on is that of statements, insights and conclusions which can be verified or falsified by an agreed methodology which concerns evidence.
Evolution and general relativity are 'proved' - they are much more than conjectures - in the sense that there is abundant verification, and and absence of falsification for them. But that doesn't mean that this can't happen. With evolution there is great hostility to the idea that it can be challenged. partly of course because it is challenged by religious nuts. This is a mistake, even though I believe evolution to be true.
It's also a logical mistake to assume that as science has explanations for lots of things, it must in principle have an explanation for everything. The relationship of mind and matter; or how life begins; or freewill, might just not yield to any analysis and it is unscientific to assume it must.
I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.
The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain
The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.
Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”
Fraser’s monthly mortgage payments have gone up from £8,300 a month to £20,000. “If things were to carry on this way, we would be looking to pull our three kids out of school – which costs us £45,000 a year – and possibly be looking to sell the house too.”
How come the stupid bastard didn't go for a long term fixed rate?
I saw this coming eighteen months ago and I'm no expert. Is he an investment fund manager or something if he's that dim and overpaid?
It's completely idiotic and I have zero sympathy. I do feel for people on average incomes who over extended themselves to buy a normal house in our crazy housing market, but anyone with that kind of money can afford a decent home without going massively into unaffordable debt. I used a decade of good earnings to pay off our mortgage on our perfectly nice but not huge or luxurious house completely rather than leveraging myself up to the eyeballs to buy a show home I can barely afford. Interest rates go up as well as down. Now he has to take his kids out of private school? Oh no, how will they cope! What an over entitled prick.
But probably a labour voter
With a £7mn house in Berkshire and three kids in private school? Doubtful.
Labour, no. LD voter with that background? Quite possibly.
I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview
It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training
And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!
As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?
Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true
Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged
I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be
A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.
And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.
"If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views. "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views
Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment
In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young
He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?
It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in
Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing
We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
Until some actual evidence of something comes out, I don't much care either way. Wake us up when it does.
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)
Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.
Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.
And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.
Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.
And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...
And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.
(As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science
Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho
Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy
Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting
The science. Lol
This is why you need philosopher traveler with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman
That's not true, politicians masquerading as scientists said all that. Almost all of my university friends were on the lab leak side very early on, simply they work in labs and realise how difficult it is to maintain such a high level of biosecurity and that China's standards are lax.
Not true. Read the signatories of the Lancet letter or the authors of the Nature paper. Proper scientists - lying or deluded scientists, but scientists nonetheless
However you were indeed one of the smarter PBers who realised lab leak was likely from the get go. So kudos
IIRC you were convinced it was a deliberate leak and it took @Charles to convince you an accidental lab leak was much more likely
Rishi Sunak's joke as crap as everything else he does.
True, on his death bed he will be bemoaning having had a crap education, a crap career that delivered no success and riches, a crap second career where he was Chancellor of the exchequer then PM, a crap marriage to a billionaire and most likely a crap existence after politics. His final words will be “if only I had been less crap and as successful as FF43.”
Fair. Sunak marrying the billionaire heiress to an Indian conglomerate was a significant success. I mean that sincerely. I also grant Sunak is night and day better than his two predecessors, one completely corrupt and one a fantasist.
These are the results of having a very much reduced social safety net compared even to Britain , since the Reagan years, and the pharmaceutical companies running riot, due to lobbying.
You then get a huge unsupported homeless population with very easy access to originally mass-produced drugs. The homeless population in the U.S. is supposedly around 500, to 750,000.
It’s not just the evil drug companies and the lack of welfare (tho they are certainly an issue) - it’s the drugs themselves. Fentanyl and tranq. Incredibly addictive and incredibly dangerous - inducing psychosis etc
There is a theory that China (which makes most of these appalling drugs) deliberately pumps them into America via Mexican cartels: so as to fuck up America. Revenge for the opium war
China is prepared to export a pandemic so this is not an outlandish theory
Quite likely. 100 years ago Japan was deliberately flooding London with Taiwan grown cocaine.
Sorry to butt in with my own irreleventia, but I just wanted to report a brilliant day at the T20 Blast. It may be twice the price it was last year, but it's still the best value sporting entertainment out there. Almost every match I've been to has hung in the balance until the last over. It is the favourite sporting spectacle of my sport-mad middle daughter (who, by the way, continues her now 11-game 100% record of seeing a victory for 'her' team in every live sports event she has watched), and also the favourite spectacle of my sports-indifferent youngest daughter, who doesn't really follow the nuances of run rates or Duckworth Lewis methods but likes watching A Lot Of Stuff Happening. I confess that the Hundred can be entertaining. But it can't hold a candle to this.
I also love that here is a sporting event which isn't football which regularly attracts 12,000+ people. Makes me feel lucky to come from Trafford. Lancashire, by the way, ended up winning a finely balanced contest after creeping ahead of Duckworth Lewis par in the 16th over, shortly before the heavens opened. But that was by way of being the icing on the cake; the result was less important than the entertainment. We'd still have had a good day had Lancashire lost. And isn't that how sport should be?
And it’s Father’s Day as well! 👍🥂🍷
I had to go back to bed for my Father’s Day breakfast this morning after getting up at an unseemly time to see off my friend’s hyper-talkative octogenarian uncle and aunt from Australia.
My youngest’s message said “thank you Daddy for keeping me alive and all the other stuff etc”, to which I thought well that’s a low bar but thanks all the same.
I find myself agreeing with Leon and StillWaters. We still live an era when it's much too culturally easy to appeal to the "The Science" rather than genuine scientific method.
The proliferation of conspiracy theories, partly due to infantilisation of news media, and the rise of "infotainment" since the '90s, also then it turn makes it easier oppose anything that is culturally supported as "Science", rather than necessarily rigorously proven as scientific, as a conspiracy theory.
Sunak doesn't have a very clear grasp of the law if he thinks there isn't such a thing as a woman with a penis. Legally people can change gender without the need to change their sex organs.
But Rishi has trouble remembering not to go to parties in lockdowns, and remembering to put his seatbelt on when in a car, so we shouldn't expect too much from him.
Like almost everyone with at least two brain cells to rub together, Rishi Sunak is probably well aware that men have penises and not vaginas, whereas women have vaginas and not penises. If the law says otherwise, the law can f*ck off. What would you do if the law told you to stick your head in the oven?
More interesting is the apparent fact that somebody is destabilising the British government. Now who might that be, and why?
It's also a logical mistake to assume that as science has explanations for lots of things, it must in principle have an explanation for everything. The relationship of mind and matter; or how life begins; or freewill, might just not yield to any analysis and it is unscientific to assume it must.
To phrase it badly, you can use the principles of any consistent system to pose a problem that cannot be solved in that system. A very simple example is the rules of arithmetic and the set of resolvable numbers. The numbers 1 and 3 are resolvable, division is well-defined, but 1/3 is not resolvable. And then it's turtles all the way down...
[EDIT: if the above is shit I apologise, but it has been a long time... ]
I find myself agreeing with Leon and StillWaters. We still live an era when it's much too culturally easy to appeal to the "The Science" rather than genuine scientific method.
The proliferation of conspiracy theories, partly due to infantilisation of news media, and the rise of "infotainment" since the '90s, also then it turn makes it easier to claim that anything that is not culturally supported as "Science", rather than always, or genuinely and necessarily scientific, is a conspiracy theory.
Many things that get dismissed as conspiracy theories don’t even allege conspiracies, which shows how much the term is abused as a way to constrain what can be said.
I'm currently in Salem. MA. Which, confusing, is only about 30 miles from Salem, NH.
It's charming and busy. Lots of pretty houses, a surprisingly great museum that dates back to the late 1700s.
And, yes, there are lots of silly witch exhibits. But it's hard to see this as anything other than a bustling little town on the edge of a big metropolis.
It is, however, raining.
I wonder if in hundreds of years the location of Trump's trial will be a similar monument.
If there are any democratic states with the death penalty, that’s where I want Trump’s trial to take place.
And, I assume Leon is visiting Kentucky to see the auto manufacturing plants there, though he hasn't mentioned that, yet. According to the governor's office, they employ about 100K workers: https://ced.ky.gov/Existing_Industries/Automotive
(Perhaps someone with more knowledge of your statistics than I can say how that median income, and Kentucky car manufacturing jobs compares to the UK.)
The US absolutely does have serious drug and homeless problems. Some states and cities have sensible policies to reduce them; others don't. The Seattle city council, for example, just voted not to arrest open drug users. (It was a close vote, suggesting that reality may be seeping in, even there.)
But the US also has the resources to cope with those problems.
I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview
It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training
And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!
As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?
Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true
Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged
I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be
A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.
And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.
"If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views. "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views
Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment
In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young
He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?
It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in
Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing
We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
Until some actual evidence of something comes out, I don't much care either way. Wake us up when it does.
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)
Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.
Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.
And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.
Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.
And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...
And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.
(As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science
Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho
Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy
Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting
The science. Lol
This is why you need philosopher traveler with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman
That's not true, politicians masquerading as scientists said all that. Almost all of my university friends were on the lab leak side very early on, simply they work in labs and realise how difficult it is to maintain such a high level of biosecurity and that China's standards are lax.
Not true. Read the signatories of the Lancet letter or the authors of the Nature paper. Proper scientists - lying or deluded scientists, but scientists nonetheless
However you were indeed one of the smarter PBers who realised lab leak was likely from the get go. So kudos
IIRC you were convinced it was a deliberate leak and it took @Charles to convince you an accidental lab leak was much more likely
You absolutely remember wrong. Completely wrong
If you chose to say so
I do. Coz I remember it well
Indeed I was deeply in agreement with ex-PB-er @SeanT when he wrote this as long ago as early March 2021, saying it was an accidental lab leak
And, I assume Leon is visiting Kentucky to see the auto manufacturing plants there, though he hasn't mentioned that, yet. According to the governor's office, they employ about 100K workers: https://ced.ky.gov/Existing_Industries/Automotive
(Perhaps someone with more knowledge of your statistics than I can say how that median income, and car manufacturing jobs to the UK.)
The US absolutely does have serious drug and homeless problems. Some states and cities have sensible policies to reduce them; others don't. The Seattle city council, for example, just voted not to arrest open drug users. (It was a close vote, suggesting that reality may be seeping in, even there.)
But the US also has the resources to cope with those problems.
I wouldn’t get too wound up about Leon. That way madness lies. And they don’t call him Leonadamus for nothing.
Sunak doesn't have a very clear grasp of the law if he thinks there isn't such a thing as a woman with a penis. Legally people can change gender without the need to change their sex organs.
But Rishi has trouble remembering not to go to parties in lockdowns, and remembering to put his seatbelt on when in a car, so we shouldn't expect too much from him.
Like almost everyone with at least two brain cells to rub together, Rishi Sunak is probably well aware that men have penises and not vaginas, whereas women have vaginas and not penises. If the law says otherwise, the law can f*ck off. What would you do if the law told you to stick your head in the oven?
More interesting is the apparent fact that somebody is destabilising the British government. Now who might that be, and why?
Oh that's easy, it's the Conservative and Unionist Party.
I forgot to add: the administration of the Tory party is also being destabilised.
Got to wonder whether the Sue Gray and Keir Starmer op will turn out to be a sting. (If so, remember you read it here first )
It's also a logical mistake to assume that as science has explanations for lots of things, it must in principle have an explanation for everything. The relationship of mind and matter; or how life begins; or freewill, might just not yield to any analysis and it is unscientific to assume it must.
To phrase it badly, you can use the principles of any consistent system to pose a problem that cannot be solved in that system. A very simple example is the rules of arithmetic and the set of resolvable numbers. The numbers 1 and 3 are resolvable, division is well-defined, but 1/3 is not resolvable. And then it's turtles all the way down...
[EDIT: if the above is shit I apologise, but it has been a long time... ]
The above is a bit shit, yes, but it should be enough to provoke anyone interested to read up a bit more about it.
Also, don't ask me to provide a better explanation. I think it would be a bit shitter.
Thank you, I'll take it. "Not noticably more shit than usual" may be a low bar, but by goodness I'm having it...
I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.
The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain
The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.
Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”
Fraser’s monthly mortgage payments have gone up from £8,300 a month to £20,000. “If things were to carry on this way, we would be looking to pull our three kids out of school – which costs us £45,000 a year – and possibly be looking to sell the house too.”
How come the stupid bastard didn't go for a long term fixed rate?
I saw this coming eighteen months ago and I'm no expert. Is he an investment fund manager or something if he's that dim and overpaid?
It's completely idiotic and I have zero sympathy. I do feel for people on average incomes who over extended themselves to buy a normal house in our crazy housing market, but anyone with that kind of money can afford a decent home without going massively into unaffordable debt. I used a decade of good earnings to pay off our mortgage on our perfectly nice but not huge or luxurious house completely rather than leveraging myself up to the eyeballs to buy a show home I can barely afford. Interest rates go up as well as down. Now he has to take his kids out of private school? Oh no, how will they cope! What an over entitled prick.
But probably a labour voter
With a £7mn house in Berkshire and three kids in private school? Doubtful.
Labour, no. LD voter with that background? Quite possibly.
He’s obviously a Telegraph reader. Do, as they say, the math.
Anyway, on the topic of art and science it’s open studios weekend in 2 weeks’ time and my wife has been hanging up her pieces today, all based in some way on either physics or meteorology, and I get to be the proud husband plying visitors with free wine.
I really like the first one.
I do like the hill triptych. Lake District?
Glen Etive I think.
I once did a photoshoot there with a model dressed up as Tinkerbell (no, don't ask). While we were working a car drove up and six dwarfs got out and gawped at us.
Rishi Sunak's joke as crap as everything else he does.
Yes and the polite laughs showed that.
He’s hardly the laughter guzzler.
Starmer v Sunak v Ed will be a charisma vacuum.
The sad, very sad and disgusting, but 100% true thing is this: Boris Johnson has good comic timing and until recently was able to get away with saying all sorts of things unbecoming to a prime minister as a result. Sunak does not, nor do Braverman, Hunt, Badenoch or any of the others.
He hid in a fridge for goodness sake !!
So not just saying but also doing things that are not Prime Ministerial.
I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview
It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training
And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!
As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?
Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true
Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged
I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be
A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.
And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.
"If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views. "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views
Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment
In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young
He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?
It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in
Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing
We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
Until some actual evidence of something comes out, I don't much care either way. Wake us up when it does.
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)
Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.
Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.
And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.
Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.
And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;
What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...
And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.
(As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science
Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho
Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy
Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting
The science. Lol
This is why you need philosopher traveler with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman
That's not true, politicians masquerading as scientists said all that. Almost all of my university friends were on the lab leak side very early on, simply they work in labs and realise how difficult it is to maintain such a high level of biosecurity and that China's standards are lax.
Not true. Read the signatories of the Lancet letter or the authors of the Nature paper. Proper scientists - lying or deluded scientists, but scientists nonetheless
However you were indeed one of the smarter PBers who realised lab leak was likely from the get go. So kudos
IIRC you were convinced it was a deliberate leak and it took @Charles to convince you an accidental lab leak was much more likely
You absolutely remember wrong. Completely wrong
If you chose to say so
I do. Coz I remember it well
Indeed I was deeply in agreement with ex-PB-er @SeanT when he wrote this as long ago as early March 2021, saying it was an accidental lab leak
It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.
Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.
I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.
With so few seats, it’s a thin pool, made thinner by the LibDem’s obsession with selection by identity.
Daisy Cooper is almost certainly next leader.
Yes Daisy’s next in line. I think she’ll do well, better than Swinson, Cable or Farron (I think Davey’s quietly doing a very good job).
But for dearth of star quality look at the greens. Even the clown show that is Refuk manages to turn out people with bucket loads more charisma than the current green crop, post Lucas.
Sian Berry was fun at college. She was the Entertainments Officer at Trinity JCR. I met my wife at a college disco she organised.
And, I assume Leon is visiting Kentucky to see the auto manufacturing plants there, though he hasn't mentioned that, yet. According to the governor's office, they employ about 100K workers: https://ced.ky.gov/Existing_Industries/Automotive
(Perhaps someone with more knowledge of your statistics than I can say how that median income, and Kentucky car manufacturing jobs compares to the UK.)
The US absolutely does have serious drug and homeless problems. Some states and cities have sensible policies to reduce them; others don't. The Seattle city council, for example, just voted not to arrest open drug users. (It was a close vote, suggesting that reality may be seeping in, even there.)
But the US also has the resources to cope with those problems.
Ok here’s my summary of America. Having been to six states - Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky (and DC) in the last two weeks. I’ve been from the 2nd poorest state to one of the richest. I’ve been from tiny towns to your capital, I’ve been from the beauties of Fallingwater to the horrors of Charleston. WV
America is on the verge of terrible, precipitous, absolute decline, based around the implosion of its urban centres, and this is complexly interlinked with covid, drugs, homelessness - in horribly intractable ways. You also have a racial problem based on white guilt and black resentment which feels insoluble. You teeter on the edge of the abyss. You are Rome in about 380AD
In short: America is fucked
Do you have the resources to deal with this? Absolutely. You have 340m people, basically an entire continent, and large intellectual capacity - not least the most powerful tech companies in the world and, still, many of the best universities
But this is probably the most perilous moment for America since the Civil War. You really are in a bad place. The life expectancy stats do not lie. I don’t need to go to a fucking car factory to change my mind. Thailand has car factories - and a higher life expectancy than America
Sort out your towns and cities. Sort out the drugs. Best of luck
Rishi Sunak's joke as crap as everything else he does.
Yes and the polite laughs showed that.
He’s hardly the laughter guzzler.
Starmer v Sunak v Ed will be a charisma vacuum.
The sad, very sad and disgusting, but 100% true thing is this: Boris Johnson has good comic timing and until recently was able to get away with saying all sorts of things unbecoming to a prime minister as a result. Sunak does not, nor do Braverman, Hunt, Badenoch or any of the others.
He hid in a fridge for goodness sake !!
So not just saying but also doing things that are not Prime Ministerial.
Absolutely so, he’s a twat and I hate him. But he has good comic timing. Other politicians with same skill are thin on the ground but include Jess Phillips, Charles Kennedy, Dennis Skinner, Tony Blair (yes, Tony Blair), William Hague, and Emily Thornberry. I make no claim for their assorted politico-ideological pedigrees, simply that they have good comic timing.
Sunak doesn't have a very clear grasp of the law if he thinks there isn't such a thing as a woman with a penis. Legally people can change gender without the need to change their sex organs.
But Rishi has trouble remembering not to go to parties in lockdowns, and remembering to put his seatbelt on when in a car, so we shouldn't expect too much from him.
Like almost everyone with at least two brain cells to rub together, Rishi Sunak is probably well aware that men have penises and not vaginas, whereas women have vaginas and not penises. If the law says otherwise, the law can f*ck off. What would you do if the law told you to stick your head in the oven?
More interesting is the apparent fact that somebody is destabilising the British government. Now who might that be, and why?
Oh that's easy, it's the Conservative and Unionist Party.
I forgot to add: the administration of the Tory party is also being destabilised.
Different victim, same culprit. You could call it a murder-suicide.
The CCHQ video, the Sunak 1922 video - what next?
Got to wonder whether the Sue Gray and Keir Starmer op will turn out to be a sting. (I wouldn't trust anyone who once ran a pub in Newry, but even they are capable of being successfully stitched up.)
A question for parliamentary and civil service procedure legal eagles: if Sue gets told that discussing working for Keir while she was still a permanent secretary would have got her the sack had anybody known about it - which she may well - where does that leave Keir? As LOTO and a former DPP, he might find it hard to plead ignorance. Surely suborning civil servants to break the rules has got to be considered naughty somewhere along the line.
And, I assume Leon is visiting Kentucky to see the auto manufacturing plants there, though he hasn't mentioned that, yet. According to the governor's office, they employ about 100K workers: https://ced.ky.gov/Existing_Industries/Automotive
(Perhaps someone with more knowledge of your statistics than I can say how that median income, and Kentucky car manufacturing jobs compares to the UK.)
The US absolutely does have serious drug and homeless problems. Some states and cities have sensible policies to reduce them; others don't. The Seattle city council, for example, just voted not to arrest open drug users. (It was a close vote, suggesting that reality may be seeping in, even there.)
But the US also has the resources to cope with those problems.
Ok here’s my summary of America. Having been to six states - Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky (and DC) in the last two weeks. I’ve been from the 2nd poorest state to one of the richest. I’ve been from tiny towns to your capital, I’ve been from the beauties of Fallingwater to the horrors of Charleston. WV
America is on the verge of terrible, precipitous, absolute decline, based around the implosion of its urban centres, and this is complexly interlinked with covid, drugs, homelessness - in horribly intractable ways. You also have a racial problem based on white guilt and black resentment which feels insoluble. You teeter on the edge of the abyss. You are Rome in about 380AD
In short: America is fucked
Do you have the resources to deal with this? Absolutely. You have 340m people, basically an entire continent, and large intellectual capacity - not least the most powerful tech companies in the world and, still, many of the best universities
But this is probably the most perilous moment for America since the Civil War. You really are in a bad place. The life expectancy stats do not lie. I don’t need to go to a fucking car factory to change my mind. Thailand has car factories - and a higher life expectancy than America
Sort out your towns and cities. Sort out the drugs. Best of luck
If they re-elect Trump, American civilisation will be finished. I hope we are ready to capitalise, rather than descend on their coat-tails.
Anyway, on the topic of art and science it’s open studios weekend in 2 weeks’ time and my wife has been hanging up her pieces today, all based in some way on either physics or meteorology, and I get to be the proud husband plying visitors with free wine.
I really like the first one.
I do like the hill triptych. Lake District?
Glen Etive I think.
I once did a photoshoot there with a model dressed up as Tinkerbell (no, don't ask). While we were working a car drove up and six dwarfs got out and gawped at us.
There were no tinkerbells or dwarves when we were there sadly but the light was nice.
And, I assume Leon is visiting Kentucky to see the auto manufacturing plants there, though he hasn't mentioned that, yet. According to the governor's office, they employ about 100K workers: https://ced.ky.gov/Existing_Industries/Automotive
(Perhaps someone with more knowledge of your statistics than I can say how that median income, and Kentucky car manufacturing jobs compares to the UK.)
The US absolutely does have serious drug and homeless problems. Some states and cities have sensible policies to reduce them; others don't. The Seattle city council, for example, just voted not to arrest open drug users. (It was a close vote, suggesting that reality may be seeping in, even there.)
But the US also has the resources to cope with those problems.
Ok here’s my summary of America. Having been to six states - Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky (and DC) in the last two weeks. I’ve been from the 2nd poorest state to one of the richest. I’ve been from tiny towns to your capital, I’ve been from the beauties of Fallingwater to the horrors of Charleston. WV
America is on the verge of terrible, precipitous, absolute decline, based around the implosion of its urban centres, and this is complexly interlinked with covid, drugs, homelessness - in horribly intractable ways. You also have a racial problem based on white guilt and black resentment which feels insoluble. You teeter on the edge of the abyss. You are Rome in about 380AD
In short: America is fucked
Do you have the resources to deal with this? Absolutely. You have 340m people, basically an entire continent, and large intellectual capacity - not least the most powerful tech companies in the world and, still, many of the best universities
But this is probably the most perilous moment for America since the Civil War. You really are in a bad place. The life expectancy stats do not lie. I don’t need to go to a fucking car factory to change my mind. Thailand has car factories - and a higher life expectancy than America
Sort out your towns and cities. Sort out the drugs. Best of luck
In the small likelihood some non-humans or other, or just unaccountable defence contractors, have something ground-breaking to share, maybe that could help in America's saving.
It reminds me of George Clinton's sketch for 1970's Black America, "The Mothership Connection is here."
Sunak doesn't have a very clear grasp of the law if he thinks there isn't such a thing as a woman with a penis. Legally people can change gender without the need to change their sex organs.
But Rishi has trouble remembering not to go to parties in lockdowns, and remembering to put his seatbelt on when in a car, so we shouldn't expect too much from him.
Like almost everyone with at least two brain cells to rub together, Rishi Sunak is probably well aware that men have penises and not vaginas, whereas women have vaginas and not penises. If the law says otherwise, the law can f*ck off. What would you do if the law told you to stick your head in the oven?
More interesting is the apparent fact that somebody is destabilising the British government. Now who might that be, and why?
Oh that's easy, it's the Conservative and Unionist Party.
I forgot to add: the administration of the Tory party is also being destabilised.
Different victim, same culprit. You could call it a murder-suicide.
The CCHQ video, the Sunak 1922 video - what next?
Got to wonder whether the Sue Gray and Keir Starmer op will turn out to be a sting. (I wouldn't trust anyone who once ran a pub in Newry, but even they are capable of being successfully stitched up.)
A question for parliamentary and civil service procedure legal eagles: if Sue gets told that discussing working for Keir while she was still a permanent secretary would have got her the sack had anybody known about it - which she may well - where does that leave Keir? As LOTO and a former DPP, he might find it hard to plead ignorance. Surely suborning civil servants to break the rules has got to be considered naughty somewhere along the line.
I'm not really sure I'm following this conversation. Is it Sue Gray's fault that Rishi was filmed making shit jokes?
And, I assume Leon is visiting Kentucky to see the auto manufacturing plants there, though he hasn't mentioned that, yet. According to the governor's office, they employ about 100K workers: https://ced.ky.gov/Existing_Industries/Automotive
(Perhaps someone with more knowledge of your statistics than I can say how that median income, and Kentucky car manufacturing jobs compares to the UK.)
The US absolutely does have serious drug and homeless problems. Some states and cities have sensible policies to reduce them; others don't. The Seattle city council, for example, just voted not to arrest open drug users. (It was a close vote, suggesting that reality may be seeping in, even there.)
But the US also has the resources to cope with those problems.
Ok here’s my summary of America. Having been to six states - Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky (and DC) in the last two weeks. I’ve been from the 2nd poorest state to one of the richest. I’ve been from tiny towns to your capital, I’ve been from the beauties of Fallingwater to the horrors of Charleston. WV
America is on the verge of terrible, precipitous, absolute decline, based around the implosion of its urban centres, and this is complexly interlinked with covid, drugs, homelessness - in horribly intractable ways. You also have a racial problem based on white guilt and black resentment which feels insoluble. You teeter on the edge of the abyss. You are Rome in about 380AD
In short: America is fucked
Do you have the resources to deal with this? Absolutely. You have 340m people, basically an entire continent, and large intellectual capacity - not least the most powerful tech companies in the world and, still, many of the best universities
But this is probably the most perilous moment for America since the Civil War. You really are in a bad place. The life expectancy stats do not lie. I don’t need to go to a fucking car factory to change my mind. Thailand has car factories - and a higher life expectancy than America
Sort out your towns and cities. Sort out the drugs. Best of luck
Well, you weren't going to come back and say you were positively surprised and no longer inclined toward apocalyptic thinking about almost everything.
And, I assume Leon is visiting Kentucky to see the auto manufacturing plants there, though he hasn't mentioned that, yet. According to the governor's office, they employ about 100K workers: https://ced.ky.gov/Existing_Industries/Automotive
(Perhaps someone with more knowledge of your statistics than I can say how that median income, and Kentucky car manufacturing jobs compares to the UK.)
The US absolutely does have serious drug and homeless problems. Some states and cities have sensible policies to reduce them; others don't. The Seattle city council, for example, just voted not to arrest open drug users. (It was a close vote, suggesting that reality may be seeping in, even there.)
But the US also has the resources to cope with those problems.
Ok here’s my summary of America. Having been to six states - Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky (and DC) in the last two weeks. I’ve been from the 2nd poorest state to one of the richest. I’ve been from tiny towns to your capital, I’ve been from the beauties of Fallingwater to the horrors of Charleston. WV
America is on the verge of terrible, precipitous, absolute decline, based around the implosion of its urban centres, and this is complexly interlinked with covid, drugs, homelessness - in horribly intractable ways. You also have a racial problem based on white guilt and black resentment which feels insoluble. You teeter on the edge of the abyss. You are Rome in about 380AD
In short: America is fucked
Do you have the resources to deal with this? Absolutely. You have 340m people, basically an entire continent, and large intellectual capacity - not least the most powerful tech companies in the world and, still, many of the best universities
But this is probably the most perilous moment for America since the Civil War. You really are in a bad place. The life expectancy stats do not lie. I don’t need to go to a fucking car factory to change my mind. Thailand has car factories - and a higher life expectancy than America
Sort out your towns and cities. Sort out the drugs. Best of luck
Sounds a bit apocalyptic…oh…wait…yes, that’s what you do. Silly me.
DougSeal - I'm just trying to encourage Leon to visit one or more of those car factories. I don't think I'll succeed, but I feel an obligation to try. (Tours are temporarily closed at the big Toyota plant in Georgetown, but he might get a private tour, as a visiting dignitary. And there are other plants.)
(I get a kick out of his conclusion, considering the decline in our birth rate, and the complaints from incels.)
Sunak doesn't have a very clear grasp of the law if he thinks there isn't such a thing as a woman with a penis. Legally people can change gender without the need to change their sex organs.
But Rishi has trouble remembering not to go to parties in lockdowns, and remembering to put his seatbelt on when in a car, so we shouldn't expect too much from him.
Like almost everyone with at least two brain cells to rub together, Rishi Sunak is probably well aware that men have penises and not vaginas, whereas women have vaginas and not penises. If the law says otherwise, the law can f*ck off. What would you do if the law told you to stick your head in the oven?
More interesting is the apparent fact that somebody is destabilising the British government. Now who might that be, and why?
Oh that's easy, it's the Conservative and Unionist Party.
I forgot to add: the administration of the Tory party is also being destabilised.
Different victim, same culprit. You could call it a murder-suicide.
The CCHQ video, the Sunak 1922 video - what next?
Got to wonder whether the Sue Gray and Keir Starmer op will turn out to be a sting. (I wouldn't trust anyone who once ran a pub in Newry, but even they are capable of being successfully stitched up.)
A question for parliamentary and civil service procedure legal eagles: if Sue gets told that discussing working for Keir while she was still a permanent secretary would have got her the sack had anybody known about it - which she may well - where does that leave Keir? As LOTO and a former DPP, he might find it hard to plead ignorance. Surely suborning civil servants to break the rules has got to be considered naughty somewhere along the line.
I'm not really sure I'm following this conversation. Is it Sue Gray's fault that Rishi was filmed making shit jokes?
No it's not. I'm positing a connection between the leaking of two videos, the CCHQ one and the Sunak one, saying it looks like destabilisation, and suggesting that the Gray-Starmer story may soon swell up big, with a destabilising effect on the functioning of the strategic centre of the civil service and quite possibly also on Keir Starmer.
It's ironic that some have a tendency to blame Russia for turning their milk sour, and love to say Putin this and Putin that, but when things happen that are far more likely to be the result of real actual Russian covert operations they don't even think about Russia.
"When the enemy thinks you're near, be far away. When the enemy thinks you're far away, be close."
And, I assume Leon is visiting Kentucky to see the auto manufacturing plants there, though he hasn't mentioned that, yet. According to the governor's office, they employ about 100K workers: https://ced.ky.gov/Existing_Industries/Automotive
(Perhaps someone with more knowledge of your statistics than I can say how that median income, and Kentucky car manufacturing jobs compares to the UK.)
The US absolutely does have serious drug and homeless problems. Some states and cities have sensible policies to reduce them; others don't. The Seattle city council, for example, just voted not to arrest open drug users. (It was a close vote, suggesting that reality may be seeping in, even there.)
But the US also has the resources to cope with those problems.
Ok here’s my summary of America. Having been to six states - Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky (and DC) in the last two weeks. I’ve been from the 2nd poorest state to one of the richest. I’ve been from tiny towns to your capital, I’ve been from the beauties of Fallingwater to the horrors of Charleston. WV
America is on the verge of terrible, precipitous, absolute decline, based around the implosion of its urban centres, and this is complexly interlinked with covid, drugs, homelessness - in horribly intractable ways. You also have a racial problem based on white guilt and black resentment which feels insoluble. You teeter on the edge of the abyss. You are Rome in about 380AD
In short: America is fucked
Do you have the resources to deal with this? Absolutely. You have 340m people, basically an entire continent, and large intellectual capacity - not least the most powerful tech companies in the world and, still, many of the best universities
But this is probably the most perilous moment for America since the Civil War. You really are in a bad place. The life expectancy stats do not lie. I don’t need to go to a fucking car factory to change my mind. Thailand has car factories - and a higher life expectancy than America
Sort out your towns and cities. Sort out the drugs. Best of luck
If they re-elect Trump, American civilisation will be finished. I hope we are ready to capitalise, rather than descend on their coat-tails.
I'm not a fan of being in submissive lock-step on foreign policy , rather than a confident or periodically critical but dependable ally of the US, and I don't like the US's gun or extreme-free market experiments, but I personally wouldn't want to capitalise on any failure of the US's if that were to make things worse for the U.S, myself.
The U.S. is still a country of enormous potential, and also with enormous achievements under its belt, I think.
It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.
Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.
I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.
With so few seats, it’s a thin pool, made thinner by the LibDem’s obsession with selection by identity.
Daisy Cooper is almost certainly next leader.
Yes Daisy’s next in line. I think she’ll do well, better than Swinson, Cable or Farron (I think Davey’s quietly doing a very good job).
But for dearth of star quality look at the greens. Even the clown show that is Refuk manages to turn out people with bucket loads more charisma than the current green crop, post Lucas.
Sian Berry was fun at college. She was the Entertainments Officer at Trinity JCR. I met my wife at a college disco she organised.
Is the issue (and your post confirms my suspicions) the constitution of the party which prevents charismatic individuals from taking the limelight?
Siam Berry certainly speaks reasonably well and is telegenic. But she’s not allowed to be the “leader” because that would be somehow be inappropriate for the egalitarian greens.
Rishi Sunak's joke as crap as everything else he does.
Yes and the polite laughs showed that.
He’s hardly the laughter guzzler.
Starmer v Sunak v Ed will be a charisma vacuum.
The sad, very sad and disgusting, but 100% true thing is this: Boris Johnson has good comic timing and until recently was able to get away with saying all sorts of things unbecoming to a prime minister as a result. Sunak does not, nor do Braverman, Hunt, Badenoch or any of the others.
He hid in a fridge for goodness sake !!
So not just saying but also doing things that are not Prime Ministerial.
Absolutely so, he’s a twat and I hate him. But he has good comic timing. Other politicians with same skill are thin on the ground but include Jess Phillips, Charles Kennedy, Dennis Skinner, Tony Blair (yes, Tony Blair), William Hague, and Emily Thornberry. I make no claim for their assorted politico-ideological pedigrees, simply that they have good comic timing.
Angela Eagle. PMQs in comedy heaven (supposing such a thing possible) would be Eagle v Hague.
And, I assume Leon is visiting Kentucky to see the auto manufacturing plants there, though he hasn't mentioned that, yet. According to the governor's office, they employ about 100K workers: https://ced.ky.gov/Existing_Industries/Automotive
(Perhaps someone with more knowledge of your statistics than I can say how that median income, and Kentucky car manufacturing jobs compares to the UK.)
The US absolutely does have serious drug and homeless problems. Some states and cities have sensible policies to reduce them; others don't. The Seattle city council, for example, just voted not to arrest open drug users. (It was a close vote, suggesting that reality may be seeping in, even there.)
But the US also has the resources to cope with those problems.
Ok here’s my summary of America. Having been to six states - Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky (and DC) in the last two weeks. I’ve been from the 2nd poorest state to one of the richest. I’ve been from tiny towns to your capital, I’ve been from the beauties of Fallingwater to the horrors of Charleston. WV
America is on the verge of terrible, precipitous, absolute decline, based around the implosion of its urban centres, and this is complexly interlinked with covid, drugs, homelessness - in horribly intractable ways. You also have a racial problem based on white guilt and black resentment which feels insoluble. You teeter on the edge of the abyss. You are Rome in about 380AD
In short: America is fucked
Do you have the resources to deal with this? Absolutely. You have 340m people, basically an entire continent, and large intellectual capacity - not least the most powerful tech companies in the world and, still, many of the best universities
But this is probably the most perilous moment for America since the Civil War. You really are in a bad place. The life expectancy stats do not lie. I don’t need to go to a fucking car factory to change my mind. Thailand has car factories - and a higher life expectancy than America
Sort out your towns and cities. Sort out the drugs. Best of luck
Well, you weren't going to come back and say you were positively surprised and no longer inclined toward apocalyptic thinking about almost everything.
Yes, I was. Why would I lie to support a thesis I no longer believe to be true? That’s boring. I came here with a suspicion America is in trouble but a hope that it isn’t.
I’m telling it like I see it. For the sake of balance i think Britain is also badly placed and - despite being a right winger - I have to admit 13 years of Tory government have done almost nothing to solve our grindingly obvious problems
America just feels MORE apocalyptic because it is, and because it is still theoretically the richest nation on earth and the great superpower etc, whereas the reality on the ground is in such stark contrast to the statistics
It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.
Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.
I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.
With so few seats, it’s a thin pool, made thinner by the LibDem’s obsession with selection by identity.
Daisy Cooper is almost certainly next leader.
Yes Daisy’s next in line. I think she’ll do well, better than Swinson, Cable or Farron (I think Davey’s quietly doing a very good job).
But for dearth of star quality look at the greens. Even the clown show that is Refuk manages to turn out people with bucket loads more charisma than the current green crop, post Lucas.
Sian Berry was fun at college. She was the Entertainments Officer at Trinity JCR. I met my wife at a college disco she organised.
Is the issue (and your post confirms my suspicions) the constitution of the party which prevents charismatic individuals from taking the limelight?
Siam Berry certainly speaks reasonably well and is telegenic. But she’s not allowed to be the “leader” because that would be somehow be inappropriate for the egalitarian greens.
I’m guessing that Siam Berry was only co-leader because the leadership vote was a Thai?
It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.
Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.
I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.
With so few seats, it’s a thin pool, made thinner by the LibDem’s obsession with selection by identity.
Daisy Cooper is almost certainly next leader.
Yes Daisy’s next in line. I think she’ll do well, better than Swinson, Cable or Farron (I think Davey’s quietly doing a very good job).
But for dearth of star quality look at the greens. Even the clown show that is Refuk manages to turn out people with bucket loads more charisma than the current green crop, post Lucas.
Sian Berry was fun at college. She was the Entertainments Officer at Trinity JCR. I met my wife at a college disco she organised.
Is the issue (and your post confirms my suspicions) the constitution of the party which prevents charismatic individuals from taking the limelight?
Siam Berry certainly speaks reasonably well and is telegenic. But she’s not allowed to be the “leader” because that would be somehow be inappropriate for the egalitarian greens.
She was co-leader of the Greens for 3 or 4 years. I’m not sure what you’re on about
It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.
Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.
I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.
With so few seats, it’s a thin pool, made thinner by the LibDem’s obsession with selection by identity.
Daisy Cooper is almost certainly next leader.
Yes Daisy’s next in line. I think she’ll do well, better than Swinson, Cable or Farron (I think Davey’s quietly doing a very good job).
But for dearth of star quality look at the greens. Even the clown show that is Refuk manages to turn out people with bucket loads more charisma than the current green crop, post Lucas.
Sian Berry was fun at college. She was the Entertainments Officer at Trinity JCR. I met my wife at a college disco she organised.
Is the issue (and your post confirms my suspicions) the constitution of the party which prevents charismatic individuals from taking the limelight?
Siam Berry certainly speaks reasonably well and is telegenic. But she’s not allowed to be the “leader” because that would be somehow be inappropriate for the egalitarian greens.
I’m guessing that Siam Berry was only co-leader because the leadership vote was a Thai?
She was forced to share the green leadership with her ideologically conjoined twin?
Basically, how much can the US rely on its allies, and how much can its allies rely on the U.S.?
This, by the way, is the premise behind my concept of a tight Anglo-Canadian alliance, which I’ve mentioned before on here. Another Trump victory may render the USA an unreliable guarantor of European security.
Comments
Personally I think he's got a bit overexcited about aliens, this seems like nothing new. People have always seen UFOs, or the Virgin Mary or statues of Ganesh drinking milk. All to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Lyon would be a world class city if it had a bit more edge.
It’s rather innocuous but, will no doubt, draw lots of confected anger from political opponents.
uncomfortable. I wouldn’t bring kids here. It’s faintly but discernibly menacing - and this is a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon!
I don’t think I’m imagining this
“Maybe social media has created civilian watchdogs; maybe more people care about what’s going on in their community. Many people are tired of having to avoid going out downtown and spending time with family and friends because the risk of getting assaulted, robbed or shot is there.
“This is just an observation I have made during my time living here in Lexington. It is so much different then when I was a naive kid making weekend trips with my family here”
https://kykernel.com/88715/opinions/as-lexington-grows-so-does-its-crime/
Nor do I believe I have been just incredibly unlucky in almost every American town I’ve visited
There are very few *Laws* in science - they qualify as “the science”
Even Evolution or General Relativity are just Theories (with a capital T) so are technically unproven although we are pretty damn sure they are right.
everything else is an idea that should’ve contested. Anyone who uses the phrase “the science” to support their argument is a charlatan of the highest order
Bluegrass gentry, of the First Families of KY. Most of her kin folk supported and/or fought for the Confederacy.
She left Kentucky for the same reason as Abe Lincoln's daddy (no blue-blood he): could NOT abide slavery.
It’s the End of Rome
Sorta doubt she got out (or rather in) to the East End much. Or at all. Though guessing she did mingle a bit with some East End residents, workers in the stables, etc.
Any tips?
It is, as you say, complete bollocks
Full on debauchery?
I may well be wrong but all I expect is those on either extreme of the trans debate to get fired up about it. Most people will be more bothered about their mortgages, the cost of living, the state of rNHS etc etc.
He’s taking the piss out of Ed Davey.
[ducks]
Wipe out awaits
Sorry to butt in with my own irreleventia, but I just wanted to report a brilliant day at the T20 Blast. It may be twice the price it was last year, but it's still the best value sporting entertainment out there. Almost every match I've been to has hung in the balance until the last over. It is the favourite sporting spectacle of my sport-mad middle daughter (who, by the way, continues her now 11-game 100% record of seeing a victory for 'her' team in every live sports event she has watched), and also the favourite spectacle of my sports-indifferent youngest daughter, who doesn't really follow the nuances of run rates or Duckworth Lewis methods but likes watching A Lot Of Stuff Happening.
I confess that the Hundred can be entertaining. But it can't hold a candle to this.
I also love that here is a sporting event which isn't football which regularly attracts 12,000+ people. Makes me feel lucky to come from Trafford.
Lancashire, by the way, ended up winning a finely balanced contest after creeping ahead of Duckworth Lewis par in the 16th over, shortly before the heavens opened. But that was by way of being the icing on the cake; the result was less important than the entertainment. We'd still have had a good day had Lancashire lost. And isn't that how sport should be?
He’s hardly the laughter guzzler.
Starmer v Sunak v Ed will be a charisma vacuum.
For all their faults Brown, Major, Callaghan, Eden and various other underwhelming PMs still had the gravitas.
Evolution and general relativity are 'proved' - they are much more than conjectures - in the sense that there is abundant verification, and and absence of falsification for them. But that doesn't mean that this can't happen. With evolution there is great hostility to the idea that it can be challenged. partly of course because it is challenged by religious nuts. This is a mistake, even though I believe evolution to be true.
It's also a logical mistake to assume that as science has explanations for lots of things, it must in principle have an explanation for everything. The relationship of mind and matter; or how life begins; or freewill, might just not yield to any analysis and it is unscientific to assume it must.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Cog-wheel_Railway
Which connects with a trip into the countyside on the Children's railway:
https://gyermekvasut.hu/en/home/
Still crap though.
breakfast this morning after getting up at an unseemly time to see off my friend’s hyper-talkative octogenarian uncle and aunt from Australia.
My youngest’s message said “thank you Daddy for keeping me alive and all the other stuff etc”, to which I thought well that’s a low bar but thanks all the same.
https://www.terrorhaza.hu/en/allando-kiallitas/basement/hall-of-the-1956-revolution
Depressing, but very good.
The proliferation of conspiracy theories, partly due to infantilisation of news media, and the rise of "infotainment" since the '90s, also then it turn makes it easier oppose anything that is culturally supported as "Science", rather than necessarily rigorously proven as scientific, as a conspiracy theory.
More interesting is the apparent fact that somebody is destabilising the British government. Now who might that be, and why?
To phrase it badly, you can use the principles of any consistent system to pose a problem that cannot be solved in that system. A very simple example is the rules of arithmetic and the set of resolvable numbers. The numbers 1 and 3 are resolvable, division is well-defined, but 1/3 is not resolvable. And then it's turtles all the way down...
[EDIT: if the above is shit I apologise, but it has been a long time...
Here's the source, which has many other facts: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/KY/INC110221
And, I assume Leon is visiting Kentucky to see the auto manufacturing plants there, though he hasn't mentioned that, yet. According to the governor's office, they employ about 100K workers: https://ced.ky.gov/Existing_Industries/Automotive
(Perhaps someone with more knowledge of your statistics than I can say how that median income, and Kentucky car manufacturing jobs compares to the UK.)
The US absolutely does have serious drug and homeless problems. Some states and cities have sensible policies to reduce them; others don't. The Seattle city council, for example, just voted not to arrest open drug users. (It was a close vote, suggesting that reality may be seeping in, even there.)
But the US also has the resources to cope with those problems.
Indeed I was deeply in agreement with ex-PB-er @SeanT when he wrote this as long ago as early March 2021, saying it was an accidental lab leak
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-id-write-covid-the-thriller/
An ACCIDENTAL lab leak, but possibly involving some military involvement on the Gain of Function side
I'm guessing not that many trans activists vote Conservative anyway.
Got to wonder whether the Sue Gray and Keir Starmer op will turn out to be a sting. (If so, remember you read it here first
So not just saying but also doing things that are not Prime Ministerial.
America is on the verge of terrible, precipitous, absolute decline, based around the implosion of its urban centres, and this is complexly interlinked with covid, drugs, homelessness - in horribly intractable ways. You also have a racial problem based on white guilt and black resentment which feels insoluble. You teeter on the edge of the abyss. You are Rome in about 380AD
In short: America is fucked
Do you have the resources to deal with this? Absolutely. You have 340m people, basically an entire continent, and large intellectual capacity - not least the most powerful tech companies in the world and, still, many of the best universities
But this is probably the most perilous moment for America since the Civil War. You really are in a bad place. The life expectancy stats do not lie. I don’t need to go to a fucking car factory to change my mind. Thailand has car factories - and a higher life expectancy than America
Sort out your towns and cities. Sort out the drugs. Best of luck
Got to wonder whether the Sue Gray and Keir Starmer op will turn out to be a sting. (I wouldn't trust anyone who once ran a pub in Newry, but even they are capable of being successfully stitched up.)
A question for parliamentary and civil service procedure legal eagles: if Sue gets told that discussing working for Keir while she was still a permanent secretary would have got her the sack had anybody known about it - which she may well - where does that leave Keir? As LOTO and a former DPP, he might find it hard to plead ignorance. Surely suborning civil servants to break the rules has got to be considered naughty somewhere along the line.
It reminds me of George Clinton's sketch for 1970's Black America, "The Mothership Connection is here."
Keir Starmer (LAB): 40% (-1)
Rishi Sunak (CON): 31% (-4)
via @RedfieldWilton, 11 Jun
(Changes with 28 May)
(I get a kick out of his conclusion, considering the decline in our birth rate, and the complaints from incels.)
It's ironic that some have a tendency to blame Russia for turning their milk sour, and love to say Putin this and Putin that, but when things happen that are far more likely to be the result of real actual Russian covert operations they don't even think about Russia.
"When the enemy thinks you're near, be far away. When the enemy thinks you're far away, be close."
The U.S. is still a country of enormous potential, and also with enormous achievements under its belt, I think.
Siam Berry certainly speaks reasonably well and is telegenic. But she’s not allowed to be the “leader” because that would be somehow be inappropriate for the egalitarian greens.
I’m telling it like I see it. For the sake of balance i think Britain is also badly placed and - despite being a right winger - I have to admit 13 years of Tory government have done almost nothing to solve our grindingly obvious problems
America just feels MORE apocalyptic because it is, and because it is still theoretically the richest nation on earth and the great superpower etc, whereas the reality on the ground is in such stark contrast to the statistics
Now I must drive to the airport
https://twitter.com/nfergus/status/1670389175311568896?s=46&t=L9g_woCIqbo1MTuBFCK0xg
Basically, how much can the US rely on its allies, and how much can its allies rely on the U.S.?
This, by the way, is the premise behind my concept of a tight Anglo-Canadian alliance, which I’ve mentioned before on here. Another Trump victory may render the USA an unreliable guarantor of European security.